
Paul Graham consistently says ‘um’ ~7 times per minute - tbh
http://blog.metricfire.com/2012/03/paul-graham-consistently-says-um-7-times-per-minute/
======
simonsarris
If anyone has a similar habit and wants to stop it I will tell how my high
school fixed it for almost all of us.

In my (private) high school's health class "like" and "um" and others were
referred to as "stop-words" by the teacher because people would say them
instead of pausing. It's really obvious once you look for them, for instance
here with pg but anywhere really. I remember hearing college tour guides that
would literally say "um" after every single sentence, probably unbeknownst to
themselves!

Almost every class in the school had projects, and the health class project
was for us to remove the stop words from our speech by the end of the
semester. We did this by all using recording software (had to submit either by
cassette tape or wav/mp3) and answering questions such as "Do you want to live
forever and why or why not?" by speaking for at least 5 minutes. These were
our homework assignments maybe once a month, with the overarching goal
considered as the class project.

We had to very consciously never use any stop words. We could pause the
recorder if we had trouble thinking of what to say, but we could never say
those words.

I was skeptical of the assignment at first but my class all agreed by the end
of the semester that it made us much better speakers, simply learning to
consider our pauses instead of filling the silence with "like" and "um".

~~~
twiceaday
I know girls that talk faster than they can think so every third word is
"like". In this case it's not a pause but more of a tick. Sometimes I am in
awe of the content density. They can talk for hours and say absolutely
nothing.

~~~
kristianc
"Like" is increasingly used to introduce a quotation, particularly in SoCal
dialect. It's not necessarily the most elegant use of language, but it's not a
pause or a tick.

~~~
munificent
kristianc was like, "It's not necessarily the most elegant use of language,
but it's not a pause or a tick.", but that's not, like, the only use of "like"
in American vernacular. It's also used to pause, or to, like, distance
yourself from what you're saying.

~~~
lkozma
Nice going... For sentences like your last example, in the past few years I've
been hearing "as in" with increasing frequency. I find it quite annoying and
would be very curious to learn about its origins, as in how did it start.

------
pg
Believe it or not I wrote the first draft of an essay about this yesterday. (I
went on a one-day trip to NYC and wrote the first draft of one in each
direction.) So stay tuned.

~~~
andrewacove
The data is two years old, but it looks like you're at the start of your
traditional March/April/May writing tear:
<http://andrewacove.posterous.com/wip-pg-essays>

------
DevX101
As someone who's not a great speaker, it's always disconcerted me a bit about
the disproportionate weight we (myself included) place on the _manner_ in
which a message is presented.

PG's a great thinker about the subjects he discusses, and his essays have a
very high signal to noise ratio. But when this video was first posted the
'umms' was one of the top comment, and probably detracted quite a bit from the
core message he was conveying. Had this been an essay, I suspect the reception
would have been more positive.

Conversely, if you re-read the TSA blog response which we all ridiculed, it
was actually an EXCELLENT response for a TV news journal format (think
O'Reilly or Anderson Cooper). He dodged the issue, obfuscated a bit, threw in
a few quips, and ended the blog post addressing a completely different issue.
If the TSA rep had gave that response on TV, many people would have perceived
the TSA to have 'won' the argument. But because it was in written format, we
were all free to dissect for the actual content, and we came away
underwhelmed.

REALLY good speakers have an almost magical ability to enchant audiences even
if they're not saying anything of importance. Probably the best public speaker
I've ever seen was a preacher who when I parsed for content wasn't saying
much. A close second was a Yale undergrad years ago doing a debate competition
about some trivial topic I can't even recall. I do remember the impression he
left though, and thinking this guy was good enough to temporarily convince me
that the sun revolved around the earth.

~~~
SatvikBeri
> PG's a great thinker about the subjects he discusses, and his essays have a
> very high signal to noise ratio. But when this video was first posted the
> 'umms' was one of the top comment, and probably detracted quite a bit from
> the core message he was conveying. Had this been an essay, I suspect the
> reception would have been more positive.

You don't even have to guess-pg published the contents of this talk in the
essay "Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas", which was much better received
than the video, judging by the HN threads.

------
danielzarick
This is a common habit for PG. I've seen him speak in person 2-3 times and
watched a handful of videos of him, and each time I noticed the amount that he
said "um". Obviously the content is valuable and worth listening to, but it is
naive to say that these sort of distractions by any speaker are worth
overlooking.

