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From: "Paul J. Kriha" <kriha_p@actrix.gen.nz>
Subject: Re: what people say when they're pausing (uh)
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Date: Sun, 22 Jan 1995 11:15:38 GMT
References: <3fpmme$136@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <3fsk8a$jkb@fozzy.aud.alcatel.com>
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shhouche@aud.alcatel.com (Stephen H. Houchen) wrote:
>
> In article 136@newsbf02.news.aol.com, wprestong@aol.com (WPrestonG) writes:
> >In American English people say "uh" (British people spell this "er") when
> >they're halfway through saying something, not finished yet and don't want
> >you to interrupt them.  It's a way of saying "I'm not finished yet, I
> >don't yield the floor".  In IPA this would be the schwa (upside down e) or
> >the upside down V sound.  Do people speaking other languages use this same
> >vowel for the same thing?  Or do they do something completely different?
> 
> In my personal experience, most speakers of Spanish ("Tex-Mex") that I hear
> use "este" as a conversational stopgap.  The curious thing about this is that
> it also corresponds to a word in the language (the masculine singular
> demonstrative adjective), and it is two syllables.
> 

I hear a lot of "so wie so" and "so da" in German conversation.
In Czech "a tak" (and so) is popular. The long schwa is also
used and its length is inversely proportional to the speaker's
level of education.
My pet hate in English conversation is "you know". Some random
interviews in the street can often yield 2 or more "you knows"
per sentence.

Paul JK
