Chapter 35 Use words that create a picture-like image

The technique I am referring to is the use of words that form a picture-like vivid image.The speaker who makes the audience feel at ease is the one who best shapes the scene that emerges before your eyes. Harnessing the audience's attention is an extremely important skill for a speaker, yet it is also one of the most overlooked.Ordinary speakers don't seem to notice its existence, and I'm afraid they have never felt it or thought of it.The technique I am referring to is the use of words that form a picture-like vivid image.The speaker who makes the audience feel at ease is the one who best shapes the scene that emerges before your eyes.A speaker who uses vague, tedious, colorless language will only make the audience sleepy.

scene!scene!scene!They are free like the air you breathe!And embellish them in your speech, and you will be more entertaining and influential. Here's an example: Suppose you want to show that Niagara Falls wastes a staggering amount of potential energy every day.But you just said this roughly, and then said that if these energies can be used, more people will be fed and clothed.Is such a story interesting?no fun.We quoted Edwin Slowson's report on this matter in the "Daily Science News Bulletin" and compared it. Isn't his story much more exciting? "We know that there are millions of poor people in the United States who don't have enough to eat and don't have enough clothes to wear. Yet here in Niagara Falls, an average of 250,000 loaves of bread are wasted an hour. We can imagine that 600,000 loaves an hour Fresh eggs are dropped from a cliff and made into a large omelet in a whirlpool. If calico is continually being woven from a loom as wide as the Niagara River 1300 meters wide, it means that there are equal numbers of Cloth is wasted. If the Carnegie Library were placed under a waterfall, the whole library could be filled with good books in about an hour or two. Or, we can imagine a large department store going from Float down upper Lake Erie and wash its wares onto rocks 50 meters below. It would be a very interesting and spectacular spectacle, and would be as attractive as Niagara's current waterfalls, and it would cost no more maintenance. Some may object, however, on the grounds of waste, as some currently object to the utilization of the energy of a waterfall."

Look at the pictorial words and sentences in it, "250,000 loaves of bread, 600,000 fresh eggs rolling down the cliff, large egg rolls in the vortex, floral cloth running out of a 1,300-meter-wide loom, Carnegie Libraries are placed under fountains, books, a large floating department store is washed down; rocks below, waterfalls".There are as many of them jumping and running in every sentence as there are hares on the Australian prairie. It is almost as difficult to ignore such a speech or article as it is to deny yourself a movie that is playing on the screen in a movie theater. Herbert Spencer has long pointed out in his famous essay "The Philosophy of Style" that good words can evoke vivid pictures in the reader:

We do not think in general, but in particular.We should try to avoid writing sentences like this: If the national character, customs, and entertainments of a country are cruel and barbaric, then their punishment must be severe. We should rewrite it as follows: "If the common people of a nation love war, bullfighting, and the enjoyment of slaves in open combat, their punishments will include hanging, burning, and torture." The Bible and Shakespeare are also full of words that can render pictures, almost as many as bees near the juice factory.If an ordinary writer says that something is superfluous, he is trying to improve something that is already perfect.What would Shakespeare say?He wrote immortal pictorial words: "Gild the refined gold, paint the lilies, and sprinkle perfume on the violets."

Have you noticed that the proverbs passed down from generation to generation are almost all words with visual images. "A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush." ​​"If it doesn't rain, it will rain cats and dogs." "You can lead a horse to the water, but you can't make it drink." And so on.It's not hard to find the same pictorial effect in the centuries-old and widely used tropes: "Sly as a fox." "Stiff as a doornail." "Flat as a pancake." "Hard as a Like a rock."  … Lincoln also consistently used visual language to speak.When he was tired of the long, complicated official reports that arrived on his White House desk every day, he said, "When I send a guy out to buy a horse, I don't want the guy to tell me about the horse. How many hairs does the tail have. I just want to know what kind of features it has."He wouldn't express it in that plain sentence.

We should focus our eyes on those things with clear and unique images, and use words to describe the inner scene, making it prominent, prominent, and distinct, like the long shadow of a deer's head and horns reflected in the afterglow of the setting sun.For example, when we hear the word "dog," we conjure up more or less a specific image of it—perhaps a short-legged, long-haired beagle with large, drooping ears; a Scottish terrier; a Saint Bernard, Or a Pomeranian; and so on.But if the speaker says "cattle dog" (note: a short-haired, square-mouthed, brave, tenacious dog), the image that conjures up in your mind should be much more specific. Does "a brindle bulldog" conjure up a more vivid image than it did before?Isn't it more realistic to say "a black Shetland pony" than "a horse"? Doesn't "a white dwarf rooster with a broken leg" give a more concrete image than just the word "chicken"?

