We talk, youngsters gabble.

No its not just you. I too have noticed this. It even stretches to John Humphries and his fellow presenters on Radio 4 in the morning.

Afraid it just causes me to switch off, frustating to listen to.

That's a relief, I thought it was my brain slowing down! I also find the pitch very wearing, it seems so shrill.

Oh dear, I have always talked fast I'm afraid . I know how and why I started talking rapidly - I had two older siblings and when I was learning to talk they, very helpfully (!) would finish my sentences for me, something which drove me to distraction, young as I was.

So I devised a ploy to prevent them doing this. I can actually remember thinking to myself, 'before I say this, I'm going to practice it in my head, so I can say it really fast, and then they won't but in'. Et voilà! I became a gabbler.

As I've got older, though, I have tried to slow down my speech, as I know how irritating it can be to others.

Indi Love that!

I agree, my step grandchildren late teens and early twenties now, still gabble, but more so when they were mid teens. Many a time after a get together my husband would turn to me and say "I didn't understand any of that, can you translate?"

I definitely think when its on TV that they're trying to get all they want to say out before interruption

It's not so much speed as volume in our house. Our little granddaughter aged 9 seems to have no volume control. The boys can be cajoled with 'use your indoor voice please' but the Queen of the Universe only has one volume ...VERY LOUD !

I have a friend who talks a lot and it is difficult to get a word in edgeways. I realised that what she does is take a breath before she finishes a sentence. Then at the end of the sentence she immediately starts the next one. So the natural break for a response is missing.

We spend our lives waiting for our turn to speak!

This irritates DH immensely, me not so much because I can just about keep up.

There's an advert on TV right now where the closing narrative is so fast there's no way you can follow it.

In my opinion it's a very sly way for them to keep within the law whilst not allowing you to understand properly what you may be signing up for.

I can't be bothered to try and keep up if they're talking too fast. If what they have to say is important enough to say it, they should deliver it in a way that their listeners can understand. But, if its a personal conversation between us I will ask them to repeat themselves. And I do know that sometimes people will talk too fast from nervousness ~ in which case I am much more forgiving.

I think the closing narrative on lots of TV and radio adverts is excessively fast - it's the 'terms and conditions apply' bit. I think it's because they pay for a 20 or 30 second advertising slot and begrudge using their advertising budget on the legal bits.

So they use the majority of the time slot for selling the product, and the APR and T&C bit is speeded up to fit into as short a space as possible at the end to comply with regulations.

I am part of an opinionated family and as a result we all speak too quickly. When I saw a speech therapist (not because I spoke too quickly! ), she identified that I didn't breathe properly and instead of taking a breath at a sensible point, I continued to speak on my residual breathe which made me cough. It was a revelation.

When my DH speaks to his Dad who wears hearing aids in both ears, I often tell him to speak more slowly.

It's also a sign of the times, with so many people doing everything as fast a they can to fit everything in.

We too think it is a trend, and find it happens nearly all the time with American programmes on the television. Children certainly speak very fast, and it would I think be so much better for them to slow down.

I am sure we did the same at the same age. The slang, language we used was unfamiliar and odd to our parents. I bet it was fast too. You do get more excited when younger.

I put it down to my loss of hearing, but I do agree regarding the volume, even being partly deaf my GS's hurt my ears.

My 23-year old DD speaks very fast,especially on the phone. I often stop her midflow and say " Start again...and slowly".

My 12 year old grandson is almost unintelligible. He speaks quickly, has an Australian accent and train tracks on his upper 'set'. It would be easier to communicate by text (which he is very good at!)

It's not only the T&C's at the end of adverts. How many of us watch the news and the weather forecast at the end. I think the presenters must get paid at a rate of words per minute. How do they do that?