双语阅读：为何我们讨厌潮湿这个词

其实外国人也很讨厌“潮湿(moist)”这个词呢，讨厌潮湿的心情中外皆是，但是为什么我们都这么讨厌“潮湿”呢?一起来一探究竟吧!

A lot of people don’t like the word “moist.” Several Facebook groups are dedicated to it, one with over 3,000 likes, New Yorker readers overwhelmingly selected it as the word to eliminate from the dictionary, and Jimmy Fallon sarcastically thanked it for being the worst word in the English language. When you ask people why this might be, there is no shortage of armchair theory: that there’s something about the sounds involved, that it puts your face in a position similar to the facial expression of disgust, or that it reminds people of mold or sex.

Psychologist Paul Thibodeau and his colleagues ran a recent study to sort it out. They gave participants a set of words and asked them to rate how, whether, and to what degree, each word made them uncomfortable.

很多人不喜欢“潮湿”这个词。脸书的几个团队对这个词做了专门研究，3000多人喜欢这个词，《纽约客》的绝大多数读者选择把它从字典中移除，吉米·法伦讽刺这个词是英语中最烂的词。当你问及人们原因时，不乏一堆“纸上谈兵”式的理由：这个词的发音就让你听起来一脸嫌弃，这个词还让人们联想到霉菌或性。

心理学家保罗·锡伯杜和他的同事针对这个词做了一项最新研究。他们给参与者列出一组单词，并要求他们对这组单词进行评估：每个词是否让他们感到不舒服了，不舒服到何种程度。

Twenty-one percent of the people in the study had an aversion to the unloved word. It turns out that the sounds don’t have much to do with that effect. Similar-sounding words, such as “foist,” did not generate the same reaction.

研究中21%的人对这个遭人嫌弃词有厌恶感。事实证明这个词的发音和厌恶感没什么太大关联。发音类似的词，像“蒙骗(foist)”这个词并没有产生同样的反应。

So what about the meaning? Well, people found “moist” most aversive when it follows an unrelated, pleasant word, such as “paradise.” There seems to be a contrast effect going on here.“Moist” also didn’t seem so unpleasant when it followed words related to food, such as “cake.”

那么意思方面呢?嗯，人们发现“潮湿”这个词与一个毫不相干的、有讨喜的褒义词搭配出现时最讨厌，比如“天堂”。这里似乎产生了对比效果。“潮湿”这个词搭配食物事也很糟，像“蛋糕(cake)”。

Further analysis showed that “moist”-averse people also tend to dislike related words, such as “damp” and “wet,” showing further support for the idea that it’s the meaning, not the sound. “Moist”-averse people also tended to have more general disgust reactions to bodily functions, suggesting that it’s the connotations with bodily functions and sex that sets people off.

经进一步的分析表明大家对“潮湿”这类相关词汇像“潮湿的(damp)”和“湿(wet)”这些词也有反感倾向，进一步大家反感是这个“含义”而不是发音。厌烦“湿润”这个词的人一般也比较讨厌身体机能的这一反应，暗示这个词把身体机能和性联系起来了。