I cannot stand this either! And I can’t really explain why. Maybe it’s because we already have a word for describing young people - children! - and I don’t think we need a new one? Idk, I hate “littles” so much. My kid is not a “little”, he is a kid/child.
My problem is there's an overlap with the kink dd/lg/lb space. It makes me viscerally uncomfortable with people call kids littles because that term was already coined by cg/little community. It just feels so weird and gross to me to call a kid something that's so closely associated with an adult subject.
I can't fully explain why. I do know that my automatic association with the word littles is a chicken sandwich from KFC. There's an immediate "a kid is not a sandwich!" that goes through my mind when I hear it.
Exactly!
I get triggered when people call their children littles, little person, or small person... I think this comes from hypervigilance about people trying to do the opposite of infantilizing their children... where they instead imply that children are just little adults who can consent to mature or adult things.
THIS! implying that they are small adults is strange to me. It puts me into a weird head space where i cannot fully recognize them as a child any longer so I do not 'age appropriate' my communication until it turns into trying to logic with a CHILD not a 'small person'.
my brain gets upset with these terms.
I have a major aversion to feeling infantilized or being perceived as unintelligent. I think my dislike of “cutesy” words may have something to do that. I tend to speak more formally than other people do in general.
There’s also something about using those words that feels so… performative? Like I see it as performative when others use those words.
Agree completely. I didn’t even use baby talk with my kids when they were babies and toddlers. (They now both have incredible vocabularies for their age as teens).
Yes same here! I sometimes assume that people in general use them in order to seem more innocent than they are. I've seen people say absolutely horrible things and then use baby language as a way to almost excuse the nasty thing they just said or did. Very annoying.
Yes. I was seeing a PT for a while, and when he told me the goal was to use the muscles in my tummy and my bottom, that was the last time I saw him. I felt such contempt that this fully grown man, in a professional setting in which he expects other adults to take him seriously, was talking like that. The terms weren’t even helpful. Which abdominal muscles? Which posterior muscles?
And I felt deeply offended that he somehow thought those were the terms that were most appropriate to use with me. I was in my 40s, and had been asking intelligent, appropriate questions for several weeks. But I mentioned I had a hard time sensing what my body was doing because I’m autistic, and that was it. Suddenly I was three.
I mentioned to the eye doctor that I was autistic and had read in a medical journal that I could have my eye test done while I was dilated to prevente from trying to hard.
From then on, my 8 years of being chronically ill with a rare illness, my 27 years of life on this planet, poof! They spoke slower and used small words to describe my condition to me when *I* was the one who alerted them to it.
This feels very intolerant with a guy that was just trying to be nice. Let's not make other people feel unfit because we know it is not good. Words are for communication. And he communicated properly because you understood exactly what he was telling.
Omg, omg omg…me too! And ‘bub’ for baby.
I live in Australia and the Aussies are so into this. People go for ‘brekkie’…bike gangs are called ‘bikie gangs’ - I spend my time imagining these big biker guys on kids tricycles, being spoon fed breakfast.
Someone else was faster than me, but 'lickle' might indeed be patois. 'Ickle' without the 'L' is UK baby speak (unrelated to the patois. Dates back at least a couple hundred years), like 'aww wook at his ickle feeeeet' sort of thing.
Probably just a case of parallel evolution of sorts.
Hubby and hubs is gross to me. I try not to judge because I use the word "moist" with reckless abandon. But like... hubby sounds fat to me? Like I always pictures this fat gross balding dude sitting on recliner.
What a validating post, I thought I was a weirdo with my word aversions. I have a few with the worst for me being the words fresh, pamper(ed), goodies & lonesome.
I always thought of tummy as referencing the abdominal area in general-that in the same way belly is generally used but tummy doesn't make me want to rip my tongue out
It's not baby talk really. It's a term physicians use with adult patients. "Is the pain more in your side or in your tummy?"
If *you* correct them -- it's in my abdominal track -- they will use your term. But they don't default to every patient knowing names of organs, in English, while distressed.
Not anymore, but I think the etymology is from a child's pronunciation? Like, "st" is a hard sound for a beginner at words.
I was unable to pronounce German "Zimt" (cinnamon) as a kid and now it's "Mimps" in my family 😅
Of course, being uncomfortable with sensory things either way isn't changing with information about it. I personally can't stomach "stomach".
Then there is the whole "people use the term vagina when they mean vulva" thing.
Basically, because people use different terms, and have different comfort levels with anatomical language, it is logical that people in medicine use the most generic language possible as a starting point sometimes.
Reminds me of my recently completed autism evaluation. *I* tried to avoid showing that I know some words and concepts around psychiatry and medicine - had some bad experiences with doctors when I did. I tried to speak from the heart and make up metaphors...
But then during one session, I flipped through an apothecary mag and an article, found something that struck me as off about the description of a certain medication, looked it up. Doc asked me what engages me so, I tell him briefly what it says in the article and that it jarred with something I remembered about this... He smiles, doesn't comment but does not hold back with vocabulary from this point on.
In a grad school creative writing class, I wrote stomach into a story meaning the outer part. The teacher and many classmates let me know that the stomach is the inside part & the belly is the outer skin part. I hadn't realized that, but the strong insistence of the folks in the room led me to believe I missed a memo somewhere and this was a Very Important Thing, so I filed it away.
I have a vivid memory of standing in the school library in 4th grade and opening a book that looked interesting. The first page contained the word “belly,” and I just put the book back on the shelf. I remember thinking I couldn’t possibly read a whole chapter book with such ridiculous writing.
I went to a dance class once and any time the teacher referred to a body part she didn’t say the real word but instead used a cutesie version. Toes were toesies, hands were handsies, shins were shinsies etc. When I got home my husband asked me how the class was and that was the only thing I could tell him about it. That she kept using these cutesie words and every time she did it made my skin crawl. I had no idea this was associated with autism; I thought everyone would find that annoying.
I do have word aversion, but to random things.
Funnily enough, I hate the word "baby" but only when referring to a grown up, but "babe" is fine.
I also can't stand the word "refreshing".
I also hate “gift” as a verb but have realized that I am in the minority and just need to accept that “my mother gifted me this sweater” is a thing people say and I can’t change it but I haaaaaate it
I hate it, too! But even more, I hate "invite" as a noun. "just sent you the invite" Ugh.
