Carnegie Language Breakthroughs and the Art of Communication

Chapter 13 Speech Speakers and Audiences (2)
If possible, these stories should talk about personal struggle and the process of winning through struggle.Each of us takes a keen interest in another's struggle or battle.There is an old saying that "all men are lovers".No, everyone loves to fight.What people love most is watching two men fight for a woman.If you want proof of this fact, read any novel, short story in a magazine, or go to any movie.When all obstacles were overcome and the leading man at last snatched the so-called leading lady, the audience immediately began reaching for their hats and coats. Five minutes later, the cleaning women will be cleaning the theater and chattering endlessly.

Almost all novels in magazines are based on this method.All authors do everything possible to make the reader like their hero or heroine, to make him or her passionately after certain things, to make those things seem unattainable, and then to describe how the hero or heroine struggles Finally got what they needed.

Stories of how a man, under dire circumstances, fought so hard in a cause or trade, and finally won, have always been the most motivating, always the most intriguing.A magazine editor once said to me that anyone's real and insider life is interesting.If a man has struggled and struggled, and who has not, there can be no doubt that if his story is properly told it will arouse interest.

Of course, the richest source of this kind of human interest material is the background of one's own life.Don't hesitate to talk about your experiences because you don't think you should talk about yourself.It is only when a person speaks about himself with hostility and arrogance that the audience resents it.Otherwise, the audience is very interested in the personal story told by the speaker.Personal experience is the surest and surest way to get people's attention, and it should never be ignored.

B. Name the speech to make the speech concrete

If other people are involved in the storytelling, it is in any case preferable to use their first names, or to invent aliases if you want to protect their identities.Even if you use an impersonal name like "Mr. Smith" or "Joe Brown," it's more vivid than "this person" or "somebody."Surnames Personal names have the effect of authenticating and revealing individuals, as Rudolf Fritsch pointed out: "Nothing adds to the truth of a story so much as a name; there is nothing more false than anonymity. Just imagine, in the story What will happen if the main character has no name or surname?"

If your speech contains many names and personal pronouns, you can be sure that it is most audible, because in your speech, you have already added the invaluable element of human interest.

C. Highlight details
At this point, you might say, "That's all well and good. But how do I know if I've included enough detail in my speech?" There's a way to test that.Use the "five W's formula" that journalists follow when writing a news story: when, where, who, what, why, if you follow this If you use formulas to do it, your examples will be full of vitality and colorful.Let me cite an interesting incident of my own to illustrate.This anecdote was published in Reader's Digest:

After leaving college, I spent two years traveling around South Dakota as a salesman for Ironclad.I swim around, all by delivery trucks.One day I had to wait two hours at Redfield to catch a southbound train.Since Redfield is not in my area of ​​responsibility, I can't use this time for sales.In less than a year, I will be going to the "American Academy of Dramatic Arts" in New York, so I decided to use this spare time to practice speaking.I wandered aimlessly across the yard and began to rehearse a scene from Shakespeare's Macbeth.Throwing my arms out violently, I called out very dramatically: "Is that what I see a dagger with its handle facing me? Come on, let me hold you: I can't catch you, and I Still seeing you!"

I was immersed in the scene when 4 police officers suddenly rushed towards me and asked me why I was threatening women.My surprise was nothing small.I wouldn't be so surprised if they accused me of robbing a train.They told me about a housewife who was watching me from behind the curtains in her kitchen a hundred yards away.She had never seen anything like this before, so she called the police, and when they arrived, they heard me yelling about the dagger.

I told them I was practicing Shakespeare, but they didn't let me go until I showed the Ironclad order book.

Note how this anecdote answers each of the questions in the "Five W's" formula above.

Naturally, too many details are worse than no details.We've all been fed up with lengthy, superficial and irrelevant details.Note that I have short and to-the-point answers to each of the five W's in my account of my near-arrest in a South Dakota town.If the speech is messy and full of trivial and trivial incidents, the audience will not be able to concentrate on it and obliterate many of your remarks.Nothing kills a person's speech more than an audience's inattention.

D. Use dialogue to dramatize the speech

Suppose you wanted to give an example of how you used the principles of interpersonal relationships to successfully appease a customer's anger. You might start like this:
A guy walked into my office the other day.He was furious because the appliance we had sent to his house the week before wasn't working.I said to him we will do everything we can to remedy the situation.After a while, he calmed down and seemed satisfied with our dedication to getting the job done.

