Why we are saying “uh” less and 'um' more(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Why we are saying “uh” less and 'um' more
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31158167
12 comments
There is something that seems dumber about an "uh" in that it leaves the mouth open where an "um" seems more polite. By "um"ing and closing the mouth you are offering more of an invitation for the other speaker to chime in. An "uh" seems to fill space even after it's over.
That's my first assumption. It's less strenuous and breathy to sustain an um, at least for me. There's a clear parallel to duh (like uh) usually concerning topics of [obviousness and stupidity] and hmm (like um) usually concerning topics of [deliberation and intelligence].
Good grief, this is empty even by the low standards of BBC science coverage. tl;dr Young people say 'um' more than 'uh.' Nobody knows why.
To be fair, this is what BBC News call their "Magazine" section, which tend to be even less rigorous than the already paper-thin reporting of the main news site. But it's no coincidence that Magazine stories are treated as part of BBC News overall, and the clickbaitiest headlines routinely end up in the right-hand "Most Read" and "Most Shared" panels.
Nobody knows and not even sociolinguists seem to care.
I find over use of "filled pauses" to be incredibly distracting. I'm always fighting for my focus with an internal dialog that's saying "just say it, or pause if you need a chance to think but stop saying um!". I should probably work on my patience and focus. But I always hope that people that overuse those filler words are conscious of it and putting effort into breaking the habit.
Our technical writing prof in school made it his personal mission to wipe those filler pauses from our lexicon. It was remarkably difficult to adjust at first - you don't realize how much you do it until someone calls you on it every time - but I definitely found presentations and such came across much more clearly without all the uh, er, and ums. It feels very uncomfortable as a speaker to simply pause silently, at least at first; to the listener though (unless you're unusually awkward about it) it seems natural, and can single-handedly make you come across as more thoughtful and compelling.
The filled pause is actually sending you information; specifically, "this thought is not complete, but I'm putting a lot of thought into choosing the right word". It's a verbal "hourglass" icon.
I agree overuse can be distracting. But I try to think of it as flattering that they respect me enough to take the effort to carefully vocalize their thoughts rather than blurting out the first thing that occurs to them.
This doesn't always hold, but a trend I've noticed at work that someone talking up the chain of command is more likely to use filler words than when that same person is talking down the chain of command.
I agree overuse can be distracting. But I try to think of it as flattering that they respect me enough to take the effort to carefully vocalize their thoughts rather than blurting out the first thing that occurs to them.
This doesn't always hold, but a trend I've noticed at work that someone talking up the chain of command is more likely to use filler words than when that same person is talking down the chain of command.
Another form of these filler words are the words/phrases "seriously, I'm not gonna lie, for real, actually, honestly, to tell you the truth". My take on it is, why would you lie to me in the first place? Should I assume you're lying if you don't say these phrases? They serve the purpose of gaining that extra millisecond to calculate the content of the proceeding sentence.
Reminds me of Paul Graham.
Perhaps this is because um is closer to the mystical sound om/aum[1]?
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om
Am I the only one who is bothered by the fact that they used double quotation marks for "uh" and single quotation marks of "um" in the headline?