Do you have a favorite word?  Mine happens to be the word “indeed”.  I picked it up out of the blue one day last year, not even a full year ago.  DH and I were having a conversation and in response to a statement he made, I responded with, “Indeed”.  I didn’t need to say any more than that.  “Indeed,” said it all.

I found myself answering all manner of questions and statements, observations and queries with the word.

“That’s a really awful color on that car.”  “Indeed!”

“So I heard that Company XYZ was going to be laying people off…” “Indeed?”

“The weather has been great today, don’t you think?”  “Indeed.”

I think I’ve picked up and latched onto the word because it’s so effective at saying exactly what I want to get across without being superfluous and excessively wordy.  I found that once I got on a roll about a certain topic, I’d keep on talking, often talking TOO much (in my opinion).  The occasions where I found myself thinking, “I shoulda shut up…” (by the way…horrible video to go with the song, but only link I could find with the tune.  Bill Engvall’s “Shoulda Shut Up”) were becoming more frequent and thus, “Indeed”, was captured, retained and employed.

I realize that letting out my secret like this may begin people on the path of using “Indeed” with great enthusiasm.  Let me warn you now: overuse of “Indeed” in any form results in eye-rolls in your general direction and leads to people asking if you know how to say anything else.  I have had to stop myself from responding to that question with, “Indeed”.

Conversational ability thus far as not been impeded, in fact, I feel that by keeping my responses short, sweet and to the point conversation has been aided in that my standardized response has allowed me to focus on asking the other party in the conversation more pointed questions, therefore allowing conversation to continue.  I refrain from elaborating and telling an amusing anecdote about myself, and focus on the other person (and people really do like to talk about themselves… hence the popularity of blogs), making them feel important and the focus of the conversation (because they are).

What word(s) or phrase(s) do you use with frequency in the course of a day/week?