Archive for November, 2005

1. I remember Grandmamma

Do you remember the old time firemen and the clang-clang-clang of their bells? Can you still visualize the spirited horses racing down cobblestone streets pulling shiny cylinders that belched black smoke into the air? Do you recall when people lucky enough to own an auto jacked it up on blocks at the first sign of snow? And when no one had an allergy-it was nothing but an itch?

Remember when out in the country you chatted with all the neighbors on the party line? When neighborhood kids snitched ice chips from the back of a nag-drawn wagon, and each week the knife sharpener’s cart sounded its ding-a-ling as it came down the alley? And those penny candy counters where a chocolate bar stamped “Free” meant you won a premium?

2. The county seat

Some things stay the same in the small town square where the time-worn courthouse rarely houses a prisoner any more but still plays host to the pigeons; and where the metal soldier with his bayonet and rifle has turned green guarding the entrance.

Slim church steeples punctuate the sky and small houses snuggle among the trees. Main Street, a series of store fronts, offers a jumble of bargains, and life is slowed down to a walk. Midway down the block a plump little housewife rakes dry leaves and her neighbor leisurely polishes his car while the kids toss a ball back and forth. The neat little houses and their tidy gardens wear a look of welcome in this pleasant world of humble people. Porches shade the old rocking chairs, and there’s a backyard world of big old barns and little hen houses. There are no neurotics or two-ulcer men on a diet of pills here where everyone lives in a relaxed atmosphere. The movement to the city has given a deserted air to some of these one-horse towns where they’ve even lost the horse and where street lights still dim if you plug in your electric shaver. There’s no place to go where you shouldn’t.

3. Changing times

Never in history’s hoary pages have we seen so many changes as in the period that began at the turn of this century and has carried through five decades. Medical men have lengthened our lives and mechanics have widened our horizons. The patriarch of sixty was a sage when this was oil-lamp land; but today at that age, he hasn’t yet hit his prime. Farmers who complained that automobiles frightened their horses, now hire crop dusters who are subject to fines for buzzing busses on the continental highway.

Many men remember with nostalgia the pigs feet and beer mug era; now they eat steak any day of the week and wash it down with vintage wine. The boy who was thrilled with the wrist watch he got for graduation, has a son who wears one to kindergarten. Out in the tank towns, townspeople used to turn out when the Frisco’s No. 9 steamed into the station; now the Diesel barrels by and the taverns will have to close early if it ever neglects to toss out the mail sack filled with pension and unemployment checks.

After several appearances, you feel more at ease standing before an audience. That fluttery feeling is less acute. You think of your efforts in terms of a talk. You realize that public speaking is the same as conversation only amplified. You now express your ideas with a better selection of words; you are learning that by practicing good speaking in ordinary conversation, you improve your public speaking as well. You are improving your grammar and speaking in more complete sentences because you think of what you are going to say before you say it. Thus you are learning to think on your feet-thereby eliminating “ahs” and “ers” and hesitant talk.

Speeches-’Telling” or “Selling”

When you make a speech, either you are selling something or telling something. If you are “selling,” satisfy yourself completely that you thoroughly understand your course (or your cause) and believe in it wholeheartedly. If you are “telling,” put yourself into the scene. You’ll make it more interesting that way. Whatever you sell or tell, make it sound simple and natural. When you try to talk over your head, gremlins of doubt crop out.

A scene or a theme simply and naturally told, carries conviction.

An oft-cited railroad crossing case brought this out: Back in the early days, railroads would send a young lawyer out to try a routine matter, and he would have only time to read the claim agent’s report-with no opportunity to talk to his witnesses.

In this particular instance the crossing flagman was an elderly Negro named Mose. After a few preliminary questions developing the identity of the witness, he was asked to tell the jury about the incident in his own way. Slowly and deliberately, Old Mose stated that it was a dark and stormy night.

