Mitt Romney's US = Unbearable Smugness



On the day of President Obama's inaugural speech in 2009, I blogged about a line I didn't want to hear in his speech (here):

"If there’s one thing that irks me about speeches by American presidents, it’s their tendency to overstate the case for their country being the first, finest or only example of freedom and democracy in the world."

And, to be fair, he obliged by avoiding any such extremes of smugness.

But there will, I fear, be no such luck if Mitt Romney makes it to the White House.

Having watched his acceptance speech a couple of times, I'm finding it difficult to decide which of the following I find more annoying: the fact that he uttered these lines at all, or the rapturous response they triggered from the audience:

"like all  Americans who went to bed that night knowing that we lived in the greatest country in the history of the world" (scroll in 9:40 minutes).

"When the world needs someone to do the really big stuff, you need an American." (Scroll in 10:20 minutes).

(See also: 'Mirror mirror on the wall, whose is the fairest democracy of all?')

Speeches in a common language for a fistful of voters?



If proof were needed of a point I made a while back - that actors, with the notable exception of Ronald Reagan, are often hopeless public speakers - look no further than Clint Eastwood's speech at the Republican Convention (above).

And, although I'm quite a fan of some US orators past and present (e.g. Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King and Barack Obama) my main reaction to what I've seen so far from Tampa has been "pass the sick bag".

Watching Mr Eastwood and Mrs Romney made me think that George Bernard Shaw was dead right when he said "England and America are two countries separated by a common language":

This extraordinary speech by Clint Eastwood reminded me of earlier blogs in which I've noted that, with a few notable exceptions like Ronald Reagan, actors tend not to be very competent public speakers.

Assange speaks out


Julian Assange may have attracted world attention via WikiLeaks and his alleged sexual behaviour in Sweden but I doubt if he'd ever have been noticed if he'd relied on public speaking as his main form of communication .

His speech the other day from a balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London may not have been too badly written, but his delivery left rather a lot to be desired.

An expressionless face, peculiar pausing and repetitive gesticulating with his fist made me wonder whether he'd read it through at all beforehand, let alone taken the trouble to rehearse it a few times.

In fact, the only place where he appeared to come alive was during the rather odd sequence when he recited a long list of Latin American countries (3:46 minutes in) famous for defending human rights (?).

As for what else Mr Assange had to say, I was left wondering who he thinks he is to make such grandiose demands from the USA and the UK, while conveniently forgetting to say anything about his unfinished business in Sweden.
Julian Assagne's speech from the Ecuadorian embassy in London the other day may not have been too badly written, but his delivery left much to be desired. His expressionless face, peculiar pausing and repetitive gesticulating with his fist made me wonder whether he'd read it through at all, let alone at several rehearsals. The only time he showed signs of coming alive was when he recited a long list of names of Latin American countries (3:47 minutes in)

Great Britain has as many gold medals as the Soviet Union

As one who was brought up to expect Great Britain never to win more than a tiny handful of Olympic gold medals, our current haul of 16 golds, 11 silver and 10 bronze got me wondering how this would have compared with the score of what used to be a major Olympic player, the Soviet Union - if its constituent countries still counted as one.

The answer is that they too would now be at 16 gold medals:

(Gold Silver Bronze)
Russian Federation  4 16 15
Kazakhstan  6 0 0
Belarus  2 2 3
Ukraine  2 0 5
Lithuania  1 0 1
Georgia  1 0 0
Azerbaijan  0 1 2
Armenia  0 1 1
Moldova  0 01
Uzbekistan  0 0 1

... which sounds like encouraging news for those of us of a certain age!


All Greek to me: but how much do native speakers gesticulate?

Just back from a fortnight's sunshine - yes, every single day - on a Greek island, here are some holiday snaps that got me thinking (again) about a theme touched on from time to time on this blog, namely the question of whether some languages are inherently more long-winded than others, and the implications this may have (if any) for things like gestural activity while speaking.

1. My first specimen, with 5 syllables of Greek being translated into 3 syllables of English hardly qualifies as decisive enough:


2. But, on an Olympic Airways flight, 13 syllables of Greek was translated (condensed?) into 6 syllables of English suggests the former may be rather more long-winded:


3. And another handy message on the same flight was translated (condensed?) from 17 syllables of Greek into 7 syllables of English:



Latin v. Greek?
In the first of the posts below, I suggested that there may be a good reason why speakers of Latin-based languages like French, Italian and Spanish are alleged to wave their hands about a lot when speaking - and that it might have something to do with it being more challenging to hold the attentiveness of speakers of/listeners to long-winded languages.

On the basis of this small sample, Greek appears to be far more long-winded than English. Yet I've  never heard Greeks included in lists of keen Mediterranean gesticulators. 

So today's question is whether there are any native speakers or observers out there who can shed light on this intriguing issue?

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