Non-corporate mind-control

[kangeiko]

I've just completed an intensive course in assertive presentations at Greenpeace. It was disconcerting to discovered that my default utterance - accounting for perhaps 30% of everything I say during a difficult presentation - is 'um

Comments

[hadeschild]

Wow, that's fascinating! And fantastic! I would love to have that kind of conditioning. I say 'like' like a valley girl.

[kangeiko]

My main filler is 'um', but I also use 'basically' and 'actually'. also, the thing that pisses me off most of all when other people do it - and i do it occasionally myself - is when they use 'literally' as a filler. "and she was so mad her head exploded, literally." "and i was, um, ah, er, literally purple with rage." etc.