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Kennedy Speed: Fact or Factoid?
Mark Liberman, Language Log, 2010
Read the originalRead on October 16, 2026
- What it is
- A linguist's blog post that checks the widely repeated claims about John F. Kennedy's speaking speed. It quotes the 327 words per minute figure and the 96.5 words per minute rate for the inaugural address, and works out the overall rate of a 47-minute speech.
- How much weight it carries
- A post on a linguistics blog, with the arithmetic shown and the comment thread visible. It quotes older press and reader sources without giving full citations, and it does not have a recording of the full speech to check, so the figures are reported, not measured by the author.
Facts taken from this source
- A 1961 magazine report, quoted in a 2010 Language Log post, says Kennedy was timed in bursts of 327 words per minute, most often when he spoke off a prepared text.
“But Kennedy has been timed in bursts of 327 w.p.m.” (Post body, quoted magazine passage)
- The 6,507-word speech Kennedy gave to the National Association of Manufacturers would have an overall rate of about 138 words per minute if it took the full 47 minutes reported.
“the overall rate would be 6507/47 = 138.4 wpm.” (Post body, arithmetic on the 47-minute speech)
- The overall speaking rate of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address was 96.5 words per minute, the second slowest of the inaugural addresses in the past 60 years.
“the overall speaking rate in JFK's inaugural address was 96.5 words per minute” (Opening paragraph, which cites a 2010 blog post by Terry Collmann)