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The experts asked 500 women what they thought were the world's most unpleasant words and revealed six that make women squirm
Experts have revealed exactly which words make women squirm in disgust - and the hated 'moist' tops the list.
The word, with its connotations of oozing and bodily fluids has long been considered one of the worst in the English language and now a study has proved it.
The experts asked 500 women what they thought were the world's most unpleasant words and revealed five more words that women find offensive to the ear.
While some of the words had unpleasant sounds, most of the aversions are because the words bring up bad sexual connotations.
"The common denominator seems to be disgust, either toward bodily functions or sex," Paul Thibodeau, a language psychologist at Oberlin College, told Yahoo Health.
'Moist', at 77 per cent was - not surprisingly - the most unanimously loathed.
There’s even a Facebook group called 'I Hate the Word Moist' which boasts nearly 7,000 followers, and in a recent Mississippi State University poll, 'moist' was named as one the ugliest words in the English language.
In fact, the word is so despised that scientists have searched for a reason why.
Thibodeau and his fellow researchers initially believed that it was the hard '-oist' sound that provoked disgusted reactions, but they noted in a 2014 study that participants did not have the same response to rhyming words such as 'hoist' or 'foist'.
Experts found that participants especially hated the word when it followed vulgar sexual words, but were less disgusted when it came after food-related words, such as cake.
Coming closely behind, at 68 per cent, was 'squirt'.
Once again, the researchers believe that this can be explained due to the fact that 'squirting' is slang for female ejaculation - a highly-searched term in porn videos.
Just over half of the women polled - 54 per cent - put 'panties' at the top of their list.
Dr Thibodeau believes 'panties' was seen as unpleasant because of the weird juxtaposition of the word’s two connotations: one with childhood, the other with – once again - eroticism.
Next on the list is 'chunky' - which is fine, the survey noted, when used as a descriptor for peanut butter - just not for people.
Respondents pointed out that unlike words like 'curvy' or 'full-figured', 'chunky' brings to mind a boxy shape rather than an hourglass.
For 40 per cent of women, 'curd' is a dirty word. Thiboudeau believes that this is because the word sounds similar to several 'gross' things including turd, crud, and curdle.
For the 22 per cent of people who listed 'flap' as a problem word, Thibodeau believes that two facts - similarity to the word 'fap' used among younger people to mean masturbation - and the medical memories that many associate with the term 'skin flap' – a phrase that is definitely not sexy.
Top 6 most hated words
• Moist
• Squirt
• Panties
• Chunky
• Curd
• Flap
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