11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Some of us, uh, speak with a lot of, you know, hesitating phrases that are usually, well, unintentional, or a result of being, like, nervous. If that sounds like you, New Scientist magazine has some solid evidence that you need to work on getting them out of your system:
Researchers asked 118 undergraduates to read a transcript of a testimonial about a scanner. In one version, the speaker used hesitations like “I mean” and “ummm”; in the other, he used none … When hesitant language was used, people were less easily convinced that this was a scanner worth buying – even when it was a better scanner at a lower price. Style was especially important, the researchers found, when time was limited.
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