I'm not a big fan of the King's English. I don't doubt that kings and queens have through the ages publically spoken some sort of twisted and constrained stream of English-like sounds, nor do I doubt they've constrained the dictionaries into manageable volumes by earnest funding of snotty watchdogs and then beheaded anyone who didn't smoke the same cigarettes as them, but to say there is a proper language is myth-information at it's best.

Language is communications, plain and simple, and if you communicate the intention of your thought, it's language. tip.

There's also waaaaay more to language than what Mrs Whazzername taught back in Grade 5. Much more. There's a subtle fluidity of invention beyond the reach of grammar books and a word-sound-power that only our neural pathways truly understand, like the ways r-uff and r-ough are subjectively identical and yet native english speakers learn to produce the two very electrically different sounds.

And so too with, you know, those, like, interjection things, y'know? According to new research Earl tells us was just published in Nature, science is on my side: 'Er' cautions listeners to stay on side; 'Ums' and 'uhs' contain meaning. Right on.

Other studies have shown, however, that listeners process speech more quickly with the 'ums' and 'uhs' left in than when they are taken out. And beginning an answer with 'um' is interpreted as showing greater uncertainty than a silent pause of the same length.

Meaning, sure an' it is too, meaning and, like, y'know, the pacing and all that isn't just about breath and flow, it's as much or more about, ah ... well... drama and, you know, the rhythm and the music of the thing.

So it's hilariously ironic, now that we've done our due diligent homework, to discover, as those of us who speak already know, that the much touted and parrotted rules of effective speaking, those rules that exorcise our leaders and teachers of their interjected percussives, do infact make the language, um ... well... like ... uneffective.

We fall asleep for good reason: It's boring.

All those who are taken aghast at the liv'liness of this heresy need only book themselves a seat in any second-rate nightclub and wait for a bad standup comic to come on. Two hours of that, and you'll understand: There's more to language than words.