« Reading List: The Twelve Cæsars | Main | Reading List: Coincidentally »
Friday, February 22, 2008
The “You know” Report: Texas Democratic Presidential Debate
Due to the incessant worldwide coverage of the presidential campaign in the United States, I happened recently to hear some clips from a recent “debate” between the two remaining contenders for the Democratic nomination. Letting, as usual, the platitudes, demagoguery, and policy nostrums slide right past my ears, what struck me is just how inarticulate these people are, especially considering that they are graduates of the two top-ranked law schools in the United States, members of the so-called “world's greatest deliberative body”, and one of whom is celebrated for his silver-tongued eloquence. In particular, I noted that both Clinton's and Obama's extemporaneous speech were afflicted by that characteristic verbal tic of the boomer and subsequent generations, the incessant injection of “you know” into statements which, presumably, the speaker is making because the audience doesn't know what's about to be said. I wouldn't be an engineer if I didn't immediately want to quantify an observation like this, so I set up my VCR to tape the debate held on February 21st, 2008 in Austin, Texas. (It started at 2 A.M. the following day in my time zone.) Playing back the tape (while getting some actually productive work done at the same time), I counted the number of times each candidate interjected “you know” in each of the four segments of the encounter. (Now don't say I'm unwilling to endure pain to bring items like this to you!)Clinton | Obama | |
---|---|---|
Segment 1 | 13 | 3 |
Segment 2 | 8 | 7 |
Segment 3 | 9 | 4 |
Segment 4 | 10 | 5 |
Total: | 40 | 19 |
Posted at February 22, 2008 16:53