Unfortunately, these are distractions from the content, which is what matters.
Simple exercises could could help fix the habit with only a few hours of
practice.

A trick that helped me in college was to say "uh" or "um" every other word
while practicing a speech. This mental trick causes you to be hyper-aware of
the habit, thus helping you to subconsciously stop inserting the words into
speech. Try it out sometime.

------
nostromo
> I wondered if he was a little nervous, but that didn’t seem likely for
> someone in his position.

All sorts of people can get nervous speaking in public, including people that
are thought of as being 'natural' public speakers like Steve Jobs
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzDBiUemCSY>) and Sam Harris
([http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-silent-crowd-
overcomi...](http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-silent-crowd-overcoming-
your-fear-of-public-speaking/)), as well as billionaires
([http://www.quora.com/Peter-Thiel/How-is-Peter-Thiel-so-
amazi...](http://www.quora.com/Peter-Thiel/How-is-Peter-Thiel-so-amazingly-
brilliant-but-so-ineloquent-in-public-speaking-stituations)) and CEOs
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3hu3iG8B2g>).

~~~
larsberg
One of the things even the high-powered public speaking trainers tell you is
that the only way not to be nervous is if you no longer care. Any time you
have an audience you actually want to learn something or be convinced to take
some action, you should feel a bit nervous.

------
tzs
If this research on PG, or other speakers, continues please also record the
room temperature so we can see if the um rate varies with temperature.

~~~
scoot
I think you'll find it actually varies with pressure.

------
Davertron
Am I the only person who found the graph in the article a little weird?
Wouldn't it have been more illustrative of the author's point (that the
frequency of ums/uhs per minute was pretty consistent) to show a graph of
ums/uhs per minute instead of total ums/uhs at any given time? (i.e. the graph
should have been almost flat).

~~~
greattypo
You're just asking for the derivative of the function he plotted.

Showing that the function is linearly increasing is the same as showing that
it has a constant slope, in any case.

------
prophetjohn
It's a very unique 'um', too. You could tell he was pretty nervous. But as
someone who has had my 'um's during speeches ruthlessly pointed out to me, I'm
basically trained to notice when someone says 'um.' PG's speech was tough to
listen to.

~~~
melvinram
It didn't seem like nerves. It appeared that he was thinking through some of
these things on stage in more depth than he had previously done so the ums
provided the time to collect the thoughts in a coherent manner.

~~~
jes5199
that reminds me - I can't find the link now, but - someone had counted the
vocalized pauses of college professors and averaged them by subject. They
found that professors of math and hard sciences used the fewest, and that
professors of philosophy used the most. Presumably, because, when there's less
of a definitive answer to a question, you must work harder to come up with
words to describe it.

------
samstave
I would love a "Tech Jam" -- like a poetry jam, where you get in front of an
audiance and can speak on any subject (tech related) for 5 minutes or so to
get over the fear of speaking and to get over the propensity to say uhm all
the time.

In such a jam, it would be great to let everyone follow some simple structure:

* My name

* My company

* My passion

* My skills as it related to that passion

Or something along these lines. Whatever the structure is - just let it be
practice and not tied to anything other than stage time.

~~~
kn0thing
Practice. Practice. Practice. I've become a pretty good public speaker because
of simply that. I absolutely adore this concept. No slides. Just a jam about
something you love.

~~~
samstave
Any venue /event you can think of that would allow this (like a bar with an
open mic)? You're back in Brooklyn now though, correct?

Any HNers from SFBay interested in this? I'd love to give this a go - I'll
call it UMJam :)

~~~
kn0thing
I'm gonna talk to GA about it. Or just start my own public house in NY for it
;)

~~~
samstave
I bought UMJAM.com - lets put a page up :)

------
mattdeboard
I was there for his pycon talk, and it seemed to me (they stood out for me as
well) that he was using disfluencies to express disbelief or punctuate
something extraordinary or unexpected with humor. I do this too? But instead
of uhm, I'll end a statement on a rising tone as in an interrogative?

