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)?
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.
Bobby Kennedy nearly got it right about Obama
The other day, I came across a video on YouTube (see below for the main point, or click on the title for a fuller version of the TV program) claiming that Bobby Kennedy had made an accurate prophesy about how long it would be before an African American became President.
The presenter was, perhaps, a little over eager in trying to make it sound as though Kennedy was right on the button when he said that “a Negro could be President in 40 years”, as the date on the Washington Post story is actually 1961, which was 48 years before 20th January 2009 when Mr Obama actually becomes President.
Extraordinary though Kennedy’s words must have sounded at the time, he has to be admired both for his optimism in a period of such turbulence in the struggle for civil rights and for the near-accuracy of his prediction.
Younger readers should not, by the way, read anything sinister into Kennedy's use of the word ‘Negro’, because it was also used during the same era and without any qualms by Martin Luther King Jr. and more or less everyone else.
‘African American’ may be the ‘politically correct’ description at the moment, but it is only the latest in a series of attempts to eliminate the word ‘Negro’ from everyday usage in the American version of the English language, earlier attempts at which include ‘black’ and ‘persons of colour’.
The presenter was, perhaps, a little over eager in trying to make it sound as though Kennedy was right on the button when he said that “a Negro could be President in 40 years”, as the date on the Washington Post story is actually 1961, which was 48 years before 20th January 2009 when Mr Obama actually becomes President.
Extraordinary though Kennedy’s words must have sounded at the time, he has to be admired both for his optimism in a period of such turbulence in the struggle for civil rights and for the near-accuracy of his prediction.
Younger readers should not, by the way, read anything sinister into Kennedy's use of the word ‘Negro’, because it was also used during the same era and without any qualms by Martin Luther King Jr. and more or less everyone else.
‘African American’ may be the ‘politically correct’ description at the moment, but it is only the latest in a series of attempts to eliminate the word ‘Negro’ from everyday usage in the American version of the English language, earlier attempts at which include ‘black’ and ‘persons of colour’.
‘Reliable sources' on where Obama’s 'Yes we can' came from?
On 8th November, the following appeared in the Guardian by Allegra Stratton, who had phoned me the previous day:
Strangest of all, there is a British political scientist who claims he has proof that the actual inspiration for the slogan is Bob the Builder (theme tune: "Can We Fix It?" Answer: "Yes We Can"). Max Atkinson, expert on political rhetoric and author of Lend Me Your Ears, said: "What's so mad about that? I have it on the authority of two very reliable sources."
Er, no. What I actually said when Ms Stratton phoned me about Yes we can and Bob the Builder was that I’d come across two other people who'd made the same connection and that, if true, it wasn’t too difficult to imagine how Mr Obama might have come across it or why he might have had a good reason to use it.
But word must have got around the Guardian offices, because my two allegedly "reliable sources" reappeard on 12th November in another article in the same paper by Alice Wignall:
At least one expert in political rhetoric is convinced: at the weekend, British speechwriter Max Atkinson said that "two very reliable sources" had confirmed that Bob inspired the slogan.
And at least one journalist working for the Sunday Sun in Newcastle must be a Guardian reader, as the same story was recycled again in today's edition:
Max Atkinson, former speech writer for Paddy Ashdown, said that “two very reliable sources” had confirmed to him that Bob was the inspiration for the slogan.
So, to put the record straight, I never said that I had either "proof" or "two reliable sources who had "confirmed" the possible link they were so obsessed with.
To the journalists, who turned this molehill of a comment (“two other people who’d made the same connection”) into a bit of a mountain (“two very reliable sources" and/or "proof"), and anyone else who might have read their misleading articles, all I would say is that I'm not particularly interested in where Mr Obama got the line from.
Much more interesting is the way he used it to prompt audience responses in some of his speeches and how both it and the responses are significantly different from the choruses that regularly peppered the speeches of Martin Luther-King.
And, if you want to keep an eye on what others might be writing about you, I'd recommend signing up with Google Alerts - without which none of these rather annoying articles would have come to my attention.
Strangest of all, there is a British political scientist who claims he has proof that the actual inspiration for the slogan is Bob the Builder (theme tune: "Can We Fix It?" Answer: "Yes We Can"). Max Atkinson, expert on political rhetoric and author of Lend Me Your Ears, said: "What's so mad about that? I have it on the authority of two very reliable sources."
Er, no. What I actually said when Ms Stratton phoned me about Yes we can and Bob the Builder was that I’d come across two other people who'd made the same connection and that, if true, it wasn’t too difficult to imagine how Mr Obama might have come across it or why he might have had a good reason to use it.
