When writing my sermons, I always reckon that preaching is about 100 words per minute, wpm.  This allows for lighthouse sweeps of the congregation, pauses and a bit of space for asides.  The organiser of the confernece I am due to speak at has stressed over and over that 'the average human speaks at around 100 wpm' which contradicts any figure I found on an internet search, so maybe New Zealanders, like those from the south west of England speak especially slowly...?

My conference paper, after hefty pruning and editing is now roughly 3200 words - which would be 32 minutes on the 100wpm basis.  Last night I tried reading it aloud  ~24 minutes according to my clock: gosh, that seemed rather fast at about 130wpm.  So today I tried again and got ~25 minutes, a little slower but still substantially quicker than suggested.  I then hinted around random programmes on my laptop and found the one that you can use to record - excellet.  So I recorded it and listened back - the pace seemed fine to me (but then I've lived in Glasgow for a few years now!), and at 26 mins/~120 wpm would appear to be in the 'normal' range according to t'internet.

So I am reasonably reassured that I won't do a mega overrun on time, phew.

Plus it means, I suppose, I could probably upload the recording at a future date...