Now over a decade has passed, and “whatever” holds the distinction of having being the most annoying word for more than a decade. In 2022 it was relegated to second place by “woke” after finally being knocked off the pedestal tin 2021 by “Trump” and “coronavirus”.
According to The Marist Poll “whatever” remains the most annoying word or phrase in conversation today. 39% of Americans despise the often tossed about term. The uber-filler “like” is deemed the most irritating by 28%. “You know what I mean” is considered the biggest verbal gaffe by 15% of the population. “To tell you the truth” grates the most on 10% while “actually” receives the dubious distinction from 5%. Three percent are unsure.
In October 2009, “whatever” was crowned king with 47%. Other annoying words and phrases included in that survey were: “you know” (25%), “it is what it is” (11%), “anyway” (7%), and “at the end of the day” (2%). Eight percent were unsure.
Younger Americans, those 18 to 29, currently have a different take. 44% of these residents wouldn’t mind if “like” is abolished in everyday conversation. Their older counterparts disagree. Among those 30 to 44, 37% say “whatever” gets on their nerves the most. 46% of Americans 45 to 59 and 40% of those 60 and older agree.
Please feel free to comment and share your least ‘liked’ turn of phrase!
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Hi Winston
I cover the different meanings of whatever at http://www.onlinegrammar.com.au/whatever
Mary
Julia has made “moving forward” the new hate/annoying word in Australia. . Point is, we are moving forward no matter what. It is called evolution. However if she qualified the “moving forward” with an appropriate adjective as in eg: ‘rapidly’ or ‘carefully’ and then made the rest of her statement an explanation of eg: “rapidly moving forward we will being doing by xx x and etc etc”., then we’d all buy-in. What annoys us is that her use of “moving forward” has no purpose other than to state the obvious … it is called, evolotion.
Thanks Mary… I never realised that there could be so many meanings to that word… Winno
Hello there! This is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to give a quick
shout out aand sayy I truly enjoy reading through your
blog posts. Can you sggest any other blogs/websites/forums that deal with the same topics?
Many thanks!