A couple of years after the release of The Best of Sellers (see previous entry) came the revue Beyond the Fringe, which launched the careers of Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Jonathan Miller.
One of the many high spots in the show was Alan Bennett's sermon preached from the text "My brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man" - a nice contrast, followed up by some fine examples of repetition, rhetorical questions, similes and anecdotes - but more or less completely devoid of content.
When I was at school, a group of us persuaded the chaplain, or padré, as Bennett would have called him, to listen to it. Perhaps predictably, he didn't seem to think it was at all funny and couldn't see any connection between it and the sermons he and visiting preachers were inflicting on us at the compulsory services we had to attend every Sunday.
See if it reminds you of any sermons you've heard - and, if you want to see the full text and other gems from the show, click the title above to access details of the book on Amazon.
50 years since Peter Sellers recorded his memorable political speech
After mentioning a content-free political speech by the late Peter Sellers in an earlier blog entry, I’ve just discovered that you can listen to the original track from The Best of Sellers (1958) on YouTube - which you can access by clicking HERE or on the title above.
Rhetorical questions and audience involvement
It may seem fairly obvious that, if you say something that gets an audience wondering or anticipating what’s coming next, you’re likely to increase their attentiveness and involvement. But it’s not always quite so easy to find an example that provides a clear demonstration of how posing a puzzle or a rhetorical question actually works.
Sometimes, television editors come to the rescue, as happened in the following clip from the speech by Tory leader David Cameron at his party conference in 2006.
As he pauses at the end of his rhetorical question, the camera cuts away to the audience, where you can see a woman on the left of the screen nodding in agreement with his anticipated answer. And you don’t have to be particularly good at lip reading to see that she is also saying “yes” – about two seconds before Cameron’s own “yes” triggers the more generalised display of agreement (applause).
As a footnote, it’s also worth observing that there are people like this woman, who respond more visibly than others, in most audiences – and very encouraging they are too, whatever type of speech or presentation you happen to be making. They are one of the reasons why maintaining eye contact is so important for speakers, because, once you’ve identified who these people are, you have a very useful and continuing barometer of how well (or badly) you’re doing.
Sometimes, television editors come to the rescue, as happened in the following clip from the speech by Tory leader David Cameron at his party conference in 2006.
As he pauses at the end of his rhetorical question, the camera cuts away to the audience, where you can see a woman on the left of the screen nodding in agreement with his anticipated answer. And you don’t have to be particularly good at lip reading to see that she is also saying “yes” – about two seconds before Cameron’s own “yes” triggers the more generalised display of agreement (applause).
As a footnote, it’s also worth observing that there are people like this woman, who respond more visibly than others, in most audiences – and very encouraging they are too, whatever type of speech or presentation you happen to be making. They are one of the reasons why maintaining eye contact is so important for speakers, because, once you’ve identified who these people are, you have a very useful and continuing barometer of how well (or badly) you’re doing.
Talking the economy up
As newspaper sketch-writers have noticed, Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not the world's most inspiring speaker.
Here's an example from the Daily Telegraph's Andrew Grimson in February of this year:
"Mr Darling used the tactic which has stood him in such good stead whenever he has faced a difficulty in his ministerial career. He tried to bore us into submission."
And here's The Guardian's Simon Hoggart in similar vein after Mr Darling's budget speech in March:
"Is Alistair Darling the most boring chancellor ever? Put it this way: he sent Geoffrey Howe to sleep ... The former chancellor, now Lord Howe, was the proud holder of that ancient title, the ultimate mega-snooze ... a man whose first throat-clearing could empty a packed room.
"Yesterday he took his place in the gallery across from the whipper-snapper bidding to depose him. Mr Darling had barely started chuntering in his soft Scottish monotone about 'stability', 'challenges of the future', 'flexibility and resilience', when Lord Howe's head slumped dramatically forward. For almost the entire speech he slept in peace."
On the evidence of Mr Darling's pre-budget report to the House of Commons earlier this afternoon, his style of speaking may be just the thing to reassure and inspire confidence the markets. By the time he'd finished, the FTSE 100 index of leading shares recorded its biggest ever percentage day's rise of 9.84%.
