Do your carefully-considered words trip perfectly from your mouth like golden honey from a warm spoon? Or do you punctuate every new thought with a long drawn out um, er or uh? While linguists agree that everyone uses fillers in speech, there are different views on who uses what – and whether they help or hinder our communications.

I recently spent a very enjoyable couple of days in Edinburgh. Not only is the Scottish capital one of the most beautiful cities in the world, it’s also the home of the distinctive ‘em’ word – a long, drawn-out phoneme (the shortest unit of sound in speech) that combines the universal um with the UK er.

Aberdonians are also partial to the em word. It’s clearly an east Scotland trait. But, on researching this article, I couldn’t find one single reference to em, other than for the abbreviation of ‘them’. Not wishing to criticise the experts, I’m wondering if all those linguists have missed something here because they’re the ones saying that not all filler sounds are used in the same way.

Before we look at how we use filler, let’s look at why.

Why do we um and er?

Interestingly, while they might give people the impression that the speaker is anxious, linguists have found that filler sounds are NOT a sign of anxiety. Research shows that people who habitually um and er are no more likely to do so when talking to a stranger than when talking to friends and family.

Even confident speakers use them. In a recent two-minute clip of Barack Obama talking about ISIS, the US president used uh nine times.

Audible placeholders

Fillers such as um, em and er are precisely that – they’re fillers. They’re audible placeholders we use between gathering our thoughts and vocalising them. They let people know that we haven’t finished speaking (or, in some cases, haven’t even started) and we’d appreciate it if they didn’t interrupt, thank you!

Fillers are not restricted to the English-speaking world. They infiltrate all languages and are similar in their emphasis on easy to make vowel sounds.

Linguist Herbert Clark of Stanford University says that these ‘disfluencies’ (breaks or interruptions in speech) represent something more than speakers having trouble expressing themselves. They also serve a role for the listener.

“They serve as ‘conversation managers’,” says Clark. “When we talk, we have to do two things – pay attention to the content and keep track of the interaction. If we anticipate a delay in our speech, we choose the appropriate sound to signal this to the listener.”

Is there a difference between uh and um?

This is where it gets interesting. Vocally, there is a big difference between how we say the relative short uh or er sound and the longer um, or em sound, in the case of Edinburgh and Aberdeen. (Try it for yourself. See how long you can hold em and um compared to er and uh.)

Linguistically, this difference in length is important.

Mark Liberman, professor of Linguistics and Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, believes that we say the longer um sound when we’re trying to decide what to say, and the shorter uh sound (or the British equivalent er) when we’re trying to decide how to say it.

The age and gender issue

Liberman also discovered another important difference between uh and um. He transcribed 14,000 telephone calls from across the US and found that women say um 22% more than men. However, while women say um more than men, men actually use speech fillers more often – they say uh at twice the rate of women. The implication here is that men are happier to hold the floor more often. (Or that women talk for longer on the phone.)

Age also appears to affect our choice of um or uh. Liberman found that young people say um more than older people – even to the point of people changing from um to uh as they get older.

The age and gender differences aren’t limited to just American English. Liberman conducted further research into British English as well as German, Danish, Dutch and Norwegian. In all cases, the team found that young people and women said um more than uh.

However, Josef Fruehwald, a sociolinguist at the University of Edinburgh, isn’t so certain. (Perhaps all those long ems are confusing the issue.) He agrees that we use uh and um differently but doesn’t think the age and gender issue is cut and dried. He believes the current preference for um is “just one of those things” and trying to predict linguistic trends is even more chaotic than trying to predict the weather.

Are disfluencies a good or bad thing?

Regardless of what sound your age, gender or geographic location determines, used as placeholders, a few ums and ers do indeed aid communication.

But the important word here is ‘few’. While the occasional um is interpreted as “bear with me, folks, I’m still in control here,” too many ums and ers can give people the impression that you’re unsure, uncomfortable or even lying.

In one recent study, college students were asked to comment on their perception of people who frequently use filler phonemes. They rated them as “uncomfortable, inarticulate, uninteresting, ill-prepared, disfluent, unattractive, monotonous, unsophisticated and lacking in confidence”. That’s quite a list.

So how do you stop the ums?

The first thing is to establish the level of the problem. If your ums are barely noticeable or you only falter when presenting, making an important call or being put on the spot in a business meeting, planning what you’re going to say in advance will probably be enough to eliminate most of your stutters.

Breaking the habit

If using fillers has become an entrenched habit and you pepper every sentence with a ‘basically’, ‘you know’, ‘like’ or ‘innit’, you’re going to need help, patience and practice. Like all habits, you first need to recognise you’re doing it. (This could involve asking a friend or colleague to point out when you do it or recording yourself on your phone or video camera.) Often, simply being aware of the habit is enough to break it. Only don’t expect it to happen immediately. It could take months to learn to hear and stop yourself.

Think um. Say nothing.

In my work as a communication skills trainer, I’ve been a long-time advocate of THE PAUSE for habitual ummers. I teach people not to stop using fillers (we need them to formulate our thoughts and give our audience time to take in what we’ve said) just to stop using them out loud. I teach them to replace their ums, uhs and ems with a dignified silence.

I’m not alone. Thousands of authors, coaches, trainers and public speaking experts the world over say the same thing. “Replace the ums with a pause.” But there is a down side to the pause. Used badly, it can make you sound more anxious, uncomfortable and inarticulate.

Holding the pause

The pause trick works well in face-to-face communication, when your audience can see you ‘holding the pause’ by maintaining eye contact and inviting them to consider your words. But what happens on the radio or the phone?

Remember the students who were ask to rate speakers who um? Well the same group was then asked to listen to three versions of a man’s commentary on a radio show – one with all the ums left in, one with them all removed and one with all the ums replaced by silent pauses.

Unsurprisingly, the version without any pauses or ums was rated the best. But, and this is the really interesting bit, the one with the silent pauses wasn’t rated any higher than the one with the ums. In fact, the one with the silences was rated as having more anxiety!

Pause for effect

Yes, being able to pause – to give your audience time to consider your words, to give yourself time to form your thoughts eloquently and to give your words emphasis – is a trick worth mastering when presenting and public speaking. But, done badly, it can actually do you more harm than good.

Plan your openings

The best way to minimise umming is pretty obvious – plan what you’re going to say. If you’re able to record yourself (or watch others present) you’ll notice that most fillers come at the beginnings – the beginnings of sentences, when you click a new slide or when you move onto a new subject. If you plan or even write yourself some opening lines for each new subject, you’re less likely to stumble over them.

Say what you’re thinking

Another way to avoid filler phonemes is to use actual words instead. Rather than just thinking “let me get this right” as you let out a long em, simply say out loud “let me get this right”, or words to that effect. Practice a few transitional statements you can use as you move from one question/subject/thought to the next. Use phrases such as “let’s take a look at…”, “there are other options…”, “I now want to consider…” and “moving on to…” Once you get into your flow, the ums will lessen.

Get the content right

Even if you never quite master the pause or vocalise your transitional thoughts fluently, take comfort in the fact that people rarely notice your ums if they’re interested in what you have to say.

Many well-known speakers and broadcasters have erratic speech patterns but it hasn’t prevented them from becoming hugely successful. Robert Peston, for example, was sent on several broadcasting courses in an attempt to correct the eccentricities of his speech. He refused to conform and all thoughts of further therapy were abandoned when he became famous for his coverage of the global financial crisis.

Get your content right and people will pay far less attention to your delivery.

Photo by Kai Oberhäuser on Unsplash