Spouting Nonsense: a fifth Spoutly for Donald J. Trump based on his May 19, 2025 claim to have come up with the 420 years old word equalizing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An article by Meredith Kile at People on May 21, 2025 titled Trump says he just invented a ‘new word,’ which is now the ‘best word.’ It’s been in use since the 1500s. She quoted:

 

“Basically, what we’re doing is equalizing. There’s a new word that I came up with, which is probably the best word,” he said.

“We’re gonna equalize, where we’re all gonna pay the same. We’re gonna pay what Europe’s gonna pay,” he continued.

When you look up the noun equalizing at the Oxford English Dictionary, you will find that it first was used back in 1605, which is 420 years ago. And the transitive verb equalize shows up in 1595, and also in 1590 spelled as equalise.

Back on October 1, 2023 I blogged about Spouting Nonsense: a fourth Spoutly for Donald J. Trump based on his recent interview for Meet the Press.

 

 

 

Spouting nonsense - A YouTube video from Amrez with fairy tales about two surveys on public speaking fears

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an awful seven-minute YouTube video from Amrez on July 6, 2025 titled Why Do People Fear Public Speaking More Than Death which begins as follows:

 

“Why do people fear public speaking more than death? If you’re one of these people, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Hi, I make questionnaire videos and today we’re going to answer this question. Why do so many people fear public speaking more than death?

 

First let’s look at some stats. A survey conducted by the polling company Gallup asked 1,000 Americans what their greatest fear was. They had these options: death, public speaking, heights, spiders, dogs, flying, illness, old age, running, losing a loved one or other. And guess what was the top response? Public speaking. Yep, 40 percent of respondents chose public speaking over death.

 

A survey conducted by Chapman University in 2017 asked students to choose up to three fears from a list of 54 phobias. These were common fears like fear of commitment, fear of driving, fear of failure, etc. And guess what was the most commonly selected fear? Yep, glossophobia: fear of speaking in front of people. Okay, so the stats don’t lie…”

 

The rest of it is not quite as awful.

 

But the article by Geoffrey Brewer at Gallup News Service on March 19, 2001 is titled Snakes Top List of Americans’ Fears and is subtitled Public speaking, heights, and being closed in small spaces also create fear in many Americans. It discussed surveys done in both 1998 and 2001, neither of which included death. In 2001 40% feared public speaking (versus 51% for snakes).

 

For 2001 the list of 13 fears and their percentages are as follows:

 

Snakes: 51%

Public speaking in front of an audience: 40%

Heights: 36%

Being closed in a small space: 34%

Spiders and insects: 27%

Needles and getting shots: 21%

Mice: 20%

Flying on an airplane: 18%

Crowds: 11%

Dogs: 11%

Thunder and lightning: 11%

Going to the doctor: 9%

The dark: 5%

 

And for 1998 the list of 13 fears is as follows:

 

Snakes: 56%

Public speaking in front of an audience: 45%

Heights: 41%

Being closed in a small space: 36%

Spiders and insects: 34%

Mice: 26%

Needles and getting shots: 21%

Flying on an airplane: 20%

Thunder and lightning: 17%

Going to the doctor: 12%

Crowds: 11%

Dogs: 10%

The dark: 8%

 

The 2017 Chapman Survey asked a national sample of American adults rather than just students about eighty individual fears, not 54 phobias. Their results are summarized by a blog post on October 11, 2017 that is titled America’s Top Fears 2017. The most commonly selected fear was Corrupt Government Officials at 74.5%. Public speaking was #52 at just 20.0%. I blogged about it on October 14, 2017 in a post titled What do the most Americans fear? The fourth Chapman Survey on American Fears and being innumerate. There were really 81 fears, and a lot of the percentages listed in the Chapman blog post did not quite match their raw data.  

 

That Amrez video is telling us fairy tales about those surveys. I have awarded them a Spoutly for spouting nonsense.

