The other day I happened to walk into a room when a certain public figure was talking. They hold an eminently important office. People’s lives are affected by their words. What oozes from the orifice directly under their nose carries gravitas. Without naming names, you know who I am talking about.
Yet all I heard was a barrage of ‘ers’ sprinkled with ‘ums’. Was this designed to irk me to listen more intently to the stuff in between, or a cleverly orchestrated ploy to secure something else? The sympathy vote? Or was the orator simply making it up as they went along? I know how I felt as my ears took the brunt of this bombardment and my brain commuted the result as balderdash. But had I got it wrong? Time for a little investigation…
Photo by Marcos Luiz Photograph on Unsplash
According to research at Stirling and Edinburgh Universities, I may have misjudged the hidden eloquence since the use of ‘ers’ and ‘ums’ increased the retention rates in the listening audience. Apparently, these verbal ‘boo-boos’ supported people to remember what had been said. Dr Martin Corley, of Edinburgh University, gleefully revealed, “It’s like we are saying to ourselves, ‘I’d better pay attention now, because what I thought was going to happen isn’t going to happen!’” This was, of course, lacking any ‘boo-boos’.
I was still unconvinced, although the scientific terminology did remind me of the speechmaker in question.
But perhaps I was being less than sympathetic and maybe I should ponder the sage words of English poet Alexander Pope who in 1711 (the last time I went out and had some fun) penned his poem, ‘An Essay on Criticism, Part II’ in which he reflected upon the proverb, ‘To err is human’. He concluded that we should aspire to what God does and show mercy on sinners. Even with his words of wisdom I was still feeling uncharitable. And the meaning of his ‘err’ didn’t totally correlate with what I had suffered.
Writing in The Independent in 2017, four days after April fool’s day, Olivia Blair addressed the ‘er’ debate (or the use of ‘filler words’ as she put it). “Long considered to be a sign of stupidity or ineptness, linguists are saying this is unfair. Often, the people who make these sounds, in between actual words recognised in the English dictionary, are being especially conscious of who they are talking to.”
Blimey, er, um, it was beginning to look like I had simply entered the room like a bear with a sore head, or I may have some latent loathing of the bombastic ‘boo-boo’ user in question? Perish the thought!
I was about to close the book on this one then I, er, decided to open just one more source. Just to be on the safe side.
Scott H. Young, author of The Wall Street Journal best seller ‘UltraLearning’ relabelled the ‘filler words’ as verbal crutches. Adding ‘Ahs’ to the list he summed up the debate in a sentence – “Crutch words make you sound dumb.”
Leaving me with only three words to say –
Thank you, Scott!
© Ian Kirke 2021
Title Photo by Alem Omerovic on Unsplash