Auld Lang Syne: The Language of Sorrow and Healing

It’s Christmastime again and I’ve been listening to James Taylor crooning “Auld Lang Syne” again on my daily commute.  Growing up in Louisiana and living in Texas in the early days, I thought this song was for old fogies, even though I had never really listened to it.  Funny how things change as you grow up.  Since the song wasn’t part of my culture—or so I thought at the time—I paid little attention to it. A few years ago, however, I saw the final night of the Proms in London on British television, a finale of the traditional old tune, where the audience stood up and turned the song into an emotional takeover, momentarily captivating every heart present.  Today that memory turns me into a watery-eyed mute every time I hear it.  What was it that seized my own heart with a force that I hadn’t been aware of before?  Was it experience?  Newfound wisdom?  A clearer understanding of my transitory place in the world?  The song begins, “Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?” and it ends with the chorus, “We’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.”  The Greeks of ancient times believed poets to be the wisest of us all.  Robert Burns was no exception when he wrote this poem.

On December 14, 2012, a young man who had suffered mental illness for too long entered an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut and fired rounds from automatic weapons at several teachers and the principal before massacring a classroom full of six year olds.  Twenty-six people lost their lives—twenty of them children—before the gunman turned his weapon on himself.  The savagery stunned the world and even now continues to bring us to our knees, not only in prayer for the precious loss of lives cut short but also for the incomprehensible decisions, past and future, for which the living must bear responsibility. 

This Christmas many of us in the English speaking world will sing the traditional song of sad farewell and remembrance, not to say goodbye to the old year but to former lives, our own--so difficult to let go of--as well as the dear ones we’ve lost.  Somehow singing this song eases the pain of parting with those we love.

Yes, our hearts are broken, but, to paraphrase Faulkner, our spirits will endure with the grace of God.  For unspeakable acts, God gives us the courage to become better people, the people we were meant to be.  For unspeakable acts, God gives us the redemptive power of love and kindness for one another.

                                    And here is my hand, my trusty friend,

                                    And give me a hand of thine.

                                    We’ll take a cup of kindness up

                                    For auld lang syne.

                                   

I have invited my guest and friend Ian Turnbull to share his thoughts about language.

 

Beyond Language?

It is obvious that language is an ancient thing; it is how we communicate, not only with our contemporaries but across the ages. We can understand our antecedents through what we have received: we can pass on knowledge and culture to our descendants. Indeed, language itself tells a story of where we have come from.

Can the written word in poetry and plays be more powerful than written history? If Churchill was right and history is written by the victors, what of truth then? Where do we seek enlightenment about the great questions that our existence poses? Where do we examine truth or ideas, pose questions, expand our comprehension of what is and is not possible? Go beyond the bounds of our own experience?

For even when our fellow man is imprisoned, starved of the freedom to roam, cut off from all that is inspirational, great works are created. When Bunyan, our local author, was gaoled for "pertinaciously abstaining" (not attending an Anglican church), he wrote his best known work, Pilgrim's Progress.


Recently I was prompted by a learned friend to look at some Victorian poetry. I decided to reread a work I was familiar with, Binsey Poplars by Gerard Manley Hopkins, which laments the felling of trees. Here a picture is portrayed, not just of the trees, but of what the trees offered to the Binsey, and of what man could enjoy. And of what he knew was taken from him, as the trees were taken. What progress did we enjoy for the loss of these trees?  Who knows if any? It is lost in the midst of time. Yet we have a man's lament for the lost environment which will stay with us longer than the trees would have survived.

