Contributed by: filbert Wednesday, August 20 2008 @ 10:26 AM CST
I was in Toastmasters for a while–if you don’t know, that’s an organization that basically brings ordinary people together to give speeches to each other. Then they grade out and critique the speaking style. The purpose is to improve the public speaking ability of its participants.
One of the most effective things the Toastmasters do, in my opinion, is that they always have somebody doing an “um” count of all of the speakers. When all speakers are done, they award a joke award to the speaker with the most ums. The purpose, of course, is to encourage their members to reduce the use of that annoying verbal tic.
As to it’s applicability to Barack Obama, I’m just sayin’.