“THE ART OF SPEECH,” VOL. I., AND “PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH.”
BY A. M. MARTIN,
General Secretary C. L. S. C.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “THE ART OF SPEECH.” VOL. I.
1. Q. What is the number of distinct tongues now employed? A. It is variously estimated from eight to nine hundred.
2. Q. From what tongues are elements taken that our English speech of to-day possesses? A. From every important tongue on the globe.
3. Q. To what three languages is the indebtedness of the English tongue disclosed, in almost every sentence framed? A. The French, the Latin, and the Greek.
4. Q. From what period does modern English speech date? A. From about 1550 A. D.
5. Q. For the two preceding centuries how is English speech characterized? A. As old English.
6. Q. For the next preceding two centuries, 1150 to 1350, how is English speech denominated? A. As Semi-Saxon, the outgrowth of the Norman invasions and conquests.
7. Q. What is the period called for five hundred years preceding the Semi-Saxon period? A. The Anglo-Saxon period.
8. Q. From what did the Anglo-Saxon speech spring? A. From the mingling of Teutonic dialects on British soil.
9. Q. To what great primitive family of languages does the Teutonic belong? A. The Aryan.
10. Q. From whom are those who used this primitive Aryan speech supposed to have descended? A. From Japhet, one of the sons of Noah.
11. Q. By what nations are the languages belonging to the Aryan family spoken? A. By nearly all modern civilized nations.
12. Q. What are some of the causes which contribute to make many of the changes in speech? A. Differences in climate and natural scenery; different methods of increasing vocabularies; different methods of inflection; the development of different muscles of the vocal organs; the manner of accenting, pronouncing and spelling words.
13. Q. To what conclusion may these, and other considerations, lead us as to the origin of all existing and historic tongues? A. That they had their origin from one primitive stock.
14. Q. What is the materialistic evolutionist’s theory of the origin of speech? A. That a race of articulate men, being developed from races of inarticulate creatures, built up from brute sounds existing human speech.
15. Q. What are three strong objections to this theory? A. It lacks the support of well-established facts. It is opposed by the fact that primitive tongues show a descent, but in no case a radical ascent. It is contrary to Scripture history.
16. Q. What is a second theory as to the origin of speech? A. That a race of articulate beings, who were created at one time, but in different localities, developed in those different localities the different historic and existing tongues.
17. Q. What are some of the objections to this theory? A. It is in conflict with a large number of facts pointing to the strict unity of the human race, and is opposed to sacred history.
18. Q. What is a third view as to the origin of speech? A. That a race of fallen beings descended from a representative head that had at the start command of either a perfect speech, or else readily developed it as occasion required; that his descendants adopted this speech, which subsequently, by some strange modification of the vocal organs, was violently disturbed.
19. Q. What are some of the things that can be said in favor of this theory? A. It is not opposed by either physical or linguistic science; and it has the support of sacred history.
20. Q. What inference does the author draw as to the probable origin and development of human speech? A. That it is both God-given and from human invention.
21. Q. By what laws ought speech to be governed? A. By the same laws essentially as are found in force throughout the various domains of matter and mind.
22. Q. What number of laws does the author formulate as a linguistic code? A. Fifteen.
23. Q. What is the first law? A. The law of symbolization.
24. Q. What are three ways in which this law is illustrated? A. By imitative words, by the formation of new words from existing roots, by symbolizing the past.
25. Q. What is the second law? A. The law of development.
26. Q. What does the law of development require as to changes in and additions to language? A. That they should be rather by development from its own resources than by the adoption of foreign words.
27. Q. What does the third law, that of definiteness, require as to an expression of ideas? A. That it shall give the person addressed the least possible conscious mental effort in order to understand.
28. Q. What does the law of economy require of the speaker? A. To give with definiteness and elegance the largest number of ideas with the fewest and shortest words possible.
29. Q. In what does the law of selection consist? A. In giving the utmost effect to expression in the fewest words.
30. Q. How does it differ from the law of economy? A. It not only reduces a given quantity, but reduces it with wise discrimination.
31. Q. Upon what does the law of suggestion fix attention? A. Upon the undertone in speech. It is constantly saying, Write something between the lines.
