A First Book in Writing English

by Edwin Herbert Lewis

Adjectives and Adverbs

Apt, likely, liable.

1. He is apt at languages.

2. He is likely to fail if he does not properly prepare himself. [Here apt was possible, but not so good as likely.]

Apt means “fitted,” “fit.” How could such an idea as “It is apt to rain this month” spring from the idea of fit?

3. He is likely to succeed if only he tries.

4. He is liable to arrest and quarantine,—though not likely to be arrested,—merely because he is liable to come down with a contagious disease.

With what kind of feeling does a person look forward to a thing to which he is liable?

Continual, continuous.

1. A continual dropping is a Biblical phrase.

2. A continuous dropping would not be a dropping at all. It would be a stream.

What idea have these words in common?

Funny, odd.

1. It is odd that I haven’t heard of this before.

2. It is a funny sight to see Fido trying desperately to catch his own tail.

Can you explain something of the mental process by which a child comes to say funny so frequently, and strange so rarely? Is it all a matter of imitation, or is there some other reason? Are there not more of strange things in a child’s experience than of funny things?

Healthy, healthful.

Healthful food makes a healthy man.

Give a synonym for healthful as applied to food.

Imminent, eminent, immanent.

1. The eminent Latin writer, Livy, speaks of Hannibal’s elephants as looming up—eminentes—through the mist.

2. That God is immanent in all the world was a doctrine of the Greek fathers; they meant that he pervades and is diffused throughout it.

3. The sword of Damocles hung imminent, suspended by a hair.

4. He is in imminent danger of disgrace.

With which two of these words is the idea of threaten connected? Which has the idea of remain, or stay, in it?

In, into.

1. Bruno looked up into his master’s face.

2. He got into the chariot.

3. He sprang into the lake, while I stayed in the boat.

4. Once in the lake, he swam round.

What difference in the use of these words?

Last, latest.

1. The last page of the book is done.

2. The latest news from the patient is bad.

Does latest imply anything as to the future?

Last, preceding.

1. Let each paragraph be joined smoothly with the preceding.

2. The last paragraph ends the theme.

Mad, angry.

1. There is no reason for being angry.

2. Much learning hath made thee mad.

3. He was mad with rage—fairly insane.

Most, almost.

1. Most men are optimists.

2. Almost every man loves praise.

Parse the words italicized above.

Mutual, common.

1. Our common friend is the better expression, though Dickens has made famous the corresponding worse usage.

2. Friendship may be mutual; a friend cannot.

3. Separated by mountains and by mutual fear.

What is meant by reciprocal? Which word is a synonym of reciprocal?

Oral, verbal.

1. Miles Standish’s act of sending the Indians a snake-skin filled with powder and ball, was a message, but not a verbal message.

2. If you are to see John, let me send him this oral message: Never say die.

3. The corrections did not affect the truth of the statements, but only the manner: they were verbal corrections.

4. The telegraph operator translates into verbal form the message that he hears in the ticking of his receiver.

The Latin word os means mouth; the Latin word verbum means a word. Do oral and verbal keep the sense of the Latin words? Can a verbal message be oral? Can an oral message be verbal? Is an oral message ordinarily verbal? Can you imagine an oral message that is not verbal?

Posted, informed.

1. The ledger is well posted.

2. The editor is well informed.

Can you see the slightest reasonable advantage in speaking of a person as well posted? In other words, does this commercial slang lend any real force?

Practicable, practical.

His scheme won’t work; it isn’t practicable. I’m afraid he isn’t so practical a schemer as we thought.

Quite, somewhat, very, rather, entirely, wholly.

1. Quite never means “very,” “rather,” or “somewhat.” It means “wholly.”

2. Harry is quite well; he is never sick.

3. Yes, I like him rather well.

4. Thank you; I’m quite myself again.

Curtail quite, and you get another good English adjective from the same root. How is this shorter word related in sense to the longer? With which of the following expressions can quite be used? Well (adj.), sick, recovered, pretty, finished, settled, nice, good, assured, patient, used up, satisfied, a good deal, fine, a hero, a way, a mile, a noise, a failure, a lot, a hundred, a few, a good many, a million, a dozen, some, well (adv.), a while, an hour, your debtor, every one, all, around, through, under, o’erthrown, down, elated, in a rage, underestimate, vanquished, quarrelsome, lovely, everywhere, crestfallen.

