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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 "li

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".

rprasad 15y ago
My high school AP English teacher deducted a full 1% from presentation assignments for every "um" and "like" (except where the use of "like" was contextually appropriate). Nobody got higher than a D on the first presentation. Nobody got lower than a B after that.
gallamine 15y ago
As a follow-up to this, my HS English teacher broke me of this by forcing the mantra, "if you are about to say 'um', STOP TALKING'". These works are generally used to fill the speech gap while you are thinking. It seems weird at first to pause, but eventually it becomes natural.
- SkyMarshal 15y ago
  My HS English teacher was even more harsh (but effective) - every time someone said um, ah, like, or any other tic/pause word, she'd immediately cut them off. 'STOP.' 'TRY AGAIN.' 'NO.' etc. She was relentless, forced students to stop, calm down, gather their thoughts, and say it directly. Most students were cured in a few days, and the really bad ones a few weeks at most.
- ineedtosleep 15y ago
  This is generally not a bad thing, though. From my slight applied linguist background: These fillers are generally used in order to establish that the speaker's turn is not yet done. In a conversational situation, having pauses instead of fillers gives the listeners openings into the conversation to become the speaker. In presentational speeches, fillers aren't so bad, but long pauses IMO are worse. It's a natural thing to have fillers. If you want to have less, just practice more and be more comfortable with what you're talking about.
- derefr 15y ago
  I would posit that people that say "um" more, came from upbringings where they were more likely to be interrupted the moment they left a gap in conversation. That'd be an interesting study.
  - cmod 15y ago
    Yes. I find in America if you don't keep filling the space with noise when thinking, you lose the chance to finish your thought.
sliverstorm 15y ago
There's an even more low-tech way. Teacher starts calling you out on it. A little "ding" from a bell or similar draws your attention to it, when you wouldn't notice otherwise. After a while, your classmates will start policing each other, and even the quiet ones will speak up so they can play the "game" of avoiding filler words.
- kevinclark 15y ago
  We did a similar thing in debate. When one person says 'um', so does everyone else. Stops the habit fairly quickly.
  - ezl 15y ago
    our partner in cx would stand behind us and hit us on top of the head every time we said "um" or "like"
- mopoke 15y ago
  That reminds me very strongly of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdOomYvnyNI&t=1m13s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdOomYvnyNI&t=1m13s
- nostrademons 15y ago
  I had a PM at Google who did debate in high school. In his debate class, everybody would throw a pen at him every time he said "um". He has very precise, articulate diction. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtirDMfcOKE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtirDMfcOKE
twiceaday 15y ago
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 15y ago
  "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.
  - djloche 15y ago
    As someone who grew up in the suburbs of Southern California, It's been my experience that 'like' it's used to introduce a paraphrase that includes non-verbal communication and/or tones that introduce not-so-subtle comments regarding the paraphrase without directly commenting nor limiting yourself with a direct quotation. For example, I could say "kristianc was like, OMG it is NOT a pause or a tic, it is SoCal dialect!" in a sarcastic tone and roll my eyes. edit: This form of communication doesn't translate well into digital form - email, texting, etc. - unless both people are familiar with each other's body language and the dialect to visualize (at a conscious or subconscious level) the meaning.
    - kristianc 15y ago
      All communication is to some extent subject to those limitations. Wittgenstein was so like "language acquires meaning through context, bro" but only in his like, later period.
  - munificent 15y ago
    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.
kleiba 15y ago
Half-OT: Note that words such as "like" and "um" are typically not referred to as stop words in (computational) linguistics. They are called filled pauses, or sometimes floor holders, depending on their function. Liz Shriberg's thesis was - as far as I know - the first extensive treatment of speech disfluencies in the field of computational linguistics. The term "stop words" is, however, used in information retrieval. Here, it refers to words that appear very frequently in (almost) all documents in a corpus; so frequently in fact that they are taken not to carry any/much information content at all. Examples would be "the", "it", "and" etc. For many tasks in IR, stop words are removed from the document representation because they mostly introduce noise.
badclient 15y ago
You've simply replaced one problem with another('umm's with pauses). (assuming you see this as a problem. I actually think this is an overrated problem IRL.)
- Spearchucker 15y ago
  Pauses are the opposite of "a problem". They're one of THE MOST effective tools you have as a speaker. Listen to any great speech. Look out for the pauses. Imagine if the impact would've been the same without them.
  - psykotic 15y ago
    That is a false equivalence--a rhetorical pause differs from a random pause. Random pauses are certainly preferable to any overt verbal tics.
    - Spearchucker 15y ago
      I'm not a speech therapist or linguist etc. so wasn't aware of any formal distinction. I can tell you that "random" pauses, as you call them, are as useful as considered pauses. They slow down what's being said, which makes the speaker appear calmer, more considered, and so on.
      - psykotic 15y ago
        What you say goes against common sense and experience. Pausing randomly in the middle of a train of thought is not on the same level as a carefully considered pause. There was a real-life case study of the difference on the Language Log where the subject was a presidential debate between Bush and Kerry. Kerry spoke at a moderate rate and made careful use of pauses--he had longer pauses before beginning his answers to the moderator's question, and he had shorter, calculated pauses for rhetorical effect. By contrast, Bush launched directly into his answer before hardly taking a breath, spoke hastily, tripping over his own words, pausing frequently and inappropriately during sentences in ways that did not suggest composure but rather confusion and incompetence. Obviously that impression was not helped by his other deficiencies as an speaker, but it was a major flaw in its own right.
msluyter 15y ago
Toastmasters is quite helpful for this. I did it for a while and highly recommend it. It's also a great way to practice social skills, generally.
screwt 15y ago
I tried a similar thing in high school to stop saying 'like' as a filler word. For me, it completely backfired though - I found myself saying 'like' twice whenever I would have said it once! I guess doing this as a group (as others have suggested) might work better. Years later, and the habit went away by itself.
petercooper 15y ago
I did this and it worked well. Except.. I then started listening back and noticed I was adding filler like "you know what I mean?" instead, which is proving a more insidious problem to stamp out.
bicknergseng 15y ago
The best way to stop doing something is to become overly conscious of it. I used the same method to get "this" out of my writing.
nnnnni 15y ago
There's also the "Subway Challenge": Go to a restaurant like Subway where you go along a counter and tell the employee what you want on your food item. The challenge is to get through the whole thing without a single "um", "uh", or similar word. It's VERY easy to say "uhhh.... ummm.... pepper jack cheese!" when asked to make a choice on the spot like that.

