The Art of Public Speaking
An infant when it gazes on a light,
A child the moment when it drains the breast,
A devotee when soars the Host in sight,
An Arab with a stranger for a guest,
A sailor when the prize has struck in fight,
A miser filling his most hoarded chest,
Feel rapture; but not such true joy are reaping
As they who watch o'er what they love while sleeping.
--BYRON, _Don Juan_.
CHAPTER XIV
DISTINCTNESS AND PRECISION OF UTTERANCE
In man speaks God.
--HESIOD, _Words and Days_.
And endless are the modes of speech, and far
Extends from side to side the field of words.
--HOMER, _Iliad_.
In popular usage the terms "pronunciation," "enunciation," and
"articulation" are synonymous, but real pronunciation includes three
distinct processes, and may therefore be defined as, _the utterance of a
syllable or a group of syllables with regard to articulation,
accentuation, and enunciation_.
Distinct and precise utterance is one of the most important
considerations of public speech. How preposterous it is to hear a
speaker making sounds of "inarticulate earnestness" under the contented
delusion that he is telling something to his audience! Telling? Telling
means communicating, and how can he actually communicate without making
every word distinct?
Slovenly pronunciation results from either physical deformity or habit.
A surgeon or a surgeon dentist may correct a deformity, but your own
will, working by self-observation and resolution in drill, will break a
habit. All depends upon whether you think it worth while.
Defective speech is so widespread that freedom from it is the exception.
It is painfully common to hear public speakers mutilate the king's
English. If they do not actually murder it, as Curran once said, they
often knock an _i_ out.
A Canadian clergyman, writing in the _Homiletic Review_, relates that in
his student days "a classmate who was an Englishman supplied a country
church for a Sunday. On the following Monday he conducted a missionary
meeting. In the course of his address he said some farmers thought they
were doing their duty toward missions when they gave their 'hodds and
hends' to the work, but the Lord required more. At the close of the
meeting a young woman seriously said to a friend: 'I am sure the farmers
do well if they give their hogs and hens to missions. It is more than
most people can afford.'"
It is insufferable effrontery for any man to appear before an audience
who persists in driving the _h_ out of happiness, home and heaven, and,
to paraphrase Waldo Messaros, will not let it rest in hell. He who does
not show enough self-knowledge to see in himself such glaring faults,
nor enough self-mastery to correct them, has no business to instruct
others. If he _can_ do no better, he should be silent. If he _will_ do
no better, he should also be silent.
Barring incurable physical defects--and few are incurable nowadays--the
whole matter is one of will. The catalogue of those who have done the
impossible by faithful work is as inspiring as a roll-call of warriors.
"The less there is of you," says Nathan Sheppard, "the more need for you
to make the most of what there is of you."
_Articulation_
Articulation is the forming and joining of the elementary sounds of
speech. It seems an appalling task to utter articulately the third-of-a
million words that go to make up our English vocabulary, but the way to
make a beginning is really simple: _learn to utter correctly, and with
easy change from one to the other, each of the forty-four elementary
sounds in our language_.
The reasons why articulation is so painfully slurred by a great many
public speakers are four: ignorance of the elemental sounds; failure to
discriminate between sounds nearly alike; a slovenly, lazy use of the
vocal organs; and a torpid will. Anyone who is still master of himself
will know how to handle each of these defects.
The vowel sounds are the most vexing source of errors, especially where
diphthongs are found. Who has not heard such errors as are hit off in
this inimitable verse by Oliver Wendell Holmes:
Learning condemns beyond the reach of hope
The careless lips that speak of s[)o]ap for s[=o]ap;
Her edict exiles from her fair abode
The clownish voice that utters r[)o]ad for r[=o]ad;
Less stern to him who calls his c[=o]at, a c[)o]at
And steers his b[=o]at believing it a b[)o]at.
She pardoned one, our classic city's boast.
Who said at Cambridge, m[)o]st instead of m[=o]st,
But knit her brows and stamped her angry foot
To hear a Teacher call a r[=oo]t a r[)oo]t.
The foregoing examples are all monosyllables, but bad articulation is
frequently the result of joining sounds that do not belong together.
For example, no one finds it difficult to say _beauty_, but many persist
in pronouncing _duty_ as though it were spelled either _dooty_ or
_juty_. It is not only from untaught speakers that we hear such slovenly
articulations as _colyum_ for _column_, and _pritty_ for _pretty_, but
even great orators occasionally offend quite as unblushingly as less
noted mortals.
Nearly all such are errors of carelessness, not of pure ignorance--of
carelessness because the ear never tries to hear what the lips
articulate. It must be exasperating to a foreigner to find that the
elemental sound _ou_ gives him no hint for the pronunciation of _bough_,
_cough_, _rough_, _thorough_, and _through_, and we can well forgive
even a man of culture who occasionally loses his way amidst the
intricacies of English articulation, but there can be no excuse for the
slovenly utterance of the simple vowel sounds which form at once the
life and the beauty of our language. He who is too lazy to speak
distinctly should hold his tongue.
