The Art of Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie and J. Berg Esenwein online

XXXI MAKING CONVERSATION EFFECTIVE

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Self-expression is exhilarating. This explains the eternal impulse to decorate totem poles and paint pictures, write poetry and expound philosophy. One of the chief delights of conversation is the opportunity it affords for self-expression. A good conversationalist who monopolizes all the conversation, will be voted a bore because he denies others the enjoyment of self-expression, while a mediocre talker who listens interestedly may be considered a good conversationalist because he permits his companions to please themselves through self-expression. They are praised who please: they please who listen well.

The first step in remedying habits of confusion in manner, awkward bearing, vagueness in thought, and lack of precision in utterance, is to recognize your faults. If you are serenely unconscious of them, no one--least of all yourself--can help you. But once diagnose your own weaknesses, and you can overcome them by doing four things:

1. _WILL_ to overcome them, and keep on willing.

2. Hold yourself in hand by assuring yourself that you know precisely what you ought to say. If you cannot do that, be quiet until you are clear on this vital point.

3. Having thus assured yourself, cast out the fear of those who listen to you--they are only human and will respect your words if you really have something to say and say it briefly, simply, and clearly.

4. Have the courage to study the English language until you are master of at least its simpler forms.

_Conversational Hints_

Choose some subject that will prove of general interest to the whole group. Do not explain the mechanism of a gas engine at an afternoon tea or the culture of hollyhocks at a stag party.

It is not considered good taste for a man to bare his arm in public and show scars or deformities. It is equally bad form for him to flaunt his own woes, or the deformity of some one else's character. The public demands plays and stories that end happily. All the world is seeking happiness. They cannot long be interested in your ills and troubles. George Cohan made himself a millionaire before he was thirty by writing cheerful plays. One of his rules is generally applicable to conversation: "Always leave them laughing when you say good bye."

Dynamite the "I" out of your conversation. Not one man in nine hundred and seven can talk about himself without being a bore. The man who can perform that feat can achieve marvels without talking about himself, so the eternal "I" is not permissible even in his talk.

If you habitually build your conversation around your own interests it may prove very tiresome to your listener. He may be thinking of bird dogs or dry fly fishing while you are discussing the fourth dimension, or the merits of a cucumber lotion. The charming conversationalist is prepared to talk in terms of his listener's interest. If his listener spends his spare time investigating Guernsey cattle or agitating social reforms, the discriminating conversationalist shapes his remarks accordingly. Richard Washburn Child says he knows a man of mediocre ability who can charm men much abler than himself when he discusses electric lighting. This same man probably would bore, and be bored, if he were forced to converse about music or Madagascar.

Avoid platitudes and hackneyed phrases. If you meet a friend from Keokuk on State Street or on Pike's Peak, it is not necessary to observe: "How small this world is after all!" This observation was doubtless made prior to the formation of Pike's Peak. "This old world is getting better every day." "Fanner's wives do not have to work as hard as formerly." "It is not so much the high cost of living as the cost of high living." Such observations as these excite about the same degree of admiration as is drawn out by the appearance of a 1903-model touring car. If you have nothing fresh or interesting you can always remain silent. How would you like to read a newspaper that flashed out in bold headlines "Nice Weather We Are Having," or daily gave columns to the same old material you had been reading week after week?

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Give a short speech describing the conversational bore.

2. In a few words give your idea of a charming converser.

3. What qualities of the orator should _not_ be used in conversation.

4. Give a short humorous delineation of the conversational "oracle."

5. Give an account of your first day at observing conversation around you.

6. Give an account of one day's effort to improve your own conversation.

7. Give a list of subjects you heard discussed during any recent period you may select.

8. What is meant by "elastic touch" in conversation?

9. Make a list of "Bromides," as Gellett Burgess calls those threadbare expressions which "bore us to extinction"--itself a Bromide.

10. What causes a phrase to become hackneyed?

11. Define the words, (_a_) trite; (_b_) solecism; (_c_) colloquialism; (_d_) slang; (_e_) vulgarism; (_f_) neologism.

12. What constitutes pretentious talk?

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