How are top speakers different?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An article by Carmine Gallo at the Harvard Business Review on April 27, 2022 titled What the best presenters do differently describes how the best (storytellers) differ from the rest of us, who merely are presenters. Five crucial differences are that:

 

Presenters open PowerPoint. Storytellers craft a narrative.

Presenters use text. Storytellers love pictures.

Presenters dump data. Storytellers humanize it.

Presenters are predictable. Storytellers surprise audiences.

Presenters practice silently. Storytellers rehearse out loud.

 

My cartoon was Photoshopped using a cartoon of a Happy Male Public Speaker with a background from a Jerome Thompson painting of The Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain, both from Wikimedia Commons.

 

More on Donald Trump and a name change from the Cleveland Indians to the Guardians

 

 

 

 

 

 

Politics leads to strange statements. Back on July 25, 2021 I blogged about how After over a century, the Cleveland Indians are changing their name to the Guardians. That topic just came up again, when on April 26, 2022 Donald J. Trump commented that:

 

“Anybody who changes the name of the ‘storied’ Cleveland Indians (from 1916), an original baseball franchise, to the Cleveland Guardians, is not fit to serve in the United States Senate. Such is the case for Matt Dolan, who I don’t know, have never met, and may be a very nice guy, but the team will always remain the Cleveland Indians to me!”

 

Trump was trying to shoot down Mr. Dolan. But on April 29, 2022 there is an article by  Natalie Allison at Politico titled Republican who refuses to bend the knee to Trump surges in Ohio Senate race.

 

Clevelanders with long memories will recall that back on February 15, 1983 Trump had tried to buy the Indians. This was discussed by Arthur Weinstein at The Sporting News in an article on March 6, 2016 titled Donald Trump once tried to buy Cleveland Indians for $13 million. Really. His bid later was raised to $34 million, but it was turned down because he would not guarantee keeping them in Cleveland for more than three years (reportedly planning a move to Tampa).

 

The Guardians logo came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

A brief book review of Creativity a short and cheerful guide by John Cleese

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just finished reading (and immensely enjoyed) an excellent book published in 2020 by comedian and writer John Cleese titled Creativity a short and cheerful guide. Elsewhere he said this ~100 page book was meant to be short enough for a 13-year-old to read in an hour. In the second chapter Cleese discusses having read Guy Claxton’s 1999 book, Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind (how intelligence increases when you think less).  

 

Mr. Cleese put what he felt was important in bold. Here is everything [with brackets around the preceding words or phrases when only part of a sentence was in bold]:

 

By creativity, I simply mean new ways of thinking about things.

The first time I discovered I was a bit creative, it came as a surprise.

[This is how I began to discover that,] if I put the work in before going to bed, I often had a creative idea overnight.

[So I began to realise that] my unconscious was working on stuff all the time, without my being consciously aware of it.

This intelligent unconscious of ours, then, is astoundingly powerful.

[And] the language of the unconscious is not verbal.

The schools I attended concentrated entirely on teaching us to think logically, analytically and verbally (or numerically).

[The absolutely critical point he goes on to make is that] this leisurely ‘Tortoise Mind,’ for all its apparent aimlessness, is just as intelligent as the much faster ‘Hare Brain.’

[The first is that] the creative architects knew how to play.

[The second was that] the creative architects always deferred making decisions for as long as they were allowed.

[But] creative people are much better at tolerating the vague sense of worry that we all get when we leave something unresolved.

The greatest killer of creativity is interruption.

When you’re being creative there is no such thing as a mistake.

You create boundaries of space to stop others interrupting you.

You create boundaries of time, by arranging, for a specific period, to preserve your boundaries of space.

[Once you start chasing away any distracting thoughts, you’ll discover, just like in meditation, that] the longer you sit there, the more your mind slows and calms down and settles.

When we’re trying to be creative, there’s a real lack of clarity during most of the process.

Let these new notions of yours slowly become clearer, and clearer, and clearer.

[It is, however, very important that] when you first have a new idea, you don’t get critical too soon.

