I never was, and never will be, a Don Juan.
Growing up, I was always nervous around girls. I just blamed it on my looks and/or my awkwardness. As a result, I did my best to avoid them, and they seemed quite happy with my decision.
However, on those rare occasions when a girl would talk to me, I always made sure to talk clearly so that I wouldn’t have to repeat myself, which would have extended the conversation.
I can thank the nuns I had for teachers during my first eight years of schooling. They drilled into me the importance of speaking clearly.
Now as it turns out, it may not have been my looks or my awkwardness that turned off the girls, it was my near-perfect diction.
Scientists with the American Institute of Physics say males who speak less clearly (or mumble) tend to be more attractive to the opposite sex because women see it as a sign of masculinity. Conversely, men find precise pronunciation alluring because it signifies femininity.
Researchers say the findings, published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, back evolutionary theories.
“From a sexual selection standpoint, males with traits that are slightly more masculine than average are typically preferred, which in this context would make males with less clear speech more attractive,” says study co-author Dr. Daniel Stehr from the University of California-Irvine in a media release.
Hollywood heartthrob Marlon Brando had the nickname “Mr. Mumbles” bestowed on him by his “Guys and Dolls” co-star Frank Sinatra. The Oscar-winning legend famously put cotton wool in his mouth while playing Don Corleone in “The Godfather” to make himself even less intelligible.
So I am going to blame my non-Don Juan status on the nuns. But perhaps they knew this all along, and purposely taught all the boys how to speak clearly so there wouldn’t be any shenanigans between the boys and the girls.
I just think back to high school and what I could have done with this information. I would be going around the hallways mumbling to every girl I met. Although it could backfire if they still found me unattractive. At that point, I would have to face the cold hard facts that I was not, and never would be, a ladies’ man and that the issue really was my looks.
So next time a guy speaks up in one of my classes, but he just mumbles an answer, I won’t ask him what he just said. I’ll just nod knowingly and move on to the next person.
sources:
- StudyFinds
- my painful childhood recollections
P.S. I will have to disagree with one part of the study’s findings. Despite the nuns’ perfect enunciation, I never found myself attracted to them…
*image from Pinterest
Oh gosh! Ummm….yeah, I will say that Brad has better enunciation than I do, so what does that say? Hmmm… but men do tend to mumble when they don’t want women to hear what they said!
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so that mumbling may be a subconscious way of turning on the charm… 🙂
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Haha! Those nuns are always playing hard to get.🤣
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and always winning… 🙂
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I wonder if this means that if you misspell words in a blog post, it will attract wimmen?
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Oh gosh! Gonna go …”smack my head”… down on my pillow now!
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Good nite.
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Good night 🙂
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Hopefully I don’t float away tomorrow. We could get 8 or more inches of rain between tomorrow and Thursday, thanks to Hurricane Ida. It was 4-6 but they increased it now.
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Yikes! Maybe you better sleep in boat. And maybe you better get Brad outside with a shovel and some sandbags.
My thoughts will be with you and your family during tomorrow’s diluvian weather.
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you really noah your vocabulary…
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Groaning! 🙂
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just one step below a head smack; I tried…
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🙄
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Thanks. It’s been the genesis of many of my comments.
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it shows in your numbers…
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This could get out of hand unless we make a quick exodus.
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with all that rain, you might have trouble parting the sea…
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Yes, rain is my kryptonite. Otherwise, no problem.
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we’ve all got our weak spots…
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Thanks Tippy. For the 16 years that we have lived here our basement has never got water in it. The previous owners had told us it was a dry basement and their words have proven true. Hopefully it stays true!
“Diluvian”?? A fancy word for wet? 😄
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Good, but have you ever had 8 inches of rain in one day, before? That’s nearly twice the precipitation we get in one year.
Diluvian is a fancy word for, start building a boat.
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No, we haven’t, soooo we are holding our breath. Though we do get more than 8 inches of rain in a whole year! You do live in the desert, don’t you. 🙂
Haha! I think its a little too late to start building the boat, we don’t have the wood.
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I hope your roof isn’t too steep to stand on.
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I am pretty confident that it won’t get that bad. 🙂
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🤞
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well maybe after this storm you can start buying a little bit of wood at a time and you’ll be ready for the next one…
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I will mention that to Brad. 🙂
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and if you decide not to buy a boat, perhaps you can flip the wood for a nice little profit… 🙂
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Hmmm…🙂
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eight inches in one day – I think we’re going to need a bigger boat…
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Make sure it’s at least 9 inches high.
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Haha! We are at 4 inches now and its coming down good. Baeement still dry. 🙂
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I’m glad you’re still dry. My town would have washed away by this time.
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Thanks and glad its not raining in your town, it can’t wash away, we still need to see it! 😉
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So how high is the water outside your house, now?
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The rain stopped. Looks like the weatheman was wrong. They changed it now to say that we may get quarter inch of rain overnight but thats it. That is good being that my gold car doesn’t want to have to float home!
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You must be at work. I’ll bet that was scary, driving to work in all that rain. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for your safe journey home tomorrow morning.
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Fortunately I don’t bave far to go! I was glad that the rain had at least stopped. Thanks! If we do end up getting a lot more and its real bad by the time I have to leave, my hero Bard will come on his white horse. 😉
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Nice that it’s stopped. Better tell Bard to leave his white horse behind, and take his white yacht, instead.
