Latest / The Art of Public Speaking / Episode 31: Making Conversation Effective - The Art of Public Speaking

Transcript

Episode 31: Making Conversation Effective - The Art of Public Speaking · The Art of Public Speaking

• 0:00
  Chapter thirty one, Making conversation effective. Quote in conversation, avoid the extremes
• 0:08
  of forwardness and reserve unquote Cato quote. Conversation is the laboratory and workshop of
• 0:17
  the student unquote. Emerson essays circles. The father of W. E.
• 0:24
  Gladstone considered conversation to be both an art and an accomplishment. Around the dinner
• 0:30
  table in his home, some topic of local or national interest, or some
• 0:35
  debated question was constantly being discussed. In this way, a friendly rivalry for
• 0:41
  supremacy and conversation arose among the family, and an incident observed in the street,
• 0:47
  an idea gleaned from a book, a deduction from personal experience, was
• 0:53
  carefully stored as material for the family exchange. Thus, his early years of
• 0:58
  practice in elegant conversation prepared the younger Gladstone for his career as a leader and
• 1:03
  speaker. There is a sense in which the ability to converse effectively is efficient
• 1:10
  public speaking. For our conversation is often heard by many, and occasionally decisions
• 1:15
  of great moment hinge upon the tone and quality of what we say in private.
• 1:22
  Indeed, conversation in the aggregate probably wields more power than press and platform
• 1:27
  combined. Socrates taught his great truths not from public rostrums, but in personal
• 1:36
  converse. Men made pilgrimages to Getha's library and Coleridge's home to be charmed and
• 1:42
  instructed by their speech, and the culture of many nations was immeasurably influenced by
• 1:48
  the thoughts that streamed out from those rich well springs. Most of the world
• 1:53
  moving speeches are made in the course of conversation. Conferences of diplomats, business
• 2:00
  getting arguments, decisions by boards of directors, considerations of corporate policy, all
• 2:07
  of which influence the political, mercantile and economic maps of the world, are
• 2:12
  usually the results of careful, though informal conversation, and the man whose opinions
• 2:17
  weigh in such crises is he who has first carefully pondered the words of both
• 2:23
  antagonist and protagonist. However important it may be to attain self control in light
• 2:30
  social converse or about the family table, it is undeniably vital to have oneself
• 2:37
  perfectly in hand while taking part in a momentous conference. Then the hints that
• 2:43
  we have given on poise, alertness, precision of word, clearness of statement,
• 2:47
  and force of utterance with respect to public speech, are equally applicable to
• 2:53
  conversation. The form of nervous egotism, for it is both that suddenly ends
• 3:00
  flusters just when the vital words need to be uttered, is the sign of
• 3:04
  coming defeat, For a conversation is often a contest. If you feel this
• 3:08
  tendency embarrassing, you be sure to listen to Holmes's advice quote. And when
• 3:15
  you stick on conversational burs, don't strew your pathway with those dreadful errs.
• 3:23
  Here bring your will into action, for your trouble is a wandering attention.
• 3:30
  You must force your mind to persist along the chosen line of conversation and resolutely
• 3:35
  refuse to be diverted by any subject or happening that may unexpectedly pop up to
• 3:40
  distract you. To fail here is to lose effectiveness utterly. Concentration is the
• 3:47
  keynote of conversational charm and efficiency. The haphazard habit of expression that uses bird
• 3:54
  shot when a bullet is needed insures missing the game. For the omacy of
• 4:00
  all sorts rests upon the precise application of precise words, particularly if one may
• 4:06
  paraphrase Talleyrand. In those crises when language is no longer used to conceal thought.
• 4:15
  We may frequently gain new light on old subjects by looking at word derivations.
• 4:20
  Conversation signifies in the original a turn about exchange of ideas, yet most
• 4:27
  people seem to regard it as a monolog Bronson Alcott used to say that many
• 4:31
  could argue, but few converse. The first thing to remember in conversation,
• 4:36
  then, is that listening, respectful, sympathetic, alert listening is not only
• 4:44
  due to our fellow converser, but due to ourselves. Many a reply loses
• 4:49
  its point because the speaker is so much interested in what he is about to
• 4:54
  say that it is really no reply at all, but merely an irritating and
• 4:58
  humiliating relevancy. Self expression is exhilarating. This explains the eternal impulse to decorate
• 5:08
  totem poles and paint pictures, write poetry, and expound philosophy. One of
• 5:13
  the chief delights of conversation is the opportunity it affords for self expression. A
• 5:19
  good conversationalist who monopolizes all the conversation will be voted a bore because he denies
• 5:27
  others the enjoyment of self expression, while a mediocre talker who listens interestedly may
