Marist came out with their annual poll of most annoying words and phrases.

Whatever, like, you know, seriously, just sayin', Twitterverse.

Sounds like a bad poem from a 10th grader.

But those are your leading vote-getters.

Whatever has won for multiple years now. It's also my response to this story.

And this is the face of a woman who says "whatever" to your speech patterns, too.

While we're at it, Marist College came out with their yearly Annoying Word of 2010. For the second year in a row, "whatever" won, this time with 39% of the vote.

Apparently Marist heard my angry grandma-esque Fist Shake of Fury over last year's complete lack of the word "like" in their poll. This is because "like" came in second this year, earning 29% of derision.




The runners-up:

3rd: you know what I mean - 15%
4th: to tell you the truth - 10%
5th: actually - 5%

Marist breaks it down into a spreadsheet to tell you how people voted by age, race, education, location, etc. Last year, I noted that 12% of all Midwesterners had no opinion. This year, 9% of respondents over the age of 60 had no opinion.

This poll is flawed then. Everyone knows college students and the elderly complain more than anyone else. It's in our genetic coding. It's impossible not to.

I mean, just look at this blog. Then look at that angry grandmother in the photo above.

It's called synergy, folks.

The folks in Fargo are an indecisive bunch.

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.