Speech disfluency

A speech disfluency, also spelled speech dysfluency, is any of various breaks, irregularities (within the English language, similar speech dysfluency occurs in different forms in other languages), or non-lexical vocables that occurs within the flow of otherwise fluent speech. These include false starts, i.e. words and sentences that are cut off mid-utterance, phrases that are restarted or repeated and repeated syllables, fillers i.e. grunts or non-lexical utterances such as "huh", "uh", "erm", "um", "well" and "like", and repaired utterances, i.e. instances of speakers correcting their own slips of the tongue or mispronunciations (before anyone else gets a chance to). "Huh" is claimed to be a universal syllable.

Fillers

Fillers are parts of speech which are not generally recognized as purposeful or containing formal meaning, usually expressed as pauses such as uh, like and er, but also extending to repairs ("He was wearing a black—uh, I mean a blue, a blue shirt"), and articulation problems such as stuttering. Use is normally frowned upon in mass media such as news reports or films, but they occur regularly in everyday conversation, sometimes representing upwards of 20% of "words" in conversation. Fillers can also be used as a pause for thought ("I arrived at, um—3 o'clock").