Much as we love them, not all words are deserving of use. They aren’t charming or helpful. The truth is, many are off-putting enough to be stricken from the English language altogether. Not necessarily because of their meaning, either, which is usually perfectly innocuous. Some are clankers, some are pretentious, or creepy, or insulting. We all have our particular reasons.
Millions of us reportedly loathe the words ‘moist’ and ‘ointment.’ ‘Slacks,’ believe it or not, was once declared the worst word in the English language in an article by the New Yorker. ‘Dripping’ is another one. And ‘panties?’ Well, that one’s just nauseating, seeing as it’s little more than grown-up baby talk and sounds overly intimate, besides.
In this day and age, there is no need to cutesify underwear or body parts or bodily functions or bathroom fixtures. Let’s call things what they are: a toilet, underpants, sex, boobs. And move on.
Like you, I have a bunch of words I refuse to utter. High atop my list squats ‘utilize,’ a clanking misfit if ever that was one. Uff da!
Utilize is, without a doubt, the dumbest, most overreaching term in the history of communication. In fact, any and all words with –ize tacked to the end — concretize, problematize, operationalize — should be shunned. Along with ‘performative,’ ‘gold standard,’ ‘incent,’ ‘task,’ ‘guttural,’ ‘trump,’ ‘cancer,’ ‘goodbye,’ and ‘grunt.’
bleah, yuk, and ick.
But the words we need to focus on are the destructive ones. The inflammatory lies and hateful rhetoric. Let’s decide to spread hope, instead. It’s contagious, you know. If we spread it far enough long enough, maybe we’ll bumfuzzle the loudmouths into a silent, never-ending pout. It’s worth a try.
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the whirly girl 
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