Actually. Actually, you may already know how we feel about actually. I've argued that it's worse than literally because it offers up sheer attitude in place of literally's intellectual pretensions. It is literally with a slap in the face. Imagine Biden replacing his literallys with actuallys. For instance, "I want to show you the character of a leader who had what it took when the American people literally actually stood on the brink of a new depression.” It's almost like saying the American people had been claiming to be on that brink for years, crying wolf as it were, and only now, finally, did it actually happen. Actually, for once, it turned out to be true! You could read it other ways, of course, but if actually is your crutch, you are a little bit angry, maybe, and certainly adamant about making your point with a bit of a zing. You are not boring, actually, and you'd probably do OK in a bar brawl.

As it were. If you use this, which I did above, you are possibly worse than a literally-dropper. You're the most self-aware of crutch-word users, because you know you're saying something rather cliched, a hackneyed expression or at best an aging metaphor, and yet you're going forward with it anyway. The trick is that you're doing it with the acknowledgement that you already know exactly what you're doing, thank you very much. You are the equivalent of the guy with a broken leg doing tricks on his crutches. It's a crutch-word brag.

Basically. You like to cut to the chase, to synopsize, to bring things down to old bottom line of what's really, truly important. You are always downsizing, cutting the clutter, throwing out a sweater for every new one you purchase. So, basically, this is what you do. You talk for a long time, maybe, and then you sum up what you really meant to say with a basically. Everything else was just chatter, but it got you to where you were going, so, basically, that's OK with you. Basically, that's it.

In a weird way. You are the experimental hallucinatory drug user of crutch words. Or maybe you just feel things, like, a lot. Whatever: You're very emotive. So, in a weird way, your expression makes sense, at least to you, though everyone else is, like, "Why does he keep saying in a weird way? What does that even mean?" Who cares? You're marching to the beat of your own drummer down a path that only you can interpret, falling down and wallowing in the mud if you feel like it, just because, and in a weird way, that's great.

Um. (Also, er, ah, uh, or any guttural noise you might make as your brain clicks into gear and onto an actual word.) You are not very good at giving speeches, and listening to you can be painful, but that doesn't mean you're not a very nice person. Um.

At the end of the day. If you use the English language's worst phrase, you are the forward thinker of crutch-word users. You know each day has an end, and some day we will reach it, and therefore this phrase will be relevant, except really it's not. See also ultimately. If you need an ultimately or an at the end of the day to give your point punch, you should probably just phrase your point a bit differently, or simply place verbal emphasis on the words that hold the most meaning. "At the end of the day, we all learned something" can just as easily be said as "We all learned something." At the end of the day gives you a sense of backstory with no real backstory, so it's dissatisfying at best, the end of an experience without the context or even sometimes the beginning. Hold your ultimately.