‘Um’ vs. ‘Er’ – a worldwide debate that no one really cares about

‘Um’ vs. ‘Er’ – a worldwide debate that no one really cares about

  

Does it really matter whether I say ‘Um’ or ‘Er’ between my words when what I’m saying is actually the most um… important part?

Abby Buckingham, December 2017

Are men and women really that different?

An age-old question that philosophers and scientists alike have spent decades trying to answer. Numerous studies have been launched to find out how we speak differently to one another and whether that’s because of biology or because of society. 

When trying to find your answer, if you dig deeply into the world of speech and keep going and keep going and keep going until you hit the most basic, simple part of our language you will find one glaring difference – ‘um’ vs. ‘er’. Studies have shown that women and teenagers constantly revert to the use of ‘um’, whilst men prefer ‘er’. Kim Kardashian once used ‘um’ 100% of the time in an interviews and Barack Obama said ‘uh’ 9 times.

Now, if you try and leave this centre of the world of speech, away from the ‘ums’ and the ‘ers’, and bypass the complicated, more intricate parts of our language, you will find even more differences between genders. For example, in 1975, Robin Lakoff compiled a list of 10 conversational features that she felt women use more frequently than men (the deficit model). According to Lakoff, women are more likely to apologise, avoid taboo language (like swear words) and use more empty adjectives that don’t really mean much, to name a few.

However, I don’t think that that really applies to us anymore. Lakoff lived in a time plagued by patriarchy – there were less female bosses, less strong female characters and a whole load of expectations that basically stated women had to behave in a way that was less than men.

But that’s not us anymore.

Women swear. Women are unapologetic. Women are smashing through the glass ceiling and saying ‘Enough!’

We are demanding equality in everything we do and that includes speech, which is why I believe Lakoff’s research may have been relevant once but is now bordering on the edge of outdated.

In 2005, Janet Hyde conducted research that proved men and women’s speech is actually more similar than it is different and that the differences that do exist aren’t actually a result of our gender – we also have to blame class, ethnicity, sexuality, age and all the other things that make us who we are – saying ‘um’ instead of ‘er’ probably isn’t really one of those things because, let’s face it, it’s really not that significant. Does it really matter whether I say ‘Um’ or ‘Er’ between my words when what I’m saying is actually the most um… important part?

Experts have dedicated years to studying how men and women talk but I think that in this modern, progressive society we now live in, it’s really not relevant anymore. We are getting closer to accepting that we are the same and that we can speak in the same way and that even though there are differences – we don’t always have to blame what’s in between our legs.