rprasad 15y ago

My high school AP English teacher deducted a full 1% from presentation assignments for every "um" and "like" (except where the use of "like" was contextually appropriate). Nobody got higher than a D on the first presentation. Nobody got lower than a B after that.

gallamine 15y ago

As a follow-up to this, my HS English teacher broke me of this by forcing the mantra, "if you are about to say 'um', STOP TALKING'". These works are generally used to fill the speech gap while you are thinking. It seems weird at first to pause, but eventually it becomes natural.

SkyMarshal 15y ago
My HS English teacher was even more harsh (but effective) - every time someone said um, ah, like, or any other tic/pause word, she'd immediately cut them off. 'STOP.' 'TRY AGAIN.' 'NO.' etc. She was relentless, forced students to stop, calm down, gather their thoughts, and say it directly. Most students were cured in a few days, and the really bad ones a few weeks at most.
ineedtosleep 15y ago
This is generally not a bad thing, though. From my slight applied linguist background: These fillers are generally used in order to establish that the speaker's turn is not yet done. In a conversational situation, having pauses instead of fillers gives the listeners openings into the conversation to become the speaker. In presentational speeches, fillers aren't so bad, but long pauses IMO are worse. It's a natural thing to have fillers. If you want to have less, just practice more and be more comfortable with what you're talking about.
derefr 15y ago
I would posit that people that say "um" more, came from upbringings where they were more likely to be interrupted the moment they left a gap in conversation. That'd be an interesting study.
- cmod 15y ago
  Yes. I find in America if you don't keep filling the space with noise when thinking, you lose the chance to finish your thought.

sliverstorm 15y ago

There's an even more low-tech way. Teacher starts calling you out on it. A little "ding" from a bell or similar draws your attention to it, when you wouldn't notice otherwise. After a while, your classmates will start policing each other, and even the quiet ones will speak up so they can play the "game" of avoiding filler words.

