WHILE THE KETTLE BOILS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 17, 20 October 1939, Page 15

WHILE THE KETTLE BOILS

Dear Friends, You all remember the old nursery rhyme-"Rings on her fingers, bells on her toes, she shall have music wherever she goes." Well, the lucky possessor of a good speaking voice will "always have music wherever she goes "’--and that music, like the Pied Piper’s, will woo everyone in her wake. We are apt to take our voices for granted, till one day someone speaks-and all at once we are conscious of beauty, of music that dwells magically in the spoken word. Of course, all of us are not blessed with that gift, but we can all do a lot towards improving our own voices if we will only take the time and trouble to go about it. A lovely speaking voice, you will notice, is-never high or shrill. It is always soft and well modulated. Each word is enunciated clearly and with faultless diction, yet not conspicuously so. Start by lowering the pitch of your voice, not just now and then, but often during the day. In quite a short time it will have become a habit. Once you have achieved this, concentrate on your pronunciation and the clearness of your enunciation. This takes more effort, but the result will be well worth while. Before you attempt a sentence, think of your pronunciation, and when you have spoken, examine the sentence in your own mind and see how many good marks you can award yourself. I once read that the Arabs, before any other race, place the highest value on the beauty of the spoken word. They delight in using the most exquisite form of expression, and are taught from infancy the music of words. A Bedouin mother will punish her children for making a grammatical error in speech. So deeply rooted is this instinct that each tribe used to employ its own poet. When they went forth to battle, the poet of each opposing tribe would step forth and, in poetical language, sing its. praises and bewail the shortcomings of the other. Before we leave the Bedouins, all good cooks and housewives will be interested in a bit of culinary gossip concerning them. When a Bedouin lass is married, the wedding feast includes a strange and wonderful dish-chiefly conspicuous for its gigantic size. This piece-de-resistance is nothing more or less than "roasted camel." When the camel is opened, two roasted sheep are found inside. Within the sheep lie several nicely browned chickens. Inside the chickens is a variety of fried fish, and within the fish-fried eggs! A truly monumental dish! Well, I have wandered a little from the subject. But a lovely speaking voice is closely allied to the art of conversation, although that is not always achieved by words. The first requisite of a good conversationalist is not ability to talk, but ability to listen. The good listeners of this world, unfortunately, are few and far between. I came across this ultra-modern description of a chatterer the other day which carries a masculine sting: "She slipped her brain into neutral and let her tongue idle on... ." *Nuff said! Yours cordially,

Cynthia