Which word would you emphasize?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How you say something matters a lot. As is shown above, depending on which word we emphasize, the sentence: I didn’t say she stole my money can have seven distinctly different meanings. In writing we can show them using italics or color.

 

Where did this example come from first? A search at Google Books got me to it being on page 129 of the 1990 book titled Making Friends, written by Andrew Matthews. It is referenced by Tony Atwood on page 80 in his 1998 book Asperger’s Syndrome: A Guide for Professionals.

 

On the internet it has shown up several times. The first I found was a brief article by Andy Lobban on May 5, 2009 simply titled I didn’t say she stole my money. It also was in an article by Steve Borsch on March 10, 2010 at Connecting the Dots titled Be VERY Careful Using Social Media. Also, it was in an article by Debra Yearwood at CommStorm on March 3, 2014 titled How to Present Data.

 

What can Donald Duck teach us about public speaking?

He’s a comically exaggerated, negative example to remind us that clear enunciation is important. Donald’s buccal speech is difficult to understand and sometimes can be completely misinterpreted.

In the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit there is a  hilarious piano duel between Daffy Duck and Donald Duck containing the following dialogue:

Daffy: “Does anybody understand what this duck is saying? I’ve worked with a lot of wise-quackers, but you are despicable.”

Donald: “doggone, stubborn little... I’m gonna - waah”.

Daffy: “This is the last time I work with someone with a speech impediment!”

Some have claimed that instead of saying “little” Donald “dropped the N-bomb” on Daffy. Snopes said that claim of racism was false. However, Donald did throw Daffy inside a grand piano, and then dropped the lid on him.

This post was inspired by Andrew Dlugan’s recent one on What can MIckey Mouse teach you about public speaking? The image of Donald is from Wikimedia Commons.

Do you enunciate clearly?

Do you enunciate clearly when you speak, or do you just mumble?

When I think of mumbling, I recall Dustin Hoffman as Mumbles, one of the henchmen in the 1990 movie Dick Tracy. This brief video clip shows how he complained a lot but literally didn’t say anything. In Mike Judge’s long-running animated comedy series, King of the Hill, he voiced Jeff Boomhauer, who also was almost incomprehensible.

Last year Lisa B. Marshall had an excellent podcast on diction. James Feudo and Angelas DeFinis also have blogged about how to avoid mumbling.