if I used it myself it would be to refer to car lines, and even then
I should prefer "those tracks."

G. W. Woodbey, our colored speaker of "what to do and how to do it"
fame, never speaks an hour without asking at least thirty times, "Do you
understand?" but the inimitable manner in which he pokes his chin
forward as he does so usually convulses his audience and makes a virtue
of what would otherwise be a defect. The veteran speaker Barney Berlyn
says, every little while, "you understand," but he is so terribly in
earnest, and so forceful in his style, that no one but a cold blooded
critic would ever notice it.

Another speaker I know in the west, asks his audience about every ten
minutes, "Do you get my point?" This is very irritating, as it is really
a constant questioning of the audience's ability to see what he is
driving at. It would be much better to say, "Do I make myself
understood?" and put the blame for possible failure where it usually
belongs. If an audience fails to "get the point" it is because the
speaker failed to put it clearly.

A terribly overworked word is "proposition." It is a good word, but that
is no reason why it should be treated like a pack mule.

Hackneyed words and phrases are due to laziness in construction and a
limited vocabulary.

The remedy is to take pains in forming sentences, practice different
ways of stating the same thing, increase your stock of words by "looking
up" every new one.

The lecturer should always have a good dictionary within reach,
especially when reading, if he has to borrow the money to buy it.

CHAPTER XII

COURSE LECTURING--NO CHAIRMAN

The very first essential to successful course lecturing is--no chairman.
On three different occasions I have tried to deliver a long course of
lectures with a chairman, as a concession to comrades who disagreed with
me. One learns by experience, however, and I shall never repeat the
experiment.

Anyone who suggested that university course lectures should have a
presiding chairman would get no serious hearing. All the course
lecturers now before the public dispense with chairmen. It is a case of
survival of the fittest; the course lecturers who had chairmen didn't
know their business and they disappeared. This does not apply to a
series of three or four lectures, for in that case when the speaker has
become familiar with his audience, and the chairman should be dispensed
with, his work is done and a new speak