© 2024 WUOT

WUOT
209 Communications Building
1345 Circle Park Drive
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996-0322
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Tenn Words Update: Nine Words Too Many

 WUOT's Tenn Words projectasks East Tennesseans to answer the following question in ten words or less:  "What keeps you up at night?"

While some of our 500+ responses include the maximum allowable verbiage (ten words) and others go well beyond the limit (Express Lane Cheaters Unite!), the number of words on a handful of responses fall somewhere between zero and two.  

I'm not sure why, but I find these short, to-the-point responses rather intriguing.  Perhaps it's because they represent an admirable directness on the part of the respondent.  Or maybe because the lack of detail creates a sense of mystery about both the participant and the response.  

You be the judge.  Here's the list of one-word answers we've received since we launched the Tenn Words project in May:

Birderflies

Homelessness

Obscurant

Monsanto

Caffein (sic)

Coffee

health

Snakes!

Rat

spiders

Peace

Stress

Cancer

Cancer :^(

CRAMER!

TOLJA

Money

Worrying

Microaggressions

Theramins

iPhone

Phones

Tinder!

Nothing (by far, this is our most popular one-word answer)

leg

escapism

Habibe

TV

work

Chemtrails

fear

Time...

Zombies

We've really enjoyed hearing from you throughout the summer and look forward to your continued participation as Tenn Words moves into the fall.  Remember, we tweet out a single response nearly every day on our Twitter account (@tennwords)and a photo of every form that's filled out eventually ends up on our Instagram feed (tennwords).  Our own Brittany Crocker is also producing a podcast that explores some of our Tenn Words responses in greater depth.  (Subscribe here)

You don't have to visit the Tenn Words traveling booth to participate.  Lots of folks are just going to the web module (Click here)

Related Content