 

 

Spouting Nonsense: a fourth Spoutly for Donald J. Trump based on his recent interview for Meet the Press

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Donald J. Trump is very skilled at spouting total nonsense while keeping a straight face. I already have awarded him three Spoutlys in my blog posts on August 1, 2019, January 7, 2021, and September 25, 2022.

 

His recent Meet the Press interview made me add a fourth, as shown above. You can watch a one-minute YouTube video from the Lincoln Project here, or view the whole interview there.

 

There is an article by Daniel Dale and Jack Forrest at CNN on September 17, 2023 titled Fact check: 14 of Trump’s false claims on ‘Meet the Press.’ The ninth is about the price for bacon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is another article by Louis Jacobson at POLITIFACT on September 18, 2023 titled Sizzle, fizzle. Donald Trump off on bacon price increase under Joe Biden. Trump had claimed the price of bacon went up five times under Biden, which obviously is nonsense. The FRED data shown above indicate it really went up by about a fifth (20%) with a peak of 30.5%, and currently is up by just 11.5%.

 

The image of bacon I added to my Spoutly originated at the National Cancer Institute, but I got it here at Wikimedia Commons.  

 

UPDATE: October 2, 2023

 

There is an article by Nada Tawfik at BBC News today titled Fact-checking Trump's claims about New York fraud trial.  

 

 

Donald Trump is spouting even more nonsense, this time about declassifying documents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On September 21, 2022 our former president was interviewed by Sean Hannity on Fox News. He made the following incredible statement (my italics):

 

“Sean: So, let me ask you this question, because I think this is the next logical question. Because the President of the United States, you unlike say Hilary Clinton and her case, a President has the power to declassify.

 

Donald: Correct.

 

Sean: OK. You have said on Truth Social a number of times you did declassify.

 

Donald: I did declassify, yes.

 

Sean: Ok. Is there a process? What was your process to declassify?

 

Donald:  There doesn’t have to be a process, as I understand it. You know, there’s different people say different things. But as I understand it, there doesn’t have to be. If you’re the President of the United States, you can declassify just by saying um ‘it’s declassified,’ even by thinking about it.

 

Because you’re sending it to Mar-a-Lago or to wherever you’re sending it. And there doesn’t have to be a process. There can be a process, but there doesn’t have to be. You’re the President, you make that decision. So, when you send it, it’s declassified.

 

We, I, declassified everything. Now, I declassified things and we were having a lot of problems with NARA. You know NARA is a radical left group of people running that thing and when you send documents over there I would say there’s a very good chance that a lot of those documents will never be seen again….”  

 

Actually declassifying documents involves a process involving written records of actions taken.

 

An article by Igor Derysh at Salon on September 22, 2022 titled “Donald has the right to remain silent”: Experts say Trump’s bonkers Fox interview could be evidence incredulously added:

 

“ ’Omg he's actually invoking the Secret Telepathic Unilateral Preemptive Irreversible Declassification (S.T.U.P.I.D.) defense,’ quipped Asha Rangappa, a former FBI agent and attorney.”

 

I have awarded The Donald a third Spoutly (complete with a red flag). His first and second are in previous posts.

 

Spouting Nonsense: Common sense versus just making something up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the Gem State Patriot News there is an article (blog post) on June 5, 2022 by Dr. John Livingston titled Time for Some Common Sense. His sixth paragraph says that:

 

“A list of 17,000 scientists signed a petition supporting ‘Science’ and Dr. Fauci. Apparently the ‘science was settled.”

 

His next paragraph just is a link to a press release from the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA), but instead it says 12,000 medical doctors, research scientists and public health experts.   

