| Adv Manual Humorously Speaking Adv Pj3 #3 - Make Them Laugh Time: 5 - 7 minutes Objectives: 1 Prepare a speech that opens and closes with humorous stories. 2 Include jokes in the speech body to illustrate points or maintain audience interest. 3 Deliver the jokes and stories smoothly and effectively. _________________________________________ Title of Speech "Trust the Maid! Don't Trust Me!" Once many years ago, I proposed to this wife, Rennae, �Will you do a joint application for an HDB flat?� I was waiting for her to say �Yes!� I am full of confident that she will say �Yes!� After all, it was seven years since I met her when she was nineteen. If she said �Yes�, it means we are ready to get married. Then two word came rushing towards me: �What for?� OK loh! Next Time! But I did not say that. It was my sister. �Yes! Yes! Yes!� She was so sweet and like an angel when she said those words. That was how I was engaged and subsequently married. For many years, it was a rather peaceful marriage. We had three kids, two girls and one boy. We love and trusted each other or so I thought. =============== Then five years ago, we employed our first maid, Yati. Then we had problems. Now fellow, I�m not talking about maid abuse I�m talking about a husband abuse. I�m not talking about been beaten up by her. I�m talking about psychological torture. Let me explain. When we chose the maid, she would pick the one with the best look. That�s what she said. And that�s her opinion. So when the maid finally arrived, she was surprised. She has the look. And you know who was happy. Not me! I am a teacher. I behaved myself. The maid was happy. Such a small house to look after. Many weeks past. Then one day my whole family decided to go to a movie. You know me, I don�t watch movie. So I said, �I will stay at home, you enjoy yourself�. My wife said �But the movie is a good movie. Let�s go� I said �It�s Ok, you go ahead� She said �I want you to go with me!� I said �But why, I will sleep in the theater� She said �Never mind, I pay for it� I said �Don�t waste money, I�ll stay at home� She said �OK. Everybody stayed at home then� My eighteen year daughter pulls me aside and said: �Dad, you better go, you are alone with Yati. Not good.� Oh! So she don�t trust me! Now ladies and gentlemen, with a maid at home, its real risky for the man in the house. Here�s TRUST __________________End _________________ "Laugh & Nobody Gets Hurt!" An educational session by Peter Francis Reviewed by Brian Cavanaugh, ATM-S, District 3's Fall 2000 Humorous Speech Contest winner Peter Francis is President of South Ashby Consulting, an Advanced Toastmaster - Silver (ATM-S) and a member of National Speakers Association (NSA) Toastmasters Club. Don't let these serious credentials fool you because Peter Francis is a very funny guy. On Saturday morning October 21, 2000, Peter Francis demonstrated his gift of humor by leading the first educational session at the District 3 Fall Conference in Tucson, Arizona. At the very beginning of the session, Peter made his purpose crystal clear by saying, "I'm not here to make you laugh. I'm here to make you funny." But make us laugh he did and as a bonus Peter gave us tips on how to use humor effectively. Before telling us the tools and tricks of the trade, Peter helped us to see the benefits of humor and why it is so important to incorporate humor into all rpesentations. Humor makes people feel good. Humor builds people up. Humor includes others and thus is a community builder. Humor breaks down walls and barriers and thus facilitates communication. Humor helps to release tension and make people feel comfortable. Peter shared with us his Do's and Don'ts of Humor. DON'Ts of Humor 1. Respect your audience. Don't force your humor on them. 2. Respect your audience. Don't step on your their laughter. 3. Respect your audience. Don't do long jokes. 4. Respect your audience. Don't do dialects if you don't do them well. 5. Respect your audience. Don't use sarcasm, put downs, or off color or offensive language. 6. Respect yourself. Don't step on your own lines. DOs of Humor 1. Carefully structure the humor of your speech. Humor is both and art and a craft. 2. Practice, practice, pray. Practice you timing. Humor is prepared impromptu communication. 3. Interact with the audience before your presentation. Meet the people beforehand, listen to their stories. Include your audience in your presentation but don't embarrass anyone. 4. Look for opportunities to stack you humor. Remember the Rule of 3. 5. Facial expression are important. Let the audience know you care for them through your face, your eyes, your smile. 6. Strive for richness in communication. Use descriptive words, colorful phrases, and vocal variety. 7. Use self-effacing humor. Laugh at something you are comfortable with about yourself. 8. Tell your own stories. Peter's Hot List 1. Record every speech you give. Then listen/watch the tape and give yourself a good evaluation. Look for what worked well and for what can be improved. 