Off the cuff

When you speak or act “off the cuff,” you do so without too much planning or preparation.

Today's story: Joe Biden
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Off the cuff

Today’s expression is “off the cuff.” When you speak or act “off the cuff,” you do so without too much planning or preparation. Your cuff, incidentally, is the part of your shirt sleeve that covers your wrist. On a warm day, you might unbutton the cuffs of your shirt to roll them up. That’s what a “cuff” is; the origin of this phrase is kind of funny. If you were to give a speech—and this phrase originated in the 1930s, so a different time—if you were to give a speech, but you didn’t want to write out full notes, you would just write some notes on the cuff of your shirt and glance down at them, while you spoke mostly extemporaneously.

Joe Biden has many admirable qualities as a politician, but speaking off the cuff is not one of them. Barack Obama was famously disciplined as a politician: he and his White House were always on message. But the Obama administration was on edge any time then-Vice President Biden had to speak off the cuff. He might say something embarrassing—once, he told a man in a wheelchair to “stand up” for a round of applause. Or, he might reveal something he wasn’t supposed to reveal, such as when he accidentally announced his support for gay marriage on a news program before Obama himself had taken that position publicly.

Trump, on the other hand, lives off the cuff. Everything he does is off the cuff—instinctual, impulsive, without preparation. When he has to read a full prepared speech, he often gets bored with it and starts speaking off the cuff, returning to the text of the speech later.

There are pros and cons to speaking off the cuff. On the one hand, you can get yourself in trouble by saying something that’s not true or embarrassing yourself. On the other hand, speaking off the cuff can make you sound more authentic, more trustworthy. In business, I find there are times when being detailed, prepared, and disciplined is the best approach. But there are other times when speaking off the cuff is better. Speaking off the cuff doesn’t mean you’re unprepared to talk about a subject—it just means that your words are not studied and prepared.

Think about it. How many times have you listened to someone try to sell your something and it sounds like they’re just reading from a speech? Or what they say sounds just a little too perfect? You wonder, is this the real story, is this what they really think, or is this just what they prepared? Is this just what they want me to hear?

I read an article about venture capital firms. VC firms invest money in small businesses that they think can grow quickly. Before they invest, they like to talk to the staff of the company and do their due diligence—they investigate the company to make sure the company is worthy of their investment. Part of that process is to speak informally with a lot of different employees. They want the employees to speak off the cuff—unsupervised, unscripted conversations are important for the investors to get the true and complete picture of what’s going on. The article said that during COVID, everything is happening on Zoom and those conversations are very stiff and formal. The VC firms want to be able to have those off the cuff conversations that you just can’t have by videoconference.

Some people are good speaking off the cuff; others freeze. In business, again, I think I’m sometimes good off the cuff, but not always. If I’m really well prepared and I know the material, then I can be very good off the cuff. But there are some people in business who are just smooth: they can speak off the cuff in any situation and it sounds good, no matter what. I can tell you, I’m not one of those people.

Quote of the Week

Today’s lesson was about Joe Biden, a candidate for president, so I thought I would include a quote about Biden. I was going to select a quote from the candidate himself, but I decided instead to find an illustrative quote by someone else about the candidate. We’ll do the same with Trump next Monday.

This quote is from Maurice Mitchell, an activist on the Democratic Party’s left wing. Remember I said that Biden has not moved as far to the left as many of his most left-wing supporters have wanted, but that the real objective of his campaign is to unseat Trump. So here is a quote from an activist from the party’s left wing: “He can be a product of either your most cynical thinking or a product of your most optimistic thinking.”

That sentiment sums up how many of the Democratic Party’s younger, progressive, activist voters think. He can either be a product of your most cynical thinking or your most optimistic thinking.

See you next time!

That’s all for today. Remember next Monday we’ll talk about Trump and the reasons behind his voters’ support. But first, Thursday: We’ll talk about four businesses, in four different industries, that are thriving during the current pandemic. One of those businesses lets you order their product without even clicking or tapping in their mobile app. I’ll leave you wondering about that until Thursday.

Quick reminder about Plain English Plus+ before we go. This is our membership program that can really help you practice your English at the next level. It’s designed to help you go from being just a listener to taking a more active role, whether that’s in our forums, our live calls, pronunciation exercises, quizzes, and listening exercises. It’s all about getting you to interact more with the content of the program and take an active role in your learning. You can check out a sample lesson by visiting PlainEnglish.com/sample , where you can try out all those exercises yourself. PlainEnglish.com/sample. See you Thursday!

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Story: Joe Biden