Real, really, extremely.

1. I think he’s a real Count.

2. I think he’s extremely mean.

3. He’s really a very fine fellow.

Parse the words italicized above.

Some, somewhat.

1. The sick man is somewhat better this morning.

2. Some men have greatness thrust upon them.

Parse the words italicized above.

Without, unless.

1. I can’t go unless there is a holiday.

2. I can’t go without getting permission.

Parse the words italicized above.

Oral Exercise.—The following sentences are from John Ruskin. No improprieties occur in the originals. Within each pair of brackets a word is given, sometimes the right word, sometimes the wrong word. Study the meaning of each sentence, and satisfy yourself as to what is the best expression for each place in question.

1. The ennobling difference between one man and another—between one animal and another—is precisely in this, that one feels more than another. If we were sponges, perhaps sensation might not be easily [gotten] for us; if we were earth-worms, [apt] at every instant to be cut in two by the spade, perhaps too much sensation might not be good for us.

2. But chiefly of all, she is taught to extend the [limitations] of her sympathy.

3. Very ready we are to say of a book, “How good this is—that’s exactly what I think!” But the right feeling is, “How [odd] that is! I never thought of that before, and yet I see it is true; or if I do not now, I hope I shall some day.”

4. I believe, then, with this exception, that a girl’s education should be nearly, in its course and material of study, the same as a boy’s; but [entirely] differently directed. A woman in any rank of life ought to know whatever her husband is [liable] to know, but to know it in a different way.

5. I do not blame them for this, but only for their narrow motive in this. I would have them [want] and [assert] the title of “lady” provided they [allege] not merely the title, but the office and duty signified by it.

6. And not less wrong—perhaps even more foolishly wrong (for I will [expect] thus far what I hope to prove)—is the idea that woman is only the shadow and attendant image of her lord.

7. But now, having no true [avocation], we pour our whole masculine energy into the false business of money-making.

8. Having then faithfully listened to the great teachers, that you may enter into their thoughts, you have yet this higher [advancement] to make,—you have to enter into their hearts.

9. And, lastly, a great nation does not mock Heaven and its Powers by pretending belief in a revelation which [asserts] the love of money to be the root of all evil, and [claiming], at the same time that it is actuated, and [proposes] to be actuated, in all chief national deeds and measures, by no other love.

10. But an education “which shall keep a good coat on my son’s back; which shall [capacitate] him to ring with confidence the visitors’ bell at double-belled doors; which shall result ultimately in the establishment of a double-belled door to his own [residence]—in a word, which shall lead to [advance] in life—this we pray for on bent knees; and this is all we pray for.” It never seems to occur to the parents that there may be an education which in itself is [advance] in Life; that any other than that may perhaps be [advancement] in Death; and that this essential education might be more easily [gotten] or given, than they [guess], if they set about it in the right way, while it is for no price and by no favor to be [got], if they set about it in the wrong.

11. The chance and scattered evil that may here and there haunt, or hide itself in, a powerful book, never does any harm to a noble girl; but the emptiness of an author oppresses her, and his amiable folly [degrades] her. And if she can have [access] to a good library of old and classical books, there need be no choosing at all. Keep the modern magazine and novel out of your girl’s way; turn her loose into the old library every day, and [let] her alone.

Oral Exercise.—Examine the italicized words in the following sentences, taken from a newspaper. According to a good dictionary, which are barbarisms? What ones are here incorrectly used? Which ones are colloquial—permitted in talking familiarly, but not in writing? Suggest better expressions.

1. Her prospects for a long career on this earth are quite favorable.

2. The galvanic battery was applied every hour without producing any more satisfactory results, but hope did not abandon the resurrectionists.

3. When the police arrived they discovered that Burdick was wearing a bogus police star and he was arrested.

4. “If you’ll throw that gun away and put up your dukes like a gentleman, I’ll come down there and sew a button onto you!”

5. Mr. Hanna was decidedly late in showing up at headquarters.

6. It buttons down the front with the finest white pearl buttons of quite large size.

7. Makers of sporting goods say there are a lot of bicyclists who are ready and waiting to take up every new thing.

8. I spotted two of my countrywomen at once.

9. It has been thus far an exceptionably busy campaign.

Oral Exercise.—The following sentences are from Stevenson’s volume, Virginibus Puerisque. As in the preceding exercise, decide on the best word for each place in question.