But word must have got around the Guardian offices, because my two allegedly "reliable sources" reappeard on 12th November in another article in the same paper by Alice Wignall:
At least one expert in political rhetoric is convinced: at the weekend, British speechwriter Max Atkinson said that "two very reliable sources" had confirmed that Bob inspired the slogan.
And at least one journalist working for the Sunday Sun in Newcastle must be a Guardian reader, as the same story was recycled again in today's edition:
Max Atkinson, former speech writer for Paddy Ashdown, said that “two very reliable sources” had confirmed to him that Bob was the inspiration for the slogan.
So, to put the record straight, I never said that I had either "proof" or "two reliable sources who had "confirmed" the possible link they were so obsessed with.
To the journalists, who turned this molehill of a comment (“two other people who’d made the same connection”) into a bit of a mountain (“two very reliable sources" and/or "proof"), and anyone else who might have read their misleading articles, all I would say is that I'm not particularly interested in where Mr Obama got the line from.
Much more interesting is the way he used it to prompt audience responses in some of his speeches and how both it and the responses are significantly different from the choruses that regularly peppered the speeches of Martin Luther-King.
And, if you want to keep an eye on what others might be writing about you, I'd recommend signing up with Google Alerts - without which none of these rather annoying articles would have come to my attention.
Will there be any ‘rhetorical denial’ from the Obama camp?
Effective speakers don’t always like to see their technical ability being noticed and analysed by others.
I first became aware of this back in 1984, when I published a book on the rhetorical techniques used by politicians to trigger applause in speeches (Our Masters’ Voices: The Language and Body Language of Politics).
It included a chapter on charisma, part of which used the rhetorical ability of Tony Benn, then at the forefront of the Labour Party’s lurch towards the far left, as an example of how technical skill at oratory can get politicians into prominent positions. Apparently, he didn’t like this at all, and went around telling people that audiences didn’t applaud him because of how he said things but because they agreed so much with what he was saying.
Years later, both of us appeared on the same television programme, for which I had recorded a piece illustrating the main rhetorical techniques with video clips from political speeches. When asked what he thought of this, Mr Benn replied “Well, it’s rubbish” and went on to elaborate as follows:
“I suppose you can analyse great speeches, but it’s a bit like analysing a great painting in terms of the chemical composition of the pigments on the canvas.”
If I’d been given a chance to respond, I’d have said “Yes, and how many other people could have come up with such a powerful simile (with alliteration bringing the image to a close) to make their point?”
At the start of the 1987 general election in Britain, David Owen, who was leader of the SDP (which had broken away from the Labour Party largely because the Bennite tendency had taken it so far to the left), announced that “Reason, not rhetoric will win this campaign.” So here he was using an alliterative contrast, one of the most important of all rhetorical techniques, to tell us that there wouldn’t be any rhetoric from the SDP.
This tendency of good communicators who use rhetoric effectively to deny that they are using it at all goes back at least as far as Shakespeare. Having started his Forum speech in Julius Caesar with a memorable 3-part list with third item longest (Friends, Romans and countrymen) and two powerful contrasts (I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred within their bones), Mark Antony later uses another contrast to inform the audience that he, unlike Brutus, is no good at public speaking (I am no orator as Brutus it, but just a plain simple man), even though this is the most famous speech in one of the most famous plays in English literature.
Now that so many commentators, including me, are waxing lyrical about Mr Obama’s technical mastery of rhetoric, imagery and alliteration, it will be interesting to see if any of his aides start trying to tell us that his success in communicating with mass audiences has had more to do with what he says than how he says it.
I first became aware of this back in 1984, when I published a book on the rhetorical techniques used by politicians to trigger applause in speeches (Our Masters’ Voices: The Language and Body Language of Politics).
It included a chapter on charisma, part of which used the rhetorical ability of Tony Benn, then at the forefront of the Labour Party’s lurch towards the far left, as an example of how technical skill at oratory can get politicians into prominent positions. Apparently, he didn’t like this at all, and went around telling people that audiences didn’t applaud him because of how he said things but because they agreed so much with what he was saying.
Years later, both of us appeared on the same television programme, for which I had recorded a piece illustrating the main rhetorical techniques with video clips from political speeches. When asked what he thought of this, Mr Benn replied “Well, it’s rubbish” and went on to elaborate as follows:
“I suppose you can analyse great speeches, but it’s a bit like analysing a great painting in terms of the chemical composition of the pigments on the canvas.”