 

Dr. Livingston’s eighth paragraph begins by claiming:

 

“A list of 930,000 doctors, nurses’ public health specialists signed The Barrington Declaration in 2020 offering mitigation and lockdown strategies very different from those recommended by The World Health Organization (WHO), The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and Dr. Fauci.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This time he does not provide a link, but the current Signatures web page for The Great Barrington Declaration has very different information. As shown above via a bar chart, the Total Signatures were 930,528, Concerned Citizens were 867,612, Medical Practitioners were 47,037, and Medical & Public Health Scientists were 15,883. So, the sum for Medical Practitioners and Medical & Public Health Scientists really was 62,920 – or 5.24 times larger than the 12,000 for the ISDA. That honest number would have made his point, but instead he dishonestly used the total (14.8 times larger). I am awarding John a big red Spoutly award – a booby prize for Spouting Nonsense.

 

Dr. Livingston had told us the same nonsense in a previous article on December 17, 2021 titled The Covid “Boogey Man.” I made the following comment on it there:

 

“The last sentence in your first paragraph claimed there were: “…890,000 physicians and scientists from around the world who signed onto The Greater Barrington Project.” It actually is the Great Barrington Declaration. Their signatures web page now says there were a total of 902,673 but just 15,468 medical & public health scientists, and 45,609 medical practitioners for a sum of 61,077. The others were 836,337 concerned citizens. You inflated the number of physicians and scientists who signed by a factor of 14.8 times, which is ridiculous!”

 

His irrelevant reply was:

 

“Richard, Thank you for your thoughts. I consider nurses–RN. s. LPNs, nurses’ aides, technicians, physical therapists all to be in the category of ‘health care professional’. I have no way of knowing what percentage of the total number includes those professions, but it is certainly a sizable percentage. These are the very people whose voices have not been heard, and yet they are the ones who every day take care of sick patients. Politicians and administrators and ‘experts’ who all are supporting a political narrative are overrepresented by the press and media. The Greater Barrington Declaration gives these people a voice as well as patients.”

 

It is debatable whether the strategies in the Great Barrington Declaration made sense. In an article at Respectful Insolence on April 29, 2022, David Gorski explained that The Great Barrington Declaration never would have worked.

 

Back on July 28, 2021 I also had blogged about Dr. Livingston in a post titled What is a fairy tale and what is real?

 

Spouting nonsense: a fake statistic in an article on how public speaking is related to leadership

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Dane Cobain at Speakerhub on May 30, 2022 titled How public speaking is related to leadership. It has nine paragraphs titled:

 

Leaders need to:

Challenge the status quo

Bring people together

Overcome their fear

Lead from the heart

Tap into emotional intelligence

Accurately convey information

Address people’s needs

Always be prepared to answer questions

Continuously learn

 

His third paragraph on how Leaders need to overcome their fears begins by claiming that:

 

“Public speaking is the world’s most common phobia, ahead of fears such as death, spiders and heights.”

 

That statement violates his sixth paragraph, titled Leaders need to accurately convey information. The first clause in Dane’s third paragraph links to another article at the National Social Anxiety Center which is titled Public Speaking Anxiety. That article contains a fake statistic. It claims that:

 

“The fear of public speaking is the most common phobia ahead of death, spiders, or heights. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that public speaking anxiety, or glossophobia, affects about 73% of the population.”

 

That is rubbish, which I blogged about on March 22, 2019 in a post titled An apparently authoritative statistic about fear of public speaking that really lacks any support. The 73% just is crap from Statistic Brain. So, Dane is awarded a Spoutly for spouting nonsense.

 

Could his article have been better another way? On January 28, 2017 I blogged about How many items should be on a list of tips or top tips? He could have added a tenth paragraph, and changed the title to the Top Ten ways public speaking is related to leadership.   

 

Spouting nonsense: Sherri Tenpenny says the COVID vaccine magnetizes you

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you cannot believe what people tell you. For handling our current Coronavirus crisis the last thing we need is useless disinformation. A web page at the Rational Wiki says that:

“Sherri J. Tenpenny is an osteopath and an American professional anti-vaccination liar…”

And there is a page on her at the Encyclopedia of American Loons, which never a good sign.