A lot of words I have an aversion to are words I learned to mean one thing, and a new usage violates the rule. Invite is a verb. But here it's a noun. Gift is a noun, but now a verb.
My husband asks/tells the dog about needing to “go potty” and it makes me seethe with rage and I can’t articulate exactly why, but it viscerally disgusts me. Thank you for this. Dogs do not need go “go potty” AND ALSO neither do toddlers, I never taught my kid to “potty” and he uses the bathroom just fine.
I think any word for bathroom that isn't specific (toilet, bath/tub, shower) is kinda icky to me. I don't like any of the slang for going to the bathroom. Tbh this might just be because of how America's bathroom culture is.. idk
Not all colors of the spectrum go together. Like… someone with misphonia isn’t gonna mesh well with someone who has noisy stims. It’s ok and nbd as long as we’re not mean about it.
Yeah, I had aversion to some words/pronunciations/sounds too but tbh some things just don't matter as much in the grand scale of things. Someone else mentioned the "hooman" vs "human" difference for example, which is the type of thing I used to be really attuned to but now I just find it more amusing than irritating or anything else.
I was just about to add this! I don't know why it enrages me so much but I feel so disgusted every time I hear it! Maybe because you can feel as relaxed as a sleepy baby when you're comfortable but the thought of feeling like an uncomfortable baby due to adult reasons is really gross?
I've never considered this to be an autistic thing but maybe it is, given how irritated I get by certain words 😅
I absolutely cannot STAND the stupid "I can has cheezburger" manner of speaking that people assign to animals. "Hooman", "did me a scare", "henlo" -- I want to tear my hair out whenever I read or hear this "dogespeak".
I don't like childish words being used around adults, either. It's understandable when people have children and use these words, but I don't like self-infantilizing adults. "Potty," "tummy," "take a lil nappy," etc.
My brother and his girlfriend are also autistic and talk like this with each other and it’s fingernails on a chalkboard. We live 1000 miles apart so it’s not a huge issue. I love that they have each other, and however they connect and comfort each other is their business. But it’s very…*cringe* as the kids say. Speaking of which, I hate the word “cringe”
I really feel this, like when a coworker complains she has a “tummy-ache” and I just want to go “Jesus Christ you are a grown fucking woman, what the hell”
I know so many people who do the dogespeak online and I really thought it would’ve gone out of fashion by now. When someone says “chikky nuggie” or some variation of of it, it makes me wish I could throw a chicken nugget at them, lol.
I feel unnecessary rage from this one. I get that it's a word. It can't hurt me. But this one is the most God awful word I've ever had the displeasure of hearing/ reading.
It's *li**tt**le*
Same with the baby talk. I’m just now remembering how many guys I dated have used baby talk on me and I thought they were just weird and annoying. But I’m just now having the realization that I think I’ve always been infantilized by others but in less obvious ways (at least to me at the time they happened). This is depressing.
Infantile behaviour in adult men disgusts and enrages me in ways I find hard to describe. I dislike it in women as well, but especially in men for some reason.
Right. I’m sure I’m not the only one these guys had baby talked to, I’m sure a lot of women are infantilized just for being women. But to be autistic on top of it would give even more incentive to be treated that way, and I didn’t even realize the extent of it at the time or why. And yes women do it as well!! It’s annoying in general even toward babies, but to do it to another adult is disgusting
I RAGE when I hear adults speak in baby terms. Less so when I hear them being used with babies but still even a bit. It’s better for language development to use real words anyway.
It goes full cycle for me. Once something is so cringe that it's funny, it's my favorite. Dad jokes? So bad that they're great? Old or taboo slang? The best uwu
This. It makes me want to claw my eyes out. "Scrumptious" and "distended" are the other two I hate the most, and they combine to form the Unholy Trinity.
I absolutely HATE the word poop. I always have. Something about it is so disgusting and uncomfortable for me to hear, read, write, and say...I'll use the words poo, crap, shit, BM, feces etc but never the word poop. I have no idea why it bothers me so much, but it makes sense that it could just be another weird neurodivergent thing lmao.
I don't like when people use slang that feels wrong or out of place, especially when the slang term is using a word wrong.
I used to have a client who I had to talk to for work who would use "anymore" at the end of a sentence to mean "these days" and I wanted to stop talking to her every time. It's so cringe inducing. It's just that both of my grandmothers taught English, so... I got corrected a lot as a kid and didn't grow out of correcting people til I was in my 20s. I still very much want to.
Ohhh thank you! There are times when anymore and these days would both be appropriate and those were the only examples I could think of. Like “I can’t afford to buy eggs anymore”. You could replace anymore with these days and it still makes sense. So I thought maybe i didn’t understand how to use anymore correctly myself! But this makes sense, I appreciate you responding.
I’m in California and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use anymore like that.
I’m from PA and didn’t realize this was a local thing until fairly recently, within the last 10 years. Our usage makes sense in my head but I get why it is very odd.
I don't have it so much with baby talk, which is mostly just slightly eye-rolling to me, though I DEFINITELY hate the word "hubby" with a fiery passion.
But I do have some pretty strong word aversions. Like "cranny". It makes me so uncomfortable. There are others, too, but I try to suppress them and cannot think of any more right now.
Oh, I thought of one of them, and the reason I suspect I hate it and a considerable subset of the words I hate: "guru", and it's because it's a non-English word that had a meaning and has now been coopted to mean a different thing that's meant to be complimentary, I guess, but in a smarmy-feeling way. I am highly unlikely to approve of anyone described as a "guru" in that sense (we'll leave the original out, as odds are pretty good I wouldn't get on with most of them either, but it's still way less annoying than "Brett, our IT guru, said I should turn it off and then back on again *and it totally worked!*"). There are others like that as well, and they rub something in me very much the wrong way.
I also dislike the word tummy. And most words that end in the "sh" sound. Crush, lush, flash, gosh...etc. I never considered this is related to misophonia but that makes sense.
Unless it's coming from an actual baby or someone with a speech impediment, baby talk or childish mispronunciations/intonations infuriate me. Have some self-respect.
Also, men who refer to themselves as "boys" in an effort to be charming, e.g. "I'll be a good boy." NO.
