You’re driving down the street when a jamming tune comes on the radio. You start bobbing your head in rhythmic unison. “I love this tune!” Music is a universal experience that transcends cultures. Everyone likes music in one form or another. Our brains are hard wired with an internal time-keeping system. I like to think of this as our rhythm center.
In terms of language, we are attracted to language that has a beat. This is one reason why Dr. Seuss is so popular. He tells stories in poetic form. There is a strong sense of rhythm that gives his stories a sense of movement, purpose and direction. All exceptional writing has a beat to it. In some cases it’s far more apparent than others, but when it is missing the writing seems lifeless. People may be clueless as to what is missing. They may describe the writing as “choppy”, “stilted” or “lacks flow”. It would be more accurate to say the writing doesn’t tickle the rhythm center of the brain.
This explains why things that are technically wrong sometimes sound right. When speaking, it is sometimes more effective to use “ain’t” than “is not”. Technology, it’s not good grammar, but at times the single beat in “ain’t” sounds more natural than the double beat of “is not”. Ever hear someone overly cautious about pronoun agreement using “he or she” instead of “their”? While “he or she” may be technically accurate, sometimes “their” feels right. “He or she” is simply more awkward rhythmically.
Great public speaking has a beat to it. Comedians will refer to this as cadence or timing. A master of timing was Rodney Dangerfield. His setups and punch lines had the rhythmic point and counterpoint sometimes evident in brilliant music—like Mozart. All successful comedians and public speakers have a sense of timing interwoven throughout everything they say.
Having taught college speech classes, I see students struggle with this concept all the time. As they produce their speeches, their minds are in academic writing mode. The problem is writing and speaking have different rhythms. In writing, one is able to use longer, more complex sentence structures. For speaking, one often uses shorter, simpler sentence structures. It is more common to use ellipsis, which is a fancy way of saying leave parts out. The context and delivery fills in the missing pieces. The transcription of a great speech doesn’t always make for great writing. The same can be true of great writing—that it doesn’t always transfer to the spoken word.
I have had some experience on stage doing standup comedy. When I first started, I was terrible. The material I was writing was grammatically flawless. My sentence structures were masterfully composed. At the time I was teaching several writing classes, so all the sermons I was giving about grammar were spilling over into my comedy writing. On stage, my material was lifeless and longwinded. It didn’t have the right rhythm for the spoken word.
The take home is to become aware of the rhythm of language. Study the musical beat that underlies great writing and speaking. In so doing, you will become a stronger writer and speaker.
