Some names also can be verbs

In the May 27, 2020 Pearls Before Swine comic strip there is an unusual way (heuristic) for selecting people:

Goat: It’s so hard to hire someone based solely on their resume.

Rat: As a rule, never hire a Bob, Bill, Don, Chuck, Mark, Rob, Nick, Grant, Pat, Ralph, Skip, Sue.

Goat: Why not?

Rat: They could sneak off and moonlight as verbs.

Goat: Mind if I rat you out?

Rat: I am an exception.

One little speech (because everything hasn’t been said)

You always can give a little speech or tell a story of your very own - since everything has not been said yet.

A few days ago I was reloading my iPod from my extensive collection of CDs and happened to select Gillian Welch’s 2003 album Soul Journey. On it is One Little Song, which inspired this brief post. You can watch her sing it live in 2018 on YouTube. Lyrics for the first verse are:

“Gotta be a song left to sing

Everybody can’t have thought of everything

One little song that ain’t been sung

One little rag that ain’t been wrung out completely yet

Gotta little left

One little drop of fallin’ rain, one little chance to try again

One little bird that makes it home now and then

One little piece of endless sky, and one little taste of cherry pie

One little week in paradise, and I start thinkin’ “

You probably won’t hear speaking coaches or motivational speakers cite results about fear of public speaking from the 2019 Chapman Survey of American Fears

That is because the fear of public speaking only is ranked #54 of 88 fears (and it has a fear score of only 2.081 – just above Slightly Afraid). Results from the 2019 Chapman Survey of American Fears finally were released on May 19, 2020 -  before Memorial Day. Results from previous surveys had been released before Halloween. But a motivational speaker also had a press release on May 19, 2020 titled Michael Lehrke discusses how to overcome fear of public speaking including a claim that:

“However, one fear that reportedly towers above them all is fear of public speaking or glossophobia.”

The latest Chapman survey was done between August 7 and 26 of 2019 on 1219 U.S. adults. Detailed results are reported in a .pdf file titled Methodology Report: American Fears Survey. There also is an article in a .pdf file by Sheyra Sheth titled America’s Top Fears 2019. As usual, there is a complete list of all 88 fears ranked by the percentage for Very Afraid plus Afraid. (It also is possible to use detailed results and calculate a Fear Score on a scale from 1 to 4 where 1 = Not Afraid, 2 = Slightly Afraid, 3 = Afraid, and 4 = Very Afraid). Some results are of particular interest during this time of COVID-19. They are by rank, percent, and fear score:

Corrupt government officials #1, 77.2%, 3.170

People I love becoming seriously ill #3, 66.7%, 2.944

People I love dying #5, 62.9%, 2.853

Becoming seriously ill #16, 51.3%, 2.583

Pandemic or a major epidemic #31, 42.8%, 2.392

Heights #41, 36.2%, 2.220

Dying #44, 34.6%, 2.158

Sharks #47, 32.3%, 2.015

Public speaking #54, 31.2%, 2.081

Fear of corrupt government officials ranked first and was far above public speaking. For public speaking the detailed results from 2019 were Very Afraid 12.8%, Afraid 18.4%, Slightly Afraid 32.9%, and Not Afraid 35.9%.

On May 2, 2020 I blogged about how it was not true that Are sharks now the #1 fear in America? Is public speaking only #2? On May 7, 2020 I also blogged about Tone deaf writing about fears of pandemic and public speaking. In that post I discussed another claim - that fear of public speaking was more terrifying than either sharks or heights.

Coaches often cite a Washington Post article about the 2014 Chapman Survey – where public speaking was ranked first out of twelve fears. On September 29, 2019 I had blogged about Stop playing – do serious digging before you come up with an opening statement. I pointed out that the more recent surveys had much different rankings.

The cartoon of a Cheerful Male Public Speaker was modified from one at Wikimedia Commons.

Simplified images either can clarify or confuse

A simplified image can clarify a point by removing unnecessary details. But it also can confuse by leading us to believe nonsense, like the blivet shown above.

On April 23, 2020 President Trump had speculated about putting both disinfectants and UV light inside our bodies. David Gorski discussed both the next day in an article at Respectful Insolence titled President Trump and “just asking questions” about disinfectants and UV light to treat COVID-19.

