On Mon, 25 Nov 2002, Matthew Hunter wrote: #> At 12:02 11/25/2002 -0500, Casey Rousseau wrote: #> Donaldson just turns on my squick sensor. # ^^^^^^ # #You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think #it means. As a matter of fact, the people I know who actually use that word, and >from whose use I learned it, use it in a way very close to Casey's use, which the definition on that website (which I have seen before) has almost nothing to do with. To the best of my knowledge, "squick", in the usage of people who USE the word, as opposed to inventing oddball definitions for words they don't use (cf. _The Meaning of Liff_, Douglas Adams & somebody else), is an experiencer-as-object verb meaning approximately 'disgust, nauseate; turn off or repel (i.e., cause [someone] to feel turned off or repelled]'. By "experiencer-as-object" I mean that the syntax is like that of "disgust" rather than "hate": That squicks me. GRAMMATICAL That disgusts me. " I hate that. " I squick that. UNGRAMMATICAL Its original sense *may* have been restricted to sexual practices and related subjects: 1. made-up example: You can do that with your other friends if you like, but not with me. It squicks me. 2. real example: KNOCK KNOCK (voices from inside): Who is it? And are they squicked by nudity? (voice from peephole): Oh, it's [name]. (visitor): No, it doesn't squick me. The word is also used in contexts without sexual reference, which *may* be an expansion of its domain. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel