EFFICIENCY THROUGH INFLECTION

 

How soft the music of those village bells, Falling at intervals upon the ear In

cadence sweet; now dying all away, Now pealing loud again, and louder still,

Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on! With easy force it opens all the cells

Where Memory slept.

 

--WILLIAM COWPER, _The Task_.

 

Herbert Spencer remarked that "Cadence"--by which he meant the modulation of the

tones of the voice in speaking--"is the running commentary of the emotions upon

the propositions of the intellect." How true this is will appear when we reflect

that the little upward and downward shadings of the voice tell more truly what

we mean than our words. The expressiveness of language is literally multiplied

by this subtle power to shade the vocal tones, and this voice-shading we call

_inflection_.

 

The change of pitch _within_ a word is even more important, because more

delicate, than the change of pitch from phrase to phrase. Indeed, one cannot be

practised without the other. The bare words are only so many bricks--inflection

will make of them a pavement, a garage, or a cathedral. It is the power of

inflection to change the meaning of words that gave birth to the old saying: "It

is not so much what you say, as how you say it."