1. Think of the heroism of Johnson, think of that superb indifference to mortal [limit] that set him upon his dictionary, and carried him through triumphantly to the end!

2. [Most] everybody in our land ... can understand and sympathize with an admiral or a prize-fighter.

3. When he comes to ride with the king’s pardon, he must bestride a chair, which he will so hurry and belabor and on which he will so furiously [demean] himself, that the messenger will arrive, if not bloody with spurring, at least fiery red with haste. If his romance involves an accident upon a cliff, he must clamber in person about the chest of drawers and fall bodily [onto] the carpet, before his imagination is satisfied.

4. Surely all these are [practicable] questions to a neophyte entering upon life with a view to play.

5. A sedentary population ... can [noways, in no wise] explain to itself the gaiety of these passers-by.

6. To borrow and [demean] an image, all the evening street-lamps burst into song.

7. But the conservative, while lauding progress, is ever timid of innovation; his is the hand upheld to [council] pause; his is the signal advising slow [advance].

Oral Exercise.—The following sentences are from Mrs. Gaskell’s Cranford. As before, decide on the best word for each place in question.

1. There were rules and regulations for visiting and calls; and they were announced to any young people, who might be [stopping] in the town.

2. He must have been upwards of sixty at the time of the first visit I paid to Cranford after I had left it as a [residence].

3. She was evidently nervous from having [expected] my call.

4. My request evidently pleased the old gentleman, who took me all [round, around[32]] the place, and showed me his six and twenty cows, named after the different letters of the alphabet.

5. I can’t [wholly] remember the date, but I think it was in 1805 that Miss Jenkyns wrote the longest [series, succession] of letters.

6. She never laughed at his jokes ...; and that [aggravated] him.

7. He was very, very [mad] indeed, and before all the people he lifted up his cane and flogged Peter!

8. “Shell-fish are sometimes thought not very [healthy].”

9. The writer of the letter ... was dead long ago; and I, a stranger, not born at the time when this occurrence [took place], was the one to open it.

10. I seized the opportunity, and wrote and despatched an [acceptation] in her name.

11. He thought each shawl more beautiful than the [last].

12. I could not see that the little event in the shop below had in the least damped Miss Matty’s curiosity as to the make of sleeves or the [set, sit] of skirts. [If neither sit nor set is right here, how recast the sentence?]

13. Miss Matty [anticipated] the sight of the glossy folds.

14. The Gordons ... were now [expected] to return very soon; and Miss Matty, in her sisterly pride, [expected] great delight in the joy of showing them Mr. Peter.

15. However, we all sat eyes right, square front, gazing at the [tantalizing] curtain.

16. We (at least I) had doubts as to whether she really would enjoy the little adventure of having her house [burglarized], as she [protested] she would.

17. Miss Jenkyns ... never got over what she called Captain Brown’s disparaging [observations] upon Dr. Johnson as a writer of light and agreeable fiction.

18. It (Death) was a word not to be [alluded to] to ears polite.

Oral Exercise.—The following sentences are from Lord Chesterfield’s letters to his son. As in the preceding exercise, choose the best word for each place in question.

1. Your own [remarks] upon mankind, when compared with those which you will find in books, will help you fix the true point.

2. There is nothing which I more wish that you should know, and which [less] people do know, than the true use and value of time.

3. Your [neglect] of dress, while you were a schoolboy, was pardonable, but would not be so now.

4. The [reputations] of kings and great men are only to be learned in conversation; for they are never fairly written during their lives.

5. What does Chesterfield mean by “in a good sense,” in the following? “Another, speaking in defence of a gentleman upon whom a censure was moved, happily said that he thought the gentleman was more liable to be thanked and rewarded, than censured. You know, I presume, that liable can never be used in a good sense.”

Review Exercise.—Let each word of the following list be taken up by itself. Each member of the class should give a sentence of his own, using the given word correctly.

Access, acceptance, alternative, avocation, observation, ability, capacity, character, discovery, limitation, party, portion, predominance, residence, except (verb), affect, effect, allude, claim, purpose, transpire, liable, apt, somewhat, quite, mad, practicable.

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CHAPTER IX
SOURCES OF THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY

The English Vocabulary.—The enormous treasure of English speech contains something like 200,000 words.[33] Most of these were once foreigners to the language. To tell how each came to be English would be like telling the personal romances of all the foreign-born citizens of these United States.

