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English Language & Usage

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Going with my gut, establishing the intransitive as the standard
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My first thought is falter, applying the sense of "behave uncertainly" to speech:

"They ran in here and then... um..." The witness faltered in her testimony.

Merriam-Webster indicates the transitive form for this ("faltered her testimony"), but one could generally say that speech filled with these utterances is faltering or that the speaker is faltering. Note that this doesn't assume the speaker's intent -- thinking, procrastinating, waiting for a distraction to end the interaction, etc.

However, on second thought the right word may depend on the purpose or effect of the utterances. They fall into the category of speech disfluencies, which serve a large number of purposes (differing between languages and cultures which particular sounds are supposed to mean what): filling silence, indicating that the speaker is thinking, indicating that attention is being paid, and so on. In North America it would be perfectly reasonable for someone to say "ah" with purpose and confidence to express acknowledgement, or "um" to break into a conversation. While faltering describes the instances in which these utterances are used to indicate the speaker is thinking, it probably does not apply to every instance of the example sounds you gave.

My first thought is falter, applying the sense of "behave uncertainly" to speech:

"They ran in here and then... um..." The witness faltered her testimony.

Merriam-Webster indicates the transitive form for this, but one could generally say that speech filled with these utterances is faltering or that the speaker is faltering. Note that this doesn't assume the speaker's intent -- thinking, procrastinating, waiting for a distraction to end the interaction, etc.

However, on second thought the right word may depend on the purpose or effect of the utterances. They fall into the category of speech disfluencies, which serve a large number of purposes (differing between languages and cultures which particular sounds are supposed to mean what): filling silence, indicating that the speaker is thinking, indicating that attention is being paid, and so on. In North America it would be perfectly reasonable for someone to say "ah" with purpose and confidence to express acknowledgement, or "um" to break into a conversation. While faltering describes the instances in which these utterances are used to indicate the speaker is thinking, it probably does not apply to every instance of the example sounds you gave.

My first thought is falter, applying the sense of "behave uncertainly" to speech:

"They ran in here and then... um..." The witness faltered in her testimony.

Merriam-Webster indicates the transitive form for this ("faltered her testimony"), but one could generally say that speech filled with these utterances is faltering or that the speaker is faltering. Note that this doesn't assume the speaker's intent -- thinking, procrastinating, waiting for a distraction to end the interaction, etc.

However, on second thought the right word may depend on the purpose or effect of the utterances. They fall into the category of speech disfluencies, which serve a large number of purposes (differing between languages and cultures which particular sounds are supposed to mean what): filling silence, indicating that the speaker is thinking, indicating that attention is being paid, and so on. In North America it would be perfectly reasonable for someone to say "ah" with purpose and confidence to express acknowledgement, or "um" to break into a conversation. While faltering describes the instances in which these utterances are used to indicate the speaker is thinking, it probably does not apply to every instance of the example sounds you gave.

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Tranquilled
Tranquilled
  • 415
  • 3
  • 8

My first thought is falter, applying the sense of "behave uncertainly" to speech:

"They ran in here and then... um..." The witness faltered her testimony.

Merriam-Webster indicates the transitive form for this, but one could generally say that speech filled with these utterances is faltering or that the speaker is faltering. Note that this doesn't assume the speaker's intent -- thinking, procrastinating, waiting for a distraction to end the interaction, etc.

However, on second thought the right word may depend on the purpose or effect of the utterances. They fall into the category of speech disfluencies, which serve a large number of purposes (differing between languages and cultures which particular sounds are supposed to mean what): filling silence, indicating that the speaker is thinking, indicating that attention is being paid, and so on. In North America it would be perfectly reasonable for someone to say "ah" with purpose and confidence to express acknowledgement, or "um" to break into a conversation. While faltering describes the instances in which these utterances are used to indicate the speaker is thinking, it probably does not apply to every instance of the example sounds you gave.