In general, one should never rely on a single reference source; you never know whose agenda is being advanced, what bowdlerizing has occurred, how understanding has changed or where typos have inserted themselves. (Hence, citation trails are useful.) With _The Guinness Book of World Records_, for instance, particular details of a record change more often than the holder. Case in point: feats of rapid speech. The table below summarizes five years of the book, through which the category changes name, position and contents. (Perhaps this is the Guinness marketing strategy for a mostly-static reference book.)
| Year | Page | Category | Mentions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | 15 | Human being/voice and breathing/fastest talker, talking backwards | SW SS, SB |
| 1998 | 165 | Human being/voice and breathing/fastest talker, talking backwards | SW SS, SB |
| 1999 | 65 | Extraordinary people/achievers I/fastest talkers | SW SS SB |
| 2000 | 49 | Achievement/skill/fastest talkers | SS SB |
| 2001 | 17 | Achievement/speed/fastest talker | SW |
Fast talker: Steven Woodmore is mentioned in 1997-99 and 2001. All four accounts concur that he recited the "to be or not to be" soliloquy from Shakespeare's "Hamlet", 595-words, in 56.01-sec (637.4-wpm), on the British TV program "Motor Mouth", on 22-sep-1990. 1999 lists his residence as "Great Britain", 1997-98 as "Orpington, England", and 2001 as "Orpington, Kent, England". 2001 also adds that the show aired on ITV (ie, not the BBC).
Fast talker: Sean Shannon is cited in 1997-2000. All four entries agree he's Canadian, though 1997-8 add that he was a resident of Oxford, England at the time of his achievement: reciting the "to be or not to be" soliloquy, 260-words (not 595). 1997 says 24-sec (650-wpm), 1998 23.8-sec (650-wpm), and 1999-2000 23.8-sec (655-wpm). 1998-2000 cite the location/time as Edinburgh, Scotland, 30-aug-1995; but 1997 says it was on BBC Radio Oxford, 26-oct-1990.
Backwards talker: Steve Briers is listed in 1997-2000. 1997-8 contain nearly identical accounts, as do 1999-2000. 1997-8 list his residence as "Kilgetty, Wales"; 1999 as "Great Britain", and 2000 as "the UK". All four agree that he recited (not given: reversal of words or of phonemes) the entire lyrics of the Queen album "A Night at the Opera" in 9-min-58.44-sec (not given: words and wpm). Only 2000 mentions that the feat was at Tenby, Wales; and only 1997 says it was broadcast on the BBC North-West Radio 4 program "Cat's Whiskers".
The 1990 "Motor Mouth" broadcast was a competition between three champion fast talkers. Contestants Woodmore and John Moschitta (of the US) have given conflicting accounts of their performances. Mr.Moschitta has claimed (in a presentation at the BotCon 2000 SF convention) that, although Mr.Woodmore clocked faster, on closer perusal of the recording the judges determined that he'd dropped several sentences, reducing his score; the episode ended before their corrections could be announced. Apparently (he continued) the US and UK editions (year unspecified) of _Guinness_ chose to each list their own countryman as the winner. Moreover (he concluded), Mr.Woodmore has contrived to avoid a rematch.
In a personal communication to me (24-nov-2000), Mr.Woodmore takes the opposite position, that it is Mr.Moschitta who has declined multiple public and private offers for a rematch. As to the "Motor Mouth" scoring, he explained:
"In the back room during the counting of the words, myself and John had a private conversation, my EXACT words were 'well, I think I was pretty fast, and usually I can hear myself speaking, and I know if I am pronouncing things properly, but I didn't hear myself clearly on the last three sentences'." (Emphasis mine.)
After the scrutinizing was finished, I had in fact said ALL the words in the passage, and John did in fact recite the passage in 1 second and not 0.01 seconds slower than me, however as over 100 words from his recital, and only 5 from mine were disallowed because that were unintelligible, it meant that not only was I faster by at least a second, but you could actually understand what I was saying!
"As a footnote, the other contestant's recital was totally disallowed and total gibberish..."
The objective facts are these: I checked five volumes of the American version (at least, they were in an American library) of _Guinness_: 1997-2001. [Note to self: locate volumes back to 1990.] The 2000 edition skips Mr.Woodmore; Mr.Moschitta is not mentioned in any of the five. The speech categories do not appear to exist on the Guinness World Records website.