The Last Word

One of the primary instructions in Public Speaking 101 is pronouncing clearly the last few words of each sentence and not let them fade away. One newsman of the past excelled in this clarity, Edwin Newman. (He is a minor character as a newsman in Grisham’s film “Pelican Brief.”) But currently, this bit of learning seems not important enough for many making speeches or commenting on the news, to make the effort. Many persons on television are “fading away,” if I may put it that way, by forgetting to sound those last words as distinctly as the rest of the sentence. Some culprits are Bill O’Reilly, Barack Obama, and a “star” on our local PBS channel. This characteristic appears in the local man’s recorded DVDs.

Like penmanship in grade school, has public speaking disappeared from the high school curriculum? Not that these names listed belong to the younger generation; they don’t. Perhaps this is a subject O’Reilly should look into. ♠