2. Find out what type of humor works best for you by practicing humor in all aspects of your life. Start small and work you way up. Start in your Toastmasters meeting. Put humor into your functionary descriptions, into your Table Topics, into your speeches. 3. Never give a speech that doesn't include some humor or a story. 4. Humor is planned spontaneity. Look for humor everywhere. Be a student of humor. 5. Always try to engage you audience by meeting the people before your presentation and try to include them in your presentation. Remember - respect your audience. 6. Tell stories that you like. Use humor that fits your personality. Remember - respect yourself. 7. Humor is a risk, but a risk worth taking. 8. Rehearse it until you own it. 9. Customize and revitalize old material. 10. Find a humor filter, someone whose opinion you respect. Try your humor out on them. Get honest feedback and act on the feedback. 11. Help people find a place of enjoyment and comfort. 12. End your presentation with a personal note. Put the audience first. Respect your audience. Throughout the session, Peter demonstrated his DOs and DON'Ts by including the audience in his presentation, stacking his humor, taking audience responses and creating funny twists, telling humorous stories about himself, his family, and his many Toastmaster friends. Peter definitely did make us laugh, but I can't say nobody got hurt. My sides are still aching from laughing so hard. Peter's educational session seemed much too short, because we were having so much fun. You can contact Peter Francis at [email protected]. _________________________________ Go for the Gold: Sure-Fire Ways to Win Your Next Humorous Speech Contest By Scott Roeben, CTM This article appeared in the March 2001 Toastmasters International magazine. The article appears here with the permission of the author, a member of Ernest Speakers. What�s keeping you from entering, and winning, a Toastmasters Humorous Speech contest? Not too long ago, I won my first Humorous Speech contest. More accurately, it was series of contests�in my club, area, division and district. Winning a Toastmasters contest is a truly remarkable feeling. Toastmasters provides an excellent environment for healthy competition�a unique chance to put into practice what we spend weeks and months learning in our regular Toastmasters meetings. The Humorous Speech contest is arguably the most challenging of all Toastmasters contests. Why? Primarily, it�s because the humorous speech requires that a speaker be funny on demand. And not just once, but over and over again�as the speaker progresses from the club contest, to the area, division and district. The successful humorous speaker exhibits all the qualities required of effective speakers, as well as the ability to tickle the funny bone�no small feat as any comedian can attest. There are a number of things I discovered on the path to winning my first Humorous Speech contest. These tips may serve as useful stepping stones for you if you�re considering entering a Humorous Speech contest near you. Do the Opposite All right, I admit it. I�m not the best speaker in the world. I have no idea what to do with my hands. I pace. I have a terrible memory. But I had a secret weapon in my recent contests that overcame those unfortunate shortcomings�a strong concept. Sure, we�re all striving to become compelling, engaging speakers. But it doesn�t hurt to have a distinctive concept to help carry the day. Keep in mind that in Toastmasters contests, each aspect of your speech is given a specific "weight" by the judges. The "Content" of your speech is 50% of your final score, "Delivery" is 30% and "Language" represents 20%. Given this, it�s clear that many contests are won and lost before the speaker ever arrives at the room on contest day. My speech was titled "The Dying Art of the Complaint." In it, I implored the audience to rejuvenate the practice of complaining which has been in decline in recent years, especially with all the rampant prosperity we�ve been experiencing of late. Obviously, the speech was delivered tongue-in-cheek. The key to the speech�s success was that I was saying exactly the opposite of what I really feel, in fact, what many people feel�that complaining diminishes our enjoyment of life. The humor came from speaking emphatically about something that was clearly ludicrous. "If things progress the way they have, there will be no complaining left," I proclaimed. "And that is simply not the kind of world I want to live in." When you�re developing the topic of your humorous speech, you might try "doing the opposite" of your first instinct. Give your speech an unpredictable twist. Want to give a speech on gun control? How about advocating that everyone have guns�even family pets? How about making an empassioned speech about eliminating taxes for the very rich? Or perhaps take the position that we should all watch more television. Humor will come out of the absurdity of your position. Presenting the position that�s the opposite of what you mean gets the audience engaged, and gives them something they didn�t expect. Surprise, after