What the Chancellor said may, of course, have been as important as how he said it. Either way, Gordon Brown will no doubt be delighted and hoping that it will also prompt the biggest ever percentage rise in his opinion poll ratings.
Here's an example from the Daily Telegraph's Andrew Grimson in February of this year:
"Mr Darling used the tactic which has stood him in such good stead whenever he has faced a difficulty in his ministerial career. He tried to bore us into submission."
And here's The Guardian's Simon Hoggart in similar vein after Mr Darling's budget speech in March:
"Is Alistair Darling the most boring chancellor ever? Put it this way: he sent Geoffrey Howe to sleep ... The former chancellor, now Lord Howe, was the proud holder of that ancient title, the ultimate mega-snooze ... a man whose first throat-clearing could empty a packed room.
"Yesterday he took his place in the gallery across from the whipper-snapper bidding to depose him. Mr Darling had barely started chuntering in his soft Scottish monotone about 'stability', 'challenges of the future', 'flexibility and resilience', when Lord Howe's head slumped dramatically forward. For almost the entire speech he slept in peace."
On the evidence of Mr Darling's pre-budget report to the House of Commons earlier this afternoon, his style of speaking may be just the thing to reassure and inspire confidence the markets. By the time he'd finished, the FTSE 100 index of leading shares recorded its biggest ever percentage day's rise of 9.84%.
What the Chancellor said may, of course, have been as important as how he said it. Either way, Gordon Brown will no doubt be delighted and hoping that it will also prompt the biggest ever percentage rise in his opinion poll ratings.
Talking the economy down
Television news programmes these days give the impression that camera crews are being sent around the country with a brief to film anything they can, so long as it shows the economy in as negative a light as possible.
The most misleading and dishonest example I’ve seen so far was film of a shopping centre on the BBC Ten o’clock News. “There are plenty of shoppers here ..” the commentary told us authoritatively and with a hint of optimism that only lasted as far as the but clause in the same sentence “but not many of them are carrying carrier bags.”
The question is: did the reporter have any evidence about how many shoppers were there and what percentage of them were carrying new purchases around with them in carrier bags at the same time on the same day in the same shopping centre a year ago, when there weren’t any worries about the economy?
If so, he didn't bother to mention it – but why let matters of fact and truth get in the way of making up a story to meet the mood of the times (not to mention the demands of your editor)?
The most misleading and dishonest example I’ve seen so far was film of a shopping centre on the BBC Ten o’clock News. “There are plenty of shoppers here ..” the commentary told us authoritatively and with a hint of optimism that only lasted as far as the but clause in the same sentence “but not many of them are carrying carrier bags.”
The question is: did the reporter have any evidence about how many shoppers were there and what percentage of them were carrying new purchases around with them in carrier bags at the same time on the same day in the same shopping centre a year ago, when there weren’t any worries about the economy?
If so, he didn't bother to mention it – but why let matters of fact and truth get in the way of making up a story to meet the mood of the times (not to mention the demands of your editor)?
Why lists of three: mystery, magic or reason?
The fact that the three-part list is such a commonly used rhetorical technique often raises the question of what it is about the number 3 that’s so special. It’s sometimes suggested that there must be something magical or mystical about it. But there is, I think, a much more rational explanation.
Its most likely source is the commonest form of human communication, namely everyday conversation. In the research literature of conversation analysis, there is the idea of there being an implicit or tacit ‘economy rule’ that works along the lines of “say things as briefly as you can unless you have a good reason for doing otherwise”.
So when we complain that someone is ‘long-winded’, ‘likes the sound of his own voice’ or ‘is always hogging the conversation’, we are in effect noticing and complaining that he’s breaking the economy rule. And the fact that there are actually words in the English language, and probably in other languages too, for referring to such rule-breaking behaviour (e.g. ‘verbose’ and ‘garrulous’) means that it’s something that happens (and is complained about) quite often.
