That Urban Dictionary definition entails that “disgust” does imply a moral component or a judgement that something is universally wrong. However, in my experience, it does not. I can easily imagine a little kid, or a grown adult, declaring a given food or smell or sight “disgusting” without having any objection to its existence. (I can, of course, also imagine a news article in which people interviewed describe someone’s immoral behavior as disgusting.) The OED Online describes the word mainly as a visceral reaction and only in passing says it may be brought about by a “disagreeable action”.
Instead of creating a new word for what “disgust” currently means and making “disgust” mean something else, perhaps we should leave “disgust” as it is and come up with a word for “moral revulsion”. Something like “consternation” or “appallment”.
Yeah, it does seem to be phrased such as to imply that.
I can easily imagine a little kid, or a grown adult, declaring a given food or smell or sight “disgusting” without having any objection to its existence. (I can, of course, also imagine a news article in which people interviewed describe someone’s immoral behavior as disgusting.)
So the denotative meaning only very mildly indicates a potential for moral revulsion. But used in certain contexts, it does have heavy (heavier) connotations of moral revulsion. I think it’s useful to have words for both the physical reaction side and for the moral reaction side, but I disagree with the UD definition in that “disgust” can be more of a generic umbrella term.
So… in other words, use “disgusted” when it’s clear, or you mean both. Use “squicked” when it’s unclear, and you want to only imply a physical reaction. And use “appalled” when you want to heavily imply moral reaction.
This is all just speculation and suggestion, but I do still hold that the word is useful.
So… in other words, use “disgusted” when it’s clear, or you mean both. Use “squicked” when it’s unclear, and you want to only imply a physical reaction. And use “appalled” when you want to heavily imply moral reaction.
I’d guess that there is at least one more variation:
Sufficiently bad programming practices (e.g. hard coding “magic numbers” all over the source code)
tends to inspire a feeling with a component of disgust in whoever has to maintain the code…
Does this generalize? E.g. does discovering that part of the structure of a car is dependent on
duct tape lead to similar reactions?
That Urban Dictionary definition entails that “disgust” does imply a moral component or a judgement that something is universally wrong. However, in my experience, it does not. I can easily imagine a little kid, or a grown adult, declaring a given food or smell or sight “disgusting” without having any objection to its existence. (I can, of course, also imagine a news article in which people interviewed describe someone’s immoral behavior as disgusting.) The OED Online describes the word mainly as a visceral reaction and only in passing says it may be brought about by a “disagreeable action”.
Instead of creating a new word for what “disgust” currently means and making “disgust” mean something else, perhaps we should leave “disgust” as it is and come up with a word for “moral revulsion”. Something like “consternation” or “appallment”.
Yeah, it does seem to be phrased such as to imply that.
So the denotative meaning only very mildly indicates a potential for moral revulsion. But used in certain contexts, it does have heavy (heavier) connotations of moral revulsion. I think it’s useful to have words for both the physical reaction side and for the moral reaction side, but I disagree with the UD definition in that “disgust” can be more of a generic umbrella term.
So… in other words, use “disgusted” when it’s clear, or you mean both. Use “squicked” when it’s unclear, and you want to only imply a physical reaction. And use “appalled” when you want to heavily imply moral reaction.
This is all just speculation and suggestion, but I do still hold that the word is useful.
Yes, I think I agree completely.
I’d guess that there is at least one more variation: Sufficiently bad programming practices (e.g. hard coding “magic numbers” all over the source code) tends to inspire a feeling with a component of disgust in whoever has to maintain the code… Does this generalize? E.g. does discovering that part of the structure of a car is dependent on duct tape lead to similar reactions?