top fiveish: top (bottom?) five least favorite words

5.  anything "ista":  ugh, the trend that needs to die.  it started with "fashionista," and then everyone started picking it up and doing obnoxious things with it.

4.  topping:  this was a recent discovery. i don't mind reading this word, but i can't stand actually hearing it or saying it.  i don't know what it is, exactly, but there's just something about it that makes me vaguely nauseated.

3.  guesstimate:  oh my gosh.  this is not a word.  it has no business being a word.  wherever people use the word "guesstimate," they could be more accurate using either "guess" or "estimate."  but no.  they put in this mutated monstrosity instead.  it makes me twitch a little.  (and while we're at it, let's eliminate the indecisive use of and/or.  sometimes, in legal contexts, it is necessary.  i understand this.  but outside of legal contexts, please just be decisive.  please, don't mash things together.  pick one and go with it.)

2.  cupcake:  this has old roots, going back to the first grade.  every day, we would gather on the carpet in the corner of the classroom where there was a letter chart and my teacher would point to a letter.  (this was done with along stick with a pencil eraser on the end.  i don't know why i remember that.)  we would all say the sound of the letter she pointed to.  whenever she headed in the direction of the K, i would cringe.  the sound she made for K... it was something sticky and cloying and just... ugh.  no.  nonono.  so although i love cupcakes themselves, i loathe word for its overabundance of K sounds. 

1.  blurb:  this word sounds obscene to me.  it's just... gastric.  gastric is the right word, i think.  it sounds like the sound your stomach makes when you've eaten something awful and are about to bow down before the porcelain throne and give up your offering.  "blurb!"  ew.  it's a word i've run into a lot at work, and i'm diligently working to have it obliterated.  i've started referring to the things that were previously called "blurbs" as "bites," and at least one of the new hires has started doing the same, so my plan appears to be working.  mwah ha.  MWAHAHAHAHA.