The Art of Public Speaking
the pupil has gained considerable mastery of imaginative narration. (See
chapter on "Narration.")
11. Experiments have proved that the majority of people think most
vividly in terms of visual images. However, some think more readily in
terms of auditory and motor images. It is a good plan to mix all kinds
of images in the course of your address for you will doubtless have all
kinds of hearers. This plan will serve to give variety and strengthen
your effects by appealing to the several senses of each hearer, as well
as interesting many different auditors. For exercise, (_a_) give several
original examples of compound images, and (_b_) construct brief
descriptions of the scenes imagined. For example, the falling of a
bridge in process of building.
12. Read the following observantly:
The strikers suffered bitter poverty last winter in New York.
Last winter a woman visiting the East Side of New York City saw
another woman coming out of a tenement house wringing her hands.
Upon inquiry the visitor found that a child had fainted in one
of the apartments. She entered, and saw the child ill and in
rags, while the father, a striker, was too poor to provide
medical help. A physician was called and said the child had
fainted from lack of food. The only food in the home was dried
fish. The visitor provided groceries for the family and ordered
the milkman to leave milk for them daily. A month later she
returned. The father of the family knelt down before her, and
calling her an angel said that she had saved their lives, for
the milk she had provided was all the food they had had.
In the two preceding paragraphs we have substantially the same story,
told twice. In the first paragraph we have a fact stated in general
terms. In the second, we have an outline picture of a specific
happening. Now expand this outline into a dramatic recital, drawing
freely upon your imagination.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 29: _Inquiries into Human Faculty_.]
[Footnote 30: Consult any good rhetoric. An unabridged dictionary will
also be of help.]
[Footnote 31: For a full discussion of the form see, _The Art of
Story-Writing_, by J. Berg Esenwein and Mary D. Chambers.]
CHAPTER XXVII
GROWING A VOCABULARY
Boys flying kites haul in their white winged birds;
You can't do that way when you're flying words.
"Careful with fire," is good advice we know,
"Careful with words," is ten times doubly so.
Thoughts unexpressed many sometimes fall back dead;
But God Himself can't kill them when they're said.
--WILL CARLETON, _The First Settler's Story_.
The term "vocabulary" has a special as well as a general meaning. True,
_all_ vocabularies are grounded in the everyday words of the language,
out of which grow the special vocabularies, but each such specialized
group possesses a number of words of peculiar value for its own objects.
These words may be used in other vocabularies also, but the fact that
they are suited to a unique order of expression marks them as of special
value to a particular craft or calling.
In this respect the public speaker differs not at all from the poet, the
novelist, the scientist, the traveler. He must add to his everyday
stock, words of value for the public presentation of thought. "A study
of the discourses of effective orators discloses the fact that they have
a fondness for words signifying power, largeness, speed, action, color,
light, and all their opposites. They frequently employ words expressive
of the various emotions. Descriptive words, adjectives used in _fresh_
relations with nouns, and apt epithets, are freely employed. Indeed,
the nature of public speech permits the use of mildly exaggerated words
which, by the time they have reached the hearer's judgment, will leave
only a just impression."[32]
_Form the Book-Note Habit_
To possess a word involves three things: To know its special and broader
meanings, to know its relation to other words, and to be able to use it.
When you see or hear a familiar word used in an unfamiliar sense, jot it
down, look it up, and master it. We have in mind a speaker of superior
attainments who acquired his vocabulary by noting all new words he heard
or read. These he mastered and _put into use_. Soon his vocabulary
became large, varied, and exact. Use a new word accurately five times
and it is yours. Professor Albert E. Hancock says: "An author's
vocabulary is of two kinds, latent and dynamic: latent--those words he
understands; dynamic--those he can readily use. Every intelligent man
_knows_ all the words he needs, but he may not have them all ready for
active service. The problem of literary diction consists in turning the
latent into the dynamic." Your dynamic vocabulary is the one you must
especially cultivate.
In his essay on "A College Magazine" in the volume, _Memories and
Portraits_, Stevenson shows how he rose from imitation to originality in
the use of words. He had particular reference to the formation of his
literary style, but words are the raw materials of style, and his
excellent example may well be followed judiciously by the public
speaker. Words _in their relations_ are vastly more important than words
considered singly.
Whenever I read a book or a passage that particularly pleased
me, in which a thing was said or an effect rendered with
propriety, in which there was either some conspicuous force or
some happy distinction in the style, I must sit down at once and
set myself to ape that quality. I was unsuccessful, and I knew
it; and tried again, and was again unsuccessful, and always
unsuccessful; but at least in these vain bouts I got some
practice in rhythm, in harmony, in construction and cooerdination
of parts.
I have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, to Lamb, to
Wordsworth, to Sir Thomas Browne, to Defoe, to Hawthorne, to
Montaigne.
That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write; whether I
have profited or not, that is the way. It was the way Keats
learned, and there never was a finer temperament for literature
than Keats'.
