Why Do We Hate Certain Words?

The curious phenomenon of word aversion.

Jason Riggle, a professor in the department of linguistics at the University of Chicago, says word aversions are similar to phobias. “If there is a single central hallmark to this, it’s probably that it’s a more visceral response,” he says. “The [words] evoke nausea and disgust rather than, say, annoyance or moral outrage. And the disgust response is triggered because the word evokes a highly specific and somewhat unusual association with imagery or a scenario that people would typically find disgusting—but don’t typically associate with the word.” These aversions, Riggle adds, don’t seem to be elicited solely by specific letter combinations or word characteristics. “If we collected enough of [these words], it might be the case that the words that fall in this category have some properties in common,” he says. “But it’s not the case that words with those properties in common always fall in the category.”   

Is there anything wrong with eating visibly bruised produce?

Not necessarily. A bruise is an indicator of cellular damage. When you ding an apple or a banana, it can compromise the ability of the skin or the peel to keep oxygen away from the fruit, and oxygen breaks down the cellular walls and membranes. When the chemicals within the fruit become oxidized by enzymes like polyphenoloxidase, the reaction causes an unappealing brown color. There’s no evidence, however, that oxidized fruit is bad for you. Nor is a bruise necessarily indicative of an infection. If you want to cut the bruised portion of your fruit away for aesthetic reasons, by all means do so. There are also plenty of ways to cover up the mushy consistency of bruised fruit—homesteaders turn their bruised fruits into pies, juice, jams, or fruit leathers. But if you can’t be bothered to trim your bruised banana or bake it into bread, there’s little risk to your health in just eating it.

There is a caveat: Bruising makes a piece of fruit more susceptible to infection. As the cell walls break down, nutrients leak into the open, inviting colonization by microbes already present on the surface of the fruit or in the air. As they feed on the fruit’s exposed innards, the cells multiply rapidly. It’s possible for damaged fruit to grow some of the more notorious varieties of food-borne pathogens, such as salmonella or E. coli, but garden-variety yeasts and molds are far more common. Yeasts are of minimal concern—inoculating fruit with yeasts gives us such delights as wine and cider—but molds can be dangerous. Some species of mold release mycotoxins, which can cause a variety of human illnesses. (The most notorious mycotoxin, known as aflatoxin, is a potent carcinogen that grows on milk, cheese, nuts, and grains.) If your bruised fruit has so much fungal activity that you can see or smell it, don’t eat it. In addition to bruised areas, you should check the area around the fruit’s stem for mold, which is an entry point for opportunistic microbes. Food safety experts have a saying: If in doubt, throw it out. Healthy adults often take their chances and get away with it, but this advice is especially important for small children or the elderly.

If your bruised fruit has visible microbial growth, is it still safe to eat the nondamaged portion? It depends on the fruit. The question is whether the roots of the mold have penetrated the food. It’s difficult for mold to grow deep into firm fruits. So feel free to cut away the moldy portion of a bell pepper—yes, bell peppers are a fruit—and eat the remainder. Bananas, on the other hand, are too soft to repel a mold invasion, so a banana with a bruised, moldy spot should be tossed.

Why spelunking is the next best thing to outer space.

Andrew Feustel was chosen as a NASA Mission Specialist in 2000. He was on the final space-shuttle mission to the Hubble Telescope in 2009. In 2011, he went on the penultimate shuttle mission to the International Space Station, clocking up four spacewalks. He has a Ph.D. in geology from Queens University in Ontario, Canada, and restores cars in his spare time.

I would like to go spelunking!

Some gut bacteria produce lactase, which can can compensate for a natural lack of the enzyme. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB)—found in some yogurts—is an example. This may be one reason why people who can’t tolerate milk sometimes have no symptoms when eating yogurt. However, there may be other factors—such as intestinal transit time—involved as well.

So, what can you do to turn lactose intolerance into lactose tolerance?
Well, if you are among those lucky enough to have the lactase-persistence genes, then keeping your gut healthy is a good idea. If you aren’t lactase-persistent, then your options are more limited. You could try taking probiotic bacteria dietary supplements, or eating probiotic yogurt, but it’s unclear whether or not these measures work.

I love my yogurt!

People think I’m weird because I like Chessmen. But they’re my favorite cookies, and I defend them with vigor whenever I encounter a Milano-lover who wants to fight me about it.

Invariably, the complaint about Chessmen is that they’re “boring.” But frankly, if you’re bored by these handsome, buttery things, it says more about you than it does about the cookie. And if it’s Milanos you prefer, consider that Milanos are basically everyone’s favorite Pepperidge Farm cookie. It’s like saying your favorite band is The Beatles.

A few months ago, a friend said to me, with disconcerting severity, “There’s something perverse about enjoying such a boring cookie.” I was moved to wonder: Is there something perverse about me? What kind of person am I, and how am I different from people who prefer, say,Veronas or Genevas?

It was then that I decided to sample every cookie in the Pepperidge Farm family and figure out what was what. I would try to understand what made each cookie special and seductive—and what it might mean to be drawn to one of them more than another.

[…]

The Pepperidge Farm people have some sense of the dilemmas their products present. In the 1980s, they aired a TV commercial in which a charming old spokesman, played for decades by the late radio actor Parker Fennelly, is preparing a tray of cookies for a small party. He goes through his guest list: Charlie likes Milanos, Terrence likes Bordeaux, and Gladys likes Genevas. “Pepperidge Farm Distinctive Cookies inspire fierce loyalty,” he says. “Everybody thinks their favorite is the best. They’re right.”

In my experience, people tend to have the strongest, most personal feelings about what we might call Pepperidge Farm’s classics: the dainty, proudly idiosyncratic ones that are packaged in slender bags and named for European locales. By contrast, the bigger, more generic varieties—the round and chunky cookies that come in the squat bags and are named after American vacation spots, like Nantucket and Maui—are more straightforward in terms of their appeal: A cookie-lover who’s into oatmeal raisin is definitely going to like Santa Cruz, and that’s pretty much all there is to say about that. On the other hand, a person who loves Montieris—the mellow, dense fruit tarts dusted with powdered sugar and built like tiny little pies—is going to have to dig a bit deeper in order to explain his preference….

Hahaha!

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that Ernest Hemingway may have produced as many as 47 endings to his midcareer masterpiece, A Farewell to Arms. The so-called “Nada Ending,” for instance, which is No. 1:‘That is all there is to the story. Catherine died and you will die and I will die and that is all I can promise you.’ ” And the “Live-Baby Ending,” No. 7: “There is no end except death and birth is the only beginning.’ ”

In the wake of this report, scholars and family members of F. Scott Fitzgerald dropped a second bombshell on the literary world, revealing no fewer than 47 alternate endings to the Jazz Age master’s own chef d’oeuvre, The Great Gatsby. The recent discovery brings the grand total number of Gatsby endings to 48—or, as one Fitzgerald expert put it, “one more ending than Hemingway, a lazy man and lesser talent, ever wrote.” Slatemanaged to acquire all 47 of Fitzgerald’s foiled attempts; the endings, unaltered, are reproduced below.