How to stop saying "um"

August 26, 2020 11:19 AM

For 10 years I've been teaching part-time and a consistent problem I have is saying "um" too much when I lecture. It's getting to the point where it impacts my evaluations (from students and peers).

I do not have any other speech issues. What can I do to stop this habit? I do notice when I say um - it's not subconscious, but it does feel automatic. It's just my go-to filler word. I've heard that pausing/silence is a better filler, but I don't know how to actually just stop taking in between other words.

posted by CancerSucks to Education (18 answers total)

I had this problem. I trained it out of myself by using, no joke, a dog clicker.

Practice your lectures in front of another person holding the clicker and have that person click every time you say “um.”
posted by sevensnowflakes at 11:22 AM on August 26, 2020 [6 favorites]

Same idea as the dog clicker but drop marbles into a metal bucket
posted by lockestockbarrel at 11:23 AM on August 26, 2020

Toastmasters might be able to help.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:31 AM on August 26, 2020 [5 favorites]

How about using 'now' instead of 'um'? In Dave Eggers' book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius he mentioned that someone's father used the word 'now' as a filler word and I always thought that was a pretty good one as far as they're concerned. I don't use filler words too often but 'now' is my default.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:45 AM on August 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

Toastmasters isn't just for getting rid of filler words, it can help you improve all of your public speaking skills, and maybe make a few friends too. My partner found it very rewarding on several axes. That said there are small time and financial commitments involved.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:57 AM on August 26, 2020 [5 favorites]

My brother wore a rubber band on his wrist and snapped it to discourage a specific habit.
posted by theora55 at 11:58 AM on August 26, 2020 [3 favorites]

Have you ever done audio editing of your own voice? This made me hugely aware of it and, while I am not perfect, reduced the occurrence of it greatly for me.

Also +1 on the clicker if you don't have the occasion to edit your own audio. I used that approach with a public speaking coach recently for some other habits I was trying to improve and I found it really, really worked.

If it is in the budget, a speaking coach can really help, and may be able to assist with other things you don't realize you are doing. I have preferred that to the idea of Toastmasters, but YMMV.
posted by chiefthe at 12:05 PM on August 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

Seconding toastmasters. They specifically address filler words like "Um."

I went to toastmasters just one time and it was a) terrifying and b) thrilling and what worked for me, when I was about to utter "um," was to just completely stop talking, think of the real next word, then say it and continue. It was ridiculous and great. Highly recommend.
posted by boghead at 12:07 PM on August 26, 2020 [4 favorites]

Filler/pause words aren't bad, they are nearly necessary, in moderation, for speakers both and listeners. They give lots of useful cues to help indicate what's important, help us collect our thoughts, etc. Contrary to some beliefs, a nearly memorized recitation without pause is not good classroom instruction.

What your students don't like is the repetitiveness. So mix it up: so, and, now, um, ok, alright, hmmm, well, etc.

Sure, use less filler words if you can, but I bet your reviews will get better if you can just manage to increase variety.

Also I've been hearing from education wonks for 15 years that classical lecturing is bad and we should stop. YMMV, but this also might be a good time to think about all the many, many non-lecture methods of instruction that much ink has been spilled upon. Then your problem diminishes as the lecture portion of your class does too right?
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:17 PM on August 26, 2020 [8 favorites]

N'ting Toastmasters. . . but, it's worth noting that there's a huge variation between Toastmasters groups, even in the same city. Some of them are fantastic and full of thoughtful people. Some of them feel like a trip to the used car lot that make me want to run for the door. Don't expect anybody to understand the context of a class or an academic talk. But, they can still be useful. If the first two you try aren't for you, it's worth traveling to find a good one.

Replacing an "um," or, in my case, a "well" or a "so" with an empty pause is really hard. But, it's possible. Watching recorded lectures on video has been less pleasant than actual jail time. . . but, it's been incredibly useful. Consider filming yourself. (I've pretty much defeated my ums. Not pacing or turning my back to the class when writing is the new challenge.) Best of luck!
posted by eotvos at 12:34 PM on August 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

First of all, anybody in California who has heard Gavin Newsom this year has heard him absolutely blanket his appearances with it, and it drives me batty. It's one of the reasons I would vote against him in a primary.

