Common Etiquette Blunders Speakers Make 2
Last week I commenced a series on common etiquette blunders speakers make. While I focused on body language of public speakers last week, this week I would focus on mistakes public speakers make with words.
Abusive Language.
A well-polished speaker would not employ the use of abusive words and invectives. If I were to say for example “Who told you Jesus was poor? What Idiot told you that?” or “Some people think you have to be in a particular state to connect with people in that same state. I think such people are simply stupid!” Though I might appear to be assertive I would be abusive and committing an etiquette blunder. In my twenty years of preaching and speaking, this is one of the most trenchant lessons I have learnt.
Poor pronunciations.
One of the traits of a well-polished speaker is that they rightly pronounce words and more importantly local words. I did my youth service in Bornu State. When people ask me where I served, I tell them with a lot of pride that I served in Bornu State pronouncing Bornu as “Borunu State” and not “Bonu State”. If people choose to laugh at me that the joke is on them and not on me. A seasoned speaker would not repeatedly pronounce words poorly, for example pronouncing words like “Chapter” as “Shapter”. A speaker who is based in Nigeria for instance should make it a duty to learn how to pronounce names from all from all the different tribes. Even sports commentators and analyst are requires to learn how to pronounce manes of athletes in the particular sport they cover regardless of what country they are from. As a football journalist, I had to pronounce Dutch soccer club Ajax as “Ayax” and Italian soccer club Juventus as “Youventus” because that was the right pronunciation. Anything short of that would render me as amateurish. The same goes for a public speaker. A public speaker who lives in Nigeria and speaks primarily to Nigerians and mispronounces Nigerian names regularly is definitely not a well-polished speaker! I advise speakers and public speakers who have challenges with proper pronunciation to get diction and local language experts to tutor them in this area. One public speaker with very good diction is Pastor Paul Adefarasin. Though he has a slightly pronounced American accent, he still pronounces Ozumba Mbadiwe like an Igbo man and Adefarasin like a Yoruba man! Now that’s a well-polished public speaker! Matthew Ashimolowo is another classic example of a well-polished public speaker.
Mind your choice of words.
If I preach a message to an audience for example and say “That’s why many of you are poor.” I am indirectly saying to the audience that many of them are poor. That would be an affront to the audience and an etiquette blunder. Instead of making statements like “Your giving excuses would only make you more irresponsible” a much better phrase would be “Giving excuses would only make a person more irresponsible”. That way, I am not directly imputing irresponsibility or laziness to the audience but rather to the world in general. Pastor Adeboye gave an excellent example on the importance of ones choice of words many years ago.
He said he was invited to the University of Lagos to deliver a sermon and the speaker who preached before him gave an altar call (an invitation to the audience to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior) but the speaker said something like “If you are lost and you to receive Christ, come out.” No one came out. I remember Pastor Adeboye commenting “How can you tell a Professor that he is lost?” When it was time for Pastor Adeboye to make an altar call he said something like “If you want a higher level of wisdom by having the Lord as your personal Lord and savior……” and he said 40 professors came rushing forward to the altar call. Choice of words can either make or mar a public speaker.