I’m french, and it’s a geberational thing I guess. People my age often say “genre” (equals “kinda”), and older people find this very annoying (I’m 22)

I still use “cool” a lot, but I think its become one of those words that will persist through generations.

It’s not really a filler word, but I’ve been corrected on my use of “just,” particularly at my work place. “Just” is often used by some people to minimise the impact of what they’re saying intentionally. For example, “I just think we should change the wording in this law.” If you take out ‘just’ (and some of the other words) and say the thing you meant to say - it becomes a far punchier statement, “We should change the wording in this law.”

The OP made me think of a poem by Taylor Mali, “Speak With Conviction.”

It’s funny how people will be particular over filler words but not over speaking a shitty language with a grammar that barely makes sense.

The filler words do carry meaning just not content although using them every time establishes a new baseline. They can be used to convey vibes, to harden, soften or communicate lack of confidence for example.

If you kinda/sorta deleted a person’s account, you still deleted the account but you are implicitly saying you didn’t mean to for example. Lowkey can be a modifier to mean you don’t feel strongly about something.

There are two primary reasons people use filler words.
One is to maintain possession of the role of ‘speaker’ in the conversation because, if you stop for a while, someone might think you’re done (if it sounded like the end of a thought) or have broken down trying to think of what to say. Spending time in environments where people have high demands for time or competition for attention can make these things worse. The other is social fear or anxiety about how your message will be received, or over one’s correctness and certainty. ‘I am claiming this thing for myself,’ has the same ultimate goal as ‘Nah, lowkey f’real, I was kinda maybe thinking of nabbing that,’ but the use of the extra ‘filler’ words and slang is designed to obfuscate the meaning, making it passive agressive, forcing the listener to parse the extra layers of obfuscation before having a chance to object, and leaving a verbal avenue of retreat open if someone does object, allowing them to say, ‘No, I said I was thinking about it.’ Spending time in environments where one has to deal with openly agressive people can often make people seek out these verbal conflict avoidance techniques.

Take one step back and ask yourself why you criticized your friend to begin with.

uuuhno. (That’s one word.) 🤧

no, why use many words when few do trick

What the actual fuck? Literally.

I mean… For real, yeah, I guess, kinda lowkey.

Usually meant to increase the degree to which I’m being absurd or facetious. It’s a manner of showing contempt for the thing I’m describing. I use it to joke more than with actual dialog.

But “kinda” probably happens in my daily vocabulary to such a degree that I’m unaware how much I use it. So, despite using this sort of word deliberately in certain situations, I’m also very guilty of using it everywhere else.

The Title should be “Do You Use Filler Words?” not “Do You Needlessly Use Filler Words?”. At least I really, really, really think so. /s

Er, no.

Uhhh idk like um maybe

Yes I use needless filler words, but i use them because I need them ;)

Low key is a really egregious one though because it is not designed to be a filler word. The thing about filler words is that every adverb is a filler word, as neuroneiro points out. Using them less makes you sound confident and precise. Sometimes they are useful or necessary. But by definition - a filler word. It is likely our overuse of adverts which trains us to use filler words like sort of, low key, kind of