This little incident has an advantage—it's very detailed, but it lacks names, special details, and most importantly, real dialogue that would bring this event to life.Let me add oil and vinegar to it:
Last Tuesday, my office door slammed open.I looked up and I saw Charles Burr
Lexan scowled.He is one of our regular customers.Before I could sit him down, he said, "Ed, this is the last thing you do: You send a truck right away and get me that washing machine out of the basement."

I asked him what was going on, and he was so out of breath that he could hardly answer.

"It doesn't work at all," he yelled, "clothes are all tangled up, my wife hates it, it annoys it."

I asked him to sit down and explain better. "I don't have time to sit down, I'm already late for work! I don't think I will come here to buy household appliances anyway. You believe me, I won't do it again." At this point, he stretched out his hand, and It was hitting the table, and it was hitting my wife's photo.

"Listen, Charlie," I said, "you sit down and tell me all about it, and I promise to do anything you want me to do, okay?" Talked about the matter calmly and clearly.

Not every time you can add dialogue to your speech.You should be able to see, though, that the dialogue quoted in the excerpt above has a dramatic effect on the listener.If the speaker adds some imitation skills and can put the original tone of voice into the words, the dialogue will be more effective.Conversations are everyday conversations that make a speech more believable.It makes you sound like a real person speaking across the table, not an old pedant reading a paper in front of well-educated fellows, or a great speaker yelling into a microphone.

E. Show the content of the speech and make it visual

Psychologists tell us that more than 85% of knowledge is absorbed by us through visual impressions.This undoubtedly explains why television is such an advertising and entertainment medium, and why it is so effective.The same goes for speaking in public, which is as much an audible art as it is a visual one.

One of the best ways to enrich a speech with detail is to include a visual presentation in it.Maybe I'll get bored of you spending hours just to tell me how to swing a golf club.But if you stand up and show what to do when you hit the ball down the fairway, then I'll give you my full attention.In the same way, if you use your arms and shoulders to describe the situation of the aircraft drifting and unstable, I will definitely be more concerned about the results of your knocking on the door of hell.

I remember a presentation to a class of industry people that was a rare masterpiece in terms of visual detail.The speaker made a harmless joke about inspectors and efficiency experts.His imitation of the gestures and physical antics of these gentlemen inspecting the broken machinery was far more hilarious than anything I've ever seen on television.What is more worth mentioning is that the visual details make people never forget that speech - at least I can't forget it anyway.I am sure that other students in the class will still talk about it to this day.

Please listen to the following passage of British historian Macaulay's condemnation of Charles I.Note that Macaulay uses not only pictures but also parallel sentences.The strong contrast has always attracted our interest.The sharp contrast is the bricks and mortar that make up the following passage:
We accuse him of breaking his coronation vows; while others say he kept his marriage vows!We accuse him of abandoning his people to the merciless blows of a hot-tempered bishop; and yet he is defended by saying that he took his little son on his lap and kissed it!We accused him of violating the terms of the Petition of Rights after he had promised to abide by it; and we were told that he was in the habit of praying at 6 o'clock in the morning!On these considerations, together with his Van Dyck dress, his handsome face and his pointed beard, he owes his popularity to our age.

5. Create mental images in clear, familiar language

Getting the audience's attention is the number one goal of every speaker.To achieve this, there is an extremely important trick that may help you a lot.However, this technique has been completely ignored.Ordinary speakers don't seem to notice its existence, and probably never feel it, think of it.What I mean is how to use words that create mental images.A speaker who sounds relaxed and pleasant must be able to create a mental image in front of your eyes, so that you can create a visual connection in your brain and understand its meaning as soon as you hear his words.And those who use vague, banal, colorless words just make the audience sleepy.

Image, image, image!They are as free as the air you breathe!Embellish your speech with them, and your conversation will be more interesting and impactful.

