I have discovered myself doing something that I find very annoying when others doing it. It’s terrible.
My new habit is the insertion of the phrase “you know” into sentences where they aren’t required or even adding value.
“Hello, you know, my name, you know, is Graham, you know.”
I used to use “err”, but somewhere along the line I’ve taken on my new tick.
I was aware of this prior to today, but today I have become acutely aware of the level of annoyance that it causes. During a lunchtime walk I was listening to a podcast I had downloaded from IT Conversations. The person answering questions used the “you know” even more than I do, and it was so annoying that I turned it off even though it was an interesting piece.
That leaves me with the question of how I eradicate this tick. I don’t think I want to replace it with another one, because that would just be as annoying. Perhaps I just need to speak slower and with more thought and in so doing remove it before it gets out of my mouth, you know.
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Graham Chastney 
Well – join the club. When I was doing my teaching practice – I clearly had a very similar habit. I said “OK” a lot. In fact at the end of one lesson two pupils came up to me and said, “Did you know you said OK one hundred and eight times this lesson?”
I hope it was a double lesson – that would have put it at just under 1 per minute! Thankfully I managed after such a cathartic episode to greatly reduce my habit.
Also – you are clearly also suffering from phonetic typing – witness “My knew habit…” in your piece.
I had my sister tell me her son was “…board..” when she actually meant that he was bored. Of course, I predict that the most frequent errors are their/there and were/where – in the English language. I wonder what other languages have?
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Thanks Vince. I’ve updated the typo.
I’m sure that somewhere someone is using the English language as an experiment on the mind, seeing whether people can cope with so many traps.
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