Speaking of funny accents and speech:
is considered to be too professional. President Obama's speech on the gulf oil disaster may have gone over the heads of many in his audience, according to an analysis of the 18-minute talk released Wednesday. Tuesday night's speech from the Oval Office of the White House was written to a 9.8 grade level, said Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor. The Austin, Texas-based company analyzes and catalogues trends in word usage and word choice and their impact on culture.
Though the president used slightly less than four sentences per paragraph, his 19.8 words per sentence "added some difficulty for his target audience," Payack said. He singled out this sentence from Obama as unfortunate: "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. "A little less professorial, less academic and more ordinary," Payack recommended. "That's the type of phraseology that makes you (appear) aloof and out of touch."
The monitor's chief word analyst found these three sentences insensitive: "Already, this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced. And unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, it is not a single event that does its damage in a matter of minutes or days. The millions of gallons of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico are more like an epidemic, one that we will be fighting for months and even years."
"You shouldn't be saying that in Katrina land," said Payack, referring to the 2005 hurricane that devastated the Gulf Coast. "New Orleans lost a third of its population; it's still recovering."
But he praised Obama's phrase "oil began spewing" as active and graphic.
iReporter:Obama's speech too fuzzy on details
At a micro level, the average word in the speech contained 4.5 letters, a bit longer than is typical for the former constitutional law professor, Payack said.
Obama's nearly 10th-grade-level rating was the highest of any of his major speeches and well above the Grade 7.4 of his 2008 "Yes, we can" victory speech, which many consider his best effort, Payack said.
"The scores indicate that this was not Obama at his best, especially when attempting to make an emotional connection to the American people," he added.
Wait, a 9-10th grade level is too sophisticated? *facepalm* Shouldn't you expect from people with a reasonably educated background to convey their message in a clear and correct manner. Which doesn't equal using simplistic language, because then you might drop some nuances and thus be misunderstood or misinterpreted.
Wouldn't an "optimal" language level be one that quite clearly shows you're quite knowledgable yet be understandable for people who finished highschool with reasonable marks. Sure, if you failed highschool, or barely made it through and now mow lawns for a living then you might just not understand a few lines. But if we'd have to lower the difficulty level to take into account people who have pretty poor knowledge/understanding of the (English) language then speeches would make many people feel like they are being threated as if they are idiots.
Or was Bush actually quite skilled in linguistics, being able to operate on an academic level without problems if he really had to, but he chose to use 3-4th grade language to connect with the (below) avarage american?
Or should Obama have resorted to acting a caveman: Hand him a club to hit the BP logo with, while he jumps up and down, making angry caveman noices and the words "BP bad, BP pay!".
Obviously there won't be any room to blame the subcontractors of BP such as Transocean and Halliburton. That would make the issue much too complex, it's all 100% BP's fault. Alright 99%, and 1% due to piss poor goverment regulation. But this can be simplified to "BP is to blame for everything" or better yet, the above mentioned caveman scenario.
Edit: I just realized that cavemen could be sensed to be too elitist, with them wearing furr and all... and who wears furr too? Yep, the elite upper class. Not the avarage, hard working, real, American. So perhaps it would be better if Obama resorted to dressing up like a cowboy and local sheriff, using some good old pistols to shoot at the BP logo while shouting "BP bad, AmericaA-murikah good!" , firing a few rounds random rounds and a "YEEEHAWWW" into the air ofcourse aswell while at it.