“I looked outa the winda o’ my li’l ole hut and I seed that great big light on number nine engine a-comin’ down the track; then I seed out the other winda, two lil ole lights on that there car, so I grabbed me my lantern and runned out in the middle of the crossin’.

“I jes’ waved an’ waved my lantern, but that there great big light kept a-comin’ up the track and the lights on thet li’l ole Ford kept a-comin’ down the road. They met and the car got the worse of it-tha’s all there was to it.”

The jury returned a verdict for the railroad and court adjourned but Mose kept hanging around. The railroad attorney told him that he’d made a fine witness and Mose replied, “Well, Boss, I jes’ tried to tell the truth, but I was scared to God thet lawyer-man would ask me was my lantern lit!” A speech is useless when it merely tells of some person, place or thing, without showing some reason for doing so. A speech by way of being informative about the “good old days,” might be loaded with vivid accounts of way-back-when, yet the audience might well think “So what?” This is particularly true if the things described are as unrelated as a potpourri of paint splotches on a palette.

On the other hand, when a speech paints a glowing word picture of our wonderful past and adds touches of color concerning today’s comforts, the comparison is interesting. When the speaker suggests an aura around the good old days but adds a persuasive bit about today being better, his subject shows signs of life. The following five sketches illustrate how strictly informative subjects progress in interest when comparison is added, and when argumentative comments are blended into them. The first two of these are informative and have barely a trace of comparison. They’re picturesque perhaps, but they fall a bit flat and the reaction is the “so-what” we referred to above. The third reserves any hint of conflict for the punch line; and the fourth and fifth, commingle a touch of “the other side of the question”-which makes them good material for panel discussions or an interesting speech.

Arresting Attention

An audience rarely pays attention automatically, their interest must be sparked and maintained by the speaker. Many factors may cause an audience to become inattentive. One offender is monotony. When the listeners’ interest is obviously lagging, audience attention may be restored by attention arrestors. These are rhetorical questions the speaker puts out. He may ask, dramatically, “What are you going to do about it?” While he intends to answer that question himself, his technique arouses curiosity.

The speaker should of course be prepared for an unexpected answer from the audience, and if the answer is right, he should express his thanks. If it’s wrong, he should use that as an excuse to repeat the high points of his argument.

Take a Pause

The oratorical pause has a place in your delivery. In private conversation we frequently ask “Do you see what I mean?” or “Do you get the point?” During the oratorical pause, the speaker in effect is asking the audience, “Do you get what I say?” Good speakers employ punch lines but sometimes the listeners are unprepared for them. The oratorical pause permits the audience to digest one point before you go on to the next. The audience neither likes to lose out on a chance to laugh, nor to laugh and lose out on a good line. This is the place to pause.

His mastery of the oratorical pause makes Bob Hope’s appearances hilarious. He makes his point, then waits for it to sink in. If the praise is plentiful, he starts in again but adds another pause and so creates the impression that his comment was far funnier than he expected the audience to think it was. These might be called pluperfect pauses. There is no objection to a speaker using long pauses during delivery providing they mean something; but if the pause is a cover-up for a memory lapse that’s as bad as rattling through lines that are word-perfect but are delivered without change of pace or emotion. (The mind is a wonderful thing. It starts working the minute you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak!)

Your Listeners’ Pleasure-Your Guiding Light

Let your listeners’ pleasure plot your course at all times. The basic aim of your delivery and all of its instrumentalities-your appearance, vocal variations, words, gestures and the pauses you employ are directed toward them. Good delivery is good manners and nothing more. By keeping your audience rather than yourself in mind while speaking, your personality improves. This is true in ordinary conversation and is likewise true in public speaking-for people are people whether you appeal to them singly or severally. When you have finished your talk, SIT DOWN. Don’t stand there waiting for applause! After you are seated if the applause continues you may rise again and acknowledge it with a nod and the broadest smile you can muster.

