Punctuating conversations with 'obviously'...passive aggressive, much?

[Mosschopz]

Mainly by people who want to make a point but don't have the vocabulary to do it in a more clever way. Chuck in a few mentions of the word and you'll disarm your opponent into thinking you're being entirely reasonable as you put your crackpot case for having a week off with a cold etc across. Numpties.

Well, obviously.

Dunno. I know one person who says or once or twice every sentence. I don't know her socially only through work. I think it's a verbal tic. Another woman says 'what d'ya say' instead of um. So says that a few times a paragraph.

I don't know my own verbal tics. I'm sure I have them but they only come out when you're not concentrating. So when I concentrate I don't hear them!

I used to work with a guy for whom "obviously" was used in place of the usual "umm". Due to his size and accent it made him come across quite aggressively (he wasn't at all, he was lovely and we all knew that)- but our role involved a lot of sales to clients so our boss had to mention it to him and he had to cultivate himself a new "filler word"! Bless him!