InterviewStream.com: "Umm Like All-Stars"
<strong>Philadelphia — Aug. 28</strong><br />InterviewStream.com, an online destination for interview technology, has announced the “Umm Like All-Stars,” a collection of some of America’s worst public offenders when it comes to butchering the English language. <br /><br />InterviewStream.com developed UmmLike.com to highlight the rampant — and often annoying — use of “filler” language that has infiltrated our speech habits in recent years. <br /><br />“‘Um,’ ‘like,’ ‘ya know’ and ‘uh’ are just a few of many filler words used by otherwise intelligent English-speaking Americans,” said Randy Bitting, InterviewStream.com co-founder. “We’ve found some stunning examples of well-regarded people who can’t get out of their own way when speaking.”<br /><br />The “Umm Like All-Stars” include:<br /><br /><ul><li>Barack Obama </li><li>Britney Spears </li><li>Michelle Wie </li><li>Andy Reid </li><li>Allen Iverson </li></ul><br />Although celebrities seemingly are becoming less eloquent, the National Association of Colleges and Employers maintains that for the last eight years communication skills have topped the list of the “skills and qualities that employers rate as most important.” <br /><br />To circumvent America’s poor language-etiquette epidemic, Ummlike.com also offers exercises and tools for filler-word prevention during job interviews, client presentations and public speaking, including the Umm-o-Meter. <br /><br />The InterviewStream site allows site users to count the number of fillers they use in their speech, thus reducing interview-wrecking habits and saving the English language one part of speech at a time.
