Crutch Words
Updated 2026-07-31
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Crutch words are habitual fillers such as basically, actually, just, kind of, and you know, which speakers and writers use to bridge gaps while thinking. In speech they buy time; on the page they carry no information and dilute the sentences around them. They signal that a thought has not fully formed and make the prose sound hesitant. The editorial remedy is to delete them, or to replace them with the real logical connective the sentence needs.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Fat Trimming: Delete every filler and reread the sentence, which usually grows stronger. - Pattern Spotting: Circle your three most frequent fillers and count them per page. - Result Framing: Show readers the finished thought rather than the thinking process that produced it.
Anchor fast decisions
Fillers arise because speech and writing run at different speeds: the mouth keeps moving while the mind catches up. A listener tolerates that delay, but text has no delay to cover, so the filler becomes pure noise. Removing it forces the writer to supply the actual relation between ideas, which is why cutting fillers tends to expose weak logic rather than merely tighten prose.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
account_treeGenealogyexpand_more
menu_bookReferencesexpand_more
Source support: Explicit
- joylotoole.orghttps://joylotoole.org/2025/05/10/crutch-words-and-what-to-do-with-them/verified
PRIVATE NOTES · Only visible to you
SAVED Q&A
ENTRY Q&A · Private saving available
Ask with a clear boundary
thinkingmodels answers from published entry context only.
Your question is sent to thinkingmodels. The answer uses public entry context only.
RELATED MODELS