When I’m speaking–especially to larger audiences–I tend to sprinkle my speech with ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’. I’ve always regarded it as a bad habit and I try to suppress it as much as possible. My use of the ventilator requires me to pause every few seconds and there’s probably some element of my subconscious that feels the need to fill in the pauses with these verbal commas so that I don’t lose the attention of my listeners. But now there’s a study offering evidence that these “disfluences” help listeners focus their attention on the speaker. That may be, but I still find them irritating when other people use them in abundance and I need to reduce them in my own speech. People may find my pauses awkward, but I like to think that it adds a little suspense to words that are otherwise woefully banal.
Hi. I found your blog while preparing a guest lecture on SMA for my friend’s anatomy and physiology class. You wouldn’t think someone living with SMA would have to do a lot of research about it, but she asked me to teach as much as I could about the actual physiology of the disease. I also have type II SMA, and I’m a graduate student in the conservation biology Ph.D. program at the University of New Orleans.
Concerning speaking in public, I have a question for you: Do you pace when you speak/lecture? I have found that when I give a seminar or teach a class, I pace. I often wonder if the clicking heard as the brakes of my chair engage and disengage is too distracting, so I make a concentrated effort not to do it.
I have a blog over at http://dawn_m_allenbach.blogspot.com/, mostly for keeping my friends and family back home in Kansas up to date.