On the list there is some discussion about having different levels of speech silence.

These are the different levels:

1.  making the orca+s key a three way toggle.
Have it rotor through full speech, review only and no speech.  At least that sounds good to me.  I especially like the review only mode for reviewing things like the terminal without the extra speech.  I'm not sure off the top of my head where else this would be that usable but for sure in the terminal.

2.  Something like insert-enter for Orca would be really cool, 
> >just start throwing text at the synth when a key is pressed like Speakup.

3.  >We have Ctrl and we have Orca+S, but we don't have an intermediate 
> >>mode that would silence any automated speech but still allow someone 
> >>to review the screen.
> >>For the Speakup users out there, I'm talking about Insert+Enter on 
> >>the numeric. Whatever that might be bound to, it would be helpful to 
> >>have. I use it all the time with Speakup, and am frequently 
> >>frustrated without it in Orca.