- 1嗯…／呃…（說話一時想不到詞時發出的停頓聲）。台灣人講話時的「那個…」「就是…」功能相同，但中文的「嗯」有時是「同意」的意思，英文的 um 沒有這個用法。
"Um" is the sound English speakers make when their mouth is going but their brain has not caught up yet. You are still choosing the word, and you say "um" to fill the gap. It is not really a word with a meaning — it is a noise that has been written down so often it now sits in dictionaries. It does a real job, though: it tells the person listening "wait, I am still talking, do not start speaking yet". A silence would let them jump in. Its close cousin is "er" (British) or "uh" (American); "um" and "er" get used more or less the same way, though many people feel "um" comes before a longer pause. It also things. "Um, I don't think that's right" is much gentler than "I don't think that's right" — the "um" says you are being careful, maybe a bit reluctant to disagree. Young people, and people writing messages online, use it a second way: to show polite , as in "Um, excuse me?" or "Um, no." There the "um" carries attitude, not hesitation. In writing you will see it in stories, chat messages, and interviews, always with a after it. Keep it out of formal essays and reports. And one thing your speaking teacher may not tell you: everyone does this. Native speakers say "um" constantly and do not notice. It is not bad English — but a lot of them very close together does make you sound unsure, which matters in an interview or a speaking test.
From the word’s history
Onomatopoeic.
模仿說話遲疑時發出的聲音。
組成Not built from anything — it is onomatopoeic, meaning it is simply the sound itself written down. The mouth stays closed and the voice hums, so it comes out as "mmm". Nearly every language has a noise like this, but each one has its own: English um, Japanese ええと, Mandarin 嗯／那個.
原始詞典資料11 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
Umname
- 1
A surname from Korean.
umintj詞源 1/ʌm/
- 1
Expression of hesitation, uncertainty or space filler in conversation.
- Um, I don’t know.
- Let’s see... um... how about this?
- 2
Dated spelling of mmm.
- "About the same, wherever you go," he agreed. "Um," I said.
- 3
An expression to forcefully call attention to something wrong.
- Um, excuse me!
- 4
An expression of shocked disapproval used by a child who witnesses forbidden behavior.
- While I was in her room, Sam walked by and said, “Um, I'm telling!” “You're telling what?” I asked. “You're reading Tori's journal,” she said.
- Mair used to look after Laura. If anyone threatened to tease her, Mair would stand up straight, point her finger at the enemy and shout, 'Um! I'm telling on you!'
umverb詞源 1/ʌm/
- 1
To make the um sound to express uncertainty or hesitancy.
- Meanwhile, in the popular mind umming was simply a bad habit, akin to spitting or picking one’s nose.
umnoun詞源 1/ʌm/
- 1
An occurrence of the interjection "um".
- Although Shakespeare refers to “hums and ha’s,” sifting through etiquette manuals and public-speaking guides turns up scant evidence of a prohibition against ums, ers and uhs, which are profuse in the first recording of Thomas Edison’s voice, in 1888. Mr. Erard, rather ingeniously, traces the prohibition on um and other speech flaws to the advent of radio in the early 1920s.
umparticle詞源 2
- 1
offensivedatedAn undifferentiated determiner or article; a miscellaneous linking word, or filler with nonspecific meaning; representation of broken English stereotypically or comically attributed to Native Americans.
- Me be Injun. Him um Growling Bear. Him um heap big chief.
- “me heap brave—me talk to um white man so[…] me good injun, like um white man, mebbe so, ugh!”
這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形：
- University of Miami
- University of Michigan
- unmounted mint
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。