How To Stop Saying "You Know"
.
After a four year layoff from teaching, I was back in the
classroom at Ohio State this spring semester.
We teach law through a Socratic dialogue, so I spent a good deal of time
in question and answer exchanges with the students.
In a way I'd never noticed before my students had become infected by the
verbal diarrhea of saying "you know" every other sentence (and
sometimes more than once in the same sentence!). At one point I couldn't stop myself from
starting class with a few comments about this disturbing trend. "You want to impress people—other
lawyers, new acquaintances, judges, your boss—with how articulate you
are," I lectured, "but if, you know, you are constantly, you know,
betraying your inability to, you know, control your sentences, you're going to look
bad, you know?"
This plague is everywhere from the President of the United
States clowning around on Late Night With
Jimmy Fallon last week, to nationally-known law professors we recently brought
to Ohio State making major presentations at a Sports Law event, to close friends
of mine who drive me nuts by peppering their speech with this mindless repetition. Apparently this is an international epidemic,
with the equivalent of "you know" infecting languages other than
English. I've ranted about this difficulty
in a prior post (see below), and, apparently, most people think I'm loony for
caring about it at all. I'm particularly
appalled when I hear myself say the hated words, which happens on very, very rare
occasions, when to my horror I notice I have an early symptom of the spreading
infection.
Suppose, however, that you're embarrassed (as you should be)
by this bad speech habit and want to stop.
This post is about how to accomplish that.
First of all, you'll need a confederate. Choose someone you converse with a lot, and
who's willing to help you become aware of every time you say the words
"you know" (you can't hear it yourself). Get him/her to promise to quickly reply
"I know" every time you say
"you know"—and, simple as
that sounds, it's no more complicated than that. Of course, it will be irritating to you to have
your discourse interrupted like this, but
that's the point! You need to become
aware of how often you've become a mindless copier of the bad speech patterns
of others, and you'll begin to listen to yourself as you talk. After numerous conversations with your
"I know" friend, you'll be wary of the need to fill any pause in your
thoughts with a banal repetition of "you know."
If you think this is nonsense, try this experiment: listen
to how often you and your friends and people on TV or in casual conversations—stupidly,
mindlessly—clutter their conversations with "you know." Is it okay simply because everyone is doing
it? Running with the herd, dumb as the
rest? Do you want people you're trying
to impress thinking of you as "stupid and mindless"?
Changing right-brain habits like this one is always a hard
task, but who said you only get to do easy things in life? If you're tired of being a slave to the
phrase "you know," then strip it from your vocabulary except when it's
legitimately part of your thought (as in "You know what I mean?" or
"You know my sister, Mary Beth, don't you?" or "You know a lot for
someone so young").
When you're finally cured, buy your "I know" buddy lunch
and celebrate the elimination of this oral curse. Be pleased with yourself. Congratulations!
And then pay
it forward by helping to convert someone as smitten with this disease as you once
were yourself. Hell, let's build a 12-step
program of "I Know Buddies" and get the whole planet back to sounding
smart.
---------------------------------
Related
Posts:
"The
Socratic Dialogue in Law School," Jan 31, 2010
"I
Hate 'You Know, 'You Know,'" Nov 28, 2010
"The
Left Brain, Right Brain Life," Jan 17, 2011
"Life's
Little But Important Rules," Apr 23, 2011
"How
To Be Perfect," Mar 17, 2012
“A Guide to the Best of My Blog,” April 29, 2013
“A Guide to the Best of My Blog,” April 29, 2013
After you and I discussed this matter at our Symposium in Southern California several months ago, I instructed all of my law students to say "I know" or "We know" (I was indifferent as to which) whenever I said "you know." I'm not cured, but I'm doing much, much better! &:^)
ReplyDeleteSincerely,
-Anonymous SoCal law prawf and devoted former student
My new co-woker she's infected and is deriving me nuts "you know". I've being caught myself repeating that shit.
DeleteThank you so much. I will ask my husband to help. I wasn't sure how to go about it and you answered my dilemma.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this info I'll try your suggestion..
ReplyDeleteVery interesting. Might give this a try since it's gotten to the point where I am becoming increasingly aggravated by hearing myself say 'you know' in virutally every other sentence. Nobody has said anything to me as yet but I'm pretty sure it's annoying them too.
ReplyDeleteI'm from Peru South America, and I have noticed that in english spoken youtube videos. At the beginning it was funny, now it's annoying hearing all the time, you know bro? you know?
ReplyDeleteGood thing you clarified that it was the Peru in South America rather than that other Peru.
Deletethere are others. Peru is also in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Your, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming to name the North American ones
DeleteI hear this on talk radio. Practically every caller says it at least once per sentence and even the talk show hosts say it just as much.
ReplyDeleteThis same exercise can be applied towards the overuse of the "filler-killer" word, LIKE! Was it the 70's movie Valley Girl that started that one?
ReplyDeleteExcellent advice, now if you could get people to stop saying 'like', 'actually' and 'absolutely'.
ReplyDeleteMy father went to Toastmasters to improve his speaking skills. There, a monitor was assigned to click his ballpoint pen every time a speaker used a verbal filler. I wasn't present, but I hear that click whenever I slip!
ReplyDeleteI was listening to an otherwise-intelligent physicist this morning. On a program that, ironically, was about the fact that there are things that we provably cannot know. Every other sentence she uttered whilst trying to explain this concept contained the phrase "you know?" It made for very irritating listening.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07gf4rw
My wife and I were watching the news yesterday on T.V.. Caroline Kennedy was being interviewed about relations between the U.S. and Japan. I mentioned that during her bid for public office in New York a few years ago, she was criticized for her habit of saying "you know." I added that it's a common habit and that I probably do it a lot myself. My wife chimed in that I do indeed say it sometimes. So, I am going to enlist her help in trying your remedy to rid myself of this habit. We'll see how it goes.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way- Ms. Kennedy did not say "you know" at all during the interview. She has probably had some lessons. Her speech delivery has definitely improved!
Dear People Who Use “You Know” Frequently at the End of Their Sentences,
ReplyDeleteNo, I do not know.
Language is tool used to communicate information that we don’t already know. Please do not share information with me that you strongly feel I already know. More importantly, do not ask me if I know about what you just said, only to keep on talking, not even attempting to listen to my response of whether or not I know already. In fact, the only thing I do know is that I don’t want to talk to you anymore because this is not a conversation.
I do not want to sit in a café (like I am now) listening to you continuously ask your friends whether they already know about everything you have to say.
Please, stop saying “you know.” Boycott this phrase. Urge your friends and family to stop saying "you know." People will want to talk to you and listen to you more. I promise. You’ll have more friends and be more pleasant to be around.
Indeed, if this is some sort of nervous tick, it is curable!(as the article above suggests). Just be aware of when you say it. Then practice stopping. Well done.
Sincerely,
Ms. No I don’t Know
Thank you for pointing this out! It's lazy speech, filling gaps with garbage because you aren't taking the time to clearly articulate your thoughts. It's a sloppy habit and disrepects the person you are speaking with.
ReplyDelete