There are words that are pointless. Those with literally no meaning.
Some write them to take up space. Some to appear more serious or smarter.
Some speak them to give themselves a pause, a moment to catch up to with their riff.
"Well" and "so" have been doing this work for a long time, but add to that the more syllabic words like "ironically," "literally," and "hopefully."
And don’t forget all the adjectives, beginning with "very" and "really" that ironically make something sound smaller, not bigger.
When you remove pointless words, the power of your words goes up.