If English is our native tongue we are sure to have come across the works of Shakespeare. Though much of his humour and guile may be lost without further guidance, we know he examined human truths in his works. In Hamlet's soliloquy “To be or not to be?” he was examining whether a man should continue with his very existence. Most of us, no matter what life throws at us, answer the question, even if passively by just continuing to exist. We choose “to be.” Yet for some, to choose to be is a struggle, an epic feat of defiance against the circumstances in which they find themselves. Tragically for some, without even considering the alternative in the reasoned manner of Shakespeare, or maybe without counsel, they choose “not to be”. Shakespeare wrote Lear's great speech in the storm, where a king who had once sat in his court now battles against the elements, exposed, without sanctuary.  At the height of the drama, Lear declares: "I am a man more sinned against than sinning!"  There the author is asking another great question; he invites us to judge a king. Where could a mere commoner in those days have done this? There it is, the very lynch pin of the downfall of Lear, the tragedy unfolding due to his egotism. How many other men of power have succumbed to this worthless inner desire and made such poor judgement? Do we see echoes of Nebuchadnezzar eating grass? Poetry and plays can explore a simple or complex truth so much more easily than history books, for who knows the real truth in history? In a simple phrase, we can understand a strength or failing, a loss or gain, the deep despair caused by the darkness in humanity or the almost indescribable joy of love, that wonderful gift that humanity can share.

What though of things that we communicate beyond our comprehension? What then? How do we express ourselves? Sometimes we hear a hymn or read a passage and know it has conveyed more to us then the words would be expected to present through critical examination.

I find inspiration in many hymns; one in particular portrays to me what it is to have Christian faith: Wesley's ‘And Can It Be’. It is a portrayal of salvation. The very opening line is written so you know there is more, more in abundance. Wesley starts with a conjunction, something which in my school generation would not have been tolerated, yet there it is. Is it just poetic use of language for dramatic effect? Is it that Wesley had little time for the rules of English grammar? I believe the author uses it as a conjunction joining two phrases, the first of which is unwritten. I believe Wesley experienced something beyond his use of the English language, a relationship with the true and living God, an aspect of his existence beyond even his words, his conveyance of praise in which we can share. It is there, centuries later, implicit, to help us consider our relationship with our Saviour.


So what about when your experience is beyond your command of language or even language itself; and yet you know you have an irresistible urge to utter it?

Recently I was invited by a pastor to attend a service at his church, which I did. Something happened that day; I knew it was where I should be. I knew what the sermon was to be on, as he and I had enjoyed a great time of fellowship earlier in the week, when he told me of the passage he was to preach on and the message he wanted to convey. It was Acts 2, a passage of empowerment, of receiving the supernatural, of being commissioned by God, and the signs that it has happened.

When I was baptised a great friend of mine, baptised on the same day, gave his testimony. Part of it was a story of a man who falls from a path to certain death, but grabs hold of a tree branch and hangs on. He shouts for help, for someone to save him. He hears an answer: I can save you, but you have to let go of the tree.

What do we have to let go of, for us to walk with God?  Do we even sometimes have to let go of our speech, casting aside the control we have, the constructs, that which we were learning even in the womb, the rhythm and intonations of our parents’ voices?  For us to experience communication with our Lord and Saviour in its fullest, should our words come from us, or should we experience something that surpasses our own language?

If we are not cessationists, then our belief as Christians is that when our words fail, we can be empowered to communicate in language which is not learnt, but is a gift from God, without constraint, but with His limitless wisdom.

Maybe when we let go, we receive far more than we could ever contemplate or reason. Maybe we can speak a language that once was spoken when man's nations were not yet formed, and God and man conversed freely.

Ian Turnbull

Brighton, East Sussex

UK

December 14, 2012

Written with some help from across the Atlantic, from a nation sharing a common language - well almost.

The Language of Integrity

The 2012 Presidential election is two months away, and I've had a few sleep-depriving concerns on my mind for some time now. I've read one article after another from both sides of the aisle about the current issues--jobs, economy, debt, health care, women's reproductive rights, to name a few.  In terms of literacy--truly conscious, illuminating lambent literacy--words that express the facts have taken on a life of their own as they are manipulated by the candidates who use only a paper thin disguise in their reconfiguration of the truth.  So the questions are many: Who's really telling the truth?  Do the candidates have a moral obligation to use language that comes as close to honesty as possible?

Does omitting strategic words, phrases, and sentences really fool anyone? 

Apparently it does, but if it doesn't and we can see through the disguise,  then why is this race so close if we know the truth?

