Oxford Dictionaries' 'least favorite word' campaign backfired terribly

Oxford dictionary.
(Image credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)

On Thursday, Oxford Dictionaries launched #OneWordMap, an online survey asking readers to submit their least favorite word in the English language, along with their age, location, and gender. "Moist" was an early frontrunner in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, while "phlegm" took the lead in New Zealand.

Just one day later, though, the whole project has been shut down after answers turned wildly, predictably offensive. "We regret to inform users that due to severe misuse we have had to remove this feature from our website," Oxford Dictionaries said in a brief statement on the now-shuttered project page.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.