Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. But these little words may be much more important than that. A few linguists now think that far from being detritus, they may be ...

Oops! I spilled some coffee. Hmm… Let me think about it. Woohoo! That’s great news. Let’s celebrate. To the untrained ear, sounds like “oops” “hmm” and ...

But these little words may be much more important than that. A few linguists now think that far from being detritus, they may be crucial traffic signals to regulate the flow of conversation as well as ...

Listen carefully to a spoken conversation and you’ll notice that the speakers use a lot of little quasi-words—mm-hmm, um, huh? and the like—that don’t convey any information about the topic of the ...