A national poll was taken this week to see what word or verbal expression is the most annoying to Americans. (Really! Who wastes their time doing things like this? And who pays them to do it? These folks need to find something constructive to do with their lives, don’t ya think?) Do you know what that expression is? I’ll tell you in a minute to let you think about it.

The results of that poll were not what I expected. The “most annoying word or phrase” was not the one that I would have thought. To me, the most annoying word that is currently in the vogue is “totally.” I don’t know why this bugs me; it just does.

The other day, I heard one intelligent young woman say to somebody on her cell phone, “When I see you, I’m going to totally hug you!” Seriously. That’s what she said. “I’m totally going to hug you.” Doesn’t totally mean pretty much the same thing as completely? Do you think she would have said, “I’m going to completely hug you”? Or, if she only liked the person that she was talking to and didn’t love him or her, would she have said, “I’m going to partially hug you”?

Another word that bugs me is messaging. I think that messaging is a totally new verb that has morphed from the noun message. I believe that it is an invention of some advertizing mind working for ATT or Verizon.

While it is true that our language is constantly changing,( adding new words, dropping old ones, changing spellings of words and changing definitions and connotations of existing ones),  living through these changes bugs me. I completely (totally?) understand that for a language to stay vibrant and relevant, it has to change. The only time a language stops changing is when it stops being used.

Look at Latin. Except for a few Catholic ceremonies and a couple of legal documents here and there, it hasn’t been used since the Roman times. And now, it’s studied in school by language students much like cadavers are prodded, probed and dissected by medical students.

The first time I ever saw the word “doughnut” spelled as “donut” I was in my early teens. Seriously. Doughnut makes sense because it is a pastry made out of dough that is in the shape of nut, as in “nut and bolt.” Right? Donut is just shorter, and, in my humble and haughty opinion, lazier.

Nowadays, you can’t find the word doughnut anywhere.

Look at the word software. It came into popular use in the early eighties.  When I first heard the word, I laughed out loud and thought that it would never catch on. However, the word, of course, is part of the modern lexicon now because it fills a void with advent of the personal computer.  The word had to be invented because there were new entities in our world that needed to be labeled.  The same thing with PC and “cyber” –anything.

The word mouse also had to go through an addition of a definition.

Years and years and years ago, the word sly meant smart, the word villain meant farmer, the word knight (spelled with a “y”) meant boy or young man.

There was a time, in my lifetime, when the word gay came with no sexual connotations whatsoever. In fact, the last few lines of animated television show, The Flintstones, says “When you’re with the Flintstones/ have a yabba-dabba-do time/  a dabba-do time/ We’ll have a gay old time!” Do ya think old Fred and Barney were getting it on together down at the Water Buffalo Club over a couple of brontosaurus burgers? (Ever notice how they ate A LOT of brontosaurus meat on that show?)

Okay, you’ve had enough time to think about it.  Do you what word or phrase is considered most annoying to Americans?  The answer is, “Whatever!”

I’ve got to admit that the word really doesn’t  bothered me.  I always find it funny, especially when it is accompanied by the rolling of the eyes and a hand-on-the-hips, weight-shifting sigh.

I have more annoyance at “Think out of the box” or “Be that as it may” or “At the end of the day”  than I do with “Whatever!” But that’s just my opinion.

Yes, I know that language has to change in order to stay alive. I’m very, very aware of that. Doesn’t mean that I have to like it though.