If I’d been given a chance to respond, I’d have said “Yes, and how many other people could have come up with such a powerful simile (with alliteration bringing the image to a close) to make their point?”
At the start of the 1987 general election in Britain, David Owen, who was leader of the SDP (which had broken away from the Labour Party largely because the Bennite tendency had taken it so far to the left), announced that “Reason, not rhetoric will win this campaign.” So here he was using an alliterative contrast, one of the most important of all rhetorical techniques, to tell us that there wouldn’t be any rhetoric from the SDP.
This tendency of good communicators who use rhetoric effectively to deny that they are using it at all goes back at least as far as Shakespeare. Having started his Forum speech in Julius Caesar with a memorable 3-part list with third item longest (Friends, Romans and countrymen) and two powerful contrasts (I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred within their bones), Mark Antony later uses another contrast to inform the audience that he, unlike Brutus, is no good at public speaking (I am no orator as Brutus it, but just a plain simple man), even though this is the most famous speech in one of the most famous plays in English literature.
Now that so many commentators, including me, are waxing lyrical about Mr Obama’s technical mastery of rhetoric, imagery and alliteration, it will be interesting to see if any of his aides start trying to tell us that his success in communicating with mass audiences has had more to do with what he says than how he says it.
The Queen's Speech: an exception that proves the ruler
Here's something at the other end of the scale from previous blogs about Barack Obama's brilliance at oratory.
At the State Opening of Parliament on 3rd December, the Queen, as she does every year, will be reading out her government's legislative plans for the months ahead. Most commentators will be listening to the Speech to find out what Gordon Brown is going to be putting on the statute book in 2009.
How not to speak inspiringly
But you can also listen to it as a model of how not to give an inspiring speech.
Public speaking at its best depends both on the language used to package the key messages and the way it is delivered. Using rhetoric, maintaining eye contact with the audience, pausing regularly and in particular places, stressing certain words and changing intonation are all essential ingredients in the cocktail for conveying passion and inspiring an audience. This is why it is so easy to ‘dehumanise’ the speech of Daleks and other talking robots by the simple device of stripping out any hint of intonational variation and have them speak in a flat, regular and monotonous tone of voice.
When it comes to sounding unenthusiastic and uninterested in inspiring an audience, the Queen’s Speech is an example with few serious competitors. She has no qualms about being seen to be wearing spectacles, which underline the fact that she is reading carefully from the script she holds so obviously in front of her. Nor is she in the least bit inhibited about fixing her eyes on the text rather than the audience. Then, as she enunciates the sentences, her tone is so disinterested as to make it abundantly clear that she is merely reciting words written by someone else and about which she has no personal feelings or opinions whatsoever.
This is, of course, how it has to be in a constitutional monarchy, where the head of state has to be publicly seen and heard as obsessively neutral about the policies of whatever political party happens to have ended up in power. The Queen knows, just as everyone else knows, that showing enthusiasm, or lack of it, about the law-making plans of her government would lead to a serious crisis that would be more than her job is worth. So, even when announcing plans to ban hunting with hounds, she managed not to convey the slightest hint of disappointment or irritation that a favorite pastime of her immediate family was about to be outlawed.
The Queen’s Speech is therefore an interesting exception to the normal rules of effective public speaking, and her whole approach to is a fine example of how to deal with those rare occasions when you have to conceal what you really feel about the things you are talking about. Another master of this was Mr McGregor, an official spokesman for the foreign office during the Falklands war, who made regular appearances of on television reading out progress reports in a flat, deadpan monotone – presumably because a vital part of his job was to give nothing away that might have encouraged or discouraged viewers, whether British or Argentinian, about how things were going in the South Atlantic.
How to prevent a civil war
Public speaking at its best depends both on the language used to package the key messages and the way it is delivered. Using rhetoric, maintaining eye contact with the audience, pausing regularly and in particular places, stressing certain words and changing intonation are all essential ingredients in the cocktail for conveying passion and inspiring an audience. This is why it is so easy to ‘dehumanise’ the speech of Daleks and other talking robots by the simple device of stripping out any hint of intonational variation and have them speak in a flat, regular and monotonous tone of voice.
When it comes to sounding unenthusiastic and uninterested in inspiring an audience, the Queen’s Speech is an example with few serious competitors. She has no qualms about being seen to be wearing spectacles, which underline the fact that she is reading carefully from the script she holds so obviously in front of her. Nor is she in the least bit inhibited about fixing her eyes on the text rather than the audience. Then, as she enunciates the sentences, her tone is so disinterested as to make it abundantly clear that she is merely reciting words written by someone else and about which she has no personal feelings or opinions whatsoever.