Trump supporters pointed to a proposed device called Healight using ultraviolet light emitting diodes. There is a video animation on the Aytu BioScience Healight Platform Technology. At the Washington Times on April 26, 2020 there was an article by Rowan Scarborough titled Firm tests uv light treatment that Trump was mocked for mentioning. The next day at Respectful Insolence David Gorski had another article titled Healight: a highly implausible treatment for COVID-19. He pointed out that device was shown going down the trachea, and could not possibly reach most of the highly branched lung surfaces.

The image shown above at the left is the oversimplified lung anatomy from the Healight video animation. The image at the right is a cast from a lung – another simplified way of showing the real anatomy. (The Wikipedia article titled Pulmonary alveolus has a more complicated and less clear image of a lung). The lung really has a very highly fractally branched structure similar to a tree. A single catheter would be unable to reach most of those surfaces, and thus would be anatomically useless.

Another ‘HeyPal’ phishing email

Today I received another fraudulent phishing email claiming to be from PayPal and warning that my account has been limited. It was hilariously inept. Of course the email address it came from had no relation to PayPal. They also sent me eight copies in a row - which went right into my junk mail folder.

As shown above, the big giveaway is a button telling me to Reactive Account Service Now. Presumably they meant to say Reactivate. But there also is lettering for putting in fake PayPal and Facebook logos. On April 6, 2020 I blogged about An inept ‘HeyPal’ phishing email.  

Pop-Tarts: comedy, history, and toaster fires

I particularly enjoyed a routine in Jerry Seinfeld’s Netflix special 23 Hours to Kill about Pop-Tarts. He said to:

“Think back to when the Pop-Tart came out. It was the 60s. We had toast! We had orange juice frozen decades in advance. You had to hack at it with a knife. It was like a murder to get a couple of drops of liquidity in the morning. We had shredded wheat. It was like wrapping your lips around a wood chipper. You’d have breakfast, you had to take two days off so the scars could heal so you could speak….

That was breakfast. And in the midst of that dark and hopeless moment, the Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts suddenly appeared out of Battle Creek Michigan, which as you cereal fans know, is the corporate headquarters of Kellog’s and a town I have always wanted to visit … because it seems like a cereal Silicon Valley of breakfast super scientists … conceiving of the frosted, fruit filled, heatable rectangles in the same shape as the box it comes in … and with the same nutrition as the box it comes in too.

That was the hard part. I don’t know how long it took to invent the Pop-Tart, but they must have come out of that lab like Moses with the two tablets of the Ten Commandments.

‘The Pop-Tart is here! Two in the packet! Two slots in a toaster! Let’s see ya screw this up! Why two? One’s not enough. Three’s too many. And they can’t go stale ‘cause they weren’t ever fresh.’ “

History of Toaster Pastries

At Mashed on April 9, 2018 there is an article by Carissa Stanz titled The untold truth of Pop-Tarts. She said Post actually came up with Country Squares before Kelloggs but unveiled them before they were ready to hit the market. Kelloggs had time to knock off the product, and mass market first. An earlier article for the thirtieth anniversary by Steve Hymon in the Chicago Tribune on September 25, 1994 titled Toasting an icon compared the marketing:

“The names given to the two products were one more indication of Kellogg's superior marketing savvy. Kellogg appreciated that kids were the primary target audience for Pop-Tarts because they had yet to establish breakfast habits of their own. Post seems to have been more confused. As awful a name as Country Squares seems in 1994, it was arguably worse in 1964, when the word ‘square’ was widely used to mean ‘nerdy.’ When paired with ‘country,’ it seemed to describe a food for middle-age rubes from the sticks.”

My family tasted toaster pastries before they were sold in supermarkets

I remember tasting one type of unmarked toaster pastry before either was in supermarkets. My stay-at-home mother raising us five kids had signed up for a consumer panel that sent out free products to be tested. We just had to fill out a set of survey questions about our reactions. I vaguely recall that prototype product had less filling and was less tasty than what eventually appeared.  

