What Are Disfluencies?
How to rid yourself of verbal parasites that may be undermining your authority.
Lisa B. Marshall
Disfluencies are word parasites. They pepper your speech and weaken your messages when you aren’t watching. They’re distracting for your listeners and they diminish your authority.
“I, like, work for a big bank, like, Citibank. I work, um, in technology, and head-up a group of like, 500 people, you know. I do, like, technology risk assessment, and create, um, processes, to, like, reduce risk. You know?”
Does this sound like someone you’d trust to handle a critical job in your company? Even worse, I bet this person has no idea that his speech is infected with these verbal viruses. In his defense, credibility killers (e.g. “like,” “so,” “you know,” “right,” “umm”) are actually really common in everyday conversation. Researchers say that about 20% of “words” in everyday conversation are disfluencies.
What to do about it? Pay attention to your spech patterns and whenever you feel a verbal parasite looming, simply add a pause. It will be tough at first, but worth it in the end.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock
About the Author
Lisa B. Marshall Lisa holds masters with duel degrees in interpersonal/intercultural communication and organizational communication. She’s the author of Smart Talk: The Public Speaker’s Guide to Success in Every Situation, as well as Ace Your Interview, Powerful Presenter, and Expert Presenter. Her work has been featured in CBS Money Watch, Ragan.com, Woman’s Day, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and many others. Her institutional clients include Johns Hopkins Medicine, Harvard University, NY Academy of Science, University of Pennsylvania, Genentech, and Roche.