Friday, April 27, 2012

Filler Words

I am giving a talk at the library next week. (Middletown Township Public Library, May 2nd.) I am going to tell people how to e-publish their own books. I wrote out the talk and have been practicing my speech.

Daughter #1 belongs to Toastmasters, an international organization dedicated to public speaking and leadership. She was rather shy in grade school, but she's definitely improved. She pointed out some of the filler words I used on a regular basis when I was practicing.

Toastmasters has a specific list of filler words. Anyone giving a speech should never use the following words:

ah
um
like
you know
so (an unofficial filler word, but it can be distracting)

I speak on a regular basis. I am not afraid of public speaking. In fact, I love to talk about books! Once I get started, it's difficult to stop--but short of electric shock therapy, I doubt that I will ever be able to get rid of all my um's and you know's.

How about you?

2 comments:

MarkD60 said...

Uhhhhh, When I was becoming a scuba instructor, the instructor instructors would kinda like, uhhhh, you know, count the number of times you said uhhh.

Penelope Marzec said...

At my daughter's Toastmaster meetings each speaker is charged 25 cents per filler word. :^)