Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
VOCALIZED PAUSES AND SPEECH FORMULAS
These are the ums, uhs, and ahs, the spoken equivalents of throat clearing and false starts, that we are especially conscious of in others’ speech, particularly at the Planned or Oratorical level. Here also are some of the “starters” we use in beginning many response utterances. Fries (1952) included them as one group of what he called function words: well, oh, now, and why or why-uh (pronounced like the name of the letter y, even in dialects wherein the question-asking function word why is pronounced HWEI). Yes and no also appear in response utterances, and in situation utterances we have the starters say, listen, look. Add to these the formula please and the request expressed as let’s, let us, and even the Nonstandard let’s us. And then there are the expletive formulas, there is, there are, and it is. Some of these vocalized pauses and speech formulas may be a bit odd when considered as words, but they are in fact a part of the spoken usage of American English.
