"It just blew us away over here"
Umm, this is, like, a story about how, uh, ya know, some people can't, ya know, talk for long without using, like, whatayacall, ah, fillers. Most people depend at least a bit on crutch words to spackle gaps between thought and speech, but some clutter every sentence with irrelevant rubble. A speech-improvement company has highlighted the handicap in a new Top 10 list.
Unsmooth talkers in InterviewStream's 'Umm ... Like All Star' list include singer Britney Spears (a constant flashing of 'ya knows,' 'umms' and 'likes' in an interview about her childhood); President Bush (surges of 'umm' and 'uh' in a 2006 interview with CNN's Larry King); presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (an avalanche of 'ahs,' also in a CNN interview); and rapper Eminem (a lurching beat of 'likes,' 'ya knows' and 'ums'). The interviews are posted on ummlike.com, a website run by InterviewStream of Bethlehem, Pa., which offers training and video recording services to people seeking to improve their delivery, mainly graduating college students and other job seekers facing interviews. The company used interviews with celebrities and prominent politicians to show that even those who speak publicly all the time frequently fill their sentences with unnecessary words, InterviewStream co-founder Randy Bitting says. Bitting and other speech experts say reliance on filler words distracts listeners and gives the impression that the speaker is either incompetent, unprepared or both. 'They can come across as not intelligent and articulate as they are,' says Nancy Morgenstern, who runs a speech-improvement business in Simsbury called SPEAKBEST. Read more
Source: http://www.topix.net
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