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Better English 101
Tips For Communicating Better
Vol I, No. 10
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In this issue
-- WHAT DID YOU SAY YOUR NAME WAS, SENATOR?
-- THIS JUST IN

Having Trouble With Names and Faces?

WHAT DID YOU SAY YOUR NAME WAS, SENATOR?
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 Good old What's-His-Name, an alumni official at my college, would astonish us at meetings when he would spin off the names as well as biographical tidbits of several dozen people in the room. More remarkable was that he hadn't seen many in years. I mean years! And some of them didn't even remember his name.

Clearly he had mastered the techniques that we all marvel at. Why does it seem so difficult, so daunting, so frustrating--remembering names?

The answer is similar to the answer to overcoming most challenges. You have to work at it. Certainly Dave...uh Dave Zuconi!--that's his name!...wasn't a magician. He knew that memory is all about association, and he expanded on that simple concept to become the master of remembering people and faces.

He never said, "I remember you."

He only greeted you with, "Hello Buckminster who majored in history."

I never interviewed Dave. But before he died, I did sneak into his office once and found incriminating evidence on his desk that revealed all his secrets. Now for the first time, I can share some with you.

Discover the secrets of winning communication skills!

1. Repeat the person's name several times when you first meet. If you utter four sentences, you have four opportunities to use his name.

"Dave, what department were you in? What did you say you had for dessert, Dave? Nice tie, Dave. Oh Dave, I agree."

2. Always, always ask him to repeat his name if you aren't sure what you heard. Ask for the spelling if necessary. "Is that "Z-u" or "Z-w" Dave?"

3. Associate him with the person standing nearby. If Dave is standing with Veronica, you associate D and V to remind you of D-A-V-E. If Helen is next to her husband, maybe he looks like hell

4. Link the name to a feature or characteristic that you can visualize; the more outrageous, the better. If Dave has a hooked nose, you could think of macaroni to rhyme with Zuconi--and be sure not to tell him. Or the first syllable, Zu could suggest Dave in a zoo cage.

5. Link the name to another person--famous or not. Does Dave remind you of your nephew Dave who always eats cookies, crumbs dropping? Or of David Beckham balancing a soccer ball on his head? Maybe you see him fighting Goliath

6. Write it down or record it later. This is tough, but it should be easier now with pocket PCs and digital tape recorders. And if what David mastered required no discipline, we'd all be great at remembering, wouldn't we? Don't tell my neighbors, but the names of those teenage brothers who look alike are stuck on my refrigerator.

7. Make a comment about the name, like "Oh like David the soccer player," or "Arthur like in the round table."

8. Be sure to say the person's the name when you leave.

9. Take advantage of the name's easy association qualities if it has symbolic meaning like Black, Apple, Rinse, Washington, Fall and so forth.

This commitment takes energy, but think of the impression that you leave, making communication so much easier. You are telling the person that she is important. Says Dale Carnegie, "a person's name is to that person, the sweetest most important sound in any language."

Of course you could bump into a gentleman like the one in the New Yorker magazine cartoon who says at a cocktail party, "Hello, my name is Bradley Wittingham and I'm a person to watch."

THIS JUST IN
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 It was bad enough that Andy Borowitz proclaimed at the annual Author's Guild dinner last month that President Bush had cancelled the agreement between subject and verb.
But then the Washington Post reported his response to the failed attempt to censure Attorney General Gonzales: "This process has been drug out a long time."

Great resource for speakers


Best wishes,
Barry Beckham


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