Speech and Listening
Audiobooks are recommended to be 150–160 words per minute, which is the range that people comfortably hear and vocalize words.
Slide presentations tend to be closer to 100 wpm, auctioneers can speak at about 250 wpm, and the fastest speaking policy debaters speak from 350 to over 500 words per minute. Internet speech calculators show that various things influence words per minute including nervousness.
John Moschitta, Jr., was listed in Guinness World Records, for a time, as the world's fastest speaker, being able to talk at 586 wpm. He has since been surpassed by Steve Woodmore, who achieved a rate of 637 wpm.
Read more about this topic: Words Per Minute
Famous quotes containing the words speech and, speech and/or listening:
“We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want ... everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear ... anywhere in the world.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“My speech is too fast; my oration confused; love knows no order.”
—Jerome (c. 340–420)
“I’ve come close to matching the feeling of that night in 1944 in music, when I first heard Diz and Bird, but I’ve never got there.... I’m always looking for it, listening and feeling for it, though, trying to always feel it in and through the music I play every day.”
—Miles Davis (1926–1991)