When I was a child growing up in the post depression years, people were leery of “fast talkers.”  They often showed up at your front door,  selling anything from brushes to vacuum cleaners. They had an air of desperation about them.   Nevertheless, our sympathy was overshadowed by caution.  Fast talkers weren’t to be trusted.  But now, the media seems to be inundated with them. Fie on fast talkers.

If you have a problem with a product you bought online, you’re likely to contact the customer service department.  For heaven’s sakes, don’t forget to put on your hearing aids.  Most representatives have foreign accents, and  speak so rapidly that you constantly have to ask them to repeat themselves. . They  become impatient, and may hang up on you. On the rare occasions when I find myself speaking to a customer service representative whom I can understand , their  company is the  one that I prefer to do business with in the future.

I suspect  that making your living on the telephone doesn’t pay very well.   And it’s not very satisfying to listen to customer complaints and nasty people all day long.  So the person you’re talking to has probably taken the job as a last resort. If you must contact a representative online, using the chat option is often better than a telephone call.  At least they have to spell out their answers, and understand what you’re saying.

But there are fast talkers everywhere. In our city, we have a TV station that employs attractive young news reporters  who babble off  a teleprompter at breakneck speed.  They may think that makes them seem more intelligent, but actually, they come off as nervous and jumpy. Needless to say, we don’t watch that station unless the other has a ball game.  In this troubled world, you want to hear the  news from someone who is relatively calm, cool, and collected.

Here’s some advice for fast talkers that I found on the internet:

1. Open your mouth a little bit wider
2. Finish the words. Don’t leave off endings.
3. Don’t leave out the syllables. Instead ot “diffrent” ,  pronounce it dif- er-ent.     Instead of “evry” say ev-er-y
4. Lengthen the words. For example  “Smile” can be lengthened by holding the I a bit longer.
5. Pause after every sentence or new thought. Give the listener a chance to assimilate what they’ve heard.

Fie on fast talkers.  They’re annoying and frustrating.  If you want someone to understand what you say, slow down.