England was once inhabited by Celts, the ancestors of the Scotch, Welsh, and Irish. The Romans under Cæsar possessed the island, and for five hundred years held the country, but they left us, from this period of their occupation, only half a dozen words: the names of the camp (castra), the paved road (strata), the settlement (colonia), the trench (fossa), the harbor (portus), the rampart (vallum). These words remain chiefly in the names of places. A sharp eye sees them in Lancaster, Leicester, Manchester, etc.; Stratford, street, etc.; Lincoln, etc.; Fossway, etc.; Portsmouth, etc.; wall, bailey, bailiff (these three words being derived from vallum).

In the fifth century, however, Teutonic tribes began to cross the sea and invade the land. The Celts were driven north and west into the mountains, and the newcomers stayed permanently. Although these Teutons—the Anglo-Saxons—called the Celts Welsh, that is, strangers, they took up a good many of the strangers’ words. They called many a river of the land Avon, water, as the Celts had done,—there are fourteen Avons to-day,—and they kept many such words as inch, an island (in Inchcape), and kill, a church (in Kildare). Indeed, for centuries the Celts kept on lending words to the English: bargain, bodkin, brogue, clan, crag, dagger, glen, gown, mitten, rogue, whiskey, are familiar examples of these permanent loans.

The Old English language itself was a Germanic dialect. Like Latin and German, it was inflected,—a fact that we see to-day in the presence of such forms as him, the old dative case for he. The inflectional endings nearly all disappeared before Shakespeare’s time. The vocabulary of this Old English has given us most of the words that we use as children. For example, household names—home, friends, father, mother, etc.; names of many emotions—gladness, sorrow, love, hate, fear, etc.; names of most objects in the landscape—tree, bush, stone, hill, woods, stream, sun, moon, etc.; common names of animals—horse, cow, dog, cat, etc.; parts of the body—head, eye, etc. Our household proverbs are in these Anglo-Saxon words. “Fast bind, fast find,” is an example of a thousand similar saws that embody the practical common sense of the people. The loves and hates, the hopes and fears, the wit and rude wisdom of our forefathers, have gone into Saxon words. These are not merely the words of childhood; in hours of deep feeling, in moments when the natural disposition demands expression, the grown man speaks in Saxon. These strong, forcible old words are to be prized and cherished as carefully as are those of less emotional suggestion,—the exact, discriminative Latin words.

In the ninth and tenth centuries the Norse vikings, who sailed everywhere, sailed also to England, and for a time got the upper hand of the Saxons. From 1013 to 1042 there were Scandinavian kings on the English throne. But these Norse were not able to impose much of their own language upon the country. Their settlements were named in Norse, and the word by, a town, remains in hundreds of such places, as Whitby, the white town (from the white cliffs). From these great seamen our Saxon ancestors learned some new nautical dialect—words like bow, bowline, crew, harbor, hawser, lee, stern.

In 1066 the Normans conquered the land. These were Frenchmen whose fathers had been Norse. They brought the French language into their English court, and for two or three hundred years there were two languages in England,—French on the lips of the nobles, Saxon on the lips of the peasants. But the Saxon race was too strong to remain an underling. Gradually it mingled with the Norman race, picking up hundreds, even thousands of French words from the latter, but keeping its own ways of putting words together.

By 1400, when Chaucer died, there was a new English language, almost as much French as Saxon in vocabulary, but far less French than Saxon in grammar. Since French is largely derived from Latin, it is clear that the total Latin element in the vocabulary was already very great.

After Chaucer there came a general awakening of interest in ancient civilization; and in the Revival of Learning a great many words were adopted directly from Latin and Greek. In the sixteenth century followed the Renaissance of literature, art, and the sciences. This made its way to England from Italy, and naturally Englishmen caught up many new words from Italians. For example: alert, bankrupt, brigade, bust, cameo, caricature, cascade, domino, fresco, granite, influenza, malaria, niche, oratorio, pianoforte, ruffian, studio, tirade, umbrella, vista. The Spaniards, too, whom Englishmen met in those days on the sea and at courts, have lent our language such words as barricade, bravado, cigar, desperado, flotilla, guerilla, merino, mosquito, mulatto, renegade, sherry, tornado, vanilla.

