Wednesday, April 6, 2011

E is for Enunciate

When I was a child, I had a behaviors that my grandmother tried to help me "correct": she thought I walked on the inside of my feet, so she made me practice walking on the outside of my feet (it was as awkward as it sounds, but at age 8 or 9, it's a game); I tended (still tend) to furrow my brow, and she kindly yells at me to stop, else I'll have wrinkles when I'm old--stick tape on my forehead if I need to, she says; finally, I had a tendency to mumble, so she stated loudly, eNUNciate!

Whether her corrections or just confidence from age and education, I speak much more clearly now. Still, I'd much rather express my thoughts in writing than in speech. The words in print do the enunciating for me. On a related note, I love reading out loud, whether it's my own work or the work of other authors. I love giving voice to words that were previously dormant on a page. Even in school, when I was otherwise frightened about speaking aloud in class, I loved being called on to read.

Tonight for writing class, we're supposed to select 2 minutes (or less) of something we wrote to read out loud. This comes out to about two-hundred words; I hope to have something new, so I better get to work!

1 comment:

Lisa Galek said...

Good luck! I'm a horrible mumbler, so I wish I had a grandma telling me to enunciate!