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MAMALADE

The Entertaining Speech

Speech No. 1 in "The Entertaining Speaker" Manual

Date presented: 8th July, 1997

The objectives of this speech were:

  • To entertain through use of humor or drama drawn from personal experience.
  • To organise an entertaining speech for maximum audience impact.
Time 5 to 7 minutes.
How do you tell the Difference
between an Elephant and a Letterbox?

It was my father's favorite riddle and it drove me wild because he never would tell me the answer.

"I don't know," I would cry, "How do you tell the difference between elephant and a letterbox?"

"Well," he would grin, "I wouldn't send you to post a letter."

"But what is the answer to the riddle?"

"That's it!" he'd say. "That's all there is."

"But you haven't told me how to tell the difference!"

"If you haven't worked that out, you'd better not post any letters."

"But what is the rest of the riddle?"

I knew how to tell the difference between the end of a queue and a letterbox. One makes a tail and the other takes the mail. I knew the difference between a riddle and an elephant sitting on a bun. One is a conundrum and the other is a bun under em. See? Those riddles had a satisfying answer. They were complete.

But what was the difference between an elephant and a letterbox? It bothered me whenever my mother sent me to post a letter. Not that I expected to meet an elephant in our street. It was more unlikely than a chicken crossing the road or a fireman in red braces.

Still, the unanswered question niggled in my mind as I stepped carefully over the cracks in the pavement and tried not to slide down the gutter "for a pound of butter."

My mother offered no solution. When I appealed to her she just laughed and explained "It means that if you can't tell the difference, you might post the letter in the elephant's trunk."

Surely they didn't think I was that stupid! Anyone could tell the difference between an elephant and a letterbox! But the riddle was incomplete. Why ask a riddle if there was no answer?

It was the same with some of the words I didn't understand. No one would tell me when I asked, "What is Plissity?"

"Plissity?" they'd say, "There's no such thing."

But I knew there was. Plissity was something special. I heard it at Sunday School. I was taught to pray, "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon a little child. Pity mice and plissity. Suffer me to come to thee."

I prayed this prayer every night, earnestly, specially the part that said, "Pity mice." After all, with all the cats round, these defenseless little creatures needed all the help they could get.

But I didn't understand the rest of the prayer. It said "Pity mice and plissity" What was plissity? Some other creature, obviously, but there were no pictures of them in my big book of zoo animals, and there was no mention of them in "The Animals of Farmer Jones"

So I asked my mother.

"What's plissity?"

"I don't know," she `said, "finish your dinner."

Perhaps it was one those words that made my mother change the subject quickly if I said it in front of visitors. I still prayed for the plissity each night but I was careful not tomention it again in case it was something embarrassing. And I stopped asking for the answer to the elephant and the letterbox riddle. Grown ups seemed to have secret jokes they wouldn't share with us.

When I was old enough to read, I was given a dictionary. At last! Here was my chance to find out. Eagerly I looked up P.L.I.S.S.I.T.Y. I couldn't believe it. It wasn't there! I looked up "elephant" and "letterbox" They were there but it gave no clues to this secret adult joke.

Then one day I was given a book of children's prayers. I was able to read for myself, "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon a little child. Pity my...... Simplicity."

So there were no plissity after all. What a shame!

But I never did find out how to tell the difference between an elephant and a letterbox.I still think of it as I step over the cracks on my way to post a letter. I hope I don't meet an elephant!

COMMENTS

This speech was fun! I used it for the Humorous Speech contest and won at our club level, but didn't get a place in the Area Competition. I also presented it at the Probus Club when a friend and I went to speak about Toastmasters.

MAMALADE

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