The bold English seamen of the sixteenth century sailed back even from America with new things and new names—like tobacco. In the next century the commerce which followed hard upon the voyages of discovery was the means of bringing to the British island many new words. Here it may be said that the Dutch, who have rivalled the English in commerce, and who have taught the English some tricks of seamanship,—as did the vikings before them,—are represented in English by words like ballast, boom, boor, skipper, sloop, smack, trigger, yacht. English merchantmen of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries sailed to ports Oriental and Occidental. Returning, they brought from Africa canaries and gorillas, with the words canary and gorilla, and told of oases; from Arabia they fetched such names as admiral, alcohol, alcove, alkali, arsenal, azure, chemistry, coffee, cotton, lute, magazine, nabob, naphtha, sherbet, sofa, syrup, zenith; indeed, some of these words had got into English through earlier English travellers—chiefly crusaders. English sailors and travellers have brought from China silk, tea, etc.; from India, banyan, calico, mullagatawny, musk, punch, sugar, thug, etc.; from Malayan ports, bantam, cockatoo, gong, rattan, sago, etc.; from Persia, awning, caravan, chess, hazard, horde, lemon, orange, paradise, sash, shawl, etc. Few are the languages from which a British ear has not caught and kept a new term.

In America we have many Indian names of places and things. We have hominy, moose, opossum, raccoon, toboggan, and other words from North American tribes. Mexico gave us chocolate, tomato, etc.; the West Indies, potato, canoe, hurricane; South America, alpaca, quinine, tapioca, etc.

In the present century, science, both practical and pure, has discovered thousands of facts and invented thousands of contrivances. Consequently thousands of words have been coined, mostly from Greek, to name modern inventions and the facts of science. A recent dictionary found it necessary to codify 4000 technical terms that had sprung up within the last few years.

Anglo-Saxon Prefixes and Suffixes.—The following prefixes are Anglo-Saxon. Think of words made with each.

1. A- = in, on.

2. Be-. What grammatical effect has this prefix on moan, daub, friend?

3. For-. What effect has this on bid, lorn? Compare Latin per, in perfect.

4. Fore-.

5. Gain- = against.

6. Mis- (A.-S. mis = wrong). What effect on deed, lead? A French prefix from Latin minus occurs in mischief, etc.

7. Th-.

8. Un-.

9. With- (A.-S. wither = back).

Similarly think of words made with each of the following noun suffixes and explain the force of each suffix.

1. -ard = habitual.

2. -craft.

3. -dom.

4. -en.

5. -er.

6. -hood.

7. -ing = son of, part. Meaning of Browning? lording? tithing? There is an older suffix which appears in the gerund—taking, hunting.

8. -kin.

9. -ling.

10. -ness.

11. -ock.

12. -ric = power.

13. -ship.

14. -stead = place.

15. -ster.

16. -wright.

17. -ward.

Think of words made with the following adjective suffixes.

1. -ed.

2. -en.

3. -ern.

4. -fast.

5. -fold.

6. -ful.

7. -ish.

8. -less.

9. -like (lic = body, form).

10. -right.

11. -some = same.

12. -y.

Think of words made with the following adverb suffixes.

1. -es (the old genitive ending).

2. -ly (lic = body, form).

3. -ling, -long.

4. -meal.

5. -om (old dative plural).

6. -ward.

7. -wise = manner.

The Latin Element.—The Latin element is numerically the larger part of the language. It is therefore impossible to know well the English vocabulary except by knowing a considerable part of the Latin language. Whether our Latin words come directly through the ancient classics, or through the Romance tongues, such as French, Italian, and Spanish, to know their full force one must know the original meaning of them, as used by the ancient race of world-conquerors. Every instructor in English watches with keen interest the progress made by his students in their Latin studies. Of course, the mere knowledge that a given word is derived from a given Latin word does not necessarily give the student practical command of it in his writing; but usually such knowledge does help to a better understanding of the meaning the word has to-day, and so tends both to fix it in memory and to insure exact use of it.

Latin Words transferred to English.—Some Latin words have been transferred bodily into English. Discuss with the instructor the derivation of the present meanings of the following:—

Alias = otherwise; album = white; amanuensis = hand-writer; animus = mind; arena = sand; boa = great serpent; camera = chamber; cornucopia = horn of plenty; extra = beyond; focus = hearth; gratis = for nothing; item = also; memento = remember (imperative); nostrum = our own; omnibus = for all; posse = to be able; quorum = of whom; rebus = by things; rostrum = beak; torpedo = numbness; vagary = to wander; videlicet = it can be seen; virago = a mannish woman.

