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I was a juror on a court case, and we had a court reporter who typed in steno. Witnesses, lawyers, the judge all spoke fast, regularly interrupting each other -

I was a juror on a court case, and we had a court reporter who typed in steno. Witnesses, lawyers, the judge all spoke fast, regularly interrupting each other -- and our reporter got it all down, perfectly. It is easy to glaze over a figure like "255 WPM" and not realize how impressive it is. In the courtroom, once I thought for a second about what she was doing, I felt as if I were watching a magician at work.

wisty 15y ago
Some lawyers (from a certain firm?) in Australia are said to be taught. to. speak. really. slowly. It's clever, because even the dumbest juror will find it uncomfortably slow, and kind of tune out. It has a hypnotic effect, allowing irrational points to be drilled in without anyone realising that it's not quite logical. Other lawyers will try to talk fast, and use big words, but people are actually incredibly good a parsing fast speech. It's slow speech which really tricks us.