Distractions frequently arise in the form of interruptions. Ordinary ones such as a late arrival or a sudden departure should be overlooked. A continuing nuisance however a noisy ventilator or a flapping window shade should be attended to by someone in the audience. Should no one volunteer, the speaker may interrupt and start to abate the disturbing noise. His gesture is generally quite enough. Someone nearer at hand will be quick to quiet the sound. Outside interruptions such as a siren or the roar of a low plane should be ignored unless the sound is so loud that it interferes with your communication. In that event, just pause until it has passed.

When someone in the audience creates a disturbance, let the sergeant at arms or someone seated close to the offender abate the nuisance. Any personal appeal on your part might backfire as it did for the speaker who was disturbed by a man who kept coughing, sneezing and blowing. Finally the speaker asked politely, “Don’t you think a few minutes out in the air might help your cold?” And the afflicted listener replied, “This ade no code I’b just allergic to baloney.”

Handling Hecklers

Hecklers are best ignored. If you do not deign to answer a heckler and he continues to be offensive, the audience usually will come to your rescue. They realize that you are the invited guest and as such you are entitled to their protection. The age of chivalry is not dead. Even at political powwows audiences have suggested that a heckler should rent his own hall. Some speakers try to banter with the intruder in a light vein, but this serves no purpose but to encourage him. After all, it is up to the audience to suppress the intruder.

The speaker must lose neither his dignity nor composure, and must keep his temper curbed under any circumstances. If the audience is slow to hush a heckler, the speaker may well vary his speech and interpolate a reference to the American Constitution’s “right to be heard.” That guaranteed freedom of speech contains no reservations whatsoever, and the right of free speech means the right to be heard without interruption.

You may feel that this is missing an opportunity to unleash a lot of rapid repartee, but such “asides” are unwise. Any prepared repartee might not fit under the circumstances, and furthermore when you indulge an interrupter, you unfairly abandon your audience. Your mind should stay on your speech and any side play would be for the interrupter’s sole benefit. It’s even possible that you would come out second-best as did the political orator who said: “Will that gentleman who differed with me please get up and tell the audience what he has done for the good of this city?” His heckler arose and answered in a loud clear voice, “Well, Mr. Mayor, I voted against you in the last election.”

Gestures are not confined to the hands; they relate to any part of your body. They may serve a good purpose in illustrating your speech. Natural gestures should be encouraged, but if they are forced or overdone you become a “ham.” While many natural gestures are better than no gestures, no gesture is better than a gesture. Any annoying mannerism of twitching, grimmacing, handling your nose or tugging at your lips eventually can drive the audience to distraction.

A smile is contagious and makes the audience feel kindly toward you. Just don’t grin as though you are advertising a dentifrice.

You need not expect the audience to feel the impact of your speech unless you personally register some reaction to what you are saying. Don’t act like an automaton, in other words. Don’t let your face reflect a frozen look. Don’t feel pained about an unresponsive public if you simulate the straight men of vaudeville who mixed their makeup with novocain. Show enthusiasm when you speak for it is highly contagious and if you enjoy your subject and your audience, the audience will reflect the same feeling toward you and your subject.

The hands are the most useful part of our bodies for emphasizing feeling; hands were used as mouthpieces before sign language was supplanted by speech. However, your hands are most difficult to handle. One good trick to make their use natural and necessary is to bring a prop. Any tangible object that relates to your talk will do even a book pertaining to your subject compels you to hold and handle it and so use your hands. You might employ a map or a diagram on a blackboard that requires you to point-any of these accessories will make it easier for you to get into action.

If you use a blackboard or a chart-stand sideways. Let the audience look at it while you continue to look at them (except of course when you are actually making a mark or pointing to an exhibit).

Seeking to imitate some character you portray is hazardous for amateurs; it takes a lot of practice and can easily be overdone. People came to hear you talk, not to watch you act. If they want pantomime they can watch Red Skelton, Jonathan Winters, or any television star blessed with total recall. Practice alone makes your gestures seem spontaneous and seemingly spontaneous gestures are the only ones worth while.

