“Funicular.” It starts with fun, so it can’t be bad, right? Wrong. That would be like sticking your head in a raging furnace, hoping to see a fern. 
Chances are 80-20 that if something is “-icular” it is going to be nasty. You know what I mean:  cancerous prefixes like “test-” or “mast-” — and manslaughtery ones like “vehi-” [...]

“Squalid” refers to something filthy and repulsively foul — like the living conditions of a cat collector with an affinity for gourmet cheese — but to me it sounds even worse. When I hear the word “squalid” the very sound of the letters makes me think of a “squid” with a “wall” in the middle [...]

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that “suppurate” described the after-effect of a satisfying dinner. A term for how you satisfied, sated, and sedated you feel when you sit on the couch after, say, a Thanksgiving meal, opening your belt. But no: “suppurate” is the fancy word we reserve to describe pustular discharge. [...]

Though you’re likely to drool when you pronounce the word carefully, the term “lugubrious” doesn’t have as much to do with loogies, goo, grubs, or brie as you might assume. “Lugubrious” describes maudlin mourning, exaggerated sorrow, excessive gloominess…or simply the emotional state of mankind in the year 2006. It should be an emo metal band; [...]