Why do some words give us the ick?

RTÉ News​

10-06-2025

Analysis: We may all want to be more conscious of the words and sounds we use that turn others off, particularly in work or romantic situations
By Chris Fitzgerald, Mary Immaculate College
How do you feel when you hear the words mucus, cyst and moist? As a palate cleanser, how about ethereal, aurora and twilight? We all have certain words or phrases that make us react in different ways. Certain words can provoke positive feelings, while others may make our skin crawl.
Research in neuroscience and neurolinguistics points out that certain words may trigger parts of our brains that induce pleasurable or negative responses. The causes of these responses are varied and relate to both the sound of the words and what they refer to.
From RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime, linguist and Apple Siri language engineer Des Ryan on the most beautiful sounding names
There is an area of study called phonaesthetics that deals with the beauty of sounds of words. Researchers in this area have established reasons for why some words are deemed beautiful and others elicit disgust. Euphony describes the effect of word sounds being pleasurable. A famous example of this was provided in 1955 by J.R.R. Tolkein when he suggested that cellar door is a phrase that is regarded as beautiful simply for its sound and this beauty has little to do with the meaning of the compound noun.
The opposite of euphony is cacophony. This refers to sounds or combinations of sounds we may perceive as being particularly irritating or harsh. Sounds that might give English speakers this feeling, according to linguist David Crystal, are sounds such as the sl sound. Have a go at saying slick, slush and sleazy and this might resonate.
From RTÉ Radio 1's Ray D'Arcy Show, David Crystal on why some words are so hard to spell
Crystal did a lot of research into this area, trying to uncover what it is that makes certain words seem pleasant to us. He exposed many people to lists of words and asked them to rank them in terms of their pleasantness. His results showed that there are a range of characteristics that contribute to words that we think sound nice. He gave tremulous as an example of a word that includes many of these characteristics such as having three or more syllables and having stress on the first syllable.
Naturally, writers exploit this attraction to or disgust towards words and create combinations of sounds and words that can result in pleasurable or uncomfortable reactions in their readers. The combination of sounds in the description of 'lake water lapping' in The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B. Yeats provides the reader with the sense of calm he depicts in his dream life by a lake. The famous opening lines of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov are all about the pleasure of combining sounds.
The sounds of character names can provide a first window into the traits of a character as the combinations of sounds and their associated meanings can make us feel comfort or make us recoil. Roald Dahl was a master of this, creating names from combinations of sounds that instantly offer a sense of their character such as Miss Trunchbull, Veruca Salt, Arthur Slugworth and Augustus Gloop. Without knowing anything else about the characters, we know just by the sounds of their names that they are not to be trusted.
From RTÉ Radio 1's Today with Claire Byrne, Elaina Ryan from Books Ireland on the decision to rewrite Roald Dahl's children's books to remove language deemed offensive by the publisher
Of course, it is not just the sounds of words that can give us the ick. What we associate words with can also have a bearing on how we feel them. In semantics, we can broadly describe words as having two types of meaning. There is the denotational meaning or what the word literally means; that is, the meaning provided by a dictionary definition. There is also the connotational meaning, which is how a word feels or what it makes us think about. Connotational meanings are subjective and can differ from person to person.
Our experiences and preferences play a role in how we feel about words. For example, if you are confronted with the word needle and are a knitting enthusiast, this might provoke a pleasurable response. However, if you are someone who faints at the sight of needles in a clinical setting, you may find the word extremely off-putting.
Childhood associations also play a part in how we feel about different words
While we may all react negatively to a selection of sounds and words, some people have very real and uncontrollable negative reactions to certain sounds that might be considered normal to most. This condition has various names, but is often referred to as misophonia and can result in extreme emotional responses to sounds like jaws clicking, slurping or licking. The causes of this remain somewhat mysterious but be linked to traumatic childhood experiences linked to these sounds.
Childhood associations also play a part in how we feel about different words. Just like certain smells may elicit nostalgic feelings, sounds and words can bring us back to certain times that can be comforting or traumatic. We may all want to be more conscious of the words and sounds we use that make others' skin crawl, particularly in certain professional or romantic situations because you never know how someone may react.