Ever thought much about those words that you say that really don't mean anything?
Probably not, but linguists have, and as it turns out, there is a difference between the two genders as to the filler words that they choose to use and quite possibly what they mean by them.
According to The Science of Us, a recent post on the Language Log linguistics blog noted that the data backs up the theory that men and women choose different fillers. Mark Libermann, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania went through logs of audio samples from 11,972 speakers and found that women said “um” 22% more than men, while their male counterparts said “uh” a whopping 250% more often.
That's not all though, as it seems men are more likely to use those type of filler words on a more regular basis in general, around 38% more often than women.
So what does that all mean, literally? On the surface, nothing, but according to Deborah Tannen of Georgetown University, there is a little bit of significance here. While the studies were based off computerised data, and therfore have no context in terms of the conversation they came from, many linguistic studies dating back quite a while have found that men and women use these words and noises for totally different purposes.
For women, they tend to be listening noises (along with others such as "uhuh" or "yeah") or 'backchannels' to indicate that something is interesting and they're listening, whereas for men, it's used more as a place-holder to indicate that they're not finished speaking yet and there's more to come.
So what do we have to say about that then everyone? Um...uh...
Via The Science of Us. Main pic via najemnews.com
