This is why we use the filler words 'like' and 'er', according to an expert

But, like, why do we?

Woman talking
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If, like, you always find yourself, er, using seemingly pointless filler words while chatting and ever wondered why, then here's some good news: it's much more normal than you'd think...

While we often worry that speech littered with unnecessary words might make us sound a little vapid or silly – especially when we're at work and want to slap ourselves on the forehead for being so inarticulate – we should stop beating ourselves up so much, the Independent reports.

According to Cardiff University linguistics expert Professor Michael Handford, these words actually serve a very important purpose, and might actually help you get your point across more easily to listeners. Plus, it could indicate that you're a nice person!

There are two main reasons we use these words while speaking, he tells the Independent:

'The functions they fill are often interactional and cognitive. The interactional function is to do with politeness,' he says.

'If you invite somebody to a party and they say no without any of those markers they will appear rude probably. If you say "um, well, you know, sorry" it makes it much more polite. They play a really important politeness function.'

On top of this, these words help your listener understand what the heck you're on about, too...

'If you did speak how people write people wouldn't be able to understand you as we can't process that much information,' he says. 'As speakers we are often aware, if we speak too complexly the listener might not understand. We use these items, pretty unconsciously, to help the person process what we are saying.'

We're just umm, so, like selfless aren't we?

And the reason why we overuse these filler words when someone asks us a question we're not sure about? We're doing ourselves a favour...

'If you don't know what you're talking about, if someone asks you a difficult question, then while you're scratching your head for an answer you are probably going to be using more of them,' he says.

Right, we feel much better about our scatty vocab now...

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