~~~
codyrobbins
You’re in good company. The rising tone at the end of a sentence used in a
non-interrogative context is called uptalk or a high rising terminal [1]. Its
increased use has been a far-reaching dialect shift that has been ongoing for
a couple of decades now. The New York Times published an article on it in 1993
[2] and just recently another [3] with a good overview of how its use has
mostly spread into every corner of the American populace. Perhaps my favorite
discussion of uptalk is an analysis of some of George W. Bush’s speeches in
which he extensively employs it [4].

###

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal>

[2] [http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/15/magazine/on-language-
like-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/15/magazine/on-language-like-
uptalk.html)

[3] [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/science/young-women-
often-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/science/young-women-often-
trendsetters-in-vocal-patterns.html)

[4]
[http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002708.h...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002708.html)

------
zach
This is just a minor end-of-thought speaking affectation. I've never really
been bothered by it. John Carmack has an even more characteristic "um" which
comes out like the word "I'm". That honestly did bother me at first, but you
get over it after a while.

Not a big deal unless you're really worried about your first impression. Once
you're where John Carmack or Paul Graham is, that's not an issue.

I recently noticed that Chuck Klosterman's delivery sounds a lot like an
excited Paul Graham. He's a good model for what Paul would sound like with
more flow between individual thoughts:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yTwbga3lGM#t=39m10s>

------
ChrisNorstrom
I quit on my own, instantly, within 3 minutes of practice by simply TALKING
SLOWER. It's like I gave my brain enough time to send words to my mouth and I
stopped saying "um" and pausing immediately. It felt miraculous. lol.

------
tnorthcutt
Neat post. Good way to highlight how easy it is to use your app (I'm assuming
it's easy).

I clicked on your logo on that page, and although it is a clickable element,
NOTHING HAPPENED. Please, please, please, please link your logo to your home
page. Please.

------
bdunbar
I have noticed that my annoyance at a speaker's 'um' goes way up when I don't
like the speaker, or the subject matter is turning me off.

When the new division head announced that we'd been acquired because Sprint
loved everything about us, and he was only introducing a few minor, very
cosmetic, changes? All I could focus on was his 'um's.

That and my resume.

pg talking about why Hacker News has it's quirks? Loved it.

I guess the same thing happens with spouses. My second wife does things that I
-know- should annoy me. They do when other people do them. But with her ..
it's cute. Adorable. Another reason why I love her so much.

Been almost fifteen years since I got hitched - I guess it's true love.

------
solnyshok
I first read many PG's essays, and only recently has seen him on video. But,
by that time, my attitude was set in such way, that I take his ummms as a sign
that he is taking a wee bit of time to translate what is going in his head
into more human understandable form. His essays show clearly the depth of
thinking. Such thoughts need extra effort/time to translate from human lisp to
human language. So, I have no problem that PG takes a second now and then to
formulate a thought to be understandable by a wider audience.

------
meltzerj
I really think my answer here on Quora about Peter Thiel explains the main
part of this: [http://www.quora.com/Peter-Thiel/How-is-Peter-Thiel-so-
amazi...](http://www.quora.com/Peter-Thiel/How-is-Peter-Thiel-so-amazingly-
brilliant-but-so-ineloquent-in-public-speaking-stituations/answer/Justin-
Meltzer)

I don't think it's nerves as much as it's a mismatch between someone's
internal intelligence/thinking speed and their ability to translate that into
speech on the spot.

~~~
philwelch
Yes, absolutely. Different people think in different ways--some in language,
some in images, and some even more abstractly. (I suspect this is the key to
mathematical talent--whether or not you can think purely in mathematical
abstractions without the need of other aid.) So unless you're thinking in
language already, there's often a translation process you have to run your
thoughts through before saying them, and this process can be expensive,
especially with the pressure of people looking at you.

------
un1xl0ser
This is something that can be curbed with practice. If you give your
presentation to someone, they should point this out. To get better at public
speaking, you should try to curb any behavior that detracts from the message
that you want to deliver.

I remember listening to RMS talk at the HOPE conference one year and it was
painful to watch him talk. He obviously needed very long breaks when he was
speaking, using them to take sips of Pepsi. The pauses were at times in his
speaking were almost planned for some sort of applause or at best internal
agreement and reflection on the idea. It was all very awkward, if you can't
tell.

It was RMS, so nobody cared, but I'm sure that he could have gotten his
message across better with some effort.

------
polshaw
Reading this thread, the masses of 'um's here really feel contagious.. i
wouldn't want to be starting a speech right now.

I have to say PGs 'UHM's were very noticeable (distracting, even), although
that perhaps was a little influenced by the prior mention.

Finally- slightly OT but i missed the discussion thread- I was really
disappointed by Paul's responses to the questions asked. While I understand it
is difficult to come up with a proper response on the spot, i thought the
questions particularly about university's peripheral 'roles', and
manufacturing-oriented start-ups were really insightful and his mostly side-
stepping answers really missed an opportunity.

------
samstave
I am someone who says UM a LOT.

I think and speak very fast - but when I speak in front of others, my physical
speaking ability doesnt keep up with my thinking and I end up saying UM a lot.

I watched others speak and never say UM and I just don't know how they do it.

