Like and Um Aren't All Bad

Guest Panel: Jena Barchas-Lichtenstein, PhD, Linguistic Anthropologist and Writer; Alexandra D’Arcy, PhD, Associate Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Sociolinguistics Research Lab, University of Victoria; Scott Church, PhD, Assistant Professor of Communications, BYU; Nelson Flores, PhD, Assistant Professor of Educational Linguistics in the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania Most public speaking professors urge you to leave “like,” “um,” “so,” and “ya know,” out of presentations at all costs. If these are filler words, it seems that getting rid of them would only improve communication. However, many linguists argue words like these serve a very important purpose. On top of that, they say trying to abolish them perpetuates a sneaky type of bias against women, young people, and some racial groups.