Why do we say 'um', 'er', or 'ah' when we hesitate in speaking? * The Register - 10 views
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Alison Antoku on 09 Apr 12Umm ... (Asked by Tom Lanier of Austin, Texas) Not everyone says "um", "er" or "ah" when they hesitate while speaking. It depends upon the language. For example, speakers of Mandarin Chinese often say"zhege" which roughly translates as "this". In English we say "um", "er", "ah", or other vocalisations for reasons that linguists are not entirely sure about.