Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive May 24, 2026
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Episodes Episode #913 Segments
MainContent Persuasion

Back to episode — Episode 913 Scott Adams - Was LIVE

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Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum. Hey Jack, come on in. Yes, this is the place to come at this time of night so that you can get all of the cares and tensions of the world drained out of your overstressed body. Today and for the next, oh let's say 45 minutes, it's nothing but good times. We're gonna put things in perspective. We're going to make you feel better, make you feel relaxed. I

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have a little observation for you, and I don't know what to make of it yet, and it goes like this. I was watching Obama do his recommendation for Biden, and you know that I've commented on how Dr. Birx has uptalk. Now uptalk is where you end the sentence with a little bit of an up, so it makes you sound maybe like a Valley girl. And then when you do the uptalk you don't sound as confident because you're sort of asking. You make statements but you're making statements that sound like a question.

But have you ever noticed Obama does downtalk? So Obama's last word is always the deeper word. I'd never noticed that. I was watching him today. So I'll give you my Obama impression. We've got here the back scratcher and I have a remote control, but you could take your Apple earbuds and you could pair it with your mechanical pen thing. Listen to him and listen to how he finishes on a confident low note. And I thought to myself, I think that's really effective. And I also asked myself if I do it, and I don't know, because probably because I'm thinking about it I'll either do it or I'll conceal how much I do it or don't do it.

So maybe you could tell me. Do I — well this is a question so I'm going to uptalk the question — do I uptalk? Have you ever heard me uptalk when I'm making statements, not questions? And have you ever noticed me, because I really don't know, do I downtalk on the last word? Do I give you a sentence and then I'm talking like this because it makes me sound confident? Because I'm starting the sentence and you say, "What's it all about?" and I finish it fast. I finish it hard. I finish it strong because I'm coming in and I'm just laying it down there and just putting it down there, finishing down.

Somebody says, "No you don't." I think you

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mean, "No, I don't uptalk." Oh look what I did. I automatically did a downtalk. I think I'm going to practice that. Speaking of people who have interesting ways of speaking, one of my favorite TV senators, and maybe one of yours as well, is Senator Kennedy. So you know Senator Kennedy. He's got, I don't know what state he's from, he's got an accent. It makes him sound, I assume it's southern. It'…

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