biggest turn-off: when the camera guy in porn talks to the models and calls them dude.

ew, just shut the fuck up

estifi:

An incomplete list of reasons filler words (like, um, er, uh, ahem, y’know, …) can occur:

• Social anxiety
• Nervousness
• Excitement
• Anger
• Sadness
• Negotiating the impact of our words
• Navigating for the most effective words
• Negotiating our turn to talk
• Letting the other person(s) know we aren’t finished speaking just yet, but need a short moment to regather our thoughts in order to continue
• In-crowd/out-crowd status
• Knowing multiple languages, and trying not to slip into another by accident
• Neurological and cognitive issues, such as aphasia, which make processing language in, out or both more difficult
• Just because

Yes. I’d just like to add on the multiple language front, many people don’t seem to consider these as “real words” somehow, so they don’t get that you don’t use the same ones in different languages. Something like a drawn-out schwa is very common but far from universal. But actually, they can be one of the most important things when speaking foreign languages.

For example, I met a German guy whose English was reasonable, although he wasn’t particularly confident, and he used the German word also (which means and sounds nothing like the English word also) as a filler, almost like a verbal tick, and if anything it was the one thing that made him sound the least fluent.

Here in Japan my students very often use the words eto or ano when they’re hesitating, until they get to a higher level and are able to successfully use English fillers like um or uh. Again it’s something that makes them sound less fluent. So one thing I like to do when speaking Japanese is to use these liberally, because I know exactly the effect that it’ll have on a native speaker: it shows them that I’m just thinking and I’m still sort of keeping my turn in the conversation. A fellow teacher made fun of me for saying ano before initiating a transaction with a food seller, but I do it because it puts my mind into a Japanese “mode”. Like if I say that (or other interjections like nan dakke?/what was it?) I can literally only recall Japanese words afterwards.

Oh, one more funny story: when I was about 6 I used to go across to the corner shop to buy chocolate. Every time I got there I’d be presented with a vast selection of sweets and I was never sure what to buy so I’d stand there going “emm, emm”. The guy who owned the shop (he was from Pakistan, I think, and his name was John), cottoned on to this quickly and started making light fun of me by crying “Hello, Finlay! Emmm…” whenever I entered the shop. I think it was one of those things that I never noticed I did at all until someone pointed it out to me. Like sticking out my tongue when I concentrate…

is it telling that i just read down the description of someone’s blog and the thing that made me judge them the most was the implication of being an esperantist?

i need more naked men in my life