Names...first word...two syllables...sounds like?

I discovered last night that somebody at the National Public Radio's website has come up with an interesting game and posted it on-line. They have put up a frame, tiled 3x3 with photographs of nine NPR correspondents. In a column to the left is a randomized list of their names, each name linked to an audio clip of that correspondent speaking. The idea of the game, of course, is to listen closely to people that you regularly hear on-air, and after they tell a story about themselves, decide what their sound says they must look like and drag the name onto the appropriate headshot.

This concept fascinated me. The idea that we don't always make snap judgments about other people based on their outward appearances--sometimes we wait until they open their mouths.

I suppose I should be thankful. Days that I'm wandering about in paint-splattered jeans from working in the scene shop or slipping and sliding around in over-worn flip-flops because I forgot to grab my rainboots, I worry that people will think critically about my style of dress (particularly my “lack of give a ....” about keeping up with the latest fashions). I'm easily guilty of forgetting that I'm more likely to make an impact on people’s memories by what I do (or don't) use my words to say about who I am. And I don't think I'm the only person who forgets the importance of the way one sounds when speaking, or what our styles of verbal communication are, in making an impression on other people. (It’s the same for communicating in print--I may have off days when I type horribly, transposing letters and misspelling words that I do know, or sometimes I leave out words altogether, but I admit that when I read other people’s blogs, e-mails, or online status messages, I automatically deduct points in my estimation of them if they’ve done the same.)

And I’m not the only one out there who listens to other people talking and then, usually subconsciously, adjusts my speech patterns to match theirs. I do it with cadence, I do it with accent, and I’ve done it more than once with grammar and word usage.

So last night I got to thinking as someone else used my computer to play the NPR.com game. Wouldn’t it be fun to gather some of my friends, and make recordings of ourselves, reading, singing, acting, whatever, and then post our individual audio profiles on some site to see what determinations strangers would make about us based just on what they heard. Maybe after a while we could post our pictures and a few factoids about ourselves, confirming or disproving the comments others made. Then as I decided against that I remembered…

Not long ago I sat in the living room while somebody else was trying to find something to watch. They scrolled through listings and I suggested we try watching a live broadcast music show on the local PBS station. As the channel came up I saw the man who was singing; it was a song I vaguely recognized, and I looked at the info at the bottom of the screen that the cable company provided, telling the show’s name and episode title (in this case, the featured artist.) Suddenly I found myself blurting out, “That can’t be X artist. X artist sounds so good looking!” As the song concluded the show’s announcer thanked the performer, by his band’s name. “Oh! I should have recognized by his voice, that’s not X artist, that’s lead singer Y.” The shot on the TV switched as they introduced a different scruffy looking young man as X artist, and I made my declaration, “that’s better. I knew he had to be better looking than that.”

Terrible story to confess to, but it’s a true illustration of what I mean.

Often I get so frustrated by the assumptions people make about me when we first meet, before I have yet to say anything (although, some day I may appreciate that people can’t ever seem to correctly guess my age based on my looks). The flip side of that coin is acknowledging how often I listen to people speak and hypothesize that they’d have a far better chance of being liked by me if I only had to look at them. Go figure.

I played the NPR game, by the way. Holding a fascination with how people match up to their names as I do, I did it without ever listening to a clip, just dragging names onto pictures. It took fifteen attempts for me to get all nines names correctly placed. The person across the table from me took it next, listening to the clips carefully. It took fifteen attempts for her to get all nine names correctly placed. Our names speak volumes about us as well.