SPEAKERS AND ORATORS
Sir,-Like my friends "Sundowner" and Dr. G. H. Scholefield, I find it difficult to understand how two of Britain’s celebrated orators could speak as few as 78 and 87 words a minute. Following "Sundowner’s" suggestion to try speaking at 78 words a minute, I would suggest to those interested to time themselves at both their lowest and highest rate of continuous reading. I think the very low rates of speech referred to would be accounted for by, speakers making somewhat lengthy pauses between sentences, doubtless for effect. I would think Sir Joseph Ward’s normal speech was much beyond 150 words a minute, and that on occasion he might reach as high as 250. As a self-taught shorthand-writer on the Northland gumfields in the nineties, I attained 150 words a minute, but that was only sufficient to enable me to keep pace with a
deliberate speaker, and I’m sure it would have been quite hopeless for me to attempt to report Ward verbatim. Topspeed Pitman writers could take down 200-225 words a minute, presumably to keep pace with top-speed speakers.
A. H.
R.
(Dunedin).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19561116.2.12.6
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 902, 16 November 1956, Page 5
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186SPEAKERS AND ORATORS New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 902, 16 November 1956, Page 5
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