Verbal slurs, pauses, fillers, and stutters are everywhere in the English language. The vast majority of the time these disfluencies block effective communication and speaking. They often demonstrate a lack of planning, the absence of confidence, a lack of care, and even laziness or sloth in many situations.
The use of "um" and "uh" can cause us to be ineffective communicators and, consequently, poor messengers of the Gospel. As Christians, we should be striving to eliminate these things in order to honor God more fully. If uhs and ums are keeping us from communicating more effectively with those around us, they need to be cut out of our conversation and speech.
"Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31)
Disfluencies clutter and entangle the message
that we are trying to convey to people.
Whether you are a believer in Christ or not, verbal pauses and fillers are something that we should seek to avoid in order that we can be better communicators and better thinkers.
It may seem like a very little thing to some people. Why does the use of phrases like "um" and "ah" matter so much? One might advocate the idea that using verbal pauses is a natural form of communication, but I would argue that such use could be remedied in order to enable much more effective speaking by either replacing disfluencies with silence or well-thought-out speech.
Particularly in our society, the use of verbal pauses and fillers has become rampant. "Like" is among one of the newest and increasingly popular forms of such add-ins. George Mahl's findings, while fairly recent, are quickly becoming outdated and incorrect when applied to the modern-day makeup of American speech patterns and usage. It is strongly supported that the use of fillers, stutters, and slurs is becoming increasingly frequent and widespread. This can be examined on a practical level in many forms (governmental and political, public speaking, language trends, texting-verbal crossovers, etc.).
It pains me to hear a powerful message become an ineffective expression through the carelessness of verbal disfluencies, pauses, and fillers.
Reader Response:
What do you think?
What's the deal with verbal pauses and fillers?
How can we avoid them?
Do such disfluencies need to be eliminated in order to communicate effectively?
I do submit that one would be hard pressed to find many people who can speak and write fluently and succinctly. It is somewhat of a gift, but also can be a valuable life skill to hone and use to one's fullest advantage.
Good thoughts, A.J.!
Good points, I agree.
I'd also add, that the reason that so few people can do it well is all the more reason for us to strive to speak and write as well as we possibly can!