Is it because when the greater American public struggles to make ends meet or get a job or pay for education, all they can think about is a candidate who promises to get America out of debt, not really understanding the difference between personal debt and national debt? 

Probably. 

The problem with that response is this:  At what cost to the well being of American families would a plan that derails critical social needs have if implemented?

Do we really want to experience it to discover the answer?

How interesting it is that candidates seem to use just the right words to spear the hearts and souls of Americans.

And is it Americans in particular who succumb to such rhetoric, and if so, why?

Simple, sort of.  It's our heritage.  The American free enterprise system and the American dream are instilled in us at an early age so that we grow up thinking bigger car, bigger house, bigger toys, and big expensive colleges that leave students with bigger debt.  We just can't seem to get enough of a  big thing.  Have a perfectly good cell phone?  Leave it in the taxi or drop it in your drink so you can get a more technologically savvy one, and that's only a fairly harmless example. It's all about keeping up with the Joneses, right?  Why, in Texas, people think bigger is always better.

Words--and images--are partly to blame.  We read or watch the ads, which are eloquently convincing in their word choice, and we believe in their meaning, almost without question.

But some facts have been obvious for some time, from sources that we have come to rely upon.

The United States is the wealthiest nation on earth with respect to its resources--by far. No other nation on the planet comes even close to having the wealth of resources we have.  This is the only nation that could be entirely self-sufficient.

Why is it then that other nations in the developed world have completely outstripped us in providing health care for practically all of their citizens, at a cost less than half of ours per capita?

When it comes to life expectancy, the U.S. ranks 50th, according to the CIA World Factbook ( https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html).  So when the U.S. should be first in the ranking for longevity and the lowest in cost per capita--after all, we have the most efficient capitalistic system, right?--the rankings are the other way around. Frankly, it's shameful and downright embarrassing.

Now we are being told by politicians to expect savage cuts in our spending on health care.  Why would we risk falling even farther behind?

What we are not being told, and we do have a right to expect an explanation, is why our health care availability is going to decrease when every other nations' markers of efficiency go up as their costs come down.

If we look at where we are in relation to other English speaking countries, the fact is we don't compare.  Where's the logic in that?

The next elected President needs to tell us--with words of integrity--why this is so and what his administration is going to do about it.  Why will the new measures make the U.S. even more deficient in the actual delivery of affordable health care, and why are seniors going to have to dig deeper in their pockets at a time when their lives need security more than ever?

I keep hoping to prove Plato wrong when he says the just and the unjust will go down the same path if they believe they can get away with "it," whatever that infraction might be. In the case of the current political campaign, the vehicle taking us down the path is words, words that fall dangerously short of creating the ethos we need to build a strong foundation of trust in government.

Yet so often we are subjected to the sophistry that taboos words like "socialized medicine," words whose primary purpose is to shut down rational discussion of an issue that could change the state of this nation as much as eliminating the debt.  The rationale is unclear, but when people refuse to discuss an issue, the cause is usually fear.

The reality is, if we were allowed to look further, we would find a system of medicine that works hand in hand with free enterprise.  Those who need basic medical care could obtain it, while those who wish to buy private health insurance at more cost-effective rates could supplement the basic medical care available to them under the so-called "socialized" medicine.

Meeting the basic needs of Americans, paid for by taxes, is actually not a new concept to us.  We've willingly supported this system for years--the armed services, education, fire and police departments, city planning, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security--and they have not only worked successfully to one degree or another for many years, but people have also come to depend on them for quality of life. 

In every family emergencies occur and must be dealt with immediately in order for them to return to a normal existence. Individuals cannot pay for these necessities privately, and suddenly depriving people of such significant services would in a short time change their lives in the most harmful way.  The cost must be spread out across the whole system in order for it to work with any level of efficiency. When a country's basic needs are provided for systematically without complication, the standard of living for the whole nation improves . If we foolishly reject this idea, it will be because we can't get past the prejudice behind the illusions of language.

