What'd I Say?

Sir Elton John would have us believe that "sorry" is the hardest word. Or perhaps it would be fair to cite the lyricist, Bernie Taupin. It is likely that neither Bernie nor Elton coined this notion, since it's a sentiment that probably predates the song's 1976 release date. It probably also depends a little on how you classify "hardest." It has only two syllables, and the r-controlled vowel adds a degree of difficulty, but I think that the idea is that it is the circumstance that makes it so very difficult to say "sorry."
It's no "hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia," the longest non-technical word in the English language. It means "fear of long words," and if that were truly the case, those four syllables would come in handy if you wanted to avoid the fifteen found in that monstrosity. That one's hard because it's contrived and unwieldy. It's no floccinaucinihilipilification, that's for sure.
Perhaps the "hard" we're looking for comes more from the listening end. If that's the case, we should avail ourselves of the new poll conducted by Marist College. The word "like" when used as an all-purpose filler came in at, like, number two with twenty-eight percent of respondents finding it most irritating. The phrase "you know what I mean" was third, though I suspect that it doesn't bother the folks in the Kreskin household as much. The number one annoyance for listeners of the English language, for the second straight year is "whatever." I am not shocked or surprised by this result. I don't need thirty-nine percent of Americans to tell me how divisive three syllables can be. In those eight letters is all the ambivalence that one person could possibly muster. Add a sigh at the front or the back of it and you have a world class conversation-ender. I imagine that many of those who were asked, if they would mind answering a few questions about annoying words, rolled their eyes, shrugged and said, "Whatever."