all, is one of the fundamental tenets of humor. Play It Straight A key aspect to giving a humorous speech is for the speaker to not be in on the joke. Think about times when you�ve heard a joke delivered by someone who laughs at their own joke. Just doesn�t seem as funny, does it? It�s the same with a humorous speech. The humor is for your audience, not you. Play it straight. In my speech, I spoke with utter conviction about the need for more complaining. "Complaining is the glue which holds us together as a society. It�s what separates us from the animals." My serious delivery stood in stark contrast to the silliness of the words being spoken, which elicited a tremendous response from the various audiences. If the tone of the speech had been too light-hearted, it�s doubtful it would have had the same impact. Stick to the Game Plan Any comedian could tell you about times when their material wasn�t received as well as expected. It�s the bane of a comedian�s existence. Like the comedian, the Toastmaster faces potential peril when competing in a Humorous Speech contest. You prepare for weeks, polishing your opening joke, you rise when your name is called, you begin your speech, the joke is delivered just as it was rehearsed�and nothing. Silence, even. Now, what? The most important thing about not getting the results you expect is to not get derailed. Stick to the game plan. Simply move on. (Or as they said in a recent ad campaign: "Never let them see you sweat.") And under no circumstances should you resent the audience for not responding the way you feel they should. Many a performer has made the mistake of commenting on how uptight an audience is, or how they just don�t "get it." Such comments only serve to antagonize the very same souls you�re trying to win over. There�s simply nothing worse than being part of an audience which is being berated by a speaker for not laughing in the right places. What frame of mind do you think that puts an audience in? Are they more likely to laugh at your next joke if you�ve ridiculed them and implied their "hammock doesn�t quite reach both trees"? Instead of getting defensive, just keep moving. If you�ve done the proper preparation, you�ll have a number of opportunities for the audience to come around. A clever way to safeguard against jokes falling flat is to not have any jokes in your speech. That�s right. Be Bill Cosby, not Rodney Dangerfield. The difference? Dangerfield�s style uses one or two liners. Set-up, punchline, set-up, punchline. Every joke has to be a winner. Too much pressure, if you ask me. But if you�ve ever seen Bill Cosby perform, he tells stories. Funny stories, but stories that do not rely on "jokes" per se. It takes the pressure off. There�s actually a popular theory in comedy circles, especially among sketch, play and sitcom writers, which puts forth that a joke should never be able to stand on its own as a joke. It should come so organically from the concept being delivered that it won�t hold up on its own. Personally, I wouldn�t dare give a humorous speech if I wasn�t sure I had a couple of sure-fire jokes sprinkled throughout, but it�s something to consider. Don�t Step on the Laughter Here�s a tricky one. Let�s assume all is going according to plan. The audience is with you. You throw out a line: "My car is a convertible. I call it that because when I turn the key, it converts into a piece of junk." The audience responds. There is a delicate balance struck between a humorous speaker and the audience. If you speak during the laughter, one of two things will happen: 1) your next comment won�t be heard, or 2) the laughter will abruptly halt so you can be heard. (From there on out your audience is likely to be inhibited�they won�t want to miss anything, so they�re less likely to let loose with laughter again.) So, here�s a good rule of thumb. Say the duration of an audience�s response is a period of time measured from one to ten, with three or four typically being the peak of the laughter. You can avoid "stepping on the laugh" by waiting until about eight to begin speaking again. You don�t want to wait until 10, as that�s nearly silence�and that�s too late because you�ll lose your momentum. Like I said, this is tricky. Which is why it�s essential you practice your speech in a club setting before going on to a larger contest. In addition, you�ll find that a small group responds differently than a large group, which is another reason the contest structure�club, area, district, division�works, because you deliver your speech to increasingly larger groups. In time, you�ll develop an ear for laughter, and only through repetition will you gain a sense of what rhythm works best for you. Remember, when you step on the audience�s response, you�re defeating the whole purpose of giving a humorous speech in the first place. Vary Your Jokes Avoid the trap of using the same kind of humor over and over during your speech. While a pun can work on occasion, for instance, a speech littered with puns alone is likely to fall flat. To get a sense of what I mean by a "kind" of