Reader question:
Please explain this sentence, with “the ick” in particular: This place gives me the ick.
My comments:
This place makes the speaker sick and disgusted.
Perhaps this place is dirty street, teeming with garbage and dilapidated buildings.
Or, if “this place” is a restaurant, the speaker may have had a terrible experience here. Like, for example, he or she once found a housefly in the soup.
They found the fly in the soup just after swallowing the first spoonful.
And they uttered in horror: “Ick.”
They may have thrown up. They may have said to themselves: “I’ll never return to place again.”
Who knows, but all of this could have happened.
For “ick”, you see, is what people say after a revolting experience like finding a fly in the soup.
They literally go: “Ick” or “Eww”.
Hence, by extension and figuratively, any unpleasant experience can give the ick.
“The ick” as an idiom, by the way, is officially in the dictionary, as The Guardian explains (‘The ick’, ‘boop’ and ‘chef’s kiss’ added to Cambridge Dictionary, TheGuardian.com, July 25, 2024):
“The ick” is among the more than 3,200 words, terms and phrases added to the Cambridge Dictionary so far this year.
Meaning “a sudden feeling that you dislike someone or something or are no longer attracted to someone because of something they do”, the term has gained prominence online in recent years after being used on reality show Love Island.
Usage examples given by the dictionary include: “I used to like Kevin, but when I saw him in that suit it gave me the ick”, and “If you suddenly feel repulsed by someone you’re dating, that’s the ick talking”.
So, again, anything repulsive can give people the ick, especially on the dating scene.
Just so you know.
All right, here are recent media examples of people or things that give the ick:
1. Public birthday wishes are a tricky art. Some are cute! Others give the ick. But on the 54th birthday of Melania Trump, a new entry into the canon of birthday messages has emerged – and it defies neat categorization.
“I want to start by wishing my wife Melania a very happy birthday,” Donald Trump told reporters on Friday. “It would be nice to be with her but I’m at a courthouse for a rigged trial.”
Trump is correct in that he is legally restricted from being anywhere but the Manhattan courthouse where he faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to an alleged affair he had with adult film star, Stormy Daniels. The trial, however, is not rigged and is instead the direct result of an alleged extramarital relationship, which reportedly involved spanking and hours of watching Shark Week together, carried out just months after Melania had given birth.
So how does Melania feel about her name being invoked this morning before dozens of cameras, especially for a birthday message that mostly served as a template to rail against prosecutors? The former first lady remains largely sequestered in Mar-a-Lago and has not accompanied her husband at his many court appearances (nor has any Trump family member for that matter). So I doubt we’ll hear from her.
As Trump’s lawyers argue, rather needlessly and hazardously, that Trump never had sex with Daniels or the other two women allegedly involved in potential cover-up payments, Melania’s silence should not be lost on any of us. I interpret it as the only sensible response to the humiliation of marrying Donald J. Trump.
- Trump’s Happy Birthday Message for Melania Is a Gift for His Haters, by Inae Oh, MotherJones.com, April 26, 2024.
2. Moist. Phlegm. Ooze. To most people, they’re just words. But for some, the mere thought of them makes them shudder. But what is it about certain words that gives us the ick?
Word aversion refers to the visceral, irrational disgust that we feel when we hear, or even see, a particular word, like nails screeching down a chalkboard.
University of Pennsylvania linguistics professor Mark Liberman defined the concept as “a feeling of intense, irrational distaste for the sound or sight of a particular word or phrase, not because its use is regarded as etymologically or logically or grammatically wrong, but simply because the word itself somehow feels unpleasant”.
“Moist” is a prime example, but a New York Times survey found other icky words include “slacks,” “loin” and “panties”.
While certain words trigger us because of the things they refer to (i.e. phlegm), our disgust in others is directed at the word itself. These words aren't offensive or taboo semantically, yet they evoke an almost primal response in certain people.
But why?
Neuroscientist David Eagleman suggests that the sound of the word may be a factor.
“There appears to be this relationship between phonological probability and aversion,” said Eagleman. “In other words, something that is improbable, something that doesn’t sound like it should belong in your language, has this emotional reaction that goes along with it.”
Another thing that cannot be ignored is social contagion, which was mentioned in a 2016 study published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Pop culture is full of jokes about people hating the word “moist.” This likely explains why so many people continue to recoil from it.
Linguistics professor, Jason Riggle explained to Slate: “Given that, as far back as the aughts, there were comedians making jokes about hating [moist], people who were maybe prone to have that kind of reaction to one of these words, surely have had it pointed out to them that it’s an icky word.
“So, to what extent is it really some sort of innate expression that is independently arrived at, and to what extent is it sort of socially transmitted? Disgust is really a very social emotion.”
- If you hate words like “moist” there’s actually a scientific reason behind it, UNILAD.com, September 15, 2023.
3. Women have revealed which pet names have turned them off love interests at the beginning stages of a romance.
The dating discussion was sparked after a singleton took to Reddit to ask people on the web if her new man was exhibiting a “red flag”.
In a thread titled, Hinge Stories, the unnamed woman revealed she had matched with a man and they had been chatting for three days.
While things were going well, the woman wanted to hit the brakes after he began referring to her as “darling and hun”.
She admitted that the nicknames gave her the “ick” as other single women flocked to the social media site to share the monikers that make them want to end a romance for good.
The post was titled: “Is it a red flag when a guy calls you ‘darling or hun’ and you have not met yet?”
She explained: “Started messaging with this guy on Hinge like three days ago. He seems nice and he said he is looking for something long term and so am I.
“However, I feel [like] he asked some odd questions right away like: ‘Do I have a car?’ and ‘Do I live with my parents?’ before asking me things about myself.
‘Today, he randomly started calling me “hun and darling” but I don’t even know him well. [Is it a] red flag? It’s kind of giving me the ick.”
In the comments section, the Reddit user clarified that because it is “so early on”, she was “weirded out.”
Many women flocked to the post and shared their own thoughts, with singletons sharing that it seemed like a pretense to “love bombing.”
“It gives me the ick too,” said one person.
- Women reveal the pet names that give them the “ick” at the beginning of a relationship, DailyMail.co.uk, October 16, 2024.
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About the author:
Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.
（作者：张欣）
