Gift of the Gab

Some people are born with it. Some people grow into it. And some people come across it later in life. It’s the ability to talk. Not the ability to move your mouth and have sound come out, nearly everyone can do that. The ability to really talk, to be able to orate, if you will. These people can talk themselves into and out of any kind of trouble, they can make you believe the unbelievable, they can make you laugh till you cry with stories so outrageous you know you would never get away with telling them, or with stories so mundane that you can’t believe you’re laughing at all. They can capture and hold your attention within seconds of beginning a sentence and you can’t wait to see where the conversation is going to go. They share opinions freely and willingly, and they argue as freely and as willingly. If they’re really gifted they can tie your words into knots until you don’t know whether you stood for or against them at the beginning but you do know that you’re very confused for the present.

These people will dominate almost every conversation that they ever take part in. For them to not be able to get a word in edgeways would be akin to a fate worse than death. Its fun to watch them in a situation like that actually, to see the frustration on their faces as they try to force their way in to a conversation and are continuously beaten back. Two talkers competing for floor time can be very good entertainment for outsiders. If you’re the one trying to get a word in with a talker though, that’s not so much fun. You try and wait for a pause for breath but good talkers are so well practiced that this pause barely hinders them. You need to start talking and just carry on talking right over them. Sometimes they stop and listen. Sometimes they’ll just talk on with you. It depends on your relationship with the talker and whether or not they think that you have something interesting to say.

You would think that people like that, with this natural ability to have words flow out of their mouths in a smooth and coherent manner, would drift towards careers on which speech hinges. But just because you can bake muffins really well doesn’t mean that you want to do it for a living. Which seems like an incredibly arbitrary thing to say but it is merely intended to illustrate that simply because you are good at something or that you enjoy doing something, does not follow that you will want to make a career of it and do it everyday for the rest of your life. You probably find many talkers in accounting careers, or as deep-sea divers and probably even some in libraries. It does of course stand to reason that many will follow their tongues and become radio DJs, MCs and public speakers of some kind. Some may even enter politics, but considering the very poor public speakers that we have in politics these days, there probably aren’t too many who choose that route. Bless them.

Some talkers, having a natural gift with words, have a natural gift with languages and go on to learn several. This enables them to bend ears in many countries and in many cultures, thus influencing many more people than they would ordinarily be able to do. An ideal job for someone like that would be to become an interpreter. Well a semi-ideal job. They would be able to talk all day but the words would not be theirs and they would not be able to put their own spin on things. But they would be able to interact with different people and different cultures on a regular basis and this would provide them with almost constant stimulation and ammunition for their stories. They would also be able to display their communication skills to their best advantage and that should please them no end. The only problem that they might incur would be the privacy and confidentiality clauses that are so integral to interpretation and translation deals. There is nothing more difficult for a talker than keeping their big yap shut.

Sandra wrote this article for the online marketers Translation Bureau technical translation one of the leading translating agencies in the UK