“Whatever” is America’s most annoying word or phrase? Get out.

This past week, the Marist Institute of Public Opinion, located at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY released the results of a poll on language use. This poll asked respondents which of five words or phases – “whatever”, “anyway”, “ you know”, “it is what it is”, and “useless” – they disliked the most. By a statistically significant margin “whatever” was picked most frequently. Of the 938 people polled, nearly half picked it over the other choices.

In the comments section on their website, most of the comment authors nominated “like” as even more detestable than “whatever.” Many other words and phrases were suggested as well. Even they missed a few that I feel should be defined as verbal graffiti.

Some of the missing words that I find overworked and largely vacuous come from the business world. There are many times when it seems like business people – particularly corporate executives – have decided to invent a business-only language largely divorced from mainstream English. For example:

“Tasked” – no one is “assigned” to a project (or a project team), they are “tasked”. What, corporate drones now have chores to do at work?

“Prioritize” – I know this is a perfectly legitimate word, with perfectly valid uses. However, why does everything have to be “prioritized”? From the way business people toss this word around, I have to wonder: when they go grocery shopping (unless they “task” another family member to do it), are their shopping lists “prioritized?” Probably.

“Conference” used as a verb. Last time I consulted the Oxford English Dictionary, conference was listed as a noun. Its traditional (and most frequent) use is to describe a group of people gathering in one place for a specific reason. So how did it become a verb as in “we will conference about that next week.” Hmmm . . . is “conferencing” the source of all “tasking?”

The world of advertising and entertainment is not exempt from contributing to this list. Some examples:

“Get out!” apparently used in the sense of “I don’t believe you.” I suspect it has other intended meanings that I haven’t figured out yet.

“Absolutely the best” Advertisers love to gush this empty interjection into advertising copy. It is meaningless and a little dishonest because the only way you can label something in that way is if all existing examples of the product (or service) is assembled in one place and evaluated by the same person. In addition, without clarification about the rating criteria used to make the determination, claims like these carry little validity.

“Ultimate” This belongs in the same class as “absolutely the best” and for the same reasons. Through the years I have noticed many products that have been hailed as the “ultimate” . . . until the next “ultimate” comes along.

Many of these examples will be included in American slang dictionaries of the future, because that is what they are – slang. Even though I have always liked Mark Twain’s definition of slang as “language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands, and gets to work”, still there are venues where it is inappropriate. If business executives need to use commonly understood lingo during staff meetings as a form of shorthand that is one thing. When they use it in the media in an attempt to sound erudite, then it becomes as inappropriate as if they peppered the mostly retired non-word “ain’t” into every sentence.

One sentiment is hinted at in the comments to the poll results announcement on the Marist Institute website that I heartily agree with. While on one comes right out and says it, now that a new Administration is in Washington, it is time to retire the tired phrases (and one glaring mispronunciation) of the Bush Administration. In particular his coinages “you’re either with us or against us”, “you’re either with us or with the terrorists” and “axis of evil” all need to be buried in a desert, in a deep, unmarked hole so on one can ever revive them. At the same time, I do hope that politicians will get the pronunciation of the word “nuclear” correct . . . for a change.

On this entire subject of tired, worn out and irksome words, everybody has their own opinions and lists of words (and phrases) they would like to eradicate from English. I have shared some of mine. Now, readers, it is your turn: what verbal utterances drive you up the wall?