 

In a final section, where he draws on his experience as a writer (and of course applies to speechwriting), there are the following headings:

 

“Write about what you know

Looking for inspiration

Making an imaginative leap

Keeping going

Coping with setbacks

Get your panic in early

Your thoughts should follow your mood

The dangers of over-confidence

Testing your idea

Kill your darlings

Seeking a second opinion”

 

This book was discussed by Robin Young at WBUR Here & Now on September 9, 2020 in one article titled John Cleese on awakening your creative instincts, and by Doug Gordon at Wisconsin Public Radio on November 14, 2020 in a second article titled John Cleese tells us how we can be more creative. A third article by Michael Schulman at The New Yorker on September 20, 2020 titled John Cleese discusses creativity, political correctness, Monty Python, and artichokes discusses both the book and other topics.

 

There are two excellent five-minute YouTube video interviews about the book. One from Australia is John Cleese’s guide to creativity | 60 Minutes Australia, and the other from London Real is THE CREATIVE PROCESS: How I wrote the book ‘Creativity’ & the importance of creativity – John Cleese. There also is a 36-minute video at Prof. Profit titled John Cleese creativity.

   

The 1895 image of a woman dancing on a flower came from the Library of Congress.

 

How can a news web site run by a state officer for a political party call itself a non-partisan platform?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s easy. Greg Pruett never bothered to update the About page for his Idaho Dispatch (started in June 2020), which begins by stating that:

 

“Idaho Dispatch is a non-partisan platform designed to be your local media ally in Idaho.”

 

But his personal web site has a page dated July 25, 2021 titled Why I joined the Constitution Party of Idaho (as their state Vice Chairman). He obviously now has a partisan spin.

 

On March 26, 2022 at Idaho Dispatch he posted a press release titled Constitution Party of Idaho (CP-Idaho) Proudly Announces Candidates for 2020 Election. It ridiculously opens with the following disclaimer (in green italics):

 

“The following Press Release was sent out by the Constitution Party of Idaho. Note: Press releases sent out by organizations do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of those at the Idaho Dispatch.”

 

The image of a spinning top was adapted from this one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

Book review of Making Numbers Count by Chip Heath and Karla Starr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the beginning of this year, a book by Chip Heath and Karla Starr titled Making Numbers Count appeared. It is subtitled The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers (but should have added Almost Exclusively Just Using Words). I think it is a good but not great book. Toastmasters and others learning to give presentations will find much of it useful.  

 

Publisher’s Weekly had the following brief review:

 

“Stanford business professor Heath (Decisive) and journalist Starr (Can You Learn to Be Lucky?) deliver a mixed collection of tips for making data more easily understood. Based on the premise that human brains can’t easily work with large numbers, the authors provide ways to break down, reframe, and convert them into everyday comparisons or analogies. It’s helpful, for instance, to use concrete objects as size references (‘a deck of cards’ sticks with people more than a three-to-four-oz. portion size); to use culturally relevant comparisons (the Covid-19 pandemic’s six-foot social distancing guideline is illustrated by a hockey stick in Canada and a surfboard in San Diego); and if something is hard to grasp, to convert it (how long it takes to walk somewhere can be easier to interpret than how far away it is). Though the authors write that their tips are aimed at both ‘numbers people’ and ‘non numbers people,’ the text tends to read like a corporate training course, and their somewhat dismissive view of math as incomprehensible and useless in the ‘real world’ will strike many as blatantly wrong. Still, ‘non numbers’ people will find plenty to consider.”

 

Three of their rules are:

 

Rule #1. Simpler is better. Round with enthusiasm.

Rule #2. Concrete is better. Use whole numbers to describe whole objects, not decimals, fractions, or percentages.

Rule #3. Follow the rules but defer to expertise. Rules 1 and 2 may be trumped by expert knowledge.

 

On page 19 they tell this story:

 

“More often than not we don’t even make sense of the complicated number in the first place. Alfred Taubman, former CEO of the A&W restaurant chain and author of Threshold Resistance learned that lesson the hard way when his company tried to introduce a third-pound burger at the same price as the McDonald’s quarter-pounder. More than half the customers thought they were being ripped off. ‘Why should we pay the same amount for less meat?’ they said.

