How to stop saying um

Um holds your place while you look for the next words. Keep the gap and drop the sound. A short silence does the same job, and to the listener it sounds like a comma.

Why you say um

Um, uh and the filler kind of like turn up when your mouth is ready and the next thought isn't. They tell the listener you haven't finished, so nobody jumps in. Everyone does it. It becomes a problem when there are so many that people stop hearing your point and start hearing the ums.

Silence feels longer to the person talking than to the people listening. A one second gap feels like a stall to you. To them it sounds like you are choosing your words.

1. Hear your own ums first

You probably don't notice them while you talk. Record yourself answering a real question for a minute or two. A question you might get asked works better than reading a script, because reading has no ums in it. Play it back and count. Note where they land: at the start of an answer, between two points, before a number or a name.

2. Swap the um for a pause

When you feel an um coming, close your mouth and stop for a beat. Then say the next words. That's the whole method. It feels awkward the first few times because the silence is loud in your own head. Played back, it sounds calm.

Commawise calls a pause with no filler next to it a clean pause. The share of your breaks that were pauses, not ums, is the number to watch, more than the um count itself.

3. Say the point first

Ums cluster where you don't yet know where the sentence is going. Open with the answer ("Yes, and here's why"), then add the detail. You have less to search for once the point is out.

4. Slow down a little

Talking fast leaves no room to think, so the thinking leaks out as filler. Around 130 to 160 words per minute gives you that room. Check yours with the speaking speed test.

What about like, so and you know?

Like is a filler in "it was, like, fine" and a real word in "it looks like rain". So is a filler when it starts every answer, and a real word in "so we moved the launch". Commawise counts these only when they work as filler. You know, basically, actually, I mean, kind of and sort of work like um. A short pause can do their job too.

Practice a few minutes a day

A habit you've had for years won't go after one good meeting. Answer one question a day out loud, look at where the fillers fell, and say the same answer again with pauses in their place. Don't aim for zero. A few ums in a two minute answer is normal speech.

If what you're dealing with is a stutter, or speech that runs away from you in a way that practice doesn't touch, a speech-language pathologist is the right person to see. Commawise is practice, not speech therapy.