We also know something about how three-part lists work in everyday conversation, thanks to a fascinating paper by one of the pioneers of conversation analysis, the late Gail Jefferson. Among other things, her detailed empirical studies showed how frequently they occur in conversation and how they are often treated by others as indicating that the person who produced the three-part list has finished and that someone else can now start speaking without fear of being accused of interrupting.*
As for why so many lists come in threes, the most likely explanation is that 3 conforms to the economy rule, because the arrival of a third item is the first point at which a possible connection implied by the first two is confirmed, and has the effect of turning a ‘possible list’ into a ‘definite' or 'complete enough' list’ of similar things.
For example, if my first two words are ‘Rose’ and ‘Lily’, I could be starting a list of flowers' names or a list of women’s names – but you won’t know for sure which of these it is until I add a third one.
If my third word is ‘Joanna', it becomes a list women’s names; if it’s ‘foxglove’, it becomes a list of flowers' names (and, if it had been ‘Botham’, cricket fans will hear it as a list of cricketer’s names - Lily and Lillie, the famous Australian fast bowler, may be spelt differently, but they sound exactly the same).
The arrival of the third item in a list is therefore the first and earliest point at which a possible list can become an unequivocal and unambiguous list of similar items, and you don’t need a fourth, fifth or sixth word to establish this. So, if you’re following the economy rule, you wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) add any more after the third one.
This is not to say, of course, that we can never use longer lists in conversation without risking complaints. Sometimes we want to convey a sense of ‘muchness’, as when we want to emphasise that something was much better or much worse than normal. “He went on and on and on” may be a fairly common way of complaining that someone was being ‘long-winded’, but “He went on and on and on and on and on” is to make a more serious criticism by depicting the violation of the economy rule as having been far more extreme than usual.
*Gail Jefferson (1990) 'List-construction as a task and a resource'. In: George Psathas, eds. Interaction Competence. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America: 63-92,
Its most likely source is the commonest form of human communication, namely everyday conversation. In the research literature of conversation analysis, there is the idea of there being an implicit or tacit ‘economy rule’ that works along the lines of “say things as briefly as you can unless you have a good reason for doing otherwise”.
So when we complain that someone is ‘long-winded’, ‘likes the sound of his own voice’ or ‘is always hogging the conversation’, we are in effect noticing and complaining that he’s breaking the economy rule. And the fact that there are actually words in the English language, and probably in other languages too, for referring to such rule-breaking behaviour (e.g. ‘verbose’ and ‘garrulous’) means that it’s something that happens (and is complained about) quite often.
We also know something about how three-part lists work in everyday conversation, thanks to a fascinating paper by one of the pioneers of conversation analysis, the late Gail Jefferson. Among other things, her detailed empirical studies showed how frequently they occur in conversation and how they are often treated by others as indicating that the person who produced the three-part list has finished and that someone else can now start speaking without fear of being accused of interrupting.*
As for why so many lists come in threes, the most likely explanation is that 3 conforms to the economy rule, because the arrival of a third item is the first point at which a possible connection implied by the first two is confirmed, and has the effect of turning a ‘possible list’ into a ‘definite' or 'complete enough' list’ of similar things.
For example, if my first two words are ‘Rose’ and ‘Lily’, I could be starting a list of flowers' names or a list of women’s names – but you won’t know for sure which of these it is until I add a third one.
If my third word is ‘Joanna', it becomes a list women’s names; if it’s ‘foxglove’, it becomes a list of flowers' names (and, if it had been ‘Botham’, cricket fans will hear it as a list of cricketer’s names - Lily and Lillie, the famous Australian fast bowler, may be spelt differently, but they sound exactly the same).
The arrival of the third item in a list is therefore the first and earliest point at which a possible list can become an unequivocal and unambiguous list of similar items, and you don’t need a fourth, fifth or sixth word to establish this. So, if you’re following the economy rule, you wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) add any more after the third one.
This is not to say, of course, that we can never use longer lists in conversation without risking complaints. Sometimes we want to convey a sense of ‘muchness’, as when we want to emphasise that something was much better or much worse than normal. “He went on and on and on” may be a fairly common way of complaining that someone was being ‘long-winded’, but “He went on and on and on and on and on” is to make a more serious criticism by depicting the violation of the economy rule as having been far more extreme than usual.
*Gail Jefferson (1990) 'List-construction as a task and a resource'. In: George Psathas, eds. Interaction Competence. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America: 63-92,
Tom Peters: High on rhetoric but low on content?