Toaster pastries can cause fires

At the Miami Herald on June 27, 1993 there was a humor column by Dave Barry titled Tarts Afire. He discussed a fire in Ohio from pastries stuck in a toaster. A recent article at Extra Crispy on February 7, 2018 is titled Pop-Tarts are flammable, so we set some on fire. You never should leave a toaster unattended. Some toasters even can turn themselves on after a power failure, as described in CPSC recalls for ones from Waring and KitchenAid.

The pop tarts image came from Evan Amos at Wikimedia Commons. The toaster fire cartoon was adapted from an image of a Hamilton Beach toaster at Wikimedia Commons.  

The point in your PowerPoint slide deck should be clear

On Monday May 11, 2020 there was a Dilbert comic strip titled Point at end of slide deck that has the following dialogue:

Man: What do you think of my slide deck?

Dilbert: I reviewed all 26 slides and I can’t figure out what your point is.

Man: I could put the point on slide 27.

Dilbert: Or just give up.

It’s easy for your point to get lost when you just open up PowerPoint and start cranking out data slides. Before you do that you need to plan what points need to be made. Start with an outline, mind map, or storyboard. On March 18, 2012 I blogged about Does your speech have too much content and not enough structure?

And on May 10, 2014 I blogged about how Message Mapping is a tool for planning your speech (when you have several points to make).

A statue of Don Quixote in Toledo (Coronades03) and an image with a hand, a bar chart, and pie chart (Maximillian Klein) were both adapted from Wikimedia Commons.  

What story did Mark Twain tell about his experience with stage fright?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first use of the term stage fright was by Mark Twain in his 1876 novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Twain was first, but he actually used it four years earlier, in 1872 in Chapter 78 of his book Roughing It, which you can read at Project Gutenberg.

He said he had a severe case of stage fright only once, before lecturing for the first time in San Francisco on October 2, 1866. But it went away in less than five minutes after he began to speak, and never returned. Mark said that:

“….I went down back streets at six o’clock and entered the theatre by the back door. I stumbled my way in the dark among the ranks of canvas scenery, and stood on the stage. The house was gloomy and silent, and its emptiness depressing. I went into the dark among the scenes again, and for an hour and a half gave myself up to the horrors, wholly unconscious of everything else. Then I heard a murmur; it rose higher and higher, and ended in a crash, mingled with cheers. It made my hair raise, it was so close to me and so loud.

There was a pause, and then another; presently came a third, and before I well knew what I was about, I was in the middle of the stage, staring at a sea of faces, bewildered by the fierce glare of the lights, and quaking in every limb with a terror that seemed like to take my life away. The house was full, aisles and all!

The tumult in my heart and brain and legs continued a full minute before I could gain any command over myself. Then I recognized the charity and the friendliness in the faces before me, and I began to talk. Within three or four minutes I was comfortable, and even content.” 

Another version appeared much later in his Remarks at the American concert debut of his daughter Clara Clemens, at the Eldridge Gymnasium in Norfolk, Connecticut on September 22, 1906. It appears in Mark Twain’s Speeches titled as Mark Twain’s First Appearance and can be found at the Internet Archive.

“My heart goes out in sympathy to anyone who is making his first appearance before an audience of human beings. By a direct process of memory I go back forty years, less one month – for I’m older than I look.

I recall the occasion of my first appearance. San Francisco knew me then only as a reporter, and I was to make my bow to San Francisco as a lecturer. I knew that nothing short of compulsion would get me to the theater. So I bound myself by a hard-and-fast contract so that I could not escape. I got to the theater forty-five minutes before the hour set for the lecture. My knees were shaking so that I didn’t know whether I could stand up. If there is an awful, horrible malady in the world, it is stage fright – and seasickness. They are a pair. I had stage fright then for the first and last time. I was only seasick once, too. It was on a little ship on which there were two hundred other passengers. I – was -sick/ I was so sick there wasn’t any left for those other two hundred passengers.

It was dark and lonely behind the scenes in that theater, and I peeked through the little peek holes they have in theater curtains and looked into the big auditorium. That was dark and empty, too. By and by it lighted up, and the audience began to arrive.

