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Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
8
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Articles In This Section:
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
1
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
2
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
3
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
4
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
5
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
6
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
7
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
8
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
9
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
10
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Unless a person has an uncommonly happy gift for storytelling, it is better to tell only pertinent anecdotes, when they arise out of the topic and illustrate it. Stories told that way, even if not particularly witty or clever, are nearly always welcome. It is said of Lincoln that his wit was used most frequently as an aid to clarify meaning. It is most desirable to have a range of anecdotes and stories fitting various topics. Easiest to tell and most welcome are those concerning well-known personages. Supposing the topic is, how hard it is to be honest and tactful at the same time. Here everybody would appreciate your saying at this point:
It seems one day Bernard Shaw faced this situation when Galsworthy had said to him something like this: "Mr. Shaw, if you keep writing the way you do, you will soon not have a friend in the world." To which challenge G. B. S. gallantly responded, "And, Mr. Galsworthy, if you keep writing the way you do, you will never make an enemy all your life."
This sort of anecdote, because it bears on the topic, is appreciated by people, even if they do not find it especially funny. If you tell stories that explain or illustrate the subject, you cannot easily go wrong. Even a story heard from you before is acceptable when it is used to bear upon a new situation.
It is when stories are told for their own sake, for the specific purpose of producing a laugh, that problems and dangers arise. If I have to choose between no jokes and jokes irrelevantly or irresponsibly breaking in on a serious conversation, I prefer no jokes. Jokes like that are a conversational nuisance. Almost as bad is a whole evening of jokes. It was probably such an evening that provoked a Saturday Evening Post "Postscripter" to write that the guest he had most enjoyed,
When the party was over and done
Was the fellow who knew a hundred jokes,
But couldn't remember one.
(Philip Lazarus, Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 24, 1945)
Jokes should be the pepper of conversation, not masquerade as the main dish. Furthermore I can force myself to laugh at an occasional dull joke, but in a whole evening of storytelling there are likely to be so many inept ones that my risibility cannot keep up to its duty. A half hour of joke telling is about the maximum.
Related terms include improve skill and improve speaking.
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