
Why we are saying “uh” less and 'um' more - dollaaron
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31158167
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flycaliguy
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.

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aric
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].

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anigbrowl
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.

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jamesbrownuhh
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.

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bluehex
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.

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tempestn
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.

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moneytide
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.

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sidcool
Reminds me of Paul Graham.

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califield
Perhaps this is because um is closer to the mystical sound om/aum[1]?

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om)

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javra
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?