I had got a number of friends of mine, stalwart men, to sprinkle themselves through the audience armed with big clubs. Every time I said anything they could possibly guess I intended to be funny they were to pound those clubs on the floor. Then there was a kind lady in a box up there, also a good friend of mine, the wife of the governor. She was to watch me intently, and whenever I glanced toward her she was going to deliver a gubernatorial laugh that would lead the whole audience into applause. 

At last I began. I had the manuscript tucked under a United States flag in front of me where I could get at it in case of need. But I managed to get started without it. I walked up and down – I was young in those days and needed the exercise – and talked and talked.

Right in the middle of the speech I had placed a gem. I had put in a moving, pathetic part which was to get at the hearts and souls of my hearers. When I delivered it they did just what I hoped and expected. They sat silent and awed. I had touched them. Then I happened to glance up at the box where the governor’s wife was – you know what happened.

Well, after the first agonizing five minutes, my stage fright left me, never to return. I know that if I was going to be hanged I could get up and make a good showing, and I intend to. But I shall never forget my feelings before the agony left me, and I got up here to thank you for her for helping my daughter, by your kindness, to live through her first appearance. And I want to thank you for your appreciation of her singing, which is, by the way, hereditary.”

Many, including me, had another impression of his opinion based on quotations like:

“There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars.”

But, as I discussed in my May 12, 2020 blog post titled Did Mark Twain really say there were just nervous speakers or liars? that quotation didn’t actually come from Mark Twain. It showed up in a 2015 press release from Toastmasters International ironically titled Five public speaking myths debunked.

Is this stage fright story completely or even partially true? Given his penchant for telling tall tales, it’s not clear.

Did Mark Twain really say there were just nervous speakers or liars?

Probably not. At Manner of Speaking on December 7, 2009 John Zimmer began a long series of articles about quotes with one titled Quotes for public speakers (No. 1) – Mark Twain where he gave it as:

“There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars.”

 

A couple months ago, on March 5, 2020, there was an article by Garson O’Toole at his Quote Investigator web site titled There are two types of speakers: those who are nervous and those who are liars. Mr. O’Toole authored a 2017 book: Hemingway Didn’t Say That - the truth behind familiar quotations. He said the ‘those’ quote attributed to Mark Twain first turned up back in 1998 at a Usenet newsgroup called alt business.seminars. Twain died back in 1910 (88 years earlier), and Garson couldn’t find any older version in writings, dictations, or speeches of Mark Twain. He concluded the quote was anonymous.

I did my own research – via my public library using the EBSCOhost databases, and on the web using Google (and particularly Google Books). At EBSCO there were full text versions of some books about Twain, but the quote was not in them. The earliest magazine article was by Carolyn J. Gard  in the September 1999 issue of Current Health, and had a similar version to that reported by John Zimmer:

“Mark Twain once said, ‘There are two kinds of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars.’ ”

Using Google Books I found an even earlier snippet reference from 1984 in Supervision magazine, Volumes 46 and 47, page 25:

“There are two kinds of public speakers,” according to Mark Twain, “- those who are nervous when they start and liars.”

If a quote really had come from Twain, then why didn’t it appear before roughly three-quarters of a century after his death? A more recent version adds the numbers one and two (and the world). For example, at Ragan on March 8, 2013 in an article titled The smartest insights ever about public speaking Michelle Mazur instead had:

“There are only two types of speakers in the world. 1. The Nervous and 2. Liars – Mark Twain”

Toastmasters International also had the numbered and world version in a press release on October 21, 2015 ironically titled Five public speaking myths debunked (and still on their web site):

“Myth 2: Experienced speakers don’t get nervous.

Reality: Mark Twain said there are two types of speakers in the world: 1) the nervous and 2) liars.”

Since Toastmasters is considered an authoritative source, their version was repeated in an article by Jessica Stillman at Inc. on November 3, 2015 titled 5 myths that only bad public speakers believe.

Andy Molinsky also used it at Psychology Today on November 26, 2018 in another article titled Conquer your fear of public speaking with these 5 tips. He had a version over at LinkedIn Pulse with the quote in a box next to a portrait of Twain. A similar image with a fancy border is at AZ Quotes. But it’s still just baloney.  

Finding this quote is bogus might be more distressing for some than finding out the truth about Santa Claus. What is the lesson? Don’t believe everything you read! Be more critical and ask questions. What are the other details, like where and when was it said? 