Secondly, I've had good luck with a variation on boghead's advice: make all of your words deliberate. Slow. Down. Say each word with intent. It's weird, and it's not quite autopilot when I'm hemming and hawing, but when I push myself to "talk about the thing I already know" but if I haven't spoken about something, the likelihood of filler words increases.

That is, if something has only been primarily in my head and hasn't been articulated into complete sentences, I'm going to try to "construct" them on the fly, and, well, "um" is what happens when my brain goes to get more nails, so to speak. If you're not quite sure what the next word is going to be, simply wait and it'll appear.
posted by rhizome at 12:34 PM on August 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

Toastmasters is what trained this out of me -- I took their youth leadership program in high school and then was a member again early in my career and between the two, I have a pretty good handle on it unless I am very tired. Like Boghead, I learned to stop talking instead of ummming. It helps, too, that participating in Table Topics taught me speak coherently in complete sentences rather than in the kind of rambling stream of consciousness dialogue a lot of people use.

With umms, first I started to recognize that I had just said um, pause for a moment and figure out where the rest of my sentence was going and only start talking again when I knew what I was going to say. Then I learned to recognize an umm while I was actually doing it, and pause for a moment and figure out where I was going. Then I learned to recognize when I was about to say umm and pause for a moment without vocalizing the umm.

When you're public speaking, it can be relatively easy to avoid, but when you are conversing, umms serve to hold your place in the conversation and keep other people from interrupting you. I use facial expressions, small hand gestures, and sometimes other filler words to fill the thinking time so I keep control of the conversation and so I don't look like I had a seizure in the middle of a sentence. Even very rarely, I deliberately choose a fairly theatric 'um' to vocally demonstrate that I am not just searching for words but thinking through concepts I don't have an immediate opinion on, but I don't lean on umm as a regular part of my speech now.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:55 PM on August 26, 2020

I got through this by consciously choosing to allow myself to continue to say “um”, but doing it in my head rather than out loud. That results in a brief pause on the outside, but scratches the itch on the inside. Then, after a while of not physically saying “um”, I started to forget to think it after a while—I guess because my brain already knew I was about to say something else and so the internal “um” was no longer necessary. (The whole reason I used to say it out loud in the first place was to signal to other people that I had more words on the way.)
posted by DB Cooper at 1:09 PM on August 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm a valley girl who trained myself out of constantly saying "like" (because I was afrad I'd sound stupid when I went off to college!). The key for me was to slooow doooown. Speaking slowly and deliberately so that I knew when a "like" was coming. Then I could either just go silent while I figured out what I was saying next, or do something like instead saying "and, like," say "aaaand," drawing it out a little to fill the same amount of space but without having to use the filler word.

In the early stages, I did this only with my family - it was such a weird way of speaking that I couldn't do it all the time, but I could practice it with people who were supportive and in-the-know about what I was working on. As I got better at it, I was able to speak more naturally and incorporate the practice into conversations with other people. I think it took a few months to get my number of "likes" to a level that I found acceptable.
posted by mandanza at 9:17 PM on August 26, 2020

My filler is, "I'll need a moment to collect my thoughts." Then, I have time to find the *right* language. I don't care for 'thinking out loud' style. To me, it meanders. I'm not a lecturer, but I do lots of technical training presentations.
posted by j_curiouser at 9:34 PM on August 26, 2020

One thing that makes me slow down is when I'm speaking to non native English speakers. They often can't follow my accent, and I'm a fast talker, so I had to calm the pace to be understood.

Turns out it's not a bad thing to be doing in any circumstance, and it gives you a bit of headspace to plan ahead, which saves you the pause words - which then sound more like emphasis when they do come, because something needs a bit of mental effort to articulate.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 10:49 PM on August 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

Another option to get rid of a tick is to overdue it while practicing. Try to say "um" after every sentence, then every word. Start every sentence with "um". That way you become much more aware of it and can avoid it while speaking. It worked for me, although I have to repeat that exercise once in a while.
posted by Fallbala at 3:29 AM on August 27, 2020

Like slowing down, you can also *stop* talking during presentations and classes. Its totally okay to elongate pauses, and not fill them.
posted by RajahKing at 5:54 AM on August 27, 2020 [1 favorite]