Like Stephen Stills noted at Woodstock - “This is the second time we’ve ever played in front of people, man. We’re scared shitless!”
Depends on what I’m there to speak about and who the audience is. Sometimes the fact that I’m not socially at ease speaking to a crowd of people is relevant to the subject matter.
I listen to a LOT of speeches as a wedding photographer. One of my minor bugaboos is the introduction that starts “Hello, for those of you who don’t know me, my name is…” Just go straight to “Hello, my name is.” There’s just no need for that “for those of you who don’t know me” and it sounds extraneous and sloppy to my ears. I mean, it’s a wedding speech, no big deal, but after hearing for the umpteenth time, it just grates a bit on me.
If it’s subject matter that I really enjoy and/or am knowledgeable about I really enjoy presenting. I taught in the military in two different jobs for a total of about six years and the second time was my favourite posting out of a 32 year career. It was a course that was two weeks long with a maximum population of 15; I absolutely loved that job.
However, one of my favourites was a time, when I wasn’t in an instructional role, when my boss was supposed to give some one hour presentation on our military ethics to some professional development workshop for another organization. Something much higher priority landed on his desk at the last minute and as soon as I arrived to work that morning he gave me a binder of powerpoint printouts and a USB drive and told be I would have to give it.
I was literally flipping through the pages of printouts while walking to the workshop venue to familiarize myself with it and come up with a plan. Once I arrived at the location I introduced myself and started the show, introducing a relatively recent real-world topic to the audience. Then it took on a life of its own and all I had to do was play the role of wise facilitator. We ran out of time and I was invited back the next year so I guess I was an inadvertent success.
OMG OMG I missed you! But also your OP is really confusing. I voted “no,” but do what works for you. I’m a regular speaker, but typically in front of groups of 30 or fewer. Those don’t bother me. I’ve done live webinars with audiences in the thousands, and those don’t bother me either because I can’t see the audience. Last week I spoke at a conference for about 250 people, and that was a bit more nerve-racking because they were all Right There in front of me. But I didn’t tell them I was nervous. I don’t see the upside; mean people will still be dicks, and nice people wouldn’t have said anything anyway.
I voted “Nay,” because on the whole, I don’t get nervous about presenting anymore. I’ve had to regularly give presentations as part of my job for over 30 years, so I’m accustomed to it at this point. The fact that I’m pretty extroverted, and also very clearly like to talk, helps. 
My father-in-law passed away two-plus years ago, and it fell to me to give the eulogy at his memorial service, primarily because I wasn’t quite as emotionally compromised as the rest of the family, and also because everyone else in the family had unanimously agreed that I was the one who was most likely to do it well.
That said, if it’s an extremely important work meeting/presentation (e.g., a big new business pitch), I still can get a little nervous. I also tend to feel more uncertain about presenting if I’m being asked to present someone else’s work/writing.
I can be disarming when picking a jury. You want to jurors to open up, but they’re in an unfamilar environment, being asked a lot of personal questions in public. It helps to acknowledge the weirdness of the situation, and share that “I get nervous doing this too, and I don’t have to answer questions.” It breaks the ice.
We are born with 2 phobias - and neither of them is public speaking…
Which means some bastard (probably a parent or teacher) has at some point said something
like “now sonny, get up and tell everybody something - don’t be nervous…” at which point
you will have thought " nervous ? nervous about what ? now i’m scared".
I had to give eulogies at both of my parents’ respective services and our family wasn’t particularly close. According to my wife I was getting way too comfortable at the podium, as though I was giving a presentation.
Indeed; I had to remind myself to stay at the lectern, and not walk around and use hand gestures like I was giving a TED Talk. 
This is friggin’ hilarious and familiar! I know it well
Me, too. There are videos out there of me giving the faculty speech at graduation and you can watch me start to put my arm on the side of the lectern to lean on it like I was giving a lesson in class. Did that a couple of times but caught myself. It’s very obvious when you look for it.
Depends entirely on the situation and the audience.
I voted while not understanding the question, and then withdrew the vote, because my answer to the actual question doesn’t fit in an either-or.
Kids in school are naturally nervous about groups of people focusing on them. I think that a normal phobia as well, but something difficult to grow out of in the circumstances you mention. There are ways to prepare for public speaking, obviously knowing your material well, but also learning to turn the focus around and make eye contact with individual audience members as you speak. It is something that can be learned through practice, and starting with small groups. I guess I was lucky and in school had a chance to try these things and build up to larger audiences slowly.
Back to the OP, I agree with those who say use a self-deprecating joke about your nervousness to start, if you can do that. That’s also a technique that bonds you with the audience who can sympathize with that nervousness themselves.
I also did not understand the original question, but I’m keeping my Yes vote.
My former employer had an annual meeting of all senior-level managers, in which each manager gave a presentation on her/his department’s successes (and failures) of the past year, and also gave an outline of what the goals were for the upcoming year. The crowd was about 100 people, which included top-level execs and board members. The first time I had to give this speech I was nervous as hell, as it was the first time I had spoken in front of more than 10 people in quite some time. I opened my speech with something like ‘Please bear with me, as this is my first public speech since high school speech class, and I’m more than a bit nervous.’ That line elicited a couple of chuckles from the audience and helped calm me down, and I got through it without a hiccup. Subsequent yearly presentations were much easier after the first one.
Weird that this came up because I was just thinking about this the other day! I’ve been thinking about my progress from nearly agoraphobic in college, to today having to be the city council president and lead meetings. It’s been an astonishing personal turn-around. I’m still in no way comfortable being this type of leader but I manage to do it and do it pretty well.
I was also thinking about when I have had to participate in campaign events, requiring public speaking to introduce myself. I DO start off with a joke about how I’m nervous and apologize in advance if I happen to pass out.
I dunno, I feel like it gives me a bit of humbleness and humility, so I voted yes in the poll. But in the end I always come out looking like an experienced public speaker anyway. I think I’ve basically perfected the technique of public speaking while completely nervous. It’s actually the days and hours leading up to it that I’m most upset.
So maybe thanks to this thread I’ll stop admitting it up front and just go for it like I know what I’m doing.
I completely misunderstood the question! I take my vote back.
In case people don’t know, you can change your vote.
Self-deprecation is a powerful tool, but when it backfires it backfires hard. Examples:
- You might come across as disingenuous if you immediately pivot into an awesome presentation.
- You might come off as ill-prepared or ill-qualified by audience members who take you at face value.
- Some people just hate it as a form of humor.
So my vote is no, with a strong qualification of “know your audience.”
“Whew, I’m nervous!” might not be a great opening line, but “Whew, now I’m nervous - that’s a tough presentation to follow!” or “I’ve gotta say, I’m a little nervous - y’all have a reputation” might be appropriate depending on the venue and circumstances.
And heck, in a very friendly room full of people who know that you don’t do speeches often, a simple “I’m nervous!” might play just fine.
I voted yes because I am nervous. I didn’t understand what’s asked is whether the speaker should tell the audience this, which I think they shouldn’t.
They shouldn’t because it’s not useful and just inflates the boredom content of the speech.
This is like saying “I’ll just briefly say this next part”, which clearly takes more time to say if you add that statement, and also suggests the speaker has in the past been criticized for not being brief enough, so we’re probably in for too much again this time 'round. Besides, when people say they are brief, they generally aren’t.
If somebody is really frightened, and perhaps is only speaking under some duress, I’m happy to hear this so I can be sympathetic and kind. But this is a rare circumstance.