Is It All Right to Say “Um” or “Uh”?

You are not a failure as a public speaker if you use an occasional “um” or “uh.” But that doesn’t mean people who urge you to avoid them as much as you can are stupid or nit-pickers. Most people with limited experience in public speaking have no idea how many times they say these things, and are horrified to hear them when they listen to a recording of their remarks. It is very grating on the audience as well.

Slate tries to say that people who don’t use “um” or “uh” come across as too scripted, which is why such people do less well in telemarketing. But public speaking is not telemarketing. I know of numerous people who do not say “um” and who keep an audience captivated. I say, strive for the most beautiful presentation you can make.

Vince

Go to ToastMasters for a while. You’ll learn to stop saying “Uh” reeeeal quick.
jaffi411

Considering that you’re one of the best public speakers that I’ve seen (and I’ve seen quite a few), I think that I’ll take your word over that of Slate.
Guest

The reason people say “Uh” in public speaking is because they understand that pauses in one’s speech is often taken as a lack of knowledge. If you teach people that this is not necessarily the case, then people will be able to allow themselves to take pauses to gather their thoughts.

(Some people have just not had practice articulating the ideas they believe to be true, and it takes time to put together the right words in such a way as to best convey your thoughts to different audiences.)

I think most people say “Uh” the most, though, when informally speaking in a group, because in this setting, pauses are taken as a means to take control of a discussion. Here, the idea is to keep from pausing so you can finish your line of reasoning.
http://www.facebook.com/MattM0823 Matt Miller

I think “um” has evolved from a bad habit we all try to avoid to a universally accepted and expected manner of speech. I don’t so much notice myself saying it as I do notice myself NOT saying it, and I always feel like by not saying it, I’m sounding pretentious or whatever.
Spiff

One of the Liberty Classroom profs, while brilliant, does so many “ums” and “uhs” in his videos that I find him almost unwatchable. I’d love to see versions of his presentations where someone had edited that stuff out, or if someone remixed the presentations to have the same content, but produced better in one way or another, like the learnliberty.org guys tend to do. For example, I’d love to see Liberty Classroom content, tightened up and put together with motion graphics like Art Carden’s “Trade is Made of Win” videos.
http://twitter.com/MooseOfReason Jeff

I try to say nothing instead of “Uh” or “Um,” but then I flail my arms around trying to conjure up the rest of my sentence.
Anonymous

http://goo.gl/RmClK
Anonymous

This is one of my pet peeves about rhetoric and public speaking. I hate “um’s”
“and “ah’s” and all the other inarticulate prehistoric grunts.
Ann Coulter, as an example, drives me nuts because she says “um” all
the time. For her it’s like an all purpose, pervasive linguistic crutch. Obama
is another abuser of this habit. When he is off teleprompter the inarticulate
noises come in embarrassing waves of rhetorical vacuity. Obviously they are not
stupid people (just very wrong headed) but their extemporaneous speaking habits
definitely don’t make them sound more intelligent.
Shayne

There is no way to please everyone… I was that guy on the other side of the phone. Some people don’t mind if you say um or uh, but the majority of people will think you are ignorant and want to speak to someone else. A lot of people talk all the time, so they do not think about the inherent nature of knowledge and may not realize that you are simply trying to think of the best way to convey the information to them because of their ignorance. I’m not sure about public speaking. I am sure it is much the same. If you peer into the audience and everyone is scratching their head you might as well be talking to a wall. So you may pause and rephrase your statement using “um” or “uh” to fill the void.
Red Skyler

“Um” and “uhs” kill the cadence of a great presentation. Often, people tell funny stories that are truly funny. Most of the time, these funny stories are devoid of “um” and “uh” due to the story teller’s familiarity and refinements.

It pays to rehearse.
Emb021

What I was going to say!!

However, most Toastmasters who become professional speakers know that a few um’s and ah’s do make your speech seem more natural.

But too many make you sound like an idiot.