~~~
runevault
Just like anything else, public speaking is a skill. To do it well requires
focused practice. Learn to keep your mind and your mouth at the same pace and
be willing to have silence while you think, rather than um, or have something
more substantial to come out of your mouth than um.

It isn't easy of course, but any skill worth learning isn't.

------
cgoddard
This post and all the comments seems a little rude. This isn't a 4h or
toastmasters feedback forum. Letting someone know they need to work on their
public speaking skills is something better done in private. Whatever they were
trying to communicate they were doing their best to communicate it at the
time, and it's rude to focus on speech difficulties instead of content.
Believe it or not some individuals have neurological conditions that prevent
super-clear communication, but it's not a nice thing to point out outside of a
venue designed to improve public speaking.

------
JonnieCache
I find it's not the frequency of these words, but the volume and inflection
that's the problem. There are a series of computer science lectures on
youtube, and also some courses I had at university where the lecturer says
UMMMMM at a substantially higher volume than the rest of their speech, and
drags it out for a second or more.

The resultant sound is like a cow mooing, or someone doing an offensive
impersonation of a downs syndrome patient at the top of their voice. The
effect is totally unbearable and I have no idea how people sit through hours
of this stuff.

~~~
cgoddard
Link please?

------
Unseelie
Vocal pauses are natural, and they happen. Our brains can handle them. Why is
it even considered personal betterment to expend energy replacing them with
whitespace?

------
beaumartinez
The link to the video[1] (at least at the time of posting) is wrong—it's a
talk by Katie Cunningham! The correct link is [2].

[1] <http://pyvideo.org/video/628/keynote-paul-graham-ycombinator> [2]
<http://pyvideo.org/video/626/keynote-paul-graham-ycombinator>

------
rdl
Maybe this one speech was an outlier; I haven't noticed this in previous pg
speeches (in front of 300+ people, and some televised things like the NY
event).

Peter Thiel, on the other hand, has consistently technically-bad speech
patterns, but the content is compelling enough to make up for it.

Tracking the same speaker in multiple venues/contexts vs. comparing different
speakers seems a lot more interesting.

------
kyt
I didn't think he was nervous. That just sounded like his speech pattern. I
found it refreshing that he didn't sound like a salesman.

------
squarecat
Is there any early videos of him speaking where he exhibits stuttering (or
other speech impediment)? It sounds like when people who "self-treat"
(intentionally or not) and substitute one impediment for another, ideally one
less apparent.

Then again maybe it's one of those habitual things, for example when someone
says "Knowwhatimean" repeatedly.

------
ExpiredLink
Umm, no: <http://www.bloomberg.com/video/67469618/>

------
jacquesm
The 'um's are not the parts that matter.

~~~
jemka
Apparently you're not familiar with the signal to noise ratio.

~~~
jacquesm
I have an uncle who is a scientist. He speaks _very_ slowly. And he leaves
long pauses between his sentences. The reason for that is that he actually
thinks through what he says. There is relatively little 'signal', but the
value of what he says is large enough to make up for the low bitrate.

~~~
Danieru
I think that was Jemka's point. Sidnal/noise ratio is not the same thing as
throughput.

For instance imagine that instead of stopping to think, your uncle turned on
the radio during the pauses. The same amount of useful information would be
transmitted but we would not say that both scenarios are equally desirable.

Silence is the desirable pause method. It allows the audience to absorb and
understand the signal better.

