You may be wondering what that big word up there means – “elocution”. It’s not often you see such a mighty fine specimen flapping about the place. Rest your weary mind for a moment, as this has nothing to do with electrocution! No, we’re on about diction here, and we believe we’ve pioneered some marvellous speech assistance techniques through the use of an umbrella!

We’ve dubbed our latest invention the ermbrella. We should indicate at this point the “erm” is a hint towards conversational fillers such as “erm”, “you know”, “um” etc. We all use these in conversation as a means to ensure our flow of speech isn’t disrupted, or some gobby sort doesn’t force their way in when you’re in the middle of talking. Anyway, we invented the ermbrella to assist with these day-to-day talking habits. Read on to find out more, Macduff!

The Ermbrella

Conversation is important in life. Without it you’ll not understand what’s going on and you’ll generally fall behind the times and still believe sporting an enormous Hipster beard is cool and individualistic. During conversations you may find one of these scenarios unfolds:

• You get a bit nervous and keep saying “erm” over and over and over like an old broken record.
• Some absolute diva has the audacity to interrupt your proclamations about why the number 53 bus is five minutes faster across Manchester than the 53A.
• You realise saying “erm” is getting a bit repetitive, so you switch to “you know” to even things out a bit.
• Someone sneezes whilst you talk and you have to pause and bless them.
• “You know” also gets old and you make the mighty switch to “um”.

As you may be able to tell, fillers are embarrassing and superfluous. They ruin discourse and could potentially destroy historic occasions. Imagine if Neil Armstrong had stepped onto the Moon and said: “Erm… it’s one small step for… erm… man, you know… one, erm, giant leap for, um, mankind. Gazuntite, Buzz. Aiiiiiiiiiie, innit yo yo wossup wossup?!” The whole thing would have been ruined!

Luckily, the ermbrella is now here to teach you ways to make your speech patterns less cluttered. Typically, one uses fillers due to two reasons: you’re either rather stupid so can’t form coherent sentences, or you get nervous and your normally streamlined talking abilities becomes peppered like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

What is going on here?

Essentially, what one does is carry the ermbrella with one at all times. If you find your speech is becoming cluttered, you stop talking, raise the ermbrella into the air, open and close it several times, and then return it to your side. This bizarre and antisocial display with flabbergast whomever you are talking with, inducing fillers into their speech patterns! As these fools “erm” and “um” their way around a suitable conversation follow up, you steamroll in with your theories on the 53A’s tardiness.

Truly, the ermbrella is a work of genius of the highest order. It will be in stores priced £50 ($100) from April 2016 – it looks exactly the same as other umbrellas, it is exactly the same as other umbrellas, and it’s mightily more expensive than other umbrellas, but it’ll transform your life into a world of free flowing glorious conversation! Indeed.