You ever have that feeling where you say a word and it just feels wrong in your mouth? Not because you mispronounced it, but because the word itself carries a weight you did not intend? It is like trying to use a tool that was designed for someone else's hands, or wearing a coat that is three sizes too big and smells like a stranger's perfume. You know the dictionary definition, you know the syntax, but the vibration of the word just does not harmonize with your internal state.
Herman Poppleberry here, and Corn, that is a perfect way to kick this off. We are diving into a really fascinating prompt from Daniel today. He is thinking about the individualized nature of language. Basically, why do the same words feel so different to different people? It is the idea that while we might share a common vocabulary, our internal lexicons are as unique as our fingerprints.
It is a great question, and it is one of those things that feels more relevant the more globalized we get. Daniel mentioned his background in law and how he noticed words like condescend have completely flipped their meaning over time. But more importantly, he is looking at how our personal histories, our professional training, and even our geographic locations change the way we perceive simple phrases. He is essentially asking if we are all actually speaking the same language, or if we are just using the same sounds to describe vastly different internal landscapes.
Right, and he is calling from Jerusalem, which adds this whole other layer of linguistic complexity. When you are living in a place where multiple languages—Hebrew, Arabic, English, Russian—are colliding daily, you become hyper aware of how words land. You see the friction in real time. Daniel’s prompt really gets at the heart of what we call semantic variation and pragmatics. It is the study of how context, intent, and personal history fill the empty vessel of a word with specific meaning.
It is not just about the dictionary definition, is it? It is about the baggage. It is about the ghosts that haunt the syllables. Daniel gave a great example of an Americanism that drives him crazy: having someone do something. Like, I will have John send that email. To him, with his Irish background, it sounds like servitude. It sounds like John is a tool or a subordinate in a very rigid hierarchy. But to an American, it is just a standard, almost invisible way to delegate a task.
And that is where the psychology gets really interesting. We often assume that because we share a grammar and a vocabulary, we are sharing a mental reality. But we are really just throwing these symbols at each other and hoping the other person’s mental map looks somewhat like ours. Linguists call this the illusion of communication. We think we have communicated because the other person nodded, but we might have triggered a completely different set of associations in their brain.
So, let us start with that example Daniel brought up about the word condescend. He mentioned that in the nineteenth century, it was actually a positive thing. That blew my mind when I first read it. How does a word go from being a compliment to being one of the most insulting things you can call someone?
It is a process linguists call pejoration. It comes from the Latin peior, meaning worse. Basically, a word starts out neutral or positive and, over time, it slides down the scale into negative territory. It is a linguistic downhill tumble. In the seventeen hundreds and eighteen hundreds, to condescend meant to voluntarily waive the privileges of your rank to be affable or kind to those below you. If a king condescended to speak with a peasant, it was seen as an act of great generosity and humility. It was the opposite of being haughty.
So it was about being accessible. It was like saying, I am important, but I am going to step down from my pedestal to meet you where you are.
Precisely. It was a virtue. It was a sign of a secure and gracious character. But as society became more egalitarian, especially through the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth, the very idea of rank became something we looked at with suspicion. We stopped valuing the act of stepping down because we started questioning why anyone was on a pedestal in the first place. So, the act of acknowledging that you are higher than someone else, even if you are doing it to be kind, started to feel insulting. By the time we get to the modern era, the focus shifted from the kindness of the act to the inherent arrogance of assuming you are superior in the first place. The word became stained by the ego it implied.
That is such a sharp turn. It makes me wonder what words we use today as compliments that will be seen as offensive in a hundred years. I mean, we see it happening with terms like gifted or talented. Sometimes those rub people the wrong way because they imply an innate, unearned superiority rather than recognizing effort or systemic advantage.
Oh, absolutely. Even the word nice has a wild history of pejoration. It originally came from the Latin nescius, which meant ignorant. Then it shifted to mean fastidious or fussy, then precise, and finally it landed on pleasant. It has been on a real journey. But back to Daniel’s point, this history lives inside the word. Even if we do not know the etymology, the current negative vibration of condescend is so strong that we cannot imagine it any other way. It feels inherently heavy.
