Language is a skill and an art, as is persuasion, and both can most definitely be mangled and turned into a disadvantage if used improperly. Unless you’re a child prodigy, as Mozart was with composing and playing music, as H.P. Lovecraft was with writing poems, and as Pablo Picasso was artistically, then you will most likely have to practice whichever art you choose to become good at.

As persuaders we primarily use our language skills to work with our affluent prospects and clients. We are served well when we use these language properly and speak powerfully.

Reading is the quickest way to improve your vocabulary (unless you’re reading gossip magazines, in which case, your vocabulary might diminish).

Having a huge vocabulary doesn’t mean that you’re going to be a great speaker. The art of oratory is an entirely different beast. First you have the fear of public speaking to get over (if you’re inflicted with this, the most common of fears) and then, of course, you have to have something to say.

And once you get over the fear of speaking and have something to say of importance or interest, then there’s the next obstacle. . . the delivery.

I was chatting with my transcriptionist recently and she told me that I use the phrase ‘in other words’ a lot. I do use this phrase a lot and I think part of the reason is because when I’m teaching I am always looking for new ways to say something, delivering the message in as many ways as possible for maximum understanding. I also don’t use the word ‘um’ and ‘in other words’ is possibly taking up the place of that as a way to stall.

There’s a great new book out called “Um. . . Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders and What They Mean” by Michael Erard. One of the most interesting things I’ve read so far in ‘Um. . .’ is that this is a universal. All languages have their own version of ‘um’ (in Spain it’s ‘eh’, in France ‘euh’) and the use of this filler has been around since at least as far back as the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks.

Only since the twentieth century has ‘um. . . ‘ become unpopular likely with the advent of television and radio. And if you were in the debate club in school or did any public speaking in an academic setting, you know that teachers frown upon and attempt to vanquish ‘um’ from all presentations.

‘Um. . .’ (the book) starts out with the transcriptionists of the Federal News Service. They’re the ones that do the closed captions for the hearing impaired. The style guidelines of the FNS state that all of the ‘umms’ and ‘uhs’ and ‘ahs’ and ‘ers’ are left out, false starts of one or two words are left out, and partial words are left out. The one exception is: policymakers. . .everything a policymaker says is typed out verbatim.

I haven’t finished the book yet, but I couldn’t stop myself from skipping to the chapter on George W. Bush. It’s not as funny as the book ‘Bushisms’ but it is an interesting perspective. People view him, as a result of what the author calls ‘disfluencies’, either as ‘down home’, ‘one of the common people’, with his gaffes making him appear more accessible, others consider his blunders a lack of intelligence and a dangerous indication that he is not connected to reality. Regardless of which side of the argument you fall, some of the more memorable disfluencies are pretty funny.

This week pay attention to the way you talk. See how many ums, uhs, false starts, stumbles, gaffes and blunders you make. And pay attention to the way other people talk. Is there a secretary in your office who uses ‘like’ every other word, or an associate who constantly stumbles? How do you perceive them?