As comfortable as it might be in the short term, sitting in a cave mistaking illusions for reality keeps us in chains.  It is only when we exit the cave and look at the sun and name things for what they truly are that we become free to grow as a healthy society.

Why Should We Lament Changes in Our Language?

Tom Chivers, the assistant comment editor for the Telegraph Online, offered a post titled “A lament for the death of the English language” on August 10^th, 2012.  A tongue-in-cheek interpretation of an ongoing controversy regarding slang and the substandard language that changes every generation, it has often been a delight to pedants over the centuries. I invited Patrick O’Connor, who knows about things British, to respond.  Here’s what he said:

Why couldn’t Shakespeare’s King Lear have simply referred to clothes as being badly torn instead of all that stuff about “loop’d and window’d raggedness”?  Sometimes even the best of English speakers will have to go beyond mere “hyperbole for the sake of effect.”

What may be regarded as sheer bad English by many may be the only way to deliver the last blow and finish the matter in hand.  “Well, I just ain’t, and that’s it.” Now, that would most likely get through when all else had failed.

What about the most celebrated split infinitive of all time, “to boldly go.” There is no better way to convey the feeling in that statement than that.  The nonsense about the split infinitive arose in the thirteenth century and has been a plague ever since.

When George Formby sang, “I was standing on the corner of the street…,” was he being stood-up?  How easy it is to slide from stood-up to stood.

I think I was understanding when I saw the problem with I was stood, but I believe that, in my explanation, I was understood.

I suppose that gotten in American English is a consequence of ill-gotten gains, and not through ill-got gains.

The meaning of sex has now become so explicit, and the way it is constantly used by the media, that gender on a form does remove the temptation to write, “Yes, please.”

It can be posited that, once a good command of the English language is established, to bend it and extend it is to considerably enhance the power of expression.

Shakespeare did it all the time.  Lesser folks will do so likewise in order to amplify the sound of a message.

Why, putting sex on a form instead of gender, I can tell you I am just plain ag’in’ it.  What in tarnation is wrong with that?

If we are going to stick to the rules at all times, there will be no change and hence no progress.  There has to be tolerance for error.  However, once an error becomes fossilized, it may come to be viewed as acceptable, or it can be ultimately discarded.

It may well be that a new way of expressing some situation or mood may be because the old doesn’t exactly fit what the speaker feels:  he doesn’t want “to go boldly;” he wants “to boldly go.”  The former doesn’t convey the forceful emotion nearly as strongly as the latter.

If I wanted to show someone that I was put out by my place in a seating arrangement, I would say, “I was sat in the corner.”  The listener would pick up my negative emotion, I hope, whereas I was sitting is blander.

It appears that, whenever a rule is transgressed, the speaker is attempting to express a stronger emotion that the strict interpretation of the rules would allow—either consciously or unconsciously.

One gets the feeling that the stickler for the rules is rather like the Puritan who was against bear-baiting, not because of any suffering caused to the bear, but because of the pleasure it gave to the spectators.

Are the sticklers really so concerned about the damage done to the language, or rather more about the way that what they prefer to perceive as ignorance, has just succeeded in conveying the underlying emotion, albeit in an “incorrect” form? You have to be able to play with language and traverse beyond the boundaries of the norm.  Sometimes the language isn’t big enough to contain the range of human ideas and emotions.

“I ain’t gonna add no more. Nuff said.”

The 2012 Olympics and the NHS: Pride and Prejudice

A dear longtime friend and I recently had a clash of ideas.  She described the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics in London as being “hideous…disjointed…amateurish…some Mickey Mouse production.”  She later added that the ceremonies were like watching an ant farm in her living room and that political statements about healthcare have no business being part of the Olympics. Such accusations reveal a cultural milieu where literacy and its concomitant partners, effective communication and mutual understanding, have gone awry.  Naturally, the only thing to do is to shed some British light on this American misunderstanding.

The last time that England hosted the Olympic Games was in 1948.  In that year, the National Health Service was officially started, against considerable opposition and at a time when the country experienced severe financial difficulties as a consequence of WWII. 

