You’ve said them. Probably today. Maybe even in the last hour. We all use words with no meaning to grease the wheels of a conversation that might otherwise feel stiff or mechanical. Most people call them "filler words," but linguists have a much cooler name for them: expletives. Not the "swearing" kind of expletives, but the syntactic kind. These are words that perform a structural role in a sentence without actually carrying a crumb of semantic data. They are the empty calories of the English language.
Honestly, it’s kinda fascinating how much space they take up in our brains.
Think about the word "there" in the sentence "There is a fly in my soup." If you really look at it, what is that "there" doing? It isn’t pointing to a specific location. It isn’t a noun you can touch. If you remove it, the sentence falls apart, yet the word itself is essentially a ghost. It’s a placeholder. We use these "dummy subjects" because English grammar is obsessed with order. We hate a vacuum. We need something to sit in the subject seat even if that something is totally hollow.
The Weird Logic of Semantic Bleaching
Linguists often talk about a process called semantic bleaching. This is basically what happens when a word is used so often in a figurative or structural way that its original, "heavy" meaning just evaporates. Take the word "literally." We’ve beaten that word into submission. Originally, it meant "in a literal sense." Now? It’s often just an intensifier with zero actual meaning beyond "I am being dramatic right now."
It’s an empty vessel.
When a word undergoes bleaching, it stops being a pointer to a thing in the real world and starts being a tool for tone. This isn't just people being "lazy" with language, though grumpy grammarians love to claim that. It's actually a sign of a living, breathing language. If words didn't lose their meaning, we'd still be speaking like we’re in a Beowulf manuscript.
Why our brains love the "Um" and the "Uh"
You’ve been told since middle school to stop saying "um." Your speech teacher probably acted like it was a verbal tic that made you sound less intelligent. But they were kinda wrong. Research by people like Herbert Clark at Stanford University suggests that these words with no meaning serve as critical cognitive signals. They tell the listener, "Hey, I’m still thinking, don't interrupt me yet."
They are placeholders for time.
Without them, conversations would be a series of jarring silences. We use "uh" for short delays and "um" for longer ones. It’s a sophisticated, albeit subconscious, way of managing the "turn-taking" dance of human social interaction. If you stripped every meaningless word from your vocabulary, you wouldn't sound smarter; you’d sound like a malfunctioning robot.
Phatic Communication: The Social Glue
Most of what we say isn't actually about transmitting information. This is a hard truth for some people to swallow. Bronisław Malinowski, a famous anthropologist, coined the term "phatic communication" to describe language that doesn't convey facts but instead establishes social connection.
"How’s it going?"
"What’s up?"
"Nice weather, huh?"
In these contexts, the words are almost entirely devoid of their dictionary definitions. When someone asks "How are you?" in a grocery store checkout line, they usually aren't asking for a medical report or a psychological profile. The words are a social handshake. They mean "I acknowledge your presence and I am not a threat." They are words with no meaning that have a massive social impact.
The rise of the "Placeholder" word
Sometimes we use empty words because our brains just stall out. We've all used "thingamajig," "doohickey," or "whatsit." These are called lexical placeholders. They are incredibly useful because they allow us to continue a sentence when a specific noun is temporarily locked behind a mental door.
Interestingly, these vary wildly by culture. In some parts of the US, you’ll hear "jawn." In British English, you might hear "thingy." These words are structurally necessary because they allow the syntax to remain intact while the brain hunts for the actual data.
Gibberish as Art and Resistance
There is a long history of people intentionally creating words with no meaning. Look at Lewis Carroll’s "Jabberwocky." Words like "brillig" and "slithy" don't exist in any dictionary, yet we "feel" what they mean because of their placement and sound. This is called sound symbolism. Even though the words are fake, the phonetics suggest a mood.
Then you have the Dadaists.
After World War I, artists felt that logic and reason had led to the slaughter of millions. Their response? Hugo Ball and Tristan Tzara started writing "sound poems" made of pure gibberish. They wanted to strip language of its ability to be used for propaganda. If a word has no meaning, it can’t be used to lie to you. It was a radical, desperate attempt to find truth in the void.
When meaningless words become "Buzzwords"
The corporate world is a goldmine for words with no meaning. You know the ones. "Synergy." "Paradigms." "Leaning in." At a certain point, these words are used so frequently in PowerPoint decks that they lose any connection to actual business practices. They become a secret code used to signal that you belong to a certain professional class.
They don't describe actions; they describe a vibe.
When a CEO says they want to "operationalize a holistic strategy," they are often using meaningless words to avoid making a specific promise. It’s linguistic camouflage. By using words that sound important but lack concrete definitions, they can avoid being held accountable if things go south. It’s a strategy of intentional vagueness.
The Science of Glossolalia
We can't talk about meaningless words without mentioning "speaking in tongues" or glossolalia. To an outside observer, it’s a stream of phonemes with no semantic content. However, for the person speaking, it’s a deeply meaningful emotional experience. Neuroscientific studies, including those by Dr. Andrew Newberg, have shown that when people engage in glossolalia, the language centers of their brain actually quiet down.
The brain isn't "constructing" language; it's experiencing a flow state.
This suggests that humans have a built-in capacity to disconnect the act of speaking from the act of conveying meaning. We can make the sounds of language without the constraints of grammar or definition. It's a reminder that language is as much a physical and emotional output as it is an intellectual one.
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How to spot "Empty" writing
If you’re a writer, you probably fight a constant war against "that," "very," and "really." These are often cited as the primary offenders in the world of words with no meaning.
- "The car was very fast."
- "The car was fast."
Most of the time, the second sentence is stronger. The word "very" adds no new information; it just tries (and usually fails) to turn up the volume on the word that follows. It's a crutch. We use it when we're too tired to find a more precise adjective like "swift" or "breakneck."
Why you shouldn't delete them all
So, should you go on a crusade to purge every meaningless word from your life? Probably not. A world without "um," "like," "there," and "it" would be a cold, efficient, and deeply lonely place. These words provide the texture of humanity. They show that we are thinking, that we are nervous, that we are trying to be polite, or that we are just trying to fill a silence.
The key is awareness.
Understanding when a word is doing work and when it’s just taking up space allows you to be a more effective communicator. You can use "synergy" when you want to blend in at a meeting, and you can use "um" when you want to show a friend you're actually weighing their question.
Actionable Steps for Mastering Language
If you want to get a handle on how these "empty" words function in your own life, try these specific tactics:
- Record a casual conversation. Listen back to it. Don't cringe—just count the fillers. See how they function as signals to the other person. You'll notice they usually appear when you're transitioning between ideas.
- Practice "The Delete Test." In your writing, take a paragraph and delete every "very," "really," "that," and "just." Read it aloud. If the meaning hasn't changed but the impact has increased, leave them out.
- Audit your professional jargon. Look at your last five emails. If you find yourself using "alignment" or "moving the needle," try to replace them with what you actually mean (e.g., "I want us to agree" or "I want to increase sales").
- Embrace the "Phatic" moment. Next time someone asks "How are you?" in passing, don't feel pressured to give a "meaningful" answer. Recognize it for what it is: a social ping, like a submarine's sonar. A simple "Good, you?" is exactly what the social contract requires.
- Read nonsense aloud. Pick up some Edward Lear or Lewis Carroll. Notice how your brain tries to "force" meaning onto words that have none. It’s a great exercise for realizing how much work your mind does to make sense of the world.
Language isn't just a collection of definitions. It's a performance. Sometimes, the most important part of the performance is the silence we fill with sounds that don't mean a thing. By paying attention to the "emptiness," you actually get a much clearer picture of what matters.