“It’s kind of like a strategy that we kind of use for our clients to kind of drive new types of value in a sort of changing business environment.” Say what? Sit in any conference room, lecture hall or at any bar table and you are sure to hear this familiar language, where every claim is qualified with “like, kinda, sorta.” Not only is this annoying but it reflects poorly on the speaker, making them sound unprepared, unsure and unqualified.
But why is this happening and what can we learn from it?
Make no mistake, filler words are nothing new. “Like” was the big one for years and “um” is an old favorite. But “kind of” seems to have spread like wildfire, a virus infecting host after host. I myself have even fallen victim, the contagion just too much to bare. This is especially interesting given how conscious and turned-off I am by the phrase, yet still, I find myself kind of saying it from time to time. It is the virality of culture that is my first big takeaway here. Whether it be a word, a phrase, the clothes we wear or the food we eat – culture spreads in our communities, often completely unbeknownst to us, an invisible cloak dictating our every move. Makes you think about free will. Especially now, with the proliferation of internet communication and social media, speech patterns have a much greater likelihood if going viral and to a much wider audience.
My second takeaway here is about qualifiers and political correctness. The debate about PC culture is an interesting one. One side says free speech trumps all, whereas the “politically correct” side says offensive speech should not be covered. Wherever you stand on the topic, there is no doubt that PC culture has infiltrated everyday culture, likely through our colleges. Just ask any comedian who has been on a recent college tour (Seinfeld talks about this a lot). My suspicion is that it is not at all random that “kind of” is the filler word de-jour and my hunch is that it is related to PC culture. When comedians are invited to perform at a college they are told not to broach certain topics and “trigger words” are off limits. It is even built into some contracts that if a comic does not abide, they might not get paid. It seems as though this is not just a problem for comics at colleges.
My theory is that we are in a collective habit of qualifying everything we say, in case to not offend. Think about being in the workplace or classroom – would you rather tell someone their idea is “kinda almost there” or is straight up “half baked” and they need to go back to the drawing board? Our desire to not offend, while borne of good intentions, is making us non-confrontation to the point of being uncommitted – to our ideas, to other people and ultimately to the truth. I think there is a lot of value in being upfront. Just think about every time you have been ghosted. Or what about when you were the ghost? You knew it was wrong but you just couldn’t help yourself. You couldn’t commit to being upfront and honest, from fear off hurting someone’s feelings. I’ve been there too. It’s not a good feeling. Though your intentions were right, the honest and productive thing to do would have been to come back from the dead and tell the person you’re not interested. Lets do the same thing at the office, in the classroom and even at the bar. Lets stick up for our ideas and tell people how we really feel. No more kinda-sortas. Lets just say it how it is.
ARYEH CARNI 