Tonight in my class, one of my classmates (who happens to teach college classes) was giving a class presentation. Every other word was "um" and it was getting annoying so I started keeping a discrete tally. After his presentation, we had a break and I went out to get a drink. Another classmate came out too and said, "well, how many did you count?" Oh no! I was caught! "One hundred-seven!" I said, "but I'm so embarrassed that you saw me," Then another guy came out, heard us talking and said, "one hundred seven what?" Soon all four of the students in the class (except the one who I was tallying) were talking about it. Evidently I wasn't the only one who was annoyed...but I was the only one petty enough to tally them up.
The funny thing was that when I got up to give my presentation, the girl sitting by me got her pencil poised to tally me.
10 comments:
So funny! It is amazing how people interject their favorite "numb brain" phrases. A man in our ward says "uh" all the time. Drives me a little nutso. But then I caught myself saying "like" quite a bit a few years ago. If someone doesn't point it out, we can be oblivious. Thanks for the smile!
Public speaking is one of the hardest things to do. I was so happy that when my kids went to school, it became a common request for all teachers to ask the students to give oral presentations. When I was young, such was not the case. As outgoing as I am, I was never terribly comfortable with public speaking. But.....I hope I never say UM that many times in any address.
Kris, you REALLY need to start a blog. I love your comments and know you'd have lots of fun things to blog about that I'd like to comment on.
Hi Lauri,
We were at Gennifer's tonight, and she was showing me some blog stuff. I think I will delete my cake blog, and do one that is just an all purpose blog, about all of our goings on. Family outings, cute grandkids, cakes, cooking, sewing, all of my interests, etc. Then I can contribute to it more frequently, and read the banter that goes on back and forth. So...watch for it, it's a coming!!!
hhahaha.... ha. I can relate. I am in a bunch of education classes and I always... ALWAYS tally the "ums" "likes" and "so"... and a few more. Those are what bug me. I may be guilty of a few of those every now and then.
It's so hard to concentrate when every other word is UM! Grrr.
I do that in Sacrament meeting, don't tell!! I just do it mentally, but it drives me crazy!! Sadly, I am terrible at it, and it probably drives others just as batty!! I had a TA in college that wasn't from the US, and he had a phrase that he repeated instead of "um", and I thought I would lose my mind, and when I counted it in the hour long class, he said it 27 times!!!
Ummmm, I totally, um, know, um, what you, um, mean. Um, that, um, totally, um, drives me, um, CRAZY! You, um, don't think I, um, do that, um, do you?
Oh my word, I can't even write it. It drive me crazy enough with even a few lines of it. I was going to write a really long comment with lots of ums. That's out. It's annoying.
Haha. I thought this was all funny, especially the last sentence. I find it super annoying when "um" is used excessively. I had a roommate who would tally ums and so I made a conscious effort not to be one of her subjects.
That's hilarious! Too funny that you got caught!
Mr. Phillip's used to always say "UM is the middle of DUMB"
that is awesome! I remember as a teenager we had a bishop that would say that all the time. we would actually tally his "um"s while he spoke in sacrament to stay awake! :) Love the post on Michael- I haven't met him, but he sounds like a great guy. The picture of you holding him as a baby looks soooooo much like Katie! It's just incredible!
Post a Comment