Public Speaking by Irvah Lester Winter
page 57 of 429 (13%)
page 57 of 429 (13%)
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Nearly every movement that a man makes in speaking should have some
fitting relation to what he is at the moment saying. These movements will then be varied. When certain repeated actions, without this proper relation, are acquired, they are called mannerisms. They have no meaning, and are obtrusive and annoying. Repeated jerking or bobbing of the head, for a supposed emphasis; regularly turning the head from side to side, for addressing all the audience; nervous shaking of the head, as of one greatly in earnest; repeated, meaningless punching or pounding of the air, always in the same way; shifting of one foot regularly backward and forward; rising on the toes with each emphatic word,--although single movements similar to these often have appropriate place, none of these or others should be allowed to become fixed mannerisms, habitually recurring movements, without a purpose. We are sometimes told that certain manneristic ways are often a speaker's strength. Probably this is at least half true. But eccentricities should not be cultivated or indulged. They will come. We should have as few as possible, or they won't count. One thing, however, should here be said. Positive strength, with positive faults, is much better than spiritless inoffensiveness. One should not give all his attention to the avoiding of faults. In the application of gesture to the expression of ideas, one is helped, as has been said, by constantly heeding the general principle of suiting the form of the gesture to the nature of the thought, or of suiting the action to the word. Inasmuch as gesture so generally takes the form of objects or actions, it is undoubtedly easier to begin with the more concrete in language, or with the discussion of tangible objects, and work from these to the more abstract and remotely imaginary--from the more, to the less, familiar. Let the student indicate the location, or the height, or the width, or the form of an |
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