After the person I was having a brief conversation with intermittently said, "You know" a dozen times, emboldened by this annoying refrain, I said to him, "Hell no! I don't know!" I am keenly aware that a person who contaminates his conversation odoriferously with ""You know" is not asking a question, nor is he expecting the listener to reply to his "You know" assumption. If he really wanted to know if you know he would simply ask, "Do you know?" and spare himself of having repeatedly to say, "You know" and the listener of having to hear his repetitious "You know" utterances. While in a somewhat eaves-dropping stance I listened to an approximately one hundred-word conversation that included "You know" seven times, constituting fourteen of those one hundred words. The listener responded, "I don't know or understand what you are talking about." It is obvious that the person who repeatedly says "You know" while talking, knowingly or unknowingly, is being dishonest. It is also obvious that he wants the listener to know what he is attempting to tell him. What does a person mean when he says, "You know?" Having acquired this two-word jargon from listening to others and not giving any thought to its value, more correctly, dis-value, he may thoughtlessly and habitually use this assusatory charge. He may say "You know" as a jiving ploy or just "shooting the bull" that is intended to inflate the listener's ego and make him believe or feel that he is informed and knowledegable of what is being presented or to inflate his own ego. Or, as a refrain or as a diversion to give him time to recollect his thoughts. For some listeners this assumption the speaker has of them is a menacing or boring exercise in redundancy and tastelessness. One may ask, "Why make an assumption about the listener when you can ask him if he knows rather than to tell him that he knows?" Or, just tell him what you want him to know. Communicator, this scribe says to you, "Don't assume that I know what you are attempting to tell me before you tell me or waste my time with your redundancy." The chance is that if I am lending you my ear or two that I am not foolish enough to want you to repeatedly tell me during the course of our conversation that I know what you are telling me. So, please don't tell me that I know. And besides, How do you know that I know?" When I think it is appropriate, I will tell you what I know. So the next time we are having a conversation I suggest that you think before you say "You know." And let your thinking make you aware that I may just tell you, "Hell no! I don't know! That's why I am willing to listen to what you have to say." Copyright 2006 by Uriah J. Fields