I was a bit disappointed with many of the speakers at the American Atheists convention. Don’t get me wrong, the passionate delivery and solid content were there, but many of them are writers, not speakers, and it shows. Sure, they get lots of invites to come speak at various conventions, conferences, and local groups, they’re very comfortable with large audiences, and they have very worthwhile things to say, but “um” has no place with an audience of 1300 people. Sure, “um” or other verbal pauses might be tolerable when they’re used infrequently, perhaps five to ten in a thirty minute speech would be a reasonable limit. The reason is that any more than that makes you look unprepared or like you don’t know what you’re doing. The most jarring I heard involved the use of “um” as a period at the end of almost every sentence throughout roughly half of the presentation. The inconsistency betrayed which sections she had adequately prepared and which she had not, or at least which she was more comfortable with. It was so often and so random, that I found myself distracted quite frequently every time the pattern changed or was deviated from. To be honest, I’m going to have to watch that one on YouTube to make up for how much I missed.

I have a bit of public speaking experience and have taken four speech classes. The professor of my Speech 101 class my Freshman year successfully broke me of verbal pauses. That’s a big part of why I was so horrified when I caught a few “um”s while I was speaking at BSU a few weeks ago (I’m rusty and will hopefully have the opportunities to return to some of that polish). If anyone who reads this does any public speaking and you’re not sure if you’re guilty of this grievous crime against your audience, review any recordings of yourself and watch for it. To break yourself of it, pick someone on the front row, give them a clicker, and have them click it every time you say, “uh”, “um”, “like”, or your verbal pause of choice. Odds are you don’t know your doing it and until you’re aware of it, it’s not going to change.