Originally, "ORANGE" was the planned answer, with Annoying Orange relating back to the title. Unfortunately, the only set of words I was able to come up with was:
O SOT
R SORT
A ROAST
N ORANTS
G SNOTRAG
E ESTRAGON
Describing these words were impossible with a few letters, so that idea was scrapped.
"More coarse" (as in crude language) was changed to "More saline" After failed attempts with adding a C from a seven to an eight letter word that worked with others.
Sets of clues not used in the final version include:
M - mang
O - mango
R - morgan
E - marengo
S - megarons
A - base
L - sable
I - blaise/isabel
N - lesbian
E - baseline