“The No-Tailgating Principle The speed with which you talk should be directly proportional to how certain you are about the next sentence coming out of your mouth. The more certain you are, the more briskly you can choose to speak. But if you’re prone to saying the first thing that pops into your head, a slower pace with strategic pausing is a sure way to prevent your mouth from tailgating your brain. And as with automobiles, when the lead car stops short from uncertainty of where to go next, it’s likely that the tailgater trailing behind will crash into the one in front. The verbal equivalent of a crash is filler: like, um, you know, etc. And et cetera, for that matter.”