I have recently caught myself at the thought that the language I speak is far from being trully beautiful. I did not mean to say I am swearing profusely! Yet, the languages I speak, both native and foreign, are in a way affected by so-called "non-words", or "fillers".
I have realised that whenever I chat with my Skype friends, or have a talk with my students or collegues, I do fill my speech with those silly "Errrs" of mine, especially when being puzzled, or "Soes" when thinking of what to say or do next. What I wanted to say, is that we fail to rememeber that these non-words make our speech rather unpleasant to listen to.
Of course, it is fairly appropriate to Umm and Uhh when one is overwhelemed with excitement, which makes it quite hard to find a proper way to word one's ideas! But as soon as one is becoming "kinda" addicted to "you knows" and "you sees" it makes me feel worried about the future of the language.
But how can we avoid it? And can we? With no doubt, we can! It will never do to let "wells" and "Awws" rule the world!
This is my list of simple tips on "How not to Umm":
1. Speak more. Do not be afraid of putting your ideas into words. Filler-words are like dogs: the more scared of them you are, the greater number of them appear to be wishing to atack you when you least expect it.
2. Read more. Better read classics, e.g. Jane Austin's novels or short stories of O'Henry's. I will never do you bad anyway.
3. Make notes when reading. I usually keep a pencil at hand when reading. At noticing some nice grand word to use I immediately underline it or write it out. Either words or word phrases or sentences even would do. For example, I have recently read a book entitled as "Stardust" and found a good deal of interesting phrases:
- ...she slept on, unaware how close she had come to her doom, nor how slim a margin she had escaped it.
- ..she sang so quitely he could hear next to nothing at all..
5. Just controll yourself, that's all. As soon as you feel like using a filler, try to paraphrase it with some ther word you know.
Believe it or not, but following these tips will never make you hesitate less in your speech! Still, even if it doesn't help you avoid fillers in your speech, it might at least be a good way to enlarge your vocabulary!
And do you think that using filler-words in speech, either oral or written, is a problem?
What are your fillers?
Do you use them often?
