Cleaning Up Your Language: Persuasive Oration

Language, like persuasion, is an art. It's an art that can be mangled, yes. And as with any art, unless you're a prodigy, as Mozart was with music, as H.P. Lovecraft was with poetry, as Pablo Picasso was with painting, then most likely you will have to practice to be good at the art of language.

As we gear ourselves toward working with a more affluent clientle, using language and speaking powerfully will serve us well.

If you're a reader -- magazines, books, newspapers, internet, or what have you -- the bigger your vocabulary will be (unless you're reading gossip mags, in which case your vocabulary will not improve). So the first thing you can do to increase your vocabulary is read.

Having a huge vocabulary doesn't mean that you're going to be a great speaker. The art of oratory is an entirely different beast. First you have the fear of public speaking to get over (if you're inflicted with this, the most common of fears) and then, of course, you have to have something to say.

Okay, now you've got your vocabulary, you've overcome the fear of public speaking, you have something interesting and valuable to impart to your audience. . . now you have to deal with the delivery.

Recently my transcriptionist told me that I say the phrase 'in other words' a lot. She makes a good point. I suppose I do this for two reasons. The first is that I am attempting to deliver the information I have for my students in as many ways as possible. Secondly, I'm not one to use the stalling word 'um', and 'in other words' may be taking the place of 'um' in how I speak.

There's a great new book out called "Um. . . Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders and What They Mean" by Michael Erard. One of the most interesting things I've read so far in 'Um. . .' is that this is a universal. All languages have their own version of 'um' (in Spain it's 'eh', in France 'euh') and the use of this filler has been around since at least as far back as the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks.

It's only been in since the twentieth century that 'um. . .' has become unpopular with academics and teachers, most likely coinciding with television and radio.

'Um. . .' starts out in the offices of the Federal News Service in the transcription department. These transcriptionists do the closed captions for the hearing impaired for news shows. As per the style guidelines of the FNS, all ers, uhs, umms, and ehs are left out, as are false starts and partial words. The exception to this rule is that everything a policymaker says is typed out verbatim.

I haven't finished the book yet, but I couldn't stop myself from skipping to the chapter on George W. Bush. It's not as funny as the book 'Bushisms' but it is an interesting perspective. People view him, as a result of what the author calls 'disfluencies', either as 'down home', 'one of the common people', with his gaffes making him appear more accessible, others consider his blunders a lack of intelligence and a dangerous indication that he is not connected to reality. Regardless of which side of the argument you fall, some of the more memorable disfluencies are pretty funny.

This week, pay close attention to the way you talk. How many times do you use um or uh? How often do you start a thought and then let it fall away? How many blunders do you make? And pay attention to the way other people talk too and how their language affects the way you perceive them.

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Kenrick Cleveland teaches strategies to earn the business of affluent prospects using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion strategies.

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