Very Interesting

"Interesting" is my most overused word. Actually, it's my stalling tactic.

When I'm interviewing a source and there's a pause in the conversation as I finish typing what they just said and try to remember what else I was going to ask, I usually say something along the lines of, "It'll be interesting to see ..." or "It's been an interesting time" or "What I thought was interesting was ..."

I cringe every time I hear that word come out of my mouth. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard, like when someone says, "That's different" when they see or hear about something they've never seen before or that they don't understand or just don't like. I always feel like asking, "Why don't you just say it's ugly or noisy or stupid?"

It'll be interesting to see if I come up with some other placeholder for my conversations besides "interesting." Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be "different."