You know, you know, you know?

As many of you know, verbal tics and fillers make me a little crazy. This is when people cannot stop saying "umm," "uh," "ahh," "like," and similar words repeatedly while talking. With the possible exception of legitimate speech impediments, most people really can learn to stop doing this (many people just need someone to point it out, while some need to very consciously practice.) I've been known to sit in lectures, board meetings, and other public events and count the number of times someone says "umm." It can number in the dozens to hundreds.

Many of you also know that I really don't much care for the local NPR station in Atlanta, WABE, which plays classical music, with a particular love of baroque and pipe organ, between 9am and 3pm. So I'm in the habit of streaming live public radio from other (and yes, I do donate to the ones I use the most, anonymously, since I really detest being on mailing lists.)

Many of you are now wondering how I'm possibly going to tie this together. Okay: I just started listening to On Point on WBUR Boston. The host is interviewing Philip Hoare, author of The Whale. Within the first thirty seconds or so, Hoare literally said "you know" ten times. It was like hearing a million razor blades scraping on a million chalkboards for a million years.

Perhaps adding to my loathsome reaction to this is that many Americans expect Brits (which Hoare is) to be well spoken and articulate. (Although my friends haunting the hallowed ivory tower know what a treacherous expectation this can be.)

I scrambled to turn off the audio, before it scrambled my brain. I'm still pretty traumatized. It's like hearing Beyonce's Single Ladies pouring out of some overpriced frontend for a sweatshop clothing business in a mall and not being able to get it out of your head for an hour afterward. Pretty soon a self-lobotomy with a spork from KFC seems like an outstanding idea. (By the way, in case you're tempted, googling "self lobotomy" isn't a very useful activity.)