There are a small number of words that I just hate. It’s not that I hate the ideas behind these words, which I guess is the most important part of the word. What they represent is another matter entirely. Before I even get to my point, take an interesting word like ‘nigger’ (this is where I get burned at the stake, or crucified, or rocks thrown at me). Regardless of how it is used and what it means, it is a fine English word. It fits into English almost to a ‘T.’ It is iambic, and has a duplicated middle consonant that defines its pronunciation very well. I’m serious here, though. I feel I have to choose a word with an objectionable idea behind it to illustrate what I’m talking about.

Now that we’ve defined what I’m not talking about here, let’s move to the meat of things, eh? Words that I hate. The words themselves. These words don’t follow the rules, and flaunt their genitalia in my face. Fuck you, words.

• Goodly

This little bastard comes along and reminds us of the whole “good, better, best” routine in grade-school and shits on it. Why not use the word “good?” Hell, restructure the sentence so as to use “well” in there so you can sound like a regular English speaker instead of sounding like a prick by saying “goodly.”

• Monies

Conceptually, all I have to say is “what.” No question mark; just an incredulous “what.” This one is simple, people. Now, I understand if you take an envelope of money from Jack, and another envelope of money from Jill, you technically have everyone’s “monies,” but I don’t buy it. It’s all just “money.”

• Onomatopoeia

Stop it. Just… stop it.

• Any word with an “ough” in it

I was clued into this one fairly recently by a coworker of mine, Rich. Think about all the words you know with “ough” in it. Here’s a horrible example to illustrate the frustrating nature of this little shit:

A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.

Now do you share my hatred? I think you do. If you don’t quite understand, say it out loud. I’m not English, so I don’t have the foggiest idea of a way to pronounce “hiccoughed.” I know what a “hiccup” is, which is what this word means. My spell checker doesn’t even recognize it. I’ll attempt to phonetically translate here:

A ruff-coated, doe-faced, thottful plowman strode thru the streets of scarbor-row; after falling into a sluff, he coffed and hic… fuck.

I think I got close. What do you think?

I think that’s all I’ll rant about for now. I’ll get angry again in the future, I’m sure. I always do. Until next time, same Bat-channel, some random time.