 

There is a three-minute YouTube video from June 10, 2021 taken from the Brian Williams show, The 11th Hour, on MSNBC and titled Conspiracy Theorists Think Covid Vaccines Make You Magnetic. Sherri spoke to a committee of the Ohio legislature and delivered information worth even less than the $0.10 her name might imply:

 

“Is it a combination of the protein which now we’re finding has a metal attached to it? I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures all over the internet of people who’ve had these shots and now they’re magnetized. You can put a key on their forehead, it sticks. They can put spoons and forks all over them and they can stick. Because now we think there’s a metal piece to that. There’s been people who’ve long suspected that there was some sort of an interface, yet to be defined, an interface between what’s being injected in these shots and all of the 5G towers.”  

  

On May 22, 2021 BBC News had a reality check article with a video titled Covid Vaccines: No, your jab isn’t magnetic. Joe Schwarcz of the McGill Office for Science and Society has an article on June 11, 2021 titled Can vaccines make our body magnetic? where his answer of course is NO! The Centers for Disease Control has a web page titled Myths and Facts about COVID-19 Vaccines. Under the question Can receiving a COVID-19 vaccine cause you to be magnetic? they have this  reply:

 

“No. Receiving a COVID-19 vaccine will not make you magnetic, including at the site of vaccination which is usually your arm. COVID-19 vaccines do not contain ingredients that can produce an electromagnetic field at the site of your injection. All COVID-19 vaccines are free from metals such as iron, nickel, cobalt, lithium, and rare earth alloys, as well as any manufactured products such as microelectronics, electrodes, carbon nanotubes, and nanowire semiconductors. In addition, the typical dose for a COVID-19 vaccine is less than a milliliter, which is not enough to allow magnets to be attracted to your vaccination site even if the vaccine was filled with a magnetic metal.”

 

Why can keys and other objects stick to your skin? At Skepchick on June 15, 2021 there is an article (and a ten-minute YouTube video) by Rebecca Watson titled The long history of people who think they’re magnetic. She explains that the skin secretes an oily, waxy substance called sebum. (Look at another article by Mary Salisbury at howstuffworks titled Sebum Overview). Rebecca explains that if you coat skin with baby powder, then objects won’t stick anymore.

 

The Center for Countering Digital Hate has a web page for their March 24, 2021 report titled The Disinformation Dozen (Why platforms must act on twelve leading online anti-vaxxers). Sherri is number four on the list of twelve who are responsible for almost two-thirds of the web disinformation.

I am awarding Sherri a special pink Magnetic Spoutly for her spouting a whale-load of nonsense.  

 

Trump continues with his Big Lie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On January 6, 2021 Congress certified results from the 2020 presidential election. Almost three months later as reported in an article on April 4 by Eric Mack at Newsmax titled Trump: ‘Boycott’ businesses for opposing election laws he continued with the ‘pants on fire’ lie  that:

 

 “….They rigged and stole our 2020 Presidential Election, which we won by a landslide….”

 

But back on January 6, 2021 at Poltifact there is another article by Daniel Funke titled Here’s how we know Trump’s repeated claim of a landslide victory is wrong. On January 7, 2021 I also blogged about my disgust in a post titled Spouting Nonsense: a second Spoutly for Donald J. Trump.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Donald has lots of practice lying. At Forbes on January 31, 2021 there is an article by Dan Alexander titled Here are the lies Trump is now telling about his business. It details some  exaggerations about real estate. As shown above, he lies about the number of stories on four of his New York buildings. The average for three is 16% more than reality, but for the Trump World Tower he absurdly claims there are 90 stories rather than 70 (29% more).

 

Spouting Nonsense: a second Spoutly for Donald J. Trump

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was appalled when I watched yesterday’s events at the US Capitol on TV. This crisis of anarchy was manufactured by demonstrators led by the Proud Boys walking there from President Trump’s rally at the Ellipse. His minute-long speech is the worst I have ever heard from a politician:

 

“I know your pain. I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great  people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us, from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you, you’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace.”

