The Art of Public Speaking | Page 8

of CHOICE,"
he will deliver it, "It is a matter of choice," or "IT IS A MATTER OF
CHOICE"--both equally bad.
Charles Dana, the famous editor of The New York Sun, told one of his
reporters that if he went up the street and saw a dog bite a man, to pay
no attention to it. The Sun could not afford to waste the time and
attention of its readers on such unimportant happenings. "But," said Mr.
Dana, "if you see a man bite a dog, hurry back to the office and write
the story." Of course that is news; that is unusual.
Now the speaker who says "IT IS A MATTER OF CHOICE" is putting

too much emphasis upon things that are of no more importance to
metropolitan readers than a dog bite, and when he fails to emphasize
"choice" he is like the reporter who "passes up" the man's biting a dog.
The ideal speaker makes his big words stand out like mountain peaks;
his unimportant words are submerged like stream-beds. His big
thoughts stand like huge oaks; his ideas of no especial value are merely
like the grass around the tree.
From all this we may deduce this important principle: EMPHASIS is a
matter of CONTRAST and COMPARISON.
Recently the New York American featured an editorial by Arthur
Brisbane. Note the following, printed in the same type as given here.
=We do not know what the President THOUGHT when he got that
message, or what the elephant thinks when he sees the mouse, but we
do know what the President DID.=
The words THOUGHT and DID immediately catch the reader's
attention because they are different from the others, not especially
because they are larger. If all the rest of the words in this sentence were
made ten times as large as they are, and DID and THOUGHT were kept
at their present size, they would still be emphatic, because different.
Take the following from Robert Chambers' novel, "The Business of
Life." The words you, had, would, are all emphatic, because they have
been made different.
He looked at her in angry astonishment.
"Well, what do you call it if it isn't cowardice--to slink off and marry a
defenseless girl like that!"
"Did you expect me to give you a chance to destroy me and poison
Jacqueline's mind? If I had been guilty of the thing with which you
charge me, what I have done would have been cowardly. Otherwise, it
is justified."

A Fifth Avenue bus would attract attention up at Minisink Ford, New
York, while one of the ox teams that frequently pass there would attract
attention on Fifth Avenue. To make a word emphatic, deliver it
differently from the manner in which the words surrounding it are
delivered. If you have been talking loudly, utter the emphatic word in a
concentrated whisper--and you have intense emphasis. If you have been
going fast, go very slow on the emphatic word. If you have been
talking on a low pitch, jump to a high one on the emphatic word. If you
have been talking on a high pitch, take a low one on your emphatic
ideas. Read the chapters on "Inflection," "Feeling," "Pause," "Change
of Pitch," "Change of Tempo." Each of these will explain in detail how
to get emphasis through the use of a certain principle.
In this chapter, however, we are considering only one form of emphasis:
that of applying force to the important word and subordinating the
unimportant words. Do not forget: this is one of the main methods that
you must continually employ in getting your effects.
Let us not confound loudness with emphasis. To yell is not a sign of
earnestness, intelligence, or feeling. The kind of force that we want
applied to the emphatic word is not entirely physical. True, the
emphatic word may be spoken more loudly, or it may be spoken more
softly, but the real quality desired is intensity, earnestness. It must
come from within, outward.
Last night a speaker said: "The curse of this country is not a lack of
education. It's politics." He emphasized curse, lack, education, politics.
The other words were hurried over and thus given no comparative
importance at all. The word politics was flamed out with great feeling
as he slapped his hands together indignantly. His emphasis was both
correct and powerful. He concentrated all our attention on the words
that meant something, instead of holding it up on such words as of this,
a, of, It's.
What would you think of a guide who agreed to show New York to a
stranger and then took up his time by visiting Chinese laundries and
boot-blacking "parlors" on the side streets? There is only one excuse
for a speaker's asking the attention of his audience: He