So, you know, it is what it is, but Americans are totally annoyed by the use of “whatever” in conversations. The popular slacker term of indifference was found “most annoying in conversation” by 47 percent of Americans surveyed in a Marist College poll released Wednesday.
“Whatever” easily beat out “you know,” which especially grated a quarter of respondents. The other annoying contenders were “anyway” (at 7 percent), “it is what it is” (11 percent) and “at the end of the day” (2 percent) — Discovery News
My colleagues use these expressions, and worse. Most of the time I misunderstand what in hell they think they’re saying. Lots of time and energy are wasted as a result, but even when I point out that I (a) begged for clarification I never got, and (b) conducted affairs precisely in line with what was specifically stated, the caravan of miscommunication keeps rolling. Management Speak. Empty expressions, vacuous verbiage.
There’s no cure for this. The plague will spread, and conditions will worsen. “When it’s your time, it’s your time.” “Work smarter, not harder.” “Stay within yourself.” Thanks, Wise Oracle. How about “Big toe in first,” and “Shit first wipe last”? At least they’re practical.
Back in the day this was known as “psychobabble.” Entire textbooks were devoted to and composed of it, preparing a new generation of slippered academics and vapid professional counselors to pillage the pockets of a new class of gullible clients and patients. It became as fashionable as it was infuriating, and suffering young men found themselves obliged to master its grammar, peeling if off glibly and sincerely if they wanted to get laid. What a waste of tongue. Damn I hated the 70s.
Set a good example to people whose English is painful to your ears.
The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely disappears.
In America, they haven’t used it for years! –(My Fair Lady)
I know whatcha mean. Canya get into it? Farm Out! Powder to the People! * Gag *
Set a good example to people whose English is painful to your ears.
The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely disappears.
In America, they haven’t used it for years!
Obalesque 
“Shit first wipe last.” So THATS what I’m doing wrong. Thanks for the good advice.
You think the 70s were bad, you would have despised the way people talked in the 50s, daddy-o. Back then, like now, proper speech was regarded as “square,” which I guess in today’s terms would be called “white.”
For me, the most annoying word is, “totally.”
Not to quibble,, but that’s stretching the meaning of the term “psychobabble” which referred specifically to empty conceptual language about individuals’ mental states. Psychiatry-and-water. “Life Counselling Lite,” the sort of truisms shared by middle-class people in the midst of their daily survival who responded to it with the sense that all of a sudden, it was more significant and meaningful than plain ordinary boredom and frustration.
The words you’re hearing now are simply shorthand slang expressions manufactured by young people to irritate their elders. It’s been going on forever. remember the ‘cat’s pajamas,’ ‘you big ape’?
Most annoying term: “My bad.”
most annoying term: “Is it in?”
I like to end every story with … “and that’s what she said when the bed broke”
Whatever!
My bad.
I went to high school with a kid whose favorite thing was to cut people off by hollering, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH up your ass! Up your ass!” He spit when he talked, too. Last I heard he was a zillionaire. Maybe he knew something.
Phillies won the pennant!
The Phillies Won the Pennant. Repeat!