joke, I�ll use an example I was given when a professional comedy writer read a sitcom script I�d written. His feedback was that there were too many of the same kind of joke�specifically, that I�d used too many "Hawkeye-isms." He was referring to the Hawkeye of M*A*S*H* fame, of course. When you hear the term "Hawkeye-ism," you already know what this writer meant. Hawkeye-isms are jokes that come from tricky wordplay. Hawkeye�s quips were distinctive, and were delivered with a rat-a-tat cadence. The show�s creator, Larry Gelbart, is known for his brilliance at writing funny dialogue, and left his thumbprint on the character we all know and love. I, however, was guilty of falling into the rut of using the same style of joke over and over. Even though the jokes themselves were different, the repeated use of the same "style" of joke made the punchlines predictable�the kiss of death for comedy. So, the idea is to mix things up. There are many different kinds of humor. There is physical humor (often underutilized by Toastmasters, myself included), and a variety of humor types and techniques to choose from�malaprops (the comic misuse of words), spoonerisms (an interchange of sounds, such as saying "tuna lick" instead of "lunatic"), exaggeration ("He�s so dimwitted, it takes him two hours to watch �60 Minutes�"), put-downs (refer to previous line), sarcasm, oxymorons (like "video library"), irony and others. The bottom line? Keep �em guessing. The Rule of Three Along with varying the types of jokes you use, it�s also important to remember the Rule of Three. That�s the age-old (and for good reason) guideline passed down through the generations from humorist to humorist�namely that three jokes on a given subject is fine, but no more. The next time you observe a speaker you admire, who makes you laugh and who seems to have the perfect sense of what to say and how, pay attention to how many jokes he or she gives to punctuate any particular point. That�s right. Three�s the limit. Of course, every rule has exceptions. Except this one. Now, you may be saying to yourself, "There are no hard and fast rules about humorous speaking." First, you should stop talking to yourself. More importantly, don�t tempt fate. Breaking this rule often leads to dire consequences. It�s a bit like gravity. You can deny its existence, but you pretty much know where the bowling ball�s going when you toss it into the air. Incidentally, the Rule of Three also applies to how many examples you should give on any topic within your speech. If you put forth a concept, support it with three (or fewer) examples. Again, no one�s quite sure why the Rule of Three works so well�it just does. Then again, no one�s quite sure why the "k" sound in words is funny. It just is. Save Your Best Joke for Last There�s a temptation to throw out all your best material right away�to get the audience on your side. But it�s far more important to have a great closer. That final payoff is what the audience (and perhaps more importantly at a contest, the judges) will remember. How can you tell if something�s funny? Tell it to five people before you ever step foot into your club contest. Consider it market research. Humor is, after all, subjective, but five glazed-over looks in response to a "humorous" observation may indicate the material isn�t hitting the mark. Don�t expect that something miraculous will change that unpleasant reality on the day of your speech contest. Listen to feedback, and pay close attention to the feedback you receive from your evaluators�to ignore their guidance is to flirt with disaster. I once read a great answer to the question "What�s funny?" The book said: "The source of the ludicrous is the unexpected subsumption of an object under a concept which in other respects is different from it." I have no idea what that means. But "ludicrous" and "concept," after all, have "k" sounds, so who�s going to argue? Master the "Callback" A key comic device is the "callback." The callback is simply a reference to something that was presented earlier in the speech. Callbacks give a humorous speech a sense of cohesion, and rarely fail to bring a positive response from an audience�either because the callback is intrinsically funny, or at the very least because it�s something familiar. In my speech on complaining, I gave some useful tips on how we can complain more effectively. The four "tips" I espoused to improve the quality of our complaining were: 1) ignore the facts, 2) when you complain, exaggerate, 3) always compare the present with the past and 4) never do anything about your complaint. Each of these "pointers" was followed with examples. Then, at the end of my speech, I plead with audience members to get out into the world and start complaining, and to begin with complaining about what a terrible speech I�d given. I then asked, "Why should you use my speech as an example?" After a pause for effect, I explained, "Simple, remember Tip #1? When complaining, you should always ignore the facts." This reference, at the end of the speech, served as an effective