Paying Attention to the Umms and Ahhs

by

Kenrick Cleveland

Language is an art. Persuasion is too. Of course, both can also be mangled. As with any art, most likely you’ll have to practice to be good with language and subsequently, persuasion.

As we gear ourselves toward persuading the affluent, using language and speaking powerfully will serve us well.The more you read, the bigger your vocabulary.But having a huge vocabulary is only one part of speaking well. The act of oration is an entirely different set of skills.One of the biggest fears people face, is the fear of public speaking. And if you can get over that, the next step is having something of interest to say.And once you get over the fear of speaking and have something to say of importance or interest, then there’s the next obstacle. . . the delivery.My transcriptionist tells me I say ‘In other words’ a lot. I believe I do this for two reasons.I do this in part because I want to be fully understood.I also do this because I don’t use the filler words ‘um’ or ‘uh’ and ‘in other words’ is taking the place of that in my language patterns.There’s a great new book out called ‘Um. . . Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders and What They Mean’ by Michael Erard. One of the most interesting things I’ve read so far in ‘Um. . .’ is that this is a universal. All languages have their own version of ‘um’ (in Spain it’s ‘eh’, in France ‘euh’) and the use of this filler has been around since at least as far back as the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks.Since the advent of television and radio ‘um’ has been thought of something we need to extinguish from usage. Instead of verbal filler, it has wrongly become an sign of a lack of verbal polish.’Um. . .’ starts out in the offices of the Federal News Service. This is where the transcriptionists type out the news, political speeches, etc., that is ‘of record’ and appears as closed captions for hearing impaired.The FNS transcriptionists have style guidelines to follow when transcribing the news. Um, uh, ah, and er are never included, nor are false starts of one or two words or partial words. The exception to the rule is that policymakers are transcribed verbatim, ums, ers, ahs, slips, blunders, etc.I couldn’t help myself. I skipped ahead and read the chapter on George W. Bush. And while it’s not as funny as ‘Bushisms’ it is quite an interesting take on perception and how people view him as a result of his “disfluencies”.The perception of the president’s misuse of language is as polarized as the general perception of him. Some seem to think his linguistic mistakes make him more down to earth or one of the people while others point to them as further evidence of a disconnect with reality or lack of preparedness and intelligence.No matter what you think of the man, you’ve got to admit some of his blunders have been really funny.My suggestion this week: pay attention to the way you talk. See how many ums, uhs, false starts, stumbles, gaffes and blunders you make verbally.Language is a critical part of persuasion and the ums, uhs, and other fillers ‘say something’ to your prospect when you speak. Keep that in mind when you are persuading the affluent.

Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of affluent prospects using

persuasion

. He runs unique public and private seminars and offers home study courses, audio/visual learning tools, and coaching programs in

persuasion techniques

.

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Paying Attention to the Umms and Ahhs}