As the speaker, you are expected to deliver information -not to put on a performance. The best way to keep from playing panther on the prowl is to look directly at the audience as one composite person-not as a collection of people and to speak directly to that audience.

The late Senator J. Hamilton Lewis of Illinois was a fastidious dresser, and during a political campaign his party requested that he address a meeting back of Chicago’s stockyards. “J- Ham” demurred, insisting that the crowd would view him with disdain and ridicule him, an attitude that could hurt rather than help the cause. However, after considerable pressure the Senator, who rated with the all-time greats as a personal press agent, relented and consented. As he told the story later:

They did what I expected them to do. Their disdain almost made me feel shame. It was written on their faces and it registered in their raucous greeting. Yet I carried on, determined to gain control of that crowd. I stared directly into their faces. Two burly pig-stickers immediately before me were noisier than the rest and I decided that I would bear down directly on them.

As I developed my subject, I saw their supercilious stares disappear and finally their lower jaws began to droop. As I came to the climax of my talk I received one of the greatest compliments of my oratorical career when one big bruiser whacked the other’s knee and said, “Ain’t he a S-O-B!” That incident dramatizes an important key to success: Keep your eyes in contact with your audience at all times. The effectiveness of many speakers fails because they do not look directly at their listeners. Many speakers who keep their eyes fixed on their listeners in ordinary conversation, gaze at the wall, stare at the ceiling or look out the window when talking to an audience.

Keep a close sense of communication for this not only keeps you close to your listeners but it also permits you to correct your range when people seem to strain forward or cup their ears to hear.

Bear in mind at the outset that it is your ideas, not your peculiarities, that you seek to promote. Eccentric apparel, a fancy vest, or a buttonhole bouquet attracts personal attention, but distracts from your speech. Wear ordinary raiment and just make sure before you are called upon that it is properly adjusted.

When it’s time for you to rise and shine, take a couple of slow, easy, and deep breaths to relax any tensions. Once you’re on your feet, place both of them firmly upon the floor and fairly close together. Then stand straight and tall. With your feet firmly planted you avoid a tendency to teeter, and your stance discourages weaving around or rocking on your toes.

Standing straight and tall not only avoids distracting distortions, but also conveys confidence. Holding on to your chair or leaning on the table gives the audience the opposite impression. While some experienced speakers lean casually on the table and suggest an aura of informality, beginners had best leave auras alone. Confidence is best conveyed by standing squarely on your feet, pausing momentarily, and then plunging into your task.

You are now prepared to address the chairman and the audience. You have memorized the acknowledgment of your introduction, a precaution that wards off “buck fever” and clears any existing mental blocks before you start your scheduled speech.

A speaker must make certain that his brain is engaged before he puts his mouth into gear; otherwise his tongue will idle on. That happened to an army officer who addressed a group at a bon voyage dinner before embarking for the Dark Continent: “I thank you for your very kind wishes for my welfare, and please believe me, when I am far away, surrounded by ugly, grinning savages, I shall always think of you.”

Although your delivery should be natural, like many things in nature, it is capable of being bettered. Just as the natural beauty of a tree may be improved by trimming its bad branches, so also your natural style of delivery may be improved by eliminating bad habits and propping up the good ones. Thus you prime your personality.

To say that successful public speaking means “doing what comes naturally,” and then suggesting “improvement” may sound inconsistent, but the suggestion isn’t as bad as it sounds.

A San Franciscan took a poke at a member of the “hep” set when his behavior became obnoxious. When the beatnik surprisingly bounced back with a right to the jaw and floored him, the display of “guts” in that offbeat character toughened our friend’s temperament. Now beatnik behavior no longer bothers him, and by being more tolerant of his fellow men he’s doing what comes naturally. He’s learning to live and to let live.

Improving your own personality comes naturally too, because all people of good breeding prefer to be inoffensive. When they are made aware that slumping into a slouch is unbecoming, or that their tendency to talk too fast or think too slowly is irritating, they just naturally improve their personalities in these respects.

