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Cleaning Up Your Language: Persuasive Oration
Language, like persuasion, is an art. It's an art that can be mangled, yes. And as with any art, unless you're a prodigy, as Mozart was with music, as H.P. Lovecraft was with poetry, as Pablo Picasso was with painting, then most likely you will have to practice to be good at the art of language.
Language, like persuasion, is an art. It’s an art that can be mangled, yes. And as with any art, unless you’re a prodigy, as Mozart was with music, as H.P. Lovecraft was with poetry, as Pablo Picasso was with painting, then most likely you will have to practice to be good at the art of language.
As persuaders we primarily use our language skills to work with our affluent prospects and clients. We are served well when we use these language properly and speak powerfully.
It’s likely that the more you read, the bigger your vocabulary (unless you’re only reading, say, People Magazine or one very precise genre with limited language specific to that type). One of the most valuable things you can do to increase your vocabulary, is read.
Even with a huge vocabulary, you might not be blessed with the gift of oratory skills. There’s first the fear of public speaking to overcome (if you’re one of the majority of people who have this fear). And once you overcome this fear, then there’s the issue of having something of value or interest to say.
So say you’ve overcome the fear, have something to say that will interest folks, well, then there’s the the next challenge—the delivery.
Recently my transcriptionist told me that I say the phrase ‘in other words’ a lot. She makes a good point. I suppose I do this for two reasons. The first is that I am attempting to deliver the information I have for my students in as many ways as possible. Secondly, I’m not one to use the stalling word ‘um’, and ‘in other words’ may be taking the place of ‘um’ in how I speak.
I just started a book called “Um. . . Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders and What They Mean” by Michael Erard. Something phenomenal I learned in just the first few pages is that the word ‘um. . .’ is universal. All languages have their own version of ‘um’. In Spain it’s ‘eh’ and in France ‘euh’. Mr. Erard goes on to say that the use of these fillers has been around since at least as far back as the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians.
It’s only been in since the twentieth century that ‘um. . .’ has become unpopular with academics and teachers, most likely coinciding with television and radio.
The beginning of ‘Um. . .’ (the book) describes the transcriptionists of the Federal News Service. These transcriptionists do the closed captions that scroll across you TV screen. The FNS has style guidelines that their workers must follow, for example, ‘umms’, ‘ahs’, ‘uhs’ and ‘ers’, are all left out. If the speaker has a false start of one or two words, that’s left out as are partial words. There is one exception to this rule: everything a policymaker says is typed out verbatim, ums, ers, uhs, partial words and fragments included.
I couldn’t help myself. I skipped ahead and read the chapter on George W. Bush. And while it’s not as funny as ‘Bushisms’ it is quite an interesting take on perception and how people view him as a result of his “disfluencies”. Some consider him ‘down home’ and ‘one of the people’, with his speech patterns and gaffes making him more accessible and affable. While others consider his blunders to be an indication of his ‘lack of preparedness’ and/or intelligence and a dangerous indication of a ‘disconnect with reality’. Either way, whichever side you’re on, some of his more memorable malapropisms are really amusing.
My suggestion this week: pay attention to the way you talk. See how many ums, uhs, false starts, stumbles, gaffes and blunders you make verbally. And pay attention to the way other people talk. Is there a secretary in your office who uses ‘like’ every other word, or an associate who constantly stumbles? How do you perceive them?