I have no issue with the word "moist." It's a great descriptor for something that is wet but not soaking. I'm also fine with "damp," "dank," "clammy," or "dewy." It really depends on the situation!

Not everybody, however, is as calm and collected as I am. Many people really, really can't stand the word, and one brave scientist from Oberlin College is trying to figure out why.

Dr. Paul Thibodeau, the psychologist behind the study, wrote that 18 percent of the 2,500 people he surveyed for his student were averse to the word "moist." Highly educated young women were most likely to find the word repulsive.

Dr. Thibodeau had three hypotheses on why people aren't into "moist": because of the way the word sounds, its association with gross bodily functions, and by virtue of the fact that everyone else (apparently) hates the word. The results of Dr. Thibodeau's study affirm the latter two hypotheses.

The people who were most disgusted by "moist" weren't disgusted by similar sounding words like "foist" or "rejoiced." Carli Velocci explains on Gizmodo,

"People who were averse to 'moist' also responded similarly to words such as 'phlegm,' and 'vomit,' leading him to believe that the disgust is related in part to the association with bodily functions."

This makes sense, evolutionarily speaking. Dr. Thibodeau concludes, "[D]isgust is adaptive. If we didn't have an instinct to run away from vomit and diarrhea, disease would spread more easily." So thinking the word "moist" is disgusting is correlated with thinking that phlegm, vomit, and diarrhea are gross.

Researchers found that the other hypothesis — that we think "moist" is gross simply because everyone else does — is connected to the grossness of bodily functions. "There is an important cultural component," Dr. Thibodeau adds. "The symbols we use to communicate with one another can become contaminated and elicit disgust by virtue of their association with bodily functions."

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Eve Peyser Eve Peyser is a writer from New York City whose work has been featured in The New York Times, VICE, Rolling Stone, and New York Magazine.

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