Monday, May 22, 2017

He Can Read And Talk At The Same Time

Microsoft Word 2016 has a nice feature called Speak.  You highlight a portion of text, click an icon, and a voice that sounds like the machine that Stephen Hawking uses reads the passage out loud.  Depending on your computer settings, it can be male or female.

Its purpose is to be an aid for the visually-challenged.  It’s not always 100%.  It seems to have trouble with interjections such as “Uh” and “Um” that show up in written dialogue — it sound out each letter — and it confuses the pronunciation of the adjective “nice” with the city in France if it is capitalized, but by and large it does a good job.  (And I am sure that any number of people have been amused by hearing it read porn.  C’mon, admit it, you were thinking that too.)

Apparently this ability to read and speak a written language is not limited to software.  Based on the reception of Trump’s speech on Islam in Saudi Arabia, he’s the next Great Communicator.

Reacting to President Trump‘s big speech in Saudi Arabia today, Bob Schieffer said on CNN that Trump “sounded like a president” today.

“He actually sounded presidential. You may agree or disagree with what he said, but he sounded like a president… It was a much different kind of presentation.”

He took note of how Trump delivered this “dignified speech” and hasn’t tweeted out anything needlessly provocative recently.

Schieffer added, “He didn’t sound like the guy at the end of the bar popping off. He sounded like someone who had actually thought he was going to say before he said it.”

Hear that, folks?  He actually thought about what he was going to say before he said it!  For that we’re letting him run the country.

We have set the bar so low for sounding presidential that you need ground-penetrating radar to find it.

3 barks and woofs on “He Can Read And Talk At The Same Time

  1. Actually, Bob, the speech writer sounded presidential. But I’ll admit, Trump was able to read it all the way through. That’s more than a third grader could do. Or not.

  2. I listened to most of the speech. As far as delivery, I thought he sounded like a grade school kid with his very first memorized piece to deliver in front of the class. He is a poor public speaker. At least he didn’t go into that interesting sniff and then smack lips thing that he does when he is nervous or put on the spot.

  3. I liked it when he showed such wisdom when he said we must fight evil. Is that great thinking or what?

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