Introducing Talk To Or Talk With In A New Light!

 Constructive Ideas For Amazing  SPeaking!

Acquire as the most beautiful thoughts those which are positive, open, profound, reasonable, genuine, powerful, detailed, remarkable, original, considerable, expressive, glowing, optimistic, provocative, comprehensive, and practical. Resolutely ignore all impressions which are unpredictable, recondite, obscure, immature, superficial, shallow, vulnerable, imaginative, ridiculous, controversial, extravagantly indefinite, or impractical.

Your selection and use of words convey fondness to those who are positive, modest, legitimate, important, forcible, expressive, decent, melodious, varied, and copious. Avert those which are exotic, slangy, outdated, different, technological, extended, casual, or commonplace.

The most attractive qualities in the use of English are simple, plain, perfect, lucid, concise, trenchant, active, outstanding, animated, symbolic, polished, elegant, fluent, rhythmical,  towering, flexible, smooth, dignified,  epigrammatic, felicitous,   and lofty. Unpleasant qualities are diffuse, verbose, redundant, augmented, wordy, controversial, feeble, ordinary, loose, slip-shod, dry, flowery, pedantic,  rhetorical, grandiloquent, artificial, traditional, decorated, halting, ponderous, ungrammatical, vague, and obscure.

The qualities you should nurture in your speaking voice are pure, deep, round, flexible, echoing, musical, clear, thoughtful, smooth,  powerful, silvery, tuneful, strong, natural, soft, magnetic, expressive, transmitting, and responsive. Endeavour to protect your voice free from such distasteful qualities as the harsh, breathy, sharp, rough, rigid, throaty, guttural, thin, shrill, nasal, unmusical, conflicting, damped, explosive, strained, inaudible, hollow,   and tremulous.

Your articulation should be clear, distinct, and correct. Ignore carelessness, lifelessness, mumbling, weakness, and elaboration.

Your pronunciation should be clear-cut and accurate. Avoid mouthing, lisping, pause, stammering, pedantry, omission of syllables, and suppression of final consonants. Your delivery in public speaking should be simple, straightforward, natural, varied, magnetic, earnest, forceful, attractive, energetic, animated, sympathetic, authoritative, dignified, direct, impressive, vivid, convincing, persuasive, zealous, enthusiastic, and inspiring. Avoid that which is timid, familiar, violent, cold, indifferent, unreal, or languid.

Your gesture should be attractive, relevant, free, forceful, and natural. Avoid all gesture which is unmeaning, angular, harsh, constrained, stilted, or unprofessional.

Your facial expression should be varied, appropriate, pleasing, and impassioned. Forgo the awful, immobile, and unvaried.

Let your standing position be manly, straight, simple, energetic, and impressive. Avoid that which is weak, changing positions, stiff, inactive, and graceless.

The ideal style of public speaking is, with very little modification, the ideal of fair conversation. The practical time in which we live demands a colloquial rather than an oratorical style of public speaking.  A man who has something to talk about in conversation usually has little difficulty in saying it. If he illustrates the truths he'll speak convincingly; if he is deeply enthusiastic he will speak persuasively; and if he is an educated man his speech will have the unmistakable marks of culture and sophistication.

In the conversation of well-bred children, we encounter the most charming and helpful examples of natural speech. The wonderful modulation of the voice, the unstudied correctness of articulation, and the honesty and depth of feeling might well serve as a model for older speakers.

This study of conversation, both our own and that of others, gives a daily opportunity for progress in accurateness and fluency of speech, fitting words to the mouth as well as to the feeling, and sitting habits that will unconsciously circulate themselves in the larger work of public speaking. Care in conversation will guard the public speaker against inflated and unnatural tones, and suppress him from transgressing the laws of nature even in those parts of his speech demanding elevated and intensified treatment.

Some easily remembered recommendations regarding conversation are these:

1. Pronounce your words distinctly and accurately, like newly made coins from the mint, but without pedantry.

2. Upon no circumstance allow yourself to pamper in careless or incorrect speech.

3. Open the mouth well in conversation. Much confused speech is due to speaking through half-closed teeth.

4. Closely observe your conversation and that of others, to inspect faults and enhance your speaking style.

5. Alter your voice to suit the variety of your thought. A well-modulated voice demands proper changes in pitch, force, perspective, and feeling.

6. Avoid loud talking.

7. Take care of the consonants and the vowels will take care of themselves.

8. Develop the music of the conversational tones.

9. Approve the low pitches of your voice.

10. Keep in mind that the objective of conscious practice and observation in the matter of conversation is to lead ultimately to unconscious performance.

The value of correct conversation as a means of constructive public speaking is realized by few men. 

According to Beecher: How much squandering, there is of the voice! meaning that this golden opportunity for refinement was generally ignored. It is not too much to say, nonetheless, that if the sweet and pleasant articulation of the mother, the strong and loving tone of the father, and the natural musical notes of the children, as heard in daily conversation, could be joined in the voice of the minister and brought to the preaching of his sermon, there would be the tiny concern of its magical and lasting impact upon the hearts of men. The wooing tone of the lover is what the preacher wishes in his pulpit style rather than the voice of declamation and denunciation.

The survey of conversation assists to guide the public speaker not only in the free and natural use of his voice, pronunciation, and expression but also in his use of language. He will here read up to select the simple word rather than the complex, the short sentence rather of the involved, the concrete example instead of the abstract. He will adopt ease, spontaneity, plainness, and directness, and when he rises to speak to men he will utilize tones and words adequately known and understood by them.

A preacher may consume too much time in study and solitude. If he does he'll soon comprehend a distinct loss through the absence of social intercourse with his fellow men. The aptitudes most required in pulpit preaching are those very powers that are so largely exercised in ordinary conversation. The mastery to think quickly, round up facts and arguments, introduce a colourful story or illustration, parry and point as is sometimes required to keep up one's ground, and the general mental activity aroused in conversation, all manage to deliver an interesting, cheerful, and influential style in public speaking.

We should not miscalculate the value of meditation and pause the public speaker. These are vital for original and deep thinking, the cultivation of originality, and the expansion of thought. But conversation gives an immediate outlet for this stored-up knowledge, testing it as a complete product in expression, and launching it into life and reality by all the aids of voice and feeling. This exercise is as essential to the mind as physical exercise is to the body. Undoubtedly, a full mind offers this relief in expression, lest the pressure becomes too great.

The daily publication and the magazines should not be permitted to confiscate the place of conversation. If the art of talking is hastily dying out, as some assert, we should do our share to regain consciousness of it. We may not furthermore have the wit and repartee, the brilliant intellectual debates of those other days, but we can at least each have a nourished speaking voice, an engaging manner of communicating our ideas in conversation, and a pleasing pronunciation of our mother tongue.