 

This election was not a landslide win for Trump. He had previously referred to the 2016 one as a landslide win for him. An article by Jim Drinkard at the Associated Press on December 12, 2016 titled AP FACT CHECK: No ‘landslide’ election win for Trump noted then the Electoral College votes were 306 for Trump and 232 for Clinton. For 2020 the Electoral College votes were 306 for Biden and 232 for Trump – a landslide loss.

 

The 2020 election was not either stolen or fraudulent. Trump’s flunkys made claims but never could back them up in court. Of the post-election lawsuits 10 were dropped and 27 were dismissed. Instead of calling others bad and evil, Donald should look in the mirror at himself, since he has much to answer for.     

 Another article by Dean Obeidallah at NBC News Think on September 30, 2020 is titled Trump’s Proud Boys ‘stand back and stand by’ debate moment was more than a dog whistle. Yesterday Trump should have told the Proud Boys to stand back and stand down from now on.

 

On August 1, 2019 I blogged about Who is the least racist person?, and awarded Trump a Spoutly. Yesterday’s performance deserves another one, with an orange (hair color) and black (anarchist) color scheme like a murder hornet.    

 

Today there was a longer speech worded as follows:

 

“I would like to begin by addressing the heinous attack on the United States Capitol. Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness, and mayhem. I immediately deployed the National Guard and federal law enforcement to secure the building and expel the intruders. America is and must always be a nation of law and order. The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy. To those who engaged in the acts of violence, you do not represent our country. And to those who broke the law, you will pay. We have just been through an intense election and emotions are high. But now tempers must be cooled and calm restored. We must get on with the business of America. My campaign vigorously pursued every legal avenue to contest the election results. My only goal was to ensure the integrity of the vote. In so doing I was fighting to defend American democracy. I continue to strongly believe that we must reform our election laws to verify the identity and eligibility of all voters and to ensure faith and confidence in all future elections. Now Congress has certified the results. A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20th. My focus now turns to insuring a smooth, orderly, and seamless transition of power. This moment calls for healing and reconciliation. 2020 has been a challenging time for our people. A menacing pandemic has upended the lives of our citizens, isolated millions in their homes, damaged our economy, and claimed countless lives. Defeating this pandemic and rebuilding the greatest economy on earth will require all of us working together. It will require a renewed emphasis on the civic values of patriotism, faith, charity, community and family. We must revitalize the sacred bonds of love and loyalty that bind us together as one national family. To the citizens of our country, serving as your president has been the honor of my lifetime. And to all of my wonderful supporters, I know you are disappointed, but I also want you to know that our incredible journey is only just beginning. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.”       

 

President-elect Biden replied in outrage that those were not demonstrators, they were domestic terrorists. Trump claimed his only goal for lawsuits was to ensure the integrity of the vote. That’s not true. He needed to bring in a pile of money to pay off campaign debts and retain influence. An article by Stephen Robinson at Wonkette on November 11, 2020 explains how Fake billionaire Donald Trump sets up post-presidency GoFundMe PAC.

 

 

Spouting Nonsense – Nobody ever died from public speaking (without having an underlying health condition)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On May 31, 2017 I blogged about Spouting Nonsense – Nobody ever died from public speaking. I described about thirty people who had died while speaking. At Buffalo 7 on September 10, 2020 there is an article titled The power to overcome presentation anxiety is already within you with a narrower claim that:

“Nobody ever died from talking on stage. Not without underlying health conditions, anyway.”

 

But in my previous post I already had included two people who had no underlying health conditions. Inijero Asanuma was stabbed with a samurai sword on October 12, 1960, and Malcolm X was shot on February 21, 1965.

 

I did some more searching and found three other examples of shootings described in Wikipedia. On June 29, 1992 Mohamed Boudiaf (the seventh president of Algeria) was shot by one of his bodyguards while he was giving a televised speech in Annaba. On April 23, 1993 Lalith Athulathmudali (a former Cabinet Minister of Sri Lanka) was shot while he was addressing a gathering in Kirulapana. On December 19, 2016 Andrei Karlov, the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, was shot while he was speaking at an art exhibition in Ankara.  