This is, of course, how it has to be in a constitutional monarchy, where the head of state has to be publicly seen and heard as obsessively neutral about the policies of whatever political party happens to have ended up in power. The Queen knows, just as everyone else knows, that showing enthusiasm, or lack of it, about the law-making plans of her government would lead to a serious crisis that would be more than her job is worth. So, even when announcing plans to ban hunting with hounds, she managed not to convey the slightest hint of disappointment or irritation that a favorite pastime of her immediate family was about to be outlawed.
The Queen’s Speech is therefore an interesting exception to the normal rules of effective public speaking, and her whole approach to is a fine example of how to deal with those rare occasions when you have to conceal what you really feel about the things you are talking about. Another master of this was Mr McGregor, an official spokesman for the foreign office during the Falklands war, who made regular appearances of on television reading out progress reports in a flat, deadpan monotone – presumably because a vital part of his job was to give nothing away that might have encouraged or discouraged viewers, whether British or Argentinian, about how things were going in the South Atlantic.
How to prevent a civil war
A much more surprising case was Nelson Mandela’s first speech after being released from prison in 1990. Here was a highly effective communicator, whose words at his trial 27 years earlier are to be found in most books of great speeches, and who had had the best part of three decades to prepare an inspiring and memorable text. But it was not to be. As if modeling his performance on the Queen’s Speech, he buried his head in the script and spoke in a flat measured tone that came across as completely lacking in the kind of passion everyone was expecting from someone who had suffered so much and was held in such high regard by his audience.
Having waited for years for this historic event, anticipating something on a par with Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech, I remember being disappointed and surprised by what I saw and heard from the balcony of City Hall in Cape Town. It was only later that it dawned on me that this was another case where rousing rhetoric would have been completely counter-productive. The political situation in South Africa was poised on a knife-edge and his release from prison had only happened at all because the apartheid regime was crumbling. It was a moment when anything more inspiring from Mandela might have come across as a call to arms and could easily have prompted an immediate uprising or civil war. But the political understanding with the minority white government was that the African National Congress would keep the lid on things for long enough to enable a settlement to be negotiated. As when the Queen opens parliament, Mr Mandela knew exactly what he was doing, how to do it and that he could not have done otherwise.
Having waited for years for this historic event, anticipating something on a par with Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech, I remember being disappointed and surprised by what I saw and heard from the balcony of City Hall in Cape Town. It was only later that it dawned on me that this was another case where rousing rhetoric would have been completely counter-productive. The political situation in South Africa was poised on a knife-edge and his release from prison had only happened at all because the apartheid regime was crumbling. It was a moment when anything more inspiring from Mandela might have come across as a call to arms and could easily have prompted an immediate uprising or civil war. But the political understanding with the minority white government was that the African National Congress would keep the lid on things for long enough to enable a settlement to be negotiated. As when the Queen opens parliament, Mr Mandela knew exactly what he was doing, how to do it and that he could not have done otherwise.
Displaying neutrality
So as well as listening to the content of the Queen’s Speech on 3rd December, it is also worth close inspection as an object lesson on how to address an audience if you’re ever in a position of having to convey complete neutrality and detachment. Or, if you’d rather rise to the much more usual challenge of trying to inspire your audience, pay close attention to the way she delivers it -- and then do exactly the opposite.
(Click here or on title to see her in action at the State Opening of Parliament in 2006).
Max Atkinson is author of Speech-making and Presentation Made Easy: Seven Essential Steps to Success ( 2008), and Lend Me Your Ears: All You Need to Know about Making Speeches and Presentations (2004) and was a speechwriter and coach to Paddy Ashdown (website: www.speaking.co.uk).
So as well as listening to the content of the Queen’s Speech on 3rd December, it is also worth close inspection as an object lesson on how to address an audience if you’re ever in a position of having to convey complete neutrality and detachment. Or, if you’d rather rise to the much more usual challenge of trying to inspire your audience, pay close attention to the way she delivers it -- and then do exactly the opposite.
(Click here or on title to see her in action at the State Opening of Parliament in 2006).
Max Atkinson is author of Speech-making and Presentation Made Easy: Seven Essential Steps to Success ( 2008), and Lend Me Your Ears: All You Need to Know about Making Speeches and Presentations (2004) and was a speechwriter and coach to Paddy Ashdown (website: www.speaking.co.uk).
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