"Like, such as, the U.S., and the Iraq..."

Unfortunately, as loquacious or eloquent as I am when I write/type, I would come across sounding even worse than the dunderhead. That is, unless I've planned what I'm going to say ahead of time and rehearsed it for ages - which I'm not likely to be able to do 80% of the time out there in the real world...

I'd be ashamed to know what people think of me and my oratory skill (or lack thereof). Just yesterday, I stuttered and mumbled and blathered my way through an interview with the choirmaster of the local school's choir (I wanted the post of choir pianist), who had to have me repeat almost every sentence I said. It was as embarrassing as ever. And I can't say this is the first time something like this has happened to me. Thank goodness I got the job... even after I managed to bungle up the piano audition too. Personally, I think they were desperate for a pianist and I was the only one available, so she had to accept me. Now I'm slightly daunted by the prospect of having to meet up with the choir (and her) every other day, because what is she going to think of me, having given such a poor first impression of myself?

But I digress...

I have to agree, Michael's interviews are an infinite joy to watch - to begin with, he definitely comes across as educated. His responses are insightful, funny, and he phrases things so well. And it all seems natural, too, not like he's been rehearsing what to say. Which is more than you can say for some people when they do manage to sound remotely intelligent in public...

My dad always says that I sound much better when I type out something than when I actually speak, and I have to agree. I don't stutter or anything, but I ramble a lot more and I can make a lot better points in a convo when I type them out and have time to think out what I'm gonna say- when talking with my mouth, it's somewhere above the beauty pagent people, but well below Michael.

I look forward to listening to Michael's interviews because of his intellect and humour.

I myself am dreadful at public speaking and somehow managed to scrape through my GCSE English- both my written language and literature, is also rather basic. Hence my career in science, I can say things blunt and to the point, a few sentences expressing all I need to say, sometimes just a few words such as positve/ negative suffice.

I feel sorry for the poor girl, I 'm sure I would sound just as bad- the idea of standing infront of people scares me to death, so much so that my emploers even force me to do presentations infront of the pathologists on topics that they are experts in, in an attempt to build up my confidence- six years on and it's still not working!

However, it does concern me that society is shallow when it comes to looks over intellect

OK, I'm sorry but I had to mention this. This cracked me up. Now I understand it all. This is from the "I can has cheezburger" site, which spoofs cats and their poor language skills: