Would you correct a friend who says "um" in a speech? (person, present)
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Recently a friend of mine gave a talk at a conference, and he sent out a global invitation to his friends to come and give him moral support. Since the conference happened to be taking place just a few blocks from my office, I was able to attend his presentation. In general I thought he spoke well, but I did notice a fair amount of "um"s in his speech. He is not a professional speaker and in fact this may have been the first time he has spoken before an audience. As far as I know, it is not likely that he will be doing any further public speaking, or at least not with any degree of frequency.
After the speech I teased him about the esoteric nature of his subject (about which I knew absolutely nothing other than what I heard him say) but said nothing about the manner of his delivery. Like I said, it was noticeable to me, but not excessively so.
Do you think I should have said anything about the "um"s, or was I right to just ignore it?
If it's not likely that he would do any future public speaking, then there's no reason to bring it up.
If it were likely that he would be doing it again, I would say "I really enjoyed your talk. Would you mind if I offered some feedback on some things you might want to keep in mind for future presentations?"
If he's not likely to make more speeches on a regular basis, what exactly would be the point of making him feel negative and self-conscious about the speech he did make after the fact?
Recommend a public speaking class just to give him more confidence. I'm not a big fan of many Dale Carnegie programs, but their public speaking classes are superb. I sent a couple of my employees to them and the change was amazing.
President Obama said um, err, uh in a lot of his speeches and no one called him out on it. (Although it was great fodder for impersonators.) I think people were more interested in what he said as opposed to how he said it.
Point being- if you are making a great speech and have the audience "in your hand", then no one will care if you um and uh a lot. If your speech is less than effective, and the speaker is saying um, er, uh as a substitute for a substantive speech then yeah, they may want to tighten it up.
Reminds me...
A man named Ed Koch, the late former New York City Mayor, used "Uh" in his speeches, as in:
"We uh, have a uh, committee to uh, balance the uh, city budget and, uh, improve finances which will, uh, bolster the city's, uh, economic status, uh, and get things, uh, going again..."
Recently a friend of mine gave a talk at a conference, and he sent out a global invitation to his friends to come and give him moral support. Since the conference happened to be taking place just a few blocks from my office, I was able to attend his presentation. In general I thought he spoke well, but I did notice a fair amount of "um"s in his speech. He is not a professional speaker and in fact this may have been the first time he has spoken before an audience. As far as I know, it is not likely that he will be doing any further public speaking, or at least not with any degree of frequency.
After the speech I teased him about the esoteric nature of his subject (about which I knew absolutely nothing other than what I heard him say) but said nothing about the manner of his delivery. Like I said, it was noticeable to me, but not excessively so.
Do you think I should have said anything about the "um"s, or was I right to just ignore it?
Since he did not ask for your opinion about his delivery, no. You are not responsible for his speech. You were there to give him moral support. I don't think criticizing him is giving moral support.
If he's going to be speaking publicly again, I would maybe bring it up. "You did great, but you said "um" a lot." But if you DO go that route, be sure you can point him to some resources that can help him out. I've gotten much better at public speaking since I realized how much I said "um"
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