I have a friend who despises the word ‘nice’ and strongly encouraged the children she taught not to use it. I quite like it actually. It makes me think of tea in thin china cups and pretty tablecloths. My personal bête noir is the word ‘got.’ I suspect this dislike comes from early primary school teaching when I remember being told that there was always a better alternative. ‘Got’ is of course the past tense of ‘get’ and thus has a perfectly respectable provenance. I simply find it ugly. I suspect I use it as much as anyone else in speech but I certainly avoid it in the written form. ‘I have a new coat’ is to me far preferable to: ‘I’ve got a new coat.’ In that sentence the ‘got’ is superfluous. ‘I got up early today’ is slightly problematic. What else would I say? ‘I rose early today?’ That sounds almost Edwardian and rather pretentious.
The root of the verb ‘to get’ is Anglo Saxon and so although a little slangy, it could be said to be good, plain English. In early medieval times after the Norman Conquest, language became very class based with Norman French (with Latinate roots) belonging to the richer, educated class.
Don’t though get me started on the American addition to this verb: gotten. Oh my goodness.