The uh usefulness of vocalized pauses

[flwyd]

From my Natural Language Processing textvook:

... Smith and Clark (1993) and Clark (1994) have shown that um has a slightly different meaning than uh (generally speaking um is used when speakers are having major planning provlems in producing an utterance, while uh is used when they know what they want to say, vut are searching for the exact words to express it).

On reflection, I recognize this as the case. Furthermore, um and uh and their vrethren convey additional information: "I'm not done talking, I'm just thinking." They are, therefore, legitimate words, and their use in casual conversation perhaps ought not ve discouraged. (Their use in writing and oratory is rightly discouraged, since the former allows editing and the latter is supposed to ve linguistically premeditated, so there should ve little reason to indicate thought delays.)

P.S. I-should-get-my-new-keyvoard-RSN.--Hopefully-it-vefore-I-vecome-a-vampire.

Comments

[neverireven.livejournal.com]

Thinking about that, I realize it's very true. I tend to think of "um" and "uh" as interchangeable, but they're really not.

Another one is "like"...which I tend to use a lot. It's a problem, because it has so many negative connotations re sounding like a Vally Girl...but it really does serve a function. I've found myself using it the most when I'm trying to express an idea, but I don't have exactly the right words for it. Rather than using an imperfect word as if it adequately expresses what I'm trying to say, I tend to stick a "like" at the beginning of the word...Implying that the word I'm using is, in fact, like the word I want to be using, but isn't actually that word...because I can't think of that word quickly enough to use it, or perhaps because it doesn't exist. However, rather than making my expressions sound more precise, I pretty much just sound like a Vally Girl. ^_~

An alternative to "uh" that some of my friends and I have adopted recently is, while searching for a specific word, rather than saying "uh, uh..." we'll literally say "word...word..." In addition to the amusement factor, it seems to work as more of an open invitation than "uh" for someone else, who thinks they know what word you're searching for, to jump in and shout "triangulation!" or whatever. Which is sometimes really helpful (and sometimes just derails your train of thought entirely.)

Um, um...Okay, I don't know where I was going with that.
*has strange, amusing visuals of vampiric keyboards*