One of my favorite words is oxymoron. It just sounds funny.
What you may not know is that the word oxymoron comes from two Greek words; “oxus” meaning sharp and “moros” meaning dull.
So an oxymoron is a combination of two contradictory ideas, like sharp and dull.
It makes no logical sense at all.

Here is the first word to some good examples of oxymorons.
Let's see if you can fill in the second word to complete it.

Jumbo ____________________________________
Postal ____________________________________
Military ____________________________________
Pretty ____________________________________
Awful ____________________________________
Family ____________________________________
Instant ____________________________________
Working ____________________________________
War ____________________________________
Clearly ____________________________________
Genuine ____________________________________
Almost ____________________________________
Freezer ____________________________________
Leisure ____________________________________
(Note - the answers are at the end of this article.)

Let me give you another oxymoron that you've probably never considered – speech writing. Speech writing is an oxymoron because it combines two totally different skills – speaking and writing.

Because many new speakers have never had a presentation class before, they have to draw on what they already know – their past experiences and what they've learned in school. Almost every school class involves some sort of writing, editing, and grammar. Through 12 to 16 years of education, writing has been drilled into our heads. So naturally, as a new speaker, when we start to work on a speech, what skill do we fall back on? Writing.

I want to emphasize this – the skill of speaking is not the same as the skill of writing.
Speaking is vocal talent. You have a real audience and you need real emotion and body language. A person can be illiterate, and yet may still be a great speaker.

Writing is a totally different skill. You use your hand, not your mouth. There is no real audience, just an imaginary one. A person could win the Nobel Prize for Literature and yet still be a terrible, terrified speaker.

Here’s my point: you don’t want to write a speech – you want to create your speech verbally, and then capture it in writing.

One evening, I was talking to a brand-new member of Toastmasters, an international speaking organization. This person confessed to continually putting off her first speech. When I asked her what the problem was, she said, “The problem is, I’m not a good writer.” I answered, “That’s good! You don’t want to be a good writer. You want to rely on a skill you’ve practiced your entire life – speaking.”

Ed McMahon wrote a book called "The Art of Public Speaking." In it he says, “Writing your speech, word for word means that at some later time you must translate it from the written language to the spoken language. I recommend that you develop your speech primarily via spoken language. In other words, prepare you speech by talking it, instead of writing it. Using your outline, deliver your speech to a tape recorder in an empty room.”

Jay O'Callahan, a story teller, says, “Writing to tell isn't the same as writing for print. It's a different form and it allows for possibilities that print doesn't. While the printed word is written for the eye, the spoken word is written for the ear. I pay close attention to the way my words will sound.”

Art Linkletter in his book, “Public Speaking for Private People,” said,
"One way an amateur can write a speech is to say it aloud as he writes it. If it doesn't sound the way you actually talk, keep reworking the text until you feel comfortable saying it out loud."

Roy Fenstermaker, the 1983 Toastmaster World Champion of Public Speaking, says, "One of the first admonitions we receive when we join Toastmasters is: Don't write out your speech! This is good advice for the most part. It deters the neophyte speaker from writing an essay on a subject and then reading it at the lectern. The failure of many contest speeches is that they lack a sense of human contact. They don't translate into a live interchange between the speaker and the audience.”

Are you getting my point?
If you want to be a good public speaker, you need to use your oral communication skills, not your writing skills.

Use a tape recorder or some sort of recording device and capture your speech as you practice. Pretend like you’re talking to a good friend and tell your story to them. You can later transcribe your recorded voice into computer text.

A cartoon in the New Yorker magazine showed a man standing at the lectern saying, "And now I should like to depart from my prepared text and speak as a human being."

That's the essence of being a great speaker. You want to connect from one human being to another.

Word Usage

Let's go back to school. I want you to pretend that you're in Mrs. Johnson's eleventh grade English class and that she has given you a two-thousand word essay. What's your first reaction? Pain! OH NO! I'll never be able to do this.
But after you've been in school for a while, writing a term paper is no big deal. What do you do? Get out the shovel and pile it on – deeper, higher. She'll have to have hip boots to get through this. Use those big words. Impress her. Show her how much you know.

"Whereas in the earlier Pre-Macedonian period, there are those who say that
the scorbutic ungulates . . .”

What was that? Who knows? But it looks good in print.
In writing, you use those $10 words and probably have to get out the dictionary at times. But in speaking we want to use the nickel words. Make it easy to understand.

During World War II, President Roosevelt was shown a proposed new sign that was going to go up on thousands of federal office buildings. It read, "It is obligatory to extinguish all illumination before the premises are vacated." Roosevelt roared, "Why the hell can't you just say – Put out the lights when you leave."

