Fast Talking: Fun or Mad

August 17, 2009 by Jerry

fast_talking

Fast talking can be funny or maddening.

An actor named John Moschitta Jr. made a career of the former. During the 1980s, Mr. Moschitta appeared in a series of television commercials for Federal Express that promoted the company’s speed of service. In each of the commercials, Mr. Moschitta played a busy executive speaking on the phone, barking orders, and wheeling and dealing at more than 500 words a minute. The funny, catchy ads made “The FedEx Man” a household name. See for yourself in this YouTube video:

Fast talking, however, can also be maddening for presentation audiences. In two prior posts, you read how an accelerated pace causes Barack Obama—whose usual cadence is almost musical—to sprinkle his speech with “ums” and “ahs.” Speed can also have a negative impact on audiences and particularly for audiences who speak another language from that of the presenter. Olivier Fontana, a Frenchman who works at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Washington, describes his frustration:

One topic that is a pet-peeve of mine is talking speed. I always try to make a conscious effort to slow
down when I present—not always successfully—and I also try to explain to native English speakers
talking to a non-native audience at full-speed that they also need to factor the non-native variable to
their speech speed. I received feedback from third parties on how they would sometimes lose more than
50% of what was said during these full-speed native speaker presentations. I would also highlight that,
to a non-native audience, not making the effort to slow down could be perceived as assuming everyone
should understand your language (most often than not English) perfectly. A perception that could, in
some cultures, be perceived as quite arrogant.

Ironically, there is a very simple solution for fast talkers. It happens to be the very same solution that helped Barack Obama to control his “ums” and “ahs.” No, the solution is not slow down.

One cannot speak slower or faster. I was born and raised in New York City and I speak fast. I cannot slow down. If I were to try to slow down, it would … sound … as if … my … battery … is … running …out. Instead, I speak very quickly, but I pause between phrases.

The pause is powerful device with many benefits:

Eliminates unwords
Allows for a breath
Gives the presenter time to think
Gives the audience time to absorb what the presenter has said

The absorption time is doubly important for Olivier and other Frenchmen—as well as Spaniards, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Germans, and Italians—when they listen to English speakers:

They translate the English words into their native language
They interpolate the English accent

The latter benefit works both ways. When native English speakers listen to a non-native speak English with a foreign accent, they, too, can interpolate. I once listened to Frenchman (not Olivier) give a presentation about “zee ontairpreez.” But I didn’t understand the words until he paused and allowed me to figure out that he had said “the enterprise.”

The solution is the pause. Think about that: it’s not what you do; it’s what you do not do.

Pause.

Filed under: Blogs, Delivery
Tagged:

Comments

If you want to interact, please leave a comment...
and, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!