Unfiltered Thoughts

2022.02.09 – 0405 – Pauses As The Fulcrum In A Story’s ‘See-Saw’ The pause as a see-saw fulcrum A pause can help explain the balance of two parts of the story – while this is happening over there, this is happening over here.
“The mayor said that it was the fault of the police [pause] the police are claiming it was a council error.”
“Jones is alleged to have killed the three men [pause] he denies all the charges.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.02.08 – 0404 – Pauses As Intonational Devices In Quotes and Sub-Clauses They are used as intonational devices in quotes, brackets/parenthesis and sub-clausesAs we saw previously when we talked about pitch and intonation, we leave a micro-gap either side of a quote from someone else to indicate that they are their words, not ours. The quote itself is often also said in a slightly different pitch and at a slower speed: “Perkins told us [pause] ‘I’ll sue if those allegations are repeated’ [pause] and then thumped our reporter in the chest”.  “The company says it’s [pause] the best camera of its kind [pause] on the market”.
Similarly, the pause is used to verbalise a phrase that would perhaps be a sub-clause or in brackets, in the written word:
“And you can get her new novel [pause] which is the second in the ‘Blandford’ trilogy [pause] with our exclusive discount code”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.02.07 – 0403 – A Pause Helps You Say What You Can’t Actually Say A pause helps you say what you can’t actually sayA pause might be inviting the audience to ‘read between the lines’ pointing them to a possible irony – the verbal equivalent of a raised eyebrow: “And Melania Trump, has delivered a farewell address ...saying the last four years have been 'unforgettable' and calling for an end to division”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.02.06 – 0402 – Silence to Let Sound Tell the Story Silence to let sound tells the storyRadio consultant Tracy Johnson tells the story[1] of former Dodgers baseball play-by-play ‘personality announcer’ Vin Scully and quotes his commentary[2] of Hank Aaron’s 715th home run, the blast that “made him baseball’s home-run king”.  Scully later talked[3] about using silence to capture the drama when he was asked what he did as soon as he made the home run call. “(I) shut up.  I try as hard as I can to call the play as quickly and as accurately and then shut up, there are no words better than the roar of the crowd… When Henry Aaron hit the home run, I put the microphone down, got up and went to the back of the booth cos I had nothing to say. The place went bananas.… I think I poured a little coffee and I stood there and just revelled in the sounds and the sights. And I’ve timed it since and it’s about a minute and 24 seconds without a word spoken and that’s a long time in radio but I had nothing better to say. And it also then gave me time to calm down and think and then go back and talk about the importance to America.”
[1] https://tjohnsonmediagroup.com/blog/power-of-the-pause/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvfYg_kNtTk&t=290s [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1207&v=0ocs1zJIkUY&feature=emb_logo (from 17.22)  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.02.05 – 0401 – Pauses To Engage Attention After Significant Content  After significant content A pause after a phrase or story gives listeners time to reflect on what they’ve just heard, to allow it to sink in, giving the audience time to digest information, not drown in it. “The four people who died in a house fire this morning, were two sets of twin boys aged 4 and 6. In the last few minutes a woman from the same address has been arrested [pause]. The fatal fire broke out at around 2 this morning on a house on Collingwood Avenue…” The pause in this kind of situation, after the news of the death of a prominent person or ‘shocking’ news story, may also indicate a sense of significance or respect. In a speech, a pause indicates you’ve just made an important point. Let it sit with the audience a moment… Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.02.04 – 0400 – Pauses To Engage Attention Before Significant Content 
To engage attention before significant content A brief moment of silence adds suspense, adds anticipation and indicates incoming important information that may require attention.
“This just in from Downing Street” [pause] “There are new rules for the lockdown…”
“We are just getting news in from Paris…” [pause] “The Princess died at around 4.30 this morning…”
“A statement from The White House in the last few minutes has confirmed [pause] the President has resigned with immediate effect.”