It is funny because Daniel mentioned his law degree and reading old case law. In a legal context, precision is everything. You want words that have a fixed, unmoving meaning. But even there, you have these linguistic ghosts haunting the text. You are reading a judge from eighteen fifty who uses a word in a way that feels like a slap in the face today, but back then, it was a gesture of respect.
And that brings us to his other point about individualized interpretation and that phrase having someone do something. This is a classic example of what we call pragmatics. In linguistics, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. For Daniel, with his Irish background and now living in Israel, that American construction sounds very hierarchical. In many varieties of British and Irish English, there is a preference for more indirect or collaborative phrasing. You might say, I will ask John to send that, or John is going to send that.
Why is that, though? Is it the word have? Like, I have a car, I have a dog, I have a servant?
That is exactly it. It is the causative have. It treats the person as a possession or a tool in your inventory. By using the word have, you are centering yourself as the primary agent of power. You are the one possessing the action, and the other person is just the instrument through which your will is enacted. To an American ear, it is often just seen as efficient. It is a way of saying the task is handled without needing to explain the social negotiation involved. But to someone from a culture that values social cushioning or indirectness, it sounds like you are barking orders at a subordinate.
It really highlights that language is not just about what is said, but about the social contract between the speakers. If I say I will have my assistant call you, I think I am being professional. But you might hear me saying I am too important to talk to you myself, and I own this other person's time. We actually touched on some of these power dynamics back in episode six hundred eighty six when we talked about the tech and politics of pronouns. It is all about how we position ourselves in relation to others.
It really is. If your mental model of a workplace is a flat hierarchy, having someone do something feels like a violation of that model. It is a linguistic micro-aggression. Daniel asked if this phenomenon has been studied, and the answer is a resounding yes. Beyond pragmatics, there is a whole field of study regarding word aversion.
Is there a technical term for when a word just makes your skin crawl? Like when people hate the word moist?
There is. It is often referred to as word aversion or logophobia in extreme cases. The most famous example, as you said, is the word moist. Researchers at Oberlin College and the University of Canterbury actually did a deep dive into this. They found that about twenty percent of people are averse to that word. They ran three different experiments to figure out why.
Twenty percent? That is one in five people who want to leave the room when someone talks about a cake being moist. Did they figure out if it was the sound or the meaning?
They tested a few theories. One was the phonological theory, which suggests that the sound of the word itself—that oi sound followed by the st—is unpleasant. But they found that people who hated moist did not have a problem with words like foist or hoist or rejoiced. So, it was not the sound. It was the semantic association.
So it is the meaning. It is the association with bodily functions or damp, dark places.
It is the semantic association with biological fluids and dampness that people find visceral. The study found that the aversion was often linked to a sense of disgust. People who were more easily disgusted by biological things were more likely to hate the word. It is a perfect example of Daniel’s point: the word itself is just a sound, but for twenty percent of people, it triggers a physical reaction because of their internal mapping. It is not just a word; it is a sensory experience.
It is like a linguistic allergy. You are exposed to a certain stimulus, and your brain just overreacts. I wonder if there are regional versions of this. Like, are there words in Hebrew that Daniel hears in Jerusalem that hit him differently because he is coming at them from an English-speaking perspective?
Oh, absolutely. When you move to a new culture, you are often translating the social weight of words from your first language. We talked about this a bit in episode seven hundred ninety nine regarding first-language attrition. Even as you learn a new language, the emotional resonance of your native tongue stays written in permanent ink. You might learn the word for a task in Hebrew, but you are still judging the politeness of that word based on Irish or British standards of etiquette. Hebrew is a very direct language. It is famous for its dugri culture—straight talk.
If you translate that directness literally into English, it sounds incredibly rude to an English speaker.
Right. In Hebrew, you might just say, give me the water. In English, we would say, would you mind passing me the water, please, if it is not too much trouble? To a Hebrew speaker, all those extra words feel like fake fluff. To an English speaker, the direct version feels like a command. This is the heart of Daniel’s struggle. He is navigating these different cultural maps where the same set of words has a completely different elevation.
That sounds exhausting. You are constantly running two different social operating systems in your head, trying to make sure you are not accidentally offending someone or being offended by something that was meant to be neutral.