It is the great point of these imitations that there still
shines beyond the student's reach, his inimitable model. Let him
try as he please, he is still sure of failure; and it is an old
and very true saying that failure is the only highroad to
success.
_Form the Reference-Book Habit_
Do not be content with your general knowledge of a word--press your
study until you have mastered its individual shades of meaning and
usage. Mere fluency is sure to become despicable, but accuracy never.
The dictionary contains the crystallized usage of intellectual giants.
No one who would write effectively dare despise its definitions and
discriminations. Think, for example, of the different meanings of
_mantle_, or _model_, or _quantity_. Any late edition of an unabridged
dictionary is good, and is worth making sacrifices to own.
Books of synonyms and antonyms--used cautiously, for there are few
_perfect_ synonyms in any language--will be found of great help.
Consider the shades of meanings among such word-groups as _thief,
peculator, defaulter, embezzler, burglar, yeggman, robber, bandit,
marauder, pirate_, and many more; or the distinctions among _Hebrew,
Jew, Israelite, and Semite_. Remember that no book of synonyms is
trustworthy unless used with a dictionary. "A Thesaurus of the English
Language," by Dr. Francis A. March, is expensive, but full and
authoritative. Of smaller books of synonyms and antonyms there are
plenty.[33]
Study the connectives of English speech. Fernald's book on this title is
a mine of gems. Unsuspected pitfalls lie in the loose use of _and, or,
for, while_, and a score of tricky little connectives.
Word derivations are rich in suggestiveness. Our English owes so much to
foreign tongues and has changed so much with the centuries that whole
addresses may grow out of a single root-idea hidden away in an ancient
word-origin. Translation, also, is excellent exercise in word-mastery
and consorts well with the study of derivations.
Phrase books that show the origins of familiar expressions will surprise
most of us by showing how carelessly everyday speech is used. Brewer's
"A Dictionary of Phrase, and Fable," Edwards' "Words, Facts, and
Phrases," and Thornton's "An American Glossary," are all good--the last,
an expensive work in three volumes.
A prefix or a suffix may essentially change the force of the stem, as
in _master-ful_ and _master-ly_, _contempt-ible_ and _contempt-uous,
envi-ous_ and _envi-able_. Thus to study words in groups, according to
their stems, prefixes, and suffixes is to gain a mastery over their
shades of meaning, and introduce us to other related words.
_Do not Favor one Set or Kind of Words more than Another_
"Sixty years and more ago, Lord Brougham, addressing the students of the
University of Glasgow, laid down the rule that the native (Anglo-Saxon)
part of our vocabulary was to be favored at the expense of that other
part which has come from the Latin and Greek. The rule was an impossible
one, and Lord Brougham himself never tried seriously to observe it; nor,
in truth, has any great writer made the attempt. Not only is our
language highly composite, but the component words have, in De Quincey's
phrase, 'happily coalesced.' It is easy to jest at words in _-osity_ and
_-ation_, as 'dictionary' words, and the like. But even Lord Brougham
would have found it difficult to dispense with _pomposity_ and
_imagination_."[34]
The short, vigorous Anglo-Saxon will always be preferred for passages of
special thrust and force, just as the Latin will continue to furnish us
with flowing and smooth expressions; to mingle all sorts, however, will
give variety--and that is most to be desired.
_Discuss Words With Those Who Know Them_
Since the language of the platform follows closely the diction of
everyday speech, many useful words may be acquired in conversation with
cultivated men, and when such discussion takes the form of disputation
as to the meanings and usages of words, it will prove doubly valuable.
The development of word-power marches with the growth of individuality.
_Search Faithfully for the Right Word_
Books of reference are tripled in value when their owner has a passion
for getting the kernels out of their shells. Ten minutes a day will do
wonders for the nut-cracker. "I am growing so peevish about my writing,"
says Flaubert. "I am like a man whose ear is true, but who plays falsely
on the violin: his fingers refuse to reproduce precisely those sounds of
which he has the inward sense. Then the tears come rolling down from the
poor scraper's eyes and the bow falls from his hand."
The same brilliant Frenchman sent this sound advice to his pupil, Guy de
Maupassant: "Whatever may be the thing which one wishes to say, there is
but one word for expressing it, only one verb to animate it, only one
adjective to qualify it. It is essential to search for this word, for
this verb, for this adjective, until they are discovered, and to be
satisfied with nothing else."
Walter Savage Landor once wrote: "I hate false words, and seek with
care, difficulty, and moroseness those that fit the thing." So did
Sentimental Tommy, as related by James M. Barrie in his novel bearing
his hero's name as a title. No wonder T. Sandys became an author and a
lion!
Tommy, with another lad, is writing an essay on "A Day in Church," in
competition for a university scholarship. He gets on finely until he
pauses for lack of a word. For nearly an hour he searches for this
elusive thing, until suddenly he is told that the allotted time is up,