What are your favorite words that sound bad but really aren't?

Masticate.

It means “to chew”, but for some reason anyone who hears it spoken hears “Masturbate”.

Also, being a female and trying to tell people I was once a Thespian is a little awkward. People always hear “Lesbian”.

weenis.

It’s your elbow skin!

I tell people I was in a Korn video and they always hear porn video.

@shockvalue: you took mine!

spooge

@soapchef spooge doesnt count. That really is a dirty word

Niggardly.

from Wiki:

There have been several controversies about the word “niggardly”, an adjective meaning “stingy” or “miserly”, in the United States due to the phonetic similarity to the racial slur “nigger”. The two words are, however, completely unrelated.

All Hebrew words.

Spork

‘Shuttle-cock’ or ‘stopcock’. Oh, and ‘spigot’.

Limacine.

Coccyx pronounced Kok-siks
Oral Fixation
Penalize
Titmouse
Kumquat
Rim shot

There are so many more…

Limacine huh! Thats not the exact term I use whene the slimy monstersare eating my garden. We have bannana slugs here in the NW that I have seen enroute (not curled up) up to 6 to 8 inches long.

How about fudge packer. Dirty comment or a clerk putting together an order?

@Cardinal: 8”? Do you have any garden left at all? Are there predators that eat banana slugs?

Geese will eat them, but not in any quanity. The vast majority are in the 1/ 2 to 3 inch range. I ‘harvest’ them with a coffee can and an icepick. Not this year, but have killed up to 200 or 250 inside an 1/2 hou at nightr. Can do this every night for a week or so. They are thicker some years then others. You have to devise ways to keep them out of your garden beds. I have a good method, if interested I can fill you in in the comment area. T

Banal
Humdinger
Limpid

@ skfinkel:

OK, smarty-pants. Normally I’m into Wikipedia, but this is from the OED:

In the later period there is coincidence in form and pronunciation in some regional varieties with NIGGER n. and NEGER n., which may have influenced the development of sense A. 1c (which is only found in forms without a final -d or -t). Indeed some examples given below may belong at these entries; compare Eng. Dial. Dict. s.v. Nigger sb.1 (which records pronunciations with /{shti}/, /{ope}/, /i{lm}/, and /e{lm}/) and Sc. National Dict. s.vv. Neeger, Niggar.

A bit eager to repudiate racism, are we? A bit anxious about things?

@ uber Oh shit, it is? I say that in front of my mother!

@soapchef: check urban dictionary for that one….

I have to agree with meniscus :P

One of mine favorite is naughty…

Aardvark. But that’s probably just me :P

@Vincentt: do you pronounce Van Gogh in Dutch like one huge throat-clearing?

Gail, I don’t think he could hear you. You have to speak to him in his good ear.

@AC:I’m not talking to Vincent Van Choch, but our Dutch friend, ^^ Vincentt.

Thought they were one and the same. You know, the avatar and such.

@AC: It is dangerous to make assumptions from avatars; for example, adorable little Chuckie with a buzz cut, ears sticking out and wearing a plaid shirt leads us to assume what?

He’s just so damn cute, ain’t he?

jocular

miasma

smegma

I took a glassblowing class with a great guy named Wilbur. After all the hard work, sweating in front of the furnaces to produce a piece, the last step of carrying it to the annealer and removing it from the rod for the lnog slow cooling process was the trickiest part. It would often end in disaster with the piece shattering and falling to the floor. When that would happen Wilbur called it “PREMATURE JUBILATION”.

@Gail – Hell yeah :). I’ll see if I can make a recording with my earbuds ;-) Edit: Too bad, won’t work

@AC – you can leave out the “good”, talking to my ear would be nice already ;-)

@Vincentt: It’s OK. I can get a Dutchman pronouncing the Gogh on a google Dutch language site. There is the same sound in both German and Hebrew. Ich and Baruch.

@gail – those sounds are similar to the “ch” at the end of Van Gogh, but I’m quite certain that G at the beginning is a different sound.

@Vincentt: You are right, as far as my Anglicized ear can tell. The examples I used were both final gutterals, or whatever it is called officially.