It is now acknowledged by all informed people in Great Britain that the NHS has turned out to be an outstanding success, by any measure, which is in part demonstrated by the fact that only eight per cent of the population take out private medical insurance, despite its offering a fully comprehensive range of services.

I have observed that it has been UK government policy never to preach to others on its National Health scheme.  If individuals do so, including the media, it is entirely on their own back.

The British Commonwealth comprises 54 nations, with a total population of roughly two billion people.  This entirely voluntary membership has a primary basis in cultural exchanges—nothing more.

It was decided by the organizers of the Olympics 2012 that the NHS should be saluted as the cultural success that it is, and this could be appreciated by the two billion Commonwealth people, a huge  audience by any standard of measure.  While there are considerable exchanges of cultural ideas within this Commonwealth, outside of it Great Britain would certainly not use the Games to provide any sort of message, nor would the organizers be particularly interested in doing so, as evidenced by what was theatre playtime with Mary Poppins.  The organizers, however, did want to move away from “bigger and bigger,” and stated explicitly that the cauldron was not to be bigger than the Beijing cauldron, although they could have easily done this.  Instead, a demonstration of engineering ingenuity was substituted.

If you want big, well there is the largest McDonalds in the world currently at the Olympic site.

The parachuting in of the “Queen” was a deliberate move away from pomposity.

Great Britain today is an extremely rich society with what it has to offer in cultural values, which it is prepared to share with its other 53 Commonwealth countries, but only on mutual agreement.

The days of imperialism have long since gone, and with it any desire to give any other country a message on how they should conduct their affairs in peacetime.  Anyone who takes such an interpretive view might want to consider the reasons for his or her own emotional response to the issue of healthcare.

As they say in England, “Sorry you’ve been troubled.”

It was announced today in the Express, Sunday, July 29, 2012, that the Olympic crowd for men’s cycling was the largest of any sporting event ever held in the world up until now.  The organization required for this alone in a major international city is enormous.  Mickey would have been delighted, if not overwhelmed, by such a compliment.

By the way, in the event that some might believe that I am biased toward the English, please know that  this blog has been written by an American with French roots beginning in Louisiana in 1720, English and Irish roots in 1820, and my last roots, German, by 1850.  I’d like to claim, therefore, that the very spirit of independence is expressed in my views.

Are You Ready for the Shakespeare Festival?

Monday, April 23rd was St. George's Day and more importantly, depending on where you stand of course, Shakespeare's Birthday.  My students and I celebrated in a big way--Twelfth cake and wassail, early music brought to us live by Renaissance music scholars, Elizabethan circle dancing, and of course performances of sonnets and famous monologues.  Culture reigned supreme yesterday.

Why?  Because after more than four hundred years later, the man we call Shakespeare still does it better than anyone else.  If you have never seen a Shakespeare play, or if after four years of Shakespeare in high school you still really don't get him, read on.  I can help.

My first piece of advice is one that I've used on middle school students for years.  Get to know and love (okay, like) one play really well.  Here's the thing.  Shakespeare uses a number of the same expressions in many of his plays--the archaic language that we no longer use today--over and over, and becoming accustomed to them in one play will make listening to the others a bit more familiar.  Let me recommend Twelfth Night, written toward the middle of his career in 1599.   Many scholars consider this play to be one of his best comedies, as did Hollywood, which borrowed the story and used it as the basis of its successful teen comedy She's the Man.

The Trevor Nunn film version of Twelfth Night, set in nineteenth century England, is the best one to start with because of its brilliant cast and scenery, but before you watch it, read the plot summary first. Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare is a quick and easy read, but a myriad of notes and summaries exist in bookstores and in online resources.  Knowing the plot allows you to concentrate on the language.

There is so much more that can prepare you to attend any Shakespeare Festival, but it's too detailed for a blogpost.  If you finally want to understand the plays you'll be attending at your nearest Shakespeare Festival--or even in your classroom--and if you really want to raise your literacy and enjoy the world's greatest writer, if you want to laugh and cry and empathize as never before, if you want to know you are not alone in your joy or your suffering, go to my website now!  Here it is:  http://www.readwritevolution.com/Reading/shakespeare.html

Which is correct--I or me?