 

An image of the grim reaper was adapted from Wikimedia Commons.    

 

Spouting nonsense: Another 16 books refer to a bogus statistic that 74% fear public speaking (suffer from speech anxiety)

Back on October 9, 2017 I blogged about how It must be true, since I read it in a book. Unfortunately books sometimes are not always backed by careful research. In a another post on August 14, 2020 titled Toastmaster magazine is spreading nonsense from John Bowe about how common the fear of public speaking is I described how John Bowe’s 2020 book I Have Something to Say had incorrectly claimed (using baseless numbers originally posted by Statistic Brain) that:

“According to the National Institutes of Health, 74 percent of Americans suffer from speech anxiety.”

I wondered whether that nonsense also was in other books, so I looked at Amazon, on Google Books, and elsewhere. Sixteen other books had that baseless percentage, so they all get one of my Spoutly awards. In chronological order they are:

2013

Jared Bauman, Simple Steps to Master Public Speaking

“According to a recent fear of public speaking study performed by the National Institute of Mental Health, 74% of people suffer from some form of speech anxiety.”

Cindy Locher, Vanquish Your Fear of Public Speaking

“Fear of public speaking is the number one fear in America. If you're one of the 74% of Americans who fear public speaking, this five-step process can dramatically increase your comfort and confidence.”

2014

Cheryl R. Stinchcomb, Presentation Skills That Rock: captivating your audience in the digital era

“Can you believe that 74% of people suffer from speech anxiety?”

Jennifer Witter, The Little Book of Big PR

“According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 74 percent of people have fear of public speaking.”

Bill Hoogterp, Your Perfect Presentation

“According to the National Institutes of Health, 74 percent of Americans suffer from a fear of public speaking.”

2015

Anthony Fasano, Engineer Your Own Success

His Table 6.1 reproduced the numbers from a Statistic Brain web page. (74% of people, 75% of women, and 73% of men suffer from speech anxiety).

Eamonn O’Brien, How to Make Powerful Speeches 2ed 

“According to the National Institute of Mental Health, this fear is so pervasive that 74 per cent of American adults (and the figures are worse elsewhere) admit to some degree of speech anxiety.”

D.J.D. Carducci and Lisa Kaiser, Shyness: The Ultimate Teen Guide

“According to a 2013 report from the National Institute of Mental Health, 74 percent of Americans fear speaking in public, far more than the 40 percent of us who are shy.”

2016

Thomas Miller, Fear Busters: 14 ways to kick fear to the curb

“Studies indicate that 74% of the population is afraid of public speaking and 68% fear dying.”

Kenny Nguyen, Gus Murillo, Robert Killeen, Luke Jones, The Big Fish Experience

“According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the fear of public speaking, which is called glossophobia, is the number one fear in America (that’s right, over spiders, heights, and even death). A whopping 74 percent of Americans are said to suffer from this fear.”

2017

Deborah Shames, Out Front

“This may not sound like a surprising admission, since 74 percent of the US population surveyed in 2013 shares a fear of public speaking.”

2018

Rick Lewis, Confident Under Pressure

“The National Institute of Mental Health reports that 74 percent of people suffer from speech anxiety.”

2019

Sara Latta, Scared Stiff

“According to statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), fear of public speaking is the most common phobia, with nearly three out of every four people (74 percent) surveyed saying they have this fear.”

2020

Cody Smith, Public Speaking Panic: how to go from stage-fright to stage-ready in less than 24 hours

“Not to mention, a whopping total of 74% of people suffer from speech anxiety.”

Alex Crickets, Public Speaking

“Entrepreneur.com has published research from the National Institute of Mental Health, which claims that 74% of adults suffer from a fear of public speaking.”

