the.com/disfluency
The um, the uh, the pause where thought outruns the tongue.
means A break in smooth speech — fillers, repetitions, false starts, or hesitations that interrupt the flow.
from From Latin fluere, to flow, with the negating dis- attached — literally the un-flowing of language, coined by speech scientists in the mid-1900s.
Listeners noticeUm signals upcoming delay; brains pay closer attention.
UniversalEvery spoken language has its own filler sounds.
Not a flawSpeakers average several disfluencies per hundred words.