Imagining your audience naked (or in their underwear) is one piece of bad advice. But I just saw what may be the worst advice ever. In The Lancet there was a three-page article by E. N. Snowden on January 14, 1939 in the Notes Comments, and Abstracts section (pages 124 to 127) titled Self-Consciousness and Public Speaking. Then on February 11, 1939 (page 355) there was a comment on it by Claude Lillington (from the League of Red Cross Societies in Paris) as follows:
“Sir: The correspondence on this subject inspires me to remind your readers of an old tip for nervous, self-conscious public speakers. So simple. Just before you are due to speak, you touch the tip of your tongue with the glowing end of your cigarette. The reaction short-circuits the inhibitory impulses responsible for stammering and allied phenomena of a distressing character. And if you, an Englishman, are speaking in French, the burn may also give a lisping quality to your speech, infusing into it a note which your compatriots, if not your hosts, may interpret as Gallic.”
The cartoon man sticking out his tongue and cigarette both were adapted from images at Wikimedia Commons.
No comments:
Post a Comment