During World War II Churchill criticized General Eisenhower for using words like "finalize, and prioritize" Churchill wanted him to use simpler words like "end up" or "plan."

Charles Osgood said, “In choosing words, remember when you stand up and you speak, that little words are often strong and long ones often weak.”
 Repetition
In writing, we generally don't want to be repetitious.
The reader can always go back and reread the section if there's some confusion.
So generally, you only need to write an idea down once.

In fact, if you've ever used a grammar checker on your computer, one of the faults they flag is, "You have started the last three sentences with the word ‘I’. Consider using an alternative expression.”
Grammar checkers don't like repetition.

In speaking, however, it's great to use repetition to make a point.
First off your audience will remember very little of your speech, maybe 10% if you’re lucky. By using repetition, you can emphasize the points you want the audience to remember.

You can also use repetition to make sure the audience understands.
Your audience only has one chance to hear your speech. If they don't get it the first time, it's lost.

President Clinton in one of his speeches banged on the table and said, "No, no,no,no,no,no,no!” While it was funny as it was replayed on all the television shows, he did make his point. This negative repetition is a bit much for a written story, but something you may use as a speaker.

Winston Churchill, in one of his great speeches, used repetition this way.
“We shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in France.
We shall fight on the seas and oceans.
We shall fight in the air.”

The grammar checker would have gone crazy over this speech. Yet it was amazingly effective.

The Rule of Three
Repetition is very effective way to use repetition.
If you say an idea one time, it's forgotten. The second time you say it, people start to listen, and usually by the third time, people are starting to get your point.

Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg address used the phrase, "government of the people, by the people and for the people."
How many times have you heard that phrase, “of the people, by the people and for the people?” He used repetition to make his point and also make it poetic and memorable.
Language
When you use a grammar checker, you'll also find that it expects more formal language. For example, it doesn't like the use of contractions. In speaking, however, you want to be informal. You want to speak as if you're talking to a friend.

Emotion
In writing, you can describe emotion and get people to think about feelings, but as a speaker you can excite and interest people by showing emotions such as anger, fear, or sadness.

One of the best speakers I've ever seen on stage is Dr. Leo Buscaglia. Leo is an exciting, dynamic, emotional speaker. And yet, at least according to my view, his books fall short, because his writing doesn't have the power and excitement that he shows at the lectern.

Audience
One of the other differences is your audience.
In writing, you can't directly involve your audience. They’re passive, possibly resting in a recliner.
In speaking, you can get your audience involved. One of the techniques I frequently use to get people involved is to ask people direct questions. I get them to raise their hand or answer a question.

Rhythm and Rhyme
In writing, there is no rhythm, no rhyme, no flow, but those are just the qualities you can work on in a speech to make it memorable.
(There are exceptions I know.)

Here’s another example from Winston Churchill:
“You ask, What is our aim?
I can answer in one word: Victory,
Victory at all cost,
Victory in spite of terror,
Victory, however long and hard the road may be.”

It takes a while to develop these qualities, but they can make a speech memorable.
 K.I.S.S.
In speaking we also try to use the KISS principle.
What does that stand for?
Keep It Simple Stupid – or if you’ve just attended a positive thinking rally – Keep It Simple Sweetie.
The audience only remembers 10%, so make it easy for them to follow, understand, and remember.

I've read quite a bit of science fiction and some of these books are so complicated that you need a piece of paper and pen to remember all the characters and where they're from. It can be very complicated.
If you do that as a speaker, you've lost your audience.
Follow the KISS principle.

Personal
Finally, you should address the question, "How personal should I make it?”
In the book “Element of Style" by Strunk and White, it says this about the use of the personal voice in writing:
"In writing, place yourself in the background. Write in a way that draws the reader's attention to the sense and substance of the writing, rather than to the mood and temper of the author."

In speaking we want to make it personal.
We want to use words like "I" and "You" and “Me” and “We.”
The audience came to hear your story – so tell them.

Sizzle vs. Steak
In advertising there's an old adage, “Sell the sizzle, not the steak."

In writing, and this is a broad generalization, we are mainly selling the steak, the idea.

In speaking we are selling the sizzle, the emotion, the excitement, because that's what the audience will remember most.

Summary
In closing, let me summarize with the Rule of Three.
1. Jumbo shrimp is an oxymoron.
2. Genuine imitation is an oxymoron.
3. And finally, the whole point of this section: speech writing is an oxymoron, too.
 Answers to the Oxymoron Quiz

Jumbo Shrimp

Postal Service

Military Intelligence

Pretty Ugly

Awful Good

Family Vacation

Instant Classic

Working Vacation

War Games

Clearly Confused

Genuine Imitation

Almost Perfect

Freezer Burn

Leisure Suit