‘m not going to be specific on this event, lest someone spots the post and knows exactly who I am talking about.
Be that as it may, my wife and I attend a class every week. It can be pretty difficult but afterwards we reward ourselves and walk across the street to get a pizza. We need to move fast since we finish at 8pm and the joint closes at 9pm. Of course, the waiter knows us so we cut down a lot of ordering time.
Thing is, for this class, we had a visiting “export” who always likes to speak. And there was a classmate (remote) who also wanted to say some things. When class wrapped up, they were given some time to address us.
Neither of them seemed prepared to speak.
So what we got was a kinda rambling monologue, first one, then the other. There didn’t seem to be any point to be made from all this – both of them were stream-of-consciousness dronings that went on and on. We didn’t get out until 8:17pm, too late to get pizza (we have some fallbacks, but they aren’t as good). So there was that.
Really, the only reason Jerry Seinfeld’s monologue is okay is because it is funny. These were not. They were tedious.
If you are going to speak, figure your point and move firmly towards it Don’t double-back, don’t side-story, and for God’s sake, don’t reexplain something with other words that is perfectly understandable the first time around. If you are standing up to give some sort of speech, you owe it to your listeners to not waste words fanning the air with your tongue. Quick and succinct, that’s the ticket.
Because, by God, a pizza may be riding on it.