I'm Minyon Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language.

We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff.

It's time for our quarterly listener question extravaganza so let's get started.

Hello, Minyon.

My name is Hal and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I am calling to suggest the segment on the expression you know.

Seems like everybody I talk to uses you know in every sentence.

So it must be failing a grammatical function, but it's not a grammatical function I can figure

out.

Well, thank you for listening and I hope you can discuss this issue.

Oh, Hal, you have hit upon one of my own verbal ticks.

When I'm unscripted like when I do radio interviews, I say you know a lot if I'm not actively

reminding myself to slow down and not to say it.

What I love about the way you asked the question is that you didn't rant about how much it bothers

you or how annoying it is.

Instead you're curious and you realize that if lots of people are saying something, there

must be a reason.

I mean, it must serve some purpose or people wouldn't do it, right?

Well, that's the kind of thing linguists study and they call phrases like you know and

I mean discourse markers.

Cambridge dictionary says we use discourse markers to connect, organize and manage what

we say or write or to express an attitude.

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