Phlegm. Mucus. Secrete. Why do we hate certain words?

On Twitter I asked, "What word do you hate?"

127 people chimed in. Marinate. Onboarding. Skeeves, a few said. (Jerks.)

Some people veered into the political lane. (Trump. Libtards.)

But the runaway unfavorite...? Moist.

Zero surprise there: We live in a world where more than 3,000 people like the shouty-capped Facebook page/support group "I HATE the word MOIST!"

Conversations like this are easy to have, because so many of us have a strong opinion based solely on gut and emotion.

Gut and emotion. The same thing driving someone's answer to whether a 4th of July hot dog is a sandwich. Or whether Pumpkin Spice potato chips really is taking things too far.

And discussions about politics in America. Or soccer anywhere except America.

Which words make your skin crawl...? That's a layup, from a gut/opinion point of view.

But I like those conversations for another reason.

The past few weeks I've been working my way through David Sedaris's new book of essays, Calypso, like it's a pint of my favorite Ben & Jerry's and I have acute lactose intolerance.

I want to inhale the whole thing in one sitting—I totally could. I just know I'd regret it. I'd miss it so much when it's gone.

So I savor it, one spoonful of story at a time—carrying it from airplane to airplane, from Boston to Bruges to Edinburgh to Mexico City and back home to Boston.

I like David Sedaris's stories. But more than that, I love his voice. Or more specifically, I love his word choice.

I've talked before about how specificity is the key to vivid writing.

How cardigan is funnier than sweater. How minivan is more descriptive than car. How Ben & Jerry's is more specific than ice cream.

And reading Sedaris, I'm reminded how well he finds the perfect word to not just describe an action or activity—but to evoke a feeling. And what's more: how the quirky surprise of his word choice conveys tone of voice.

In an essay on being short: "I've been called 'elfin,' as if I sleep in a teacup."

His dad at the beach: "Surrounded by his toast-colored wife and children, he admitted that this really wasn't so bad."

On his boyfriend's mother: "Joan is 83 now, pale as a lightbulb...."

Teacup. Toast-colored. Pale as a lightbulb. All three are livelier ways of describing Small. Suntanned. White and fragile.

The quirky surprise comes in how he uses the ordinary in a surprising way: Toast isn't surprising. But describing skin as "toasted"—like a rotisserie chicken, or a mashmallow, or... well, toast—is a surprising way to describe a summer tan, isn't it?

Teacup. Toast. Lightbulb are tells. Clues that those sentences belong to Sedaris. I could find an single, errant Sedaris sentence wandering around on its own—segregated from the other sentences, uncoupled from his byline—and still I'd know who to send it home to. I'd recognize his quirky word choice anywhere.

Back to moist. Why do I love the conversation about words we hate?

Because it underscores that the words are evocative. They're visceral. They're nuanced and complicated. Words are power travelers who packed lots of emotion and baggage—freight that doesn't easily fit in an overhead bin space.

From a writer's point of view, that makes them hugely valuable.

Look at the words in your own writing. Consider how the choices you make can help you convey your own tone of voice.

What words would make your writing richer, more evocative, more powerful—well... (wait for it...) more moist?

* * *

Here are 8 things worth sharing this week, loosely themed around fun with words!

Andy Crestodina gives you 9 considerations to nail the perfect social media profile pic, with do-this-not-that examples.

Actually, he writes more than I thought possible about the topic, which is why I'm sharing it and its gloooooorious comprehensiveness here.

PhotoFeeler is basically a focus group of strangers who will stare at your face and help you pick your perfect profile pic for LinkedIn or Twitter or even dating apps like Tinder or Dig, an app designed specifically for dog people seeking same. (Dig is launching in Boston this week, because as everyone knows... Dog People cannot successfully date anyone except other Dog People.)

Andy mentioned PhotoFeeler, because you want to lead with your best you. There's a free version. Or you can pay a few bucks and get results faster: I paid $9 to get some data (below) on which of the two headshots I frequently use make me look more like Kim Kardashian.

Data-driven takeaway: Jacket all day long.

Side note: I wondered whether it was weird to pay to have strangers judge my face. I decided it's probably more honest than asking Facebook. Test your own headshot.

The most effective marketing writers are writers first, and marketers second. They also use "talk," not "converse," because social media has ushered in a looser, more conversational language. And word choice can help you convey that kind of human accessibility.

Thanks to Ragan for publishing this post from SmartBug with "5 Writing Tips for Marketers," based in part on a recent talk I gave. Read my five tips.

Novelist (and Maine resident!) Kate Christensen offers a recipe for the "perfect storm" in a novel. But, really, it's a template for any kind of story that hinges on pain or conflict, even in business. (Especially in a business.)

The first ingredient: selecting "a setting with a closed social system." She throws out ideas—an army battalion stationed in a war zone, a boarding school on an island in Maine. But what about your industry or business, with its own ecosystem and rules? And your own business, with the solutions it offers to customer problems? Consider Kate's recipe a kind of framework to craft your own brand story.

My favorite ingredient in this list? Point of view.

Read the full recipe. YUM.

This piece from Adweek picks up similar themes, in a straight-up business context: "Why do so many brands botch their storytelling?" asks Badoo CMO Gastón Tourn.

You know who wouldn't botch it? Ernest Hemingway.

Tourn sums up five tips marketers can steal from Papa to improve their storytelling strategy.

My favorite (because we are talking about words in this issue):

Get yourself sorted here.

Writers: Here's a handy graphic on how to make a decent living as a writer.

Marketers-who-hire-writers: The same infographic will give you a sense of how much a decent staff or freelance writer will cost. Infographic here.

Robo Sharing

Last week I did a webinar with Lately, hosted by the amazing Kate Bradley Chernis. Kate showed me Lately's Automatic Social Post Generator, a free tool that instantly turns blog posts or newsletters into social posts.

I experimented by inputing the URL of last week's newsletter, and .4 seconds later it suggested 27 social posts from that single issue. Not all of them felt totally like me... if you know what I mean. But the Generator also served up many that were solid, and that I mightn't have thought of. Or thought of as quickly.

I'm a skeptic of any kind of robo-writing tool. But this one is worth a look. Give the Automatic Social Post Generator a try.

I've been writing and thinking a lot about what I call Slow Moments: slowing down at the right moments for long-term success. This piece by Helen Tupper perfectly mirrors my thinking about finding those Slow Moments.

Consider slowing down at these three key times, Helen says: 1) When you start up, 2) when you meet up, and 3) when you finish up.

Start. Meet. Finish. BOOM. I love the simplicity of it. Read more here.

The View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman

I love nonfiction essays anyway, and this collection of random speeches, articles, and essays is eclectic, surprising, fun. It will especially interest anyone who crafts speeches or talks. And, of course, it'll interest you if you're a fan of Gaiman's American Gods... or any of his work, really.

The Tall Lady with the Iceberg by Anne Miller

Anne sent me her book because she knows how I love a good metaphor. In it, she dissects the power of metaphors to sell, persuade, and explain anything to anyone.

The best kind of marketing doesn't take itself too seriously. From BarkBox: An Open Letter from a Corgi to the People Who Laugh at His Butt.