One of the quickest ways to lose credibility with your audience is to mispronounce a word—especially a word that is specifically related to the subject of your presentation. Pronunciation is the correct formation of word sounds. Many words in the English language are frequently mispronounced, to the point that individuals are not even aware that they are saying these words incorrectly! Presidential mispronunciations in particular are fodder for late night talk show hosts. Take, for example, George W. Bush’s mispronunciation of the word strategy (“strategery”) or Barack Obama’s mispronunciation of corpsman (“corpse man”) that you’ve likely heard about.

But even if presidents occasionally err in their pronunciation, they frequently articulate well. Articulation is the clarity and forcefulness with which the sounds are made, regardless of whether they are pronounced correctly. To speak clearly, even if incorrectly, is to be articulate. All speakers strive to be articulate, but there are several ways in which we routinely sabotage our efforts (O’Hair, Rubenstein, & Stewart, 2012).

When a speaker omits certain sounds in a word, runs words together, and speaks so softly that a listener can hardly hear, the speaker is guilty of mumbling. Most people mumble either because they are in a hurry, because they suffer from communication apprehension, or because they are not prepared to speak clearly.

Audience perceptions about a speaker’s skills can also be affected by accents, patterns of pronunciation that are specific to a certain upbringing, geographical region, or culture. Although the word choices of individuals from different cultures may vary from time to time, the greatest difference you hear is in their emphasis on syllables and rhythm while speaking. In the United States, southern speakers tend to drawl (use a slower pace) and elongate vowel sounds. Speakers from the Northeast tend to omit sounds from the middle of words such as park, whereas Midwesterners sometimes insert an “r” sound into words such as wash.