“How can I stop saying ‘um’?” my friend asked. Her talking is liberally sprinkled with this non-word. She knows it, and she knows it detracts from the impact of what she says. Someone else I know asks, “Right?” after every couple of phrases, as if constantly asking for approval. “You know” is a very common verbal habit, and “like” is almost ubiquitous among young people. Like many habits, verbal patterns become so deeply ingrained that we don’t even notice we are saying them.
Just as repetitive physical habits like pen clicking and jingling keys are distracting, so are repetitive verbal habits. We all say “um” or “you know” now and then. That’s not a problem. It becomes a problem when they are used so frequently that they interfere with the fluency of a person’s speaking. A colleague of mine calls these interjected sounds “speech dysfluencies”.
A listener’s brain processes every sound a speaker makes. When speech is filled with “um” and “ah”, or words such as “you know” and “like”, the speaker is interjecting sounds that are foreign to his train of thought. The listener’s brain must then take a split second to process the non-word and reject it as meaningless. If this happens every few seconds, the listener’s brain is see-sawing back and forth, sorting out what the speaker is saying from what the speaker is not saying. From the listener’s point of view, it’s tiresome and can even be irritating. If the habit is serious enough, the speaker looks unskilled and even unintelligent. Not only does the speaker sound unsure of him or herself, but the listeners end up focusing on the dysfluency instead of listening to what the speaker is seeking to convey.
Why do we add these meaningless sounds into our speaking? I think many of us fear silence. We need a moment to think, but fear that if we stop speaking our audience will stop listening. So we add a sound to fill the space. In fact, your audience listens harder in the silences. That’s when they have time to absorb what you have just said. Silences also add dramatic tension. The listener’s attention is intensified in that second or two of expectation about what is coming next. A pause can go on for much longer than we think before it becomes uncomfortable.
What can you do to change the “dysfluency” habit? The first step is to start listening to yourself. How often do you say that sound or word you keep using? Does the frequency vary with the circumstances? Do you say it more often when you’re nervous, and therefore tending to speak more quickly? Awareness is the first step. If you can hear it, you can change it.
Try to catch yourself before you say your pet word or sound. Simply stop talking while you think. Take a breath and have the courage to allow silence to reign, even for a moment. Remind yourself that pauses are a good thing. In that moment of silence, you can give your mind something to do. Public speaking trainer Cordelia Ditton recommends thinking to yourself, “I pause and I breathe.”
Don’t be hard on yourself if you find the “dysfluency” habit challenging to change. After all, if you’ve been using this meaningless filler all your life, you can’t expect to eliminate it immediately. If you can remember to work on it even once in a day, that’s progress. Gradually you will find that your listeners do not “tune out” when you pause. They tune in! Once you discover that it’s safe to allow silences, try stretching them out a moment longer. Let it be fun. Enjoy the pauses.
