What does your least favourite word say about you?

Your least favourite word can be illuminating in surprising ways.  Here’s how.

Just after I started working for myself, I was asked if I’d like to be part of an ‘Enterprise Day’ at a nearby school.

The idea was that local businesspeople would talk to the kids about what it’s like to be a local businessperson.  Hopefully, we’d inspire them to want to be local businesspeople, too!

“Do you know any famous people?”

Of course, the kids weren’t that interested in what any of us did; not unless we did it with famous people they’d heard of, or it made obscene amounts of money.

“I like learning about new people, and writing helps me do that,” I mentioned wanly to one particularly impassive group.  When I finished, I asked if anyone had questions.  One boy fixed me with a rigid, Paxman-esque stare.  “You said you like learning about new people, but you didn’t even ask me what my name is,” he said.

(I think he’ll go far).

Work back from hate

We were also asked to speak to the kids about their favourite lessons.  What did they love learning about, and how did they think they might turn it into a career?

While I gave this a good old go, asking the kids what they didn’t like garnered a much more visceral response.  Strangely, it’s often easier to articulate the things we don’t like or want, rather than those we do.

I’ve taken this approach into my writing work, in that I ask new clients which words they don’t like or find annoying.  There’s a good reason for this: if you don’t like a word, you won’t use it – but if you don’t use it, I won’t know you don’t like it!

But I need to know, if I’m going to write as you.

Complain and explain

Talking about something you don’t like can also be a Very Good Way of discovering what you do.

For example, one girl at that school spat that she absolutely HATED maths.  She hadn’t known what to say when I asked her what she liked, but on drilling deeper into her hatred of maths it turned out that she preferred stories to sums.  “I like using my mind to make things up,” she said.

Bingo.

I often use my clients’ most disliked words as a starting-point for how they most want to come across in writing, since understandably, many don’t know straight away.  If you don’t like the word “serendipity” then you may not want your copy sprinkled with fanciful adjectives.  But you might not have realised that until you were asked.

“I hate the word ‘stunning’”, said one potential client.  “It’s supposed to be a compliment but it just sounds like you’re paralysing people.  In a bad way.”

Noted.

Go on then, what’s YOUR least favourite word?

Me first.

One of mine is “empower”.  As a woman, I’m aware I’m not supposed to say that: “empower” is a mainstay of women’s websites and groups everywhere.

But my problem with “empower” is that it does a roundabout job of getting to the point.  Why say “I felt empowered to tie my shoelaces,” for example, when you could just say “I tied my shoelaces”?  The “empower” part is implied: if you didn’t feel empowered to tie your shoelaces, you wouldn’t have tied them in the first place.

(I had to stop myself from going into a fuller-on rant there, which sort-of proves my point, because I can’t think of any ‘favourite’ words off the top of my head.

Even if I did, I know I wouldn’t have had as much to say about them).

My dislike of “empower”, I think, shows that I like clear, straightforward prose that entertains but doesn’t waffle.  I certainly try to write that way myself.

So if there is one, the moral of this story is that if you’re struggling to think of something you like, start with what you don’t and work back from there.

Meanwhile, if you fancy a chat about your least favourite words and what they might say about you, send me an email or book a friendly chat here.