Words like fingernails on a chalkboard

Almost everyone has words they hate.*  Innocent words – but words that grind down your spine or render you practically catatonic until the offending word isn’t being spoken anymore.

On the TV show, How I Met Your Mother, Lily (Alyson Hannigan) hates the word moist. She finds it unbearable when spoken.

Okay, I don’t have any words like that.

Except for panties.

Ugh, shudder. For some reason, I see panties as something a little girl would say and wear, and when that word is used to describe women’s underwear in a sexy way, it seems, er, wrong.

And words ending in … is.

Words ending in is are icky.

Proboscis

Diagnosis

Halitosis

Cyanosis

Mastitis (And a host of medical conditions all ending with ‘is’)

Piss

I’m pretty sure the yuck factor for me comes from a few words that are the names for intimate body parts (which I won’t list in case that kicks me off the safe sites internet filter )

How juvenile of me.

I do like:

Oasis

Photosynthesis

Metropolis

So I guess is words are not all bad

What does this have to do with writing?

Well, I find myself using words other than those I don’t like. Which is a good thing for me, but not in general.

And I can’t avoid the is in this now can I?

*I base the statement ‘Almost everyone has words they hate’ on zero research.  Because I like throwing unsubstantiated figures out there