Office by Alex Penny
I’m the type of person who thinks a lot before answering a question. I’d need to put all of what I have to say in perspective and make sure that what’s about to come out of my mouth makes perfect sense. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m good at answering questions, because I’m anything but that.
So, today I learned something that got me really excited. So excited that I started using it right away; ähm.
ähm is an expression that is used before one would answer a question. My friend used it when we were chatting earlier, and when I asked him what it meant, this is what he had to say: “it signals the other one you understood him and you think about what you could answer.” At first, I thought it was something like umm. Basically, he compared it with well in English. You know, like when someone asks, “do you have any plans today?” You go: “Well…” or something of that sort. Though the difference between well and ähm is that when using well, most likely, your answer will come shortly after. Whereas with ähm, you’re given more time and the other person knows that you are still there and are thinking about what to answer. Here’s how its pronounced, though you can also elongate the ä part so it can sound something like uuuum.
I know for sure that I’ll be using this expression quite a lot.
