Jarhead Communications

I was sitting in the student lounge at Loyola‘s Columbia Campus taking slow bites out of my Cheeseburger-Cheeseburger cheeseburger. And if not for this one lady talking on her cell phone, I might have enjoyed this burger.

My attempt to not listen to her conversation was an act in futility. I could not only hear her, but I could hear the person on the other side describing her indecision as to what to do about an immigration issue.  I won’t name names…  I’m not even certain how the two were actually communicating.

But more to the point, every other word out of her mouth consisted of “whatever”, “like”, and “you know”. She would begin her sentence, then abruptly pause, and fill in the void with “you know”.

Her entire conversation for 10 minutes was filled with those three words (well, actually 4 if you count “you know”).

It occurred to me that we fill our speech with umms, ahhs, you knows, and whatevers because we are inept at speaking coherent English.  Our speech is filled with slang, jargon, and sounds.  We speak in examples vice descriptions.  Pictures rather than words.

Not only is our acumen in the English spoken word waning, but so are our writing skills.

I challenge you to correct yourself next time you find yourself speaking this way and replace those words with specific words, which depict what you actually mean to say.

A good boss once told me “say what you mean, and mean what you say.”

As a Public Affairs Officer for the Marines, Danny is an innovative and forward-thinking executive, with a passion for leveraging effective communications to fuel employee-engagement, build community goodwill, and drive profits.