32. Q. How are the tendencies to conform to the law of analogous usage seen? A. In the change of irregular into regular forms or inflections and speech.
33. Q. What suggestion is made in regard to words introduced into English from other languages? A. That they shall, both in structure and pronunciation, doff their foreign and don the English dress.
34. Q. How is the law of variation and contrast in speech shown? A. By an examination of standard literature.
35. Q. In what way do we find this law illustrated by Shakspere? A. In the midst of the highest tragedy he gives us the lowest comedy.
36. Q. What does the law of unity and harmony in speech require? A. Agreement between the terms used, the sentiments expressed, and the time, place and occasion of their expression.
37. Q. What is said to be the law of authority in the domains of speech? A. The usage of a writer of commanding genius; likewise the sanction of the literary world at a given period.
38. Q. What are some of the rules that are indorsed by nearly all writers upon this subject? A. Use is the law of language. The eldest of the present, and the newest of the past language is best. Words must be reputable, national and present.
39. Q. What three suggestions are made as to rendering language euphonically beautiful? A. By dropping its harsh words. By softening its harsh words. By mastering the pronunciation of all difficult words before using them in public.
40. Q. To what statement does the practical application of the law of needful practice to language lead? A. That if one would master the arts of oral speech and of literary construction he must keep speaking and writing.
41. Q. What is the golden rule of speech? A. That, first of all, the speaker must utter the truth.
42. Q. In the science of speech, to what does diction relate? A. To the selection and use of words.
43. Q. What is correct diction? A. The use of such words as are reputable and present.
44. Q. Of what does the subject of diction include a discussion? A. Of barbarisms, archaisms, obsoletisms, and solecisms.
45. Q. What do the laws of speech require as to the different parts in the formation of compound words? A. That they shall be taken from the same tongue.
46. Q. What class of words do several laws of language demand still further that English-speaking people shall use? A. Such words as are characteristic of their mother tongue.
47. Q. Why do the Scotch love Burns, the Americans Whittier, and the English-speaking world Longfellow as they love no others? A. Because they use the language of purpose, of affection, and of passion which finds its best utterances through the means of simple Anglo-Saxon words.
48. Q. Who is quoted as authority for the saying that “He who is acquainted with no foreign tongue knows nothing of his own?” A. Goethe.
49. Q. What fact is stated as contradicting this statement? A. Among the most distinguished representatives of the mother tongues of different nations are men who were not general linguists.
50. Q. What is idiom? A. It is the peculiar mould in which the sentences of a given tongue naturally shape themselves.
51. Q. Where do Cicero and Quintilian assert that purity of idiom is to be found chiefly? A. Among women and children.
52. Q. Of what does syntax treat? A. The choice and arrangement of words into sentences according to established usage.
53. Q. Concerning what is there a general agreement in regard to the length of sentences? A. That long sentences are more majestic, short ones more emphatic; continuous long sentences fatigue, continuous short ones distract the mind.
54. Q. What is the only rule generally agreed upon in regard to the close of a sentence? A. Avoid concluding a sentence with an insignificant word.
55. Q. In what three ways, in written speech, are the construction of a sentence, and some peculiarity of thought or some peculiar use of words, indicated to the eye? A. By the use of capital letters, by the use of italics, and by the use of punctuation marks.
56. Q. Relating to what are further specific rules given, belonging to the grammar and rhetoric of speech? A. Verbs, nouns, pronouns, qualifying and descriptive words, connecting words and sentences.
57. Q. What is the general agreement as to what style is? A. That it is the most delicate form in which thought incarnates itself.
58. Q. What are the prime excellencies in style? A. Naturalness, clearness, simplicity, conciseness, force, pertinency, variety, and beauty or elegance.
59. Q. In what three ways may clearness be developed and cultivated? A. By constantly practicing in heart and life the thoughts and ways of honesty and frankness. By thoroughly mastering a subject before publishing it. By unwearied application of the arts of rhetorical composition.
60. Q. What are preëminent, in the judgments of all critics, as models for the English-speaking tongue? A. The dramas of Shakspere and the text of the English Bible.
