Great Big Story: Talking Fast With a Record-Setting Speed Talker

If you were a kid in the ‘80s, you might recognize this man, or, at least, you’ll recognize his velocity of speech. John Moschitta Jr.’s motormouth dominated the airwaves with stints as the fast-talking FedEx guy, Mr. Testaverde on “Saved by the Bell” and the infamous Micro Machines Man. With the ability to say up to 11 words per second, Moschitta broke the world record and made a career out of his dizzying cadence. The Guinness-certified speed talker sat down to give us the whole scoop on his life in fast lane. Now, try to keep up.

Above is the soliloquy that he used to enter the Guiness World Records.

You can watch a few versions then read it outloud and you can also record yourself to get feedback on your pronunciation 🙂

To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover’d country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.–Soft you now!

The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remember’d.

As you know we no longer talk like that solilquoy below is a video that explains each line and then also provides a modern take on it.

Try this tongue twister

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.