I was working, when someone used the phrase, speak in elegant conversation, making me take pause.
What a lovely concept, I thought, to speak elegantly. Made me think of rubies and pearls, Paris and Grace Kelly 
…the Chrysler Building 
and crystal chandeliers at an old hotel.
I pictured Noel Coward holding court, Fred Astaire tapping in a tux while Duke Ellington graced the bandstand, 
single bud boutonnieres, winking from their custom-made dinner jackets, watching Ava Gardner swoon down a staircase.
You don’t hear snippets of elegant conversation as a rule, since most people speak in slang, mumble, and more or less butcher the English language.
How wonderful it would be if we all started to speak in Austenese, using words like, felicity and discourse, loveliest and amiable…and the added phrase…I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.
Elegant…appealingly graceful and stylish in appearance and manner…
and apparently, in conversation.
Who knew.
SB
I, too, yearn for the elegant conversation of times gone by. What a lovely phrase.
There are two t-shirts I’d like to get. The back of one says ‘I am silently correctly your grammar.’ The other says ‘Their, there, they’re not the same.’
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I love both of those. It’s the teacher in you Skinny. Beautiful speech and grammar can really turn on a girl…:)
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Life would be grand with a daily dose of elegant conversation from adults who are not wearing pajamas outside of the bedroom. My heart is swelling at the thought of it all.
Meanwhile, in reality, I have to deal with the likes of “can’t you hire a phone answerer person?”
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Yeah, I get it. The rain in Spain hasn’t been on the plain in a long while. I love My Fair Lady. Sigh
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Hahaha … we need a time machine.
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My friend Ed and I were working when we were told to speak in elegant conversation. It really spoke to both of us, no pun intended.
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You two could teach the class on Elegant Conversation. No doubt you dazzled them with your natural flow of fancy chatter.
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Well, dazzle might be pushing it, a bit, but if only Ed’s bowtie could talk. Then we’d be talkin…:)
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Hahaha! The first thing I thought of was the bowtie.
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It’s his sartorial signature. I swear it winks. 🙂
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I can’t remember the last time I was in “elegant company”. 🙂 I like the picture you paint of it though, a Hollywood Golden Age sort of scenario.
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I guess it’s what the word elegant brings up for you. For me it was that list of people, places and things.
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Elegant is good. Being tall helps. It’s difficult to be elegant and dumpy. 😉
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We’re talking speech here. Size, weight, length doesn’t apply Mick.
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OK, I am suitably chastised.
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Okay Smudge and Lola, you can feed him now. 🙂
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Smudge would share her dinner. Lola would see you in Hell before she’d part with a morsel. I think she must have some Labrador in her (or gannet!).
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Or some Elizabeth Taylor.
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I’d be happy without the blunt edge some people use to cut their words. I was talking to a friend about a mutual friend who is not fun to be around. It’s all in the delivery and his deliveryman needs lesson.
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Blunt edge. That’s an accurate description. I love language so much as I know you do. Would like to hear more of it without that edge.
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I love Keira Knightley in “Price and Prejudice”, though I did stumble through the book in college. It was so much better than “Mill on the Floss”, but I digress.
Elegant conversation, as in Austen, would, um, have me making people repeat themselves. I would enjoy listening, but would not understand it for a long time. Kinda like the Shakespearean I hear/spoke/understood in college flex class when, for 4 weeks, that’s all I heard from 9-12 and read all evening from a professor who got his doctorate at Oxford in Shakespeare. Wow, that was interesting.
Scott
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We all have our preferences.
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Do blog posts count? or does elegant conversation have to be oral? We writers choose our words a bit more carefully than people would in line at Walmart.
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Yes, let’s decide blog posts count. We writers love language elegant or otherwise, preferably with that Melody. How’s that? 🙂
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Sounds good to me.
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Okay. Have an image of us all having tea in front of our computers wearing white, books in our lap…:)
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I like that image. I’d be the odd one out. I don’t have a lap. I sit on a balance ball, rolling around as I type, and I’d never be able to hold onto a book.
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You’re underestimating yourself. I beg to differ. Now there’s a phrase…:)
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When I read the classics, I am fascinated with the dialogue even between people who are intimate. Such a refreshing change from a world of tweets, sound bites and expletives constantly in our face.
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I am so not a social media fan. When I read a Jane Austen story it’s hard to believe there was a time people actually spoke that way.
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The refinement of this post brought me bliss. Thank you for the smile upon my face and in my heart.
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Thanks for writing.
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