William Strunk, Jr. stated in his book "The Elements of Style": "Those who study the art of writing, if there is anything consistent in their views, then this point is: they think that the most important thing is to grab the reader's attention. The safest way to do this is to be specific, definite, and detailed. Some of the greatest writers, like Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, etc., were brilliant because they dealt with particular situations and narrated key details with great care. Words evoke images in the reader's mind." As in writing, so in speech. Years ago, I conducted an experiment with students in my "Successful Public Speaking" course: telling the truth.We made a rule that in every sentence, there must be a fact, a proper noun, a number, or a date.We achieved revolutionary success.Students use it as a game, pointing out to each other the faults of generalization.It didn't take long for them to stop speaking the language that only floats in obscurity over the heads of the audience, and they spoke the clear, lively language of ordinary people on the street.

French philosopher Allan said: "Abstract style is always bad, and your sentences should be full of stones, metals, chairs, tables, animals, men and women." The same goes for everyday conversation.In fact, everything that has been said in this chapter about public speaking skills applies equally to everyday conversations.It's the details that make the conversation live and shine.Anyone who wishes to become a good communicator can gain much by keeping these counsels in mind.Salespeople use it, and they will also find its unique magic.Those who are in positions of authority, housewives and teachers, can also find themselves giving orders and imparting knowledge and information in a manner which becomes clear by using specific, practical details, and certainly with good effect.Let's look at an award-winning speech that exemplifies the use of some of these principles.

Chairman and friends: Over 140 years ago, this great nation -- the United States of America -- was born in Philadelphia, where I live.Therefore, a city with such a glorious history should have that strong American spirit that makes it not only the greatest industrial center in this country, but also the greatest and most beautiful city in the world. With a population of nearly 2 million, Philadelphia is the size of Milwaukee and Boston combined, or Paris and Berlin combined.And in our city's 209 square kilometers of land, we have provided nearly 53.36 hectares of good land to build beautiful parks, squares and boulevards, so that our citizens have appropriate leisure and entertainment places for everyone Just when the American people belong to their normal environment.

My friends, Philadelphia is not only a great, clean and beautiful city, but also a world-famous "world factory".It's called "The World's Factory" because we have 400,000 people employed in 9,200 factory enterprises that turn out $100,000 worth of product every 10 minutes of every working day.According to a well-known statistician, no city in the United States produces as much wood, leather, knitwear, textiles, felt hats, hardware, tools, batteries, iron-hulled ships, and more as Philadelphia. Many other items.We produce a locomotive every two hours, day or night.In our country, more than half the population rides on streetcars made in Philadelphia.We produce 1000 cigars per minute.Also, in the last year, our 115 hosiery factories have produced two pairs of socks for every man, woman and child in our country.We produce more rugs than England and Ireland combined.In fact, the amount of our commercial transactions is too large.The total transaction amount of our bank last year unexpectedly reached 37 billion U.S. dollars, which can repay all the wartime bonds issued by the United States in World War I.But, friends, as proud as we are of our great industrial progress, as proud as we are of being the greatest center of medicine, art, and education in this country, we are even more proud of this: the number of private homes in Philadelphia , far more than any metropolis in the world.In Philadelphia alone, there are 397,000 private homes.If you put these houses on an 8-meter-wide lot, one next to the other, in a row, you can line up all the way from Philadelphia to the Kansas City Convention Hall where we are now, and continue to Denver, The total length is 3027 kilometers.