 

The value of the new A&W burger depended on consumers comparing two fractions: 1 / 3 and 1/ 4. But fractions are difficult for everyone, because they’re parts of things as opposed to whole objects. We like to count things, and fractions don’t equal ‘things.’ So, we jump to the closest available whole numbers. 4 is bigger than 3, so we mistakenly infer that a 1/ 4 pounder is a bigger burger than a 1/ 3-pounder.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We can use a simple bar chart (made with Excel or PowerPoint) to show graphically that a third-pound (four-twelfths) burger is exactly a third (or one-twelfth) bigger than a quarter-pound (three-twelfths) burger.    

 

On page 25 their example is:

 

“2 out of every 5 people you shake hands with may not have washed their hands between using the toilet and touching your hands.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That fraction also can be illustrated graphically using icons for another comparison, as shown above.  

 

Chapter 6 is titled Convert Abstract Numbers into Concrete Objects. On page 37 they open it with Rear Admiral Grace Hopper’s old example for showing what a microsecond means:

 

“This piece of wire is the distance your signal could have traveled in the microsecond you wasted. It stretches 984 feet, about as long as three football fields.”   

 

But when you look in the Notes at the back of the book, you will find that Hopper later did the comparison with a nanosecond. Now the distance is just 0.984 feet, or 11.8 inches – which you can hold in your hand.  That can be represented with a simple visual aid - a plastic bar cut from a coat hanger. You can hand everyone in the audience a length of thin copper wire to keep as a souvenir from your speech.  I blogged about that back on April 19, 2011 in a post titled Gigahertz, nanoseconds, Grace Hopper, and a plastic coat hanger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On page 38 they finally get around to showing their first graphic - comparing tumor sizes with foods as is shown above in a table. They don’t use a graphic again until page 113. That is in Chapter 16, titled Make People Pay Attention by Crystallizing a Pattern, Then Breaking It. Clever words are good, but words and carefully thought-out images can be even better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above, the example is of Steve Jobs showing a cross section of thin Sony TZ laptop computer (minimum thickness at front edge, 0.8”), overlaid with his Apple MacBook Air (minimum thickness, 0.16”).    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are lots of examples displayed (as shown above from page 45) via a pair of boxes: a white one at left with a comparison, and a blue one at right with a better version. Curiously the text above those boxes mistakenly refers to CFLs as being Carbon Fluorescent Light-bulbs rather than Compact Fluorescent Lamps.

 

Chapter 8 is titled Human Scale: Use the Goldilocks Principle to Make Your Numbers Just Right. We need to use comparisons which have a place in our world. Multiplying a number by the U.S. population will result in something impressively huge but almost unfathomable, like 5.7 billion gallons per day. (That’s how much water we use for flushing our toilets). On July 12, 2016 I blogged about How to make statistics understandable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In that post I divided the 5.7 billion gallons per day up to produce a per capita number of ~18 gallons, as shown above.

 

To be memorable when you speak, think carefully about your words, but also consider using images.

 

Free e-book on Advanced Public Speaking from the University of Arkansas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On December 12, 2017 I blogged about how to Be your own Santa Claus – download free public speaking e-textbooks. There is another 665-page e-book titled Advanced Public Speaking by Lynn Meade, Bill Rogers, Cathy Hollingsworth, Robert Kienzle at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. You can best download the .pdf here (complete with internal links). Advanced Toastmasters may be interested in it as reference material.  

How to do a better job of researching medical and health articles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you are searching for a speech topic, then you might decide look at a current medical or health article. At the McGill Office for Science and Society on April 14, 2022 there is an excellent article by Jonathan Jarry titled Doing Your Own Research a Little Bit Better. It discusses how to look closely at a magazine article and decide how much of it makes sense. His three-take home messages are:

 

1] Figuring out the trustworthiness and relevance of a scientific paper first requires identifying what kind of study it is (if it even is a study), which helps us know if the evidence is likely to be strong or weak.

  

2] There are red flags that should reduce our trust in the evidence presented in a paper, such as the absence of a control group, a very small number of participants, and spotlighting of a positive secondary result when the main outcome the study was designed to look at was negative.

