Tics, Ya Know?, in Oral and Written Communication

Tics are repeated verbal or written behaviors that other people find annoying. La Law did a show back when in which the black attorney had a client with a severe case of Tourette's Syndrome such that the client would blurt out unpredictably various racial and ethnic epithets including the "N" word.

Tourette's is a very unfortunate condition such that those who suffer from it display uncontrollable physical twitching or verbal utterances. In the La Law episode just mentioned the attorney knew that his client was not doing saying those things on purpose and couldn't control any of it, but found the behaviors distressing anyway.

You find presenters who don't have Tourette's but who suffer from verbal tics. They pepper their presentation with words or phrases like "uh," "er," "um," or "you know." An entrepreneur who wants to persuade others to give him money needs to learn how to speck without showing these ticks. These can be gotten rid of with some work.

Physical tics can include straightening your hair, fidgeting with your hands, pacing back and forth, picking your nose, clipping your nails, wiping your glasses or other annoying mannerism. A graduate professor I had once had a tic. Once every five minutes or so during a seminar he would clean out his pipe and reload it and light it up. He'd spend the time between lighting's talking and the thing would go out so he'd have to do it all over again. I'm sure he was unaware of what he was doing.

An advertising guy I know has Tourette's. During a presentation he interrupts his sentences with kind of a weird physical twitching. But he always explains to people very matter-of-factly that he has Tourette's and asks that they bear with him. He does a very nice job and I don't even notice the tics except once in a while. In general, the problem with verbal tics is that they distract from your message. People end up being annoyed with the tics and forget to hear what you are saying.

Writers also have tics. I'm reading a book now in which the guy uses "however" about twice in a page. He also overuses semicolons and commas which are annoying and slow the reader down. When people are pressed for time and don't read as much, the last thing you want to do is shoot yourself metaphorically in the foot. Paragraphs with lots of adverbs also slow the reader down. These are not really tics but they have the same effect and should be gotten rid of. Same goes for empty phrases such as "it goes without saying that..." or "It's needless to say..." So---don't say it. Written tics are a problem in a business plan or proposal because they make the text harder to read and them require the reader to spend more time reading it. They also slow the reader down and distract him or her from getting your point. Not a good idea if you're trying to get somewhere.

Entrepreneurship is the life's blood of all my professional activities. It makes them go. And go read my mysteries, The Case of the Kearney Music School Murders and No Stop on Red, both available at Amazon.com. You can read the first one for free at wwww.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com or buy it from Amazon.com more cheaply than you can print it out.