Look up a word
Contents may result in nights on the couch.
She suddenly remembers an early meeting.
Complimenting her mother’s cake at Thanksgiving.
“Wow, this isn’t dry at all.”
Take a second slice. Say nothing. Chew slowly.
Nobody hands men the vocabulary list. This is the missing one: the 50 words that end first dates, start arguments, and send married men to the couch. Every entry tells you how bad the word is, where it will ambush you, and what to say instead.
Married readers: count the couches. Single readers: there is no couch, only the second date that doesn’t happen.
A look.
She says “interesting.”
She tells her friends.
She tells her mother.
She tells your mother.
Screenshots. Group chat.
Buy a couch you like. You live there now.
Her coworkers know.
Your coworkers know.
A woman you’ve never met is mad at you.
The original scale stopped at seven. The later chapters did not.
Things the book can’t do on paper.
Pick the words he said and add any aggravating circumstances. Nights multiply. They never divide. Save his sentence as a card for your story.
Calculate his sentenceHe gets one sentence to defend himself. The court has never ruled for the appellant.
File an appealLadies, what did we miss? The best reports go into Volume 2, with your name in it.
File a reportWords under investigation for Volume 2. Heard one? Report a sighting.
See the postersPrint a fresh set. Two new cards, plus blanks for the offenses we haven’t thought of.
Print the cardsA psychologist at Oberlin College ran five separate experiments to figure out why people hate the word “moist.” The study was published in a peer-reviewed journal in 2016. That’s real. Look it up.
We ran zero experiments. What we did do was say most of these words out loud to women we love, and then sleep on the couch. This manual is what we learned there.
Adam Koehler and Rob Kantner
One email when the book is out. We won’t say “moist” in it.