Avoid Saying Um and Ah When Speaking

One of the most painful things to listen to in podcasting is a steady stream of “ums” and “ahs” interjected into an otherwise intelligent thought. I do it more than I’d like to. I’ve heard some cases where a person collecting his thoughts said “um” no less than 20 times in a 15 second stretch. You can fix this during editing, but it’s hard to reconstruct the flow of a sentence if it happens to much and editing out the “ums” isn’t much fun. The best solution is to learn how to speak without saying “um” in the first place. Mother Tongue Annoyances has a solid set of suggestions on how to eliminate “um” and “ah” from your speech. It takes some additional thought on your part while speaking and it won’t happen overnight, but a little additional effort in improving the way you speak will make your podcast sound better and make you sound smarter while people are listening.