Dorothy: Herman? Herman, are you there? It is your mother.
Mum? Wait, Mum, I am actually in the middle of recording the show right now. We are right in the middle of a segment.
Dorothy: Oh, I am sorry, bubbeleh. I did not mean to interrupt your little radio program. I just wanted to remind you that I left that vegetable soup by your front door this morning. Don’t let it sit out too long, it will get a film on it. Nobody likes a soup with a film.
Thanks, Mum. I will get it as soon as we are finished. I really need to go now, we are live and the levels are all set.
Hi, Dorothy! The soup sounds delicious! I could go for some soup right now.
Dorothy: Hello, Corn! You look thin in your pictures, you should come over for some soup too. Herman, don't forget the Tupperware. I need that specific one back for the brisket on Friday. The one with the blue lid, not the green one. Okay, I will let you get back to your business. Love you!
Love you too, Mum. Bye. Sorry about that, Corn. She just... she has a knack for timing. Every time I hit the record button, it is like a homing beacon for her.
No worries at all. Honestly, a reminder about soup is the most wholesome interruption we have ever had. And honestly, it kind of fits our topic. The way she calls you bubbeleh—that is a word with a very specific, individualized emotional weight. To me, it sounds sweet. To you, it probably sounds like being five years old again.
It really is. If anyone else called me that, I would probably find it incredibly condescending. It would feel like they were patting me on the head. But from her, it is just... well, it is Mum. It is a term of endearment that carries thirty-some years of history. It is a word that exists in a private language between us.
Which brings us back to the idea of words being grating or condescending. Why do some words feel like a pat on the head? Daniel mentioned how some words can feel like they are talking down to you. I think about the word actually. That is a big one in the modern workplace.
Oh, actually is a classic linguistic elbow. It is what we call a discourse marker. Its primary job isn’t to add meaning to the sentence, but to manage the flow of the conversation and the relationship between the speakers. When you use actually, you are often signaling a correction. But you are doing it in a way that suggests the other person should have known better.
If I say, well, actually, the data shows this, I am not just providing information. I am subtly asserting my intellectual dominance. I am saying, your premise was wrong, and I am the one with the facts. It feels very gatekeeper-y.
It really does. It is a way of framing yourself as the arbiter of truth. Another one that people find grating is the word just. Like, can you just do this? Or, it will just take a minute. It is intended to make the task sound small and easy, but it often feels dismissive of the effort required. It minimizes the other person’s work before they even start it.
It is a word that feels different depending on which side of the power dynamic you are on. The person saying just thinks they are being low-pressure. They think they are being helpful by saying it is not a big deal. But the person hearing it feels like their time and expertise are being undervalued. If it were that easy, why aren't you doing it yourself?
This is where Prototype Theory comes in. It is a theory in cognitive science that suggests we don’t define words by a list of necessary criteria, but by a prototype—an ideal example. When I say the word bird, you probably think of a robin or a sparrow. You probably don’t think of a penguin or an ostrich first, even though they are technically birds. The robin is your prototype.
Right. So my prototype for a professional interaction might involve a lot of polite hedging and indirect language. Your prototype might involve directness and no-nonsense communication.
If we are working together, we are both trying to be professional, but because our prototypes are different, we end up frustrating each other. I think I am being respectful by being indirect, but you think I am being evasive or even condescending by not getting to the point. You think you are being clear, but I think you are being blunt and rude. We are both aiming for the same target, but we are using different maps to get there.
Daniel also mentioned words that feel grating in a corporate sense. I think about jargon a lot here. Words like synergy or bandwidth or deep dive. Why do those feel so offensive to some people? Is it just because they are overused?
I think it is because they feel performative. It is what linguists call semantic bleaching. A word starts with a very specific, powerful meaning, but it gets used so much in a vague way that it loses its color. It becomes a hollow shell. When someone uses a lot of jargon, it can feel like they are hiding behind a mask of professional language rather than communicating authentically. It creates a distance.
If you are looking for a genuine connection and someone hits you with a request for your bandwidth, it feels like they are treating you like a piece of hardware rather than a human being. It goes back to that servitude thing Daniel mentioned. It is dehumanizing in a very subtle, linguistic way. You are not a person with a busy schedule; you are a system with limited resources.
