Work on using fewer qualifiers and hedging less often.
Robin Lakoff, in 1975, published an influential account of women's language. This was the book Language and Woman's Place. In a related article, Woman's language, she published a set of basic assumptions about what marks out the language of women. Among these are claims that women:
- Hedge: using phrases like “sort of”, “kind of”, “it seems like”, and so on.
- Use (super)polite forms: “Would you mind...”,“I'd appreciate it if...”, “...if you don't mind”.
- Use tag questions: “You're going to dinner, aren't you?”
- Speak in italics: intonational emphasis equal to underlining words - so, very, quite.
- Use empty adjectives: divine, lovely, adorable, and so on
- Use hypercorrect grammar and pronunciation: English prestige grammar and clear enunciation.
- Use direct quotation: men paraphrase more often.
- Have a special lexicon: women use more words for things like colours, men for sports.
- Use question intonation in declarative statements: women make declarative statements into questions by raising the pitch of their voice at the end of a statement, expressing uncertainty. For example, “What school do you attend? Eton College?”
- Use “wh-” imperatives: (such as, “Why don't you open the door?”)
- Speak less frequently
- Overuse qualifiers: (for example, “I Think that...”)
- Apologise more: (for instance, “I'm sorry, but I think that...”)
- Use modal constructions: (such as can, would, should, ought - “Should we turn up the heat?”)
- Avoid coarse language or expletives
- Use indirect commands and requests: (for example, “My, isn't it cold in here?” - really a request to turn the heat on or close a window)