4 ms·

Valley Girl 2.0 Sadly this is me, I hate it, but I know it is true, my mind works far faster than my mouth and when I am excited it comes out as half sentences

by kls 15y ago

Valley Girl 2.0 Sadly this is me, I hate it, but I know it is true, my mind works far faster than my mouth and when I am excited it comes out as half sentences, joined by "likes" and "you knows". I have to concentrate to focus on pulling myself back and then I worry that I am not getting my thoughts across, but at least I know I am not getting them across when, I am doing it at thought speed. Someone said to me once "Dude you use likes like other people use ums". If there was one thing I could change about my speaking style that would be it. Funny part is I speak at conferences and when I monolog it is not an issue. Q&A is a different story all together.

jpdoctor 15y ago
Record yourself. Playback. The course correction will happen quite quickly.
- simon 15y ago
  Very quickly in my case. At the church that I pastor, it is still small enough that I am the principle sound engineer as well, so I get to hear my recorded sermons before uploading them. This cured the use of stop words and also is removing my rabid dislike of hearing myself speak.
simonsarris 15y ago
In my (private) high school's health class "like" and "um" and others were referred to as "stop-words" by the teacher because people would say them instead of pausing. It's really obvious once you look for them, for instance I hear things like college tour guides that would literally say "um" after every single sentence, probably unbeknownst to themselves! One of the class projects was for us to remove the stop words from our speech by the end of the semester. We did this by all using recording software (had to submit either by cassette tape or wav/mp3) and answering questions such as "Do you want to live forever and why or why not?" by speaking for at least 5 minutes. These were our homework assignments. We had to very consciously never use any stop words. We could pause the recorder if we had trouble thinking of what to say, but we could never say those words. I was skeptical of the assignment at first but my class all agreed by the end of the semester that it made us much better speakers, simply learning to consider our pauses instead of filling the silence with "like" and "um".
- simon 15y ago
  Agreed. When preaching sermons (which are all recorded) I soon learned that a short pause was better than a stop word. And as long as you don't look or sound panicked when you pause, it comes across as being thoughtful and people accept it as a natural part of speaking to deep issues.
- kls 15y ago
  I thank you guys for the advice, and I have done this and I have perfected (to the best of my abilities) my ability to monolog. Which is what these exercise teach you, my problem comes in natural conversation in which I am excited about the subject. The conversation is more dynamic in a dialog, and I find myself hopping from idea to idea faster than in a monolog in which I an the one who determines the switches in context.
- jrockway 15y ago
  This rule never worked for me, because I, like some sort of analogy machine, like to use analogies. And like is a good word to place emphasis on before making an analogy.
  - sevenproxies 15y ago
    Except I imagine like the author like meant using like out of like, you-know, thingie... context. I live with someone who uses like far to often it's almost a speech impediment. Of course, he doesn't notice it and I'm learning to ignore it. However on the flip side, when I can't think of what I want to say next (and that is also often) I just go silent, frequently leaving my conversation partner puzzled and sometimes they ask to repeat what I said. edit: grammar.
    - kls 15y ago
      I would not say thingie but the rest of it is pretty much a conversation with me, about something I am extremely interested in. Speech impediment is a good description for it. It's has to be related to turrets or something, because it is ingrained and habitual, but yet in monologing (generally learned speech) I don't have the issue.

by kls 15y ago

jpdoctor 15y ago

Record yourself. Playback. The course correction will happen quite quickly.

simon 15y ago
Very quickly in my case. At the church that I pastor, it is still small enough that I am the principle sound engineer as well, so I get to hear my recorded sermons before uploading them. This cured the use of stop words and also is removing my rabid dislike of hearing myself speak.

simonsarris 15y ago

In my (private) high school's health class "like" and "um" and others were referred to as "stop-words" by the teacher because people would say them instead of pausing. It's really obvious once you look for them, for instance I hear things like college tour guides that would literally say "um" after every single sentence, probably unbeknownst to themselves! One of the class projects was for us to remove the stop words from our speech by the end of the semester. We did this by all using recording software (had to submit either by cassette tape or wav/mp3) and answering questions such as "Do you want to live forever and why or why not?" by speaking for at least 5 minutes. These were our homework assignments. We had to very consciously never use any stop words. We could pause the recorder if we had trouble thinking of what to say, but we could never say those words. I was skeptical of the assignment at first but my class all agreed by the end of the semester that it made us much better speakers, simply learning to consider our pauses instead of filling the silence with "like" and "um".

simon 15y ago
Agreed. When preaching sermons (which are all recorded) I soon learned that a short pause was better than a stop word. And as long as you don't look or sound panicked when you pause, it comes across as being thoughtful and people accept it as a natural part of speaking to deep issues.
kls 15y ago
I thank you guys for the advice, and I have done this and I have perfected (to the best of my abilities) my ability to monolog. Which is what these exercise teach you, my problem comes in natural conversation in which I am excited about the subject. The conversation is more dynamic in a dialog, and I find myself hopping from idea to idea faster than in a monolog in which I an the one who determines the switches in context.
jrockway 15y ago
This rule never worked for me, because I, like some sort of analogy machine, like to use analogies. And like is a good word to place emphasis on before making an analogy.
- sevenproxies 15y ago
  Except I imagine like the author like meant using like out of like, you-know, thingie... context. I live with someone who uses like far to often it's almost a speech impediment. Of course, he doesn't notice it and I'm learning to ignore it. However on the flip side, when I can't think of what I want to say next (and that is also often) I just go silent, frequently leaving my conversation partner puzzled and sometimes they ask to repeat what I said. edit: grammar.
  - kls 15y ago
    I would not say thingie but the rest of it is pretty much a conversation with me, about something I am extremely interested in. Speech impediment is a good description for it. It's has to be related to turrets or something, because it is ingrained and habitual, but yet in monologing (generally learned speech) I don't have the issue.