Pfft. Whatever.

The New York Times published the results of a telephone survey (American, of course) that discovered the most annoying word in the English language.

"Whatever" won, beating out "it is what it is" and "you know"? Not to be a stickler, or anything, but those other terms are phrases, not words. I know, I know: whatever. Right?

I'd personally vote to have "irregardless" taken out of the lexicon, given that it's a conflation of two completely separate words: regardless and irrespective. Both are far superior to irregardless, no?

Also, I'd venture that "like" ranks up there. However taking it out of our vocabulary would leave many young people (me included) tongue-tied whenever we tried to describe a line of dialogue.

He was all like...and then I was like...erm...I mean, he said, and then I replied.

Eh. Whatever.