Preface

THIS book is based on the assumption that, since conversation is life's most habitual and significant avocation, any, even a slight, improvement in it is of incalculable social, economic, and moral value. Its thesis is not that everyone can become a brilliant conversationalist, but that everyone can get better and better in this matter of talking — and should.

The book sprang first of all from an index file into which for perhaps twenty years I slipped any items on conversation that came to my notice. By and by, when a kindly editor suggested that I submit some human interest article, I thought it was about time to rifle my file, and among tentative topics I proposed "How to Improve One's Conversation." Father Clement J. Lambert, S.M., editor of the Marianist, University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, declared his preference for this, limiting me to 2500 words. It appeared as "This Matter of Talking," in February, 1949. But it barely introduced the subject, so that it seemed absolutely necessary to add "Improving One's Conversation" in the March issue, and "Background for Conversation" in the May issue. Furthermore, the whole subject overflowed into a long article, entitled, "How to Improve Conversation According to Dean Swift," published in Magnificat, Manchester, N. H., April, 1948.