Friday 11 September 2015

Liked and disliked words of the English language. . .

A group of people were asked to write down a word they liked and a word they disliked, this is a list of the outcomes:

Slut, c**t, bellend, flower, love, pop, bubbles, literally, like, trust, sweat, mint, nugget, gravy, asparagus, honey, sprout, amazing, lush, naive, inconvenient, peng, sanguine, fraught.

The words highlighted in green are liked words and the ones highlighted red are disliked words.
From this I grouped these words into some categories:

1 Derogative words/insults:
   Slut, C**t, Bellend

2 Pretty words:
   Flower, Love, Pop, Bubbles

3 Words people missuse/ slang:
    Literally, like, sweat, mint, trust

4 Food;
   Nugget, Gravy, Asparagus, Honey, Sprout

5 Adjectives:
   Amazing, Lush, Naive, Inconvenient, Peng, Sanguine, Fraught

From these groups I noticed some patterns some of which several groups fell into. Groups 1,3 and 4 were full of words that are mostly disliked. Group 5 was mostly liked words. Group 2 was full of words that were all liked.
From this I can establish that most people dislike when words are strongly hateful or when they are used in the wrong context or as a form of slang. I can also deter that people disliked the words of food that they didn't enjoy eating, as if the word made them think of the horrible taste in their mouths when eating it. Also I can see that people liked words that sounded euphonious and words that had meaning behind them.

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