[quote ... [/quote]
That's because it's meant as a passive aggressive signal for consensus. It's a fantastic linguistic tool for pushing people to essentially agree when they are hesitant to. I used it all the time with patients, because to disagree means to clarify that you do understand, but don't agree, and that creates a lot of conversational friction.
It's a pain in the ass to the listener, but an effective tool for the speaker if they are looking to subtly control the conversation.
[/quote]
So that's why it often sounds bossy to me and I could never quite put my finger on why. On the other hand, depending on the speaker, and especially when overused, sometimes it sounds to me like a nervous person looking for reassurance.
[/quote]
[/quote]
...
I always took "you know what I mean" to be a slightly annoying verbal tic meant to fill silence, nothing diabolical. A regional variant is "dontcha know"
[/quote]
Oh, it's definitely that for some people.
Something I can't stand that I feel like started with Barack Obama (someone I otherwise admire) is starting off sentences, typically responses to questions, with "Listen". Yeah, don't tell me what to do! I asked you a question, I am not gonna NOT listen to your answer!
I found it sensible on those occasions when someone is being disingenuous with their question or is being sarcastic or something and the "Listen" is meant to imply something to the effect of "Let's not play these games; here's the bottom line . . . " But when you start off nearly every response with "Listen"(Nate Silver does this a lot as well, on his podcast) it starts to grate on me, like they think the questioner is always being disingenuous and they are constantly in a defensive posture.
[/quote]
I agree with this! I remember Rush Limbaugh and others of his ilk who would answer questions this way. To me it was a figurative hand-waving away of the original question so that they could re-direct the answer to something they wanted to say. I've noticed many politicians do this too.
Limbaugh also had another verbal trick where he'd say something like, "Listen, it's simple, ....." and then present "facts" in a black and white way, no gray areas or subtleties or complications and his audience ate it up.