Before I watched the Youtube video, I chose to know more about George Carlin’s background to get a broader idea of his video. I researched his name on Wikipedia and I found that “George Denis Patrick Carlin[1] (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic and author. Carlin was noted for his black comedy and his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects”. Watching his video, I could tell how much he made his audience feel engaged as they were all laughing and they were all influenced by his talk. I personally think that the way he handled his presentation was very successful. He changed his tone throughout the whole presentation to keep his audience entertained. He started speaking in a slow place when he was talking about the usage of words but then he increased the pace when he stated all the seven words. He even used the words in sentences to provide funny examples for the audience. Also, he did not appear as if he had his speech memorized; it all sounded natural which made his presentation appear so much better.
November 13, 2016 at 10:42 pm
Thanks Dina. In fact, Carlin (and other comedians) are great examples of rehearsing so much that their work sounds spontaneous. He had probably performed that piece hundreds of times, subtly changing it each time and gradually crafting and honing it.