The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion has done its annual survey and declared "whatever" the "word or phrase considered to be the most annoying in casual conversation" in 2011. Right. Ummm... sure. I mean... whatever.

"Whatever" was followed by "like," "you know," "seriously," "just sayin'" and "unsure," which we assume is a category and not a word that people are irritated by. Those are all irritating! But limiting the poll to spoken conversation means that you miss out on all kinds of immensely annoying internet phrases, like, for example, "this exists." Or even just: "this."

Surely there are internet tics of speech you find annoying too? Put them in the comments! Maybe we can even assemble them into a list of words and pledge to stop using them in the next year. Or not. Whatever.

[Reuters, Marist, photo by Phil Gyford via Flickr]