If you find any info on comparative speeds, I'd love to see it. I've pondered the variations across both space and time.

Space I once was retained in a case in Michigan which also involved clients and counsel from New York City and Mississippi. I don't think the NYC guy and the good ol' boy could understand each other, and I often served as the go-between. I could understand both accents, but found the variation in speech speed most challenging. The NYC guy could hardly breathe for spewing the words, and I found myself taking mental meanders waiting for the Mississippian to get the next word out.

Time Have you ever noticed the apparently accelerated speech of people in movies made in the 1930s and 1940s? I've often wondered whether the speech pattern was the result of a conscious effort at presentation, a reflection of speech patterns of the time, or the result of acceleration due to the film shrinking over time.