callback, giving the speech a sense of circularity and closure, and served double duty as a solid closing gag. Find Friendly Faces During your speech, seek the support of fellow club members. The effect of being able to look out into an audience and find friendly faces can�t be overstated. Contests are an interesting phenomenon. While you sense that everyone wants you to do well, the competitive component of the festivities is readily apparent. It�s natural that each club wants their representative to win, and while the unwritten Toastmasters code would never allow a club member to verbalize their personal bias, it sometimes comes out in unsuspected ways. For example, at our area contest, one of my competitors in the contest actually sat at a table directly in front of the stage, and was munching on food the entire time I was speaking, doing her best to distract fellow audience members and/or the judges�or me. While this type of behavior is truly rare in Toastmasters, it�s a good idea to invite as many friends and fellow club members to your contests as possible. They�ll give you the benefit of the doubt when a joke falls flat, and their enthusiastic applause is certain to pump you up before, during and after your speech. And by the way, I took absolutely no satisfaction in the fact that the speaker who tried to sabotage me did not go home with the winner�s trophy. Really, I swear. Watch the Clock As Toastmasters, we pride ourselves on being disciplined when it comes to time. However, humorous speeches, unlike other kinds of speeches, rely on a widely varying time aspect that can have a serious impact on your chances of winning a contest�audience response. If you do your job correctly, your speech will elicit gales of laughter. The problem? It�s impossible to know exactly how much time that laughter will add to your speech. In contests, going over the allotted time can result in disqualification. In most cases, this will mean you�ll want to build in some time for audience response. If you prepare a speech that runs seven minutes without breaks for audience response, you�re in trouble. (The typical time limit in Humorous Speech contests is 5-7 minutes.) A safe bet is to "pad" your speech with lines or ideas which you can easily discard on the spot if you find the audience reaction is unusually good (meaning, you�re getting more laughter than expected). Keep these lines self-contained. Run through your speech with and without them. Don�t be afraid to drop even some of your best material if you find yourself going over time. Remember that no matter how good your speech is, if you go over the time limit, you�re out of the running. Do you want that trophy or not? Discover the Seed of Truth No matter how absurd or silly a topic you choose, the most memorable and resonant speeches�though funny and entertaining�also hold a seed of truth for the audience to take home with them. They have an underlying theme, or position that just plain sticks with audience members. In my speech about complaining, many of the concepts were intentionally outrageous. But the core message�about how complaining erodes our experience of life�was something people found meaningful to them. It was clear the humor helped deliver a concept people could ponder long after the speech ended. The difference between a merely funny speech and a funny speech that wins contests is that the winning speech provokes and inspires, and can stand a critically important test�a winning humorous speech would still be provocative and inspiring even if all the humor were removed. Just because it�s a humorous speech doesn�t mean it can or should be frivolous. Going for obvious or easy laughs isn�t enough. Seek out the message, the story only you can tell. Just think of humor as an "idea delivery device," nothing more. Go for the Gold So, what are you waiting for? There�s a funny person in you waiting to get out. Remember, it�s not money that makes the world go around�it�s laughter. The best piece of advice you can receive about winning your next Humorous Speech contest is this: Dive in. That�s right. Be fearless. Just follow some of these pointers and you�re bound to have that Humorous Speech contest trophy sitting on your mantle. Unless you don�t have a mantle. In which case, you should just carry your trophy around with you at all times. Hey, it works for me. ------------------------------------------------- Scott Roeben is a CTM (Competent Toastmaster), and is the Communications Coordinator for the Writers Guild of America, west. He is also Webmaster of the humor site, Dribbleglass.com. ___________________________________ `Rule of Three' multiplies effect of speech humor Ellis Posey If you want to talk funny, timing is everything. Comic timing is one of those things all comedians and humorists insist is necessary to the successful performance of humor. But nobody seems to be able to explain exactly what comic timing is. After extensive research and study, I have concluded comic timing is not just one simple rule or formula the budding humor practitioner must master. It's