Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 May 6

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May 6

Business speeches

In business/sales presentation, to about 50 people, is it correct to use a casual conversational tone as if you were talking to them? I hear many people exaggerating in these kinds of presentations and they just seem unnatural and too rehearsed, as if they're reading a script. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.40.46.182 (talk) 01:57, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

OR and personal opinion here, but the presentations I've attended in the past have left more of an impression on me if the speaker is more conversational than if they are just delivering a script. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:42, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Should one sound authoritative or casual? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.66.246.99 (talk) 18:21, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I think one should sound authoritative and business-like, while still managing to be conversational. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:47, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

One of the most important things in any business speech is to convey the sense that you know what you're talking about; that you have your facts in order. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:29, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

That also applies more broadly, e.g., when answering WP ref desk questions. Pity is that some people think all they need to do is to sound authoritative, without being bothered with anything so trivial as references. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 04:51, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

How many business meetings have you attended? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:01, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't disagreeing with you. Many, btw. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:23, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Regardless, a good source for how to do speaking (if you can find it) is a book by Charles Osgood. And my old English teachers (can't recall their names just now) consistently made the point that any business communication, be it written or spoken, needs to be crisp and to the point. Also, "knowing your audience" is key. The conversational style that the OP asks about is widely prevalent in the US. It's informing as opposed to preaching. But that approach may not be culturally acceptable in other places. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:09, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

On the basis of OR (I do a LOT of public speaking), the following are critical: know your subject; know what your audience already knows or expects to hear (don’t pitch it over their heads or speak down below their level of knowledge); know how much time you’re allocated; and know what you’re going to do with interruptions or questions at the end.

As for the style, to each his/her own. Be yourself, or it will come across as phony.

Much depends on the nature of the meeting and presentation. If one is speaking to colleagues about progress on a project, factual presentation followed by an opinion as to likely next steps or outcomes would be appropriate. If one is educating (e.g., speaking at a conference), it is important to structure the talk into sections that lead the listener from one point to the next and finally to a conclusion.DOR (HK) (talk) 07:29, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Refer to any presentations by Steve Jobs (see YouTube), though those were certainly directed at many more than 50 people. —Nelson Ricardo (talk) 09:52, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Why don't many sports like accuracy?

Sprinters wear completely useless bling that by my math should make them lose races. Rarely, but still.

Soccer doesn't do the simple thing of making sure that a goal is really a goal and that even cost countries World Cups. And they still almost didn't change it. Tradition!, they cry. With cricket and baseball that I get but how can you complain about ruining the timeless tradition of a bloke just guessing when your goals, net, ball, clothes and boards are made of plastic and covered with Emirates logos? And your boards are HD displays?

They had that stupid ball that they didn't even bother to test so that the footballers found out it moved like a knuckle ball in the middle of competition. Said that it flew like a cheap ball from a third world country's supermarket [paraphrase]

They have the referee pull the amount of time to add out of his a** (in whole minutes) when the winning goal could come in the last seconds (okay, we know it won't happen - ever - ever, ever - like watching a circle of 600 men shoot the center and seeing a ring of 600 fused bullets pop out of thin air and fall, just kidding).

I thought this was ridiculous as a kid but why don't they have people in a booth each watching a small enough number of things that they absolutely can't miss anything visible in real time and blow the whistle accordingly. And have people watch it again in slow-motion with freeze-frame and frame-by-frame capability and fine everything the in-game refs miss? Like basketball, I don't think the refs can humanly catch every elbow, shove, flop, exaggeration and 1cm out-of-bounds plus zone defense (when illegal), slight palming, count the steps since the last dribble and keep several running counts of mississippis for everyone in the key.

I've come to not mind rules like you have to appeal not touching a base but if the 8 year old me way was the only I remember then I wouldn't have a clue that some people thought this was excessive. Top league 2100s sports will probably be refereed like this. Maybe even for the things that aren't even part of the game and hurt no one like baseball coaches slightly exiting the coaches box. Maybe not. The game wouldn't be slow because everyone would be more careful and not try to get away with stuff (like American football holding etc.) They would have to do it with reduced post-game fines first to not slow the game down or punish adjusting players too much. Possibly start with warnings.

