Humans use a total of 72 different muscles in speech.
While talking, the vocal cords of the average male are "blown" apart and then "sucked" back together again about 110 times per second.
The average talker sprays about 300 microscopic saliva droplets per minute, about 2.5 droplets per word.
From the 1500s to the 1700s, British kings would appoint a "Groom of Stool" – Someone who would talk to them while they used the toilet.
King Charles II of England enjoyed talking, especially telling stories of his own life. His courtiers would, having heard the same story for the thousandth time, try to get away if they could, using any excuse to withdraw.
Thomas Jefferson was apparently a poor public speaker with a thin, fine voice. He talked with his arms folded.
As a boy in Scotland, Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) made a talking doll that said "mama". So convincing was it that his neighbors began hunting for an abandoned baby.
Albert Einstein was unable to speak until the age of three when at supper one night he broke his silence to say "The soup is too hot" . His parents asked why he hadn't talked before. "Because up to now everything was in order."
Emily Dickinson was diagnosed as having "nervous prostration" by a physician during her lifetime. From 1867, the American poet began to talk to visitors from the other side of a door rather than speaking to them face to face.
In using the early telephones people rang a bell by hand and then said into the instrument, "Are you ready to talk?" or asked some similar question. One day Thomas Edison was working in his laboratory to perfect the telephone. According to one story, he picked up the instrument during a test and said into the transmitter, "Hello!" This greeting soon became a standard way to start a telephone conversation.
The oldest known song featuring a man talking to his girlfriend over the phone is "Hello! Ma Baby" (made popular by Looney Tunes' Michigan J Frog). It was written in 1899 by the songwriting team of Joseph E. Howard and Ida Emerson, known as "Howard and Emerson", when only 10% of the population had telephones. Its subject is a man who has a girlfriend he knows only through the telephone.
When Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud met for the first time, they talked for thirteen hours straight.
President Calvin Coolidge was nicknamed "Silent Cal" because he did not talk much.
U.S. President Herbert Hoover and his wife would talk in Mandarin Chinese to prevent White House staff from eavesdropping.
The first words spoken in a movie were “wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet” in the 1927 film The Jazz Singer.
Franklin D. Roosevelt didn't like the polite small talk of social functions so he would sometimes amuse himself by greeting his guests with the words "I murdered my grandmother this morning ". The response was invariably of polite approval. Nobody ever paid attention to what was actually said at these functions!
In the 1990s the CIA tried to discredit the US Ambassador to Guatemala after they bugged her room and heard her talking lovingly to a woman named Murphy, and accused her of having an affair with the woman to Washington. There was no affair she was talking to her poodle named Murphy.
On September 22, 1990, British electronics salesman and comedian Steve Woodmore recited a piece of the famous "To be, or not to be" soliloquy from William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark in 56 seconds, yielding an average rate of 637 words per minute.
For five years, Woodmore held The Guinness World Record for fastest talker. He was usurped by Toronto-born Sean Shannon, who read the famous Hamlet 'to be, or not to be' soliloquy at a rate of 655 words per minute on August 30, 1995 at Edinburgh.
When someone talked about Queen Elizabeth II, she was called "The Queen" or "Her Majesty". When someone talked to her, she was called "Your Majesty". After the first time, the person talked to the Queen, they could say "Ma'am" - pronounced "Mam".
Just as some people talk in their sleep, sign language speakers have been known to sign in their sleep.
According to a recent survey done by Time Magazine, 59% of Americans would rather have a dental appointment than be sitting next to someone talking on a cell phone.
Source Compton's Encyclopedia
 |
| Pixiebay |
While talking, the vocal cords of the average male are "blown" apart and then "sucked" back together again about 110 times per second.
The average talker sprays about 300 microscopic saliva droplets per minute, about 2.5 droplets per word.
From the 1500s to the 1700s, British kings would appoint a "Groom of Stool" – Someone who would talk to them while they used the toilet.
King Charles II of England enjoyed talking, especially telling stories of his own life. His courtiers would, having heard the same story for the thousandth time, try to get away if they could, using any excuse to withdraw.
 |
| Charles in Garter robes by John Michael Wright or studio, |
Thomas Jefferson was apparently a poor public speaker with a thin, fine voice. He talked with his arms folded.
As a boy in Scotland, Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) made a talking doll that said "mama". So convincing was it that his neighbors began hunting for an abandoned baby.
Albert Einstein was unable to speak until the age of three when at supper one night he broke his silence to say "The soup is too hot" . His parents asked why he hadn't talked before. "Because up to now everything was in order."
 |
| Einstein aged 3 |
Emily Dickinson was diagnosed as having "nervous prostration" by a physician during her lifetime. From 1867, the American poet began to talk to visitors from the other side of a door rather than speaking to them face to face.
In using the early telephones people rang a bell by hand and then said into the instrument, "Are you ready to talk?" or asked some similar question. One day Thomas Edison was working in his laboratory to perfect the telephone. According to one story, he picked up the instrument during a test and said into the transmitter, "Hello!" This greeting soon became a standard way to start a telephone conversation.
The oldest known song featuring a man talking to his girlfriend over the phone is "Hello! Ma Baby" (made popular by Looney Tunes' Michigan J Frog). It was written in 1899 by the songwriting team of Joseph E. Howard and Ida Emerson, known as "Howard and Emerson", when only 10% of the population had telephones. Its subject is a man who has a girlfriend he knows only through the telephone.
 |
| Original sheet-music cover from 1899 |
When Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud met for the first time, they talked for thirteen hours straight.
President Calvin Coolidge was nicknamed "Silent Cal" because he did not talk much.
U.S. President Herbert Hoover and his wife would talk in Mandarin Chinese to prevent White House staff from eavesdropping.
The first words spoken in a movie were “wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet” in the 1927 film The Jazz Singer.
Franklin D. Roosevelt didn't like the polite small talk of social functions so he would sometimes amuse himself by greeting his guests with the words "I murdered my grandmother this morning ". The response was invariably of polite approval. Nobody ever paid attention to what was actually said at these functions!
In the 1990s the CIA tried to discredit the US Ambassador to Guatemala after they bugged her room and heard her talking lovingly to a woman named Murphy, and accused her of having an affair with the woman to Washington. There was no affair she was talking to her poodle named Murphy.
On September 22, 1990, British electronics salesman and comedian Steve Woodmore recited a piece of the famous "To be, or not to be" soliloquy from William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark in 56 seconds, yielding an average rate of 637 words per minute.
For five years, Woodmore held The Guinness World Record for fastest talker. He was usurped by Toronto-born Sean Shannon, who read the famous Hamlet 'to be, or not to be' soliloquy at a rate of 655 words per minute on August 30, 1995 at Edinburgh.
When someone talked about Queen Elizabeth II, she was called "The Queen" or "Her Majesty". When someone talked to her, she was called "Your Majesty". After the first time, the person talked to the Queen, they could say "Ma'am" - pronounced "Mam".
Just as some people talk in their sleep, sign language speakers have been known to sign in their sleep.
According to a recent survey done by Time Magazine, 59% of Americans would rather have a dental appointment than be sitting next to someone talking on a cell phone.
Source Compton's Encyclopedia
No comments:
Post a Comment