Publisher’s Perspective

By Tim Douglass, Publisher of the Pope County Tribune

I get a lot of interesting, but often trivial information that crosses my desk.  From time to time the trivial is worth mentioning.  So here goes.

In a study about talking fast, Minnesota has been ranked the Number 1 fastest-talking state in America, averaging 5.34 syllables per second. In addition to being the fastest-talking, Minnesota also ranked high for being the least talkative, making Minnesotans concise in conversation.

According to Preply, the report combines data from two nationally conducted studies to determine cities with the fastest speech rate. From these studies, Preply took data from (1) caption files from YouTube videos and the (2) speech rate on more than four million phone calls.

Here’s the article by Madiia Mykhalevych:

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who talks so fast that it makes your head spin? After interactions such as these, you may say something like, “He sure talks a mile a minute!” or “That guy really talks a blue streak”—an American English expression referencing the speed of a lightning bolt. In British English, saying someone “talks nineteen to the dozen” is more common, likely implying the speaker is squeezing in 19 words where others could only fit in 12.

Conversely, you may have also found yourself in a conversation with people who take the biblical verse “be swift to hear but slow to speak” literally, and they appear to be in absolutely no rush when expressing their thoughts. Southerners in the U.S. have their own unique phrases and are likely to declare that these speakers “talk as slow as molasses in January,” evoking images of a thick, sugary syrup frozen in place on a cold day.

If learning about linguistic differences among speakers fascinates you, then you’ve come to the right place. In an attempt to identify U.S. cities, states, and regions with the fastest and slowest talkers, we analyzed data from two nationwide studies based on YouTube videos and call recordings. We then ranked the average speech rates of Americans from 114 cities and in all 50 states. Below you’ll find the results of our research and discover how speech patterns intersect and diverge throughout the country. So dive on in to find out where people talk at breakneck speed and where others speak at a snail’s pace!  Visit: https://preply.com/en/blog/speech-rates-in-america/

Here are the key findings in the report.

•The average rate of speech among U.S. states is 5.09 syllables per second

•The U.S. state with the fastest average speech rate is Minnesota at 5.34 syllables per second

•The U.S. state with the slowest average rate of speech is Louisiana at 4.78 syllables per second

•The U.S. city with the fastest average rate of speech is Portland, Oregon, at 5.38 syllables per second

•The U.S. city with the slowest average speech rate is Peoria, Illinois, at 4.71 syllables per second.

          * * * *

It was nice to watch television this weekend without being subjected to an endless stream of daunting and dire political advertising.

The election happened.  The world didn’t end and watching television was so much more pleasant, especially watching the Vikings defeat Buffalo in the craziest game I’ve watched in a long time.