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 grateda 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).
"Whatever" — pronounced "WHAT’-ehv-errr" when exasperated— is an expression with staying power. Immortalizedin song by Nirvana ("oh well, whatever, nevermind") in 1991, popularized by the Valley girls in "Clueless" later that decade, it is still commonly used, often by younger people.
It can be an all-purposeargument-ender or a signal of apathy. And it can really be annoying. The poll found "whatever" to be consistently disliked by Americans regardless of their race, gender, age, income or where they live.
"It doesn’t surprise me because ’whatever’ is in a special class, probably," said Michael Adams, author of "Slang: The People’s Poetry" and an associate professor of English at Indiana University. "It’s a word that — and it depends how a speaker uses it — can suggest dismissiveness."
Adams, who was not involved in the poll and is not annoyed by "whatever," points out that its use is not always negative. It also can be used in place of other, neutral phrases that have fallen out of favor, like "six of one, half dozen of the other," he said.
But the negative connotation might explain why "whatever" was judged more annoying than the ever-popular "you know," which was recently given a public workout by Caroline Kennedy during her flirtation with the New York U.S. Senate seat vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton. "You know," Adams notes, is a way for speakers to seek assent from others.
Pollsters at the Poughkeepsie, N.Y. college surveyed 938 US adults by telephone Aug. 3-Aug 6. The margin of erroris 3.2 percentage points. The five choices included were chosen by people at the poll discussing what popular words and phrases might be considered especially annoying, said spokeswoman Mary Azzoli.
也许你知道，这就是事实，但美国人对日常交谈中“无所谓(Whatever)”这句口头禅最为反感。
本周三公布的一项由美国圣母学院开展的民调显示，47%的受访者认为这个带有漠不关心意味的流行词是“交谈中最令人讨厌的用语”。
“Whatever”轻松击败“you know(你知道)”位居榜首，四分之一的受访者最讨厌后者。其它入选的最惹人厌的用语还包括“anyway(总之;反正)(7%)“，“it is what it is(这就是事实)”(11%)，以及“at the end of the day(到头来)”(2%)。
“Whatever”是一个带有忍耐意味的表达，在语气加重时，它常被说成“WHAT’-ehv-errr”。涅磐乐队于1991年演唱的一首歌曲使whatever这个词被人们记住(其中出现歌词oh well, whatever, nevermind)，而在同一年代的后期，影片《独领风骚》中的山谷女孩又使之广为流行。如今，这一词汇仍然很常用，在年轻人中尤为流行。
“Whatever”可在结束争论时使用，或者可用来表示漠不关心。而且它的确令人反感。调查发现，无论种族、性别、年龄、收入以及居住地点，美国人无一例外地讨厌这个词。
《俚语：人们的诗文》一书的作者、印地安那大学英语副教授迈克尔?亚当斯说：“我并没有感到惊讶，因为‘whatever’可能属于一类比较特殊的词。它带有一种不屑一顾的意味，要看说话者如何使用。”
亚当斯指出，whatever这个词的用法不一定都带有否定意味，它还可用来代替其它一些过时的中性用语，例如“半斤八两”。亚当斯没有参与该调查，也不讨厌whatever这个词。
但其否定意味或许可以解释为什么“whatever”要比一直流行的“you know”更令人讨厌。最近，卡罗琳·肯尼迪(译者注：约翰·F·肯尼迪总统(1963年遇刺)的女儿，美国民主党政客)一时兴起，有意竞选希拉里·罗德姆·克林顿离任后空缺的纽约州联邦参议员席位，她在那段时期的一次访问中频繁使用“you know”这个词。亚当斯称，“you know”这个词是说话者寻求赞同的一种方式。
纽约波基普西学院的调查者于8月3日至6日对938名美国成年人进行了电话调查，调查的误差率为3.2个百分点。该调查的女发言人玛丽?阿左利称，调查所列的五个选项是参加调查的人讨论哪些流行词和用语可能最令人讨厌之后选出的。
