{"id":25546,"date":"2024-10-31T10:12:43","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T14:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesoulpitt.com\/main\/?p=25546"},"modified":"2024-10-31T10:12:43","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T14:12:43","slug":"look-by-debbie-norrell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesoulpitt.com\/main\/look-by-debbie-norrell\/","title":{"rendered":"Look by Debbie Norrell"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I can\u2019t stand when people start a sentence with the word \u201clook.\u201d I find it to be abrasive and feel there must be a better word choice. It is something politicians often do. I know I\u2019m not the only person that feels this way, so I went to the Internet in search of someone who agrees that starting a sentence with \u201clook\u201d is inappropriate and I found Patrick\u2019s Place (a blog that is 20 years old). In a 2021 article he says:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a Facebook group about grammar, someone asked about politicians who are constantly starting sentences with look. It\u2019s a pet peeve of mine!\u201d There are several politicians and other notable people who are always starting sentences with look. I suppose it\u2019s a little better than starting every answer with so. But let\u2019s be clear: Both can be maddening. The original poster asked an interesting question. Since we\u2019re talking about the spoken word, shouldn\u2019t they use the word listen instead of look? Patrick offered his take, saying neither was correct. Constantly beginning a sentence with either look or listen amounts to just using a crutch word for no good reason. Start the sentence with whatever immediately follows the offending word. Someone immediately defended starting sentences with look or listen. She said that in public speaking, such \u201ccrutch words\u201d can be \u201cvery useful in preventing people from tuning out from tedium.\u201d<\/p>\n

I can certainly imagine scenarios where a speaker would want to emphasize certain portions of a speech. But that generally happens toward the end of a passage where the speaker is about to make an important point. By all means, you can certainly validly emphasize such points. That\u2019s not what we\u2019re talking about. We hear it every day on news programs. People begin the first sentence in answer to the first question with look. They haven\u2019t reached a point worth emphasizing. Look (or listen) is only the first syllable they utter. Perhaps that\u2019s an indication that the speaker should put more energy into the speech rather than inserting meaningless words that become so overused to cause more annoyance than attention.\u201d Yes, Patrick, we are on the same page.<\/p>\n

Email the columnist at\u00a0debbienorrell@aol.com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Click Here to View All \u201cLifestyles with Debbie Norrell\u201d Articles<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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I can\u2019t stand when people start a sentence with the word \u201clook.\u201d I find it to be abrasive and feel there must be a better word choice. It is something politicians often do. I know I\u2019m not the only person … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"xn-wppe-expiration":[],"xn-wppe-expiration-action":[],"xn-wppe-expiration-prefix":[],"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[329],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifestyles-with-debbie-norrell"],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 20:21:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoulpitt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoulpitt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoulpitt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoulpitt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoulpitt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesoulpitt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25548,"href":"https:\/\/thesoulpitt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25546\/revisions\/25548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoulpitt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoulpitt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoulpitt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}