• 5:33
  be considered a good conversationalist because he permits his companions to please themselves through self
• 5:40
  expression. They are praised who please, they please, who listen well.
• 5:46
  The first step in remedying habits of confusion in manner, awkward bearing, vagueness
• 5:53
  in thought, and lack of precision in utterance is to recognize your thoughts.
• 5:59
  If you serenely unconscious of them, no one, least of all yourself,
• 6:03
  can help you. But once diagnose your own weaknesses, and you can overcome
• 6:09
  them by doing four things. One will to overcome them and keep on willing.
• 6:15
  Two, hold yourself in hand by assuring yourself that you know precisely what
• 6:21
  you ought to say. If you cannot do that, be quiet until you
• 6:26
  are clear on this vital point. Three, Having thus assured yourself, cast
• 6:31
  out the fear of those who listen to you. They are only human and
• 6:35
  will respect your words if you really have something to say, and say it
• 6:40
  briefly, simply, and clearly. Four, have the courage to study the
• 6:46
  English language until you are master of at least its simpler forms. Heading conversational
• 6:54
  hints, choose some subject that will prove of general interest to the whole group.
• 7:00
  Do not explain the mechanism of a gas engine as an afternoon tea,
• 7:03
  or the culture of hollyhocks at a stag party. It is not considered good
• 7:09
  taste for a man to bare his arm in public and show scars or deformities.
• 7:15
  It is equally bad form for him to flaunt his own woes or the
• 7:18
  deformity of someone else's character. The public demands plays and stories that end happily.
• 7:26
  All the world is seeking happiness. They cannot long be interested in your
• 7:30
  ills and troubles. George Cohan made himself a millionaire before he was thirty by
• 7:36
  writing cheerful plays. One of his rules is generally applicable to conversation. Always
• 7:44
  leave them laughing when you say goodbye. Dynamite the eye out of your conversation.
• 7:50
  Not one man in nine hundred and seven can talk about himself without being
• 7:56
  a bore. The man who can perform that feat can chief marvels without talking
• 8:01
  about himself. So the eternal eye is not permissible even in his talk.
• 8:07
  If you habitually build your conversation around your own interests, it may prove very
• 8:11
  tiresome to your listener. He may be thinking of bird dogs or dry fly
• 8:16
  fishing while you are discussing the fourth dimension or the merits of a cucumber lotion.
• 8:22
  The charming conversationalist is prepared to talk in terms of his listener's interest.
• 8:28
  If his listener spends his spare time investigating Guernsey cattle or agitating social reforms,
• 8:35
  the discriminating conversationalist shapes his remarks accordingly. Richard Washburn Child says he knows a
• 8:43
  man of mediocre ability who can charm men much abler than himself when he discusses
• 8:50
  electric lighting. The same man probably would bore and be bored if he were
• 8:56
  forced to converse about music or maddag Asca. Avoid platitudes and hackneyed phrases.
• 9:05
  If you meet a friend from Keer Cook, on State Street or on Pike's
• 9:09
  Peak, it is not necessary to observe how small this world is. After
• 9:13
  all, this observation was doubtless made prior to the formation of Pike's Peak.
• 9:20
  This old world is getting better every day. Fanner's wives do not have to
• 9:26
  work as hard as formerly. It is not so much the high cost of
• 9:30
  living as the cost of high living. Such observations as these excite about the
• 9:37
  same degree of admiration as is drawn out by the appearance of a nineteen oh
• 9:41
  three model touring car. If you have nothing fresh or interesting, you can
• 9:46
  always remain silent. How would you like to read a newspaper that flashed out
• 9:50
  in bold headlines nice weather we are having or daily gave columns to the same
• 9:56
  old material you had been reading week after the week. Questions and exercises.
• 10:03
  One give a short speech describing the conversational bore. Two, in a few
• 10:09
  words, give your idea of a charming converser. Three what qualities of the
• 10:16
  orator should not be used in conversation? Four? Give a short, humorous
• 10:22
  delineation of the conversational oracle. Five Give an account of your first day at
• 10:28
  observing conversation around you. Six Give an account of one day's effort to improve
• 10:35
  your own conversation. Seven. Give a list of subjects you heard discussed during
• 10:41
  any recent period you may select. Eight. What is meant by elastic touch
• 10:48
  in conversation? Nine? Make a list of bromides, as glet Burgess called
• 10:56
  those threadbare expressions which bore us to extinction itself a bromide. Ten What causes
• 11:03
  a phrase to become hackneyed. Eleven Define the words A trite, B solecism,
• 11:13
  C colloquialism, D slang, E, vulgarism, F neologism. Twelve
• 11:22
  What constitutes pretentious talk? End of Section thirty one.