{"id":1877,"date":"2013-01-07T16:37:54","date_gmt":"2013-01-07T16:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/presentation-skills-blog.co.uk\/?p=1877"},"modified":"2013-01-07T16:37:54","modified_gmt":"2013-01-07T16:37:54","slug":"presentations-it-aint-what-you-say-its-the-way-that-you-say-it-sort-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/presentations-it-aint-what-you-say-its-the-way-that-you-say-it-sort-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Presentations – it ain’t what you say, it’s the way that you say it. Sort of."},"content":{"rendered":"

Dialect is a funny beast – and treacherous, too.<\/p>\n

Used correctly it can increase the chances of rapport between a speaker and their audience… it creates a sense of togetherness and a shared cultural background. That is, of course, one of the main reasons for dialects.<\/p>\n

When it goes wrong however, exactly the opposite happens.<\/p>\n

Let me give you an example from the days when I was a university researcher.<\/p>\n

\"Yorkshire

Entering Yorkshire<\/p><\/div>\n

One of the people I often worked with was a blunt Yorkshire man: let\u2019s call him John. Where John came from the traditional greeting was \u2018Na thn\u2019.\u00a0 A literal translation into more-or-less standard English would be \u201cnow then\u201d. He used it where other people would use \u2018Hi\u2019 or \u2018Hey\u201d.<\/p>\n

The problem was, he was often making presentations to Geordies (people from around Newcastle, in the north east of England). The only time they used \u201cNow then\u201d was in the middle of an argument – as in \u201cnow then, just who do you thin you are?<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Inevitably, things got off on the wrong foot – even when the audience knew John and were (you would think) used to him.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s face it, a few dozen people in an audience are not going to change as easily as one person – the speaker, John. It made more sense for John to simply great his audience in a different way.<\/p>\n

But because \u201cNa thn\u201d was metaphorically built into him, it was easier said than done.<\/p>\n

And in case you think you speak something close to the Queen\u2019s English so that this cautionary tail can\u2019t possibly apply to you, let me as you two questions…<\/p>\n