Maybe incorrect grammar doesn't bother you--possibly because you're not a grammar Nazi or even a grammar geek--but in an age of  rapid digital communication, social media, online articles, books, and other reading material, you seriously need to reconsider correct form. 

Reason number one concerns time.  You have so little of it when it comes to making an impression online.  What you write is all that people will really see, except maybe a photo, which could be you long ago or even not you at all.  If you want to reach people and keep them reading, make the best impression possible.  Correct grammar and usage of language can help to accomplish this.

Reason number two has everything to do with your own literacy.  Success sometimes happens to lucky people.  I, however, do not believe in luck.  Successful people work hard to become the people they want to be, and so they actively engage in self-improvement.  They take classes, they join Toastmasters, they read everything they can get their hands on, and they don't quit.  They don't settle for almost-good-enough.

Many adults laugh off their inability to write or to use the language with skill and confidence, but actually they regret not gaining the necessary tools to become a more articulate writer and speaker.  That's where this little piece of advice can help. Listen up.

My motto is "Little by little does the trick," so I'm offering an important piece of grammar usage that can make you sound incredibly literate immediately.

Let's get these two pronouns straight once and for all:  I and me.
When do you use I and when do you use me?

Thinking this is perfectly correct, the average person might say, "As for my husband and I, we would choose the west coast again any time for a great vacation."  So what's wrong with that?  ANY time you want a pronoun for an object--and it seems objects of prepositions cause the most trouble--you have to choose the word me.  What's a preposition?  Words like to, for, about, by, of, around, against.  And a noun or pronoun follows it:  to the store (to it), for my daughter (for her), and so on.

The thing is, you probably wouldn't say, "Give it to I," or " This article was written by I."  What causes us grief is the fact that another person has been added to the mix.  For example, you might say, "They gave the award to Jane and I," or "This article was written by Sam and I."  Don't say it!  Just remember, if the word I follows a preposition such as the ones I've suggested, it's incorrect.  Use the word me instead.  Correct usage would be, "They gave the award to Jane and me," and "This article was written by Sam and me."

Using the correct pronouns I and me is just the beginning of lambent literacy.  As the foundation of our ability to communicate clearly and articulately--and yes, even eloquently--with others, our language is the most important tool we have.  I challenge you to work to improve it every day. I'll be back with some more tips soon.  Stay tuned.

Top Ten Actions of Literacy Lovers

Having focused on literacy most of my life, right alongside the privileges and obligations of family life, I’ve finally decided that literate people have more in common with each other than the obvious ability to read and write.  Their thought patterns appear to derive from the cerebrum far more often than the cerebellum.  And you say, huh?  What’s that? 

That’s right.  I maintain that lovers of literacy think more often from their cerebrum where creative and constructive thought processes begin, not from that old brain cerebellum where its rigid, primitive, restricted, mindlessly automatic and programmed responses occur. 

Yes, we have and need both operations in order to reason and create consciously as well as think quickly and perform repetitive actions.  Our collective problem here is too often we allow the quick and repetitive cerebellum to take control over too many critical decisions.

Without getting political, I’ll let you read between the lines at any point.  Below is what I consider to be the top ten actions of literacy lovers, now referred to as LL:

#1  LL get in touch with nature whenever they can. Some people I know have gardens with compost heaps and wash lines.  Some live in Colorado and post their hiking photos every week on FB.

#2  LL consider eating sacred.  Preparing food for others is even more sacred.  They use pure organic foods whenever possible and seldom leave their bodies to chance.

#3  LL meditate, love quiet time, pray, and make a serious effort to relax.

#4  LL connect with animals.  Some even spend big bucks on life saving surgery for pets. And one couple I know began feeding the voles that crawled under the back fence for the bird seed scattered on the ground and built a little fence to protect them from feral cats.  That is, until they began feeding the homeless cats.

#5  LL regard their body as the temple of God and take special care of the precious gift of life.