more likely a number of things. What humorist Doc Blakely calls "The Rule of Three" is part of the formula. "It is generally accepted in humor that one general theme is overworked after it has been attacked at least three times with punch lines that are quite similar," Blakely writes. He says it applies to one-liners and jokes alike. Save the strongest of the three jokes for last, he advises, adding you might want to intentionally use a weak or mediocre joke as the first in the triplet to make the last one seem stronger. With Blakely's wisdom in mind, notice how many funny stories use a different kind of "Rule of Three." Many stories have you heard start out, "There was a priest, a minister and a rabbi ... ." Three characters seems to work well when you are populating your own stories to make them funnier. Comedy professor and author Melvin Helitzer claims there's something magic about the number three. Calling them triples, he cites a series of three examples or three alternative solutions offered consecutively. Helitzer thinks of them as jokes on the way to a joke or firecrackers on the way to a big blast. He points out the Bible is filled with triples, such as the three wise men, the Trinity and others. Three words of description work well in introducing characters. Or three actions listed consecutively are more effective in building the tension good punch lines depend on than just one or two. Whether it's descriptive words or actions, four always seems to be too many, slowing your story down, and two not enough. Helitzer recommends no less than three examples, no more than three stories in a sequence on one subject and no more than three minutes on any one theme. To sustain what's called a "roll," he says, "you must build one topper on another -- with a minimum of three." As an example, Helitzer offers, "My wife's an angel. She's constantly up in the air, continually harping on something and never has anything to wear." You can see how Helitzer's triples maintain tension and build the story toward its unexpected logical resolution. Although I haven't been able to find written references to it, there is what I think of as a musicality to a well-spoken phrase or sentence. That is particularly true with one-liners, as well as punch lines on longer stories. As an example, look at what arguably has become the most famous punch line in the English language, the late Henny Youngman's "Take my wife. Please." Listen to the words in your head. Pay attention to the rhythm created by the emphasis on words and using a pause, which is called a beat. "Take my wife. (beat) Please." Emphasis on alternating words, and syllables in longer words, gives it the proper rhythm. The pause, or beat, serves two purposes. It fits the rhythm you want to establish, and it builds tension before revealing the surprise finish that completes the logic. If you are musically inclined, you might think of each of the first three syllables being a quarter-note in a measure. The beat is a quarter-note rest. The final word in the sequence, "Please," is a half-note, followed with at least a half-note pause to wait for laughter. Experiment with the delivery of punch lines in your favorite stories. Sometimes switching words around creates a more effective, funnier rhythm. If you have trouble, look for synonyms or find new ways to express the surprise ending that have a better rhythm. Not all rhythms suitable to humor have the simple la-DEE-la-DEE pattern. Go back to the Henny Youngman example and activate the setup line that is seldom remembered or used. Here's the way it goes: "Women are crazy today." The rhythm is DEE-DEE-la-DEE-DEE, followed my a silent beat. Next comes the punch line, "Take my wife. Please." DEE-la-DEE, la-DEE. The rhythm changes in the middle of the joke. Melvin Helitzer's recommended cadence is da-da-Tah-da-da-Tah-dah-dah-TA, three groups of three syllables. The important thing is that you establish a rhythm to build and deliver on. The importance of rhythm came home to me years ago when I watched humorist Cactus Prior deliver lines. He patted his foot in a four-four beat like a musician playing or a conductor leading. The result: the delightful music of laughter, when and where conductor Cactus led his orchestral audience to come in like a brass section for their part in a successful performance. ELLIS POSEY is a professional humorous speaker and author. Contact him at 863-5938 or visit his Web site at (http://www.ufindm.com/funnyside). ________________________________ Using Humor in Your Speech By: Stephen D. Boyd Some speakers say, "I could never use humor in my speech; I just don't feel comfortable with it." I believe that anyone can use humor and that it is a valuable tool in speaking. Appropriate humor relaxes an audience and makes it feel more comfortable with you as the speaker; humor can bring attention to the point you are making; and humor will help the audience better remember your point. It can break down barriers so that the audience is more receptive to your ideas. First, let me make it easy for you to use