61. Q. What do grammar and rhetoric define figures of words to be? A. Designed and artistic deviations from the ordinary form, construction or application of words or sentences.
62. Q. What are figures of etymology? A. They are deviations from the ordinary form of a word.
63. Q. In what do figures of etymology consist? A. Either in a defect, an excess, or a change in some of the elements of a word.
64. Q. What are figures of syntax? A. They are deviations from the ordinary construction of a sentence.
65. Q. Under what headings are figures of syntax classified? A. Ellipsis, pleonasm, enallage, and hyperbaton.
66. Q. What are usually grouped under figures of rhetoric? A. Figures of poetry, figures of poetic prose, and figures of oratory.
67. Q. What are the three fundamental principles underlying the class of rules governing the use of figurative speech? A. First, figurative speech is used in order the more effectually to persuade. Second, it is used for the purpose of elucidation. Third, after persuasion and elucidation are sought, then for purposes of elegance.
68. Q. What is to be avoided in the use of figurative speech? A. Excess in the use, and mixed, and to a certain extent complex figurative speech.
69. Q. What is Hazlitt’s definition of poetry? A. It is the language of the imagination.
70. Q. Of what is poetry the science and art? A. Of putting the productions of the imagination into figurative and measured or balanced speech.
71. Q. Into what rhetorical forms is poetic speech classified? A. Parallelism, alliteration, and accented meters.
72. Q. Into what classes are accented meters subdivided according to the measure which predominates? A. The iambic, trochaic, anapæstic, dactylic, and mixed.
73. Q. Into what eight classes is poetic speech divided according to subject-matter? A. Epic poems, lyric poems, dramatic poems, didactic poems, pastoral poems, satirical poems, epigrams, and epitaphs.
74. Q. What six classes of figures are given belonging to poetic speech? A. Metaphor, simile, comparison, allegory, parable, and fable.
75. Q. What two rules are given for acquiring skill in poetic representation? A. 1. Cultivate figure-making habitudes. 2. Store the mind with information.
76. Q. In what is prose speech used, and of what does it form the basis? A. It is used in ordinary conversation, and it forms the basis of all didactic and oratoric addresses.
77. Q. Into what rhetorical forms is prose speech classified? A. Narration, description, exposition, and maxims or proverbs.
78. Q. What is admitted as to the relations existing between thought and speech, and also between morals and speech? A. That they are so intimate that any impurity or impropriety in the one quickly taints the other.
79. Q. What are varieties of speech termed that fall partly under poetic and partly under prose representation? A. Prose, poetry, or poetic-prose speech.
80. Q. What are some of the distinctions between poetic-prose and the other forms of speech? A. Poetic-prose is poetic in conception, but the construction of the sentences is not poetic; it often uses terms in other than their ordinary senses; it often utterly disregards resemblances.
81. Q. What are some of the most common figures of poetic-prose speech? A. Metonymy, trope, personification, hyperbole, irony, antithesis, and climax.
II.—QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH,” FROM PAGE 87 TO PAGE 172.
82. Q. During the truce that followed the death of Cyrus what five generals among the Greeks were enticed into the tent of Tissaphernes, made prisoners, and afterward put to death? A. Clearchus, Proxenus, Menon, Agias and Socrates.
83. Q. What was one of the first steps now taken to secure the safety of the Greeks? A. A general meeting was called of all the surviving officers, and new commanders were chosen to take the places of those lost.
84. Q. In whose place was Xenophon chosen? A. That of his friend Proxenus.
85. Q. After this had been done what action was taken as to the rank and file? A. The men were called together and stoutly harangued by three men in succession—Xenophon being the last.
86. Q. What was one of Xenophon’s heroic propositions that was agreed to? A. To burn everything they could possibly spare on the homeward march.
87. Q. What answer did they return to Mithradates, a neighboring Persian satrap, when asked to know what their present plans might be? A. If unmolested, to go home, doing as little injury as possible to the country through which they passed, but to fight their best if opposition was offered.
88. Q. Of what character were the Greeks convinced the mission of Mithradates was? A. That it was a treacherous one.
89. Q. For this reason what resolution did the Grecian generals take? A. That there should be no communication with the enemy by heralds.
