unscripted speech

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Sat, 3 Sep 2005 07:21:30 +0200, Paul Frank wrote:

>The power of an unscripted political speech:
>(And an American English document)
>
>Mayor of New Orleans Audio
>http://www.atypical.net/mm/nagin.mp3

Also available from the NY Times:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/audio/national/NAGIN_AUDIO.mp3

With a transcript:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/national/nationalspecial/02TEXT-NAGIN.html

One minor point of interest... though Nagin was using surprisingly
"unmonitored" speech (at least for a politician) and kept up moderate
cursing throughout the interview, there were still some odd moments of
self-repair. For instance, twice he said "lickety-s..." (as if beginning
to say "lickety-split"), but then self-repaired and said "lickety-quick".

Not sure if there's any significance to that-- probably just an indication
that Nagin was dead tired at the time. By the end of the interview, you
can hear he's completely drained and near tears. Very poignant.


--Ben Zimmer