 

3] Evaluating the worth of a paper can be helped by having many scientists look at it, which is why data detectives who spend their spare time denouncing bad papers and websites like PubPeer and Retraction Watch are helpful.

 

On January 13, 2020 I blogged about a study where the main outcome was negative in a post titled Did a clinical trial show the dietary supplement pill Prevagen improves memory? Only when you forget about more than half of their data.

 

You might look for articles at PubMed Central and abstracts at PubMed. On June 29, 2021 I blogged about how Finding a magazine article at PubMed does not mean that the article is any good.

 

You also can look up the lead author (and other authors) at sites like Wikipedia, the Rational Wiki, Quackwatch, and even the Encyclopedia of American Loons to see what red flags their reputations raise. For example, Joseph Mercola shows up in specific pages at Rational Wiki, Quackwatch, and the Encyclopedia of American Loons. There also is a long article by David Gorski at Science-Based Medicine on July 25, 2021 titled Joe Mercola: An antivaccine quack tycoon pivots effortlessly to profit from spreading COVID-19 misinformation.

 

The magnifying glass was adapted from this image by Niabot at Wikimedia Commons. 

 

UPDATE

On April 25, 2022 David Gorski has an article at Science-Based Medicine titled Scientific review articles as antivaccine disinformation. There he discusses another article titled Innate immune suppression by SARS-Cov-2 mRNA vaccinations: The role of G-quadruplexes, exosomes, and MicroRNAs. The lead author of that article, Stephanie Seneff, has the dubious honor of a web page about her at the Encyclopedia of American Loons.

 

 

Did Benjamin Franklin really say that? No!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At a traffic light I wound up right behind a Hayden Beverage delivery truck with a quote on its rear door as shown above:

 

“In WINE there is wisdom, in BEER there is freedom, in WATER there is BACTERIA” – Benjamin Franklin”  

 

But there is a big problem regarding the last word in that quotation. Ben Franklin lived from 1706 to 1790. The word bacteria first showed up in 1864 according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and in 1867 according to the Oxford English Dictionary. That’s seven decades after Franklin died, so he obviously did not say that. The problem was noted by Matthew Powers in an article at Drink314 on August 13, 2017 titled The Franklin Myth| “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

 

Donald J. Trump’s most laughable recent claim

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a recent speech former president Trump made a preposterous claim. At the New York Post on April 12, 2022 there is an article by Nila Shakhnazarova titled Donald Trump says he is the ‘most honest human being’ ever created. She quoted him as proclaiming:

 

“…I think I’m the most honest human being, perhaps, that God has ever created”

 

At CNN Politics on April 11, 2022 there is another article by Chris Cilliza titled Donald Trump’s most ridiculous claim - maybe ever. He linked to still another article in the Washington Post on January 24, 2021 titled Trump’s false or misleading claims total 30,573 over 4 years. That’s an average of 20.94 claims a day. On September 1, 2020 I had blogged about how Donald J. Trump lies almost once each hour of the day. In that post I pointed out that most people only lie once or twice a day. Trump lied over ten times more!

 

The cartoon of a laughing man was adapted from one in the upper right corner of page 31 in a 1912 book by Campbell J. Cory, The Cartoonist’s Art, at the Internet Archive.     

 

Fear of public speaking in female and male students at the University of Karachi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the March 8, 2018 issue of the Pakistan Journal of Gender Studies there is an article on pages 57 to 70 by Kausar Perveen, Yamna Hasan and Abdur Rahman Aleemi titled Glossophobia: The Fear of Public Speaking in Female and Male Students of University of Karachi. They surveyed convenience samples of 63 females and 63 males, and asked them if they had a High, Moderately High, Moderate, Moderately Low, or Low level for that fear.

 

Percentage results from their Figure 1 are shown above. For females, 20.6% had a High level, 41.3% had a Moderately High level, and 38.1% had a Moderate level. For males, only 6.63% had a High level, 33.3% had a Moderately High level, and 28.6% had a Moderate level, 27.0% had a Moderately Low level, and 4.8% had a Low level. Because of the tiny sample size used, these percentages have a large Margin of Error. I have shown the plus and minus for Moderately High (12.2% for females and 11.6% for males). Typical commercial surveys use a sample size of 1000 to make their margin of error about 3%.  

