Filler up?

You know, Caroline Kennedy—uh, for those born after 1980, she’s, like, President John F. Kennedy’s daughter and a  potential replacement in the Senate for the New York seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton—recently, uh, helped cast a spotlight on ‘filler words’, those articulated pauses that make so many public speeches painful for audiences to listen to.

Interviewed by the Associated Press on Friday, December 23, Kennedy’s recorded remarks were continually peppered with “you know” and “um”—so much so that she drew critical fire from a broad range of pundits. On YouTube, one video of the interview sounds a buzzer each time she repeats the phrase: 30 times in one interview, as often as 4 times a sentence. The comments from viewers were brutal. Anyone who thinks the verbal tic isn’t annoying to audiences should try listening to the recording twice—once you start noticing them, trying to ignore them is like trying to swat away a blizzard of gnats.

Fillers are everywhere, and to my ears they’re on the rise. At one agency I visited, both the president and creative director were incurably cursed with the “you know” twitch. After a day of rehearsals with them I was ready to scream.

As William Safire, New York Times’ ‘On Language’ columnist, points out in a January 11 column, ‘you know’ has lots of company. ‘Look…’, and ‘well…’, ‘I mean’, and ‘uh’ all have a similarly corrosive effect on audience ears and attention. Canadians are known for their trademark terminal ‘eh?s’. Particularly popular among Gen Y’ers, ‘like’ is a Swiss Army-knife all-purpose interjection, for whom it serves as filler, quotation marks, and thought balloon: “Like, I’m walking down the street and I see Joe, who’s like, ‘Dude!’, and I’m like, ‘Oh man, like get me out of here.” And let’s, er,  not forget ‘um’, and ‘aaah….’

What’s the big deal about fillers? It’s because they’re stage-stealers. Anything unintentionally repeated is distracting to audiences, whether filling words or pacing around a stage. Audiences can lose focus on your topic and start listening for when you’ll say “you know’ again. (Some audiences even play silent bingo, counting filler occurrences and comparing notes afterwards.) They typically make even expert speakers seem less smart, knowledgeable, and experienced, by drawing attention to gaps. And they make speakers seem out of control, like anyone seems who has a habit he can’t seem to break.

The keys to eradicating fillers are located on both sides of the speaker’s head, and there are conveniently two of them. They’re called ears. If you have the filler habit, start listening more carefully to yourself. Start by audiotaping yourself and then carefully listening for fillers, counting each one. Then shut off the recorder and try repeating the same sentences you’ve just heard, but this time with pauses instead of fillers. Experiment with your phrasing—how long you speak before taking a breath. (If you find yourself using lots of fillers, it may mean you’re running out of breath—or ideas! Try using shorter phrases.. Don’t link them with ‘and’. To help tune your ear, listen for fillers in others, too.

Then, recognize fillers for exactly what they are: vocalized pauses.

That’s right. Your brain wants to pause, your voice says no, and out comes a filler. Your brain is begging for time—to let the next thought develop, to let the last one sink in, to process how your audience is taking in your ideas. Give those grey cells the time they need. Get comfortable pausing, without words. When you hear yourself about to say, ‘you know’, clamp your lips shut and look at your audience. Take in their reactions; ‘take their temperature’, to see whether they’re warm or cold to your ideas. You’ll find that audiences like having time to think, too. Pauses (silent ones) are beautiful things in a speech.

Fillers, I believe, arise to pre-empt interruptions. They declare, “I’m still talking”, when a pause might let another interject. But when you’re at the podium, interruption isn’t an issue. Work to replace your fillers with powerful pauses, and your audiences will hear only what you want them to hear: just how brilliant you are.