Shadowing Malcolm Gladwell

Summary

Malcolm Gladwell revisits the account of New York's falling crime rate that helped launch The Tipping Point. He explains why the idea of social epidemics once seemed persuasive and why he connected the decline with broken-windows policing. Looking back, he now rejects the certainty of that explanation. The talk is both a reconsideration of his interpretation of policing evidence and an argument that writers should acknowledge when their explanations are provisional.

Key points, in order

1. Gladwell recalls moving to a frightening New York and later realizing that his daily precautions no longer felt necessary. An article about social problems spreading like epidemics supplied the framework he used to explain that transformation.
2. He describes the Floyd court case and the sharp decline in stop-and-frisk as a test of the account he had promoted. In his interpretation, crime continuing to fall undermined the idea that indiscriminate stops were responsible for safety.
3. He accepts some responsibility for popularizing that account and says he wrote as though the story were complete. His proposed correction is to make clear what an explanation reflects at a particular moment and revise it when evidence changes.
4. In the closing interview, he acknowledges overlooking the experiences of people subjected to stops. He argues that admitting uncertainty can build an audience's trust more effectively than projecting unjustified confidence.

Five useful phrases to practise

Choose a caption line to open Repeat mode. Listen, then say it after the speaker.

1. 5:32 I was wrong.
2. 8:54 Stop and frisk goes away and crime falls.
3. 12:00 But I don't think those excuses hold any water whatsoever.
4. 12:28 And it wasn't over and I didn't know the answer, right?
5. 13:14 And I'm sorry.

Based on the video’s captions. Original video: The Tipping Point I Got Wrong | Malcolm Gladwell | TED · TED.

Everyday phrases from this video

• when it comes to
• I used to
• make sense

• Level: B1–B2
• Accent: North American
• Length: 17 min · 204 lines to practise
• Speed: about 168 words a minute (an average pace)
• Words: about 2,800; the talk asks 19 questions
• Timing: Sada measures how far behind the speaker you are on every line

What to focus on in this talk

Practise the contrast between what he believed earlier and what he concludes now.

What this talk trains

Malcolm Gladwell speaks for about 17 minutes: roughly 2,800 words in 204 caption lines. The pace eases off as the talk goes on, from about 189 words a minute in the first quarter to 161 in the last. Overall it is faster than 39 of the other 66 talks on Sada. Its sentences average 18.4 words, longer than the middle of the library (14.3), and 13.1% of its words fall outside the 3,000 most common English words (library middle: 12.9%). It asks 19 questions, so there is plenty of question intonation to copy. Phrases that fast speech often shortens come up again and again: “going to” (8 times) and “have to” (5 times).

Lines from across the talk, and what each one trains

One line from each quarter of the talk. Press a line to open it in Sada, ready to record. “Linking” marks words that run together: a word ending in a consonant sound joins the vowel that starts the next one.

1. 0:52 And even in the summer, I had no air conditioning,

   Linking: say “And even”, “even in” without a break between the words. Several commas: say it in short chunks first, then as one line.

2. 7:55 when broken windows goes away, crime is going to go back up, right?

   “going to”: fast speech often shortens it to “gonna” when a verb follows. Listen for whether the speaker does here. A question: listen to where the voice rises or falls at the end, and copy it.

3. 12:28 And it wasn't over and I didn't know the answer, right?

   A question: listen to where the voice rises or falls at the end, and copy it. Linking: say “And it”, “wasn't over”, “over and” without a break between the words.

4. 14:12 what if it was wrong and innocent people were going to have to experience this?

   “going to”: fast speech often shortens it to “gonna” when a verb follows. Listen for whether the speaker does here. A question: listen to where the voice rises or falls at the end, and copy it.

Words that keep coming up

Words outside the 3,000 most common English words that Malcolm Gladwell uses more than once. The number is how often each is said. Look up any you don’t know, then press it to practise the line where it first comes up.

• epidemic ×10
• tipping ×7
• frisk ×6
• policing ×5
• realized ×4
• explanation ×4
• decline ×4
• fell ×4

How the pace changes through the talk

The fastest minute starts at 0:17 (about 222 words a minute): practise that minute once the rest feels easy. The slowest starts at 12:37 (about 115): a good minute to warm up with.

Measured from the caption timing, so the numbers are close, not exact.

How the talk opens: press any line to practise it

1. 0:04 I want to tell you a story about when I moved to New York City in 1993.
2. 0:09 I was 30 years old, and I was moving to what was known as one of the most dangerous big cities in the United States.
3. 0:17 And every night, I would go out with my friends on a Friday or Saturday night,
4. 0:21 and at the end of every night we would have a little conference and we would pool all of our money, and we would figure out how everyone was going to get home,
5. 0:29 because you couldn't go home on the subway by yourself and you couldn't walk home,
6. 0:33 and if you were a woman, you definitely were not allowed to go home by yourself at one o'clock in the morning on a Saturday night.

How to practise this talk

1. Warm up on the slowest minute (from 12:37) or on the opening lines above.
2. Then take the chosen lines above one at a time: linked words, a line said in chunks, a shortened phrase, a question.
3. On each line, press Record and say it after Malcolm Gladwell (Repeat) or along with them (Shadow), then open Compare and go again until every word is green.
4. Save the fastest minute (from 0:17, about 222 words a minute) for last.
5. At one minute a day you finish the whole talk in about 17 days, and Sada shows your first try against your latest.

More talks to practise

• Malcolm Gladwell — The Unheard Story of David and Goliath (B2–C1 · 165 words a minute · same speaker)
• Malcolm Gladwell — Choice, Happiness and Spaghetti Sauce (B2 · 177 words a minute · same speaker)
• Simon Sinek — Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe (B1–B2 · 169 words a minute · same level)
• Derek Sivers — The “Good Enough” Life Choice (B1–B2 · 166 words a minute · same level)

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