Are you using these phrases? Dump them now!

We do not give our speech much thought in our day-to-day lives during conversations and writings. That’s natural, but competition is all around us, and we always need to stay on top of our game. You don’t when someone is observing you, and an inappropriate phrase might not polish your impression. The question is, are you using these phrases? Dump then now if you are!

I was like…

The word ‘like’ doesn’t have any business in our conversational language. It is slang, and we must dump them from our professional lives immediately. More than anything else, it showcases how you are running out of words to use. One could also confuse you with someone who is a slow thinker.

This is kind of the…

Dump Dump Dump! There’s nothing worse than uncertainty, especially when you want to make a solid point. If you want to be explicit about an idea, or anything for that matter, then phrases such as ‘kind of’ should be out of your vocabulary. There’s a huge difference when using it with friends, and at the workplace or around important people.

Can you explain this to me again?

Well, why should they, if they do not even know how much of it needs re-explanation? This is one of those phrases to stop using instantly and replace with a sentence that makes you sound like you are on the same page. You don’t come across as a smart person when you use ‘can you explain this to me again?’

The best thing to do is, repeat whatever you could comprehend, and then say, ‘I hope I have understood everything correctly.’ In this scenario, the speaker gets a clear picture of what you have understood so far and only needs to fill you in with details that you missed out.

Filler words like Uh, Uhm, you know…

These phrases don’t even in English grammar for usage in our daily lives. While ‘you know’ is just slang, the rest are as good as gibberish. To emphasize better, ‘Uh’ expresses surprise or speechlessness, while ‘uhm’ has no existence.

If you do require some time to gather all of your words, replace it with ‘well’, but not with every sentence. To become a confident speaker of the English language, you need to practice speaking in it every day. The more you do so, the lesser will you find the need for filler words. Words will flow to you smoothly making you more eloquent in the language.

I guess…maybe you could do it!

Nothing makes you sound more unsure of yourself than phrases like ‘I guess’ and ‘maybe’ with other suffixes. If someone asks you, ‘Can you do it?’, then your only response should be a direct answer with no scope of indecisiveness. ‘Yes, I can do it. But I will need some time for that’ or ‘No, my hands are too full to take this up right now; my apologies.’

Can you make out the difference now? Your language sounds enhanced when you trim the unassertive bits. ‘Maybe’ is no good either. Yet again, it is either a yes, or a no. We should always be sure about what we can do and what we cannot. If you don’t have the right answer at that moment, ‘can you give me some time to figure it out?’ is a better version to use.

Sort of

‘Sort of’ is also amongst the undetermined phrases of the English language that leaves the opposite person with a vague answer or statement. Commonly, we use sort of when someone asks us a question, or when we want to describe a feeling or situation. ‘It was sort of hot that day; I couldn’t walk any longer’ or ‘Yes, I am sort of better than before.’

In both sentences, sort of sounds very off, and add no valuable information. There are two basic things you can do to avoid using this phrase recurrently:

1. Strike them off the sentence complete– For example: ‘It was hot that day; I couldn’t walk any longer’ and ‘Yes, I am better than before’. You know now, that the day was hot, which is why he/she couldn’t walk any further in the first sentence. The second sentence confirms that the speaker is better.
2. Replace it with a stronger vocabulary to add weight to the sentence- For example: ‘It was extremely hot that day; I couldn’t walk any longer’ and ‘Yes, I am much better than before’, In case of the first sentence, the replacement ‘extremely’ doesn’t just confirm that day was hot but also emphasizes on the fact that it was too hot to walk. Similarly, in the second sentence, you are giving the listener a confirmation of how much better you are than before.

Deleting these phrases from your daily language, especially in the professional world, will surely make a difference. Try them!

Are you using ‘which’ and ‘that’ correctly?