Beware the Stilted Speech

It’s human nature to “put stilts on” when you take pen in hand and thus to write artificially. For this reason it’s wise, after you’ve written your speech out, to translate it into a simple conversational style. Something that starts out, “It is contended by a considerable number of persons” looks real good on paper but it would certainly sound silly in front of an audience. How much more natural to stand up and say, “Now a great many people will tell you

Review your work in that vein. Seek to make it conversational; make it sound natural, just the way you’d talk. Then you’ll be more comfortable and your audience will be more appreciative. This doesn’t mean that all big words and unusual expressions should be eliminated. Just remember not to refer to “extinguishing the blaze” when you mean “putting out the fire,” because that’s affected and it sounds assinine. But if your vocabulary naturally includes unusual words as a matter of course, use them lest you create an impression of “talking down” to your audience. Unusual words when properly and naturally used lend color and charm. It’s wise to keep them soft and sweet because you never know when you may have to eat them!

Tread Lightly on Vices

If it becomes necessary to point up uncomplimentary characteristics, don’t be blunt . . . better results come by way of subtle suggestion. To boldly blurt out that Walter West is an affected ass could create a bad reaction. Rather tell about his affection for himself being a long love story that began when he proposed to the girl who tolerated him more than the other girls did, yet she turned him down cold. As Walt told it later, his sympathy wasn’t for himself, he was only sorry for Sally because she’d passed up such a good thing!

A little “big shot” may be harpooned effectively by explaining that he is a self-made man and well pleased with his maker. Lots of people would shift the blame to someone else. It is generally agreed that he should have called for outside help, for surely there’s more skilled labor most anywhere!

Englishmen have made a name for themselves as masters of this art; the word “bastard” is taboo to their gentry-so they refer to a man with a bad case of ancestors by saying, “His father was a merry old bachelor!” Illiteracy is well illustrated by telling a yarn about the time a boy came home from school with a note from the teacher, saying: “Junior shows signs of astigmatism; please investigate and correct it.” Next morning Junior handed the teacher his Dad’s reply: “I don’t rightly know what Junior’s done, but I walloped him good tonight and you can wallop him good tomorrow. That might help some!”

Another subtle suggestion came to light when a politician sought to expose his opponent as a nonentity. He referred to a theory of evolution by transmigration of the soul. “Followers of that cult,” he claimed, “believe that a child at birth assumes the character of someone who departed this life at that exact moment. Thus, they account for knaves of noble birth and noble people who had paupers for parents. But, careful investigation and observation disclosed that when my opponent was born-nobody died!”

Tags: public speaking

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