Perhaps no other single suggestion regarding speech delivery is so vital as that contained in this statement. It strikes at the very heart of the problem. All effective speaking should have as its basis plain conversation—the direct communication between man and man. But it is often objected that plain conversation is not public speaking. It is too informal, too much lacking in force and power to sway audiences. Quite true, there are certain differences between ordinary conversation and public speaking. The important thing to remember, however, is that these differences are merely incidental and in no way fundamental. When a man sits down to discuss a topic with a friend, he does not assume an artificial tone of voice; neither are his vocal inflections monotonous and inexpressive. On the contrary, they are quite the opposite. His tone of voice is that of very natural conversation, and his inflections, pauses, and the like give the natural variety of expression that conveys in a very clear manner the ideas he is trying to present. Exactly the same thing should be done if he is to stand before an audience to express his views upon a given subject. The thing that he is likely to do, however, as he comes before his audience is to change the character of his voice entirely, making it high-sounding and unnatural, or perhaps to lift it to a high key and hold it there throughout the entire speech, or to speak so loud that the ear becomes weary for lack of change. Whatever may be the fault, it usually can be traced directly to the misconception that public speaking is something entirely different from conversing and therefore requires a different tone and manner. The so-called public manner and private manner. It is sometimes contended that public speech is, in the very necessity of the case, more formal than private speech and therefore requires a more formal mode of delivery. To be sure, the conditions of public speech are usually more conventional than those of private conversation. The mere fact that the public speaker generally addresses a larger number, in a larger room and at a fixed time and place, tends to make it so. Under these conditions he would not be likely to express himself in the same informal manner with which he would address a friend at his own fireside. His diction would probably be less colloquial, his manner more dignified, and his whole mode of delivery that befitting the public occasion. But can it be said that these are fundamental differences that make the act of public speech one thing and that of private conversation something entirely different, or are they differences that are merely incidental to the circumstances? Unquestionably the latter. The speaker, whether in private conversation or before an audience, will express himself in a manner best suited to the occasion. If he is called upon to speak at a great public gathering where momentous issues are at stake and it is necessary to arouse public sentiment or inspire patriotism, naturally his manner and delivery will be different from what it is if he is merely to discuss some current topic before a small group of his intimate associates. Likewise, in private conversation a discussion with a friend on some weighty moral or religious question will be quite different from his mode of address if he casually met his friend and passed the time of day. So, whether before an audience or in conversation with a friend, the delivery of the speaker will be conditioned entirely by the circumstances. But this in no way tends to show that the delivery of the public speech should be entirely different in its elements from that of private speech. And all discussions of the speaker's public manner" and the speaker's "private manner" are worse than useless, for they only give rise to wrong impressions of the essentials of all speech delivery. Conversational delivery not necessarily colloquial. There seems to be the misconception with nearly every student of speaking that by conversational delivery is meant a mode of delivery that is entirely colloquial, that is, informal. This is by no means the case. Speaking that is very formal may be as truly conversational as that which is wholly informal. All depends, as we have seen, upon the occasion and the circumstances. A student speaking before just a group of men of his own college fraternity would in all probability address them in a very informal manner; while if he were chosen to speak upon commencement day before an audience of two thousand people, he would certainly speak with a far greater measure of dignity and formality. In both cases, however, his speaking could be equally conversational. What, then, do we mean by a mode of delivery that is fundamentally conversational? Simply that mode of using the voice which expresses thought and feeling genuinely and to a purpose, and not for the sake of mere bombast and effect. The Fourth of July orator who revels in the "We, the people of this country," "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" style of delivery, with all the attendant flourishes of the voice which are so familiar to anyone who has ever listened to it, does little more than impress the "groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but dumb show and noise." - to Let the speaker take the attitude not of one whose duty it is to inspire a sense of awe but rather of one whose purpose it is to reason with his audience, "think with" them, if you please, and he will be pretty sure to employ in his speaking the real elements. of conversation, whether the occasion be one that admits of the most easy-going, colloquial style of delivery or one that requires a great deal of dignity and formality. Degrees of formality within the conversational mode. The student of public speaking should learn the differences between that mode of delivery which, whether formal or informal, may be characterized as fundamentally conversational and those modes of delivery which have no basis in real conversation but are always more or less grandiloquent and unnatural. The following simple diagram will serve to make clear the difference between conversational and unconversational forms of delivery : THE LIMITS OF THE CONVERSATIONAL MODE UNCONVERSATIONAL Let us consider the conversational mode of delivery as a kind of graduated scale and, for the sake of convenience, imagine 1, 2, 3, 4 of this scale as representing different forms of delivery, all of which are conversational but differ in degrees of formality. Point I on this scale might illustrate the simplest form of conversational delivery, the purely colloquial, where the speaker employs the most easy-going, informal mode of delivery that he would ever be likely to use. This would be typical of his mode of addressing a group of his most intimate associates, where no formality of any kind would be necessary. Point 2 might represent a slightly more formal mode of utterance, such as would be suitable for an address to a club interested in literary or current topics. Here the speaker would be conversing with his audience the same as in the first instance, but with the difference that the nature of the occasion (that is, the fact that he was to speak upon a given topic at a set time and place and before people with many of whom he was not intimately acquainted, or perhaps not acquainted at all) would tend to make him speak in a somewhat more painstaking manner, perhaps with more deliberation, better diction, and more careful enunciation than in the first instance, where the occasion required nothing more than the utmost informality. Point 3, a still more elevated form of conversational speaking, would be well illustrated by an occasion of very considerable importance, such as a commemorative address, where all of the circumstances associated with the event would cause the speaker to employ a much more formal mode of delivery than he would be likely to use in either of the former instances, and still one that at the same time would be just as truly conversational. The sentiment connected with such an occasion, particularly if it had some close personal significance for the speaker, would tend to |