Our families, our education system, our vast industry, born out of the true American spirit of our city, is a tradition left by our ancestors, so Philadelphia is not a fertile ground for a European monarchy.Philadelphia is the mother city of this great nation and the foundation of American freedom. This speech was given at the National Association of Realtors several years ago.It was selected from 27 speeches from other municipalities to win the first prize—even today, it still wins.The talk is perfectly structured, full of facts, and told clearly, vividly, and interestingly.And full of free spirit, going forward bravely, it is worth reading and researching. Let's analyze this speech.First look at the structure: first, it has a head and a tail.It's rare—more rare than you can imagine.It starts from one point and flies to the destination like a wild goose; it never wanders east and west, and never wastes time. This speech has a personality and a strong sense of freshness.The speaker begins by stating a feature of the city (a feature that no other speaker could have used to say about theirs): his city was the birthplace of an entire nation. He said his city was the largest and most beautiful city in the world.If it is just said like this, it is very common and old-fashioned, and it does not leave any impression on people.The speaker knows this, so to make it more specific, he uses something like this: "Philadelphia is the size of Milwaukee and Boston combined, or the size of Paris and Berlin combined." That's specific, specific, interesting, And surprisingly.It was a success, and it did more than a full page of statistics. He went on to declare that Philadelphia was "the factory of the world known to all."Sounds a bit exaggerated, doesn't it?And it's more like propaganda.Had he talked about it right away, probably no one would have believed him and paid no attention.Instead, he cites the products in which Philadelphia leads the world: "Woodwork, leatherwork, knitwear, textiles, felt hats, hardware, tools, batteries, iron-hulled boats." That way, it doesn't look like propaganda, does it? Next, talk about Philadelphia "No matter day or night, we produce a locomotive every two hours. In our country, more than half of the people ride on the trams made in Philadelphia." Hearing this, we must think like this: "Oh, how did I never know this thing. Maybe when I came here yesterday, I took the trolley built in Philadelphia. I will pay attention to it tomorrow, and the one in our town Where did the trams come from?" "Producing 1,000 cigars per minute...making two pairs of socks for every man, woman and child in our country." At this point we were even more impressed..."Perhaps my favorite cigar is from Philadelphia...and, these socks I'm wearing right now..." Let's see what the speaker does next.Did he go back to the original question about the size of Philadelphia and tell us some facts that he forgot at the time?No, he did not.Targeting is a small issue, and there is no need to go back and talk about it after talking about it.For this, I appreciate it very much.What could be more confusing and bewildering than a speaker who jumps from one question to another and then comes back to talk about it again like a bat scurrying through the night ?However, there are many speakers who do this. Instead of talking about problems in the order of one, two, three, four, five, they talk about various problems like a football captain calling signs: Twenty-seven, three Fourteen, nineteen, two.No, it's worse than this.The order in which he talked about the issues was this—twenty-seven, thirty-four, twenty-eight, nineteen, two, thirty-four, nineteen. Our speaker was following a predetermined direction, never loitering, never turning back, never turning, and never deviating, like those locomotives he himself mentioned. Even so, there was a slight flaw in the speech: he referred to Philadelphia as "the greatest center of medicine, art, and education in this country."But only limited to this, and then hastily talked about other things - just a short sentence, it is impossible to think that it can vividly describe, tell the truth, and want to root it in the minds of the audience.The human mind is not a tape recorder.It only took such a short time for this question, and it was so simple and unspecific. It felt that even he himself had no impression, so for the audience, it was almost equal to zero.What should he do?He understood that he could use the same technique that he had just explained about "Philadelphia is the factory of the world."But he also knew that during the speech contest, there were people with a stopwatch timing the time.He only had five minutes, not a second more.Therefore, he must ignore this point, or ignore other points. Let's see how he deepened the audience's impression that "Philadelphia has more private homes than any city in the world"?First, he lists the numbers: 397,000 buildings.Second, make it concrete: "If you put these houses on an 8-meter-wide lot, one next to the other, in a row, you can line up all the way from Philadelphia to the Kansas City Conference Hall where we are now, It will continue to line up to Denver, with a total length of 3027 kilometers." Maybe before he finished speaking, the audience had already forgotten the numbers he cited.But will the scene he describes be forgotten?That's almost impossible. Cold facts from sources are important.But eloquence does not spring from them.The speaker expects to create a climax, to touch the hearts of the audience, to touch their senses.So, when it comes to family issues, he uses emotional material.He praised Philadelphia as "the cornerstone of American liberty."free!It is a magic word, a word full of emotion, for which millions of lives have been sacrificed.The sentence is fine in itself, but the speaker makes it a thousand times better, citing historical events and documents to support his statement, which is very dear and sacred to his audience... "The city where the first American flag was made, where the first Congress of the United States met, where the Declaration of Independence was signed...the Liberty Bell...a sacred mission ...spread the American spirit, and keep the fire of liberty burning. Thus, in the grace of God, the administrations of Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt will be a revelation to all mankind." What a climax! The layout of this speech has many merits.But most admirable, structurally, if the speech is delivered with a calmness that lacks energy and vitality, it may fail and become worthless.But the attitude of this speaker is the same as that of writing this speech, with the most sincere emotion and enthusiasm.No wonder this speech won the first prize and won the "Chicago Cup".