Author: Sue Young

Apparently, some people don’t like the word moist. I think damp is a worse word with more negative connotations, conjuring images of ruined blackened walls, fungus, mould and spores that lead to ill health, suffering and eventual death.

I don’t know why some people don’t like the word moist. Maybe they connect it to the word sweaty, or areas of the body that may be overheated, but even in that case, moist is better than drenched or wet or sweaty, smelly, sticky or stinky. I don’t particularly like the word sweaty but I think all words are good. They all describe. Sweaty is descriptive, it’s powerful, it’s evocative but why would it be preferable to moist? Sweaty cake or moist cake? Sweaty soil or moist soil? There’s no competition. Moist is not too wet, it’s not too dry, it’s the goldilocks of H20.

I’m at a loss to understand what is so bad about the word moist. It even sounds good phonetically. A soft velvety sound, relativelty easy to spell, looks good, sounds good.

In the seventies and eighties, when I was growing up, the word moist didn’t seem to be a problem. I discovered that a lot of women shudder at the word moist. I don’t understand why that is. There are many other words that would make you shudder. What I learned lately is the amount of men who don’t like it either. If people can’t bring themselves to like the word, perhaps they could appreciate the positive connotations of it in some circumstances. Moistness can be a help and not a hindrance and in this world where things are either too wet or too dry, it can be a boon to life.

When I think of moist, I think of moist soil. A plant with moist soil is a plant that has watered soil which will make a very happy plant that will thrive and grow. Also, when I think of the word moist, I think of moist cake. There’s nothing more delicious than a moist cake. There’s nothing worse than a dry cake that should be moist, yet no-one falls over into a dead faint at the word dry. Dry cake, skin, or soil, does not have so much of a future as moist cake, skin or soil. So as far as I’m concerned, moist is a great word.