{"id":1898,"date":"2015-03-05T12:37:39","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T12:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/presentation-skills-blog.co.uk\/?p=1898"},"modified":"2015-03-05T12:41:21","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T12:41:21","slug":"what-the-vocative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/what-the-vocative\/","title":{"rendered":"What the voc(ative)?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Casting my mind back to my schooldays, I remember something called the \u2018Vocative\u2019. It\u2019s a particular use of a word as an address (or something like that).\u00a0 So saying \u201cThe coat belongs to Simon\u201d wouldn\u2019t count as using my name in the vocative – but shouting\u00a0 \u201cSimon, is this your coat?\u201d would count.<\/p>\n

Clear?<\/p>\n

Why is it important?<\/div>
Because we\u2019re conditioned to respond to our names and to be more sensitive to them. Ask yourself how many times you\u2019ve heard your name across a crowded room – it happened to me recently when my wife was talking about me at the other side of a partyroom.<\/div><\/div>\n

The point I’m making isn’t about the\u00a0niceties<\/span>\u00a0of grammar, however, it’s to do with communication in general and presentations in particular. I’m much more likely to take ‘register’ and take notice of an instruction from my wife that’s phrased like this:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Simon, will you pass me the bowl, please<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    than if my name comes at the end<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Will you pass me the bowl, please, Simon<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      See what I mean. In the first example I’m primed to pay attention whereas in the second I don’t know I’m even supposed to be paying attention until after the event. In the second one I’ve got to spend time going back over what has been said and play it back in my head before I can even consider replying. (The answer, by the way, is always going to be “Yes, darling, of course: it’s my absolute pleasure!”)<\/p>\n

      And so with presentations…<\/p>\n

      People are more likely to remember what you\u00a0tell\u00a0them if they know it’s addressing their issues in advance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      I see a lot of presenters giving information – good information – and then starting to apply it to their audiences’s circumstances. It’s a logical sequence: after all, you can’t apply what you don’t understand… but it’s not an effective order.<\/p>\n

      As soon as I say it, it’s pretty darn obvious, isn’t it? \u00a0The only hard part is remember to do it! ;)<\/p>\n

      Instead of the ‘logical’ and sequential approach, try a more sales-y design for your presentations. Start with something like “This is why what I’m going to do is important to you” and then go on to “and this is how you do it…”.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Casting my mind back to my schooldays, I remember something called the \u2018Vocative\u2019. It\u2019s a particular use of a word as an address (or something like that).\u00a0 So saying \u201cThe coat belongs to Simon\u201d wouldn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-presentation-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1898"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3151,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898\/revisions\/3151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}