Errr vs. Uh...

We humans, being imperfect creatures -- despite our remarkable ability to communicate via verbal and, even more remarkably, written language (the Japanese didn't have it till China tipped them off) -- sometimes find ourselves sliding into what I like to call the approximation ditch.

This is the place where verbal sounds are approximated into written words, but all too often their spelling is wildly off from what they were intended to denote. (See my thesis on kokekokko, Japanese for cock-a-doodle-doo.)

Case in point: the pause in speech that's often written as "uh" but is even more often written as "errr." As in, "Errr... I think so."

Maybe it's my ridiculously high appreciation for the California accent as the new standard for King James English, but please. Errr...? I think not. It's as wrong as "To uh is human," if you know what I mean.