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I Didn’t Mean What I Said

Public speakers may often wonder: Is it an audience or a firing squad?

JACK RUNNINGER, O.D.

Benjamin Franklin once quipped, “Better to slip with the foot than the mouth.”

And Thomas Edison offered this advice: “You will have many opportunities in life to keep your mouth shut: You should take advantage of every one of them.”

If you’ve ever tasted shoe leather, then you understand the problem with communicating orally as compared to in writing. Once you’ve said it, you’ve “done said it.” (The same adage applies to many of the posts on social media.) It’s too late to correct it, whereas in writing you have a chance to first fix any idiotic mistakes.

That’s not all

And there are other problems for those of us sufficiently stupid to take up public speaking, including speaking at optometric congresses. For one thing, it’s nerve-wracking. Mark Twain once said, “There are two types of speaker, those who are nervous, and those who are liars.”

Even worse than the scary part is how it can flat slap you down. Speaking can be extremely satisfying when everything goes well, but mighty humbling if it doesn’t. A few years ago when I spoke to an audience of more than 500, I was in all humility, a smash hit. So much so, I began wondering where I ranked among other great orators of the past and present.

That euphoria lasted until I soon spoke at an OptiFair in New York. Each speaker received an evaluation sheet from the attendees at their lecture. There were also questions on the sheet about the overall meeting.

ILLUSTRATION BY AMY WUMMER

“Do you have any suggestions as to how we can improve this Congress?” read one of the questions. One so and so in my lecture wrote, “Yes. Have this guy stay home in Georgia!”

Deep topics

It’s even worse if you have an unexciting topic for your lecture: Six armed men took over a plane and announced they were going to kill two passengers. The two who were chosen were optometrists on their way to a congress.

“We’ll grant you each one last request before we shoot you,” said one of the terrorists.

“I’ve been working a my two-hour lecture, modulation of EphA receptor function, which I was going to give at the Congress” said the first. “My request is that you allow me to give it to the passengers (most of whom were optometrists headed to the meeting.)”

“My last request,” said the other O.D., “is that you shoot me first so I don’t have to listen to his lecture.”

She deserved it

Sometimes a speaker or performer invites the ill treatment. And my dear friend, the recently deceased Bill Baldwin was good at delivering it. We once attended an elder hostel together, where the evening entertainment was a lady singer who was about a half note off key. After a much too long program, she asked for requests. One gentleman, perhaps tone deaf, kept making one request after another.

Finally when the lady asked for requests for the umpteenth time, Dr. Baldwin quickly beat the other guy to the draw, and called out, “How about ‘Good Night Ladies.?’” OM

JACK RUNNINGER, OUR CONSULTING EDITOR, LIVES IN ROME, GA. HE’S ALSO A PAST EDITOR OF OM. CONTACT HIM AT RUNNINGERJ@COMCAST.NET.