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