There are many aspects of course but key among them all is communication, or rather the ability to transfer information by speech, written text, or other means in a manner that is at the ability of the listener to absorb and understand.
The message however can get lost when there are distractions.
When we speak, we sometimes punctuate sentences with distracting ‘punctuations’ or interjections such as ‘uhm’, ‘arh’, ‘aha’, ‘like’, ‘yeah’, ‘eh?’ and words or phrases such as ‘you know’, ‘You know what I mean’, or ‘yes, no’.
“This is the reason and explanation, like, yeah, you know.(?)”
These discourse markers, sounds, grunts or filler words, become an expression (by the speaker) of self-doubt, uncertainty, hesitation, deliberation, interest, disinterest etc. and though sometimes used as reaffirmations, can still be very distracting.
The recurrent use, removes confidence in the message.
The listener is given doubt as to the validity of the message because the speaker has demonstrated similar doubts.
To clarify, the interjection “You Know” is often used by people (including trainers) offering explanations.
“This is the reason and explanation, you know.(?)”
Simply put, if I knew, I would not need the lesson, or to listen.
When a raised intonation, is used, the statement “you know”, becomes a question: You know? Presumably the speaker means “Do you understand?”, but if the speaker, in answering a question, is compelled by thought or habit, to ask the question repeatedly, then it is apparent that the speaker is uncertain that a full and correct answer has yet been given and so goes on without waiting for an answer to repeat “You know?/Do you understand?”, and moments later will repeat again “You know? often with greater frequency.
Distracted by the frequent repetition of the interjection “you know” by a speaker, I resorted to simply marking a count in the margin of my notes. This actually enabled me to block out the extraneous words and just focus on the actual message rather than be distracted by the repetition of the phrase.
When reviewing my notes, I saw the count in my margins and was surprised to find that on every page of my notes there were 12-20 marks so that over a 1 hour period, the speaker used the phrase “You know” 20 times every 10 minutes (twice a minute) so over an hour period, on average, used the phrase up to 120 times.
If you are a public speaker or trainer, get rid of the phrase/interjection/question ‘You know”; discard the discourse markers, and ensure the message is delivered confidently, so that the listener will actually know what you mean.…You know.
