Articulacy is a matter of training

Yes. Articulacy is a rather British term that I happen to like quite a lot (Americans are partial to articulateness). Articulacy can be defined as "the quality of expressing oneself readily, clearly and effectively". More often than not, it requires that a speaker be quick-witted and accurate, even under pressure. Not an easy thing. So, how does one develop the skills that are necessary to speak in such a manner? By training. Indeed. Practice does make perfect. Only by getting accustomed to using a wide range of words does one ultimately incorporate them into their own idiolect. Remember the word gap? You may say what you will about its conclusion, but the fact is that a child who is customarily exposed to a rich variety of words will obviously acquire most of them.

John Bercow (the protagonist of the video) is an admirable example of that effortless ability that every language learner ought to aspire to. Of course, one of the reasons why a speaker can be so surgically precise has to do with the sheer range of verbal options that any given thought in his/her head may conjure up. It's because of this that John Bercow can afford to be witty, severe, tactful, poetic or, if need be, even condescending. An intermediate student, however, is clearly in a different verbal universe. Let's say that you feel like eating something. What are your options? "I'm hungry" is probably high on your list. Fair enough. What else can you say?

If one can choose among different degrees of intensity, as in the sequence: peckish, hungry, starving then we are in whole different ballgame. You  realize that you may prefer to use famished and ravenous, which mean the same as starving but happen to be less frequently used and, therefore, may sound more formal. Speaking of unusual, how about the adjective esurient? And what about making use of idioms? Would you rather go for expressions like I could eat a horse, I'm hungry as a hunter or I've got the munchies... ? Remember that they all have different connotations.

Anyhow, let's turn to the video above. You will notice that Mr. Bercow says the following: 

"If the honorable gentleman doesn't trust his own exegesis of the law that's his problem, not mine, but it isn't a matter for the chair".

I simply love his use of "exegesis". Isn't it perfect? He could have chosen explanation or interpretation but opted for a term as sophisticated as exegesis, which implies the critical analysis of a cognitively demanding text (such as the constitution of a country or the Torah). Now, that is what I call... style.

___________________

N.B. 1. Whoever edited the subtitles made one glaring mistake. The expression "in a seemly manor" should, of course, be transcribed as "in a seemly manner". Looks like haste or sloppiness  got the best of the video editor. These pesky homophones...

N.B. 2. If you happen to be obsessed with lexical options you might want to check out the famous "nose speech" from Cyrano de Bergerac.

It's important to avoid overusing the word "important"

Hi everyone!

One of the defining characteristics of the C1 level is the ability to show range, which basically means that any advanced speaker should be able to choose from a varied menu of options. Bizarrely enough, I tend to find that many students focus way too hard on the acquisition of new vocabulary. They seem to be convinced that a knowing lots of different terms, big words or unusual turns of phrase will enrich their oral expression and they are absolutely right on the money. Having said that, it is also true that, ultimately, any description gets boring when it's made up of sentences which start like this: "Jenny is...". 

Consider the difference between these two sentences:

"To me family comes first"

"My family is extremely important".

See? You can say the very same thing without resorting to the rather basic structure "My family is...". Anyway, today I just wanted to remind you of the fact that, in our context, the word range refers to a variety of options: semantic, morphological or syntactical. In the video below I discuss a couple of ideas that may help you avoid using the phrase "he is very important". I hope it's useful.

Los Angeles November 2019

As many of you are already aware of, Blade Runner (1982) is a major obsession of mine. Some months ago, I posted some thoughts on the film. Suffice it to say that Blade Runner was the first movie I ever watched in its original version and it had a profound effect on me. But if I bring it up today it’s because the movie is set in Los Angeles and the story takes place precisely in November 2019.

Acid rain does not soak our cities, but climate change has become quite a pressing issue. Massive animal extinction is not a reality (yet) but there are thousands of endangered species. We don’t have androids walking the streets. However, different forms of artificial intelligence (Siri, Cortana, Alexa) are now part of our lives. As a matter of fact, experts predict that sentient A.I.s will come to exist sometime around 2060: the so-called singularity. And we don't see lots of cars flying overhead, but some prototypes have actually been manufactured. In short, Blade Runner was not exactly off target. Nevertheless it is not the film's predictions that I care about but rather its dazzling production design, its gorgeous photography, the poignant performances and its hypnotic soundtrack. Part of the appeal of the film has to do with the issues it addresses. Blade Runner, which in many ways was ahead of its time, dealt with matters which are painfully relevant today: environmental decay, artificial intelligence, the seat of personal identity, the essence of humanity, the role of women in our society... and yet, there is a theme that permeates the whole story and elevates the film: death. Yes. Death. That pesky little problem we all face eventually.

Why am I talking about it now? Well, the fact that I turned fifty last week may have affected my criteria for choosing this particular video. The truth is the clock is also ticking for you. So let's celebrate Blade Runner by watching the clip below these lines. A little bit of context might be in order now.

