Eileen, I presume based on your history that your instincts are well founded. For example, where do you fall on making stuffed shells with mini shells? grin
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I like long pasta - angel hair, spaghetti, linguini, fettuccini, pappardelle. The only short pasta I cook with is fusilli and campanelle - oh, and elbow macaroni. But I don’t order meals with short pasta when I eat out. I especially don’t like penne, rigatoni, gemelli or especially farfalle - not sure why.
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Has everyone seen the Wiki list of pasta shapes?
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That’s interesting. My husband will only eat short pasta, perhaps with a few exceptions, so I have looked into that idea before. I don’t remember details, but I think it’s easier to eat. OTOH, all my favorite dishes typically call for long pasta. Seems I’ve read somewhere, probably here, that restaurants are less likely to offer short pasta dishes. Maybe it’s usually used dry, and not housemade?
Here is a link to one company’s opinion.
And another
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I made a pasta salad for a family party once. My mother in law told me that she really appreciated the trouble I went to to put peas into all the little shells. I told her she was worth the effort. True story
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Oh shrinkrap, I love these!
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BTW- mymother in law is one of my favorite people, she was joking. I’ve read too many advice columns lately so had to explain.
I didn’t think I liked wagon wheels because they look silly, but I bought a package ( after a friend in another group joked that they bring out the little kid in you when you make them, after I listed wagon wheela as a stupid shape 
) , and it turns out I like them a lot. I had not tried them- their look compared to shells or other shapes just didn’t appeal to me at the store.
The sauce gets stuck in the holes.
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I bought a box of alphabet shaped pasta a few months ago. Still looking for just the right application.
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I just checked it out. Seems good to me!
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Vegetable soup with alphabet pasta comes to mind.
I’m thinking summer vegetables like zucchini, green beans, tomato, basil. Add a grilled cheese sandwich on the side so that your soup doesn’t get lonely.
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Nice idea. Sort of a Minnestrone …
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Very late to this thread, but I like 'em all. The ones I almost always have in my cabinets or pantry are:
Spaghetti
Fettuccine
Pappardelle
Elbow noodles (mac & ham & cheese or under a bowl of chili is the only way I use these)
Cavatappi
Campanelle
Gemelli
Penne
Fregola (or Israeli couscous)
Orzo
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I find this thread very reassuring, having been told I have the pasta-varieties stocking-habits of a crazy person. Not half as crazy as most HOers, it seems!
I’m half with you on the elbow macaroni (and close cousins). I rather feel I must have it with MacBrocCheese, but the idea of having it with carbonara (whether Authenic or Italian-Angering), or bolognese, or al tonno… I won’t go quite so far as to say it makes me queasy, but I can definitely feel my lip curling petulantly at the thought.
Chili and pasta seems to be one of those Divided by the Atlantic things. Seems very, very wrong to me. I understand that Texans and Cinncinatians agree on only one thing on chili, which is STEP AWAY FROM THE RICE, which for me is de rigeur. (Unless it’s a burrito filling, of course.)
I think my idiosyncratic preferences are especially hard to rationalise when it comes to ‘red’ sauces. Bolognese is very much spaghetti for me, but other tomato-based sauces, tend to say ‘penne’ to me. Dunno why.
And talking of al tonno, that seems to be compulsory conchiglie. Just me?
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Yeah! Never quite understood the thinking behind that. And I know it’s an Italian-American thing, but it made it to the UK back when there only were two pasta dishes, as far as most of the country was concerned. I’ve a bigger gob than most, but even a small meatball and a ‘wind’ of spaghetti is a unwarranted chewing challenge.
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I only do it because my stepfather always served it that way, and that was specifically to stretch a meal for him, his wife, and his 5 kids when they were young (well before I moved in) So I just picked it up from there.
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I listed most of these off at the lunch table at work today, and my CEO just snorted at me. I said “Hey, I like to be prepared and not have to run out for something if I get the urge to make a dish!” Yeah, he doesn’t get it. He’s pretty much a meat/salad type of person - or takeout. LOL
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I can live with fewer. We like spaghetti, especially Rao’s. Always have large elbows in the pantry - Prince makes them. I grew up with Johnny Marzetti and chili Mac. Comfort food for me, as well as Mac and cheese. Orzo is versatile, and so is campanelle - both are staples. Not a fan of short pastas like ziti, penne, rigatoni and I particularly dislike farfalle.
Other than that, I tend to lean more toward Asian noodles and have too many of them at the moment…
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To be fair, the Texas thing – with no carbs at all, or some token bit of cornbread, or having to be served plausibly separately somehow? – seems even weirder to me. OK guys, you like meat, we geddit! Of course, it gets worse, as eurochili – UK included, no Brexit for these purposes – pretty much invariably is fairly heavy on the tomatoes, and includes beans and bell peppers – if not two or three ways. So by this point I imagine they’re madder than an Italian who just be told “spaghetti carbonara with cream”. Or a Spaniard who’s just heard what Jamie Oliver is doing to paella, etc.
So given that choice, I’m sure I could learn to live with it. But it still seems as odd to me as basmati bolognese, or long-grain rice and cheese. Or indeed as curry and cavatappi!
I’m surprised campanelle makes it into a top three. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it whether raw or cooked, and if Pointless had a ‘bonus booster’ round on types of pasta, I think I’d have picked that name out as one of the likely fakes. 
(*)
But as they look like the product of fusilli and penne that loved each other very much, I guess kinda works as a sub for either and both!
(*) I say ‘if’. In fact, they already did this! But sadly I don’t recall the full list of six alleged pastas!
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