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Sorry, I know this is a couple of years old now, but it cracks me up every time. It also raises a serious point about the relationship between the way we speak (or even write) and the way we think. At university, I had a supervisor who used to hate what she called 'throat-clearing'. "It could be suggested under certain circumstances that the possibility remains that..." We were trained in the art of "say what you mean and say it like you mean it", presumably on the grounds that if you are so lacking in confidence about a point to fumble about that much, the point was probably not worth making in the first place.

I couldn't help thinking that the supervisor in question was picking up on a much bigger problem and that was the feeling that there was something inherently wrong in being certain about anything. The fashionable stance was always: "I'm not here to come up with answers, I'm here to ask questions" as though it takes courage to ask questions and none whatsoever to give a persuasive answer.

So, are we, like, the most inarticulate generation ever - or just, you know, the most uncertain?

from on .