The Epidemic of Uh

If you're the kind of person who hates to get a song stuck in your head, you may not want to read any further, because if you do, you'll never be able to watch TV news the same way ever again.

Not so very long ago, people who spoke in public were generally obliged to be articulate and well-spoken. That's why they became our leaders, our news anchors, our experts and our noted storytellers, receiving accolades and admiration for their skill in using the tool of language.

Nowadays, the most common word (if you can call it that) you hear in almost any American public forum is "uh", along with it's annoying cousins "umm" and "ya know". Turn on any 24-hour news channel or C-Span, and start counting the number of times you hear these noises. (We do. View the results at our website www.speakology.com) It can reach the hundreds in an hour. It'll drive you crazy once you start to notice it.

Actually, in my old 1941 Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, uh and um aren't even in it, though newer dictionaries errantly include them. They shouldn't be there. Words, after all, are supposed to convey substantive meaning, a tangible object or an abstract idea. These syllables of noise do not. To say it is the sound of "thinking out loud" is just wrong. The only thing this cacophony of sounds indicates is that the speaker apparently has no idea what he or she is talking about, regardless of how many degrees, titles and credits they may have attached to their name.

Some might blame the advent of the 24-hour news stations for this epidemic, the talking heads who must interview anyone and everyone, regardless of broadcasting or speaking experience, simply to fill the airwaves with noise in order to prove they exist. That seems like the simple answer. Yet if that were the case, then why are so many so-called "professional" broadcasters some of the worst offenders? And how does that account for so many public and private leaders who are guilty of the same sad habits?

Let's face it. Whenever you hear someone use a lot of "ums" and "ya knows" you cannot help but doubt their credibility. So why do they do it? Why don't they realize just how much more intelligent they would sound if they simply replaced this obnoxious noise with what we in the listening public affectionately refer to as "a pause"?

Imagine, for a moment, what it would be like if the speaker was to eliminate these irritating and obnoxious sounds, and instead, you were treated to a grand moment of ..... silence. A beautiful, cool, clear breath of fresh air, allowing us, for an instant, to be drawn fully into the image the speaker is creating (or about to create) in our minds. Anyone who's ever heard Paul Harvey on the radio knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Not only does a pause give us time to reflect on what the speaker is saying to us, it also makes it appear that the speaker is carefully sorting through reams of knowledge in order to find just the right words to share with us, thus creating the impression of both intelligence and concern for our understanding, the absolute antithesis of "uh". Now THAT is a speaker we can admire.

Trained professional speakers, broadcasters, experts and our leaders should already know this, and should have enough discipline to be able to use pauses effectively, yet most of the time, they don't. Perhaps this phenomena is most aptly described by Dr. Temple Grandin as, "The bad has become normal." And it surely is bad these days.

Perhaps a bit of tough love is in order to raise the bar. Just imagine if Fox News or CNN were to begin to fine their anchors $10 for every "pause filling noise" they used instead of a pause. How long do you suppose it would take before we could eliminate this annoyance forever? (Though it might take big loss of pay before some of them can break the habit, it would be worth it!)

Another approach might be increased drug testing. You see, my husband has a theory (to which I originally guffawed, but now I'm having second thoughts), that the exponential growth in the use of these annoying "thinking" noises comes from the loss of short term memory caused by the smoking of too much marijuana. He thinks the more times they "um" and "er", then... well, you get the idea. Hmmm... suddenly it's a lot more fun to watch the news...