Huh? What?
Right there is when you’d lose me as a listener. “Um” is almost as annoying as “you know, youknow, you know.”
There are some days where I seriously just cannot understand people, and some days I have huge trouble reading. I think I actually start falling asleep or something it’s hard to tell.
Seriously, some days I can read a whole book in one sitting, no issues. Some days I can read a single paragraph 10-20 times and just not get it. It’s really frustrating. It’s the same for hearing. Some days I can understand a thick-accented mumbler in a crowded mall, other days no matter how much effort I expend I can’t understand anybody. Usually the first time I say “sorry, I didn’t catch that.” If it still doesn’t work after really trying the second time I say “Sorry, I just can’t understand you right now. I’m really sorry.”
I know it bothers people, but I just can’t some days. I expend all my effort into listening (or reading) and I just get blank space. It’s as if I know the person started talking, and I know they stopped talking (or I know my eyes started at the beginning of the paragraph, and stopped at the end), but I can’t fill in that middle part no matter how much effort I expend. It’s like it never happened, I feel like I’m missing time. As I said in the first paragraph, it’s almost like I fell asleep. And again, some days – and sometimes earlier in the same day (though once it starts it happens throughout the rest of the day) I’ll be fine, be able to read really fast and can hear and comprehend really well. Other times I… well, I just can’t. It’s really, really embarrassing.
I don’t have any neurological disorders or learning disabilities that I know of either. I doubt I have anything since it only happens some days and not others (most days I’m fine).
You might lose me as “Someone Worth Talking To”, too. If you just say “What?” I have no idea what you missed. Do I have to start all over and repeat a whole paragraph? Or was it just a word?
I’m hard of hearing, and I often have to ask for clarification. But I try really hard to think back over what was said and then say “Sorry, I missed that last sentence.”
People talking on their cell phones on the bus always say “uh?” instead of “huh?” I don’t know why.
In that example you’re not listening anyway. It’s just noise so you’ll look at me and maybe start listening. Like clearing your throat. Perhaps more than once, until your listener is actually looking at you. It gives hard of hearing people a moment to focus their attention on listening, because they’re very likely to miss it the first time. So don’t actually say anything the first time. Just make noise, get their attention, give 'em a moment, then say what you
huh?
I said you’re putting on weight asshole!
My mother does this to me, and it drives me nuts. Her "what?"s are reflexive. Sometimes she’ll say “what?”, followed almost immediately by her understanding and responding to whatever it is I said, once her brain caught up. I’ve stopped in the middle of saying something to her because I can tell that her mind has blanked and she’s waiting for me to finish my sentence so she can ask “what?” She claims she can’t hear, yet she’ll do things that are counterproductive to a person who can’t hear, like not looking directly at someone who is speaking to her, or asking questions of someone in another room. So when she says “what?”, I just yell whatever I said at her, or I get her attention first with a “MA!” before I say anything. She hates it, but it’s her fault. I only have so much energy in a day to devote to talking, and I just can’t abide having to repeat every damn thing I say.
I suffer from this problem. I supposedly have excellent hearing (had an audiology test done in 2011 and passed with flying colors), but I have a very difficult time understanding people. Whenever I’m in a crowded room or a noisy environment, I often have to ask people to repeat themselves because even though I evidently have good hearing, I have a very difficult time filtering out the noise and processing what was said to me. I feel bad about saying, “what was that?” or “what?” all the time but I figure that’s more polite than just pretending like I hear them and nod politely (which I do frequently enough as it is).
If it hadn’t been for the results of that hearing test I had done a while back I honestly wonder sometimes if I am hard of hearing. But I’m evidently not. I’m just hard of comprehending, I guess. I do think some people have a point when they say that some people have difficulty turning off the internal chatter and just listening. I know I have a track record of having a busy mind and it’s difficult to turn off my own thinking and just listen.
It has gotten to the point where sometimes my “whats?” are so reflexive that I say them immediately and quickly realize that I do understand what the person just said, and then respond appropriately.
I do apologize for this when it happens. Example: “What? Oh sorry… yeah I know what you mean.” So I do say I’m sorry when I realize I threw in an unnecessary “what?”
I score great on hearing tests, but I dare you to try to talk to me in a crowded diner with forks and coffee cups clattering and music and other conversations going*.
