> Filler words explained: um, uh, like, you know, stutters and false starts. Which to cut from a video, which to keep, and how often speakers use them. Source: https://shortyedit.com/guides/what-are-filler-words --- # What are filler words, and which ones should you cut from a video? Filler words are sounds and words that fill a pause while a speaker thinks: hesitations such as “um,” “uh” and “er,” and verbal tics such as “like,” “you know,” “basically” and “I mean.” Stutters, repeated words and false starts belong with them. Cut the hesitations and the tics that carry no meaning; keep a word when it is part of the meaning or the speaker’s natural voice. [The Shorty team](https://shortyedit.com/about#editorial-team) · Updated 20 October 2026 · Published 20 October 2026 ## Key takeaways - Filler words are hesitations such as “um” and “uh,” and verbal tics such as “like” and “you know.” - Stutters, repeated words and false starts are usually grouped with them. - Cut hesitations and tics that carry no meaning; keep a word when it does. - In four public talks we measured, hesitations ranged from one in two minutes to 16 in one minute. ## The kinds of filler Fillers fall into a few groups. The first is almost always safe to cut; the rest depend on the sentence. | Type | Examples | Usually cut? | | --- | --- | --- | | Hesitations | um, uh, er, hmm | Yes | | Verbal tics | like, you know, basically, I mean, so, right | Only where they carry no meaning | | Stutters and repeats | “the, the”, “to, to” | Yes, keeping the last complete one | | False starts | “if you’re multi- uh, if you’re doing…” | Yes, keeping the finished sentence | | Long pauses | silence while thinking | Shorten them, but keep a breath between thoughts | ## When a filler isn’t a filler “Like” can be a tic or a comparison. In a Revolut talk we tested, “businesses like Stripe and Adyen” means “such as,” so it stays; in an NVIDIA conference talk, every one of 12 “like”s was a tic. “You know” can be a habit or a real question to the audience, and a repeated word can be emphasis. That is why a keyword list isn’t enough: each candidate has to be read in its sentence. ## How often speakers use them Rates vary a lot from speaker to speaker. In four public talks we measured, hesitations ranged from one in two minutes to 16 in one minute. | Recording | Length | Ums and uhs | All filler words cut | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Prime Intellect, NVIDIA event | 1:00 | 16 | 38 | | Nik Storonsky, Revolut | 2:00 | 13 | 40 | | Arjun Karanam, Trajectory | 2:00 | 8 | 22 | | Elon Musk, Tesla Roadster event | 2:00 | 1 | 7 | Sources: [Shorty News: four talks before and after](https://shortyedit.com/blog/filler-word-removal-ums-uhs-false-starts). Measured by Shorty on excerpts of public YouTube talks, 20 October 2026. ## Should you remove all of them? Not always. Hesitations and stutters slow a short video down, so cutting them almost always helps. Tics are part of how people talk, and removing every one can make a casual speaker sound scripted. Decide by format: tighten hard for ads and short-form clips, lightly for interviews and podcasts. ## How to say fewer of them - Know your first and last sentence before you press record. - Pause instead of saying “um.” A silent beat is easy to keep or cut. - Record in short sections rather than one long take. - Watch one recording back and count your most common tic. Noticing it is most of the fix. ## Removing them automatically To remove fillers from a recording, use an editor that keeps them in its transcript and judges them in context. In Shorty, write “remove the ums” in your brief and the director cuts them while it makes the edit, with captions timed to the clean take. ## Keep the ideas coming ### Filler-word removal in Shorty Shorty removes filler words as part of the edit. Write “remove the ums” in your brief, and the director cuts hesitations, stutters, repeated words and false starts from the picture and the sound, keeps words like “like” where they mean something, and rebuilds captions, music cues and the edit’s length on the clean take. ### How to remove filler words like um and uh Use an editor that finds the fillers in the speech and cuts them for you. In Shorty, write “remove the ums and false starts” in your brief: the director cuts the hesitations, stutters and restarts and builds the rest of the edit, captions included, on the clean take. In Descript, CapCut or Premiere Pro, filler removal is its own step: transcribe, review the detected words, delete them, then keep editing. ### Remove filler words without choppy cuts Cut at sound boundaries rather than rough word timestamps, crossfade each join for a few milliseconds, keep the natural pauses between thoughts, and cover any visible jump with B-roll, a punch-in or a caption. Shorty does the audio part for you when it removes fillers, and you can ask for B-roll or captions over the cuts in the same brief. ## Questions, answered. ### What are examples of filler words? Hesitations such as “um,” “uh,” “er” and “hmm,” and verbal tics such as “like,” “you know,” “basically,” “so” and “I mean.” Stutters, repeated words and false starts are usually grouped with them. ### Is “like” a filler word? Sometimes. It is a filler when it carries no meaning (“it was, like, huge”) and a real word when it compares (“businesses like Stripe”). Cut the first, keep the second. ### Should I remove filler words from my videos? Usually the hesitations and stutters, yes, especially for short-form video. Keep tics that are part of your voice if you want to sound natural. ### How do I remove filler words in Shorty? Add your footage and say it in your brief, for example “remove the ums, uhs and false starts.” The director cuts them from the picture and the sound and builds the rest of the edit, captions included, on the clean take. You can also ask for it in a revision of a finished edit. ## Your next video starts here. Bring the footage. Tell us the idea. Shape the edit. --- Published by Tools Products FZ-LLC. Canonical HTML: https://shortyedit.com/guides/what-are-filler-words