What is the worst word in the English language?

Are your eyes literally glued to this book? Well, no. Also, this is a .jpeg. (iStockphoto)

In a column for The Awl, Sarah Miller made an argument for "literally" as "the worst word on the planet." She argued that the word is grossly overused by people who either misuse the word when they should use "figuratively" instead, or to make their accomplishments or activities seem more important than they really are.

"People use 'literally' because they feel like all their stories have to be exciting," she wrote." I think people think that the word 'literally' gives their speech or stories a boost of adrenaline. You want to thrill me? Give me a nice, unadorned fact."

Miller's column opened the door to another argument on the worst or most misused words in the English language. The Atlantic Wire's Jen Doll, while conceding that "literally" is an incredibly misused word, argued that "actually" is the worst offender.

"Actually," argues Doll, is a worse offender because people often use it in the context of biting sarcasm or derision, giving several example scenarios including:

Your coworker: "Do you want half of my sandwich? I can't eat it all."

You, frowning, wondering to yourself why your coworkers are so oblivious to your everyday regular habits: "Actually, I've been on a no-carb diet for months now."

The Atlantic Wire then opened the question to its readers, and gathered a list of the most-hated words according to several comments, tweets and letters. The list includes arguably ("What, actually, does arguably mean? Indisputable? Able to be argued about?), basically (and its more sophisticated sibling essentially), irregardless ("nonstandard") and moist (which received more complaints than any other word).

A quick survey of the CBCNews.ca newsroom revealed some favourite words to hate on, including: absolutely, epic, ironic, utilize and presently.

If some of these words sound familiar, they might have made it on the Lake Superior State University's list of Banished Words. Last year, "amazing" made it to the top of the list of banned and hated words.

What do you think is the worst word in the English language? What qualifies a word for the title of worst - frequent misuse, overuse or simply the way it sounds or looks in writing?


(This survey is not scientific. Results are based on readers' responses.)