Roy Batty, the blond character in the scene, is a replicant, i.e. an artificial being designed by multimillionaire genius Eldon Tyrell who deliberately programmed a four-year lifespan into his creatures so as to prevent them from getting out of control. Batty knows that his own death is only days away and decides to turn up at his maker’s house to demand a stop to his impending end. So, when he walks into Tyrell’s chambers and plainly bellows: “I want more time!” we can identify with the dying replicant. “What seems to be the problem?” asks Tyrell, coolly. “I want more life, father”. Who cannot relate to that? Isn’t it a universal desire? Aren’t we all soon going to find ourselves bargaining for some extra time? Food for thought.

Let’s now take a look at the language in the clip. The scene has interesting expressions. “To meet one’s maker” is a standard euphemism for dying and “the facts of life” refers to something that must be accepted and cannot be changed, however unpalatable. The scene also contains a truly memorable line:

A light that burns twice as bright burns half as long

and you have burned so very very brightly, Roy.

Isn't it beautiful? By the way it, is interesting to realize that many writers equate life with light. Yes. An unforgettable example springs to mind. In his memoirs (entitled Speak Memory), Vladimir Nabokov wrote: the cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.

Anyhow, even though it is Roy Batty’s final soliloquy that has become part of cinema history (the moving forty-two words we know as “the tears-in-rain monologue”), today I encourage you to dwell on Tyrell’s very last words, for they are indeed wise: "Revel in your time!".

N.B. Writing assignments. C1.1 students: exam Task on page 15 of the textbook. C1.2 students: 280 words describing a city or a person that has undergone significant changes.

Fun fact: the original line in the scene above was slightly less elegant (I want more life, f***er). Clearly, the tone of the scene called for a loftier word choice. I trust you can guess the deleted term.

Steer clear of hyperbolic statements

"In less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any other administration in the history of our country". Those are the exact words that Donald Trump uttered last year (September 2018) during his address to the General Assembly of the United Nations. Understandably, the amused delegates laughed. The reason for that reaction is quite obvious: what Mr. Trump said is simply not true. In fact, it was so blantantly false that the diplomats could not help sniggering. Mr. Trump's spin doctors and supporters were quick to point out that their president only resorted to hyperbole but they neglected to mention that there comes a point where hyperbole is ridiculous. Just last Monday (October 7) Mr. Trump referred to his "great and unmatched wisdom", by which he means that there is nobody on the planet as wise as him. Let that sink in.

It is true that in colloquial speech we often use exaggerations. You may, for instance, say "Thanks for your help, Jeremy. You're the best" or "I'm so sorry I forgot about it. I'm the worst". Clearly, we don't think that Jeremy is the best in the world (at what?). By the same token we don't truly believe that there's no human being worse than us (at what?). An overstatement can be a figure of speech (usually not a very effective one) but you get the picture. However, there are obvious limits to such a rhetoric device.

If I were to say that Fermín Cacho "has won more Olympic gold medals than almost any other athlete in history" I would be lying because the record shows that he only won one gold medal whereas Michael Phelps has obtained 23 and there are as many as 78 other athletes with five or more gold medals at the Olympics. Historic political achievement is not as easily measured as gold medals but it can certainly be gaged. Were they alive, presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (to name but a few) could boast significantly more impressive achievements than Mr. Trump.

Anyhow, leaving narcissistic personality disorders and self-deception aside, I believe that exaggerations are common because they are easy. The problem, as in the abovementioned UN fiasco, is that over-the-top statements entail an inevitable downside: people don't take you seriously.

The tendency to use superlatives, to which many native speakers are no strangers, is also frequent amongst inexperienced learners. Indeed, basic and intermediate students often abuse the adverb very. Do the really consider every opinion they hear to be very interesting? Probably not. Why don't they use other terms such as fairly, somewhat, rather, quite, extremely, utterly? Well, because it's easy to say very and also because they probably don't know the other modifiers. Simple as that. They don't know the words. And that's precisely the kind of habit we should avoid at an advanced level.

At an advanced level you ought to be able to run the gamut: pairs such as hot and cold are fine when you're a beginner but at this point you should be aware of this lexical continuum: boiling, hot, warm, tepid, cool, cold, freezing.

When you abuse simple adjectives like important or big you may sound simple-minded yourself. I am not saying those terms should never be used. I'm just pointing out that if those adjectives are your usual choice you will not sound articulate. 

So, steer clear of hyperbole and try to be as accurate as possible. Overstatements can be used to great effect in poetry and some of them are part of everyday idiomatic expressions (I'm so hungry I could eat a horse) but exaggerations tend to be cheap. A film you didn't like does not need to be the worst movie ever. You can say it was predictable or dull or dreary or not memorable or maybe it didn't meet your expectations. Don't forget that people who constantly abuse hyperbole invariably come across as weak speakers. Now you can enjoy this short video. Just remember you're not Shakespeare.

--> --> --> --> -->