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🙂
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good suggestion…
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🤞
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I’m glad they seemed to have cut back on the potential rain totals…
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who doesn’t like a little change of scenery…
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Well, I’ve always wanted to live by a lake.
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with rising sea levels, you might get your wish 🙂
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I forgot to check our basement, but I just looked, and it’s as dry as can be…
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Yay! 🙂
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my thoughts exactly… 🙂
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Our basement used to get wet all the time, and then we had a French drain put in. One of the best investments we ever made. I hope your basement stays dry…
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it’s raining pretty good right now… good luck…
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Thanks! You too! How much rain are you guys supposed to get?
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I think 2-4 inches…
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We have 4 inches and its still comimg down good, tonight is supposed to be the heaviest they say.
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it looks like it stopped here, but it was quite a bit of rain, along with some tornado warnings…
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Tornado warnings can be scary. It stopped here. They said we could get a 1/4- 3/4 inches overnight but thats all. I don’t mind them being wrong about the 8 inches!
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I’m not sure if we had any actual tornadoes, but yes, the warnings are concerning. And 8 inches would have been lot of rain!
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Yes it would have been. Too much for one day!
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that’s one way to fall asleep…
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I’m not sure if it would be called misspelling or typos, but I usually have quite a few of those. But I still don’t feel like Don Juan…
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How about Don Quixote?
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I do like windmills…
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I certainly don’t find mumbling attractive! And good on the nuns for teaching you to speak clearly.
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that’s good to know; and I must admit the nuns did a great job of teaching me the funandmentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic…
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Nope I never date a person who doesn’t enunciate or mumbles- I barely understand anything as it is I don’t need that kind of stress in my life lol. But maybe that’s just me!
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ok, that’s good to know there are people out there who appreciate good enunciation!
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Mumbling. Got it. Are there any other bad habits that I should be adopting to be more appealing to women?
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if I had known any, I would have used them…
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I was mumble to mumble nuns but mumble not mumble others.
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I have a feeling a lot of women are going to be looking up who is this Geoff Stamper guy…
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I used to joke I only agreed to marry Cyberspouse as I didn’t actually hear what the question was in his strong Scottish accent.
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there you go – proof of the theory! 🙂
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Ha, that is definitely a good line.
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Interesting, I’ve always been a mumbler (low self-esteem), and I would also attribute my dusty love life to the way I speak. Maybe the grass is indeed always greener.
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hmmmm….. you never know. you may have left a string of broken hearts all over with that mumbling… 🙂
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Do you have a speech impediment or are you just flirting with me?
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I’ll be sure to speak more clearly so that I am not giving off mixed signals 🙂
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where does an auctioneer fall in the equation?
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good question. I wonder if they have women swooning all over them…
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I hate it when a guy mumbles. Wonder what that says about me.
Though I loved Brando…
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maybe you’re part nun 🙂
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I assure you, I’m pretty far from it. But I dressed as one for Halloween once. (Probably wishful thinking on my parents’ part.)
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so there was a bit of a nun commection 🙂
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🤣
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Macho or not, in my opinion that mumbling can get pretty annoying over the long run. I would take clarity any day.
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maybe as we age clarity becomes more important…
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I can only make out about half the stuff an average woman says when she is talking and I am trying to get that percentage down.
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with some hard work, I am sure you can succeed…
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Oh my, I remember the nuns and their enunciation pointers! I totally disagree that mumbling is macho. I would much rather have a man speak clearly because that leads me to believe he is actually wanting a conversation and not blowing me off!
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dang, so it wasn’t my enuncation… 🙂
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“my painful childhood recollections” great source. I dig into that reference book myself from time to time. Through high school, I had a fairly significant speech impediment. That apparently didn’t qualify on the heartthrob meter. I was clearly in the loser-camp.
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I would have been at the same lunch table…
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I have a naturally quiet voice, so don’t need to mumble to avoid anyone knowing what I’m saying. But I always appreciated it when a girl clearly enunciated ‘get lost’ – it removed any possible doubt.
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I would have been excited if a girl told me to get lost; at least she knew I existed…
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Always look on the bright side…
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👍
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I find this interesting because one of the things that totally turns me off from my husband (shhh) is when he mumbles or takes forever to link/finish a sentence. LOL… I’m always chomping at the bit trying to get it out of him … but maybe that’s not his fault.. perhaps I’m the annoying impatient one…. lol…
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sometimes there’s a fine line between something that totally turns people off and what turns them on 🙂
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I wish I could make a verbal reply to this post. I would prove my manliness by being entirely unintelligible.
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feel free to post an audio link; I am sure it will drive the ladies crazy…
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I do have that effect… Or something.
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For a moment, I was pinching myself and asking, “Is this really true?” Then I realized I’m reading another researched-based post from the award-winning Borden’s Blather. Hmm, I can’t blame the nuns for anything since I attended public school, but sometimes I might sound like a cowboy from Montana.
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my sense is that cowboys from Montana are the strong, silent type 🙂
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Ah shucks! You found me out.
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😊👍
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Our former mayor had the same nickname as Brando. I wonder why girls don’t mumble?
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That’s funny about your Mayor. And maybe guys mumble because we are trying to hide the fact that we have nothing interesting to add to a conversation… 🙂
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Nice one, Jim!
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