The consonant sounds occasion serious trouble only for those who do not
look with care at the spelling of words about to be pronounced. Nothing
but carelessness can account for saying _Jacop_, _Babtist_, _sevem_,
_alwus_, or _sadisfy_.
"He that hath yaws to yaw, let him yaw," is the rendering which an
Anglophobiac clergyman gave of the familiar scripture, "He that hath
ears to hear, let him hear." After hearing the name of Sir Humphry Davy
pronounced, a Frenchman who wished to write to the eminent Englishman
thus addressed the letter: "Serum Fridavi."
_Accentuation_
Accentuation is the stressing of the proper syllables in words. This it
is that is popularly called _pronunciation_. For instance, we properly
say that a word is mispronounced when it is accented _in'-vite_instead
of _in-vite'_, though it is really an offense against only one form of
pronunciation--accentuation.
It is the work of a lifetime to learn the accents of a large vocabulary
and to keep pace with changing usage; but an alert ear, the study of
word-origins, and the dictionary habit, will prove to be mighty helpers
in a task that can never be finally completed.
_Enunciation_
Correct enunciation is the complete utterance of all the sounds of a
syllable or a word. Wrong articulation gives the wrong sound to the
vowel or vowels of a word or a syllable, as _doo_ for _dew_; or unites
two sounds improperly, as _hully_ for _wholly_. Wrong enunciation is the
_incomplete_ utterance of a syllable or a word, the sound omitted or
added being usually consonantal. To say _needcessity_ instead of
_necessity_ is a wrong articulation; to say _doin_ for _doing_ is
improper enunciation. The one articulates--that is, joints--two sounds
that should not be joined, and thus gives the word a positively wrong
sound; the other fails to touch all the sounds in the word, and _in that
particular way_ also sounds the word incorrectly.
"My tex' may be foun' in the fif' and six' verses of the secon' chapter
of Titus; and the subjec' of my discourse is 'The Gover'ment of ar
Homes.'"[6]
What did this preacher do with his final consonants? This slovenly
dropping of essential sounds is as offensive as the common habit of
running words together so that they lose their individuality and
distinctness. _Lighten dark_, _uppen down_, _doncher know_,
_partic'lar_, _zamination_, are all too common to need comment.
Imperfect enunciation is due to lack of attention and to lazy lips. It
can be corrected by resolutely attending to the formation of syllables
as they are uttered. Flexible lips will enunciate difficult combinations
of sounds without slighting any of them, but such flexibility cannot be
attained except by habitually uttering words with distinctness and
accuracy. A daily exercise in enunciating a series of sounds will in a
short time give flexibility to the lips and alertness to the mind, so
that no word will be uttered without receiving its due complement of
sound.
Returning to our definition, we see that when the sounds of a word are
properly articulated, the right syllables accented, and full value given
to each sound in its enunciation, we have correct pronunciation. Perhaps
one word of caution is needed here, lest any one, anxious to bring out
clearly every sound, should overdo the matter and neglect the unity and
smoothness of pronunciation. Be careful not to bring syllables into so
much prominence as to make words seem long and angular. The joints must
be kept decently dressed.
Before delivery, do not fail to go over your manuscript and note every
sound that may possibly be mispronounced. Consult the dictionary and
make assurance doubly sure. If the arrangement of words is unfavorable
to clear enunciation, change either words or order and do not rest until
you can follow Hamlet's directions to the players.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Practise repeating the following rapidly, paying particular attention
to the consonants.
"Foolish Flavius, flushing feverishly, fiercely found fault with
Flora's frivolity.[7]"
Mary's matchless mimicry makes much mischief.
Seated on shining shale she sells sea shells.
You youngsters yielded your youthful yule-tide yearnings
yesterday.
2. Sound the _l_ in each of the following words, repeated in sequence:
Blue black blinkers blocked Black Blondin's eyes.
3. Do you say a _bloo_ sky or a _blue_ sky?
4. Compare the _u_ sound in _few_ and in _new_. Say each aloud, and
decide which is correct, _Noo York_, _New Yawk_, or _New York_?
5. Pay careful heed to the directions of this chapter in reading the
following, from Hamlet. After the interview with the ghost of his
father, Hamlet tells his friends Horatio and Marcellus that he intends
to act a part:
_Horatio_. O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
_Hamlet_. And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
But come;
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd so'er I bear myself,--
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on,--
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumber'd thus, or this head-shake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As "Well, well, we know," or "We could, an if we would,"
Or "If we list to speak," or "There be, an if there might,"
Or such ambiguous giving-out, to note
That you know aught of me: this not to do,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you,
Swear.
--_Act I. Scene V._
6. Make a list of common errors of pronunciation, saying which are due
to faulty articulation, wrong accentuation, and incomplete enunciation.
In each case make the correction.
7. Criticise any speech you may have heard which displayed these faults.
8. Explain how the false shame of seeming to be too precise may hinder