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  • Whatever is, you know, the word that Americans hate most

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thisislikesogay@gmail.com Oct 23, 2009 9:00 pm

If "you know" is so annoying in English, that's probably American English. In British English, "isn't it?" has much the same function, as "n'est-ce pas?" does in French, "no es verdad?" in Spanish, and other such phrases do in other languages. People, like, just have to have something to bitch about, don't they, eh? Whatev.

Reply to thisislikesogay@gmail.com at 9:00 pm
isnorden@gmail.com Oct 25, 2009 4:17 pm

"Whatev(s)" and "anyhoo" rank pretty high on my list of annoying slang too. Not every sentence is meant to be a timeless, value-laden classic, I agree; but why can't someone use an unaltered word to express the same thing? Distorting "whatever" or "anyhow" calls more attention to the words themselves than to the idea they're meant to express.To be fair, I use speech fillers as often as the next person--a few friends have criticized me for emphasizing my points with "I mean...". Any filler can bother an audience if it's overused badly enough; despite that, I can accept the occasional "like" or "you know" in ordinary conversation.

Reply to isnorden@gmail.com at 4:17 pm