PUBLIC SPEAKING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18742, 23 June 1924, Page 12

PUBLIC SPEAKING.

This is a question which is invariably asked by the inexperienced public speaker, who finds when . facing an audience that what to do with her hands is a real problem. The Frenchwoman invariably uses' her hands in talking, and so finds them a help, rather than a hindrance in public speaking, but the Englishwoman is usually a far less vivacious speaker, and seldom does this, although there are, of course, well-known exceptions.

If there is a table or a chair in front of the speaker one or: both hands may conveniently be placed on this. -Most women speakers—with the fear that they will appear ungainly in the way they hold their hands—find it best to finger a long chain or string of beads. :. Miss Margaret Bondfield, M.P., for example, wears a pair 9* gold-rimmed lorgnettes on a long gold chain, and when sh e is talking she is toying with them all the time and uses' them to emphasise her points. ■"■;... ' Another well-known woman speaker clasps her pendant while she is addressing an audience, and a certain woman Parliamentary candidate always puts the fingers . of each hand into hip pockets. There is no doubt that it is > best to do something in this way, as then ■ one is unconscious of the hands, and this I helps to attain freedom from self-con- ; sciousness which is so essential to good J public speaking. A ;"■ J