These qualities
can be rapidly developed by daily reading aloud for ten minutes, giving
special attention to one quality at a time. A few weeks, assiduous
practice will produce most gratifying results. The voice grows through
use, and it grows precisely in the way it is habitually used.
Distinct articulation and correct pronunciation are indications of
cultivated speech. Pedantry should be avoided, but every aspirant to
correct speech should be a student of the dictionary. A writer has given
this good counsel:
"Resolve that you will never use an incorrect, an inelegant, or a vulgar
phrase or word, in any society whatever. If you are gifted with wit, you
will soon find that it is easy to give it far better point and force in
pure English than through any other medium, and that brilliant thoughts
make the deepest impressions when well worded. However great it may be,
the labor is never lost which earns for you the reputation of one who
habitually uses the language of a gentleman, or of a lady. It is
difficult for those who have not frequent opportunities for conversation
with well-educated people, to avoid using expressions which are not
current in society, although they may be of common occurrence in books.
As they are often learned from novels, it will be well for the reader to
remember that even in the best of such works dialogues are seldom
sustained in a tone which would not appear affected in ordinary life.
This fault in conversation is the most difficult of all to amend, and it
is unfortunately the one to which those who strive to express themselves
correctly are peculiarly liable.
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