Although I’ve never seen Tom Peters in action, I’ve heard from people who have that he’s a pretty impressive performer. I also know something about the speaking techniques of ‘management gurus’ from an interesting book called Management Speak: The Live Oratory of Management Gurus (London, Routledge, 2005) by David Greatbatch and Timothy Clark.
But until I came across this short video on YouTube (below), I hadn’t realised just how much and how frequently Mr Peters uses the main rhetorical techniques of contrast, three-part list and puzzle-solution (a device that gets the audience wondering what the solution is going to be, or poses a question before revealing the answer).
But until I came across this short video on YouTube (below), I hadn’t realised just how much and how frequently Mr Peters uses the main rhetorical techniques of contrast, three-part list and puzzle-solution (a device that gets the audience wondering what the solution is going to be, or poses a question before revealing the answer).
How much can you use these techniques?
I’ve now watched this clip several times and have to admit that, however impressive his mastery of rhetoric and citation of rhetorically constructed quotations might be, I’m still not sure what exactly it is that Mr Peters is trying to tell us. Maybe one of the other 54,252 who have so far seen it on YouTube could enlighten me.
TRANSCRIPT:
Starts by posing a puzzle that will turn out to be the first one in a sequence of three puzzle-solution fomats in a row:
[P]→ The number one problem with enterprises small or large is: [PAUSE]
The Solution to the puzzle then comes in the form of a somple contrast:
[A]→ too much talk.
[B]→ too little do.
Second (double) puzzle (‘what could this ‘remarkable institution’ and ‘ultimate oxymoron be’?):
[P]→ Now as you know we have this one remarkable institution in the United States, the ultimate oxymoron.
And the solutions (the ‘oxymoron’ is a profitable airline and the institution is South West):
[S]→ A profitable airline. It’s called South West.
Third puzzle (‘what are these words of hers going to be?’):
[P]→ Herb Kelleher the chief executive officer of South West and I agree on the essence of a strategic plan and I love these words of hers:
The solution quotes a puzzle-solution from her (‘what could the strategic plan be?’), solution - ‘doing things’:
[S]→ [P]→ “We have a ‘strategic’ plan.
[S]→ It’s called doing things.”
Then a contrast to underline how important he thinks it is:
[A]→ And literally, as I said, it was number one on my reading list twenty two years ago.
[B]→ It’s number one on my list today.
Followed by an alliterative three-part list (though it’s not very clear how it relates to what went before and what’s coming next):
[1]→ Fail.
[2]→ Forward.
[3]→ Fast.
Then another three part list:
[1]→ No screw-ups
[2]→ No learning.
[3]→ It’s as simple as that.
And two contrasts:
[A]→ No fast screw-ups
[B]→ No fast learning
[A]→ No big screw-ups
[B]→ No big learning
Three sentences set up a puzzle (what could the one favorite slide be out of so many be?):
[P]→ [1]→ Now in my major slide deck at my website there are some twelve hundred slides.
[2]→ By definition one has got to be my favorite.
[3]→ And this next one is my favorite of the twelve hundred, even though I’m using it relatively early in the presentation.
And, to keep the suspense up a bit longer, he extends the puzzle before revealing the solution:
[P]→ Comes from a Sydney Australia exec., and an extremely successful one at that, who said that he owed most of his business success to a simple six word philosophy:
The solution is a contrast, in which each of the three words in the first part contrasts with each of the three words in the second part (reward/punish – excellent/mediocre – failures/successes):
[S]→ [A]→ Reward excellent failures.
[B]→ Punish mediocre successes.
Hardly surprising that he thinks that a contrast with each of the three consecutive words in the first part are followed by three directly opposite words in the second part is a ‘great quote’. And to make the point, his assessment is the first part of another contrast, the second part of which is the first part of yet another contrast:
[A]→ Now I think this is a great quote
[B]→ [A]→ But my goal relative to you is not to have you say “nice quote, Tom”,
[B]→ but to take it literally seriously.
As you'll see from the transcript below the video, he packages almost everything he says by using one or other of these devices.
