Dammit. I thought I had made an original discovery.
(Posted this before. Apparently got lost.)
At least you get two words. I’ve been getting “unyeah” a lot. Is that a “yeah” or a “nah”? And why, oh dear why, after asking 10 times “Did you mean yes or no?” don’t they realize what they’re doing and stop it?
One of my classes is almost entirely presentations.
This would be fine, if not for the presenters who smack their tongues against the backs of their teeth to make a “tsk” sound.
Most. Annoying. Verbal. Tic. EVER.
Females seem to be the only ones who do it, particularly the females who also use a tsk questioning inflection? At the end of every sentence? Like tsk they’re not, um, tsk sure what they’re talking about? I’m not sure why uncertainty and tsk-ing are common among women? But, um, tsk once I hear it, um, tsk I can’t stop hearing it? So, tsk yeah.
Oh god. Sarah Palin did this constantly. Argh.
Not exactly a verbal tic, but I’ll use this opportunity to share my annoyance: The sentence finishers.
Me: “I’m on my way to a party at P…”
SF: “Paloma’s house.”
Me: “Call me if you n…”
SF: “Need me”.
Really irks me.
I hate when my grandma and mom say “So I says to her…” Even for past tense! It drives me up a wall for some reason. My boyfriend starts a lot of his conversations “So I was gonna say…” out of the blue, which can be a little bothersome.
I have a friend who says “Looka” when he wants to show me something. I smirk and make fun of him every time he does, but it doesn’t stop him.
I first heard “yeah…no” on Friends. It was one of Phoebe’s quirks. I say it sometimes, mostly because it drives my husband nuts. 
{Phoebe}Oooh-oooh-ooh{/Phoebe} I have another couple of mild annoyance.
Declarative sentences spoken as if they are questions.
“My name is Andrea.” Spoken tone low to high
(I always think,“I dunno - are you really Andrea?”)
People who refer to someone I’ve never met by their name without any explanation. I can assume that Peter is your husband, but if he’s your brother then your story takes on a whole new meaning.
It probably won’t help you to know that this one has its very own name.
What really gets me is “a’ight”. I’m so surprised nobody has mentioned this.
It’s actually more work to say “a’ight” than it is to say “all right”. We don’t need a diphthong here! English has enough!
Really? This doesn’t drive anyone else nuts?
Yeah, no, that one, ya know, bothers me, too?
This answer seems questionable. 
A friend of mine got on a kick about “do do” As in, “No, don’t do that, I’ve tried it and it’s bullocks. But what you do do is --”
“Heh-heh…you said do do.”
Of course, it was catching. You’d never believe how often people double up words that don’t really need to be doubled. Or, rather, you will, 'cause now you’ll be plagued by noticing it, too. Enjoy!
I think we can blame Randy Jackson (American Idol judge) for this. He probably didn’t invent it, but what the hell. Let’s get the tar and feathers.
I hear this a lot out of people from Southern California. Never heard anyone from anywhere else do it. I agree it’s weird. My cousin was really bad about it when we were kids to the point that it caused communication issues.
It was definitely popular long before Randy Jackson. One of those redneck comedians (Jeff Foxworthy, maybe?) had a routine back in the early/mid-90s where he said “y’a’n’t to?” “aaiight”. People at my high school said it all the time.
If you think having one or two verbal tics that you can’t escape is awful, don’t ever take a course in public speaking.
I was required to take one for the place where I work, and my life has been a waking aural nightmare ever since.
It was the four-word Texas lunchtime conversation:
“Jeetyet?”
“Naw.”
“Ya’awntu?”
“A’ight.”
What??! Did your teacher berate you for them or something? Sounds like an awful public speaking teacher if so. And some “verbal tics” (still not sure if that’s the correct term here :dubious:) are ok in public speaking, anyway. We all do them and they sound very human.
No, it’s just that ever since that class, I can’t help but pick up on them, whereas before, they just sort of blended in with regular speech.
And some (many) are much less human sounding than others