#6  LL look at cash as an enabler, a means to an end and not the end itself, especially if they can spread it around.

#7  LL help others and have a serious concern for the welfare of all people, especially hungry children.

#8  LL create art, music, literature and if they can’t, they surround themselves with the art, music and literature of others.

#9  LL love the feel and smell of books even though they’re intrigued with technology.

#10 LL constantly work to improve their writing, speaking, and listening skills in order to communicate more effectively with people.  They aren’t afraid of hearing ideas different from their own and appreciate learning about the “other.”

We are often fooled into thinking very basically.  The unfortunate effects of that kind of thinking can lead us to cold dogmatism and automatic rule following that strip us of our power, not to mention creativity.  My friends, it’s a vicious cycle.  We must love our literacy enough to let it permeate our lives, for the end result will be freedom, security, and harmony with men, women, and children, and with God and the natural world.

Speaking: Literacy Made Public

Speaking in public, according to many people, is often considered to be an event filled with dread, maybe even fear. If you are one of those people, I’d like you to think about the times you are called on to speak in a slightly different, more positive way if you can.  Try to remember a time when you accomplished a feat that resulted in a feeling of relief and gratitude if not pride.  Well, delivering a speech articulately, even to one person, can engender that same feeling of euphoria, not to mention a possible successful response from your listeners.

            Having worked on public speaking with young people for many years, I believe unequivocally that confidence is the key to speech communication, and it is achievable by following some important tips.  Notice I didn’t say easy tips, but anything worth doing is worth doing well, especially if it contributes to your literacy, and the effort is well worth the end result.

            Tip #1

            Be prepared with the information you want to deliver.  It is the single most important piece of advice I can offer.  Whether you are speaking to your boss, giving a wedding toast, reporting information in a presentation, or delivering a speech in front of the masses, know and plan carefully what you want to say.  I don’t mean you simply need to memorize your speech, although that helps.  I’m talking about the written draft in which you have already taken into consideration the following:

·         who your audience is (crucial),

·          the purpose and tone of the speech—the occasion, and

·          the techniques and information you have included that will hold the audience’s attention (See Dance of Language for rhetorical devices.)

Tip #2

            Eye contact: Know the content of your speech well enough to take your eyes away from your notes frequently.  This eye contact with your audience keeps the listeners engaged.  Symbolically, the eyes are the windows to the soul; therefore, when you look into the eyes of other people, you are creating a momentary bond with them, and there is power in such an act. Make your audience believe you are interested in what they think; the truth is, you are. If you are addressing a large audience, span the group with your eyes as you speak; don’t single out and engage only a certain few in the group.

            Tip #3

            Poise reveals body language which speaks volumes about your self confidence.  Several techniques can conceal your nervousness.

·         Put your weight slightly forward on the balls of your feet.  That tiny shift in weight can prevent your legs from shaking.  Don’t lean forward so much that you lose your balance.

·         Plant your feet solidly on the floor with comfortable space between your feet.  Unless you plan to walk around, leave your feet there to avoid nervous movement of your legs.

·         Rest your hands on the speaker’s stand if there is one, or by your side.  Don’t put your hands in your pockets or play with your clothes, jewelry, or glasses.  Do not touch  your hair.  Nervousness is a natural feeling, but your audience doesn’t need to be reminded of your emotional state; encourage them to focus on what you have to say.

·         Gesture and move for a reason.  Do not feel compelled to do so unless these moves actually contribute to the effectiveness of the delivery of your speech.

Tip #4

            Volume and clarity: Speak from your diaphragm, not your chest; you’ll have more air to push that sound through your vocal chords.  After all, if your listeners can’t hear you, they won’t pay attention to you. End of story.  Although volume is essential, clarity of your spoken words is, too.  Enunciate clearly; pronounce each word from beginning to end.  In informal situations, many of us speak quickly and drop the final consonant sounds so that some of our words become garbled.  You might imagine that you are speaking in a strange way by slowly pronouncing each word very distinctly, but to your listener, your speech simply sounds clear and easy to understand.