Precisely. And for someone like Daniel, who works in technology communications and AI, he is probably surrounded by this kind of language all day. When your job is to make complex systems understandable, you become very sensitive to when language is being used to obscure rather than reveal. You see the gap between the human experience and the technical description.
I want to go back to the idea of regional differences. Daniel is originally from Ireland but has been in Israel for years. I imagine the way people use English in Israel is very different from how it is used in Dublin or Belfast. We talked about the BiDi battle in episode seven hundred seventy five—mixing right-to-left and left-to-right text. But it is more than just the characters on the screen, isn't it?
It is. It is the entire cultural logic. In Israel, there is a lot of linguistic borrowing. You get these English sentences that are structured like Hebrew sentences. It is sometimes called Hebrish. For example, in Hebrew, the word for invite and order is the same—lehazmin. So an Israeli might say, I invited a pizza, when they mean they ordered a pizza. If you don't know the underlying Hebrew, that sounds strange or even a bit whimsical.
But if you apply that to social interactions, it gets more complicated. If you are translating the social weight of a Hebrew command into English, you might end up sounding much more aggressive than you intend.
When you are living in a multilingual environment, you are constantly performing this mental translation, not just of words, but of intent. You have to ask yourself, is this person being rude, or are they just speaking English with a Hebrew soul? It requires a huge amount of cognitive empathy. You have to constantly adjust your internal dictionary to match the person you are talking to.
So, what about the other side of this? Are there words that are universally liked? Or is everything up for interpretation? Is there any safe ground in language?
There are definitely words that have a high positive valence across the board. Words related to safety, warmth, and food tend to be pretty stable. But even then, personal trauma or history can ruin a perfectly good word for someone. If you had a terrible experience at a bakery, the word cupcake might actually trigger a stress response for you. This is why the dictionary is really just a rough guide. The real meaning is built in the brain of the listener, using the raw materials provided by the speaker.
This really explains why communication is so hard. We are not just using different words; we are using different definitions of the same words. It is like we are all playing a game where everyone has a slightly different rulebook, but no one realizes it until there is a foul.
And this is why Daniel’s prompt is so vital. By acknowledging that language is individualized, we can start to have more empathy in our conversations. Instead of getting angry when someone says something that sounds condescending, we can stop and ask, what is their prototype for this phrase? What is their linguistic history?
It is like we need a personal dictionary for everyone we know. Daniel’s dictionary says having someone do something equals servitude. My dictionary might say it equals delegation. If I know that about Daniel, I can adjust my language to meet him where he is. I can say, would you mind helping with this? instead.
That is the ultimate goal of communication, isn’t it? To bridge the gap between two unique mental worlds. We actually explored how children start to build these mental worlds in episode five hundred sixteen when we looked at language acquisition. They start with these broad, fuzzy categories and slowly refine them based on the feedback they get. But that refinement process never really ends. We are still tweaking our definitions well into adulthood, especially when we move to new places or enter new professions.
I think about how this applies to AI, too. Daniel works in AI and automation. These large language models are essentially trained on the average of all our collective linguistic baggage. They don’t have an individualized history. They are like a giant, statistical mirror of our shared prototypes.
That is a fascinating way to look at it. But the problem is that the average doesn’t actually exist in the real world. Nobody is the average. We are all outliers in our own way. So, when an AI uses a word like actually or just, it is doing so based on a statistical probability, but it might still land poorly on a specific human who has a specific aversion to that word. The AI doesn't have a soul, so it doesn't have the baggage, but it is using words that are dripping with it.
We actually did a whole episode on this—episode six hundred ninety nine—about whether AI can get the joke or understand sarcasm. It is that same issue. Sarcasm relies entirely on the listener knowing that the speaker’s internal state is the opposite of the words they are using. If the words themselves are individualized, sarcasm becomes even harder to navigate. If I don't know your baseline for a word, I can't know when you are being ironic with it.
It really does. Daniel asked for more examples of words that people might interpret differently or find grating. One that always gets me is the word honest.
Honest? How can you hate honest? That seems like a pretty solid, positive word.
