Art Of Great Speaking

Here is another great way to make your speech sparkle.

Still another way to make speech vivid or colorful is to use exaggerated pictures, or hyperbole.
For instance, a businessman said in a speech, “I thought this family was poor, but when I walked into the house the first thing I saw was a television set as big as that piano!”
Of course, he knew, and his listeners knew, that the television set was not half as large as the upright piano to which he referred. But making this comparison was far more impressive than simply saying, “When I entered the room I saw a big television set.” And this type of exaggeration is ethical in public speaking because it is not really an attempt to deceive an audience.
Another speaker, when talking about a gossiping woman said, “Her tongue was so long she could sit in the parlor and lick a skillet in the kitchen!”
Still another remarked, “The restaurant was so crowded that when a man bent over to tie his shoe, a waitress slapped a table-cloth and four plates on his back before he could straighten up.”
Ridiculous? Yes. But it vividly supports a point, and adds interest to a speech which might otherwise be dull.
Also understatements, such as, “Her mouth looked like a button-hole that had been washed in alum,” or, “I could have stuffed his toothpick body into my shirt pocket and have had plenty of room to spare,” may add color and interest to a speech.
All figures of speech should be chosen with care and used only when and where they aptly fit the situation or speech theme. They should never be “pulled in by the ears,” misused, or over-used. Rather, they should be used as verbal salt to season a speech and make it palatable for listeners’ minds.

I hope you have found this series on adding interest and color to your public speaking through similes and exaggerations useful. Let me know if you’ve found it useful,

When you are public speaking, you are speaking on purpose. Don’t let your speech be overtaken by humor and stories.

Similes, interesting as they are, should be used sparingly in persuasive speeches. A few of them aptly used will tend to help an audience relax, will make listeners more receptive to serious ideas that follow. But using many of them in any one speech may simply amuse an audience rather than persuade it. Mark Twain found this to be true. He had used so much humor in his speeches that when he did upon occasions try to become serious and persuasive his listeners simply grinned at him. A persuasive speaker must never let the “side shows” crowd out the main tent. The real purpose of his speech, what he wants the audience to do or believe — the central theme of his talk, should receive constant attention. He uses illustrations, similes, or other speech materials for the sole purpose of skillfully impressing upon audiences’ minds and hearts the desire to comply willingly with the reasonable main point he is making. An able persuasive speaker will not try to be a platform come-dian. His purpose, is not to have audiences say, “How clever you are!” He will merely be a human instrument through which per-suasion operates. A simile is usually brief. When it is extended it becomes an analogy, such as Wendell Phillips’ statement: “Our republic is a raft, hard to steer and your feet are always wet; but nothing can sink her.” Another example of an analogy is this comparison between life and a game of football: “It is easy to sit on the sidelines of the great game of life and find fault with those who are on the gridiron bucking the line.”

To follow on in this series of making your public speaking interesting will be a post on one a further technique.

When public speaking a great way to add sparkle and interest is through the use of similes.

Similes may be found in literature, speeches, poetry, in magazines, the news, on radio or TV, in plays, stories, or in almost any source of communication wherein writers or speakers try to be interesting.
Following are a few similes which were created by well-known authors:
Free as mountain winds. — Shakespeare.
Her face was white and colorless as an icicle. — Channing Pollack.
Hairless as an egg. — Robert Herrick.
He felt like the symptom on a medicine bottle. — George Ade.
Hysterical as a tree full of chickens. — Irvin S. Cobb.
Poor and forgotten  like  a cloud upon the field. — Hugo.
He looked like a composite picture of five thousand orphans
too late to catch a picnic steamboat. — O. Henry.
God pardons like a mother who kisses away the repentant tears
of her child. — Henry Ward Beecher.
He is a steam roller in a pair of pants. — Sherwin L. Cook.
The human mind should be like a good hotel, open the year around. — William Lyon Phelps.
He had a hand like a bunch of bananas. — R. F. Outcault.
A person who intends to speak frequently should- jot down for future reference any impressive simile he reads, or hears. It may just fit some idea he wishes to express in a speech.
Similes to avoid are those that do not create an interesting mental picture, and probably those that grandfather smiled at when he was in the third grade — similes such as the following which were actually turned in by college students. Those students, having misinterpreted the meaning of effective similes, of¬fered these trite comparisons as being useful speech material:
He was as sober as a judge.
It was as weak as water.
The meat was as tough as leather.
He turned as white as a sheet.
The girl was as ugly as sin.
His joke went over like a ton of bricks.
He was slow as a snail.
The night was as silent as a grave.
The family was as poor as a church mouse.
She sang like a lark.
It was as welcome as the flowers in May.
Cold as ice.
Slick as a button.
Red as a rose.
Black as the ace of spades.
He behaved like a bull in a china shop.
The moon  was shining bright as day.
As clean as a towel that has just been washed.

