If IFS and BUTS were pots and pans...

Christmas.
I wince every time I hear the phrase 'Happy Holidays'.

Moist

- how many people does this make wince? 🙂

Originally posted by @shallow-blue
Yes, but that's derived from the previous slang meaning of tinker for a traveler, which was from tinker for the profession. A tinker could indeed, after those previous meanings, be a general ruffian and then a naughty child; what it never was was short for *"little stinker". That's a ridiculous, 2000s style of folk etymology.

Didn't read the "stinker" quote which I presume was a joke.

But I doubt the etymology of tinker (=naughty child) is from the noun
tinker = traveller.

Surely more likely to be from the verb? (to tinker = to mess about)
I'll seek advice from the interweb when I get time.

Originally posted by @shallow-blue... etymology.

I really like that word. It's like everything that any word ever meant, all wrapped up.

Originally posted by @boardreader
Moist

- how many people does this make wince? 🙂

Not where I come from!

Originally posted by @suzianne
Could you explain why "tinker" is considered "offensive"?

See Shallow Blue's answer.

I remember the tinkers from my early childhood, they used to come around the country areas and offer to fix tools and things, and try to sell old stuff at very low prices. Some but not all were gypsies but they all got lumped in together. I never heard the term applied to children except maybe Tinkerbell in Peter Pan.

I was just looking into all this a bit and I've realized that a word that I'd thought was offensive ever since I was a child is, in fact, not considered to be offensive: didicoy.

Originally posted by @kewpie
I remember the tinkers from my early childhood, they used to come around the country areas and offer to fix tools and things, and try to sell old stuff at very low prices. Some but not all were gypsies but they all got lumped in together. I never heard the term applied to children except maybe Tinkerbell in Peter Pan.

I have ONLY heard it applied to children.

I know other meanings of "ttinker" through cryptic crosswords,
but seriously; when did you last hear an adult called a tinker?

Originally posted by @fmf
I was just looking into all this a bit and I've realized that a word that I'd thought was offensive ever since I was a child is, in fact, not considered to be offensive: didicoy.

Is that how it is spelt!? My mum used that all the time for what she called "real" gypsies.
(I think the "unreal" gypsies were the thieves and ruffians)

Originally posted by @boardreader
Moist

- how many people does this make wince? 🙂

It’s association with the vagina is what makes the British wince.
Let’s celebrate the word. It helps make the world go round.

Originally posted by @drewnogal
It’s [the word "moist"] association with the vagina is what makes the British wince.

I hadn't made that association.

But I have now.

Originally posted by @drewnogal
It’s [the word "moist"] association with the vagina is what makes the British wince.

Perhaps British vaginas are a special case.

Originally posted by @drewnogal
It’s [the word "moist"] association with the vagina is what makes the British wince.
Let’s celebrate the word. It helps make the world go round.

Having visualized what you are saying, I'd say you are right.

Originally posted by @drewnogal
It’s [the word "moist"] association with the vagina is what makes the British wince.

Same goes for the words "water-based, water-soluble personal lubricants" such as KY Jelly.