"... if that makes sense."

[MyThreeWords]

Anyone else getting a bit fed up with people ending perfectly simple utterances with "if that makes sense"?

Fine if you are trying to communicate something that you yourself struggle to understand, and you feel you might not have worded it very clearly.

Not fine if you are saying things like "I just like coffee more than tea, if that makes sense."

I think its the newest way of being overly tentative and appeasing in conversations. It is a way of softening what you say, often out of an anxiety about appearing to have an opinion that others might disagree with or get upset by. It's a bit like when we put an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence to make it seem more jovial and consequently less assertive/confrontational/etc - if that makes sense.😉

I’ve never heard anyone say it in the way you describe.

I use it regularly as I'm explaining technical stuff to non-technical people and I need to know I've explained clearly.

It's more about ensuring my communication has been clear rather than their comprehension

Thank you OP. I thought I was the only one who noticed it. I sat behind the bus whilst someone chatted loudly on FaceTime and saying this after every comment. People say it in meetings. My hairdresser says it after every remark. Drives me daft.

There’s a man at work, absolutely lovely chap, who constantly says “in essence” when explaining anything.

It’s always something in essence of something, which is in fact, in essence of something else. The way he says in essence, is incessant and, in essence, it makes me want to murder him.

I don’t know why it bothers me so much but it’s like nails down a chalk board to me. I have to manually make sure my eyes don’t roll back into my head every time he opens his mouth.

I hear you OP, but there have been many more instances in my life where I have said something as simply as I possibly could, and the other person has not understood what I have said.

I could say "Put the red shoe in the blue box and then put that box on the table" and I would still get confused head tilts, so now I ask "does/if that make sense?"

I'm with you @MyThreeWords using it the way you did in your OP would make me stabby and I'd probably get a good ole eye twitch kicking off.

See also starting a sentence with ‘I'm not being funny but ….’ then saying something that isn’t funny so I’d wouldn’t have thought they were funny. I really, really hate that.

I fully understand why people find it annoying and I find it annoying in myself 😳

I struggle massively with people pleasing (thanks, childhood) and all those little phrases like "if you get what I mean" and "if that's clear enough", "if you get the idea", "if that's ok with everyone" etc etc are defence mechanisms to "soften the blow" of whatever I'm saying, as even the most innocuous things I said would be seen as an attack or snarky or pointed. So everything I say now is softened and wishy washy. I am trying to change it!

Yes. My best friend says it all the time and it drives me nuts. Perfectly normal stuff like "I'll bring my umbrella in case it rains. Does that make sense?" Every now and again I'll say "Of course!" but mostly I ignore it.

@MyThreeWords- post this kind of thing in Pedants' Corner! You'll get a more sympathetic reaction there.

It's just one of those verbal tics that people use. We all have them. It's just that when you notice one, you get hyper-aware of it and it becomes hugely irritating.

DP replaced his car earlier this year and the bloke who dealt with the lease arrangements couldn't get through a sentence without saying 'basically' at some point.

There's also a tendency I've noticed lately for a lot of (British) people to say 'right?' throughout every conversation with a very American intonation, which really irks me. But I know I must definitely also have verbal tics that irritate other people - everyone does, even when they think they don't.

They do!

I agree, OP. Yet another example of lazy speech, just like “do you know what I mean?”

I say it at work because I want to be sure people have understood what I said.

I probably do say that more than I should

But that's usually because to get to my original point has usually taken much longer due to the random (well all connected in my head but random to most) tangents my brain tends to go off on during conversations, so it's more just to clarify/apologise for waffling

It has certainly been my experience that women do it more than men, though I see that a couple of posters on the thread have had a different experience. I think it is much harder as a woman to say something blunt and uncaveated and decisive. I try to avoid self-deprecating filler phrases, but I know that I don't always succeed.

I don't think I have ever heard anyone say this.

I’m with you OP. I have a colleague who endlessly tags ‘kind of thing’ on to the end of his sentences. Fine if he’s making a point that might be ambiguous, but it grates on me to hear something like ‘the meeting starts in 10 minutes kind of thing.’ Agh!

I know a couple of people who say it all the time, and I find it irritating, too. I am not generally an irritable person, I just find repetitive language that adds nothing to a conversation tiresome, much as saying ‘like’ or ‘you know’ does. If Mumsnet were purely for serious topics only it’d be rather a dull site, if that makes sense?

My aunt uses "If you know what I mean" all the time, and now my parents have started doing it. I find it every bit as annoying as "If that makes sense".

I suppose you could have a bit of fun with it, either by using it at the end of every banal statement: "I'm just going to have a bite of pasta if you know what I mean / It was very hot today if you know what I mean" or maybe with completely surreal utterances: "The squid capitulated downwards diagonally exacerbating the Swedish umbrella section into the badminton cupboard, if you know what I mean."

OMG absolutely. It does my head in, like to an irrational extent. I find it condescending. Funnily enough, the people who say it are never actually explaining things remotely complex or difficult to make sense of... I end up wondering whether I'm doing something to give the impression I'm a bit dim-witted 😂

I use it quite a lot, always have done and it's nothing to do with corporate speak for me.
Found out a few years ago that I'm autistic and it's common for autistic people due to us being so used to not getting our point across as we mean it and doubting ourselves.
Obviously I appreciate that it isn't solely an autistic thing, but we're not all doing it to annoy you!

I've been finding myself saying it a lot at work just lately. We are in the middle of implementing a new finance software system, and the business owners don't understand financial terms. I've got to explain things to them in non-accounting terminology, and I need to make sure that they grasp what I'm trying to say as they have to take major decisions on the configuration of the thing. If they don't get it, it's on me to find another way of wording things so they do understand, so if I say 'if that makes sense' and they say no, I can come up with another way.
So I'm not saying it because I think they are stupid, I'm checking that I haven't made an error of judgement in the way I'm putting it across.

It’s just a less harsh way of checking someone’s understanding. Asking “Do you understand?” could sound patronising and possibly offensive.

Yes, I particularly dislike that one.