Latest News

  • Home
  • Global
  • Why You Say 'Um' Before Certain Words
Why You Say 'Um' Before Certain Words
Thursday, March 14, 2019 IST
Why You Say

What's that … um … word?
 
If you pay closer attention to those moments when an "um" an "uh" or an awkward pause inserts itself into your conversation, you may notice that the flub usually comes just before a noun, according to a new study.

 
 

Researchers found that when people are midsentence and a word is pronounced more slowly, or seems just beyond their grasp, that word is more likely to be a noun than a verb. This might happen because visualizing nouns before we say them temporarily slows our speech, while action words like verbs require less time to "see" in our minds before they leave our mouths, the study authors said.
 
The complex interaction of various factors shapes the speed of a person's speech, and these factors include the frequency and familiarity of the words used, the researchers wrote in the study.
 
In fact, scientists have previously observed that pauses preceding unfamiliar or complicated words reflect the comparative difficulty of planning those words, lead study author Frank Seifart, a researcher with the Department of Literary Studies and Linguistics at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, told Live Science in an email.
 
For the new study, the researchers analyzed thousands of speech recordings, listening for the rhythms of 288,848 words in total, from phrases in nine diverse languages spoken in Europe, North America, Mexico, Siberia, the Himalayas, the Amazon rainforest and the Kalahari Desert.  
 
In all nine languages, the scientists found that pauses — whether silent or "filled" with a placeholder sound — were 60 percent more likely to occur before nouns than before verbs. The researchers further found that people were twice as likely to hem and haw before saying a noun than they were before uttering a verb, even if the verb was complex or unfamiliar.

 
 

In common speech, nouns are typically used only when they add information that is new or unexpected; otherwise they are frequently omitted or replaced with pronouns, the researchers said. Therefore, people need more "planning time" to say nouns than verbs, even when the nouns in question aren't particularly complicated, the researchers noted in the study.
 
Their findings suggested that even though the languages demonstrated significant diversity in grammatical structure and cultural context, certain speech rhythms persistently followed strong universal patterns — and those patterns can be linked to the use of nouns or verbs, Seifart said in the email.

 
 
 
 
 

Related Topics

 
 
 

Trending News & Articles

 Article
'Worse than prison': A rare look inside China's detention camps to 'brainwash' Muslims

ALMATY: Hour upon hour, day upon day, Omir Bekali and other detainees in far western China's new indoctrination camps had to disavow the...

Recently posted . 199K views . 1 min read
 

 Article
What The Shape Of Your Belly Button Says About Your Health

If you have payed attention to the belly buttons of people on the beach or the members of your family, you have probably noticed that they have different shapes and...

Recently posted . 8K views . 2 min read
 

 Article
Top 10 Horrifying Acts of Chemical Warfare and Gas Attacks

In this age of terror, there might be nothing more terrifying than the thought of an attack carried out with chemical weapons. We’ve all heard the horrific ...

Recently posted . 3K views . 4 min read
 

 Article
Top 10 Best Gym Equipment Brands in India 2018

Body fitness is one thing that everyone wants to maintain irrespective of age. Going to the gym and doing some great exercise always helps to maintain your body fit...

Recently posted . 3K views . 2 min read
 

 
 

More in Global

 Article
Scientists Explain What Happens To Your Body When You Sit For Too Long

These are the times where most of the work is done by machines and we spend lesser times in manual labor. Apart from the work, leisure activities have reduced to a ...

Recently posted. 793 views . 2 min read
 

 Article
Death will be 'optional' and ageing 'curable' by 2045, say genetic engineers

DYING will be 'optional' within just 27 years and the ageing process will be 'reversible', according to two genetic engineers during the presentatio...

Recently posted. 568 views . 1 min read
 

 Article
Rock Being Used As Doorstop Turns Out To Be Meteorite Worth A Fortune

The meteorite is worth around Rs. 74 lakhs!

Recently posted. 558 views . 0 min read
 

 Video
Life Is Too Shor



Recently posted . 966 views
 

 Reviews
The Best 5 Hiking Backpacks in India – Reviews & Buying Guide



Recently posted . 1K views . 140 min read
 

 Article
"People Laughed At A President": At UN, Trump Suffers The Fate He Feared

As the midterm elections approach, Trump has begun boasting of a long list of accomplishments for his administration, at one point reciting them at a recent campa...

Recently posted. 768 views . 1 min read
 

 Article
Highly skilled South Asian migrants say they are UK’s new Windrush scandal

LONDON: Hundreds of South Asian highly skilled migrants held a protest outside the UK Parliament on Wednesday, claiming they are victims of the n...

Recently posted. 739 views . 2 min read
 

 
 
 

   Prashnavali

  Thought of the Day

Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
Francis of Assisi

Be the first one to comment on this story

Close
Post Comment
Shibu Chandran
2 hours ago

Serving political interests in another person's illness is the lowest form of human value. A 70+ y old lady has cancer.

November 28, 2016 05:00 IST
Shibu Chandran
2 hours ago

Serving political interests in another person's illness is the lowest form of human value. A 70+ y old lady has cancer.

November 28, 2016 05:00 IST
Shibu Chandran
2 hours ago

Serving political interests in another person's illness is the lowest form of human value. A 70+ y old lady has cancer.

November 28, 2016 05:00 IST
Shibu Chandran
2 hours ago

Serving political interests in another person's illness is the lowest form of human value. A 70+ y old lady has cancer.

November 28, 2016 05:00 IST


ads
Back To Top