薩拉想和她的老朋友史蒂夫的新婚妻子貝蒂交朋友，但貝蒂似乎沒什麽表示。薩拉覺得貝蒂沒有打斷她的談話時，貝蒂向史蒂夫抱怨說薩拉從來沒有給過她說話的機會。這個問題與人們對節奏和停頓的期望有關。
Conversation is a turn-taking game. When our habits are similar, there’s no problem. But if our habits are different, you may start to talk before I’m finished or fail to take your turn when I’m finished. That’s what was happening with Betty and Sara.
談話是壹種輪流進行的遊戲。當我們的習慣相似時，沒有問題。但是如果我們的習慣不同，妳可能在我說完之前就開始說，或者在我說完的時候妳沒有接上。貝蒂和莎拉就是這樣。
It may not be coincidental that Betty, who expected relatively longer pauses between turns, is British, and Sara, who expected relatively shorter pauses, is American. Betty often felt interrupted by Sara. But Betty herself became an interrupter and found herself doing most of the talking when she met a visitor from Finland. And Sara had a hard time cutting in on some speakers from Latin America or Israel.
這可能不是巧合，貝蒂是英國人，她期望在轉換之間停頓長壹點，而薩拉是美國人，她期望停頓短壹點。貝蒂常常感到被薩拉打斷，但是當她遇到來自芬蘭的客人時，她自己成了打斷別人的人，總是自己在說。薩拉在遇到來自拉美或以色列的發言者講話時也很難插嘴。
The general phenomenon, then, is that the small conversation techniques, like pacing and pausing, lead people to draw conclusions not about conversational style but about personality and abilities. These habitual differences are often the basis for dangerous stereotyping. And these social phenomena can have very personal consequences. For example, a woman from the southwestern part of the US went to live in an eastern city to take up a job in personnel. When the Personnel Department got together for meetings, she kept searching for the right time to break in--and never found it. Although back home she was considered outgoing and confident, in Washington she was viewed as shy and retiring. When she was evaluated at the end of the year, she was told to take a training course because of her inability to speak up.
通常就是這樣，像節奏和停頓這樣的談話小技巧會讓人們得出關於個性和能力的結論，而不是關於談話風格。這些習慣性差異往往是危險的思維定式的基礎，這些社會現象會產生非常私人的後果。例如，壹位來自美國西南部的婦女到東部城市居住，從事人事工作。當人事部開會時，她會壹直在尋找合適的時間插話——但始終沒有找到。雖然在家鄉她被認為是外向和自信，但在華盛頓她則被認為是害羞，不善與人交往。年底對她考評時，被告知要參加培訓，因為她不會說話。
That’s why slight differences in conversational style --- tiny little things like microseconds of pause --- can have a great effect on one’s life. The result in this case was a judgment of psychological problems --- even in the mind of the woman herself, who really wondered what was wrong with her and registered for assertiveness training.
這就是為什麽談話風格上的細微差別——像幾微秒停頓這樣的小事——會對壹個人的生活產生巨大影響。案例的結果是對心理問題的判斷——甚至在這位女士自己的頭腦中，她真的很想知道她到底有什麽問題，而去報名參加自信心培訓。