Um.. Uh. Well.. You See...

In college I had a professor who was often cranky. Watching timid pupils, made more timid by a cranky professor, approach him with their question du jour was like watching an early Christian walk into an arena and wonder "who brought all these lions?" Indubitably, their question would begin with "um". Let me give you some examples:

- Um, can I find out what grade I got on my test?
- Um, uh, what was the homework from last week?
- *cough* could I, um, have some, like, extra credit?

The professorial response was consistent:

Don't say um. Um means "I'm stupid and so is my question".

See? I told you. Cranky.


So why am I remembering my halcion days of professorial perturbence? Why, I've been reading, of course. And recently I read an article on the subject of our friend um .

Apparently, research is showing that um, uh, like and other similar utterances are, indeed, not signs of impending, irreversible retardation.

These noises (which people in the business call disfluencies -- and no, it doesn't just mean stuttering) are being examined by those trying to make computers understand speech (and in the process, wind up learning a little bit about speech themselves). There are many kinds of disfluencies.

It is easiest to convey the idea using this portion of the abstract of the research paper that originally educated me on most of this:

This paper investigates the effect of disfluencies on listeners' on-line processing of speech. More specifically, it tests the hypothesis that filled pauses like um, which tend to occur before words that are low in accessibility, act as a signal to the listener that a relatively inaccessible word is about to be produced.

So, when that timid student walked up to that cranky professor with his or her "um", it was an introduction? Like a phone ringing? Or a car with it's hazards on? An unintelligible introduction? A "danger, Will Robinson?" I'd believe it.

But, not um! Anything but um! We've been taught never to say the dreaded "U to the M". Depending on your age: nuns beat you, teachers looked down at you, financial institutions would refuse to lend to you, fast-food joints would shun you, and whole rooms would be cleared with the utterance of um.

And yet research is showing that we must conceive of some way to fill the necessary pregnant pauses in our conversations. We need a mechanism to signal our listener to start paying closer attention. We need a mechanism to buy us a few milliseconds while we compose our own thoughts. Is there any other disfluency that will do this dirty work as well as the infamous um??

Yes! We can be very creative!

I don't use um much, preferring either well, hmmm, or even a you know. People that overuse um, in my mind, are just not creative speakers.

People that steadfastly refuse to use any disfluency, preferring instead to leave their pregnant pauses unaccompanied and alone amidst the conversation, are selfish speakers. Their need to appear educated through avoidance of disfluency trumps the possible valid usage of the mechanism to aid the listener.

Some people are just such motivational speakers that they leave no pregnant pauses. They can think and speak in real time, and use inflection and facial cues to alert the listener to important or "relatively inaccessible" words that will be encountered "up the road". But few people sustain that conversational energy throughout every conversation in their life.

Most of us fall into the category of "occasional disfluency user". But, watch out, people can tell alot about you based on what kind of disfluency you use!

Whatever kind of speaker you tend to be, do not be the kind of speaker who adopts condescending disfluency.

Talker: blah blah blah
Listener: But what about X, Y, and Z?
Talker: (pause) What you don't understand is (pause) (pause) blah blah blah
Listener: But what about A, B, and C?
Talker: (pause) What you need to realize is (pause) (pause) blah blah blah

And so on and so forth. The listener brought up good points (if the listener does say so himself) and points which obviously made the talker think. How does the talker create space in which to think? This talker is far too important to use the dreaded, uneducated um, and must maintain dominance in the subject matter. So, you whip out the (what I call) disfluent phrases: what you need to realize is, or what you fail to understand is.

People that need to make thinking space for themselves while, simultaneously, degrading others should be slapped silly. How hard is it to say, alternatively, "well, maybe a better way to think of this is..." that has the advantage of taking longer to say, and if you say it slowly enough, you can get your thoughts arranged and then go right into it them without audible pause. Never insult your listener and then making them wait while you frantically try and think of something clever to say.

So, uh, what was the point of my post again?

People that use disfluencies aren't stupid. If you take the time to recognize the disfluencies and disfluent phrases you and those around you use, you might learn something about them. Avoid (or educate) people who use abusive disfluencies and learn to appreciate those who use positive ones.


Um... uh... check out the Disfluency in Spontaneoud Speech homepage. Ever wonder what vigorous research into the use of disfluency in spontaneous speech looks like? Well, here it is:



Those are some hard-working people.

-Ed