The image of Bologna is from Wikimedia Commons. The 1885 print of Mark Twain and 1913 Puck magazine cover came from the Library of Congress.

Affect versus effect (and iffect, offect, uffect, and yffect)

On May 7, 2020 Zack Weinersmith published a Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic titled Know the Difference about affect (a verb meaning to influence something) versus effect (a noun referring to the result of an action). Then he pulled a “Dr. Seuss” by defining four completely new words: iffect, offect, uffect, and yffect. For uffect he provided this example sentence:

“The uffect affected my offect and I felt an iffect effect.”   

At Netflix there is a new Jerry Seinfeld comedy special

I just watched Jerry Seinfeld’s Netflix comedy special 23 Hour to Kill (trailer shown above). It was enjoyable for me because I am just slightly older than he is, and sometimes am similarly cranky:

“I don’t like to turn around. Like, if I’m walking down the street like this.

‘Jerry, check this out. You gotta see this.’

This move. I don’t like doing this thing. Anymore. I just don’t wanna do it.

‘You gotta see this.’ I disagree. I don’t feel old, I don’t feel tired; I’ve just seen a lot of things.

I’ll see it on the way back, when it’s in front of me. How ‘bout that? Or I won’t see it. Or I’ll Google it. Or I’ll just assume it’s probably a lot like something else I’ve already seen.”

Jerry still is excellent at catching humor in small stuff, like doubletalk language that is literal:

“If you repeat a word twice in a sentence, you can say that with a lot of confidence. Business is business, rules are rules, deal’s a deal. When we go in there, as long as we know what’s what and who’s who, whatever happens happens, and it is what it ls.”

Netflix has another promo video which is a parody of a scene from Goldfinger but also discusses the design of bathrooms.

Handling the Timer role at an online Toastmasters club meeting

On Wednesday evening I filled in as Timer at our online Zoom meeting for the Pioneer Toastmasters club. (Originally I was scheduled for that role next week, but this week’s timer couldn’t be there).

In a live club meeting the timer signals the speaker using “traffic light” timing cards, as shown above for a typical five to seven minute speech. But the speaker only gets their first feedback when they have reached the minimum time.

Instead I used my ‘progress bar’ cards, as are shown above. These provide feedback after every minute (more than twice as often). They were described in an April 17, 2017 blog post titled How the speech timer at Toastmasters club meetings could provide useful feedback rather than just warning signals – introducing the 21st Century Timing Cards. These cards also are used for Table Topics and Evaluations. Three progress cards can be shown at 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4th of the minimum time. You could produce individual cards using a Paint or other photo editing program with a color printer.

At our previous online meetings the speech Timer instead has used green, yellow, and red virtual Zoom backgrounds, changed to signal the speaker. Toastmasters even has a set with their logo. At Wordpress for Toastmasters there was an article on November 29, 2017 titled New Online Timing Lights Tool.

It still is helpful for the speaker to keep track of their own time. They might use the Toastmasters App on a cell phone (propped up in a plastic container). They also could use a Stopwatch function on an iPod (as shown above), or even a kitchen timer.

How does your club handle the Timer role online?

Tone deaf writing about fears of pandemic and public speaking

In this time of pandemic, we might hope public speaking experts would quit making their tired old claims that public speaking is our great (or even our greatest) fear. Ignoring fear of the pandemic is both tone deaf and arrogant.

On May 4, 2020 at Decker Communications there was a blog post by Ben Decker titled Fear which annoyingly left off pandemic but said that:

“Public speaking is even more terrifying than shark attacks or fear of heights for most people.

Some context: It’s well-known that ‘public speaking’ has always been a fear for most people. It’s considered the #1 fear on some lists, even more terrifying than shark attacks or fear of heights.”

There is data from the 2017 and 2018 Chapman Survey of American Fears that covers this topic. As shown above in a table, rankings based on Fear Scores do not support Decker’s claim and neither do rankings based on percentages (for Very Afraid plus Afraid). Pandemic or a major epidemic outranks heights, which outranks sharks, which outranks public speaking. (Corrupt government officials came way first). Public speaking isn’t terrifying – based on the Fear Scores the average level of fear is just below Slightly Afraid. Back on October 29, 2017 I blogged about What do Americans fear most? Fear Scores from the 2017 Chapman Survey of American Fears.

