If you use common words Internet words in the course of carrying out your job, let it be known that you could be driving some people crazy. At least those who were polled in a recent survey by British pollsters YouGov. The group questioned 2,091 adults about what Internet words are most likely to make them “wince, shudder or want to bang your head on the keyboard.”

Topping the list was “folksonomy.” I thought I just hated most Internet words because they sounded like baby talk or Star Wars characters that didn’t make the final script, (like “wiki,” “cookie,” or “blog.”) but I have to agree with those polled about the particularly annoying quality of folksonomy. Why do we have to assign words that are so precious?

According to YouGov:

“‘Blogosphere’ . . . was second; ‘blog’ itself was third; ‘netiquette’, or Internet etiquette, came fourth and ‘blook’, a book based on a blog, was fifth. ‘Cookie’ . . . came in ninth, while ‘wiki’ . . . was tenth.”

We can’t suddenly stop using these words since they’re being added to dictionaries as we speak, but maybe we can stop being so darned proud of them. It’s almost like people develop an unnatural attraction to the phonetic quality of the words and use them at every opportunity. They eventually become grating. But I guess that’s the way with all buzzwords. Just look what happened to synergy. Once the darling of every business meeting this side of hell, if you utter it these days, you’re liable to get a conference phone lobbed at your head. And rightly so.