Elocution is something of a lost art. My first encounter with it as a concept was reading about the life of Alexander Graham Bell. While Bell is today remembered for the telephone, he was also an elocution instructor that took a keen interest in both the human voice and teaching the deaf to speak like someone who can hear. He could deliver a speech from a phonetic representation in such a way that it was persuasive to foreign speakers, without understanding the language he was using. This interest in the human voice is part of what eventually led him to create the telephone. Naturally then, we should expect Bell’s voice to represent a strong example of what the art of elocution can do for you. As fortune would have it, we do in fact have a recording of Bell’s voice to examine:
This seems to suggest that elocution is not a very worthwhile art, since Bell’s voice, pronunciation, etc., are all quite unimpressive. (Was that your point?)
After listening to that video, my best guess is that it’s purpose was to record him saying a bunch of numbers, with a pronunciation optimized to make it so that you can understand it when played back, and as such the pronunciation feels highly unnatural to me and probably doesn’t reflect his normal elocution skills.
I don’t really have a point beyond “this is a piece of evidence, I’m not entirely sure how to evaluate it because it’s such a distorted fragment of the past recorded in a very particular context”. This post was after all a request for evidence, so I don’t mind providing something interesting without having my own spin to put on it.
Elocution is something of a lost art. My first encounter with it as a concept was reading about the life of Alexander Graham Bell. While Bell is today remembered for the telephone, he was also an elocution instructor that took a keen interest in both the human voice and teaching the deaf to speak like someone who can hear. He could deliver a speech from a phonetic representation in such a way that it was persuasive to foreign speakers, without understanding the language he was using. This interest in the human voice is part of what eventually led him to create the telephone. Naturally then, we should expect Bell’s voice to represent a strong example of what the art of elocution can do for you. As fortune would have it, we do in fact have a recording of Bell’s voice to examine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZALUgxsnCOk
It’s distorted, but the inflection, tone, and general cadence can be made out. I’ll allow listeners to judge its qualities for themselves.
This seems to suggest that elocution is not a very worthwhile art, since Bell’s voice, pronunciation, etc., are all quite unimpressive. (Was that your point?)
After listening to that video, my best guess is that it’s purpose was to record him saying a bunch of numbers, with a pronunciation optimized to make it so that you can understand it when played back, and as such the pronunciation feels highly unnatural to me and probably doesn’t reflect his normal elocution skills.
This would be my counterargument to Said Achmiz’s comment if I were inclined to make one.
I don’t really have a point beyond “this is a piece of evidence, I’m not entirely sure how to evaluate it because it’s such a distorted fragment of the past recorded in a very particular context”. This post was after all a request for evidence, so I don’t mind providing something interesting without having my own spin to put on it.
I kind of want to learn elocution — any thoughts on how?
Toastmasters? Never tried them myself, but I get the impression that they aim to do pretty much the thing you’re looking for.