Headlight: [hed-layht] literally, the projector light pointing at a presenter’s head and slowly burning out his or her retinas.
Experienced presenters can tell you that there is little difference between a moth and a professional speaker when forced to look into the light. More than two seconds of eye contact with that unflinching Cyclops will drag [...]

Ripple: [rip-uhl] a wave that, properly surfed, takes presenters from small rural towns to big international cities.
What happens when a butterfly flaps its wings in South America?
Nothing, really. Some dumb butterfly in North America flaps its wings as well, and the result is an unbelievably minor trans-hemispheric game of Air Pong that we all casually [...]

Vay-cay: [vey-key] a mocking phrase used in lieu of ‘intermission’ to remind audiences that they could be doing other things with their time.
Some say disappointment doesn’t sell; others feel that, if you can enumerate the various things in people’s lives that could be better, they’ll be motivated to work harder to achieve them. Presenters from [...]

Crush: [kruhsh] an often-unrequited emotional response some audience members have to the sound of an authoritarian voice over the microphone.
Crushes are the presentation world’s Sirens of Titan: adulatory praise is sure to bolster the egomaniacal red devil that stands on your shoulder, forcing you to engage them in the cosmic love affair you’ve got going [...]

Brow Wipe: [brou wahyp] a subtle, hygienic gesture that removes the beads of sweat that form when one problem or another makes you realize that life is about to get very, very bad for you.
“Technical difficulties” is present-ese for a host of statistically impossible yet all-too-real failures: “my daughter saved over my slides with Dora [...]

We thought about not posting this video. Heck, we almost stopped halfway through it. However, it proved our point. Get rid of those non-verbal distractions when giving your next presentation.

HAG: [hag] an acronym meaning horrible at gestures that is applied to presenters whose physical style is…regrettable.
Though audience members are inclined to hate them instinctively, HAGs have succeeded in forging new ground in two new scientific pursuits: first, by conflating the nonverbal expressions of Steve Urkel and the Tasmanian Devil, HAGs introduced Interspecies Assimilation, a [...]