Also, why did Test cricket adopt video referee before major league baseball despite Test looking more traditional (to my limited knowledge)? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 10:08, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Sports are not sentient beings. They don't like anything. People are sentient beings. Do a google search for "video replay in baseball" and you'll get many people's opinions on why (or why not) video replay should (or should not) be used in baseball. Repeat for any sport you want. --Jayron32 10:54, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Admittedly, these things are anybody's guess, since there's no precise answer to a "why" question unless the issue was discussed at the time. When they introduced video replays for test cricket, I'm fairly sure consistency with major league baseball wasn't an issue, so there is no reason why the order should be consistent. But, the most likely factor is that test cricket has to compete for spectators, not just with other sports of course, but with everything. Soccer doesn't have to worry about that, and baseball seems fine as well. IBE (talk) 12:04, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

It's not just a question of being traditional or not: there is a strong current of thought that sports should be performed by humans and not determined by technology. The referees are human, as are the players, and neither will be perfect all the time. If you cannot accept that at some level, then sports - and team sports especially - may not be for you; there are other pursuits where perfection is the goal. Now, technology has grown by leaps and bounds recently and its application is no longer so intrusive, which is why you see things like baseball adopting instant replay or tennis with the "eagle eye". Video evidence has long been used to determine things like suspensions for players who sneak dirty hits out of the referee's sight (here's a random example [1]), so one of your example is already in place. What tends to raise opposition is introducing technology within a sport that fundamentally changes the way it is played: e.g. football (soccer) is not supposed to have interruptions, so introducing video review changes the nature of the game; not so in American football or baseball where there is a natural pause between each play, or in ice hockey where interruptions are plenty anyway, so adding one more does not change things.

Ah, I get football now, thanks. But they say GOAL!, GOAL!, GOAL!, GOAL!, GOAL!, GOAL! for at least 10 seconds, celebrate, and then have to reset the ball, so that's a stoppage of play. And if by "the players being human" you mean stuff like a player taking one base when they could've taken two or making a mental mistake, then I just see that as just another skill the game tests. Why if everyone could do what their current bodies could do then everyone with sufficient fitness would be better than Pele, we'd literally have at least a million of them. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:27, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

The stoppage is still very brief; they don't take a two-minute commercial break after a score as they would in American football or ice hockey. --Xuxl (talk) 14:55, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

In the Premier League there is technology that says whether it's a goal or not. The ref wears a watch which flashes red if a goal is scored. It takes all of a second. The reason this isn't used else where? All I'll say is Sepp Blatter.Dja1979 (talk) 20:10, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Lets take baseball as an example. Lets say an onfield umpire calls a ball "foul" when it should have been "fair". If it had been fair, players on base may have tried to advance, but being foul they could not. If replay shows that it should have been "fair" after the fact, how do you simulate the play from the point from where the call was made badly? --Jayron32 13:04, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. There are provisions for umpires to then place baserunners where they think they would have ended up if the right call had been made, but that's subjective, and in fixing one problem, you introduce another. Technology is not always a panacea. --Xuxl (talk) 13:38, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't mind that, at least it's still a fair ball. A World Series could be lost on a fair ball being called foul. At least his team has a chance. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:27, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Or, to give a specific example, you're talking about Game 2 of the 2009 ALDS between the Yankees and the Twins [2]. That generated a lot of controversy (along with a couple other doubtful calls that postseason) and was a major step in getting baseball to start moving on the issue of instant replay. --Xuxl (talk) 15:05, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

With cricket, a driving force was the approach to televising matches taken, first by Kerry Packer's circus, and then by Sky Sports. Both these broadcasters brought in things like stump mics, and more than one camera at each end - hey I'm old enough to remember one camera per match in England! Also the invention of Hawkeye, which was able to give a prediction of how the ball might have continued in its trajectory had it not have hit the batsman's leg first, not to mention super slo-mo cameras that could see whether the catch was cleanly taken or whether it hit the ground first, and then there was Snicko that could tell you whether the ball had hit the outside edge of the bat... Because the broadcasters were replaying incidents and commenting on whether the umpires had got it right - and then if they hadn't got it right, covering it in the print media which they also owned, the administrators were being made to look foolish by not introducing technology to assist the umpires. Even now there are series where there is no (or very little) assistive technology and India seem very reluctant to approve its use for some reason. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:44, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

