{"id":1176,"date":"2014-01-22T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T06:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/?p=1176"},"modified":"2014-02-10T19:17:01","modified_gmt":"2014-02-10T13:17:01","slug":"whatever-wins-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/?p=1176","title":{"rendered":"‘Whatever’ wins again"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems as if we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be stuck with it forever. A poll of 1,173 adults, conducted by researchers at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., discovered that the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whatever,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has \u00e2\u20ac\u201d for the fifth straight year \u00e2\u20ac\u201d secured the title as the most annoying word in conversation.<\/p>\n

But before we hoist the trophy higher than the Seattle Seahawks will raise theirs in two weeks, let me explain that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whatever\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has company. Thirty-eight percent of the respondents to the telephone survey chose \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whatever\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as most annoying, followed by words we hear daily in Las Vegas: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153like,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 22 percent; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ya know,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 18 percent. Also getting votes were \u00e2\u20ac\u0153just sayin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153obviously.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

What inheres in a word that makes our back teeth ache? Well, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve spent hours trying to explain that certain words are pretty, others not. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The murmuring of innumerable bees\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is pretty; the f-word is not. And we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not necessarily referring to what the words represent \u00e2\u20ac\u201d solely to the sounds they make.<\/p>\n

And there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a bit of semantics that tempers our like or dislike of words.<\/p>\n

Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s go back to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whatever.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I became convinced of the annoyance of the word once when I was making arrangements to pay a utility bill in advance. The company didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the miracle of drafting money from our account; rather, we needed to pay by check. So to save on postage and envelopes, I told the clerk I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to pay several months in advance.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whatever,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. I thought \u00e2\u20ac\u0153what?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d You see, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whatever\u00e2\u20ac\u009d generally is intended as a put-down, a declaration that whatever is on the other person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not interested. I stopped listening. For example, during a quarrel, one of the combatants is likely to say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whatever\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Go ahead and tell Momma,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do whatever you want. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Or let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s say a bullified linebacker tells the opposing rookie, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m gonna rip your lungs out with an ice cream scoop.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d To prevent seeing his internal organs hanging from the goalpost, the youngster might be limited to uttering \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whatever\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (or possibly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whatever you say, sir.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d)<\/p>\n

For that reason, and in those contexts, I wondered why, how and when the clerk\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s politeness quotient had become impaired. Remember, when a person offers to pay several months in advance, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a time for the connotation of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Generally, when we hear that word \u00c2\u00ad\u00e2\u20ac\u201d the five-year champion of the Marist College pollsters \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the person uttering it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really understand or chooses not to. I can imagine a mechanic explaining, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hmmm. It looks like we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to have to replace the inter-spatial, chromium-lined defibrillators that send data to your car\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cranial storage unit, bypassing the hemi doo-hickey apparatus.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

What can the car owner say but \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whatever\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? In this case, the word results not from spite or vitriol, but purely from confusion: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly understand what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wrong with my car, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll let you do whatever it needs, within reason.<\/p>\n

The Marist College survey omitted a pair of words we hear all the time in the Meadow City. And that phrase is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well anyway.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tantamount to rambling and soon realizing, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hey, I failed entirely to make my point. Well anyway.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And then the sentence trails off.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n

Have you ever known people who do things out of season? Turkey, apparently, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t available except on the fourth Thursday of November.<\/p>\n

And just maybe some grocers deign to make it available for Christmas. Try ordering a turkey sandwich in April, for example.<\/p>\n

One person who does certain things out of season is my wife, Bonnie, whose love for Christmas carols runs roughly from Dec. 24 through Dec. 23 of the following year. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proof:<\/p>\n

We traded in a car at what used to be the Ford dealership (Carmean? Highlands? Enchantment?) in town, a few years back. Bob Abreu, our salesman, apparently was responsible for checking what was left inside the trade-in before it went to the next buyer. When sale time came, he phoned us, announcing that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d left something in our trade-in. We were already in town, so we went for the CD Bob was eager to pass on to us.<\/p>\n

Then he called me aside and asked, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do you realize Bonnie had a Christmas CD in the player \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s June?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Bob\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tone was a wee bit urgent, as if he were implying she was in league with the Unibomber.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m on Bob\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s side. But thanks to him, I got to listen to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and entire panoply of yuletide music on our trip out of town that same afternoon.<\/p>\n

Because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m trying to be fair while not being a creature of habit, I submit the following items that I snared from the Internet. So put yourself in the holiday season \u00e2\u20ac\u201d it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really that long ago \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and try to decipher the following hymns and carols:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Bleached Yule<\/li>\n
  2. Castaneous-colored Seed Vesicated in a Conflagration<\/li>\n
  3. Singular Yearning for the Twin Anterior Incisors<\/li>\n
  4. Righteous Darkness<\/li>\n
  5. Arrival Time 2400 hours \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Weather Cloudless<\/li>\n
  6. Loyal Followers Advance<\/li>\n
  7. Far Off in a Feeder<\/li>\n
  8. Array the Corridors<\/li>\n
  9. Bantam Male Percussionist<\/li>\n
  10. Monarchial Triad<\/li>\n
  11. Nocturnal Noiselessness<\/li>\n
  12. Jehovah Deactivate the Blithe Chevaliers<\/li>\n
  13. Red Man En Route to Borough<\/li>\n
  14. Frozen Precipitation Commence<\/li>\n
  15. Proceed and Enlighten on the Pinnacle<\/li>\n
  16. The Quadruped with the Vermilion Proboscis<\/li>\n
  17. Query Regarding Identity of Descendant<\/li>\n
  18. Delight for this Planet<\/li>\n
  19. Give Attention to the Melodious Celestial Beings<\/li>\n
  20. The Dozen Festive 24-Hour Intervals<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n

    Please send your answers to the carol quiz to an email address below. There might even be a prize for the winner.<\/p>\n

    Well anyway . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It seems as if we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be stuck with it forever. A poll of 1,173 adults, conducted by researchers at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., discovered that the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whatever,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has \u00e2\u20ac\u201d for the fifth straight year \u00e2\u20ac\u201d secured the title as the most annoying word in conversation. But before we hoist the trophy higher than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1177,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions\/1177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}