A decently long time ago I was in 10th grade and I had a teacher who taught us that to be an effective speaker you needed to be clear and concise.  We had to practice our speeches and presentations over and over again and we were given negative marks for using 'um' as a space filler.  We were discouraged from having empty space and stuttering was also frowned upon.  Also in high school I was part of our TV productions group (yes yes AV nerd I get it) and we would put out daily announcements throughout the school and I happened to be the one making the announcements.  In the lamest of terms I was a TV news anchor..........for my school district?  Which dare I say was actually really cool and fun.  I had to be well structured and to the point at all times.  That is what we were taught.  While I may joke that I grew up in a town with 2 1/2 stop lights I did go to a really good high school.  So why is it when I listen to political speakers during the debates and Nobel Peace winners on NPR that none of them can string together an intelligent well thought out sentence without stuttering and inserting um...uh...eh...er...

In the past few years I've worked with and taken classes with people who are not the cleanest speakers.  They repeat syllables and struggle through their thoughts and it makes me wonder if what I was taught was incorrect.  I don't disagree that when trying to prove a point you should be as focused and crisp with your speech but there's something to be said about a person who manages to do great things in their life regardless of their less than attractive language skills.   Obviously these people have a certain presence or aspect to them that is desirable to others.  Given the fact that a politician can sit in office term after term with a shady past and a sad understanding of how the world actually works based solely on the fact that they have charisma.  

Maybe I should focus more on what I say not so much in how understandable I'm trying to be to my audience.  The whole package is not necessary and for years I've worked mostly on thinking through my thoughts and presenting a clear straight forward argument when its possible that I should just shoot from the hip say what I think and offend people arbitrarily and maybe I'll win some friends? :)