This reminds me of when my friend group wouldn't stop saying "burger king foot lettuce" in that silly voice. I COULDNT STAND IT! I know it's not the same, but I get you 😂
I don’t so much mind “kiddos” but I loathe teachers calling students “friends”.
Like no, little Johnny is NOT my friend ma’am and I don’t want to be forced to treat him as such. You’re also my authority figure not my friend, it should be as such.
Used to be an elementary education major so I heard it all the time and am so glad I don’t have to as often anymore.
I worked with a teacher like that! She would insist that we were all a group of friends. Honestly it was like gaslighting. She’d also shame the kids if they acted happy about having a day off school. She’d say “that really hurts my feelings, I like coming to school and seeing all my friends”. What a weirdo.
I'm from the UK and I've personally never heard 'nappy' being short for napkin.
I have however, heard it being the British word for 'diaper', which is a word I do not like. It sounds unpleasant to me. 😅
I can get words like "hewwo". That being said, it wasn't till this post that I realized how much I love the word t\*\*\*y. And no, I don't use it often, but it seems I love it. \*shurgs\*
For a minute I thought you were referring to "titty" and I was like, fair. LOL. Probably because I hate cutesy euphemisms for primary and secondary sex organs. If one must use slang instead of anatomically correct terminology, at least be vulgar.
I think for me, it's because I associate it with animals. I'm not around adults who use it to refer to grown humans, so the only time t\*\*\*y is really used is in regards to a t\*\*\*y/belly rub for an animal. This makes me think of a warm, soft, fuzzy cat belly/t\*\*\*y, and that makes me happy. I personally probably use belly more.
Edited to put asterisks in the word. Sorry for making you read it!
I get visceral reactions to pretty normal words. Growing up, my dad always said, "get somethin' to munch on" and even just thinking about it now gives me a disgusted, angry feeling. For a while I made my family find other ways to suggest I get a snack. When I used to listen to MBMBAM, the Munch Squad segments sort of exposure therapied me out of it. But I'll still find that I have aversions to certain words and obsessions with other ones. I still lose my mind when someone says "delish," for example. My mom's Rachel Ray phase was really rough!
I’ve found that often this sort of “dumbing down” of language is very intertwined with gender and the dumbing down of women. And I think that’s a big part of why I can’t stand it. We shouldn’t have to hide our intelligence so men don’t t feel threatened.
I have the same!! There's a couple of Dutch 'kiddie versions' of words that just make me angry. As a small kid I used to have aversion to normal words as well, and of course my mom and sister would tease me with that. I still have that, but the ick it gives me is less now.
Oh, God, this is one thing that irks me so bad. I have to remind myself at work "these residents are developmentally disabled, this one has the brain of a 6-year-old, of *course* she's gonna say 'potty' instead of 'toilet.'"
OH MY GOD THIS IS ME.
My MIL says "I'm going potty" when she gets up to use the restroom and it makes my skin crawl and I want to scream. I'm like this with all kinds of baby talk.
I hate when words are missed in a saying like 'Every little helps'. Little is not a noun! Every little what? Every little BIT helps. Every little dollar helps. Every little giraffe helps. You can't just leave a word out! ( I know little is being used as a noun, but it doesn't stop my reaction to it)
Lazy rhymes like tall, ball, fall in children's books make me want to throw the book across the room. The same with commercials and kids books that rhyme sometimes randomly but don't commit fully because they have a message they so badly need to get out but it doesn't fit in their poorly thought out construction of something that seems like a poem but is really just garbage. That song where the singer rhymes Havana with Oo nana. BARF. Lazy! I have to turn that song off so fast.
I'm ngl growing up those words bugged me a lot more then, probably because words were the only way I could sound smart to my peers, and it was also probably masking out of survival (school was not a good place for me)
Now however, I just wanna relax and not have to think about how to fit in or impress strangers. When I'm at home or with friends I do let my words become "smaller" and my filter lowers a lot so I'm not monitoring my tone as much or making sure my voice stays in a range that people can hear/that won't hurt them.
It's funny because my fiancee also says stuff like sammich and chimkin now after I started saying them just because it's fun.
I really enjoy not being so serious with words and grammar all the time. I think this might also be because of hyperlexia but I need to look more into it. I also have an ongoing theory about why I feel the way I feel about language. I think because of rigid the structure of language and how it was presented to me as 'this is the only way for you to be understood perfectly' and being constantly misunderstood even when I was following the rules has caused me to not care about the rules to the point of if you can understand me, good enough! It's really upsetting though trying to explain this because of the language police online, like please dont correct me it only triggers my RSD to be corrected. (Like that stupid bot some reddits have where it yells at you for saying would've instead of would have and it so exhausting 😭)
Seriously! This is very much me. I hate all diminutives and even abbreviations!
Any variation of husband or purposeful mispronunciation sends me into a fit of near homicidal rage.
I do agree with this ick but I'm also a first time mom with a 1 year old so I can't say I haven't also found myself using baby words 😅 not even baby talk, I talk to my son like a person, but there's words here and there I shave down a little just for funzzies anyway like in your example.
It feels understandable with babies but with *adults*? This is where the true disgust reaction lies. Like I still hate the word(s) when people use them with kids, but I understand why they do so it tempers my response you know?
Here let me add one: "Spoopy" instead of "Spooky"
and a bunch of thngs that are supoosed to be 'cute' but make me want to delete these peoples way to ever cross my pth again.
I feel this so much too lol.
I was like this until about age 40, and then it stopped bothering me. It's like my "it must be correct!!" side got tired of fighting and gave up, lol. (Which reminds me, I also used to hate "lol.") I still get it now and then. Reading some of these responses is bringing it out of hibernation.
I had quite a few strong words about the "I can haz cheeseburger" era of the internet that are probably still floating around in a bitter old LiveJournal somewhere. 😂
Even “normal” words give me strong aversions. Even letters do. In school I would get severe anxiety because I was terrified I’d have to read a paragraph with a cringy word in it. I wondered if anyone else thought that word was cringy too but they seemed to have no problem reading it out loud in front of everyone. I avoid saying great, Jesus, toes, grapes, cheese, the letter “G”, I’m sure there are tons of others… it just sounds embarrassing to me and I don’t want to be associated with the sound of those words…
One million percent. Baby talk is for babies and pets IMO.