 

It is possible to also analyze their results via a Fear Score on a scale from 1 to 5, a weighted average calculated from those percentages according to this formula:     

   

Fear Score = [5x(% for High) = 4x(% for Moderately High)

+ 3x(% for Moderate) + 2x(% for Moderately Low) + 1X(% for Low)]/100

 

Fear scores are 3.825 for females and 3.093 for males, so females are 0.732 higher. Back on October 30, 2015 I discussed fear score calculation in a blog post titled According to the 2015 Chapman Survey of American Fears, adults are less than Afraid of federal government Corruption and only Slightly Afraid of Public Speaking.

 

Recent ideas from Microsoft on hybrid meeting room layouts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an interesting article by Arianne Cohen at Bloomberg on April 7, 2022 titled Swap in a triangle conference table for an ideal hybrid meeting. As shown above, it describes triangle or half-oval layouts (where everyone is visible on camera, and they aren’t clustered together like with the overfilled rectangular table at left).  

 

Four best practices are:

 

1] Keep the digital chat open; it’s often hidden on conference room screens. ‘Sometimes it’s a parallel meeting,’ says Baribault.

2] Cameras should focus on people’s faces and not on their bodies, the conference table, or empty chairs.

3] Conference room screens should be made bigger to show attendees along the bottom and the chat and workspace along the top.

4] No virtual backgrounds should be allowed; that artisanal wallpaper is distracting.

 

The first three are sensible. But I disagree with the fourth – a simple virtual background can be useful and not distracting. For Zoom meetings I use a laptop on a built-in desk at the end of a hallway diagonally opposite our kitchen. I use a simple virtual background to eliminate showing that distracting kitchen on one side. On May 8, 2021 I blogged about Creating wallpapers for Zoom virtual backgrounds.

 

An earlier article by Nicole Herskowitz at LinkedIn Pulse on February 1, 2022 is titled

‘On the same eye level’: reimagining the future of hybrid meetings. It begins:

 

“Last year my colleague Greg Baribault embarked on an ambitious journey. He saw the opportunity to build the hybrid meeting room experience of the future; a new kind of meeting space that bridges the gap between digital and physical workspaces.

 

His vision is becoming a reality with ‘front row’ for Microsoft Team Rooms. This new meeting layout moves the video gallery to the bottom of the screen so in-room participants can see remote colleagues face-to face across a horizontal plane – as if they are in the same room. It also brings relevant meeting content, like chat and a rostered view of raised hands, to the forefront so you can participate fully wherever you sit.”

 

Was that data aggravated or aggregated?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I find a little gaffe that makes me laugh. At the Present Voices web site by Lee Bonvissuto there is an undated web page titled Public Speaking is Everywhere. It begins by saying that most people have trouble with impromptu speaking describing ideas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Under a vertical bar chart with the interesting data shown above via a horizontal one, it says that:

 

“Data is aggravated from thousands of participants in my corporate workshops, along with my private clients.”

 

I think she meant to say aggregated rather than aggravated. The Merriam-Webster dictionary definition for aggravate is to make worse, more serious, or more severe; while the definition for aggregate instead is to collect or gather into a mass or whole. Perhaps she typed that page using Autocomplete software.

 

On March 16, 2022 I blogged about Five things you need to be a highly effective public speaker. In that post I linked to a series of 25 articles from Authority Magazine at Medium which also should have included this one by Lee Bonvissuto (although it incorrectly lists her first name as Leah).

 

A pyramid with aggravated data was assembled using animal numbers adapted from this one and similar ones found at Openclipart.

 

Do Americans fear being attacked by a shark more than anything else? Does public speaking come next? Heck no!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this blog on May 2, 2020 I posted with the title Are sharks now the #1 fear in America? Is public speaking only #2? My answer was no.

 

In an article by David J. Rogers on February 22, 2022 titled Authors: Speak to Large Audiences for Large Fees the ninth paragraph contains a similar unsourced claim that:

 

“….Americans fear being attacked by a shark more than they fear anything else; next, they fear having to make a speech.”

