Cringe words: Britain's most hated phrases are likely to make you a social outcast

In the study, a fifth of people claimed that their opinion of a person deteriorates after they used a so called ‘cringe word.’ So, watch out ... you could have a few less friends if you ever use the word ‘amazeballs’ in a conversation.

According to this research, totes, bae, holibobs and no problemo are others that are part of the ‘forbidden list of words/phrases’. Neuroscientist Dr Rachel Taylor said: "If someone uses a word that we find embarrassing, as humans, we instinctively want to distance ourselves from them - hence the cringe, which can be seen as physically making ourselves smaller.’’

While I’m not denying that these words make my skin crawl, I must admit that they are actually alien to me as they are very infrequently uttered in my circle. If anyone did dare to say any of these words, I wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that they’d be socially ostracised. I have to say, I have once let slip a ‘no problemo’ and received a few dirty looks in response.

This topic was also raised by lexicographer Susie Dent - who is best known for presenting Catchphrase - this year on X, formerly Twitter. The conversation received a vast amount of attention with Downtown Abbey star Hugh Bonneville even chipping in, saying that he hates the phrase ‘at the end of the day’. So, out of curiosity, I also asked around, finding out what everyone’s least favourite word was and received a range of random answers. They ranged from moist to mucus, brain-dump, leng, bougie, and of course the controversial ‘like’, when it’s placed between every other word.

Yet language is a very personal thing; there’s not an objective list of do’s and don’ts. In college, I hear the words ‘slay’ or ‘queen’ on a daily loop. While this is normal for me, they’re absolute gibberish to older generations ... so can we really be in a place to judge when word choices depend on a range of different social and cultural factors? The theory of cultural relativism supports this, explaining that we ourselves aren’t in the position to judge what is right or wrong. I’d say it’s fascinating that a couple words ignite so many emotions and one of the great things about language.

There are a range of reasons for our dislike of words, perhaps it’s the euphemistic connotations that spring to mind, or it could simply be because it’s uncool (definitely not ‘coolio’, which is also part of the list). Some are just downright cringy. The great thing about language though is that it’s ephemeral, and ever changing, so even though these words currently stimulate heated debates on the internet, soon they may completely disappear from our language (hopefully moist first).

But for now, when asked how your holiday went, please remember not to say ‘my holibobs were amazeballs thanks, Bae’.