humor. The best and most comfortable place to find humor for a speech is from your own personal experience. Think back on an embarrassing moment that you might have thought not funny at the time. Now that you can laugh at the experience, you understand the old adage "Humor is simply tragedy separated by time and space." Or think of a conversation that was funny. Remember the punch line and use it in your speech. Probably the least risky use of humor is a cartoon. The cartoon is separate from you and if people don't laugh, you don't feel responsible. (Be sure to secure permission to use it.) You're not trying to be a comedian; you just want to make it easy for people to pay attention and to help them remember your point. Here are some suggestions on using humor to make your next speech have more impact. 1. Make sure the humor is funny to you. If you don't laugh or smile at the cartoon, joke, pun, one-liner, story, or other forms of humor, then you certainly cannot expect an audience to do so. A key to using humor is only using humor that makes you laugh or smile. 2. Before using humor in your speech, try it out with small groups of people. Do they seem to enjoy it? Even if your experimental group does not laugh or smile initially, don't give up on the humor, because the problem might be in the way you are delivering the joke or quip. I often use this line in talking about the importance of listening. "We are geared to a talk society. Someone said, 'The only reason we listen is so we can talk next!'" When I first tried that line, people did not smile; but I worked on the timing so that I paused and smiled after "listen" and that seemed to work. I was rushing through the punch line and did not give people time to be prepared for the humorous part. It took practice to get comfortable with the piece of humor. Only use humor in a speech after you are comfortable telling it from memory and have tested it. 3. Make sure the humor relates to the point you are making. Do not use humor that is simply there to make the audience laugh. The humor should tie in with some aspect of your speech. For example, I tell about my experience of getting braces at age 46 and how difficult it was for me to get used to the wires and rubber bands in my mouth. After I tell the story I make the point that you may have not had the braces problem I had, but we all have challenges in communicating well, and what we want to look at today are ways of making it easier for us to be more effective in speaking. The audience enjoys the story but also remembers the point that I'm making. If you don't tie your humor to your presentation, the audience may like the humor, but will wonder what point you are attempting to make. 4. Begin with something short. A starting point might be to summarize a cartoon and give the caption as your humor. A thought-provoking yet clever line about a point you are making is another way to get started. For example, when I talk about creativity and getting out of your comfort zone, a line I found that worked well was, "Orville Wright did not have a pilot's license." In your reading, look for lines that make you smile; consider how they might be used in your next speech. Be careful about launching into a long humorous story--audiences are quick to forgive a single line that may not be funny, but they do not have much patience with a long anecdote that isn't worth the time. So start out with brief bits of humor. 5. When possible, choose humor that comes from people you interact with. You do not have to worry about people having heard it before, and you will feel more comfortable with what has happened to you. Find such experiences by looking for a humorous line or situation. For example, I was making a bank deposit recently at a drive-in window. When I asked to make a second deposit, the teller said solemnly, "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to go around the bank a second time to make a second deposit." We both laughed and I may have a line to work into a speech. If you have small children, listen for something they say that might be funny to an audience as well. Art Linkletter made a great living on the notion that "Kids say the darndest things." 6. Don't preview by saying, "Let me tell you a funny story." Let the audience decide for themselves. Look pleasant and smile as you launch into your funny line, but if no one smiles or laughs then just move on as though you meant for it to be serious. This approach takes the pressure off as you relate the humor. Remember you are not a comedian entertaining the audience; you are a serious speaker seeking to help the audience remember and pay attention by using humor as a tool. Humor is simply another way of making a point with your audience, and it can help you be a more effective speaker. Look at humor as a tool in improving your speech in the manner of attention devices, smooth transitions, and solid structure. Remember, "A smile is a curve that straightens out a lot of things." _____________________________________ _______________________________________________ |