Your Public Best - Lillian Brown [50]
The key to learning how to speak clearly is to enunciate clearly, without exaggeration. Speak conversationally, but at the same time pronounce all of the sounds, letters, and syllables in your words. In this way, you will sound perfectly natural to your listeners.
Avoid stylized elocution. Overly precise pronunciations are irritating, as they come out sounding pompous, cold, and boring. Such pronunciations are fine in the exaggerated speech of the imperious butler in one of those classic British plays, but not in day-to-day speech.
Don’t risk mispronouncing words. Use your dictionary as a friend. When you face difficult words with many syllables, turn your dictionary into a textbook and develop the habit of constantly referring to it.
People in my voice improvement seminars tell me that they have benefited greatly from my advice to carry a pocket dictionary around and, whenever convenient, to go down any column practicing the pronunciation of three- and four-syllable words such as “gutta-percha,” “guttersnipe,” and “gymnasium.” Strangely enough, this really does help them to improve their pronunciation.
I also tell my trainees that they don’t have to be a TV news anchor or a radio announcer or an actress to take advantage of this. The insurance salesman, gift shop owner, personnel director, graduate student, or docent at the local museum can benefit just as well.
In the front of most dictionaries, you will find a pronunciation guide that is used by cultivated speakers. Take a moment to look at the notes and then begin to learn the exact meaning of the marks that indicate a hard and soft vowel, the slant lines, stress, and accent marks, hyphens, dots, and abbreviations. These guides will help you pronounce any word with confidence. Pick a word you never could say properly and practice it five times. Select four- and five-syllable words at random and enjoy the process of mastering them and making them a part of your normal speech.
Enunciate words that begin with each letter of the alphabet. Ask yourself such questions as, “Do I say ‘wite,’ instead of ‘white’?” Then turn to “wh” in the dictionary and huff your way through words that begin with those letters. Is it hard for you to say “lullaby” with all of those “l” sounds? Turn to “l” and go down the pages. Do your speech writers leave out certain words because they know you cannot say them properly? Tackle those words—and similar ones—until they are easy for you to use.
Read into a tape recorder and listen for the sounds that need to be improved. Buy a good speech book that concentrates on pronunciations. Continue to read aloud and become more of a verbal person. Train your ear to hear your own pronunciations, and you will eventually enjoy knowing that you articulate your words clearly and correctly.
THREE
PUBLIC SPEAKING
I remember watching President John F. Kennedy give his inaugural address of 1961 as I sat in the CBS News press booth along with Walter Cronkite and others. It was a very cold January day with snow underfoot. Along with thousands of Americans present or watching on television, I was spellbound by his remarks, which have since become known as one of the greatest speeches of our time.
It was in this speech that he made this stirring comment: “In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it.... The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
Why was this such a great speech? Why was Kennedy such a great speaker? Of course, many people also regarded him as a great president. But it