Offbeat | ‘Whatever’ tops annoying word list

The shoulder-shrugging reply “whatever” continues to annoy Americans more than other words or phrases, but “fake news” is coming on strong.

The annual Marist College poll of most annoying words and phrases found “whatever” topping the list for the ninth straight year. It was the pick of one third of poll respondents, who were given five choices.

One-third of Americans said that they considered “whatever” the most annoying word, slightly down from the previous year when it received 38 percent.

The recent addition “fake news” was slightly ahead of “no offense, but” for second place, 23 percent to 20 percent. About one in 10 found “literally” to be most grating, as did a similar number for “you know what I mean.”

“Since 2015, we have seen a narrowing between ‘whatever’ and the rest of the list,” says Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, Director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. “It has been more than 20 years since ‘whatever’ first gained infamy in the movie Clueless. While the word irks older Americans, those who are younger might not find ‘whatever’ to be so annoying.”

The telephone survey of 1,074 adults conducted Nov. 6-9 has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.