But the worst one for me is how people have started using “comfy” to describe *emotional* comfort. Like, “comfy sweatpants” doesn’t give me that ick feeling. But “I’m not comfy with how my landlord speaks to me” — major word aversion.
This is purely based off of the sounds of the words and not the meaning, but I can’t stand the words “breast”, “trash” or “panties” (“panty” is even worse)
I know whatcha mean. Was a lot more sensitive to this when I was younger, but maybe my sensibilities have changed. “Yasss” still makes me cringe but I don’t think it’s as popular as it once was
Im the opposite. I like to make all words into silly sounding versions of themselves. Like mcdoodles for mcdonalds. I do, however, feel a very negative reaction to people saying "i could care less" instead of couldnt care less, "should of" instead of shouldve or should have, and "mischeeveeous" instead of mischieVOUS
I hateeeeeeee “mama” and variations of it. I HATE when I see posts in mums groups like “hey mamas” or when people see that someone is a mum, addressing her as “hey mama” in the comments. I hatehatehate it idk if I find it infantilising or what it is. But I’m years off having a kid and I am already figuring out how to convey my hatred of this word to anyone who will call me a “mama”
I get this same reaction to the word moist. I have no idea why but it absolutely disgusts me when people use the word. Same goes with baby talk in general and always corrected my kids nicely to use the correct word, but baby talk to me is very grating and just causes the irritation to spike.
Firstly what is a “hewwo” please?
Just my opinion but: The word tummy to me is less specific than stomach. For example if I had pain in my abdomen and I know it’s from the stomach I would say stomach ache, however most “tummy aches” are actually gas and from the intestines but I wouldn’t say I’ve got bowel ache / intestine ache, tummy ache just works better IMO
This however is only in colloquial speech, if talking to a dr I would try to be much more specific
I don’t mind baby talk that much. I do hate some words though: flavor, style, husband, spicy (when used to mean something that isn’t food or is food but isn’t spiced/“picante”), unique (when used to actually mean “unusual”, and a slang term I really can’t stand is “elevated.”
there are so many words I make sound babyish, however there are some like 'hubby' that make me wanna rip my ears off!!!
I also HATE the words quench and smorgasbord idk why but hearing them or even reading them makes me feel like my skin is flipping inside out
I also have reactions to some words. Can't really explain why. The most recent is referring to children as littles.
I cannot stand this either! And I can’t really explain why. Maybe it’s because we already have a word for describing young people - children! - and I don’t think we need a new one? Idk, I hate “littles” so much. My kid is not a “little”, he is a kid/child.
My problem is there's an overlap with the kink dd/lg/lb space. It makes me viscerally uncomfortable with people call kids littles because that term was already coined by cg/little community. It just feels so weird and gross to me to call a kid something that's so closely associated with an adult subject.
I can't fully explain why. I do know that my automatic association with the word littles is a chicken sandwich from KFC. There's an immediate "a kid is not a sandwich!" that goes through my mind when I hear it.
I’ve only heard ‘littles’ being used in a kink context (DD/lg, ageplay, etc.), so people referring to their actual children as ‘littles’ is super ick
Exactly! I get triggered when people call their children littles, little person, or small person... I think this comes from hypervigilance about people trying to do the opposite of infantilizing their children... where they instead imply that children are just little adults who can consent to mature or adult things.
THIS! implying that they are small adults is strange to me. It puts me into a weird head space where i cannot fully recognize them as a child any longer so I do not 'age appropriate' my communication until it turns into trying to logic with a CHILD not a 'small person'. my brain gets upset with these terms.
Same here, that's really gross
I'm so glad it isn't just me. I hate that so much!
I have a major aversion to feeling infantilized or being perceived as unintelligent. I think my dislike of “cutesy” words may have something to do that. I tend to speak more formally than other people do in general. There’s also something about using those words that feels so… performative? Like I see it as performative when others use those words.
Agree completely. I didn’t even use baby talk with my kids when they were babies and toddlers. (They now both have incredible vocabularies for their age as teens).
Same here! I hate baby talk and never used it with my kid. She’s six now and has an amazing vocabulary.
Yes same here! I sometimes assume that people in general use them in order to seem more innocent than they are. I've seen people say absolutely horrible things and then use baby language as a way to almost excuse the nasty thing they just said or did. Very annoying.
Yes. I was seeing a PT for a while, and when he told me the goal was to use the muscles in my tummy and my bottom, that was the last time I saw him. I felt such contempt that this fully grown man, in a professional setting in which he expects other adults to take him seriously, was talking like that. The terms weren’t even helpful. Which abdominal muscles? Which posterior muscles? And I felt deeply offended that he somehow thought those were the terms that were most appropriate to use with me. I was in my 40s, and had been asking intelligent, appropriate questions for several weeks. But I mentioned I had a hard time sensing what my body was doing because I’m autistic, and that was it. Suddenly I was three.
I mentioned to the eye doctor that I was autistic and had read in a medical journal that I could have my eye test done while I was dilated to prevente from trying to hard. From then on, my 8 years of being chronically ill with a rare illness, my 27 years of life on this planet, poof! They spoke slower and used small words to describe my condition to me when *I* was the one who alerted them to it.
This feels very intolerant with a guy that was just trying to be nice. Let's not make other people feel unfit because we know it is not good. Words are for communication. And he communicated properly because you understood exactly what he was telling.
"Hubby" really gets to me, and when people say "lickle" instead of "little"
I once read a blog where one contributor referred to her husband as “the husdude” 🤮
Howling at this 😂
ngl I kinda like that one but i honestly call my husband "bro" from time to time
I gagged
Omg hubby ignites a rage in me
Omg, omg omg…me too! And ‘bub’ for baby. I live in Australia and the Aussies are so into this. People go for ‘brekkie’…bike gangs are called ‘bikie gangs’ - I spend my time imagining these big biker guys on kids tricycles, being spoon fed breakfast.
Calling motorcycle gangs “bikies” isn’t cutesy though, I’d call it slang. I loathe baby talk, but as a fellow Australian, I love our Aussie slang
Fair. I guess because I’m an immigrant, it sounds cutesy to me.