I finally found an audiologist who agreed with me that they’re terrible at testing hearing with interference. They’ll paly white noise and then do their little tones, but I can discipline myself to not listen to the whoooosh and concentrate on the tones. It is NOTHING like a Real-Life Background Noise Situation.
So my doc admitted that I do have hearing loss, but it doesn’t show up much in a hearing test environment. Unfortunately, he doesn’t think hearing aids have progressed to the point where they can boost human speech but not background Clatter ‘N’ Chatter.
*Side note: anyone know if lip-reading would help in the local diner?
I think if you’re in a poor hear-ability environment there’s no reason to think there’s something wrong with you if you can’t make things out. That’s like worrying why you get hot in the sauna. 
Crowded noisy place? Can anyone really hear all that well?
When I started watching TV with captions on, I was pretty amazed at how much dialogue flies right by completely lost, but the brain fills it in I guess and you don’t notice.
I was also surprised at how awful captions usually are, because I can hear too.
It gets worse. I, too, have an auditory processing disorder, despite what was once exquisitely sensitive hearing. In addition to the usual difficulty in comprehending speech amid auditory clutter (something I know other people can do, because I see them doing it), years of motorcycle commuting (and other loud noises) have left me with tinnitus. Now, even in a quiet environment, I have to struggle to understand people speaking over the ringing in my own goddamn ears.
I have promised myself hearing aids for my 50th birthday, but I’m really not expecting much.
Someone: Brumbmbblemrummble…
Me: What?
Someone: Brumbmbblemrummble…
Me (incredibly loud): NO, I DON’T WANT TO MAKE OUT WITH YOU!
Learn to enunciate, especially in noisy places. Just because you can hear yourself in your head doesn’t mean everyone else can.
Yeah, they are being asses, because their first assumption is that the person is just being irritating. Yeah, Linctus should specify why he can’t hear, but communication is a two way street, and if you are annoyed by someone, the onus is on you to try and clear up the annoyance. It’s ridiculous to expect things to change if you just get all mad and talk to the person.
In fact, maybe I missed it, but I don’t see that the OP ever said anything about sitting down and talking to these people about what they are doing that is bothering him. I’d suggest he try that before going the route of this passive aggressive bullshit.
And, concerning those that actually are hard of hearing: I’ve noticed that my dad, who has had hearing problems since birth, didn’t socialize much and thus didn’t learn all these rules. I frankly can’t remember ever being taught not wait until the end of a sentence nor not to say “Huh” by itself. It’s just something that comes natural.
I think it’s one of those things that used to be taught in bygone eras but really isn’t now. I can’t even imagine having my parents sit me down and discuss the specific words I used to talk to people. As long as I wasn’t doing anything wrong (in the moral sense) they didn’t get involved.
Huh? What?
If I’m reading or otherwise concentrating on something, you need to get my attention before you start talking to me - otherwise it may be a few seconds before I realise you’re speaking, and then a couple seconds more before I realise you’re speaking to me. And like someone higher up the thread, I have high-frequency hearing loss, in my case due to having spent too much time in the engine room without hearing protection. (I tried hearing aids - there was something about my younger daughter’s voice that made the things buzz every time she said something to me.)
My wife has an incredible talent. I’ll miss part of what she says and ask for a repeat, and three out of four times she’ll repeat only the part that I did hear…
Who reads the dates on posts? It’s on page one of the forum, it’s obviously a recent thread…
Well, some of us actually do…
Also, you speak too fast, with insufficient enunciation. This is understandable: you’ve said the same thing to ten thousand customers. “Would you like fries with that?” has turned into “Wudjalikefriesifthat?” from repetition.
As it turns out, you happen also to speak with a slight accent.
You’ve probably ordered a million meals at McD’s and you’ve heard wudjalikefriesifthat a million times so why the hell would you need to say huh? Really, reeeeeally short memory as well as hearing problems?
I know it’s a zombie thread, too, but this is probably my biggest pet peeve about my SO. My parents insisted I never say “Huh?” They found it rude and obnoxious. I didn’t even say “What?” I learned “I beg your pardon?” or “Sorry, I didn’t hear you?”
What’s worst is when you say something, they say What? And then halfway through your repeating it they answer you. So of course they heard you, they just didn’t bother to listen!
Far too many people have that same talent. :mad: