Presentations in Action - Jerry Weissman [43]
Unwords, as the Times crossword puzzle had it, are indeed rough speaking, but consider an opposite point of view. An article in London’s Daily Telegraph described an academic study in Scotland:
Experts at Stirling and Edinburgh universities asked volunteers to listen to a series of sentences, including a number punctuated by “ers” and “ahs.”
Then they tested how much the listeners could remember, and found that inserting the “ers” had a significant positive effect on how well the subjects recalled what they had heard.
Up to an hour after hearing typical sentences, volunteers got 62 percent of words correct where there had been an “er” in the sentence.
That compared with 55 percent for similar utterances where there had not been any stumbles. The tests have since been replicated twice and the results are said to be “statistically significant.”F57.2
Evidently, something was lost in translation coming across the Atlantic, because unwords are considered anathema for U.S. presenters. Speakers fret about saying them and search desperately for ways to stop saying them.
Unfortunately, most of the solutions are cast in negative terms, such as, “Don’t say ‘Um’!” Or, “If you say ‘um’ you have to pay a quarter!” Negativity doesn’t work for nail biters or smokers, nor does it work for presenters. If you tell someone what not to do, it will cause that person to do it more often. Telling a presenter not to say “um” will simply produce more “ums.”
The simplest and most effective way to eliminate unwords is to pause between phrases and take a breath. When you take a breath, you cannot make a sound. Try it. Take a deep breath and try to say “um.”
See?
Barack Obama did. Realizing the detrimental effects of his unwords, he took control of his cadence in his extemporaneous press conferences by inserting pauses. In fact, all he did was to leverage the technique that serves him so well in his teleprompter speeches and bring it into his unscripted press conferences.
Speaking from a teleprompter involves reading a script that scrolls by on two transparent teleprompter panels. The separation between the panels causes the speaker—Mr. Obama, in this case—to swing between them; the swings cause him to pause between his phrases, and the pauses inhibit his unwords. Now, by punctuating his phrases and pausing more frequently, he produces the same rhythmic pattern in his press conferences that is so compelling when he delivers his scripted teleprompter speeches.
Think about that: The way to eliminate unwords is to breathe.
Yes, you can.
58. To Slip or Not to Slip: Been There, Done That
In 2010, General Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, shared his feelings about his Commander-in-Chief with an advisor, who was later quoted in a Rolling Stone article:
Obama clearly didn’t know anything about him, who he was. Here’s the guy who’s going to run his f***ing war, but he didn’t seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed.F58.1
The very same week the article was published, his Commander-in-Chief relieved General McChrystal of his command.
During the same month, Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP, in a statement to the media about his company’s disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, said, “I’d like my life back.”F58.2
One month later, BP removed Mr. Hayward from his role as the company’s spokesman and, a few weeks after that, from his role as CEO.
In summer 2006, at a rally during his campaign for the Virginia senate seat, Senator George Allen, the favored incumbent, mocked a student of Indian descent as “Macaca.”F58.3 On election day, Senator Allen went down in defeat.
In 2002, during a 100th birthday party for segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond, Senator Trent Lott, the Republican senator from Mississippi and Senate Majority