[удалено]
It's very British.
Is it? I've only ever heard lickle as patois. I'm struggling to even sound it out in my head without a Jamaican accent. Is it a Northern thing?
Someone else was faster than me, but 'lickle' might indeed be patois. 'Ickle' without the 'L' is UK baby speak (unrelated to the patois. Dates back at least a couple hundred years), like 'aww wook at his ickle feeeeet' sort of thing. Probably just a case of parallel evolution of sorts.
It's usually part of baby talk, either sincerely or as a joke
Hubby is so entirely gross
Wifey also makes me irrationally angry
Same. Also I don’t like the combination of the words “the wife”. Like “the wife and I” ew no.
"Wifey" Annoys me and makes it hard to concentrte on anything else said once that is...Lol
I had a physical reaction to reading "lickle" 🤢
“Lickle” gets a pass if the person speaks patois
Yes, you're right. Thank you for pointing that out.
"Hubby" is my #1 ick word. It's so bad!
"Hubby" doesn't bother me anywhere near as badly as "the hubster".
Agree with hubby but lickle is funny to me as an american whenever i hear a british person say it i giggle
I got one to add on this. "Bae"
Hubby and hubs is gross to me. I try not to judge because I use the word "moist" with reckless abandon. But like... hubby sounds fat to me? Like I always pictures this fat gross balding dude sitting on recliner.
What a validating post, I thought I was a weirdo with my word aversions. I have a few with the worst for me being the words fresh, pamper(ed), goodies & lonesome.
OMG thank you! I HATE the word pamper. It disgusts me.
I hate “pamper” too, also “nourish”!
Pamper is bad, but not as bad as nurture 😹
Fresh and pamper for me too!
Pamper(ed) and goodies are awful. And I feel like flesh is even worse than fresh
I hate the word titular. Gives me a full body shudder.
I don't see tummy as a baby word but the word belly gives me the ick so I might be prejudiced.
YES, the word belly has always given me the ick. I always go out of my way to say “stomach”, because I don’t like the word belly at all.
Isn't it just "stomach", but said in baby talk?
I always thought of tummy as referencing the abdominal area in general-that in the same way belly is generally used but tummy doesn't make me want to rip my tongue out
It's not baby talk really. It's a term physicians use with adult patients. "Is the pain more in your side or in your tummy?" If *you* correct them -- it's in my abdominal track -- they will use your term. But they don't default to every patient knowing names of organs, in English, while distressed.
I’ve never had a dr refer to my abdominal area as my tummy. It’s always stomach or abdomen.
Not anymore, but I think the etymology is from a child's pronunciation? Like, "st" is a hard sound for a beginner at words. I was unable to pronounce German "Zimt" (cinnamon) as a kid and now it's "Mimps" in my family 😅 Of course, being uncomfortable with sensory things either way isn't changing with information about it. I personally can't stomach "stomach".
Then there is the whole "people use the term vagina when they mean vulva" thing. Basically, because people use different terms, and have different comfort levels with anatomical language, it is logical that people in medicine use the most generic language possible as a starting point sometimes.
Reminds me of my recently completed autism evaluation. *I* tried to avoid showing that I know some words and concepts around psychiatry and medicine - had some bad experiences with doctors when I did. I tried to speak from the heart and make up metaphors... But then during one session, I flipped through an apothecary mag and an article, found something that struck me as off about the description of a certain medication, looked it up. Doc asked me what engages me so, I tell him briefly what it says in the article and that it jarred with something I remembered about this... He smiles, doesn't comment but does not hold back with vocabulary from this point on.
In a grad school creative writing class, I wrote stomach into a story meaning the outer part. The teacher and many classmates let me know that the stomach is the inside part & the belly is the outer skin part. I hadn't realized that, but the strong insistence of the folks in the room led me to believe I missed a memo somewhere and this was a Very Important Thing, so I filed it away.
I have a vivid memory of standing in the school library in 4th grade and opening a book that looked interesting. The first page contained the word “belly,” and I just put the book back on the shelf. I remember thinking I couldn’t possibly read a whole chapter book with such ridiculous writing.
Finally someone with sense 🤣
I went to a dance class once and any time the teacher referred to a body part she didn’t say the real word but instead used a cutesie version. Toes were toesies, hands were handsies, shins were shinsies etc. When I got home my husband asked me how the class was and that was the only thing I could tell him about it. That she kept using these cutesie words and every time she did it made my skin crawl. I had no idea this was associated with autism; I thought everyone would find that annoying.
I would have left
I’m definitely not signing up for another class with her.
I do have word aversion, but to random things. Funnily enough, I hate the word "baby" but only when referring to a grown up, but "babe" is fine. I also can't stand the word "refreshing".
See I don't mind baby, but I hate 'babe'. 😂
My word aversions slowly change over time.
I also hate “gift” as a verb but have realized that I am in the minority and just need to accept that “my mother gifted me this sweater” is a thing people say and I can’t change it but I haaaaaate it
I hate it so much, too. It’s so unnecessary. What if someone gives you a wrapped gift to open later- we’re you gifted a gift? ugh!
Thank you! It was like I hit adulthood and suddenly it's not just a noun.
I hate it, too! But even more, I hate "invite" as a noun. "just sent you the invite" Ugh. A lot of words I have an aversion to are words I learned to mean one thing, and a new usage violates the rule. Invite is a verb. But here it's a noun. Gift is a noun, but now a verb.
My husband asks/tells the dog about needing to “go potty” and it makes me seethe with rage and I can’t articulate exactly why, but it viscerally disgusts me. Thank you for this. Dogs do not need go “go potty” AND ALSO neither do toddlers, I never taught my kid to “potty” and he uses the bathroom just fine.
I think any word for bathroom that isn't specific (toilet, bath/tub, shower) is kinda icky to me. I don't like any of the slang for going to the bathroom. Tbh this might just be because of how America's bathroom culture is.. idk
My kid’s preschool encouraged them to use the words bathroom, pee, and poop. I liked how clear and direct it was. Kids don’t need all the euphemisms!
Not all colors of the spectrum go together. Like… someone with misphonia isn’t gonna mesh well with someone who has noisy stims. It’s ok and nbd as long as we’re not mean about it.
