!~ How To Be A Good Conversationalist ~!

Everybody talks, especially in general congenial surroundings, in the fostering care of company that gives encouragement. But mere talking is not conversation. Note of the professional talks, those of the teacher, the lawyer, the public speaker, the actor, the debtor, may be taken as a conversation perse. It would also be wrong to say that a good conversationalist holds his listener spell –bound and that as long as this person continues; nobody dares to disturb him bad so gives him wholehearted attention. A good conversationalist does not monopolies the conversation nor does he keep silent all the while. Conversation is a glow that warms without scalding. It is an almost imperceptible art whose effects are more felt than seen.

!~ Quality versus Quantity ~!

In using words, we have to be careful about their quality. If we do not do so, it will affect us and us alone. There will be no qualitative improvement in our speech, and , without this, we may soon find that though through practice we are able to talk smoothly and with ease and speed, our territory of language and expression becomes smaller and smaller till we become slaves to our own special manner of speaking. Once when such a defeat is formed, one becomes more and more shallow and one’s words lack depth or conviction.

• We all talk among friends, especially young people, who speak with their own kind of gusto and gesticulation. This is good only among friends or close associates. But if this is made a habit of, and the person concerned moves only in the same circle, his knowledge and conversation will become limited. If a person lets this habit grow unchecked, he may find his real faculties undeveloped and even eroded when confronted by others types or groups of person who are not his close friends.

• The main aim of good conversationalist should be to develop his power of speech in such a way that he can at once switch to whatever is required of him in any situation. If he has practiced only one way of talking, he may find himself tongue-tied when face to face with the jugglery of words that is common in many different type of conversation. Even the professor or the teacher will sound monotonous or stereotyped if he does not try to inject life into his teaching or if he does not study and keep abreast of the changes taking place in various branches of knowledge.

• To improve the quality of one’s conversation, one cannot let oneself fall into anyone pattern of speech. It is imperative for a person to vary his situation, or rather his company, as often as practicable. This does not mean that a man have to speak only a few words to one person and then move on to others or to another place and put in sort of practice will make him shallow because exchanging or civilities or greetings alone cannot fall under the category of true conversation.

!~ Conversation different from other talk ~!

Besides professional and official talk, there are various other types which do not fall within the purview of conversation. A person just returned from a foreign country often has everyone gathered around him to hear of his adventures and experience. Even the proud and haughty turn into mild and devoted listeners to deprive vicarious pleasure through this person who has just returned from abroad. This person will describes with elation this and that and relate all kinds of funny incidents and interesting stories before his audience. As long as these people are gathered together, these will be, in fact, no conversation because there is no give-and-take but only one-way traffic giving which cannot form the basis of true conversation.

• However such a situation may be turned into a conversation if this foreign returned person is questioned subtly by one who may, in the course of asking question, disclose some facts of foreign lands which he had gathered earlier, and thus turn it into an exchange and comparison of each other’s experience instead of only a one-sided flow of words. They both learn and enrich themselves and if there are also other intelligent person present who can substantiate the views of the two foreign return Eds.

• We have to keep in mind that a conversation has to sprout naturally without any preconceived idea or background. Hence party conversation art to be regarded as the best under the circumstances because if the parties are held frequently and the same person attend them quite often, it is hardly like that the set-up will be same every time or that a party – goer will meet the same people all the time. A person thus has the training, in party atmosphere, of getting verbally involved in many kinds of talk.

!~ Gossip ~!

Gossip is disliked in all circles. A gossip-monger gets a peculiar sensation and satisfaction in talking about others if we follow the ways of gossip, we shall also find that though they excel in giving some news or the details of happening concerning others, their greatest relish lies in vilifying the objects of their gossip. This vilification is done sometimes openly and crudely and sometimes subtly and with finesse, depending upon the intelligence and personality of the gossip-manner. So a gossip manner does not stop giving information but goes on to add his or her criticism and makes it suitably spicy by bringing out the wrongs and evils committed by the person or persons against whom his tongue is wagging.

Gossip is the worst form of conversation if one can call it that gossip’s vulgarity and obscenity of mind and the dormant evil qualities in him like malice envy and so on. What a person talks or how he or she talks while gossiping is immaterial because here the common purpose is the discrediting of a certain object or person, and  as long as this goes on unhindered , the whole process may be mistaken for conversation.

!~ Stories ~!

Instead of helping a conversation to grow and contribute to the mental satisfaction of the participants, stories kill the very incentive provided by a conversation in a group. Also, it has been observed that when one story starts, other stories follow and thus the gathering turns out to be a story-telling session, with the prospect of regular conversation receding into the background completely.

• Further, it is common experience that a person who relates a story is apt to realty another as soon as the first one is over and then another and another and so on without end. However, the chain may be broken by someone who may have something more interesting or real to tell and the company is then doomed to as further half-hour or so until ‘rescued’ by another person who starts the same torture in another way!

• Stories are of various kinds. In conversation, it may be sometimes necessary to narrate a story but the conscientious speaker will give only the gist of the story or its relevant portion to make his point clear. There are story-tellers who are very interesting and others who are just boring. Despite antagonism that one may feel towards the story lasts. If this kind is somewhat bearable, there is the other kind who stops or prolongs his words to see the effect on the listeners and holds back the climax till the latter are at the end of their patience. This can easily turn an evening chat into a veritable ordeal.