How Interjections Regulate Conversation | Saccharin For Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria

Apr 15, 2025

Bob Holmes, a science journalist, uncovers the surprising significance of interjections like 'um' and 'huh' in conversation, revealing how they regulate dialogue and foster understanding. Meanwhile, Ronan McCarthy, a biomedical sciences professor, shares groundbreaking research on saccharin, showing its potential to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria by disrupting their membranes. Together, they discuss how these seemingly trivial elements can have profound implications for communication and health.

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INSIGHT

Interjections: More Than Fillers

Interjections like "um" and "uh-huh" aren't just fillers.
They're crucial for regulating conversations and negotiating mutual understanding.

ANECDOTE

The "T" Word Experiment

In an experiment, listeners were asked to count "t" words, neglecting interjections.
Speakers struggled without feedback, rambling or abruptly ending stories, showing interjections' importance.

INSIGHT

The Power of "Huh?"

"Huh?" acts as a repair initiator, signaling a conversational misunderstanding.
It's a near-universal interjection due to its short, simple structure.

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In this episode, utterances like “um,” “wow,” and “mm-hmm” aren’t just fillers—they keep conversations flowing. Also, new research suggests the artificial sweetener saccharin could kill antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Huh? The Valuable Role Of Interjections

Listen carefully to a spoken conversation and you’ll notice that the speakers use a lot of little quasi-words—mm-hmm, um, huh? and the like—that don’t convey any information about the topic of the conversation itself. For many decades, linguists regarded such utterances as largely irrelevant noise, the flotsam and jetsam that accumulate on the margins of language when speakers aren’t as articulate as they’d like to be.

But these little words may be much more important than that. A few linguists now think that far from being detritus, they may be crucial traffic signals to regulate the flow of conversation as well as tools to negotiate mutual understanding. That puts them at the heart of language itself—and they may be the hardest part of language for artificial intelligence to master.

Read the rest of this article on sciencefriday.com.

A Sweet New Treatment For Antibiotic Resistant Infections?

Researchers have discovered that the artificial sweetener saccharin has powerful antimicrobial properties. A new study published in EMBO Molecular Medicine suggests that saccharin can actually kill antibiotic resistant bacteria by interfering with DNA replication and cell division. The researchers also concluded that, with the help of traditional antibiotics, saccharin could even be used as an effective wound treatment.

Host Ira Flatow talks with study author Dr. Ronan McCarthy, professor in biomedical sciences and director of the Antimicrobial Innovations Centre at Brunel University of London.

Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

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