Anyone who knows me with any sort of intimacy can attest to the fact that I am a hypercritical person. The list of things that irritate me is practically endless. Tiny, yappy dogs are on on there; so are the E! Network, bean sprouts, and the misuse of commas. At the very top of the “Things I Despise” list are filler words.
I will come right out and admit that fillers sometimes infiltrate my day-to-day conversations with friends but, like curse words, they have no place in the classroom. There’s a good chance I am uncommonly afflicted by people’s use of filler words, but I think most of us have felt some degree of frustration and desperation when a classmate interjects during a lecture only to unleash a pile of verbal excrement along the lines of, “Well, uh, yeah. The issues that are like, affecting, Syria right now, are like, um, tragic, for like, the whole world. You know?”
When I’m forced to sit through sentences of that sort, I have to take a deep breath, close my eyes and literally count Mississippis to restrain myself from yelling at the top of my lungs “OUT WITH IT!”
I once witnessed an English teacher react to a filler word shitstorm, and the memory is still extremely vivid for two reasons: 1) there was a remarkable amount of calculated annoyance in his voice and 2) he was reacting to my filler word shitstorm.
I sat in my seat, melting into it with shame as a I clung to filler words in a pathetic attempt to unravel the meaning of a Shakespeare soliloquy. I could see my teacher (who shall remain unnamed) rising from his stool at the front of the classroom. He walked in my direction with brisk, deliberate steps, following the sounds of “uh… to be or like, not to be?” coming from the back.
Upon reaching his destination, Mr. Unnamed proceeded to get down at eye level with me — he stared at me in the same way I imagine murderers do when facing their victims, and in a low, menacing voice, said, “It’s not “like” anything. It is. Understood?”
I died two deaths and walked around mortified the rest of that day, half-expecting his face to pop out of a corner any time I let a filler escape my lips.
The embarrassment was a little traumatizing, I’ll admit, but I’m positive most people would benefit greatly from a filler word exorcism of that nature. Some people have become so accustomed to peppering their speech with fillers that they barely notice when they use them. This is unfortunate and should change.
Filler words are as counterproductive as they are sloppy, and during a classroom discussion, they are twice as offensive. Nothing robs you of credibility, eloquence, and authority quite the way using “like” does in the middle of a perfectly coherent statement.
I know it’s not easy to drop filler words one moment to the next, especially not just because a stranger is urging you to, but please try to for the sake of your professional endeavors. Think about what you want to say, speak slowly, and say it. You’ll project a much better image if you avoid beginning sentences with “uh” and ending them with “you know?”
I do know, and I hate it.
So like, stop.
Photo courtesy of: iO9
