Can't get a word in edgewise
September 13th 2006 10:35
I'm a sucker. I'll usually let you speak until you feel you've made your point. But politeness costs. Some people find their point takes an awful lot of words. And other people find their point leads them to important new points, and on and on.
And with other people still, the linking of points is a conscious artform. Here's two techniques:
1. Seems to be common among barristers. You talk and talk, and the only time you pause for breath is when you've just asked a leading question. You then take the answer to that question and weave it into a new point, and you talk and talk. An expert at this technique can avoid ever addressing the subject of a meeting.
2. From an anonoymous "Grammar detective", posted in response to a article by Terry O'Connor in the Courier Mail:
"Has anyone else noticed how adept certain politicians have become at shifting the natural pause of a sentence?
I suspect there’s some kind of mysterious school out there where pollies are forced to regurgitate endless lines of doublespeak in an unnatural rhythm.
There is however, a good reason for it.
Kim Beazley for one, has become quite adept at this tactic, where the interviewee pauses for breath halfway through a sentence, so at the end of the sentence he has plenty of oomph, so he can add a 'just let me say this kerry' and launch into another diatribe with a pause halfway through - instead of at the normal spot which is at the end of the sentence.
And the worst thing is, it works damnit!
I for one, am protesting this(inhale).... butchery of the vocal chords, and just let me say one thing, Beazley! Breath(inhale)..... like a human being! Stop this chicanery!"
Notes on pauses
* People are generally quite sensitive to the breathing pause.
The Beatles' song "Across the universe" is sung in unnaturally long units, creating a feeling of continuity and smoothness -- and people notice.
Judy Garland creates launch and soaring by taking no breaths in the course of: "Some day I'll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me."
Fat Boy Slim's "Praise you" creates a feeling of suspended animation.
* Commas have at least three functions: they clarify grammatical construction, they break thoughts into bite sizes, and they indicate spoken pause (as if the page were a musical score).
There's all sorts of places where commas are optional, and the good writer knows when to take the option.
* It's quite natural for commas to have these functions. After all, we do pretty much the same thing in speech. We're trained that if we're going to draw breath, we need to make it count.
Good singers and speakers know when to take the option.
* In some contexts, pause length indicates something about the speaker's thoughts. Nancy Sinatra's "Bang bang" is a good example. The pauses you hurry over, and the pauses you dwell on...
* And perhaps different cultures will have different semantics of pause.
* It takes time to understand something. Good speakers and rappers are sensitive to the averge time to digest a particular idea, and there is an art in the interplay of sound and understanding -- sometimes they'll continue speaking just before the meaning is clear, and sometimes they'll use an unnaturally long pause to sink a thought in.
This can't easily be taught -- it's the sort of thing you just need to have a feel for.
In acting, insensitivity to the understanding-pause is one of the giveaways of a memorized text.
In music, you rarely play the notes perfectly in time -- you speed a little here, slow a little there -- and it's in these fractions of variation that personality and art come in.
* A presenter once told me (though I don't agree): if you pause for one second before saying something, the audience thinks, "This is going to be important", at two seconds they think "This is really important", at three seconds they think, "This better be important", and at four seconds they think, "He's forgotten what he's going to say".
Thanks to Damo for the following recording, which seems to show that the speaker's breathing comes at regular intervals.
It should be noted, however, that this was reading from a script, so it would be more controlled than natural speech.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. The image of the musical rests was obtained from this website. The comma came from this website. Kim Beazley came from Wikipedia. And the pause button came from this website.
And with other people still, the linking of points is a conscious artform. Here's two techniques:
1. Seems to be common among barristers. You talk and talk, and the only time you pause for breath is when you've just asked a leading question. You then take the answer to that question and weave it into a new point, and you talk and talk. An expert at this technique can avoid ever addressing the subject of a meeting.
2. From an anonoymous "Grammar detective", posted in response to a article by Terry O'Connor in the Courier Mail:
"Has anyone else noticed how adept certain politicians have become at shifting the natural pause of a sentence?
I suspect there’s some kind of mysterious school out there where pollies are forced to regurgitate endless lines of doublespeak in an unnatural rhythm.
Kim Beazley for one, has become quite adept at this tactic, where the interviewee pauses for breath halfway through a sentence, so at the end of the sentence he has plenty of oomph, so he can add a 'just let me say this kerry' and launch into another diatribe with a pause halfway through - instead of at the normal spot which is at the end of the sentence.
And the worst thing is, it works damnit!
I for one, am protesting this(inhale).... butchery of the vocal chords, and just let me say one thing, Beazley! Breath(inhale)..... like a human being! Stop this chicanery!"
***
Notes on pauses
* People are generally quite sensitive to the breathing pause.
The Beatles' song "Across the universe" is sung in unnaturally long units, creating a feeling of continuity and smoothness -- and people notice.
Judy Garland creates launch and soaring by taking no breaths in the course of: "Some day I'll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me."
Fat Boy Slim's "Praise you" creates a feeling of suspended animation.
There's all sorts of places where commas are optional, and the good writer knows when to take the option.
* It's quite natural for commas to have these functions. After all, we do pretty much the same thing in speech. We're trained that if we're going to draw breath, we need to make it count.
Good singers and speakers know when to take the option.
* In some contexts, pause length indicates something about the speaker's thoughts. Nancy Sinatra's "Bang bang" is a good example. The pauses you hurry over, and the pauses you dwell on...
* And perhaps different cultures will have different semantics of pause.
This can't easily be taught -- it's the sort of thing you just need to have a feel for.
In acting, insensitivity to the understanding-pause is one of the giveaways of a memorized text.
In music, you rarely play the notes perfectly in time -- you speed a little here, slow a little there -- and it's in these fractions of variation that personality and art come in.
* A presenter once told me (though I don't agree): if you pause for one second before saying something, the audience thinks, "This is going to be important", at two seconds they think "This is really important", at three seconds they think, "This better be important", and at four seconds they think, "He's forgotten what he's going to say".
***
Thanks to Damo for the following recording, which seems to show that the speaker's breathing comes at regular intervals.
It should be noted, however, that this was reading from a script, so it would be more controlled than natural speech.
Soundwave of human speech -- click to expand
***
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. The image of the musical rests was obtained from this website. The comma came from this website. Kim Beazley came from Wikipedia. And the pause button came from this website.
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Comment by Damo
Here an experiment.
Have a look a sound wave when someone is talking. You'll see groups of rythms.
If our leader start to to sing to us we're all lost.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
I think you might also find that a lot of actors have somehow ingested a monotonous acting rhythm.
Perhaps different English dialects have different rhythms, and different discourses have different rhythms (speechifying might be different from stand up comedy).
... Thinking about this subject, one point to make is that "rhythm" can be understood in various ways. You can think of it, for instance, as the pattern of pauses, or the pattern of rise and fall of the voice (volume), or the relative duration of syllables (as in Greek and Roman and French poetry), or the pattern of stress accent (as in English poetry).
Comment by Jas
Stories: Put Them in Your Brain
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Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
You'd be surprised how meaningful the word "turnip" can be when accompanied by appropriate vocal tone and gesturing. I imagine it could run the gamut from "fuck you" to "I love you".
Comment by Damo
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
By the way, when you said "rhythm" before, did you mean the pauses occur at regular intervals?
Comment by Damo
Yes there are pauses but also hits. All evidence is sunject to interpretation so let me know what you think when you see the images.