The m-word

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Certain Victorian folks are reported to have hated the word "leg" so much that the put stockings on their pianos

There seems to be a straightforward Freudian explanation for such lexical aversions, nor is it therefore surprising that people would independently be afflicted with identical aversions. I'd expect "luggage" to be rarer than "moist."    .
------Original Message------
From: Laurence Horn
Sender: American Dialect Society
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
ReplyTo: American Dialect Society
Sent: Oct 25, 2007 11:16 PM
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] The m-word

At 10:35 PM -0400 10/25/07, Kate Daly wrote:
>As in the old nursery rhyme "One misty moisty morning"?
>
>And btw - speaking as a woman, and a feminist from way back at that,
>the idea of "moist" being offensive sounds pretty silly to me. I
>think the original poster's student was making snowballs for other
>people to throw.
>-Kate

Except that as we've now learned from the Language Log postings (not
to mention the existence of the "I HATE the word MOIST" facebook
group), she's hardly alone in this.

LH

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