"Anyway, you know, whatever - it is what it is, at the end of the day." This is the most irritating sentence in the English language, according to a poll in the United States last month.
"Whatever" or as it is more commonly said, "Whatevvv-urrhhh" or "what-eva" - proved to be the most grating of the five phrases that were thrown up. While I completely agree that these words and phrases all deserve to be eradicated from everyday speech, I must say, I found the poll a bit wanting.
If I had to give a prize to one for (dis)honour of being the most annoying, it would go to the word "anything". Don't get me wrong, it is a perfectly acceptable word when the person who uses it really means "anything". Like, for instance, when I say "I don't have anything to put on".
The word "anything" is more commonly used as a trap that indecisive people actually frivolously use, to lure you into a false sense of agree-ability, and then they slowly kill you with frustration.
For example, here's a conversation I had with a friend of mine - you know who you are. It alternates between me and my friend, starting with me, sentences in italics are my thoughts:
"What would you like to eat for dinner?" Somewhere classy, a restaurant perhaps.
"Anything."
"..." "Okay...how about Thai food, I haven't had Thai food for ages." Please say yes.
"Uhh... I don't really like Thai." Dang it woman, make up your freaking mind!
"Then how about French food?" A nice red wine with a beef steak, is that too much to ask?
"No way, I hate anything French!" Sacre-bleu!
"Japanese sushi?" You love sushi, that's your favourite food! What was I thinking?
"I had Japanese for lunch, something else perhaps?" Do you have Japanese for all 3 meals a day?
"What then?" God created women to annoy men! No wonder men always die first!
"Anything, up to you." Where the F*&k is my stiletto knife I keep hidden near my ankle? Need... to... stab... someone... to... death!!! UGH...
Then there are words that are particularly annoying when used wrongly and utterly frivolously, here are some of them: "Without much further ado..."; "Really?"; "Literally..."; "Basically..." "Moving forward..."; "Whereby..."
Whenever I complain to friends that they're not using the words correctly, they make it worse by saying, "Relax...Chill, these words a new-age!" New-age my proverbial ass, music can be new-aged, but English is English! Even if their words made sense, it would be completely ungrammatical.
Internet chatroom and text messages have shorten the English language to a variety of lingo and acronyms. Some can be useful when writing text messages to friends, but those that aren't useful are those that nobody seems to know, new creations by friends who try to make their acronyms and lingo new-aged.
I suspect that in time, people won't even bother to type anything at all. They'll just send an empty text message to signify consent and hope that you will be psychic enough to figure out what the blank message means. Then again, if that ever happens, I suppose I have the perfect response already:
WHAT-EVA!
"Whatever" or as it is more commonly said, "Whatevvv-urrhhh" or "what-eva" - proved to be the most grating of the five phrases that were thrown up. While I completely agree that these words and phrases all deserve to be eradicated from everyday speech, I must say, I found the poll a bit wanting.
If I had to give a prize to one for (dis)honour of being the most annoying, it would go to the word "anything". Don't get me wrong, it is a perfectly acceptable word when the person who uses it really means "anything". Like, for instance, when I say "I don't have anything to put on".
The word "anything" is more commonly used as a trap that indecisive people actually frivolously use, to lure you into a false sense of agree-ability, and then they slowly kill you with frustration.
For example, here's a conversation I had with a friend of mine - you know who you are. It alternates between me and my friend, starting with me, sentences in italics are my thoughts:
"What would you like to eat for dinner?" Somewhere classy, a restaurant perhaps.
"Anything."
"..." "Okay...how about Thai food, I haven't had Thai food for ages." Please say yes.
"Uhh... I don't really like Thai." Dang it woman, make up your freaking mind!
"Then how about French food?" A nice red wine with a beef steak, is that too much to ask?
"No way, I hate anything French!" Sacre-bleu!
"Japanese sushi?" You love sushi, that's your favourite food! What was I thinking?
"I had Japanese for lunch, something else perhaps?" Do you have Japanese for all 3 meals a day?
"What then?" God created women to annoy men! No wonder men always die first!
"Anything, up to you." Where the F*&k is my stiletto knife I keep hidden near my ankle? Need... to... stab... someone... to... death!!! UGH...
Then there are words that are particularly annoying when used wrongly and utterly frivolously, here are some of them: "Without much further ado..."; "Really?"; "Literally..."; "Basically..." "Moving forward..."; "Whereby..."
Whenever I complain to friends that they're not using the words correctly, they make it worse by saying, "Relax...Chill, these words a new-age!" New-age my proverbial ass, music can be new-aged, but English is English! Even if their words made sense, it would be completely ungrammatical.
Internet chatroom and text messages have shorten the English language to a variety of lingo and acronyms. Some can be useful when writing text messages to friends, but those that aren't useful are those that nobody seems to know, new creations by friends who try to make their acronyms and lingo new-aged.
I suspect that in time, people won't even bother to type anything at all. They'll just send an empty text message to signify consent and hope that you will be psychic enough to figure out what the blank message means. Then again, if that ever happens, I suppose I have the perfect response already:
WHAT-EVA!
No comments:
Post a Comment