President Obama’s oil spill speech Tuesday night was a disappointment to most and was positively trashed by the Olbermann-Matthews cheerleading section at MSNBC. Ostensibly in crisis mode after the speech’s poor reception, CNN sought an alternative narrative from Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor, who explained that Obama missed the mark on account of his “professorial” tenor and linguistic constructions too sophisticated for his audience to understand.
The president’s use of 19.8 words per paragraph, Payack explained, “added some difficulty for his target audience.” Payack singled out one such difficult sentence:
“That is why just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation’s best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge—a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation’s secretary of energy.”
While I flip through my dictionary to sort that one out, I’m beginning to wonder why CNN didn’t make use of Paul Payack’s talent back when George W. Bush was talking about “misunderestimation” and “working hard to put food on your family.”
June 17th, 2010 | 3:10 pm
I understand Obama sometimes speaks in long sentences, but if you need a dictionary to understand that sentence then you probably have difficulty understanding much more than just Obama. What about Paul? He is renowned for having dozens of words in his sentences. And if 19.8 words is too long for a paragraph, then pretty much every third grade (and above) teacher should be failing their students. No teacher I know would accept a paper where the average paragraph had less than 20 sentences. Disagree over content, but don’t disagree because you think the guy uses sentences or paragraphs that are too long.
June 17th, 2010 | 3:28 pm
Adam,
Presuming you’re referring to my last paragraph–it was written with what I thought was obvious sarcasm, pointing to the silliness of Payack’s claim that the sentence is too complicated for most Americans to understand.
June 17th, 2010 | 3:47 pm
Oh, I think the American people understand the president quite well. Rather too well, I think.
Its believing him that’s the problem.
Kamilla
June 17th, 2010 | 3:56 pm
Oh I know I’m not smart enough to understand Obama. Ask David Brooks.
June 17th, 2010 | 4:33 pm
“a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist”
Remember back when the descriptor “Nobel Prize-winning,” with very few exceptions, indicated that the person being so described had actually accomplished something important, and so was entitled to some degree of respect? Y’know, way back before last year? Those were the good old days…
June 17th, 2010 | 4:36 pm
PS. I should note that Dr. Chu did indeed accomplish some extremely impressive things in his research career. How exactly research into laser-cooling makes him some sort of expert on climate change, energy policy, or oil-well stability and repair issues is another matter, of course, but let’s acknowledge that unlike certain other recipients, he has in fact actually done something worthy of his award.
June 17th, 2010 | 10:45 pm
The sentence is fine. I do not like Obama, but what do people want? He is doing the best he can. It’s no fun when nature won’t cooperate. No different than Katrina. People want government to be God. It does not work that way.
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