Ask McFartnuggets: “How Can I Stop Saying ‘You Know’ Before Every Sentence?”

Knowledge is power.

Dear McFartnuggets: 

Some of my friends have recently pointed out that I, you know, say “You know” way too much when I’m talking. You know? How can I stop saying “You know” before every sentence? -- Elijah from New Brunswick, New Jersey

Dear Elijah: A lot of people have a problem with this and it’s because saying “You know” is a placeholder that folks put in their sentences when their brain is still buffering. Fortunately there is a solution. If you just stop to think about exactly what you’re going to say before you say it and say only those words you’ve preloaded in your mind then you’ll be okay. Just take a second or two to fully write out in your head what you’re going to say and gain a decent grasp on the words you’re going to start launching out of your gullet before you just go right into it. Think of talking like watching a streaming video on your computer with a poor wi-fi connection. It’s better to pause the video for a minute and let it load than to just have it play and freeze up over and over. You’ll probably save more time overall by preemptively preparing what you’re going to say than by throwing in all those “You know”s. When you say “You know” too much it can be annoying to people like seeing a loading screen. Just pause, take a breath and once you get the hang of not saying “You know” all the time it should naturally stop happening.

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