Speech delivery is both visible and vocal, it reflects the speaker’s personality. The visible aspect pertains to his physical action. The vocal or audible part deals with his voice and the inflections and pauses make for effective penetration.

Personality Plays a Part

Personality varies with people. Some have it, others don’t, but it can be developed. Personality is nature’s way of expressing your desire to be pleasing to other people. Practice in public speaking develops your personality-and it pays to practice. Your natural delivery carries conviction, and when you are natural, you run no risk of seeming stuffy or stilted. Don’t talk too slowly-but then again don’t talk too fast. About now it’s quite likely that we are a little “out of touch,” and you think it’s contradictory to say that you should speak naturally but improve your diction.

Let me tell you of an army sergeant’s plight. Finlay was a round little man and his figure showed that he’d enjoyed too many square meals. But good “Old Fin” who was nearly 40 was so imbued with patriotism that he volunteered for Officers Training School. When the command came to “Right dress,” Finlay would line up his beer barrel bulge with the men to his right. Eyeing the front of the line, the sergeant would snap out “Fin-lay, step back”; then when he’d sight down the rear of the line, he’d shout “Finlay, step up.” Poor Finlay was handicapped by these conflicting commands day after day, but his willingness to cooperate earned him a captaincy.

The day of the somber solon is done. Yesterday’s wordy wordsmith flaunting a white mane that curled at the ends; wearing a broad-brimmed hat, a high-winged collar, showing a flowing cravat and sporting a gold-headed cane, are gone for good. In his time audiences were more impressed by what they saw than by what they heard. The phoney fellow who seeks any resemblance to that image of an old-time orator will be found out-and lose out. Local TV networks have been known to replace an ordinary looking commentator who puts personality into his spiel, with an Adonis who reads canned copy. He lasts only as long as it takes for his listeners to get their fill of nondescript delivery and stereotyped expressions.

Most of us have one poor voice trait or another; careless enunciation, or a dull delivery lacking in change of pitch or pace. These faults can and-to be successful-MUST be corrected, as well as any tendency toward being too garrulous or too repetitious. But currying out these burrs is a far cry from adopting a phoney speaking front. The stuttering swain who promised to meet Kkkkkkkaty at the kkkkkkkitchen door when the moon came over the cowshed, conveyed more yearning than all the pages of poetry because that was his simple and natural expression. In like manner Hoagy Carmichael’s Hoosier harvest hand who sang of a buttermilk sky painted a clearer picture of nocturnal loveliness than any gallery of artificial goo.

An Army nurse, a recipient of a wide variety of compliments about her kind ministrations, considers the greatest one of all to be that of a battered little hillbilly. He held her hand, looked up into her eyes and haltingly told her, “If there ever was a fallen angel, it’s you!”

Many voice faults may be corrected by reading aloud. Read a variety of material; try everything from casual quotations to vigorous argument, but put feeling into your “out loud” reading. You can reflect feeling with your voice. Experiment with words that convey hatred and compare the sounds with words that reflect compassion; then note the difference. When your mind tunes in on the mood you want to convey, your voice will reflect what you have in mind and your audience “zeroes” in.

Reading aloud gives proper value to each word. Opening your mouth wide raises the resonance of your voice. Your words acquire a pear-shaped tone if you will practice rounding out your syllables. This is popularly known as the “How now brown cow” cure for slurred syllables and mumbled words. Just be careful that the practice doesn’t result in an affected sound that ends up worse than the original problem. By understanding your own weaknesses and working to correct them, you will minimize and eventually eliminate any unpleasant voice habits and replace them with good “listening” tones.

A Resume on How to Say It

When you begin, bear in mind that there is a normal tendency for a beginner to rush through a speech, particularly if he is reading it. Another reading risk is the monotone, so vary the tone of your voice. Remember your pre-speech lessons for good delivery. Sum them up mentally and bear in mind that speaking is only amplified conversation. Then speak naturally, stay serene, concentrate on what you are saying, and “feel” the thought you seek to sell all the while you are talking about it.