Words often used by stupid people to cover for the inability to articulate a full idea

abbandono commented on the list words-often-used-by-stupid-people-to-cover-for-the-inability-to-articulate-a-full-idea

I have far more patience for "um" than for most of these others. I like hesitation words. They occur universally, but with so many charming deviations in each language. I particularly like the Japanese "Ehhhhhhhhh-toooooooooooo" and the French "Euhhhhhhhh".

Granted, they are a mite selfish, since their implied meaning is "I need time to think, but I don't want to leave a silence in which you might interrupt my train of thought," but I consider it an acceptable form of selfishness.

On the other hand "kind of" and "sort of" are falsely self-deprecating, and annoy me deeply. Like, really deeply. ;-)

December 4, 2006

javaexpert commented on the list words-often-used-by-stupid-people-to-cover-for-the-inability-to-articulate-a-full-idea

confirming a thought with the one you are conversing... very popular among europeans.

December 6, 2006

kad commented on the list words-often-used-by-stupid-people-to-cover-for-the-inability-to-articulate-a-full-idea

There have been studies that show that your brain is very active when you're using hesitation words (such as "um"), so they're actually an important part of verbalization. "Kind of" and "sort of" seem like they'd be the opposite to me -- your brain shutting off, giving up on being articulate, and filling in the gap. Just a theory.

December 6, 2006

betsyshane commented on the list words-often-used-by-stupid-people-to-cover-for-the-inability-to-articulate-a-full-idea

yes, but you're using them because you're just vocalizing while you're trying to think of the rest of the sentence that you started saying before planning out what you were going to say.

December 7, 2006

colleen commented on the list words-often-used-by-stupid-people-to-cover-for-the-inability-to-articulate-a-full-idea

Hmm. Where you lose me is at the assessment "stupid people." A number of phenomenally intelligent people are terrible at verbal communication.

October 8, 2007

johnmperry commented on the list words-often-used-by-stupid-people-to-cover-for-the-inability-to-articulate-a-full-idea

My most unfavourite word: fantastic - seems to mean "desperately ordinary".

June 17, 2008

croptilldawn commented on the list words-often-used-by-stupid-people-to-cover-for-the-inability-to-articulate-a-full-idea

I was watching Huell Houser last night and he was interviewing the current owner(he inherited it) of Yiroshima restaurant in LA.

OMG I could have made a drinking game with just the number of times this dork said "what have you" and "so forth" I find those to be lame filler words when the person does not know what the heck they are talking about.

Just a side note their is Huell Houser drinking game.

June 18, 2008