Conversation: What to Say and How to Say It

by Mary Greer Conklin

“Mrs. Conklin points out certain bad conversational habits and suggests good ones, quoting Buckle's classic classification of talkers into three orders of intelligence — those who talk about nothing but persons, those who talk about things and those who discuss ideas.” -Eleanor Roosevelt Does the mere thought of engaging in small talk strike fear into your heart? Do you ever steer clear of social events just so you'll be able to avoid the awkward silence that inevitably descends when you run out of chit-chat? If so, you need the comprehensive and straightforward advice that Mary Greer Conklin dispenses in What to Say and How to Say It. A must-read classic for shy or socially challenged readers. In this book Mrs. Conklin analyzes with sensible comment and sound logic the elements of good conversation. She not only points out bad conversational habits, but substitutes good ones in their place; and certainly consciousness of the pitfalls and niceties of conversation will enable talkers to reveal the best that is in them. INTRODUCTION WHAT CONVERSATION IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT DISCUSSION VERSUS CONTROVERSY GOSSIP WHAT SHOULD GUESTS TALK ABOUT AT DINNER? TALK OF HOST AND HOSTESS AT DINNER INTERRUPTION IN CONVERSATION POWER OF FITNESS, TACT, AND NICETY IN BUSINESS WORDS. CONCLUSION “Good conversation is more easily defined by what it is not than by what it is. To come to any conclusions on this subject, one should first What is the aim of conversation? Should the intention be to make intercourse with our fellows a free school in which to acquire information; should it be to disseminate knowledge; or should the object be to divert and to amuse? It might seem that any person with a good subject must talk well and be interesting. Alas! highly cultivated people are sometimes the most silent. Or, if they talk well, they are likely to talk too well to be good conversationalists, as did Coleridge and Macaulay, who talked long and hard about interesting subjects, but were nevertheless recorded as bores in conversation because they talked at people instead of talking with them. In society Browning was delightful in his talk. He would not discuss poetry, and was as communicative on the subject of a sandwich or the adventures of some woman's train at the last drawing-room as on more weighty subjects. Tho to some he may have seemed obscure in his art, all agreed that he was simple and natural in his discourse. Whatever he talked about, there could not be a moment's doubt as to his meaning. “Good conversation is the nimbleness of mind to take the chance word or the accidental subject and play upon it, and make it pass from guest to guest at dinner or in the drawing-room. It is the discussion of any topic whatever, from religion to the fashions, and the avoidance of any phase of any subject which might stir the irascible talker to controversy.” -The Author

84 pages, Paperback

Published November 12, 2015