[fabricode]

Removing the "ums" (a distraction) is a far cry from going to the dark side of public speaking ("vacuousness").

One insight I had into public speaking was that good speakers pause. There is white space in their delivery. These are typically the locations where a less experienced speaker puts his verbal tics.

Just as we prefer well-spaced, paragraph style coding over wall-of-text maintenance nightmares, we should work towards removing our fear of "dead air" and let our presentations breathe a bit.