I enjoy reading and studying Ancient Greek (Homer especially) and Latin, I am a volunteer tutor of English as a Second Language at the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council, and I am a member of the public speaking organization Toastmasters.
This was an Egyptian drink or potion that makes one forget trouble or grief. The sound of the word is very soothing and poetic. The word also refers to the plant that produces the drink.
Run your fingers down a blackboard and this is how I feel when I hear the word: "like dude", "no way dude", "awesome dude." It's overused. When this word is used more than once in a sentence, the person comes across sounding uneducated.
Maybe if I drank a nepenthe this word wouldn't bother me.
"Words held a magical wonder for him. They represented the culmination of civilization, each in some way a repository of the past. He'd marvel at the appearance of every new scientific term that might quickly spawn a dozen other words. He described words until they shimmered with the excitement of life."
- Peter Funk in the introduction of the Reader's Digest Word Power Quiz Book (1995)