Automatic speech (also known as embolalia) refers to the verbalization of different words or phrases that occur without the conscious effort of the individual. This type of speech component often serves as verbal filler during the middle of a presentation or conversation. It consists of words not directly under the control of a person's conscious mind, and are spoken without thought. Such speech includes false starts, hesitations, repetitions that accompany words that speakers plan and utter coherent sentences, and filler words (such as "Like", "Er" and "Uhm").
The word embolalia comes from the Greek word embolos which means 'something thrown in', from the word emballo- meaning 'to throw in', and -lalia meaning 'speech, chattering and babbling; abnormal or disordered form of speech.
Read more about Automatic Speech: Background
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“Predictions of the future are never anything but projections of present automatic processes and procedures, that is, of occurrences that are likely to come to pass if men do not act and if nothing unexpected happens; every action, for better or worse, and every accident necessarily destroys the whole pattern in whose frame the prediction moves and where it finds its evidence.”
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Of thee what word remains ere speech be still?
A wayfarer by barren ways and chill,
Steep ways and weary, without her thou art,
Where the long cloud, the long wood’s counterpart,
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