One silly statement about public speaking is that absolutely everyone fears it. That claim might come with an alleged quote from Mark Twain. Here are four recent examples.
An article by Rachel Kresge at LinkedIn Pulse on October 1, 2020 and titled 3 of the biggest myths associated with public speaking (and how you can overcome them) proclaimed:
“Mark Twain famously said, ‘There are two types of speaker in the world: the nervous and the liars.’ Everyone gets nervous. So, let’s hard stop there. We all get nervous.”
A second article by Brian Krogh on February 8, 2021 titled Overcome the fear of speaking with these 3 tips says:
“There is a reason public speaking is at the top of nearly every poll on people’s greatest fears. The reason is, everyone gets nervous when it’s their turn to speak! This reality caused Mark Twain to quip, ‘There are two types of speakers: those who are nervous and those who are liars.’”
A third article by Bryan Lemos at Decker Communications on June 3, 2021 titled What to do with fear and nerves in communication states:
“Mark Twain has a famous quote, ‘there are two types of speakers, those who are nervous and those who are liars.’ Nerves happen…they are human.”
A fourth article by Rosemary Ravinal on July 26, 2021 titled How to tame your fear of public speaking dogmatically states:
“Let us get something straight. Anyone who says they never feel nervous when speaking to a live audience on camera or in public, never feels anxious, sweaty, and agitated when doing an oral presentation—is lying. Then she quotes Twain:
“There are two types of speakers in the world: the nervous and the liars.”
When you look at surveys of fears, you instead find that a sizable minority percentage of the population instead just is Not Afraid at All. On September 19, 2019 I blogged about how Fear of public speaking doesn’t happen to everybody – or all the time. The six Chapman Surveys of American Fears give the following percentages: 2014 - 34.1%; 2015 - 36.7%; 2016 - 38.3%; 2017 - 41.9%; 2018 - 41.4%; 2019 - 35.9%; for an average of 38.1%. That’s nearly two out of five!
On May 7, 2021 I blogged about how A news release from Toastmasters International begins with a quotation that really is not from Mark Twain. Earlier, on May 12, 2020, I had blogged about Did Mark Twain really say there were just nervous speakers or liars? Along with Garson O’Toole, my answer was no. Various versions of that alleged quote only appeared decades after Twain’s death and without the expected details of either where and when he said it.
Rachel Kresge’s article also said that:
“According to the National Institute of Mental Health, it is estimated that close to 73% of the world’s population has a fear of public speaking.”
But that percentage isn’t from NIMH – it’s crap from Statistic Brain, which I blogged about in a post on December 7, 2014 titled Statistic Brain is just a statistical medicine show.
The cartoon of a man speaking was adapted from this one at Wikimedia Commons.
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