0482 – 9 - The Form Of The Words

2022.04.27 – 0482 – 9 - The Form Of The Words

THE SCRIPT

Spoken language doesn’t need grammar to give a meaning to the sequence of words. The grammar of the written word evolved to replace the intonation of the spoken voice, and that’s what causes problems when we try and read a sentence and make it sound natural.

Spoken language doesn’t have sentences: we speak in a collection of phrases.

9 - The Form Of The Words

To sound conversational, use conversational language.

A reason why studio script-reading is unnatural (alongside no immediate ‘facial feedback’ from the listener) is that we are usually not adlibbing our own words, inspired by the uniquenessof the moment, but instead by someone else’s words they thought at a different time and situation, and translated into grammatical sentences which are now represented by squiggles on a screen or on a piece of dried wood pulp.

“Do you see what I did there? I used incomplete sentences. I said ‘kinda’. I used a simile with the words ‘really cool.’ I used the word ‘like’ in the same way I would have if I were talking to you at a bar. I said ‘really good’ instead of something print-newsy like ‘phenomenally gifted newsman’, or ‘a revolutionary voice that defied convention blah blah blah’.

NPR reporter Sam Sanders[1]

If you use more of your own words where you can, writing like people talk and not writing how you think people ought to write, then you will be more conversational, and make more of a connection.

[1] https://training.npr.org/2015/02/25/how-sam-sanders-is-finding-his-voice/

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