On Speech Making Reform by Mark Twain. Short summary

5 seconds

A humorous story about speakers. The author believes that successful «impromptu» speeches are the result of a week’s training. He describes other types of speakers.

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There is a breed of people who, like nothing else, let you make a speech. Many—and the author himself included—understand that this is a sin. The author has repeatedly vowed not to give more speeches. But each time he failed.

Then he gave himself a penalty. Okay, this speech is the last one he will give.

There are incorrigible orators. Their spirits are poisoned by applause, they crave glory. They can’t be saved. But it is possible to expose them. In fact, all these witty phrases, the logical construction of the speech — not an impromptu, but the result of painstaking desk work and a week of training in front of a mirror.

Such a speaker looks puzzled when the floor is given to him, stammers skillfully, as if searching for the necessary phrase, makes elaborate grammatical mistakes. But all this is done to make the audience believe it is impromptu.

Nothing corrects speakers like failure. Those who prepare an introduction in the hope that inspiration will «descend upon them» will be in for a fiasco.