World

When news is about speech form not substance

by YankeeJim | June 17, 2010 at 03:00 am

172 views | 0 Recommendations | 2 comments

Does somebody need to give somebody a break? CNN analysts report that the President’s remarks were over the heads of many in the audience who are not yet up to 10th grade in understanding and comprehension. My fellow Americans vote for elected officials and the average outcome is 10th grade selection quality product. Didn’t understand what I said, most of you.

We set about the journey of life, staffing our institutions based on our 10th grade level of guidance. I wonder how that stacks up in our world of competition.

“Language guru: Obama speech too 'professorial' for his target audience

By the CNN Wire Staff

June 17, 2010 2:01 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- President Obama's speech on the gulf oil disaster may have gone over the heads of many in his audience, according to an analysis of the 18-minute talk released Wednesday.

Tuesday night's speech from the Oval Office of the White House was written to a 9.8 grade level, said Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor. The Austin, Texas-based company analyzes and catalogues trends in word usage and word choice and their impact on culture.

Though the president used slightly less than four sentences per paragraph, his 19.8 words per sentence "added some difficulty for his target audience," Payack said.

He singled out this sentence from Obama as unfortunate: "That is why just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation's best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge -- a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation's secretary of energy."

…

"A little less professorial, less academic and more ordinary," Payack recommended. "That's the type of phraseology that makes you (appear) aloof and out of touch."”