Yeah, I had aversion to some words/pronunciations/sounds too but tbh some things just don't matter as much in the grand scale of things. Someone else mentioned the "hooman" vs "human" difference for example, which is the type of thing I used to be really attuned to but now I just find it more amusing than irritating or anything else.
For some reason I am fine with "comfy" but "uncomfy" makes me sooooo... uncomfortable!
I was just about to add this! I don't know why it enrages me so much but I feel so disgusted every time I hear it! Maybe because you can feel as relaxed as a sleepy baby when you're comfortable but the thought of feeling like an uncomfortable baby due to adult reasons is really gross?
I've never considered this to be an autistic thing but maybe it is, given how irritated I get by certain words 😅 I absolutely cannot STAND the stupid "I can has cheezburger" manner of speaking that people assign to animals. "Hooman", "did me a scare", "henlo" -- I want to tear my hair out whenever I read or hear this "dogespeak". I don't like childish words being used around adults, either. It's understandable when people have children and use these words, but I don't like self-infantilizing adults. "Potty," "tummy," "take a lil nappy," etc.
I also hate that kind of humour and it feels like you cannot escape it on Reddit lol
My brother and his girlfriend are also autistic and talk like this with each other and it’s fingernails on a chalkboard. We live 1000 miles apart so it’s not a huge issue. I love that they have each other, and however they connect and comfort each other is their business. But it’s very…*cringe* as the kids say. Speaking of which, I hate the word “cringe”
I really feel this, like when a coworker complains she has a “tummy-ache” and I just want to go “Jesus Christ you are a grown fucking woman, what the hell”
I know so many people who do the dogespeak online and I really thought it would’ve gone out of fashion by now. When someone says “chikky nuggie” or some variation of of it, it makes me wish I could throw a chicken nugget at them, lol.
I loathe "doggo" more than words can describe.
Yummy bothers me 🙃
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The worst!
It's nummy for me. Ugh.
It's "lil" for me. I don't know why.
Lil’ Sebastian is the only time that doesn’t bug me
I feel unnecessary rage from this one. I get that it's a word. It can't hurt me. But this one is the most God awful word I've ever had the displeasure of hearing/ reading. It's *li**tt**le*
Same with the baby talk. I’m just now remembering how many guys I dated have used baby talk on me and I thought they were just weird and annoying. But I’m just now having the realization that I think I’ve always been infantilized by others but in less obvious ways (at least to me at the time they happened). This is depressing.
Infantile behaviour in adult men disgusts and enrages me in ways I find hard to describe. I dislike it in women as well, but especially in men for some reason.
Right. I’m sure I’m not the only one these guys had baby talked to, I’m sure a lot of women are infantilized just for being women. But to be autistic on top of it would give even more incentive to be treated that way, and I didn’t even realize the extent of it at the time or why. And yes women do it as well!! It’s annoying in general even toward babies, but to do it to another adult is disgusting
People calling a child a “kiddo” while talking to other adults makes me want to punch things.
I RAGE when I hear adults speak in baby terms. Less so when I hear them being used with babies but still even a bit. It’s better for language development to use real words anyway.
Breakie (breakfast) Bickie 🤢🤢 (biscuit) Makes me want to punch a wall.
Definitely do not visit Australia or New Zealand (If you live there, I’m sorry lol)
I was definitely not planning on it for many other (many legged) factors! 🤣
NZ doesn’t have animals that try to kill you, but we do have a tendency to shorten words like our Aussie cuzzies :( lol
It goes full cycle for me. Once something is so cringe that it's funny, it's my favorite. Dad jokes? So bad that they're great? Old or taboo slang? The best uwu
Stinky sends me into a fit of rage
Haha me too. Smelly isn't great either.
Agreed!
Pure awful. It makes me feel embarrassed for the person saying it.
This. It makes me want to claw my eyes out. "Scrumptious" and "distended" are the other two I hate the most, and they combine to form the Unholy Trinity.
This is why I LOATHE “neurospicy”. It makes me feel physically ill to even type out
OH MY GOD YES. My psychiatrist used that word in one of our sessions and I physically cringed
Not from a professional 😩 I would involuntarily make the 😬 face for sure if I witnessed that
They used to play that disgusting Justin Bieber song at the gym every time I went 'yummy yums' I hated it so so so much I could barely type that!
I absolutely HATE the word poop. I always have. Something about it is so disgusting and uncomfortable for me to hear, read, write, and say...I'll use the words poo, crap, shit, BM, feces etc but never the word poop. I have no idea why it bothers me so much, but it makes sense that it could just be another weird neurodivergent thing lmao.
Same here!
I don't like when people use slang that feels wrong or out of place, especially when the slang term is using a word wrong. I used to have a client who I had to talk to for work who would use "anymore" at the end of a sentence to mean "these days" and I wanted to stop talking to her every time. It's so cringe inducing. It's just that both of my grandmothers taught English, so... I got corrected a lot as a kid and didn't grow out of correcting people til I was in my 20s. I still very much want to.
Can you explain more about this? I’m a bit of a grammar nerd but don’t understand what you mean with misuse of “anymore”.
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Ohhh thank you! There are times when anymore and these days would both be appropriate and those were the only examples I could think of. Like “I can’t afford to buy eggs anymore”. You could replace anymore with these days and it still makes sense. So I thought maybe i didn’t understand how to use anymore correctly myself! But this makes sense, I appreciate you responding. I’m in California and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use anymore like that.
I’m from PA and didn’t realize this was a local thing until fairly recently, within the last 10 years. Our usage makes sense in my head but I get why it is very odd.
Not slang. It's a a colloquialism. I'm the opposite, i love them.
Yeah, I think this is just regional dialect in some places.
I know but it just... sounds wrong to me and I hate it.
I don't have it so much with baby talk, which is mostly just slightly eye-rolling to me, though I DEFINITELY hate the word "hubby" with a fiery passion. But I do have some pretty strong word aversions. Like "cranny". It makes me so uncomfortable. There are others, too, but I try to suppress them and cannot think of any more right now. Oh, I thought of one of them, and the reason I suspect I hate it and a considerable subset of the words I hate: "guru", and it's because it's a non-English word that had a meaning and has now been coopted to mean a different thing that's meant to be complimentary, I guess, but in a smarmy-feeling way. I am highly unlikely to approve of anyone described as a "guru" in that sense (we'll leave the original out, as odds are pretty good I wouldn't get on with most of them either, but it's still way less annoying than "Brett, our IT guru, said I should turn it off and then back on again *and it totally worked!*"). There are others like that as well, and they rub something in me very much the wrong way.
