I’m not a know it all so stop treating me like one.

Can you all stop saying “you know”. We don’t know! That’s why you are explaining “it” in the first place. I admit sometimes it is appropriate. For example, when you are talking to a zookeeper about your dog’s mating habits and you say, “You know, that’s how you can tell they are in heat.” The zookeeper actually knows about this subject so “you know” is appropriate. When you are explaining how it took you over two hours to get from midtown to Brooklyn, we don’t “know” anything about the circumstances. It just happened and we were not there. That’s why you are telling us. If we knew you could stop telling the story right now. So please. Be a bit more conscious of your words.

SOME FUN: Because no one will head the words I wrote above, a fun little game to play is counting “you know’s” in a conversation. This is especially fun when in a boring work meeting. I call this game: Um, I mean, like, you know. Score the individual speakers on these four phrases and then count the tallies and award a winner at the end of the conversation/meeting. Publicly awarding prizes is usually not a good idea.