Our special guest speaker on April 15, 2021 was Mark Picus, EdD. Mark currently serves in the Educational Services wing of the Research Medical Library, where he designs and delivers classes for the Scientific English program.

Lucas started the meeting, introducing the Toastmaster, Usamah. The word of the day was gallant: spirited, brave, splendid, stately.

The speech topic was “Lies My English Teacher Told Me.” Mark started with a quiz, showing 8 sentences for us to decide if it was good English or bad English. No right or wrong answers. Mark explained what made us choose, for many of us, was our 3rd grade teacher who told us to never use a double negative, or our 5th grade teacher who told us to never end a sentence with a preposition or split an infinitive. He explained these are lies, made for an arbitrary standard.

Mark took us on a historical tour starting in 1492 in Spain, where a language was needed with which to colonize the lands. In 1588 the powerful Spanish armada was defeated by a small English fleet. Under Queen Elizabeth I, England began a long ascendency as the world power. In 1607 Jamestown was established, the beginning of the English empire. Someone wrote a grammar of English that would be used to spread around the world. In 1762 an English clergyman and Biblical commentator published prescribed rules for English grammar. Many rules in the book were not followed by English speakers and were not even necessary for good English.

All languages are always changing, and those changes are not wrong. A language's rules are decided by everybody who uses the language. They are not determined by your 3rd grade teacher or your 5th grade textbook. If you're chatting with a friend, talking to your boss, as long as you're understood, you're using the language correctly.

The second part of the meeting, Table Topics, was led by Loni. Brittany was timer. The questions were lively and Joann started off with answering, “Do you think it's true that you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs?”

Lucas as General Evaluator and Speech Evaluator reflected back on the meeting. Overall the speech was fantastic, subject matter was interesting, the way it was presented was done well. Mark kept on going after an interruption like it never happened. Slides were one image after another that reemphasized the spoken points and flowed perfectly.

Everyone took something away from Mark's polished, engaging speech. Thank you to all who attended and participated!