Whatever gets your goat isn’t fake news

If the BJP record of winning Gujarat for the sixth consecutive time has proved annoying to some, it is rivalled only by “whatever” taking top spot as the most annoying word of the year in the US for the ninth time in a row, in an annual poll conducted by a US university. Curiously, “whatever”’s margin of victory has been narrowing each year — down this year to 33% from 38% — which presumably means growing acceptability; the same conclusion, however, cannot be drawn from the reduced margins in Gujarat. That “whatever” trumped “fake news” is significant given the high irritation quotient of the American personality who uses the phrase liberally both on social media and verbally. Clearly, there are more approvers of the phrase — if not its implication — than generally presumed.

“No offence, but” is a perennial candidate, so its third spot indicates a moderate offence level. “Literally” is a word that has changed meaning dramatically in our times, so its fourth place in the annoyance scale could reflect the view of the language purists still left in our midst. And “you know what I mean”, placed fifth, should actually face stiff competition from “Um”, a word that seems to be the preface of far too many sentences these days. A survey among Indians to identify the most annoying words and phrases would also be useful.