------
ecaroth
Ha - funny, this is the first thing I noticed when watching the video of this
presentation, and it drove me so crazy I only made it through the first 3
minutes before I had to stop watching. Wish it wasn't the case, would have
loved to watch the whole thing, but it was maddening....

~~~
jmadsen
absolutely - david crockford has the same problem, and I just simply couldn't
listen to his entire javascript series

had brilliant university professors who were the same.

people need to realize that this is fixable, and is very important to fix if
they want to share information more effectively

------
va_coder
I'd rather listen to an average presenter with great content than a great
presenter with average content.

------
andygcook
Nonetheless, it's impressive he can even public speak at all given the fact
he's a hacker by nature.

~~~
rogerclark
this is just ridiculous and dismissive of everyone who has ever tried to
better themsleves

~~~
brlewis
I'm a hacker by nature and have been bettering myself through Toastmasters for
years. I didn't find the comment dismissive. Public speaking is a skill that
takes a lot of effort to develop and maintain. I agree it's impressive when
someone who spends lots of time hacking (and communicating 1:1) can also
deliver an effective speech in front of a crowd, even if that speech has
flaws.

------
vgurgov
I believe its common for great thinkers/writers. If someone is able to speak
something valuable faster without the need to feel pauses it means that he
either super-fast thinker or he memorized/polished his speech, which is
something, i guess, PG dont have time for.

------
snowpolar
Hmmm. I commented on this in the other hacker news entry (for his talk) and
got a -1 for it. I guess this is just a habit formed after many years. The
quality of the talk is still great and that what's most important.

------
plainOldText
I've really enjoyed the presentation but I've noticed the 'um' too. hopefully
pg will see this thread as constructive criticism and he'll make an effort to
get rid of the 'um'.

------
jules
Before I watched the talk I read comments complaining about the 'um's, so I
was extra focused on it. When I watched the talk I did not find it distracting
at all. YMMV

------
a3camero
Good way to get attention to your service, and I did check it out, but, uh,
pricing? Would have considered service but unknown cost made me head back to
HN.

~~~
tbh
Apologies for the way, way off topic post, but we'll be announcing pricing
soon. Hopefully in a couple of days, and we'll be sure to 'tell HN' when we
do. It's likely to be between $30/month and $200/month depending on volume.

Yeah, shameless linkbait. Sorry. :)

------
pan69
Maybe not entirely on topic but does anyone have any good tips on dealing with
stammer or stutter related issues? Maybe exercises or something?

------
mtgentry
His brain has too much throughput for his mouth to handle! So he uses 'Um' as
a kind of verbal buffering device.

------
mhartl
pg also ends a lot of sentences with "right?" I used to have the same
affectation, and have worked hard to eliminate it. The main one that remains
in my own speech is saying "so" (as a transition) a bit too much. I have the
video to prove it; you'll see what I mean on Pi Day.

------
davmar
i loved the content, but i think that he could use some coaching on how to
give presentations. i did find the 'um's to be distracting.

------
EricDeb
who cares?

------
J3L2404
Tough crowd.

------
xxiao
Indeed I can only hear the first 3 minutes as those 'um's starts to drive me
crazy, hope he watches his own speech and improves his speech skill soon.

------
wilfra
Barack Obama does the same thing.

------
robwgibbons
And "like"

------
funkah
The only people this matters to is people who count how many times the speaker
says "um". Toastmasters types. The rest of us can see the forest for the
trees.

~~~
sachingulaya
It was very distracting. It takes quite a bit of training to eliminate pauses
from speech but it takes significantly less effort to replace 'um' with a
pause.

~~~
prophetjohn
Pauses aren't even bad. Pauses give your audience an opportunity to process
what you're saying. I've had pauses encouraged to me.

------
liquimoon
I think that's a sign of greatness. Mark Zuckerberg has, um, the same trait.

------
badclient
'umms', intentional or not, can actually help the speaker in seeming more
genuine.

For example, I hit on a lot of women and in the process, over some time, end
up saying basically the same lines and stories. I risk coming across as too-
smooth/scripted which is just as bad as being very nervous.

Especially when retelling a story, I intentionally inject plenty of 'umms' and
look up as if I am trying to recollect something from my memory.

~~~
ilaksh
That just proves you're a creep.

~~~
badclient
I'll bite. How does it prove that I am a creep?

~~~
corin_
Obviously it's very subjective... but how can you not see why the type of
person who isn't always reading up on "negging" and the like would think you a
creep for that?

