Is there something in my teeth?

You’d hate to come offstage after totally killing a speech, only to find that there was a giant piece of spinach between your front teeth.

Mispronouncing words and misusing phrases can have the same effect on our audience as  a distracting piece of spinach in your teeth. They will do their best to look past it, but they may keep coming back to when you said “to all intensive purposes” or “This is the epitome of human achievement!” (but pronounced “epitome” like epiTOME.)

The hardest thing about these words and phrases is that we often have no idea we’re saying them incorrectly. Sometimes we’ve only ever seen something written down and guessed at the pronunciation, and sometimes we’ve only heard it said, and somehow got it a little wrong.

Either way, it’s worth doing the equivalent of asking a friend, “hey, do I have anything in my teeth?” before you do your speech. Pick your word-nerdiest buddy, and get them to watch you deliver it, or if you’re not in the same place, send them a video. Ask specifically for them to listen for anything you’re saying that sounds like spinach in your teeth. They’ll be happy to tell you!