07-15-2010, 01:48 PM
You may, of course, alternate with equally offensive placeholders.
"Like"
"Basically"
"You Know"
and the #1 favorite
"Uhhh..."
The use of these words as sentence 'prefixes' in dialogue is a key indication that the speaker was poorly trained in speech communication. These words are 'nulls', and the only value they have to the speaker is the inherent delay they provide. In most cases the delay is put there to give the speaker time to complete the thought process required to structure the next few seconds of dialogue.
In other words, most people's mouths are faster than their brains, so the impose a pause to let their brains catch up.
My mother taught me to be silent until I had my thoughts turned into words. Mom's a very experienced public speaker, taught English in inner city high schools for years, and then got her law degree at age 55. So I defer to her experience. I expect she gained her knowledge from her mother, who was also a lady of substance and a force of nature.
"Like"
"Basically"
"You Know"
and the #1 favorite
"Uhhh..."
The use of these words as sentence 'prefixes' in dialogue is a key indication that the speaker was poorly trained in speech communication. These words are 'nulls', and the only value they have to the speaker is the inherent delay they provide. In most cases the delay is put there to give the speaker time to complete the thought process required to structure the next few seconds of dialogue.
In other words, most people's mouths are faster than their brains, so the impose a pause to let their brains catch up.
My mother taught me to be silent until I had my thoughts turned into words. Mom's a very experienced public speaker, taught English in inner city high schools for years, and then got her law degree at age 55. So I defer to her experience. I expect she gained her knowledge from her mother, who was also a lady of substance and a force of nature.