Why you walking like that man?

If you've ever watched football on TV, then you'll have heard the commentator say: “He’s 20 years of age.”

As opposed to years of what? Years of custard? I think you mean that he's 20 years old. Nobody has ever said "years of age" in a pub.

Ever.

Or the podcast classic: “It happened back in 2006, if memory serves me correctly.”

If memory serves me correctly? Who are you serving? The court?

In real life, people say: “Yeah, I think it was back in 2006” or "I can’t remember exactly, but around then.”

Messy. Human. Honest.

So what’s going on here? Why do otherwise normal people suddenly start talking like a strange hybrid of a newsreader, a Wikipedia entry, and a GCSE student taking a foreign language exam?

And how do we get back to real conversations, especially if what you’re trying to build lives or dies by sounding human (or even, god forbid, being human)?

The Curse of the Imagined Audience

The moment people know they’re being recorded, they stop talking to someone and start talking to everyone.

An imagined audience appears. A vague, judgemental blob.

And when that happens, people don’t reach for how they actually speak. They reach for how they’ve heard speaking done.

TV.
Radio.
Podcasts.
Documentaries.
Press conferences.
TED Talks.

They borrow a voice. A cadence. A way of phrasing things that feels… safer.

Because real speech is risky.

Real speech includes half-finished thoughts, contradictions, lots of “I don’t know”s or “Hang on, that didn’t come out right” and, usually, some silence.

Broadcast speech edits all of that out. It’s been sanded down for decades into something smooth, authoritative, and frankly a bit dead.

So when people perform, they perform that.

Not conversation. Not thinking out loud. Not being present.

They perform “someone speaking”.

Authority Theatre

There’s another layer to it I think: authority.

A microphone confers status. Or at least it feels like it should. So people unconsciously start dressing their language up to sound credible. Older. Smarter. More certain.

Hence:

• “Years of age” instead of “years old”
• “One might argue…” instead of “I think”
• “It’s interesting to note that…” instead of “This is weird”
• “The reality is…” before stating an opinion
• “In today’s society…” (never a good sign)

These phrases don’t add clarity. They add distance. They’re linguistic shoulder pads. Power suits for sentences. And they exist almost entirely to protect the speaker from judgement.

If I speak like a presenter, I can’t be accused of being sloppy.
If I hedge everything, I can’t be wrong.
If I sound formal, I must know what I’m talking about.

Except the opposite happens.

People trust specificity, not polish.
They trust uncertainty more than fake confidence.
They trust someone who sounds like a person, not a press release.

The Podcast Voice (You Know the One)

There is, undeniably, a “podcast voice”.

Slightly slower than normal speech.
Over-enunciated.
Studied casualness.
Thoughtful pauses.

And certain phrases have become so overused that I wince every time I hear them:

• “Long story short…” (followed by a long story)
• “To your point…”
• “Let’s unpack that”
• “That really resonates”
• “At the end of the day…” (which it never is)
• “I love that” (said to absolutely everything)

Again, none of this exists in real conversation. (Though I have to admit that I seem to be saying "I love that" an awful lot on my Do Radio show...)

Nobody in the real world says: “Yeah Jon, to your point, if memory serves me correctly, that really resonates.”

They’d be laughed out of the pub.

Why We Copy, Instead of Speak

I think most people don’t actually trust their own voice. They don’t trust that how they naturally speak is interesting enough, smart enough or articulate enough

So they borrow one.

Just like kids copy accents they hear on TV, adults copy communication styles. We absorb what’s rewarded and repeat it.

But friction is where truth lives.

Thinking out loud is friction.
Changing your mind mid-sentence is friction.
Admitting you’re not sure is friction.

That’s what real conversation sounds like.

Performance Kills Connection

The maddest part is this: the more performative someone becomes, the less human they sound. And the less human they sound, the less people connect.

Which is fatal if what you’re trying to do is build connection.

Radio didn’t used to be like this.

Early radio was messy. Intimate. Awkward. People coughed. Lost their train of thought. Went quiet. Laughed at the wrong moment.

It felt like eavesdropping on a real moment.

Somewhere along the line, we decided that professionalism meant ironing all of that out.

And we lost something vital.

How Do We Strip It Back?

If the goal is real conversation, not performance, then the solution isn’t better scripts or more media training.

And this isn't just advice for broadcasters, podcasters or idiots like me on the radio. I think we all need this.

Whenever we speak up in meetings or give a presentation or sit on a panel, we need to connect and communicate with our audience. And performing, not thinking, not being human, is the fastest way to lose an audience.

Here’s what I think might help.

1. Ban Certain Phrases (Seriously)

Every format has verbal junk DNA.

On Do Radio, you could literally have a bell in the studio for:

• “If I’m honest”
• “I think what’s interesting is…”
• “In many ways”
• “I love that”

Not because they’re evil. But because they’re usually a sign someone has stopped thinking and started performing.

2. Talk To One Person

The fastest way to sound unnatural is to talk to “everyone”. Try talking to one person instead. A real one. Someone you know.

Picture them sitting across from you with a coffee. That’s the voice.

3. Let Silence Exist

Dead air terrifies people. So they fill it with nonsense.

But silence is honest. Silence says: I’m thinking.

Give yourself permission to pause without narrating the pause. And just think.

4. Allow Imperfection

Correcting yourself mid-sentence is not a failure. It’s a signal of real cognition.

“So what I mean is...no actually, that’s not quite right…”

That’s gold. That’s a human being, live.

5. Sound Like Yourself, Not “A Speaker”

If someone transcribed what you said and read it back to you, would you recognise yourself?

If the answer is no, you’re in performance mode.

My Rule for Do Radio

I am not immune. So if you listen to my show (and you really should) and you ever hear me say any of the above annoying phrases, then please switch off immediately and email me to tell me I'm an idiot.

The Deeper Thing This Is Really About

Underneath all of this is something bigger. It’s about permission.

Permission to be unfinished, uncertain and most definitely unscripted. Modern media rewards polish. But people are starving for presence.

They don’t want to be impressed.
They want to feel less alone.

And nothing makes you feel less alone like hearing someone think out loud in real time, without their armour.

Real conversation isn’t about sounding right. It’s about sounding true.

And that’s what we’re building at Do Radio.

Until next time,

Jon "53 years of age" Kaye

Choosing to live more deliberately