Mention it at your next BBQ and watch the women go berserk. Ironically, ‘panties’ is not a popular word among those of us who wear them.

I always thought it was just me who felt this way until a friend had a particularly traumatic incident during an annual mole check at her local skin cancer clinic. She called me from the car on the way home for an urgent debrief – as girls do in such circumstances. My friend was not happy, Jan. In fact, she was freaked out.

“So I go into the room and the doctor – a nice man in his fifties – says to me, ‘Please take off your clothes but leave on your bra and panties’” she shrieked. “It made me feel sick! And then during the examination, he kept saying it! ‘Can you please move the side of your PANTIES so I can check your hip?’ and ‘Now I just need to look at that area above your PANTIES’. Eeeeuuuw! I nearly ran out of the room screaming.”

I nearly ran out of the room screaming too and I was just hearing about it on the phone. There aren’t many words that will make grown women say “Eeeeeeuuuww” in the voice of an 11 year old who has just witnessed something truly revolting. Like, say, her parents kissing. On the lips.

It wasn’t that the doctor was sleazy or inappropriate in any way, my friend admitted. It’s just that the word was. It made her feel dirty. Exposed. Not long after we had this conversation, I heard some radio talkback on the very same subject. Comedian Cal Wilson was on Nova discussing how much she hated the word panties and dozens of listeners were calling in to vehemently agree. I found myself automatically scrunching up my face every time the word was spoken. The yuck-factor didn’t lose its potency with repeated use. It got worse.

So why do so many women have an aversion to this one word? “It’s a creepy, seedy, porn word,” shudders one friend who also loathes the word moist. Use both words in a sentence and she may keel over and die right there in front of you.

“It’s like something a dirty old man would say,” agrees another friend who also winces when she hears the word finger-bun for reasons I won’t outline here on a Sunday morning. Fortunately, her children aren’t yet at school so she’s never had to do canteen duty.

Thinking about it, I can’t recall ever hearing a woman use the p-word in casual conversation. Not because women don’t routinely discuss issues of underwear. Indeed we do. But we prefer to use the less gag-making terms knickers or undies. The only time a woman might say the p-word is when it’s inextricably attached to another word. Like panty liner. Or (visible) panty line. As an adjective, it passes the cringe-test. But as a noun? Eeeeeuuuuuw.

However in the case of panty-liners, it seems even the sanitary protection companies have woken up to the fact that having the word panty in your brand name is not ideal. I recently heard an ad for Libra Panty Liners that had exorcised the p-word entirely. “Keep your knickers nice – with Libra Liners.” Panty? What panty?

Like so many female foibles, the panties thing can leave men somewhat perplexed. “I’ve never given much thought to the word panties,” admits one guy when I asked him about it.  “Back in my single days, I used to just tear ‘em off.” So is there any word that grates on him?  “I really hate the slang “youse”. As in “How are youse going.’“ We have a friend who is very well educated and well spoken but he says “youse” a lot. I have tried to drop hints when he says it by saying “Weez are good” but he doesn’t get it.”

Keen to explore this word-hating phenomenon further, I spent a week collecting nominations. One particular friend took to the task with gusto, texting me at all hours as she identified more and more words she couldn’t stand. At the time of writing, three weeks after my initial query, the texts are still coming. “I hate pretentious cooking words,” she texted one day. “Like ‘jus’. It’s just fancy gravy! And ‘timbale’. What a wank!”

Another friend hates ridiculous hip-hop slang. “Ho, bro, homies, bitches, da house, da bomb. …And I hate those words even more when middle-class white boys say them.”

Then there’s the modern language of war. Explained one friend: “I hate everything that comes out of Bush’s mouth to do with war: collateral attacks; surgical strikes, coalition of the willing.”

“Smegma!” texted my word-obsessed friend, adding to her growing list. And ten minutes later, beep-beep. “Pustule!”

One guy I know blames America for ruining certain words for him. “Like thong. To me it’s a piece of summer footwear, not a gynaecological piece of underwear. Then there’s ‘fanny’. It gets me every time in those U.S. sitcoms when they say “she fell on her fanny” – how can you do that?!”

In the midst of all this harrumphing, an email landed with a surprise nomination. “I can think of another word or two that I hate,” spat a friend with three children under six. “School Holidays.  It’s 12 degrees and bloody raining again. Why the hell don’t I live in Queensland? Shrek 3 here I come again.”

And then? Beep-beep. “Sputum!”