Verbal tics often get in the way of real message
Margaret McDonald
May. 20, 2011
Some people have tics. Not ticks, as in little arachnids that jump onto our clothes, burrow into our skin and engorge themselves on our blood. But tics, as in little habits that sneak into our routines, establish themselves in our unconscious and often annoy our co-workers and friends.
Some tics have a medical basis - such as those that result from Tourette Syndrome. But many are just unconscious, bothersome acts.
How bothersome? Well, different tics bother different people. Some folks wouldn't mind if you clicked your pen all the way through a meeting, while others would lose their cool after 20 seconds or so.
One of the most common forms of tic is the "verbal tic," or the tendency to say the same thing over and over. We've all witnessed it in teens, some of whom pepper their phrases with "like" as if it were the space between words ("Like, I, like, went, like, hiking on, like, Saturday ...?") and others who stick "You know" before and/or after every phrase ("You know, I talked to her, you know, and she told me she lost the book, you know ...").
But it's not only teenagers: Professional adults seem increasingly addicted to sprinkling useless phrases - and even sentences - throughout their conversations these days.
Lately I've been hearing a lot of extraneous "Do you know what I mean?" and "If that makes sense." Used sparingly and sincerely, those phrases are earnest attempts to suspend the conversation as the speaker checks in to see whether the listener understands. But used abundantly and compulsively, they're nothing more than spoken twitches that result in a meaningless, monotonous drone.
Can frustrated listeners helpfully respond to a barrage of verbal tics - even ask the speaker to communicate more clearly, without the mess?
With teenagers, it's generally easy. You simply ask, "Like?" when they pause, and after a bit of exasperation, they tend to start up again in a more careful mode.
But with adults, it's not so easy to speak up. So we don't.
Years ago I remember sitting in a large conference hall, listening to a keynote speaker who seemed entirely unaware of his tendency to repeat a short and increasingly meaningless phrase. The man sitting next to me was busily making tally marks in a notebook in his lap, so I leaned over and whispered, "Are you counting the number of times he says 'If you will'?" My table-mate nodded, rolled his eyes and continued with the marks on his page.
During the rest of the conference, that little phrase was echoing through the halls as keynote survivors joked about the annoying speech, the repetitive phrase and the inability to remember what the speaker was otherwise trying to say.
Altogether, verbal tics are more than just a mild irritation that people will ignore while speakers stumble their way along. They're often a serious disruption of communication that no one is going to cure except ourselves.
Margaret McDonald
May. 20, 2011
Some people have tics. Not ticks, as in little arachnids that jump onto our clothes, burrow into our skin and engorge themselves on our blood. But tics, as in little habits that sneak into our routines, establish themselves in our unconscious and often annoy our co-workers and friends.
Some tics have a medical basis - such as those that result from Tourette Syndrome. But many are just unconscious, bothersome acts.
How bothersome? Well, different tics bother different people. Some folks wouldn't mind if you clicked your pen all the way through a meeting, while others would lose their cool after 20 seconds or so.
One of the most common forms of tic is the "verbal tic," or the tendency to say the same thing over and over. We've all witnessed it in teens, some of whom pepper their phrases with "like" as if it were the space between words ("Like, I, like, went, like, hiking on, like, Saturday ...?") and others who stick "You know" before and/or after every phrase ("You know, I talked to her, you know, and she told me she lost the book, you know ...").
But it's not only teenagers: Professional adults seem increasingly addicted to sprinkling useless phrases - and even sentences - throughout their conversations these days.
Lately I've been hearing a lot of extraneous "Do you know what I mean?" and "If that makes sense." Used sparingly and sincerely, those phrases are earnest attempts to suspend the conversation as the speaker checks in to see whether the listener understands. But used abundantly and compulsively, they're nothing more than spoken twitches that result in a meaningless, monotonous drone.
Can frustrated listeners helpfully respond to a barrage of verbal tics - even ask the speaker to communicate more clearly, without the mess?
With teenagers, it's generally easy. You simply ask, "Like?" when they pause, and after a bit of exasperation, they tend to start up again in a more careful mode.
But with adults, it's not so easy to speak up. So we don't.
Years ago I remember sitting in a large conference hall, listening to a keynote speaker who seemed entirely unaware of his tendency to repeat a short and increasingly meaningless phrase. The man sitting next to me was busily making tally marks in a notebook in his lap, so I leaned over and whispered, "Are you counting the number of times he says 'If you will'?" My table-mate nodded, rolled his eyes and continued with the marks on his page.
During the rest of the conference, that little phrase was echoing through the halls as keynote survivors joked about the annoying speech, the repetitive phrase and the inability to remember what the speaker was otherwise trying to say.
Altogether, verbal tics are more than just a mild irritation that people will ignore while speakers stumble their way along. They're often a serious disruption of communication that no one is going to cure except ourselves.