As nervous as a June bride.

Hearing a simile like those listed above is somewhat like looking at an ordinary pebble on a beach. It gets, no attention and does nothing to help make a speech interesting.
A helpful mental exercise for a student o£ public speaking is creating original similes for old, worn-out ones. For instance, one student substituted, “Slick as an eel in a barrel of motor oil” for “slick as a button.”
Another student came up with “Happy as a baby with his hands in cool mush,” for “happy as a lark.” Still another said, “Black as a wet skunk,” instead of “Black as the ace of spades.”

My next post on using similes in public speaking starts with a mistake to avoid that Mark Twain made.

How do you make public speaking interesting? It’s how you use words and the pictures you paint with them.

Following on from my previous post here are some more examples of how to paint pictures:-

Using names, dates, and places also make a talk authentic. It impresses audiences with the fact that the speaker is really telling the truth.
Using colorful similes is another way to make speaking vivid and interesting. The word, simile, may be a first cousin to similar It really means word pictures which show how things, people, or ideas are alike or how they differ. These pictures may be exaggerated. This helps make speaking clear, often amusing, and usually interesting.
A speaker might say, “That would be hard to do.” Or he
could say, “That would be as difficult as trying to dam Niagara Falls with cobwebs.” The first statement is foggy. The second is as clear as an August sunbeam.
To say, “His manner was cold,” tells something. But to say “His manner was as cold as a mother-in-law’s kiss,” tells more. A speaker could say, “He walked slowly, and with a swagger,” or he could say, “He walked like a cowboy on vacation.”
One could say, “She was excited.” Or, “She was as excited as an old maid after a bedbug on a hot June night.”
A teacher of speech who encourages his students to create or collect apt similes contributed the following as a few of the hundreds assembled by the students:
Flat as a soup sandwich.
Empty as a gigolo’s promise.
As unplanned as a hiccup.
As popular as prohibition in Milwaukee.
His mouth felt as if a Russian army had walked through it.
Her hat always looked as if it had made a forced landing upon
her head.
She charged into the room with her four children like a bomber
escorted by fighters.
She made as much sense as a tailor in a nudist camp.
Busy as a politician trying to save both his faces.
The ball slipped between his legs, like a pig dipped in lard.
His dull past was like a bucket of ashes.
White and beautiful as the snow looks before you  think of
shoveling it.
Slick” as a buttered bullfrog.
His   head   looked  like   a  white  watermelon   gleaming  in   the
sunlight.
About as fast as a feather sinking in syrup.
Innocent as a girl on her first day at kindergarten.
She looked like warmed-over death.
He shook like a shirt in a hurricane.

I’ve got some more similes to follow in my next post to help you in creating your picture talk for you next public speaking engagement or presentation.

The words used in public speaking make a big difference to the effectiveness of a speech. Painting pictures with words.

Picture talk! Then minds meet minds. There is understand­ing, attention, interest!

Some words create only general pictures, but others etch vivid, concrete images. “I stood open-mouthed,” for instance, paints a picture of surprise, whereas, “I was surprised” paints nothing. Or so much the mind is cluttered.

Listeners can see a fat man waddle or wobble easier than they can see him go to the front door of his cabin.

A speaker should choose and use words that create vivid moving pictures which cause listeners to see and feel clearly
exactly what he means — words that cut, sting, stare, glare, grind, shock, slush, smother, soothe, or cuddle. Words as real as pizza
pie, soft as a maiden’s blush, or seedy as the hairy wart on grand­ pa’s weather-beaten nose.                          .

Never tell about an event, person, or thing. Show the event happening. Relive it. Picture the person as he really is. Make the thing so real listeners can see, feel, touch, taste or smell it. Create graphic colored, moving, mental pictures. And paint them red when necessary! Paint them gay and bright, blue, or as dark as midnight in a cyclone cellar, according to the mood which is suitable for the speech material.

Speaking should be clear and specific. An author, Rudyard Kipling, said his six “serving men” helped him in this respect. The servants he referred to are waiting to serve anyone. They are who, when, where, what, why, and how? When a speaker answers those questions specifically (not in any special order) in his il­lustrations, his speaking leaves the rambling weed fields of gener­alities to become as real and clear-cut as a row of Irish potatoes that has just been hoed by a careful gardener.

What words do you used when you are public speaking to an audience of one or to a larger gathering? Do you use picture talk?