You Can "Go Ahead" and Drop the Filler Words
I really appreciate the recorded presentations on ASP.NET AJAX and Silverlight from Microsoft. However, the latest "beat pause" phrase by MS speakers is getting on my nerves.
A single verb isn't sufficient at present. You don't "drag a control" onto a page, you "go ahead and drag" it. Participants aren't invited to "download" the sample after the talk, they should "go ahead and download" the code.
Well, the next time you're giving a talk, why not "go ahead and count" how many times you're using the nonsense phrase? As you're about to utter the useless filler words, you can "go ahead and stop".
What will the next pause word be? "Exactly" was hot for awhile and "absolutely" still has fans. Starting a sentence with "So" has faded marginally in the last while but remains in the MS top ten. Years ago, "Like" and "I mean" were the popular sentence starters among those who found themselves talking before they knew what they were going to say.