The Voice and Diction of Conversation

THE people who in conversation make me feel most desperate, who make me want to cry "fire" in order to get out of the conversation or to get pep into it, are the well-meaning souls who talk too slowly, who stop, look, and listen before every word. They talk as slowly and deliberately about having gone out and bought a loaf of bread as one would if one had at midnight stealthily placed a homemade atom bomb under Fort Knox. A runner-up to these is the person who talks to a roomful of people as if she were talking a baby to sleep, and then, just as one has given up trying to listen, suddenly appeals to one for confirmation of some point, asking directly, "Don't you agree with me, Mr. Smith?"