Michael J. Gelb, Mastering the Art of Public Speaking: 8 secrets to transform fear and supercharge your career

“Seventy-four percent of Americans suffer from glossophobia, the fear of public speaking.”

Back on March 1, 2015 I had blogged about A high mound of manure from Bill Hoogterp about fear of public speaking.

Toastmaster magazine is spreading nonsense from John Bowe about how common the fear of public speaking is

The August 2020 issue of Toastmaster magazine has an article by Suzanne Frey on pages 14 and 15 titled I have something to say. She interviewed John Bowe, who said:

“I was thinking about the fact that 74% of Americans suffer from speech anxiety (it is the same or higher in most other cultures).”

In press releases from 2015 and 2019 Toastmasters International had claimed that:

“Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, is a common social phobia, with an estimated 75 percent of the population experiencing some form of anxiety before giving a speech.”

Now instead of just an estimate (three out of four) Mr. Bowe and Ms. Frey give us an exact percentage for Americans. Toastmasters clubs will be tempted to use this 74% for their marketing and public relations efforts. They should not because that percentage just is baseless rubbish.

I bought (from Amazon for Kindle) but have not yet read John Bowe’s new book, I Have Something To Say: Mastering the Art of Public Speaking in an Age of Disconnection. In his introduction, which you can see at Amazon via the Look Inside feature, he more specifically claims:

“According to the National Institutes of Health, 74 percent of Americans suffer from speech anxiety.”

But the 74% really comes from a 2012 web page at Statistic Brain titled Fear of Public Speaking Statistics, and also appears in their 2012 page on Fear/Phobia Statistics. Currently Statistic Brain is hiding behind a paywall, but I have retrieved those pages via the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive. Both pages claim their source is the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). I emailed Statistic Brain and asked where specifically they got those percentages, but did not ever get a reply. I looked at the NIMH web site and did not find a reference, so I emailed them. NIMH told me those percentages did NOT come from them, as I described in a blog post on December 7, 2014 titled Statistic Brain is just a statistical medicine show. I discussed that topic more recently in another blog post on March 22, 2019 titled An apparently authoritative statistic about fear of public speaking that really lacks any support.

How about John Bowe’s other claim in the Toastmaster article - that the percentage is the same or higher in most other cultures? I don’t think so. But in the 2015 second edition of his book How to Make Powerful Speeches Eamonn O’Brien says in the second paragraph of Chapter 1 that:

“According to the National Institute of Mental Health, this fear is so pervasive that 74 per cent of American adults (and the figures are worse elsewhere) admit to some degree of speech anxiety.”

John Bowe has another article in Make It at CNBC on August 13, 2020 titled Bad at public speaking? The trick is to distill your message to these 15 words, says speech trainer. In that one he says:

“My journey in public speaking started in 2010 after I discovered that 74% of Americans suffer from speech anxiety.”

His second link is to a web page titled Any Anxiety Disorder at the National Institute of Mental Health. But it doesn’t have that 74%. Data sources are pair of surveys – the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R) and the National Comorbidity Survey Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A). I have previously blogged about results from magazine articles on fear of public speaking from both. On August 12, 2015 I blogged about There’s really no mystery about how common stage fright is. From the NCS-R, 21.2 percent of adults feared public speaking/performance (and 19.5% feared speaking up in a meeting/class). The real 21.2% is 3-1/2 times lower than the bogus 74%! On June 11, 2012 I blogged about What social situations scare American adolescents, and what are their top 20 fears? From the NCS-A, 35.8% feared performing for audience and 24.9% feared speaking in class.   

How about other countries? How do they compare with the 21.2% for U. S. adults? They are lower! On August 15, 2012 I blogged about how Surveys show that public speaking is not feared by the majority of adults in nine developed and eleven developing countries. For developed countries 13% feared public speaking/performance and 12.5% feared speaking up in a meeting/class. For developing countries 9.4% feared public speaking/performance and 9.0% feared speaking up in a meeting/class.

