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Via EmailConversation Tips: Do You Talk Too Fast?
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In This Issue…
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1. Quotation of the Month
2. Conversation Tip of the Month
3. Word of the Month
4. Check Out My Blog
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1. Quotation of the Month
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2. Conversation Tip of the Month:
Do You Talk Too Fast?
This tip is about a runaway speaking style.
Have you noticed how some people run their sentences together so it’s hard to tell where one sentence ends and another begins?
When you’re listening, you feel like you’re next to the railroad tracks, watching a speeding freight train. You know the boxcars have words on them, but WHOOSH! You only catch a letter here and there. Maybe a word. But they don’t add up. They don’t make sense unless you used to it. People in some regions of the country talk faster than others: many New Yorkers talk fast. Southerners tend to talk slower.
This week, make it a point to pay attention to how fast people talk. Observe yourself, too.
- Do they end their sentences, full stop?
- Do they string sentences together with one “and” after another?
- Or do they runthemaltogether, likethis?
What I did in that last bullet was annoying, and I did it to make a point in a visual way.
We like space in our conversations. Ending our sentences makes it easier for our listeners to understand us. Experienced speakers know that when they make an important point, they need to leave enough space for it to … sink … in….
Have you noticed that this conversation tip has a lot of breaks in it compared with pages in a book? When I write something you read on your computer, I leave a lot of white space. And I format the lines so they’re short. It’s one way of making reading easier on you.
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3. Word of the Month: kerfuffle (ker-FUFF-’l)
meaning: “a commotion or fuss.”
Don’t you love the sound of it? How could you take a kerfuffle seriously?
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4. Check Out My Blog
She’s frumpy. She’s spinsterish. She’s 47 and never been kissed.
And when Susan Boyle walked on the stage of “Britain’s Got Talent” show, Simon Cowell smirked. So did the audience. When she said she wanted to sing like Broadway star Elaine Paige, you could practically hear everybody thinking, “Fat, frumpy chance, Sister!”
Click here to read the rest of this story with a brand-new twist.
