So don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Barack. I'm rooting for him bigtime! But I just have to comment on this... When I was a kid, I got in the habit of saying "ya know" after almost every sentence. At some point I must have driven my parent's crazy with that cause they forced me to break the habit. (well, forced in the sense of pointing it out to me every time I said). Now... every time I hear someone else who has these sort of speech hiccups, I can't help but notice. It seems a lot of teens now-a-days say "Like" a lot. For some reason I've noticed the rapper culture (I'm generalizing I know) has a love affair with "know what I mean" to the point where sometimes it's comical how often they say it.
I also am aware that a lot times these speech hiccups are due to a nervousness too.
I just now, heard a small sound clip with Barack, and he's fallen into that same category that I did. His crutch is "uh" - This really surprises me on one level, because here is a guy who is about to (hopefully) win the top most public speaking job in the country! and yet he's got this stutter (I wish I knew what to call it, it's not really a stutter, but it sort of is). I've noticed that during his speeches he doesn't use it as much. When he gets on a roll he's like a preacher, who can use the sing-song cadence of words to lure people into a rhythm. But when he's caught in an interview or debate where he must think on his feet quickly, he uses the "uh" a lot.
I'm not surprised he does for another reason... A LOT of Politicians do this. Hilary, Bush, Condi Rice, etc... They are the top three that pop to mind.
I've also noticed a trend in the pundits (and some politicians) who do this too, but on a different level... they instead start (almost) every sentence with words like "Look... The truth is... The reality is..." etc.
I've often wanted to take a video of one of these famous public speakers, and then edit out all the real words, and just leave a video of uh's and ah's to see how many seconds or minutes of their speech is them "singing" :)
know what I mean?
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Unfortunately, the art of public speaking has been removed from education. If you'll notice, even "big time" news casters and talk show celebs drop their g's and have very poor enunciation. I doubt most middle school and high school students today even KNOW the meaning of "enunciate."
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