kevinclark 15y ago
We did a similar thing in debate. When one person says 'um', so does everyone else. Stops the habit fairly quickly.
- ezl 15y ago
  our partner in cx would stand behind us and hit us on top of the head every time we said "um" or "like"
mopoke 15y ago
That reminds me very strongly of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdOomYvnyNI&t=1m13s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdOomYvnyNI&t=1m13s
nostrademons 15y ago
I had a PM at Google who did debate in high school. In his debate class, everybody would throw a pen at him every time he said "um". He has very precise, articulate diction. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtirDMfcOKE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtirDMfcOKE

twiceaday 15y ago

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 15y ago
"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.
- djloche 15y ago
  As someone who grew up in the suburbs of Southern California, It's been my experience that 'like' it's used to introduce a paraphrase that includes non-verbal communication and/or tones that introduce not-so-subtle comments regarding the paraphrase without directly commenting nor limiting yourself with a direct quotation. For example, I could say "kristianc was like, OMG it is NOT a pause or a tic, it is SoCal dialect!" in a sarcastic tone and roll my eyes. edit: This form of communication doesn't translate well into digital form - email, texting, etc. - unless both people are familiar with each other's body language and the dialect to visualize (at a conscious or subconscious level) the meaning.
  - kristianc 15y ago
    All communication is to some extent subject to those limitations. Wittgenstein was so like "language acquires meaning through context, bro" but only in his like, later period.
- munificent 15y ago
  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.

kleiba 15y ago

Half-OT: Note that words such as "like" and "um" are typically not referred to as stop words in (computational) linguistics. They are called filled pauses, or sometimes floor holders, depending on their function. Liz Shriberg's thesis was - as far as I know - the first extensive treatment of speech disfluencies in the field of computational linguistics. The term "stop words" is, however, used in information retrieval. Here, it refers to words that appear very frequently in (almost) all documents in a corpus; so frequently in fact that they are taken not to carry any/much information content at all. Examples would be "the", "it", "and" etc. For many tasks in IR, stop words are removed from the document representation because they mostly introduce noise.

badclient 15y ago

You've simply replaced one problem with another('umm's with pauses). (assuming you see this as a problem. I actually think this is an overrated problem IRL.)

Spearchucker 15y ago
Pauses are the opposite of "a problem". They're one of THE MOST effective tools you have as a speaker. Listen to any great speech. Look out for the pauses. Imagine if the impact would've been the same without them.
- psykotic 15y ago
  That is a false equivalence--a rhetorical pause differs from a random pause. Random pauses are certainly preferable to any overt verbal tics.
  - Spearchucker 15y ago
    I'm not a speech therapist or linguist etc. so wasn't aware of any formal distinction. I can tell you that "random" pauses, as you call them, are as useful as considered pauses. They slow down what's being said, which makes the speaker appear calmer, more considered, and so on.
    - psykotic 15y ago
      What you say goes against common sense and experience. Pausing randomly in the middle of a train of thought is not on the same level as a carefully considered pause. There was a real-life case study of the difference on the Language Log where the subject was a presidential debate between Bush and Kerry. Kerry spoke at a moderate rate and made careful use of pauses--he had longer pauses before beginning his answers to the moderator's question, and he had shorter, calculated pauses for rhetorical effect. By contrast, Bush launched directly into his answer before hardly taking a breath, spoke hastily, tripping over his own words, pausing frequently and inappropriately during sentences in ways that did not suggest composure but rather confusion and incompetence. Obviously that impression was not helped by his other deficiencies as an speaker, but it was a major flaw in its own right.

msluyter 15y ago

Toastmasters is quite helpful for this. I did it for a while and highly recommend it. It's also a great way to practice social skills, generally.

screwt 15y ago

I tried a similar thing in high school to stop saying 'like' as a filler word. For me, it completely backfired though - I found myself saying 'like' twice whenever I would have said it once! I guess doing this as a group (as others have suggested) might work better. Years later, and the habit went away by itself.

petercooper 15y ago

I did this and it worked well. Except.. I then started listening back and noticed I was adding filler like "you know what I mean?" instead, which is proving a more insidious problem to stamp out.

bicknergseng 15y ago

The best way to stop doing something is to become overly conscious of it. I used the same method to get "this" out of my writing.

nnnnni 15y ago

There's also the "Subway Challenge": Go to a restaurant like Subway where you go along a counter and tell the employee what you want on your food item. The challenge is to get through the whole thing without a single "um", "uh", or similar word. It's VERY easy to say "uhhh.... ummm.... pepper jack cheese!" when asked to make a choice on the spot like that.