The Marist Polling Institute (proposed slogan: "For when Gallup is too classy...") recently came up with a poll of the most annoying phrases in conversation. (You can read it...here.) Their results say nothing is more annoying than "whatever." Presumably this is said with a snap of the fingers, in a Valley Girl accent, circa 1993.
The most annoying phrases in order:
1.) Whatever - 47%
2.) You know - 25%
3.) It is what it is - 11%
4.) Anyway - 7%
5.) At the end of the day - 2%
How does "like" slip through the cracks of this poll? If anyone has spent more than 20 minutes in a college classroom they'd know an orgy of similes are being unleashed every two seconds--most of the time with the speaker completely unaware. The Marist Polling Institute is run through Marist College. They should know this better than anyone else.
It gets more interesting when you look at Marist's spreadsheet breaking down the results by region, race, age, and education. (Oh, yeah. We love the spreadsheets here.) Apparently 12% of Midwesterners have no opinion on annoying phrases. Really now? Is it so hard to come up with some quirk of language that grates the nerves that 12% of an entire populated region just shrugs their shoulders?
I'll help the good Midwestern folk out with my own suggestion. How about "you betcha!"? Long before Alaskan political candidates used it, people in the Midwest had a stranglehold on verbal gambling. They bet on everything. You tell a Midwesterner it's cold outside, and they reply, "Ohhh, it is! You betcha!" You tell a Midwesterner your scrambled eggs taste great, and they reply, "You betcha! Chickens do lay tasty eggs!" They say it so often that it's surprising a game of Three-card Monte doesn't break out more often around them.
Anyway, whatever. At the end of the day it is what it is.
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