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uh, umm, er, ahh, erm, uh, uhm
Mar. 29th, 2007 05:04 pmI have been noticed that my, uh, speech contains too many, uh, I don't know what you'd call 'ems... Filled pauses? Disfluencies? Verbal tics? Too many "uh"'s too many "um"'s, too many meaningless little noises that supposedly allow me to, um, collect my thoughts, which are usually in a highly, er, disorganized state, I'll admit.
It's been bothering me lately a good bit, but I don't know of any way to stop it, other than be hyper aware of everything that comes out of my mouth, which, in theory is an excellent strategy, but in practice... um, I doubt I have the discipline.
Anyhow, I've noticed somewhat startlingly that this problem is attenuated or not at all present when I'm speaking a second language, namely Spanish. I wouldn't say there's a total lack of disfluency in my Spanish, nor in the native Spanish speakers that I know, it's just different. The same sort of function is filled by extending the end of the last word spoken.
My Spanish speaking friend Eusevio has been making note of how curious it sounds to him for English speaking people to do this -- he's been vocally ridiculing the practice, which is probably what made me start being more aware of it.
I remember reading an interview with Crispin Glover in which he spoke about his very odd mode of speech and how he consciously changed it at a young age when he decided he wanted to speak as clearly as possible, and to not speak if he had nothing to say. I don't remember the specifics. So why did I bring it up in the first place? Don't ask me. Maybe just 'cause I remembered it.
I also just remembered dinner, so I'm'a go eat it now.
It's been bothering me lately a good bit, but I don't know of any way to stop it, other than be hyper aware of everything that comes out of my mouth, which, in theory is an excellent strategy, but in practice... um, I doubt I have the discipline.
Anyhow, I've noticed somewhat startlingly that this problem is attenuated or not at all present when I'm speaking a second language, namely Spanish. I wouldn't say there's a total lack of disfluency in my Spanish, nor in the native Spanish speakers that I know, it's just different. The same sort of function is filled by extending the end of the last word spoken.
My Spanish speaking friend Eusevio has been making note of how curious it sounds to him for English speaking people to do this -- he's been vocally ridiculing the practice, which is probably what made me start being more aware of it.
I remember reading an interview with Crispin Glover in which he spoke about his very odd mode of speech and how he consciously changed it at a young age when he decided he wanted to speak as clearly as possible, and to not speak if he had nothing to say. I don't remember the specifics. So why did I bring it up in the first place? Don't ask me. Maybe just 'cause I remembered it.
I also just remembered dinner, so I'm'a go eat it now.
