8 Words People Really Hate (And What to Say Instead)

The English language is full of words that grind people’s gears, from gross ones like pus to overused ones like amazing. Here are eight of the most notable offenders—and some entertaining suggestions for what to replace them with.

1. Amazing
2. Blog
3. Boyfriend/girlfriend
4. Irregardless
5. Moist
6. Panties
7. Phlegm
8. Pus

Amazing

Amazing has become an adjective of ill repute due to overuse: If you call everything “amazing,” nothing seems amazing. Describing delicious food? Go for golopshus, lummy, or tizzy-wizzy. Complimenting someone’s appearance? Try kippy, formose, or pulchritudinous. Need an all-purpose alternative to amazing? Boskidillums and fine as a cow turd stuck with primroses have both been used to amazing effect in the past.

Blog

Some people dislike the word blog—short for weblog—simply because it sounds ugly. Food blogger Tessa Arias once reimagined it as something you might sling as an insult: “He’s such a blog!” Bloggers themselves often balk at blog because they feel it trivializes all the skills and responsibilities required to run one. Website always works as a substitute, or, for a more formal option, try independent digital publication.

Boyfriend/girlfriend

People find the terms boyfriend and girlfriend bothersome for several reasons. They reinforce the gender binary. They carry stereotypical connotations. They just sound childish. Partner works as a one-size-fits-all replacement—but for something a bit more colorful, go for the Middle English leman or the 18th-century term sprunny.

Irregardless

To its many detractors, irregardless is a pretentious and/or downright incorrect offshoot of regardless that means “without regard.” But it’s been around for more than 200 years, and most major dictionaries acknowledge that it is, in fact, a word. The obvious swap for irregardless is just plain old regardless—or one of its synonyms, from anyway and nevertheless to in any case and despite that.

Moist

Of all the words people love to hate, moist probably takes the cake—and there’s actually some science behind our aversion to it. So, what can do moist’s job without evoking a group-wide groan of disgust? If you’re talking about the weather, humid and muggy are common alternatives; you could also opt for the English mungy or the Scottish and Northern Irish mochy. (Mothy is another Scottish synonym for muggy.) Some British English speakers use weaky or squidgy to describe a cake or some other moist food item.

Panties

People seem to agree that panties exist at an uncomfortable lexical intersection of juvenile and sexual. Fortunately, there are plenty of old-timey options that sound far less dull than underwear. There’s rhyming slang, like do and dare (meant to sound like underwear), and early doors (a loose rhyme for drawers). An English speaker circa 1900 might refer to them as dessous, meaning “beneath” in French. A 1970s college student, meanwhile, might call them “UBs”—short for underbodies—or “snuggies” … though that term is more for overgarments than undergarments these days.

Phlegm

The word phlegm is gross primarily because phlegm itself is gross. Its well-known synonyms—like mucus, sputum, and the more informal loogie—have the same issue, but old-timey terms like blathery and gleim can help you avoid the ick factor. 

Pus

Phlegm took second place in a 2022 poll of English’s grossest words, conducted by language-learning platform Preply. The first-place finisher? Pus, with about 9800 votes. (Moist and mucus made the top 10, too, as did seepage, fester, and ooze. In general, words involving bodily secretions are gag-inducing.) You can always swap pus for the much less evocative purulence or the Old English youster.

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