Vocal Interruption Quickest Solution

Dear Miss Manners: At times, when one is attending a lecture or a concert, someone will come to the front of the stage and proceed to deliver his or her peroration without the benefit of mechanical amplification. When this person is not accustomed to public speaking (for example, the manager of a concert hall explaining the delay in the start of the performance), it is often very hard to hear the person.

I think in this case, some sort of awareness of this fact often helps. But the form in which this awareness is often supplied is a booming, peremptory, mid-sentence “Can’t hear you!” from the farthest reaches of the balcony, which, shorn of personal pronouns or subtlety, seems to me a rude way of attempting to resolve a situation in need of resolution. It makes me wince.

What is the proper way of asking the speaker to speak more loudly, in such a way that he or she will understand in not too long a time? Or does this situation really require correction at all? It may (and in my opinion, it does) behoove people who can’t hear to ask their neighbors what was said after all is done.

Gentle Reader: Miss Manners recalls some lectures at which it might have been kind to allow the speakers to remain unheard. The favor would be allowing audiences to believe they have missed something.

Nevertheless, she cannot recommend this course. However much some speakers’ reputations might have benefited, trouble would break out during the question period.

Therefore, timely notification falls under the spinach-in-the-teeth rule - the rule that requires rescuing people from an easily fixable problem that will otherwise cause retrospective agony.

There is, however, a difference between a leaf that proclaims itself and a speech that doesn’t. Discretion is usually the guideline - a whispered “I can’t quite tell, but I think you might have something on a tooth.” But how can one discreetly command the attention of someone who is at some distance and legitimately wrapped up in what he or she is saying with no expectation of immediate feedback?

Under such circumstances, “Can’t hear you!” doesn’t strike Miss Manners as so terribly rude. It falls under the category of warnings; one doesn’t preface “Watch out!” with “Excuse me, I don’t wish to interrupt, but perhaps you could watch out.” Technically, the member of the audience, being unable to hear anything, cannot be charged with knowingly causing an interruption.

Depending on a neighbor strikes Miss Manners as risky to the point of foolhardiness. It assumes that the neighbor is able to hear, is listening, and is able to produce an accurate summary. Ask any professor how often this is likely to happen.

Dear Miss Manners: What is your view on the “time-out” sign?

While I was speaking to a business associate, he interrupted me by making a T-shape with his hands, indicating “time-out.” I took this to mean he wanted me to stop talking.

My immediate response was one of such surprise that I did indeed stop talking. At that point, he took over the conversation and continued to dominate it for some time.

Is it indeed rude to make the “time out” sign while someone else is talking? If so, what is the appropriate response from the person being interrupted?

Gentle Reader: There are two types of “time out” in current use: the football one, which is what your colleague was employing; and the parental one, which you might consider employing on him.

Time out, to the parents of obstreperous children, which is to say children, means that rude people must remove themselves from polite society until they are willing to settle down and behave. You might have replied, “Certainly. Take as much time out as you need until you’re ready to listen to what I have to say.”