   

Another second recent bad example is a 9-1/2 minute YouTube video posted on April 6, 2020 by Stan Phelps titled How to be loud and clear when presenting (Book preview of Silver Goldfish) in which he states:

“…And let’s start with the problem. Here’s the problem. Speaking and presenting is our number one fear as human beings. In fact it’s greater than the fear of dying.”

As far as I know there never has been a fear survey of all human beings (our whole planet). What we have instead is some national surveys. Stan has both an MBA and a JD, and has the Certified Speaking Professional credential from the National Speakers Association. His bogus widening of  the scope is NOT what you would expect from a professional. 

A third example is an article by Ryan Jenkins at Entrepreneur on April 1, 2020 titled Why you fear public speaking and how to overcome it which opened by claiming:

 “Public speaking continues to be a top fear of humanity.”

He linked to another article by Glenn Croston at Psychology Today on November 29, 2012 titled The thing we fear more than death.

Back in 1973 a polling firm in New Jersey did a survey about fears in the U.S. that was described far away (London) in a newspaper article, and eventually wound up being published in 1977 in a trivia collection called The Book of Lists. In 1992 comedian Jerry Seinfeld had a comedy routine very loosely based on it. The second most popular post at this blog was back on October 27, 2009 and titled The 14 Worst Human Fears in the 1977 Book of Lists: where did this data really come from? Note that sickness (18.8%) barely outranks death (18.7%) but never gets talked about.

Sifting through misinformation

Mike Caulfield teaches digital information literacy at the Washington State University in Vancouver. He has a very useful web site (blog) for our current crisis (or anyone doing reseach for a speech) titled Sifting Through the Coronavirus Pandemic. SIFT is an acronym for:

“Stop! Investigate the source. Find better coverage. Trace claims, quotes and media to the original context.”

Mike also has a free ebook from 2017 titled Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers …and other people who care about facts that you can either read online or download as an Acrobat .pdf file. He describes four moves:

“Check for previous work: Look around to see if someone else has already fact-checked the claim or provided a synthesis of research.

Go upstream to the source: Go ‘upstream’ to the source of the claim. Most web content is not original. Get to the original source to understand the trustworthiness of the information.

Read laterally: Read laterally. Once you get to the source of a claim, read what other people say about the source (publication, author, etc.). The truth is in the network.

Circle back: If you get lost, hit dead ends, or find yourself going down an increasingly confusing rabbit hole, back up and start over knowing what you know now. You’re likely to take a more informed path with different search terms and better decisions.”

At Inside Higher Ed on August 14, 2019 there was an article by John Warner titled Getting beyond the CRAAP Test: a conversation with Mike Caulfield. It mentioned another resource from Mike, the Check, Please! Starter Course.

My lateral reading about coronavirus usually involves looking at what Dr. David Gorski has discussed. For example, at Respectful Insolence on April 28, 2020 he had a long rant titled Drs. Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi: promoting dangerously bogus pseudo-epidemiology about COVID-19. At Science-Based Medicine on May 4, 2020 there was another article titled COVID-19: Out-of-control science and bypassing science-based medicine with a section on Bad epidemiology.

But for fun I also follow the headlines over at Wonkette. There was an article by Evan Hurst on April 28, 2020 titled If your dumbass MAGA uncle watched Tucker Carlson last night, you need to read this. It linked to an earlier article by Barbara Feder Ostrov at Cal Matters on April 27, 2020 titled Cue the debunking: Two Bakersfield doctors go viral with dubious COVID test conclusions. Barbara mentioned but did not link to a very angry joint statement by two organizations: 

“The American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) and the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) jointly and emphatically condemn the recent opinions released by Dr. Daniel Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi. These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical society and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19. As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public’s health.
COVID-19 misinformation is widespread and dangerous. Members of AAEM and ACEP are first-hand witnesses to the human toll that COVID-19 is taking on our communities. AAEM and ACEP strongly advise against using any statements of Drs. Erickson and Massihi as a basis for policy and decision making.”

The image of a flour sifter came from Wikimedia Commons.