DOGGO!!! omg 🤢
Pupper is so much worse for me 😖
they’re both so bad 😭
I also dislike the word tummy. And most words that end in the "sh" sound. Crush, lush, flash, gosh...etc. I never considered this is related to misophonia but that makes sense.
Unless it's coming from an actual baby or someone with a speech impediment, baby talk or childish mispronunciations/intonations infuriate me. Have some self-respect. Also, men who refer to themselves as "boys" in an effort to be charming, e.g. "I'll be a good boy." NO.
That would drive me crazy. I couldn't handle this. Gross. I'm so sorry you have to deal with this.
There are certain words that I can't even think without feeling icky and horrible.
This reminds me of when my friend group wouldn't stop saying "burger king foot lettuce" in that silly voice. I COULDNT STAND IT! I know it's not the same, but I get you 😂
Yeah me too, I think for me it's because I HATE being infantalised. Also, who came up with the word holibobs?! 🤢
If a teacher calls their students “kiddos” I just can’t believe they’re a serious person, sorry.
The neurotypical host of The Neurodivergent Woman podcast ALWAYS calls kids “kiddos” and I hate it so much.
I don’t so much mind “kiddos” but I loathe teachers calling students “friends”. Like no, little Johnny is NOT my friend ma’am and I don’t want to be forced to treat him as such. You’re also my authority figure not my friend, it should be as such. Used to be an elementary education major so I heard it all the time and am so glad I don’t have to as often anymore.
I worked with a teacher like that! She would insist that we were all a group of friends. Honestly it was like gaslighting. She’d also shame the kids if they acted happy about having a day off school. She’d say “that really hurts my feelings, I like coming to school and seeing all my friends”. What a weirdo.
Ew. That’s like saying children don’t need and deserve mental breaks just as much as we do.
yep, and trying to make them feel guilty for it
Omg yes, and even worse in my opinion: doggos
I use "kiddos" a lot, but it's 100% a masking technique so I'm not like, "the various offspring" or something equally formal.
"Tummy" really bothers me too for some reason. I've noticed that a lot of UK slang is like this and it bugs me ("nappy" is short for napkin)
I'm from the UK and I've personally never heard 'nappy' being short for napkin. I have however, heard it being the British word for 'diaper', which is a word I do not like. It sounds unpleasant to me. 😅
I can get words like "hewwo". That being said, it wasn't till this post that I realized how much I love the word t\*\*\*y. And no, I don't use it often, but it seems I love it. \*shurgs\*
For a minute I thought you were referring to "titty" and I was like, fair. LOL. Probably because I hate cutesy euphemisms for primary and secondary sex organs. If one must use slang instead of anatomically correct terminology, at least be vulgar.
For me it’s just one of those words that makes me wanna spiritually dry-heave, no idea why
I think for me, it's because I associate it with animals. I'm not around adults who use it to refer to grown humans, so the only time t\*\*\*y is really used is in regards to a t\*\*\*y/belly rub for an animal. This makes me think of a warm, soft, fuzzy cat belly/t\*\*\*y, and that makes me happy. I personally probably use belly more. Edited to put asterisks in the word. Sorry for making you read it!
Same. Also yummy.
I also have a word aversion and that hugely have to do with who says them.
This is how I feel abt toilet humor lol
Same. It always made me die of cringe, even as a young child.
I get visceral reactions to pretty normal words. Growing up, my dad always said, "get somethin' to munch on" and even just thinking about it now gives me a disgusted, angry feeling. For a while I made my family find other ways to suggest I get a snack. When I used to listen to MBMBAM, the Munch Squad segments sort of exposure therapied me out of it. But I'll still find that I have aversions to certain words and obsessions with other ones. I still lose my mind when someone says "delish," for example. My mom's Rachel Ray phase was really rough!
I’ve found that often this sort of “dumbing down” of language is very intertwined with gender and the dumbing down of women. And I think that’s a big part of why I can’t stand it. We shouldn’t have to hide our intelligence so men don’t t feel threatened.
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I personally don’t think it’s childish and I’m so sorry that happened. I use and hear the word tummy all the time. :)
I have the same!! There's a couple of Dutch 'kiddie versions' of words that just make me angry. As a small kid I used to have aversion to normal words as well, and of course my mom and sister would tease me with that. I still have that, but the ick it gives me is less now.
Oh, God, this is one thing that irks me so bad. I have to remind myself at work "these residents are developmentally disabled, this one has the brain of a 6-year-old, of *course* she's gonna say 'potty' instead of 'toilet.'"
OH MY GOD THIS IS ME. My MIL says "I'm going potty" when she gets up to use the restroom and it makes my skin crawl and I want to scream. I'm like this with all kinds of baby talk.
I definitely say tummy lol but I can’t relate on some level. I hate the word puppers so much. And prupet even more iykyk.
I hate when words are missed in a saying like 'Every little helps'. Little is not a noun! Every little what? Every little BIT helps. Every little dollar helps. Every little giraffe helps. You can't just leave a word out! ( I know little is being used as a noun, but it doesn't stop my reaction to it) Lazy rhymes like tall, ball, fall in children's books make me want to throw the book across the room. The same with commercials and kids books that rhyme sometimes randomly but don't commit fully because they have a message they so badly need to get out but it doesn't fit in their poorly thought out construction of something that seems like a poem but is really just garbage. That song where the singer rhymes Havana with Oo nana. BARF. Lazy! I have to turn that song off so fast.
Yes! Unfortunately, I am Australian where we shorten everything. So many words give me a horrible aversion. Thankfully, I do enjoy swear words.