It also bears on two intriguing questions that I’m often asked, but to which I have no definitive answer. One is how much of a speech or presentation can be constructed using these devices? On the evidence of this clip, taken on its own, it looks as though the answer is ‘pretty well all of it’.
It also bears on two intriguing questions that I’m often asked, but to which I have no definitive answer. One is how much of a speech or presentation can be constructed using these devices? On the evidence of this clip, taken on its own, it looks as though the answer is ‘pretty well all of it’.
Content-free presentations?
The second question is whether it's possible, by over-using them, to could produce an 'effective presentation' that's completely lacking in content. One of the best examples I ever heard of anupme coming close to this was the late Peter Sellers, who delivered a parody of a political speech that ended with the immortal line “.. and in conclusion, let me say just this.”
The second question is whether it's possible, by over-using them, to could produce an 'effective presentation' that's completely lacking in content. One of the best examples I ever heard of anupme coming close to this was the late Peter Sellers, who delivered a parody of a political speech that ended with the immortal line “.. and in conclusion, let me say just this.”
Another was Alan Bennett's sermon on the text "My brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man from Beyond the Fringe.
I’ve now watched this clip several times and have to admit that, however impressive his mastery of rhetoric and citation of rhetorically constructed quotations might be, I’m still not sure what exactly it is that Mr Peters is trying to tell us. Maybe one of the other 54,252 who have so far seen it on YouTube could enlighten me.
TRANSCRIPT:
Starts by posing a puzzle that will turn out to be the first one in a sequence of three puzzle-solution fomats in a row:
[P]→ The number one problem with enterprises small or large is: [PAUSE]
The Solution to the puzzle then comes in the form of a somple contrast:
[A]→ too much talk.
[B]→ too little do.
Second (double) puzzle (‘what could this ‘remarkable institution’ and ‘ultimate oxymoron be’?):
[P]→ Now as you know we have this one remarkable institution in the United States, the ultimate oxymoron.
And the solutions (the ‘oxymoron’ is a profitable airline and the institution is South West):
[S]→ A profitable airline. It’s called South West.
Third puzzle (‘what are these words of hers going to be?’):
[P]→ Herb Kelleher the chief executive officer of South West and I agree on the essence of a strategic plan and I love these words of hers:
The solution quotes a puzzle-solution from her (‘what could the strategic plan be?’), solution - ‘doing things’:
[S]→ [P]→ “We have a ‘strategic’ plan.
[S]→ It’s called doing things.”
Then a contrast to underline how important he thinks it is:
[A]→ And literally, as I said, it was number one on my reading list twenty two years ago.
[B]→ It’s number one on my list today.
Followed by an alliterative three-part list (though it’s not very clear how it relates to what went before and what’s coming next):
[1]→ Fail.
[2]→ Forward.
[3]→ Fast.
Then another three part list:
[1]→ No screw-ups
[2]→ No learning.
[3]→ It’s as simple as that.
And two contrasts:
[A]→ No fast screw-ups
[B]→ No fast learning
[A]→ No big screw-ups
[B]→ No big learning
Three sentences set up a puzzle (what could the one favorite slide be out of so many be?):
[P]→ [1]→ Now in my major slide deck at my website there are some twelve hundred slides.
[2]→ By definition one has got to be my favorite.
[3]→ And this next one is my favorite of the twelve hundred, even though I’m using it relatively early in the presentation.
And, to keep the suspense up a bit longer, he extends the puzzle before revealing the solution:
[P]→ Comes from a Sydney Australia exec., and an extremely successful one at that, who said that he owed most of his business success to a simple six word philosophy:
The solution is a contrast, in which each of the three words in the first part contrasts with each of the three words in the second part (reward/punish – excellent/mediocre – failures/successes):
[S]→ [A]→ Reward excellent failures.
[B]→ Punish mediocre successes.
Hardly surprising that he thinks that a contrast with each of the three consecutive words in the first part are followed by three directly opposite words in the second part is a ‘great quote’. And to make the point, his assessment is the first part of another contrast, the second part of which is the first part of yet another contrast:
[A]→ Now I think this is a great quote
[B]→ [A]→ But my goal relative to you is not to have you say “nice quote, Tom”,
[B]→ but to take it literally seriously.
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