90. Q. What was the general direction taken by the Greeks in the first part of their retreat? A. A northerly direction, toward the Black Sea.
91. Q. By whom were they followed, and almost daily attacked, during the first portion of their retreat? A. Tissaphernes and a Persian army.
92. Q. What Persian governor did they encounter in Armenia? A. Tiribazus.
93. Q. With what foes in the elements did they next meet? A. Deep snow and a terrible north wind.
94. Q. What do travelers tell us at the present time as to the manner in which the Armenians of that region build their houses? A. They still build them underground.
95. Q. Into what country did the Greeks next advance? A. The country of the Taochians.
96. Q. At what mountain did the Greeks get the first view of the Black Sea? A. At Mount Theches.
97. Q. At what place did they reach the sea two days afterward? A. At Trebizond.
98. Q. On what mission did Chirisophus go forward to Byzantium? A. To endeavor to procure transports for the conveyance of the army.
99. Q. Chirisophus delaying to return, how did they continue their journey? A. Partly by land and partly by water.
100. Q. When they were finally joined by Chirisophus, what did he bring with him? A. Only a single trireme.
101. Q. At what place did the Greeks pass from Asia into Europe? A. At Byzantium.
102. Q. Afterward, whom did the army engage to serve in a war against Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus? A. The Lacedæmonians.
103. Q. To what number was the army now reduced? A. To six thousand.
104. Q. After the incorporation of the remainder of the ten thousand with the Lacedæmonian army where did Xenophon go? A. To Athens.
105. Q. What is the position of the “Iliad” of Homer in literature? A. It is the leading poem of the world.
106. Q. From what is the “Iliad” entitled? A. From the word Ilium, which is the alternative name of Troy.
107. Q. What episode in the siege of Troy is the real subject of the “Iliad”? A. The wrath of Achilles.
108. Q. What occasioned the siege of Troy? A. The carrying off of Helen, wife of Menelaus, a Grecian king, by Paris.
109. Q. Who was Paris? A. Son of Priam, the king of Troy.
110. Q. Who engaged in the siege against Troy? A. The confederate kings of all Greece, with Agamemnon as commander-in-chief.
111. Q. What was the occasion of the wrath of Achilles? A. The arbitrary interference of Agamemnon to deprive Achilles of a female captive, Briseis, and usurp her to himself.
112. Q. What at length incites Achilles to return to the field? A. The death of Patroclus, his close friend, slain by the Trojans.
113. Q. What is the result as to Achilles? A. He slays Hector, the Trojan champion, and is himself killed by Paris.
114. Q. What forms the subject of the “Odyssey”? A. The adventures of one of the Greek chieftains, Ulysses, or Odysseus.
115. Q. When and how does the “Iliad” itself close? A. Before the fall of Troy, and with the death and funeral rites of Hector.
116. Q. What are some of the best known translations of the “Iliad”? A. Chapman’s, Pope’s, Cowper’s, Derby’s and Bryant’s.
117. Q. Of what are some of the most noted passages in the first book of the “Iliad” descriptive? A. The descent of Apollo, the wrangle between Achilles and Agamemnon, the promise of Jupiter to Thetis, and the feast of the gods.
118. Q. What does the second book of the “Iliad” recount? A. How Jupiter sends a deceiving dream to Agamemnon, to induce that chieftain to make a vain assault on the Trojans.
119. Q. With what does the book close? A. With a catalogue of the Greek forces assembled.
120. Q. To us who read in the light of present views what is a feature of the “Iliad” fatal to any genuine interest in the story? A. The introduction of supernatural agencies into the action of the poem.
121. Q. What is one of the prominent scenes introduced in the third book of the “Iliad”? A. A duel between Paris, the thief, and Menelaus, the husband of Helen.
122. Q. What takes place at the crisis of the duel? A. Venus steps in and carries Paris off to his bed-chamber in the palace of Priam.
123. Q. In the fourth book what is described by a simile, one of the most nobly conceived and nobly expressed of all that occur in the “Iliad”? A. The advance of the Achaians to battle.
124. Q. What noted hero is introduced in the fifth book of the “Iliad”? A. Æneas, the Trojan hero of Virgil’s poem, the “Æneid.”