It is not the word itself, it is the phrase to be honest or in all honesty. Whenever someone starts a sentence with that, my brain immediately asks, were you lying to me before this? Why do you need to announce your honesty right now? It often feels like a preamble to saying something mean or dismissive. It is a linguistic shield.
Oh, I see that. It is like saying, I am going to say something that might hurt your feelings, but it is okay because I am being honest. It weaponizes the concept of truth to excuse a lack of tact. It is like saying, no offense, right before you say something incredibly offensive.
Another one is the word passionate. In the corporate world, everyone is passionate about everything. We are passionate about supply chain management! We are passionate about cloud infrastructure! It loses its meaning. If you are passionate about everything, you are passionate about nothing. It becomes a hollow word, a piece of linguistic cardboard.
For people who value authentic emotion, hearing that word used to describe a spreadsheet feels almost sacrilegious. It is a linguistic devaluation. I also find the word vibrant can be like that. Especially in urban planning or marketing. They talk about a vibrant neighborhood, which usually just means expensive coffee and high rent. It has become a code word for gentrification in some contexts.
That is a perfect example of a word that has a hidden political and social weight. To a developer, vibrant is a success. To a long-term resident being priced out, vibrant sounds like a threat. The word has been hijacked by a specific agenda.
So, how do we fix this? If language is this fractured and individualized, how do we ever truly understand each other? Is there a way to synchronize our dictionaries?
I don’t think we fix it. I think we just have to get better at navigating it. It starts with curiosity. Instead of assuming you know what someone means, you ask questions. Daniel is doing exactly the right thing by reflecting on why certain phrases bother him. Once you identify your own linguistic triggers, you can communicate them to others.
Like Daniel telling his wife Hannah that he hates the phrase having someone do something. Once it is out in the open, it becomes a point of connection rather than a point of friction. They can laugh about it, and she can choose a different phrase that doesn't trigger that feeling of servitude for him.
And it is about being a generous listener. If someone says something that sounds a bit grating, you try to look past the word to the intent. You assume they are using their prototype, not yours. You give them the benefit of the linguistic doubt.
I think there is also something to be said for expanding our own vocabularies. The more words we have, the more precise we can be, and the less we have to rely on these broad, loaded terms that carry so much baggage. If we can find the exact word for what we mean, there is less room for the ghosts to move in.
Definitely. Precision is the enemy of misunderstanding. But even with the most precise language, there will always be that little bit of static. That is just the human condition. We are all islands, and language is the ferry that travels between us. Sometimes the ferry gets lost in the fog, and sometimes it lands at the wrong dock, but it is the only way we have to reach each other.
That is a very poetic way to put it, Herman. And speaking of docks, we should probably start heading toward the end of this episode before we get lost in any more metaphors. I can almost smell that soup from here.
Good call. I need to go get that soup before it develops a film, anyway. My mother was very clear about the film.
This has been a really deep dive into the world of linguistics. Daniel, thank you so much for this prompt. It really made us think about the way we talk to each other every day and the hidden histories behind our favorite—and least favorite—words.
Yeah, it is a great reminder that even the simplest words have a long history and a complex present. If you are listening and you have a word that you absolutely hate, or a phrase that you interpret differently than everyone else, we want to hear about it. What is your linguistic allergy?
You can reach out to us at show at myweirdprompts dot com. We love hearing your personal linguistic quirks. And if you are enjoying the show, we would really appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. It really does help other people find the show and join the conversation.
It really does. You can find all our past episodes, including the ones we mentioned today about first-language attrition and the BiDi battle, over at myweirdprompts dot com. There is a full archive there and an RSS feed if you want to subscribe. We have over eight hundred episodes now, so there is plenty to dig into.
We are available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and pretty much anywhere else you get your audio fix.
And just a quick reminder that our theme music and all the music you hear on the show is generated with Suno. It is pretty amazing what those tools can do these days, even if they don't quite understand the baggage of the words they are singing.
It really is. Well, Herman, I think that is a wrap for episode eight hundred thirty three. Go get your soup and return that Tupperware. Blue lid, remember?
Blue lid. On it. Thanks for listening, everyone.
See you next time on My Weird Prompts. Goodbye!
Goodbye!
