And one extra!
Even if you decide to listen to the folk before you, do give yourself time (at least 5 minutes) to center yourself before it's your turn to speak.
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Would you use the F-word speaking in public?
Is it acceptable? Ever? When?
There are increasingly numerous examples of influential people who swear while speaking publically. Google swearing or the F-word and public speaking
and you'll find a slew of interesting discussions raising every shade of 'YES', 'NO' and 'MAYBE'.
While opinions vary over the rights or wrongs of using profane language there was one area where all agreed. That is that swearing gratuitously was not acceptable.
So if you habitually pepper your talks with F-this, F-that and F-something else you'll find yourself pleasing very few. It seems that most people interpret that as either trying too hard to be hip or laziness.
Neither are complimentary.
What do I think?
I think context is everything. If I stub my toe hard and I'm by myself I'm likely to cuss a bit. When I'm speaking in public I don't. I don't for several reasons. One is that I don't wish to offend the audience and another is that I want them to listen to my message.
If I swear while delivering it at least half of them will focus on that and stop thinking about what I'm trying to share with them. It will be a communication block rather than an enhancement.
Yet another of my reasons for not swearing belongs to my childhood. I can still hear an echo of my Mother saying that those who swore were either 'show-offs' or had limited vocabularies. The way she told it both states were to be pitied.
'Showing off' was attention seeking behaviour that demonstrated a low self-esteem and the need to inflate it by playing BIG. On the other hand, a limited vocabulary was a sad state in her book. It denoted someone who for whatever reason had little education or desire for it.
While I don't wholeheartedly endorse her beliefs now, there is some truth in them. Swearing simply to shock or create a scene is childish and swearing because you have no ready alternative words to convey surprise, pain, love or anything else is a type of poverty.
When I was teaching my office was next to a busy student corridor and I often overheard entire exchanges featuring the F-word used as a noun, verb, and adjective.
A typical exchange went something like this:
"F-k, I've got f-king English next and I've haven't done my f-king homework. I'm f-ked! What the f-k am I going to do? She'll f-king kill me. F-k it!"
It didn't shock me. Instead it was both sad and wryly funny at the same time. Sad because they were trying so hard to be cool and funny because any word used repeatedly undermines the communication robbing it of its intensity. It becomes ridiculous. The value of the word (shocking or otherwise) is diminished to placeholder status - a filler.
If you don't believe me, try it in the privacy of your own home. Listen to yourself. Can you take what you are hearing seriously?
(And incidentally, those students had perfectly good vocabularies. In other settings they did not swear.)
Having reached the average baby-boomer age, I've got a few years to look back on. I can see and hear myself as a young person trying out the forbidden words. I can also remember when I entirely miscued whom I was speaking to. Instead of shock or admiration for being so daring, the response I got was revulsion. Apparently I was not clever, hip or 'with it'. I was simply a girl with a potty mouth and I hated it. It was humiliating and a darn good lesson. I did know better. Infact one of the things I loved most was words and what they could do. That was a growing up moment!
Back to you:
If swearing is a regular feature of your public speaking are you doing it:
- to be real or authentic?
"This is the way I talk. Like it or lump it! To talk any other way would be a pretence."
- to shock?
A swear word especially if used by someone who doesn't habitually, or you would expect not to because of their position, for example a teacher, leading politician, or doctor, shocks. That shock can be good because it sits people up straight and forces them to listen or it can be bad because it turns people away immediately.
- because it fits with your audience?
That's how they speak and therefore to communicate meaningfully you need to use their language.
- because you truly don't have alternatives?
Whatever your answers if you are going to use potentially shocking language of any sort, including the F-word, then it's my belief you need to be willing and ready to accept the consequences. That means assuming full reponsibility for the words you say.
If you would like to develop your expressiveness or the vibrancy of your language check out this page on action verbs. It will help you create impact without swearing!
And if you know you need vocaulary stretchers look over this page on developing word power. You'll find a collection of simple but effective ideas to put into practice.
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For those of you who enjoy language, who shamelessly, wantonly want to gobble up large portions of it and shout more while still digesting the last mouthful, here's Stephen Fry on the joys of language.
This is a kinetic evocation to the glorious creativity of words; an essay on language read by Stephen Fry set against animated typography by Mathew Rogers. I hope you love it as much as I do.
Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography
Find out more about Stephen Fry. Click the link and you'll see he's a famous and much-loved actor, broadcaster and writer as well as much more!
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Until next time,
Happy speaking,
Susan
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