Jon Ossoff cadence/accent

December 31, 2020 7:41 AM

Is there a name or origin or any reading material about his cadence/accent? It's wonderful and very deliberate. My friend pointed out that Pete Buttigieg has a similar speaking style, and I guess perhaps Obama had it too.
posted by ftm to Grab Bag (5 answers total)

Brief but highly relevant article
posted by Perplexity at 8:06 AM on December 31, 2020 [3 favorites]

As some one who grew up in the South and in church, that is typical Preacher Voice. I can see how it could be very specifically Black Preacher, but I heard it in both white and Black churches.

Unlike the article, I think it is very purposeful, a studied and calculated rhetorical cadence designed to keep people engaged.
posted by stormygrey at 9:04 AM on December 31, 2020 [3 favorites]

This Atlantic piece focuses on Mayor Pete but mentions Ossoff. It doesn't have a name except to call this "Obama-lite." And here's a piece about Obama's oration skills that might help you think through what you are hearing. It may partly be that it's more common to hear strong oration skills in movies than with real life politicians?
posted by bluedaisy at 10:31 AM on December 31, 2020

Ossoff just sounds charmingly Southern to me (a NYer). I don’t have much sense of different southern accents, but I wouldn’t associate the way he speaks with Obama at all — he just sounds very appealingly Southern-public-speaking.
posted by LizardBreath at 10:39 AM on December 31, 2020

There's some interesting stuff here on how Obama used long pauses in his speeches and its relationship to preaching. (Edited to add that Ossoff seems to use the pause similarly to Obama)
posted by jabes at 12:26 PM on December 31, 2020