Verbal Trash
It is hard to imagine that our Founding Fathers would have undercut their speech with any of the all-too-common fillers that plague conversations today – those “ums” and “uhs” and “likes” and especially the inanity of inanities: “you know.” Oh, how I hate that pernicious phrase “you know.” How silly it is, how useless, what pure deadwood.
Think of it: “Four score and, like, seven years ago, you know, our forefathers, uh, brought forth, you know, upon this continent, you know, a new nation, you know, conceived in, uh, liberty, and you know, you know, dedicated to the proposition that, uh, uh, like, all men are created, like, equal.” With that kind of delivery, President Abraham Lincoln could not have stoked the nation’s determination to see the Civil War through to its conclusion. Or let’s imagine Martin Luther King, Jr.: “I, uh, have a dream, you know.”
Ridding your speech of such verbal trash may not make an individual a leader of nations or men – that requires great thoughts as well as a clear and stirring delivery – but leaving them in can surely blight the path to greatness, you know.
ROBERT C. BYRD
U.S. Senator
in a speech delivered to Congress
