There’s A Reason You’re Not OK With The Word Moist

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Hands up if you’ve ever heard the word “yuck” or “ew” exclaimed at the mention of the word “moist”?

It’s a common trend that is somewhat unexplained: why are people so disgusted by the word moist – but fine with similar ones like wet or damp?

Well, a group of psychologists decided to conduct a study about just why it's so offensive to some.

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The intriguing results have finally proven that there's actually reason(s) behind why so many people aren’t ok with the term.

Of the 2500 people survey, approximately 18% said they had an aversion to the word. People who didn’t like it also tended to have issues with bodily functions and phrases that are linked to them, like sweat, spit and phlegm.

The study found women, young people and those more highly educated were most opposed to, 'moist'.

While researchers were unable to pinpoint the exact reason for people’s disgust, they did come up with the following theories:

Connotation: As above, many people associate the term moist with negative associations like sweat, spit and phlegm.

Sound: It’s as simple as it sounds (sorry) - the muscles we use in our face when we're grossed out about something are the same muscles we use when saying moist.

Social transmission: This is a case of jumping on the bandwagon, the more people that think the word is ‘gross’ the more of a trend it becomes for the word to be unsavoury.