As an example, suppose you want to show that Niagara Falls wastes a staggering amount of potential energy every day.If you just say this, and then add that if these energies could be put to use, and the proceeds used to buy the necessities of life, many people would be fed and clothed.Is this narrative method interesting?Definitely no fun.But let's see what Edward Slosson reported about it in the Daily Science Bulletin:

We know that there are millions of poor people in the United States who don't have enough food or clothing.Here in Niagara Falls, however, the equivalent of 25 loaves of bread is wasted every hour.We can picture in our minds 60 fresh eggs falling off a cliff every hour to make a giant omelet in a whirlpool.If calico keeps coming out of a loom as wide as the Niagara River 4 feet, that means the same amount of cloth is wasted.If you put the Carnegie Library under a waterfall, you could fill the whole library with all kinds of good books in about an hour or two.Or we can imagine a major department store floating down Lake Erie every day, washing its wares 000 feet down onto rocks.It would be an extremely interesting and spectacular spectacle, as attractive as Niagara Falls is now, and without the expense of maintaining it.Some, however, may object on the grounds of waste, as some currently object to the use of the energy of a waterfall.

Obviously, this kind of description is much better than the flat straightforward statement above.Let's see what vivid words and sentences are there like pictures?They jumped out and ran away in every sentence, as many as hares on the Australian prairie: "25 loaves of bread, 60 fresh eggs rolled off the cliff, big egg rolls in the swirl, calico Running from a loom 4 feet wide, the Carnegie Library being placed under a fountain, books, a floating department store being washed down... the rocks below, the waterfall..."

To ignore a speech or an article like this is probably as difficult as not to pay any attention to a film being shown on the screen in a movie theater.

Herbert Spencer had already pointed out in his famous essay "The Philosophy of Style" that good words can evoke vivid images in the reader, when he wrote:
We usually don't think in general, but in particular... We should try to avoid writing sentences like this:
"If the national character, customs, and entertainments of a country are cruel and barbaric, then their punishment must be severe."

We should rewrite this sentence into the following statement:

"If the common people of a country love war, bullfights, and enjoy the pleasure of slaves fighting openly, their punishment will include hanging, burning, and torture."

The Bible and Shakespeare's writings are full of great lines that create visual images just by looking at them.For example, a mediocre writer would say that something is superfluous, as in improving something that is already perfect.And how did Shakespeare express this idea?He wrote immortal and picturesque lines: "...gold the refined gold, paint the lilies, and sprinkle perfume on the violets."

Have you ever noticed that almost all of those proverbs that have been passed down through the generations have a visual effect?Such as: "A bird in hand is better than two in the forest." It's not hard to find the same pictorial effect in metaphors that have been used over the centuries: "Sly as a fox." "Stiff as a doornail." "Flat as a pancake." "Hard as a rock." .”

Lincoln has always used the language of those visual effects to speak.When he grows tired of the long, complicated official reports that arrive on the White House desk every day, he demurs.But he did not disapprove in that prosaic phrase, but in one that was almost impossible to forget. "When I send a man out to buy a horse," he said, "I don't want the man to tell me how many hairs the horse has on its tail. I want to know what the characteristics are."

Your eyes like something definite and special, so paint a vivid mental image in your mind that stands out and stands out, like the antlers of a stag against the setting sun.Hearing the word "dog," for example, conjures up a more or less definite image of the animal—perhaps a short-legged, long-haired beagle with drooping ears, or a Scottish terrier. A hound, or a St. Bernard, or a Pomeranian.Notice that when the speaker says "bulldog" (a short-haired, square-mouthed, brave, tenacious dog), the images that pop into your mind are definitely more definite.When you say "a black Shetland pony", it's a lot more realistic than when you say "a horse". Doesn't "a white dwarf rooster with a broken leg" give a more accurate and distinct image than the mere word "chicken"?
William Strong, Jr. said in The Elements of Style: "Those who study the art of writing agree on one thing, and this is this: that the most effective method of getting and holding the reader's attention is the Be detailed, definite, and specific. The greatest writers, such as Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, etc., are proficient in large part because they draw fresh and unique materials and describe events in detail. Their words can evoke vision.” As with writing, so with speech.

Years ago, I conducted an experiment with the participants in my "Speaking Effectively" course: I asked them to speak clearly.That is, each sentence must contain a fact, or a proper noun, number, or date.The result was a revolutionary success.The students in the class use this as a game to monitor each other's mistakes.It was not long before the conversation ceased to be vague and clouded the audience, and they spoke in the clear and lively speech of ordinary people in the street.

French philosopher Alain said: "Abstract style is not good. Your sentences should be full of concrete and vital words such as stone, metal, chair, table, animal, man and woman."

(End of this chapter)