 

But that isn’t true either based on a recent survey. On September 26, 2021 I blogged about how Fear of public speaking was only ranked #54 out of 95 fears in the 2020/2021 Chapman Survey of American Fears. In that post I listed the percent who were Very Afraid + Afraid, as was done in the Chapman press release. I also listed the Fear Scores on a scale from 1 to 4 where 1=Not Afraid, 2=Slightly Afraid, 3=Afraid and 4=Very Afraid. Rearranged by Fear Score, the results are as follows (rankings and percents from the press release are in parentheses), with public speaking ranking #49 [2.023] and sharks #50 [2.010]:  

 

Corrupt government officials: 3.175 (#1, 79.6%)

People I love dying: 2.744 (#2, 58.5%)

A loved one contacting the coronavirus: 2.739 (#3, 58.0%)

People I love becoming seriously ill: 2.732 (#4, 57.3%)

Widespread civil unrest: 2.717 (#5, 56.5%)

A pandemic or a major epidemic: 2.681 (#6, 55.8%)

Economic/financial collapse: 2.681 (#7, 54.8%)

Cyber-terrorism: 2.565 (#8, 51.0%)

Biological warfare: 2.547 (#10, 49.3%)

A terrorist attack: 2.546 (#12 48.8%)

 

Pollution of oceans, rivers, and lakes: 2.542 (#9, 50.8%)

Not having enough money for the future: 2.539 (#14 48.6%)

The US becoming involved in another world war: 2.523 (#15, 48.3%)

Identity theft: 2.476 (#21, 43.8%)

Global warming and climate change: 2.452 (#13, 48.7%)

Government restrictions on firearms and ammunition: 2.443 (#11 48.9%)

Government tracking of personal data: 2.441 (#16, 45.6%)

Government interference with the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine approval: 2.400 (#20, 44.2%)

Iran using nuclear weapons: 2.400 (#22, 43.4%)

A nuclear weapons attack: 2.399 (#27, 42.3%)

 

Corporate tracking of personal data: 2.397 (#17, 44.9%)

North Korea using nuclear weapons: 2.388 (#26, 42.5%)

Pollution of drinking water: 2.375 (#18, 44.6%)

Extinction of plant and animal species: 2.365 (#19, 44.4%)

Government use of drones within the US: 2.355 (#25, 42.7%)

Air pollution: 2.354 (#28, 41.3%)

High medical bills: 2.340 (#24, 42.8%)

Terrorism: 2.331 (#31, 38.7%)

Credit card fraud: 2.331 (#32, 38.5%)

Being hit by a drunk driver: 2.313 (#37, 36.5%)

 

Catching the coronavirus: 2.305 (#34, 38.0%)

Becoming seriously ill: 2.286 (#33, 38.3%)

White supremacists: 2.283 (#23, 43.4%)

Random/mass shooting: 2.281 (#36, 36.7%)

A nuclear accident/meltdown: 2.271 (#30, 38.7%)

The collapse of the electrical grid: 2.269 (#38, 36.1%)

Contacting the coronavirus: 2.201 (#29, 41.0%)

Theft of property: 2.176 (#52, 29.4%)

Break-ins: 2.163 (#47, 31.0%)

Heights: 2.139 (#46, 31.2%)

 

A devastating wildfire: 2.135 (#39, 34.1%)

A devastating drought: 2.135 (#40, 32.9%)

Oil spills: 2.122 (#41, 32.7%)

Dying: 2.072 (#53, 29.3%)

Racial/hate crime: 2.064 (#44, 31.5%)

A devastating earthquake: 2.046 (#43, 32.0%)

Mugging: 2.028 (#61, 27.5%)

A devastating tornado: 2.024 (#48, 31.0%)

Public speaking: 2.023 (#54, 29.0%)

Sharks: 2.010 (#51, 29.5%)

 

Murder by a stranger: 2.009 (#55, 28.9%)

A devastating hurricane: 2.008 (#45, 31.4%)

Right wing extremists: 2.001 (#35, 37.2%)

Gang violence: 1.985 (#58, 28.4%)

