English speakers are increasingly punctuating their speech with ‘um’ rather than ‘er’, according to socio-linguists at Edinburgh University. So why the shift?
In the historic struggle between the ummers and the errers, the ummers are getting the upper hand. A study of speech patterns by socio-linguists at Edinburgh University has found that English speakers increasingly tend to use “um” rather than “er” as the filler of choice.
