© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete 2005 revised text of Building Yourself, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's guide to living the successful life.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
Building Yourself Table of Contents
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• Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact—it is silence which isolates. Thomas Mann (1875–1955)

Many of us speak English as a native language. But what we often don't realize is that English is many languages, spoken on many levels. As we'll see in later chapters, foreign languages are also important in a rapidly shrinking world. But English is more important. English is the richest language in the world. The English language boasts a larger vocabulary than any other language. It's spoken more widely than any other language. The body of literature written in English is the world's largest. From Will Shakespeare to Will Rogers, from John Milton to John Lennon, words in English have motivated and inspired people.

English is personal power; a broad command of the English language opens broad avenues to power.

In simpler times, there certainly were successful people who lived their entire lives without much command of the English language. It's not wise, however, to count on being able to work in today's complicated, modern world without full command of standard English as spoken by successful people of the upper middle class. This doesn't mean that you must adopt the values of the upper middle class; it does mean that you should develop a reasonably large vocabulary, know the basic rules of English grammar, and pronounce the language properly.

There is nothing wrong with speaking a dialect or using a heavy regional accent in the appropriate situations. People who reject their roots and work hard to speak precisely and clearly often go too far and end up sounding artificial. But people who fail to master standard spoken English will always struggle with clear communication.

The schools try mightily to teach language skills, and sometimes they succeed. There are many gifted, dedicated teachers who are superb communicators, but you cannot count on running into too many of these during your formal education. Earning a college degree doesn't mean that you can speak, but it does mean that you've been exposed to most of the raw materials of effective language: the words of great speakers and great writers.

The schools stop teaching you grammar some time in junior high school. They move on to the worthwhile study of literature. By this time you've learned some grammar but you're still a young person. You'll make the same grammatical mistakes over and over throughout high school and college unless, by chance, you run into someone brave enough to point out your errors to you. In truth, you can remedy all this in one evening, over a weekend at most, by doing a simple review of basic English grammar. You're older now and you won't have the trouble with grammar you might have had when you were ten.

Even more encouraging is that fact that certain common errors—perhaps ten or twenty of them which people repeat again and again—form the bulk of mis‑spoken English. Let's clear up one right now to show you how easy it is. Less vs. fewer; you use the word “less” when dealing with singular things that cannot be divided and “fewer” when dealing with more than one item. You get less sleep but have fewer dreams. They serve less food but fewer hamburgers. We need fewer critics and less criticism. There are dozens of books which clearly explain all these distinctions. Keep one by your bed.

It's true that vocabulary is more complicated than gram­mar; the sheer bulk of English vocabulary is awe-inspiring. But, for starters, get it out of your head that the possession of a large vocabulary is a sign of a snob or unpleasant show‑off. It all depends on how you use your vocabulary. The show‑off rarely succeeds. A large vocabulary allows you to be more precise if necessary, less, if necessary. If you have the ammu­nition, you can be as forceful and direct as the situation demands, or as toned‑down and diplomatic as you need to be. Those words are sitting there now like little puppies in a pet store, desperate to be adopted.

Many excellent vocabulary building books exist, but the best are those that take a holistic approach, building vocabu­lary by using groups of related words and explaining word meanings through the use of Greek, Latin and other roots. You learn the inside of the language that way.

Using more complicated vocabulary takes some practice. Once you learn a word, it's helpful to look it up in several dictionaries to see how it's used in actual sentences. Dictio­naries also have synonym lists which explain the subtle differences between words whose meanings are similar, though not identical.

Pronunciation of words is a more difficult subject than adding vocabulary or correcting grammar. If you have a strong regional accent, you might want to work on it, but you don't have to iron it out completely. You want to sound like an intelligent, well‑educated person, not like the stuck‑up product of too many speech classes. You want to be understood by most people who speak English, and not be pegged into a social class by your speech. If you go for speech improvement classes, make sure not to go overboard. If you have a speech defect, however, you should work as hard as you can to level it out as early in your life as possible.

Much of your thinking is done in language. Keep yourself sensitive to using language as a communications tool. Listen to good speakers whenever you can and speak up whenever you can. Unless you're in a critical situation, take the risk and use vocabulary you may not be sure of to see how well it works. A good language user knows when the more sophisti­cated words are appropriate, and when to use simpler language. It's a matter of judgment. Since you're motivated to succeed, eventually you'll have the right word for every occasion. It's all a matter of consistent, aware work.