Condiments for Seasoning

People who have just bolted a meal are mellow and in no mood to strain their brains. That’s why after-dinner speeches should be light and spiced with condiments.

Mid-Victorian audiences looked upon a humorous speaker as someone irresponsible as a court jester. Most 19th century orators avoided humor lest they be considered lacking in dignity. Later we learned from men like Lincoln, Mark Twain, Will Rogers (and more recently from Adlai Stevenson), that levity lets in a lot of light. Today a speech without a laugh line is as boring as a lecture on anatomy.

People savor the meat in a talk served with a dash of spice, but this doesn’t mean they want a poorly informed speaker reciting irrelevant jokes picked out of a magazine or even those gleaned from this book. If a story fits, tell it; if it doesn’t, forget it.

A humorous speaker gains quick control of his audience, but there are things to remember about humor.

First, an interesting and informative speech may be highly entertaining without being humorous. Most speakers are invited because they are well informed on a specific subject and when it is of interest to the listeners, they do not expect entertainment as such. For entertainment they can call on an entertainer.

Amateurs should plan how to spice their speeches. Radio and television performers with a few exceptions follow their scripts so closely they seldom so much as ad lib a sneeze. Sound tracks left hot ad libs back with the flicker film.

Tags: public speaking

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