May 19, 2008 McCullough to grads: please, like, speak better! Play video

(NECN: Chestnut Hill, Mass.) - In a speech that both inspired and chastised, historian David McCullough urged graduates not to lose their desire for learning in his Commencement address, and called on them to pay attention to their own speaking patterns.

"Listen to yourselves speak!" McCullough told graduates. "Imagine if in his inaugural address, John F. Kennedy said, 'Ask not what your country can, you know, do for you, , but what you can, like, do for your country, actually,'" drawing perhaps more laughs from parents than from graduates.

He praised the Class of 2008 for its sense of political activism, and urged them to work for love, not money, to be honest, and to travel. Be he left them with one more admonition. "Remember," he said, "to always tip the maid."