Reptiles (snakes, lizards, etc.): 1.980 (#67, 24.7%)

Computers replacing people in the workplace: 1.973 (#62, 27.5%)

A devastating flood: 1.964 (#59, 28.3%)

Police brutality: 1.949 (#50, 30.1%)

Financial fraud (such as a Ponzi scheme, embezzlement, etc.): 1.931 (#63, 26.3%)

Walking alone at night: 1.902 (#73, 22.1%)

 

Sexual assault by a stranger: 1.899 (#60, 27.6%)

A devastating blizzard/winter storm: 1.878 (#66, 25.3%)

Insects/arachnids (spiders, bees, etc.): 1.876 (#70, 22.8%)

Not having enough money to pay my rent or mortgage: 1.867 (#49, 30.7%)

Germs: 1.864 (#75, 21.7%)

Deep lakes and oceans: 1.848 (#68, 24.7%)

Abduction/kidnapping: 1.838 (#65, 25.6%)

Losing your job due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic: 1.807 (#64, 26.3%)

Left wing extremists: 1.786 (#56, 28.9%)

Stalking: 1.772 (#69, 23.3%)

 

Murder hornets: 1.768 (#77, 20.1%)

The Proud Boys: 1.756 (#42, 32.3%)

Illegal immigration: 1.746 (#76, 21.5%)

Murder by someone you know: 1.709 (#74, 21.8%)

Small, enclosed spaces: 1.698 (#81, 16.2%)

Sexual assault by someone you know: 1.696 (#71, 22.4%)

Technology that I don’t understand: 1.669 (#82, 15.9%)

Catching influenza (the seasonal flu): 1.657 (#80, 16.7%)

Being unemployed: 1.654 (#57, 28.9%)

A large volcanic eruption: 1.651 (#78, 18.9%)

 

Strangers: 1.621 (#86, 11.4%)

Black Lives Matter (BLM): 1.529 (#83, 14.7%)

Flying: 1.515 (#86, 11.4%)

Antifa: 1.513 (#72, 22.1%)

Needles: 1.474 (#84, 11.9%)

Ghosts: 1.379 (#88, 9.3%)

Blood: 1.354 (#91, 8.7%)

Whites no longer being the majority in the US: 1.350 (#90, 8.7%)

Animals (dogs, rats, etc.): 1.332 (#95, 4.6%)

Zombies: 1.318 (#89, 9.3%)

 

Muslims: 1.269 (#92, 6.8%)

Clowns: 1.220 (#94, 5.6%)

Immigrants: 1.217 (#93, 5.8%)

Being caught in an embarrassing moment on Zoom or video conference: 1.075 (#87, 9.8%)

Not being able to pay off the college debt of myself or a family member: 1.01% (#79, 18.3%)

 

The shark image was adapted from a drawing by Pearson Scott Foresman at Wikimedia Commons.   

 

It is easy is to parody a brand name or logo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You don’t get to choose your nickname, and might not like what you get called. Every month I get at a letter or postcard advertising Sparklight - the fiber-optic internet provider which before summer 2019 had called themselves CableOne. As shown above, their logo is just a purple slash. But I always refer to them by a parody of that name, Fart light. Why? Twenty years ago (back in 1999) there was an animated comedy film titled South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Inside that film there is another titled Asses of Fire, in which the characters Terrance and Phillip try to light their farts on fire. My logo is a torch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Similarly, the satellite TV provider Dish Network has a logo where the letter I is made from a red circle and three successively larger crescents. As shown above, my parody of their logo is Pish (Scotch slang for urine) instead of Dish and shows a stream presumably going down the toilet.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What used to be called Yellow Freight has a logo that already is a parody. Their rounded orange trapezoid clearly is not really Yellow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One awful choice for a new logo was for a UK agency whose acronym is OGC, the Office of Government Commerce. On September 22, 2021 Joseph Foley discussed it in an an article at the Creative Bloq titled 14 design fails that were so bad they were actually good. As shown above, when you rotate the logo ninety degrees to the right the horizontal line for the G is very rude. It looks like a man with his fly unzipped whose penis is pointing upward.