Or it may be just one or two words that you subtly pause before to highlight a forthcoming fact: 
“And the latest government borrowing is now [pause] 319 billion pounds…”
Silence before anything has been uttered (for example, leaving a news jingle to fade out almost completely before talking), gives the sense of an approaching mood of significance, its unexpectedness creates suspense. It makes people lean in, their ears prick up, they mentally try and fill the void with their own thoughts, “what’s going on?”, “why has it gone quiet?” – you’ve engaged them. 
And as a large percentage of people listen to podcasts and the radio while doing other things (driving, housework, exercise), such a pause helps recapture and re-engage them.
Used correctly, it is perhaps one of the strongest, but least-used rhetorical devices to move listener’s attention to help convey important words and messages.
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2022.02.03 – 0399 – Pauses As Script Divisions As script divisions to aid understandingPauses divide a script into ‘sense groups’ for the ‘heard word’, the same way that a comma or full stop/period does for the written word. A dash or ellipses (…), comma, full stop/period, paragraph, page or chapter – they all indicate in text or when translated into speech, different kinds of pause to help marshal thoughts and aid understanding. In these situations, the length of the pause may differ. Say micro-beats at a comma, one beat between bullet points, and double that between different paragraphs. They allow the reader to ‘refresh and reset’ a tone between one story or topic and the next. For example, going from one story which ends “and appears in court tomorrow charged with his grandmother’s murder” to the next one which starts “The town’s lido re-opens today after a refit that’s taken two years…”. Pauses provide punctuation, the verbal equivalent of a full stop or period. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.02.02 – 0398 – The Importance Of Pauses In Lists Sometimes you have a list of two or three items in a sentence: So, on an airline when the cabin crew offer you a meal (we used a similar example previously): “Would you like chicken or fish with vegetables or pasta?” Are you being offered:·        “Would you like chicken / or fish with vegetables / or pasta?”o  Chicken, fish with vegetables, or pasta?·        “Would you like chicken or fish with vegetables / or pasta?”o  Chicken and fish (both of which come with vegetables), or pasta?·        “Would you like chicken or fish / with vegetables or pasta?”o  Chicken, and fish both of which come either with vegetables or pasta? The information only becomes clear when the speaker puts the pause in the correct place OK in these examples the listener may be able to work out the context for themselves – if you are talking with a friend, you may know how many people they report to, or on an airline you may see what other people up the aisle have been given for their meal. But of course, similar sentences may come up in, for example, e-book narration. And like all of this advice from diction to intonation, yes, someone may be able to work out what your message is, but why should they? Isn’t it your job to aid their understanding and signpost the sense? And, while they are trying to solve your conversational conundrum, they’ve missed the next thing you’ve said and so fall behind further.  Effective communication starts with making the message easy to understand. Here’s one more: “It clouded over before today” – depending on where that pause is, will tell mum back home that you’re on the phone to, whether it was overcast earlier this day, or this week.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.02.01 – 0397 – My Manager’s A Jerk…
“What’s that on the road ahead?”“What’s that on the road, a head?”  
A pause can make all the difference between seeing traffic problems, and the scene of a murder… 
If your friend said to you: 
“My manager who’s in the New York office / is a jerk” the pause would indicate that they have more than one manager, and they are referring to the one in New York, rather than the one in London or Paris.
If instead they said “My manager / who’s in the New York office / is a jerk” the pause indicates that they only have one manager, and that that person is based in New York.
The point of the pause is to give added context to the comment – although either way that person is a jerk. 
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2022.01.31 – 0396 – Pauses As A Signpost To Meaning
As well as the above reasons, you pause to help signpost the sense of the sentence. 
You can pause between setting up a statement and presenting it:“Crafted in stunning 9ct white gold / each of these studs boast a brilliant-cut solitaire diamond.”
You can pause to make a statement stand out:“This / is the BBC” or as I say at the end of my podcast: “From London / I’m Peter Stewart”
But the meaning is the key-thing. Remember that for when you come across a sentence with two sets of commas in and you need to work out which one (if any) means you should pause.
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