Neither John Bowe nor Suzanne Frey did careful research on fear of public speaking before putting out a bogus statistic. I am awarding them both a Spoutly for spouting nonsense. Many others also have been fooled by the Statistic Brain nonsense. In future posts I will discuss both books and articles.

The globe was adapted from an image at Wikimedia Commons.

Spouting Nonsense: a bogus statistic in an article saying to Communicate Like Your Life Depends On It

At Medium on December 10, 2019 there is a long article by Greg Cheek titled Communicate Like Your Life Depends On It. That title set a very high standard which he did not live up to. In his thirteenth section titled Stage Fright, Communication Apprehension, and Plain Nervousness Greg claimed:

“In a recent Gallup poll, Americans were asked to list their greatest fears. Forty percent identified speaking before a group as a top fear, exceeded only by fifty-one percent who said they were afraid of snakes. In comparison, only twenty-eight percent said they were afraid of dying. In most polls, speechmaking and speaking in front of a group of people is tops in provoking anxiety (stage fright).”

On March 24, 2018 I had blogged about how to be careful and Don’t trust superficial research. In that post I discussed another silly claim that the 2001 Gallup poll had asked about greatest fears – which it really had not. The Gallup poll was discussed in a well-known March 19, 2001 article by Geoffrey Brewer titled Snakes Top List of Americans’ Fears. It just asked about fears for 13 situations, and as shown above in a bar chart, dying never was mentioned. 2001 also was nineteen years ago, which is not exactly recent. So, where had that bogus 28% for dying come from? Not from Gallup, who last researched about fear of dying in a Mirror of America survey in November 1990 - and found 23%. 

On March 3, 2020 I blogged about how An obscure UK survey from 2005 found public speaking was the most common fear. The 28% for dying came from a YouGov survey as shown in a second bar chart. It was four years later than the Gallup poll, and done in Great Britain rather than the U.S. Obviously Mr. Cheek never bothered to check the Gallup article.

How had he gotten so confused? Greg apparently read secondhand or thirdhand information about a section from the first chapter in the tenth edition (2009) of Stephen E. Lucas’s book The Art of Public Speaking.  On page 9, he states that:

“If you are worrying about stage fright, you may feel better knowing that you are not alone. A 2001 Gallup Poll asked Americans to list their greatest fears. Forty percent identified speaking before a group as their top fear, exceeded only by the 51 percent who said they were afraid of snakes. A 2005 survey produced similar results, with 42 percent of respondents being terrified by the prospect of speaking in public. In comparison, only 28 percent said they were afraid of dying. (Reference #6).”

Reference #6 on page N-1 is to two different articles:

“Geoffrey Brewer, ‘Snakes Top List of Americans’ Fears,’ Gallup News Service, February 2001; Alex Blyth, ‘How to Get the Most Out of Public Speaking Training,’ Training Magazine (June 14, 2006), p.7”

For careless and superficial research resulting in his spouting nonsense, I award Greg Cheek a Spoutly.

Who is the least racist person?

On July 30, 2019 President Donald Trump amazingly told reporters that:

“I am the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.”

Clearly he is unable to deal with nested categories, as shown above in a Venn diagram. Donald might be the least racist person in the White House, but not in the District of Columbia (which contains lots of clergy and other helping professions), or the U.S., or the world.

And the previous day there was another article by Bess Levin at Vanity Fair titled Historical fiction: Trump claims he was right there with first responders on 9/11. She noted that the Washington Post has tallied that he’d told 10,111 lies between when he was inaugurated on January 20, 2017 and April 27, 2019. To put that into prespective, an  article by Chris Cillizza at CNN Politics on June 10, 2019 pointed out that Donald Trump lies more often than you wash your hands every day. On April 4, 2019 at The Guardian an article by Richard Wolffe asked Why did Donald Trump say his dad was German? He lies so much he doesn’t know the truth.

Our president therefore is awarded a red, white, and blue Spoutly for repeatedly spouting nonsense.