The Real Wizard of <i> Uhs</i> Left His Daughters, <i> Um</i> , Giggling

A recent news story about the UC San Diego psychologist who has studied ums , ers and uhs --those annoying monosyllables that erupt like hiccups from the mouths of even the most articulate speakers--rekindled a long-forgotten childhood memory.

Now, why a psychologist--as opposed to, say, a linguist--would embark on such an inquiry is beyond me, but as Nicholas Christenfeld, the psychologist in question, explained: “We are allowed to study whatever we want.”

And besides, he added, “Something that happens 10 times a minute is worth studying.”

Christenfeld analyzed the speech of politicians, television personalities and college professors for these “filled pauses” and, with the exceptions of TV evangelist Pat Robertson (7.9 pauses per minute) and talk show host David Letterman (8.1), found that professors of political science (5.6), art history (6) and English literature (6.5) take the pause prize.

I could have told him that English professors would reign supreme in the er department. I was raised by one.

My father, in fact, is the Wizard of Uhs. He’ll uh you any time he’s angry, excited or defensive, but he is especially in his glory behind a lectern.

I first became aware of this linguistic quirk of his one day many years ago when he invited my older sister and me to tag along to work with him.

When you grow up with a professor father, there is a little part of you that wishes he could dress up in suits and ties and be normal, like everybody else’s dad. After the mid-’60s, for instance, our dad rarely wore a tie. Mostly, he went to work in jeans. And his hair was considerably longer than the other dads in the neighborhood. He wasn’t very strict, and, unless he was on a rampage about misplaced scissors or Scotch tape, he didn’t put much stock in intimidating his children, either.

Because we were not the world’s most cowed kids, perhaps he thought a little field trip to his turf would help inspire some respect.

He was teaching summer school at the local campus. It’s a university now, but in those days, it was still a mere college, with the awkward acronym of SFVSC (San Fernando Valley State College). Today, it is known by much sleeker initials--CSUN--but in my heart it will always be SFVSC.

We walked with my father to work on one of those dreadfully hot Valley mornings. My sister and I sat in the back of the stuffy classroom feeling very important that we were related to the guy in charge.

Soon, we were riveted by his lecture. Not by its substance, mind you. At 8 and 10 years old, we weren’t inclined to care much about Mark Twain or James Fenimore Cooper, or whichever American novelist was the subject that day.

“We didn’t know anything about what he was talking about, so of course it was boring,” my sister reminded me last week. I had to call her to make sure I hadn’t imagined the whole story. And since she is so much older than I, I knew her recollection would be more specific.

We both remember being captivated by the rhythm of our father’s speech. He punctuated every sentence, and sometimes every few words, with the word uh. It was awesome. We couldn’t concentrate on a thing he was saying. We began giggling, and counting.

After class, he collected us. “So, how’d you like it?”

“It was great, Dad!” we yelled. “You said uh 264 times!”

Again, I owe this precise recollection to my sister, who swears the exact number of uhs he uttered in a 30-minute period have been embedded in her brain for the last 28 years like pennies in August asphalt.

Still, even all these years later, my sister sounded a bit guilty for gloating over what must be considered a minor speech defect in one who makes a living by lecturing. When I spoke to her last week, she ended our conversation with a plea: “Whatever you write, please temper it with by saying that Dad was a favorite professor of everybody we met.” Pause. “Even though we could never figure out why.” Hysterical laughter.

My father’s filled pauses work out to 8.8 uhs per minute (at least according to our highly unscientific childhood survey). He outdoes the puny English professor average, and even betters talk meisters Robertson and Letterman.

Christenfeld hypothesizes that the reason English professors average so many filled pauses per minute, as opposed to math professors (who averaged 1.2 per minute), is because their range of possible expression is much greater. There are, after all, fewer ways to interpret a theorem than “Moby Dick.”

I always wondered if we hurt my father’s feelings that summer day long ago. Children, I’ve since learned, are the world’s most deft levelers of parental ego.

He didn’t seem offended at the time.

But I can tell you this: He never invited us back.