Spoken Word

“And um”, “And”, “Of Course” (instead of you’re welcome), “absolutely”, “cool”, “gotcha”, “right?”, “like” - these are all filler words I’ve heard people over use when speaking.  Filler words or crutch words or disfluencies are words that we use to avoid pauses while speaking.  We all use them from time to time but the problem comes when we overuse them.

I found an Harvard Business Review article:

https://hbr.org/2018/08/how-to-stop-saying-um-ah-and-you-know

It suggests that, optimally, you should try for no more than 1 filler word per minute while speaking and that the average speaker uses 5 filler words per minute while speaking or about one every 12 seconds.  The problem with using too many filler words while speaking is that, in my opinion and mentioned in the Harvard Business Review article, it distracts the listener from the message you are trying to convey.

I’ve had my overuse of filler words pointed out to me twice so far (that I can remember). The first time was in college. For whatever reason, I’d start almost every explanation sentence with “basically” as in “basically, whatever you do to one side of an equation, you have to do to the other side.” After that was pointed out to me and I noticed how many times I wanted to use that word, I learned to stop using it.  Now, as far as I know (if you hear me use that word, please let me know), I hardly ever use that word.

The second time (I think I’ve even told this story before), I was making a presentation to our CEO and I started with the phrase “in all honesty” before my explanation. He made a point of stopping my explanation and asking me if I was honest with him all the other times. Again, I don’t think I use that filler phrase anymore.

“Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”- Colossians 4:5-6 ESV

“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouths of fools pour out folly. The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.”- Proverbs 15:1-4

But filler words haven’t been my biggest challenge in communicating to people over my life.  I’m so analytically focused that it is very hard for me to word things in emphatic ways to avoid emotional misunderstandings by others especially in written communication.  I try (really, I do) but I’m so focused on trying to make a clear request that I have a hard time understanding how others might misinterpret my intent. I’m still working on that one…