5 ms·
I dunno man, disfluencies like "um" are an integral part of language. I'd put my money on them being plenty common in everyday language 45 years ago. http://en
by stellar678 16y ago
I dunno man, disfluencies like "um" are an integral part of language. I'd put my money on them being plenty common in everyday language 45 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_disfluency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_disfluency
- sliverstorm 16y agoNo, I totally agree with you, but there was a very specific period a handful of years ago I noticed people seemed compelled to fill any dead air whatsoever between thoughts with literally strings of "um"'s... So much so they'd still be saying an "um" after they were ready to say the next word (you could tell by their face and speech)
- nl 16y agoPeople have always used fillers (aka filled pauses) in speech. There is no evidence to suggest they have become any more or any less common. For example, http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2008/05/uh-er-um-erm.html http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2008/05/uh-er... cites a play by Agatha Christie (who dies in 1976) which is full of um's (using the British spelling of erm).