The first rule in any "How to Be an Umpire" book is "Get the call right." Unfortunately, that has not always been the prevailing philosophy at the professional level. If the guy who botched the call in that non-perfect game a few years ago had consulted his colleagues, or better yet if they had spoken up, it could have turned out right. In the 2004 ALCS, when A-Rod was called out after umpire consultation when he slapped the ball out of the fielder's glove, I was amazed - for the first time I could recall, at Yankee Stadium, they made the right call instead of cow-towing to the home crowd. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:44, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Purely as a matter of speculation from someone with no real comprehension of sports' appeal, I'll observe that things that are addictive have the ability to cause pain. Opium withdrawal, gambling losses, hangovers, whatever... there's always the element of pain that seems, somehow, to reinforce the behavior. I wonder if giving sports fans something to bitch about makes them more loyal; whether it makes it a better topic for conversation so that it can seem like a common bond. Wnt (talk) 02:59, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Possibly something to that. It's particularly in the category of "everyone hates us / us against the world" (where "us" is a sometimes very hazily defined conflation of team and fans) that it would apply. Of course, sometimes it's not merely bitching for the sake of bitching (let me just casually call your attention there to the column labeled "FTA" or free throw attempts, which are what you get when the refs call a foul on your opponent). That example also calls to attention the fact that some sports effectively will never have the kind of objective video replay that sports like baseball can at least hope to aspire to. While baseball umpires can be objectively graded on how well they call balls and strikes from just a few cameras all pointed at the same small volume of air, there's nothing anywhere near so precise for basketball, and won't be as far as we can predict. Obviously at some point the technology will exist to create an accurate 4-dimensional model of an entire 48-minute basketball game and every physical action that happens in it; but until then we're still stuck with human judgment and all its flaws as the best option, with not much objective criticism possible. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 15:52, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Your last sentence reminds me of something funny. At age 12 I imagined what Omniscient-Vision would be like. In the last seconds of several basketball games, I followed where the ball was in relation to the court. At 0.0 I imagined time freezing, the ball highlighting, and 10 lines popping into view showing which way the players' penises were pointing. And spinning around this like the Matrix. And the clothing becoming translucent to penises. Vaginas would've been more interesting but 1: I did not care about the WNBA, 2: Most of their players were unattractively unfemenine. I imagined a hypothetical game 0.0 with dunking with lines of crazy angle because books showed that vaginas point diagonally backwards. I liked imagining special effects-type things as a teen. Like my home getting shot up by machine gun-size turbolasers. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 11:59, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Excellent. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:45, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Anyone know this novella/short story?

I am trying to recall the title of a novella or short story I've read a long time ago. It starts with the main character arriving at a train station of a small town after a long rail journey. I seem to remember that the setting was either a wild west or simply an early 20th-century America. And one of the minor characters in the story was a physician. Not too specific, I know, but I would appreciate if anyone could come up with some suggestions so I could dig further from there. Thank you in advance. --BorgQueen (talk) 16:52, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

That sounds like the film Bad Day at Black Rock, which was based on the short story "Bad time at Honda" by Howard Breslin. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 20:47, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that could be it! Thanks a lot. --BorgQueen (talk) 20:55, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

The movie's quite excellent, well acted, directed and written, Spencer Tracy, and technicolor! μηδείς (talk) 03:58, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Not it, but you reminded me that "The Last Car" existed. Also a bad day and a long journey. Good suggestion, though, I think. Scary stuff. Too much so to link, but it's on YouTube. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:02, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

St. Leo of the Catholic Church

Who was St. Leo of the Catholic Church? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:804F:E100:21B:63FF:FEB5:698B (talk) 21:03, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

There were 5 popes named Leo who were made saints, and at least one other St Leo. See "People" at the bottom of Saint Leo. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:09, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Later on in that list, there is a church and school in California, dedicated to "St Leo the Great" but no indication as to which St Leo that might be. A quick Google search found this page which identifies him as Pope Leo I, who persuaded Attila the Hun to go away and behave nicely. Alansplodge (talk) 17:43, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I was wondering how anything could be "later on" from the perspective of an entry "at the bottom" of a list. But I see some good soul has moved People to the top of the list. (You can't trust that damn Wikipedia anymore if things keep changing without warning.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:01, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry JackofOz, I was on my way to answer this question when I got distracted by the poor formatting and linkfarming at St. Leo. By the time I had tidied it up you had answered! DuncanHill (talk) 14:13, 8 May 2014 (UTC)