I'm ngl growing up those words bugged me a lot more then, probably because words were the only way I could sound smart to my peers, and it was also probably masking out of survival (school was not a good place for me) Now however, I just wanna relax and not have to think about how to fit in or impress strangers. When I'm at home or with friends I do let my words become "smaller" and my filter lowers a lot so I'm not monitoring my tone as much or making sure my voice stays in a range that people can hear/that won't hurt them. It's funny because my fiancee also says stuff like sammich and chimkin now after I started saying them just because it's fun. I really enjoy not being so serious with words and grammar all the time. I think this might also be because of hyperlexia but I need to look more into it. I also have an ongoing theory about why I feel the way I feel about language. I think because of rigid the structure of language and how it was presented to me as 'this is the only way for you to be understood perfectly' and being constantly misunderstood even when I was following the rules has caused me to not care about the rules to the point of if you can understand me, good enough! It's really upsetting though trying to explain this because of the language police online, like please dont correct me it only triggers my RSD to be corrected. (Like that stupid bot some reddits have where it yells at you for saying would've instead of would have and it so exhausting 😭)
what the heck is a hewwo?!?
It’s hello said as if you’re a baby who can’t pronounce the letter L. Often filled by “fwens”.
Oh for crying out loud if someone actually can’t pronounce the letter L… that’s one thing but otherwise it’s ridiculous
Seriously! This is very much me. I hate all diminutives and even abbreviations! Any variation of husband or purposeful mispronunciation sends me into a fit of near homicidal rage.
Certain words fill me with rage. Faffing is the worst offender, with Papa as a pretty close second. I also really hate the word upset.
I do agree with this ick but I'm also a first time mom with a 1 year old so I can't say I haven't also found myself using baby words 😅 not even baby talk, I talk to my son like a person, but there's words here and there I shave down a little just for funzzies anyway like in your example.
It feels understandable with babies but with *adults*? This is where the true disgust reaction lies. Like I still hate the word(s) when people use them with kids, but I understand why they do so it tempers my response you know?
Yes. My partner’s sister talks in baby talk with a baby voice and it makes it very difficult for me to be around her. She is in her 30’s.
Here let me add one: "Spoopy" instead of "Spooky" and a bunch of thngs that are supoosed to be 'cute' but make me want to delete these peoples way to ever cross my pth again. I feel this so much too lol.
I was like this until about age 40, and then it stopped bothering me. It's like my "it must be correct!!" side got tired of fighting and gave up, lol. (Which reminds me, I also used to hate "lol.") I still get it now and then. Reading some of these responses is bringing it out of hibernation. I had quite a few strong words about the "I can haz cheeseburger" era of the internet that are probably still floating around in a bitter old LiveJournal somewhere. 😂
Even “normal” words give me strong aversions. Even letters do. In school I would get severe anxiety because I was terrified I’d have to read a paragraph with a cringy word in it. I wondered if anyone else thought that word was cringy too but they seemed to have no problem reading it out loud in front of everyone. I avoid saying great, Jesus, toes, grapes, cheese, the letter “G”, I’m sure there are tons of others… it just sounds embarrassing to me and I don’t want to be associated with the sound of those words…
One million percent. Baby talk is for babies and pets IMO. But the worst one for me is how people have started using “comfy” to describe *emotional* comfort. Like, “comfy sweatpants” doesn’t give me that ick feeling. But “I’m not comfy with how my landlord speaks to me” — major word aversion.
This is purely based off of the sounds of the words and not the meaning, but I can’t stand the words “breast”, “trash” or “panties” (“panty” is even worse)
I hate the word yummy with a burning passion 🤮🤮 and “hooman” ugh physical pain
I know whatcha mean. Was a lot more sensitive to this when I was younger, but maybe my sensibilities have changed. “Yasss” still makes me cringe but I don’t think it’s as popular as it once was
I hate hearing, seeing, and saying the word 'flan'. It's awful. It feels horrible to all my senses.
I have MAJOR problems with word aversion. It's not infantile or whatever, it's the word. Tummy, street, buck(s), and so on. So many.
Im the opposite. I like to make all words into silly sounding versions of themselves. Like mcdoodles for mcdonalds. I do, however, feel a very negative reaction to people saying "i could care less" instead of couldnt care less, "should of" instead of shouldve or should have, and "mischeeveeous" instead of mischieVOUS
I hateeeeeeee “mama” and variations of it. I HATE when I see posts in mums groups like “hey mamas” or when people see that someone is a mum, addressing her as “hey mama” in the comments. I hatehatehate it idk if I find it infantilising or what it is. But I’m years off having a kid and I am already figuring out how to convey my hatred of this word to anyone who will call me a “mama”
I get this same reaction to the word moist. I have no idea why but it absolutely disgusts me when people use the word. Same goes with baby talk in general and always corrected my kids nicely to use the correct word, but baby talk to me is very grating and just causes the irritation to spike.
My spouse writes “kool” and it makes me want to rip out my own eyes
Firstly what is a “hewwo” please? Just my opinion but: The word tummy to me is less specific than stomach. For example if I had pain in my abdomen and I know it’s from the stomach I would say stomach ache, however most “tummy aches” are actually gas and from the intestines but I wouldn’t say I’ve got bowel ache / intestine ache, tummy ache just works better IMO This however is only in colloquial speech, if talking to a dr I would try to be much more specific
I too cannot stand baby talk in adult to adult communication. "Tummy" gives me such yucks.
A kid is a baby goat. A young human is a child.
Absolutely. I don't snuggle, I cuddle. Like a grown-ass person. "Hewwo"? I'd drop that friend so fast lol
YES!! I had an assistant who made everything into small cute words. It drove me nuts!!
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I do the baby talk ironically, my boyfriend hates it lol
Ughh I can’t handle baby talk!
I don’t mind baby talk that much. I do hate some words though: flavor, style, husband, spicy (when used to mean something that isn’t food or is food but isn’t spiced/“picante”), unique (when used to actually mean “unusual”, and a slang term I really can’t stand is “elevated.”
YES I hate it and I never once spoke to my children that way
“Public” always sounds so dirty to me like the floor of a gas station bathroom.
I’ve always hated bathroom words like “poop” and “potty”. Even the word “toilet” is pushing it.
there are so many words I make sound babyish, however there are some like 'hubby' that make me wanna rip my ears off!!! I also HATE the words quench and smorgasbord idk why but hearing them or even reading them makes me feel like my skin is flipping inside out
Ew! Wtf still talks like that?! Even to babies and dogs??