Another word about THAT word, now with added science!

Remember back around Festivus a year or so ago when I posted a rant wondering about this nonsense that everyone seems to freak out about the word “moist”? Well, as it turns out, my little reaction post was nothing in the grand scheme of thing. Because why just write meaningless blog posts about stuff when, instead, someone can pay good money to actually conduct a scientific research study about it.

Here’s an article from Gizmodo that tipped me off to the study, and here’s a link to the actual study itself, published by PLOS One.

Just let that sink in for a second. Someone – or, well, probably someones, plural – paid good, actual legal tender that could have been put toward useful, productive things, like alternative energy or desalinating water or replacing Zach Snyder with a new executive producer that might at least try to make DC movies that don’t suck or, hell, buffalo wings and beer, to solve the great conundrum of The New Millennium: Why, scientifically, don’t people like the word moist?

Look, I’m as big a fan of science as the next nerd, but was this really a question begging for a documentable answer?

Sounds to me like some yahoo somewhere had a life lacking clear direction and/or a balance sheet short of tax deductions. But, hey, at least now we can all rest easy knowing that anytime the topic of “moist” comes up, we’ll all be able to say, “people don’t like that word at all. Because, Science!”

I, for one, am greatly relieved.

Pud’n