"What word do you hate and why?" is the intriguing question put to a selection of poets by the Ledbury festival. Philip Wells's reply is the winner for me - 'pulchritude' is certainly up there on my blacklist. He even explains his animosity in suitably poetic terms: “什么詞兒讓你不爽？為什么？” 在萊博里詩會上，我們就這個有趣的問題向一干詩人提問。菲利普?威爾斯的回答我覺得是最絕的——“反正pulchritude（美麗）這個詞肯定在我的黑名單上。” 他說道。他甚至把對這個詞的反感寫成了詩：

"it violates all the magical impulses of balanced onomatopoeic language - it of course means "beautiful", but its meaning is nothing of the sort, being stuffed to the brim with a brutally latinate cudgel of barbaric consonants. If consonants represent riverbanks and vowels the river's flow, this is the word equivalent of the bottomless abyss of dry bones, where demons gather to spit acid." "它，沖散了所有音律的平衡美所帶給人的神奇悸動——誠然，這個詞的本意是‘美’，但這美，卻被拉丁式棍棒一般粗暴的輔音擠到了角落。如果說輔音是河岸，元音是水流，那這個詞仿佛堆滿白骨的無底深淵，魔鬼聚集其中，射出毒液。”

For Geraldine Monk, "it's got to be 'redacted' which makes me feel totally sick. It's a brutish sounding word. It doesn't flow, it prods at you in a nasty manner." 而杰拉丁?默克說：“redacted(校訂)這個詞讓我覺得惡心，這詞聽著很粗魯，很呆滯，就像一個小刺兒，扎得你渾身難受。”

Both these poets understand that the key to words that make you feel nauseous is not the meaning - it's easy, after all, to hate the word 'torture' – but something else entirely. Something idiosyncratic, something about the way the word feels in your mouth as you say it. The horrors of 'membrane', for instance. Or the eccentricity of 'gusset'. 兩個詩人都明白，一個詞能讓你覺得不爽的關鍵，不在于其含義。比如“折磨”這個詞，好像易引人反感，但其實不然。關鍵在一些個人化的感受，就是那種當你口中念出這個詞時的感覺。比如當你念到“membrane(薄膜)”時起的雞皮疙瘩，或念到“gusset(三角片)時候的莫名其妙。”

Having said that, I'm still trying to get my head around Paul Batchelor's explanation that "I've always hated the word 'APPAL' (or 'appalled' or 'appalling') because I dislike hearing the sound of my name inside other words." I can't work out if there's a case of extreme ego or extreme self-hatred going on there. 好了，我的理論說完了。可我還是沒想通Paul Batchelor的解釋：他說，“我一直討厭‘a(chǎn)ppal(驚駭)’這個詞，你看我的名字的發(fā)音是這個詞的一部分，這很煩。” 我不知道Paul是極度鄙視這個詞還是極度鄙視自己。

And I can't help feeling that Ros Barber misses the point with her rather po-faced reply. "Words are to be loved. Their associations may be unpleasant but words themselves are full of poetry (and history, and geography)," she says. "Delicious vowel sounds and tongue-tickling consonants. There isn't a word in the English language that doesn't excite me if I think about it long enough." 我還老覺得Ros Barber頗為一本正經(jīng)的回答沒有抓住問題的關鍵所在。“詞語可都是用來愛的。它們的含義可能讓人不快，但是詞語本身都充滿詩意啊（還充滿歷史意義、地理意義呢）。” 她說道。“美味的元音們和讓舌頭發(fā)癢的輔音們啊，我只要閉上眼睛想一會兒，英語的語言世界里面沒有一個詞不讓我渾身興奮。”

Sorry, Ros, I can't agree. I'm with Rhian Edwards on 'chillax' - "the most unnecessary and obnoxious linguistic blend to have ever been coined". Except possibly for 'no-brainer'... 抱歉，Ros, 不敢茍同您的意見。我贊同Rhian Edward說的詞“chillax(放松)”——“這是個最無聊最討厭的合成詞”。可能“no-brainer(易事)”也得算一個……

Whether it's 'hubby' or 'sassy' or 'webinar' – what are the words that make you wince?是'hubby(丈夫)', 'sassy(野蠻女友)' 還是 'webinar'（網(wǎng)絡會議）？什么詞兒讓你很不爽？

（來源：網(wǎng)絡 英語點津Jennifer編輯）

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