Why Do People With Speech Impediments Become Lawyers?

I don't know a lot about what it takes to be a lawyer, but I do know that you need to speak quite a bit.  This leads me to the question first posed by The Martha, the clerk in our courtroom.  (I'll explain in a later post about her name.)  After yet another appearance by an attorney with a serious speech problem that left us all wondering at about 50% of what he just said, The Martha asked "Why do people with speech impediments become lawyers?"  Good question.  I didn't have an answer to that, but I did start to notice that the percentage of people with speech impediments is higher in the courtroom.  I wonder if these people went into law hoping their speech impediment would get better with practice and training.   Maybe they actually used to be worse than they are.

The types of speech problems I hear in the courtroom include low mumblers, regular mumblers, make-no-sense fast talkers, false starters, and weird cadence speakers.  I have to say of all these types of speakers, the weird cadence speakers are the worst.  I can usually ask mumblers to speak up, tell fast talkers to slow down, and I just write the false starters with dashes and hope they order a transcript to see how terrible they speak.  But the weird cadence speakers are really a challenge because they're actually saying the right words, but just in such a strange rhythm that I don't get what they're saying until they've finished. 

I used to work as a contract reporter in Bankruptcy Court and there was an attorney who appeared somewhat regularly there.  He said "um" all the time, and I mean All The Time.  A typical sentence for him would be "Um, the court, um, directed, um, me, um, to send all, um, other parties, um, a copy of the, um, filing.  Normally I wouldn't put in all the "ums" because it's more of a sound than a word, and also because, quite frankly, it was just more work for me.  But this particular attorney was very mean to me, and other reporters too, which meant  that I just had to put in all his "ums" one time.  After getting that transcript he didn't speak any better, but I felt a little better. 

I am a voice person.  If someone has a great voice, I think more highly of them.  If they say smart things, I really like them.   Conversely, if someone has a bad voice, nasally or annoying in some fashion, I tend to like them less.  I'm lucky because my judge, Judge Jack, has a great voice.  He's also very smart.  When you make a living listening to people speak, it makes for an easy day when the person you listen to most has a pleasant speaking voice and says smart things.  He does speak pretty fast at times though.  I've clocked him at 360 words per minute!  But that's okay because he usually only does that with phrases he says all the time and I know what he's about to say.  I also have abbreviations for phrases he uses all the time so I can keep up with him pretty well.

I worked for the District Attorney's Office for about nine months.  There was one assistant district attorney there who I admired from afar.  He wasn't particularly good looking, but he had a great, and I mean a great voice.  He was also very smart, professional and had the reputation of being a wonderul guy to work for.  On one of the last days I worked there I found myself in the elevator alone with him.  I screwed up my courage and told him that it was a pleasure to work with him because he had such a great voice.  He was so stunned to receive the compliment that it made me think that he probably rarely ever got compliments, even though he was very deserving of them.

So the bottom line in this post, I guess, is be a bad speaker, and feel the wrath of the reporter; be a good speaker and feel the love.

What the Heck is a Ball of Wax?

I've been thinking a lot about phrases and words that we hear that are mispronounced, misused, or they're just "mystery" words or phrases that get me thinking about their origins.  The other day I heard a lawyer use the phrase "whole ball of wax".  That's one of those phrases I hear, but I don't know where it came from.  I thought the correct word might actually be "bailiwick" and it has just gotten misused so often that the phrase became "ball of wax".  I was wrong.  Ball of wax is the correct phrase to use when someone means all of something.  By the way, bailiwick would be completely wrong, once again proving that I'm frequently incorrect.

In an effort to rehabilitate my reputation, however, here are a couple of words that are said wrong, or spelled wrong that I happen to know about.  Jibe.  People often say "That doesn't jive."  The correct word is "jibe", unless you're interested in "jive talking", a la the Bee Gees.  Jibe means to be in accord or agree.

Gypped is another good one.  I've seen it spelled out like "J-I-P-P-E-D.   It's possible that gypped is a short form for Gypsy.

This brings me to my pet peeve, and I'm hoping someone can either correct me, or tell me I'm right.  When talking about someone taking a plea in a criminal matter in the past tense I always thought the correct word is "plead", as in "He plead guilty to the murder."  But on TV and radio they say "pleaded".  Likewise, in the newspaper it's written P-L-E-A-D-E-D.  Can someone tell me who is right?  These are the kinds of things that court reporters think about.

Court reporters brains are wired similarly.  When I worked in a pool setting (not a swimming pool) with other reporters at the DA's Office we all seemed to like the same types of games, Sudoku, Mahjong.  We also all liked to knit or keep our hands busy in some way.  Is that a common characteristic of us reporters?  Let me know if you like these same types of things.

I often wonder what makes one person able to do this job, while another can't.  Maybe it's the way our brains function.  I'm going to start a list of characteristics right now to be a successful court reporter.  Please add your own.  Fidgety hands.  A mind that likes to keep busy (otherwise known as an inability to relax).  Well organized.  Able to multi-task mentally and physically.  Ability to think very quickly.

These are all positive attributes.  I'm going to throw in some negatives now.   Perfectionist.  Intolerance for working with other people.  Nosey.  Opinionated.

And by the way, there's only theories on where the phrase "ball of wax" came from, but one theory is that wax is a substance to which almost anything will stick, and it also takes on the impression of most anything that is placed against it so that's where the meaning of everything may have come from.

I'm going to add to the list of characteristics the desire to know small useless details like this.