There's an implied thing in what you said, which is the speaker is self-conscious, but you know

who else is self-conscious is the audience? I mean, at any given time, you're talking to an audience,

what are they thinking about you or their grocery list, and how their life is going off of rails,

and how this is going wrong, or how this is amazing? We're very preoccupied creatures with our own

circumstances. Welcome to how-to. I'm Mike Peska.

So one thing about hosting a podcast or podcasts and talking for a living is that there are

secrets, let us say, little tricks of the trade that aren't dishonest, but are a bit less

than totally above board, right?

And one is that with editing or retakes, you won't hear me say what you just heard me say.

Um, uh, right?

Those are called filler words, and we all use them.

Some of us use them more than others.

I think of former New York City Mayor

Ed Koch. I call him the human dial tone because his filler sound was

I think the British should be excoriated around the world today. The thought of their shipping.

Now, we would all love to eliminate filler words and speak with total fluidity and precision,

but our damn brains get in the way.

So what did we do? There's nothing we can do, right? Right?

There was only one Christopher Hitchens or Daniel Webster

or pick the most eloquent person you can conjure. Know what I'm saying? But I'm here to say

there is a thing or two we could do. But of course, the first step is knowing what's going on

and owning it. And this does carry a lot of risk. So I tapped a person

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