The use of the dreaded ah’s and um’s

We all hear the professional athletes a microphone is put into their face and they struggle to make a simple sentence, without at least six um’s and ten ah’s in there. When this happens, it drives me nuts and I am trying to figure out why didn’t they taking public speaking in college? Their sentence goes something like this. They will say well Russ, we ah came together um and ah finally got the right plays and um had the last drive. This um allowed us to ah win the ball game.

That drives me crazy and it happens pretty much in every sport, basketball, football, and hockey. I went to a business college and we were fortunate that they offered toast masters. What is toast masters you ask? It is an international speech organization that helps people from diverse backgrounds become more confident speakers. How do they do it? Well it is embarrassing at first. After you join toast masters you will be given a topic and a date with which it is to be completed. The day of your speech you are given a little time to gather yourself and then you give your speech.

In the audience they will have two people counting, one counting the ah’s and one counting the um’s that you use in your speech. A friend of mine who is from Palestine, gave his first speech and had 100 um’s and 75 ah’s in his speech of three minutes. Again after every speech is given we clap for everyone no matter how many ah’s and um’s they had. We are also reminded that Ah and um is nothing more than filler words for when you don’t know what to say. They ask haven’t you…