Is Vince Cable (BA Cambridge, PhD Glasgow) really a pleb?

Unlike his audience at the Lib Dem conference, I'm not at all convinced that Vince Cable's BA from Cambridge and PhD from Glasgow qualifies him as a 'pleb'.

Nor do I think he would have got away with his attempt to affiliate with the working class if he didn't still have the remains of a Yorkshire accent...

A neat contrast wins applause for Obama's talk show point about Romney

I may have been rather critical of President Obama's rather uninspiring (for him) acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, but was rather more impressed by his performance on the David Letterman Show last night, prompting as it did an interruptive burst of applause (scroll in 40 seconds) - just after he'd used a nice simple contrast:

"My expectation is that, if you want to be President, 
"you got to work for everyone, not just for some,  [APPLAUSE STARTS] 
"and thee uh--"[APPLAUSE  CONTINUES]

As noted elsewhere on this blog (and in my books), the contrast is one of the most important rhetorical devices for triggering applause in political speeches. And, as is evident from this example, it can work in the same way in other settings too (e.g. TV interviews).

Does Mitt Romney's mouth move faster than his brain?

I've not studied Mitt Romney's style of speaking in much detail, but there may be a clue in his latest gaffe (above) as to why I'd felt there was something a bit odd about him.

It's the sheer speed at which he speaks.

Speeches by effective public speakers are delivered at about 120 words per minute, which is much slower than the 180 words per minute found in conversations between native speakers of English (see my books).

But in the sequence that got him into so much trouble, Mr Romney manages about 200 words per minute - i.e. 20 words per minute quicker than conversation.

Apart from the fact that this is abnormally fast for a conversation (let alone a speech) it raises two intriguing quetions:

1. Is he speaking too quickly for his brain to be able to produce carefully considered and/or 'elegantly stated' opinions?
2. How, in American culture, is 'fast-speaking' likely to be regarded by the wider public?

For what it's worth, to my British ears, 'fast-speaking' tends to have mainly negative connotations...