How to Improve
Your Pausing Technique in Your Speech

Pausing is of two kinds: Grammatical and Rhetorical. The grammatical pause indicates the synthetic structure of a sentence. The rhetorical pause gives greater clearness and expression to spoken language, by dividing words more particularly into groups.

Here are some excerpts for you to practice pausing:

1. How often, oh, how often,
In the days that had gone by, I had stood on that bridge at midnight And gazed on that wave and sky!
How often, oh, how often, I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
O'er the ocean wild and wide!

"The Bridge." LONGFELLOW,

2. Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen,
Altho thy breath be rude.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot: Tho thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp,
As friend remembered not.

"As You Like It." SHAKESPEARE.

3. Nothing is more natural than to imitate (by the sound of the voice) the quality of the sound (or noise) which any externaln object makes, and to form its name accordingly. A certain bird is termed the Cuckoo, from the sound which it emits. When one sort of wind is said to WHISTLE, and another to ROAR; when a serpent is said to HISS, a fly to BUZZ, and falling timber to CRASH; when a stream is said to FLOW, and hail to RATTLE; the analogy between the word and the thing signified is plainly discernible.

BLAIR.

4. The atrocious crime of being a young man, which, with so much spirit and decency, the honorable gentleman has charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny.

PITT.

5. Forth march'd the chief, and, distant from the crowd, High on the rampart raised his voice aloud.
As the loud trumpet's brazen mouth from far,
With shrilling clangor sounds th' alarm of war;
So high his dreadful voice the hero reared;
Hosts dropped their arms, and trembled as they heard.

"The Iliad." HOMER.

6. Caesar entered upon ms head-a helmet upon his left arm- a shield upon his brow-a cloud in his right hand-his trusty sword in his eye-fire!

7. There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves
Or lose our ventures.

"Julius Caesar." SHAKESPEARE.

8. "Make way for liberty!" he cried, Then ran with arms extended wide, As if his dearest friend to clasp; Ten spears he swept within his grasp. "Make way for liberty!" he cried; Their keen points met from side to side; He bowed amongst them like a tree, And thus made way for liberty.

" Arnold Winkelried." MONTGOMERY .

9. And I think, in the lives of most women and men,
There's a moment when all would go smooth and even, If only the dead could find out when To come back and be forgiven.

"Aux Italiens." BULWER-LYTTON.