            Tip #5

            Speak at an even pace, not too fast, not too slowly.  Remember that the pause can be a valuable tool.  Pausing allows the listener to absorb your points as well as recognize the delineation between points.  A pause acts as a separation between points, ideas, or any individual segment of your speech.

            Tip #6

            Practice a number of times several days in advance of the appointed time if possible.  If not, practice as often as you can before the delivery.  Even a short speech or a one-on-one with the boss needs some kind of rehearsal simply because the brain will remember the drill when you have to present the actual speech. There is something daunting about first times, and your brain will be tricked into thinking you’ve done it before. Some of your nervousness will dissipate with this previously visualized experience.

            Tip #7

            Dress for the part as if you were in a play. Okay, let me explain.  Every speech, big or small, involves drama to an extent.  The part you are playing in this little drama is a person of sincerity, of confidence, of knowledge and expertise. The clothes you wear should be appropriate to the occasion, but my advice is to dress on the conservative side.  You want your audience to be attracted to your words, not your clothes.  Give your audience your best persona.  All of us humans have shortcomings, imperfections, and weaknesses, but in this theatrical event, the speaker plays the role of one who at that moment is asking the audience to believe in the strong, powerful, insightful, wise person in front of them. 

            Every year my students are required to write and deliver persuasive speeches to an audience of about three hundred.  After teaching them how to write a speech based on three classical appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos and a number of rhetorical devices that encourage persuasion, we work endlessly on physical delivery.  On the big day, after writing a good speech, memorizing it, and rehearsing it numerous times, the success these students experience is life altering.  Very few experiences in the classroom come close to this one for instilling confidence.  I hope you will find this same result when you apply some of these techniques.  After all, speaking is a major form of demonstrating lambent literacy. 

Literacy as Personal Choice

            The ethos of this blog is literacy, not a minimalist’s version of sitting on the bare edge of reading and writing but the radiance of written and spoken discourse that not only entertains and enables but also penetrates ignorance and sends it packing, a phrase, incidentally, coined by Shakespeare in Henry IV, Part 1.

            And so I’m going to be posing questions and ideas much like today’s concerns:  What is literacy’s import for the future?  How will not taking care of literacy for all people affect our future?  Will the decision not to support it in your own personal practice be like the butterfly effect in chaos theory? 

            So many questions must be answered.

            One of my favorite writers, Ray Bradbury, wrote a short story that is now the most widely published piece of science fiction ever.  “A Sound of Thunder,” published in 1952, is the story of a man called Eckels who enlists a time travel company to take him to the past for the sporting purpose of hunting and killing a tyrannosaurus rex, one that was going to die within minutes anyway so as to preserve the balance of nature in time.  In keeping with this caution and preventing any dangerous changes to the future, the directors of the expedition warn Eckels not to step off the path, but the terror of encountering the beast causes him to step off and crush a butterfly under his heel. Such a seemingly harmless event turns out to be anything but meaningless, as Eckels painfully comprehends when he returns to a future quite different from the one he left only a short time earlier.

            Will the choices we make about education engender devastating effects that we cannot live with in a harmonious way?   

            My focus here is literacy as a personal choice, the maintenance and effects of which are as serious as the butterfly under your heel.  As a parent and educator myself, I can attest—and so does the research—that literacy begins with an attitude toward learning.  It’s always about balance, isn’t it.  Children know instinctively that learning is enjoyable, desirable until balance is undermined.  Computer games, for example, offer practice in the area of thinking skills until an exorbitant amount of time and focus on them becomes a symptom of something destructive.  The choices we make today about our own literacy—that personal, harmonious growth that comes from more attention to our own reading, writing, speaking, listening, and thinking—affect much of who we will be and what we will accomplish tomorrow. My hope in this blog is that I can share with you some thoughts on developing personal growth toward lambent literacy and the special confidence that is gained only in that moment of brilliance that illumines knowledge and understanding.

Well, stay tuned for the next post.  I’m going to be discussing speaking as an effective method of communicating and overcoming stage fright.

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