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arundelo comments on What truths are actually taboo? - Less Wrong Discussion
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I had been reading this (and its more common cousin "er") for years before I saw someone point out that they're just different spellings of "um" and "uh". Edit: Not different pronunciations (modulo the difference in accent), for anyone who doesn't know what amacfie and I are on about.
...but people (around me, at least, in the DC area) do say "Er..." literally, sometimes. It appears to be pronounced that way when the speaker wants to emphasize the pause, as far as I can tell.
I hear "er", literally (rhotically), quite infrequently and I always assumed that people said it that way because of seeing "er" in written English and not knowing that it was intended to be pronounced "uh"; similarly, I've heard "arg" spoken by people who thought "argh" from written English was pronounced that way.
In my previous commented I restrained myself from linking to Ant Phillips's Um & Aargh but now you've given me sufficient excuse. (The chorus sounds to my American ears like "um and ah".)
Edit: Grumble grumble Markdown parser bug grumble grumble.
...but "argh" is pronounced that way... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOlKRMXvTiA :) Since the late 90s, at least.