Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Regarding disfluencies, I was reminded of an instructor I had in college for a Public Speaking class. She was one to drop a coin on a plate each time a student uttered an "um" or "uh" or other disfluency while making a speech. These coins counted against the grade earned for the speech.

While I thoroughly disagree with the use of this tactic, I took an opportunity to turn the tables on her. One class session we were assigned to give a spontaneous speech on any topic, but including two words drawn randomly from a hat. As my turn came around, I drew the words "ball" and "purple". I went before the class and began a story about two brothers from a distant land, Um and Uh. I went on talking about the daily goings on of these two, and only once slipped into an 'Ummm...' when I caught myself, and without missing a beat followed with "...said Uh, have you seen our purple ball?"

The instructor told me I had outsmarted her system.