Excellent article on CopyBlogger asking Are Vampire Words are Sucking the Life Out of your Writing? The topic pertains very much to speeches too.

I would add the word “thing” to the list for speeches.  ”Thing” is such a non-descriptive word.  There’s always a better word than “thing” that describes the subject of your attention.

Excellent piece by George Orwell on Politics and the English Language.  I found myself seeing many parallels with public speaking.  It is well worth a read.  Here are the final bullet points:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never us a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

All excellent advice for speech creation.  In reading the piece, you can see how Orwell uses different figures of speech to add dimension.  I harp on about #4 a lot.  Stories come alive when you use the active tense.  Try it in your next speech and let me know how it goes.

Mark Hunter was recently crowned the 2009 World Champion of Public Speaking in Connecticut.  There’s a great writeup of the contests by Angie.  You can also listen to Mark Hunter on ABC Radio.  Finally you can watch him as part of Darren LaCroix’s interview with the finalists this year.