Speechwriter
Gary:
I think RP has been doing a Great Job so far.
This is my point of view....just a opinion
Well, actually the speeches are OK but they need to be edited for speaking. If you read them, they look fine because they are written as one would write a college term paper. Unfortunately, it's hard to read that sort of thing aloud as unless you practice it a lot, you will have a hard time putting the correct accent on the correct words and it's confusing to listen to. I have a lot of trouble on my
podcast when I try to read one of his Congressional statements verbatim.
I'm hardly a linguistics expert, but when I write something for speaking, I make the sentences shorter and add a lot of commas and semicolons to make the phrasing clear. I also try to break up phrases that have too many multi-sylable words in a row, which turn into toungue-twisters when spoken aloud.
In RP's case, it's like every situation where in English grammar it's optional to put in punctuation, he doesn't. Fine for a printed piece; much harder when trying to make a speech out of it.
If you doubt what I am saying, go have a look at the famous speeches of our times and notice that they tend to be made out of short, powerful sentences. This is closer to how we speak naturally, in conversation, and it's how our brains are optimized for understanding the spoken word.
He doesn't need to literally fire his speechwriter, because I'm pretty sure he writes all his own speeches! But he could use an editor who knows his informal extemporaneous speaking style, and who knows how to fix his prose to match this.
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