OF A GOLDEN AGE

The Way We, Um, Talk Sways Our Listeners describes a University of Michigan study on speech fluency, especially the sweet spot between too smooth and too rough — if we pause too much or use too much filler, people don’t trust us, but if we speak too coherently without enough pauses, people still don’t trust us.

This makes sense. Think about it: When you pick up your phone and it’s a number you don’t recognize, you know in like a second if it’s a salesperson: They’re too smooth, they’re rehearsed. Oftentimes they’re literally reading from a script and it shows, it sets off our spidey senses for when someone is attempting to pull one over.

I assume this is different from when someone gets really excited about a topic and starts to talk more quickly, because frankly that’s an adorable phenomenon. I wish it happened more often, to everyone, every day — I wish we all had the energy and space to get that excited all the time.

The article includes the phrase “the most disfluent interviewers,” which is quite a tongue twister.

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