Winston Churchill wrote every word of his many speeches — he said he'd spend an hour working on a single minute of a speech. Above, he is shown speaking during the 1945 election campaign.
He had no speech writers. In addition to running the war and running the country, he spent countless hours writing his own speeches. Copies show he would write, edit, re-edit then time and again. Even up to the time of delivery he was not satisfied with the speeches. Churchill was a perfectionist when it came to his speeches.
He also had a speech impediment. Churchill is well known for his speeches, but what makes this more interesting and incredible is that he had a speech impediment. Later in his life he would have dentures made that would help with his speech impediment, but prior to this he dealt with it saying “My impediment is no hindrance.” Churchill did exercises for the impediment, by saying phrases such as “The Spanish ships I cannot see for they are not in sight.”
Experts believe Churchill had a lateral lisp, which is when a person struggles with “s” and “z” sounds. Churchill’s speech issues were described by reporters in the 20’s and 30’s as a stutter that was tough to listen to. Churchill’s father Randolph Churchill also had a speech impediment, in which he also struggled with “s” and “z” sounds.
Churchill’s extraordinary speeches hinged on a series of Classical rhetorical devices. In an essay entitled The Scaffolding of Rhetoric, he described their use as ‘the subtle art of combining the various elements that separately mean nothing and collectively mean so much in an harmonious proportion is known to a very few’.
