A recent poll of Marist University in New York asserts that the word “whatever” was voted as the most annoying word for the third year in a row.
Marist University announced Friday that the dismissive “whatever” continues to reign supreme in the common lexicon.
For the third year in a row, the Marist University poll asked 1,026 adults what the most grating word was from a five options.
“Whatever” took the cake with 38% of the lot, though this is a drop of one point from last year, and even lower than its high of 49% in 2009.
While it clearly has staying power, some balked at the thought that “whatever”, a word made popular in the 1990’s cult film Clueless, was truly the worst thing to come out of society’s mouths over the past decade or so.
The respondents do not get to suggest the words that bother them the most, but rather are given five options decided upon by the university.
In 2011, options included the always-annoying “like” which came in second with 20% of the vote, followed shortly behind by “you know” with 19%.
“Just saying” and “seriously” rounded up the group with 11 and 7% respectively.
In 2010, other options included “to tell you the truth”, “you know what I mean”, and “actually”.
The inaugural class included “it is what it is” and “anyway”.