Latin Prefixes and Suffixes.—Recall English words having the following prefixes, and explain the effect of the prefix on each.

A-, ab-, abs- = from; ad- = to; amb- = about; ante- = before; bis-, bi- = twice; circum- = around; cum- (found in French col-, com-, cor-, coun-) = with; contra- = against; de- = down, from; dis- (Fr. des-, de-) = asunder; ex- (Fr. es-, e-) = from; extra- = beyond; in- (Fr. en-, em-) = in, into; in- (il-, im-, ir-, ig-) = not; inter- = between, among; non- = not; ob- = against; pene- = almost; per- = through; post- = after; præ-, pre- = before; præter- = beyond; pro- (Fr. pour = pol-, por-, pur-) = for; re- = back; retro- = backwards; se- = apart; sub- (suc-, suf-, sum-, sup-, sur-, sus-) = under; super- = above; trans- = across; vice- = in place of.

Recall words having the following Latin or Latin-French suffixes, and explain each in terms of the meaning of the suffix.

-Aceous (Lat. -aceus) = made of; -al (Latin -alis) = pertaining to; -able (-ible), Lat. (h)abilis = capable of being; -ple, -ble (Latin -plex) = fold; -plex = fold; -lent (Lat. -lentus) = full of; -ose (Lat. -osus) = full of; -und (Lat. -undus) = full of; -ulous (Lat. -ulus)= full of.

Latin Roots in English.—Below are listed a few of the many Latin words that have given us English words. Recall as many as possible of their derivatives, and define each in terms of the original meaning. Thus acer, sharp, gives us acrimony, sharpness, acrid, sour. Some member of the class may know that through the French it gives us vinegar, sharp wine. Make notes in your note-book of any derivatives that are new to you. Ædes, a building; æquus, equal; ager, a field; agere, to do; alere, to nourish—perfect participle altus, nourished, therefore high; amare, to love; anima, life; animus, mind; annus, a year; aqua, water; arcus, a bow; ardere (pf. ptc. arsus), to burn; audire, to hear; augere (pf. ptc. auctus), to increase; brevis, brief; cadere (pf. ptc. casus), to fall; candere, to shine; capere, to take; caput, a head; cavus, hollow; cernere (pf. ptc. cretus), to distinguish; clarus, clear; cor, heart; corona, crown; credere, to believe; crescere (pf. ptc. cretus), to grow; crudus, raw; cura, care; deus, god; dicere, to say; docere, to teach; dominus, lord (Fr. damsel, dame, madame); domus, a house; ducere, to lead; errare, to wander; facere, to make; filum, a thread; finis, the end; flos, a flower; frangere (stems, frag, fract), to break; fortis, strong; fundere, to pour; gradus, a step; gravis, heavy; homo, a man; imperare, to command; jus, right; legere (lect), to read; ligo, to bind; litera, a letter; loqui, to speak; lumen, light; luna, the moon; magnus, great; manus, a hand; maturus, ripe; mittere (missere), to send; mors, death; novus, new; nox, night; omnis, all; ordo, order; pascere (pf. ptc. pastus), to feed; pati (pf. ptc. passus), to suffer; petere, to seek; portare, to carry; radix, a root; regere (pf. ptc. rectus), to rule; scire, to know; sequi (pf. ptc. secutus), to follow; socius, a companion; spirare, to breathe; tangere, to touch; texere, to weave; vanus, empty; videre, to see; vincere (pf. ptc. victus), to conquer; vulgus, the crowd.

Greek Roots in English.—Recall English words made from the following Greek roots, and explain each. Make notes in your note-book of those derivatives that are new to you. Anthropos, a man; aster, astron, a star; autos, self; biblos, a book; bios, life; deka, ten; dokein, to think; dunamis, power; eu, well; ge, the earth; graphein, to write; hemi, half; hippos, a horse; homos, the same; kuklos, a circle; monos, alone; orthos, right; pan, all; petra, a rock; philein, to love; phone, a sound; poiein, to make;[34] skopein, to see; sophia, wisdom; tele, distant; theos, a god.

Curious Words.—Look up and copy into your note-book the origin of the following words. Assassin, august, dahlia, dunce, epicure, galvanic, guillotine, hermetically, January, jovial, July, lynch, March, mentor, panic, phaeton, quixotic, stentorian, tantalize, tawdry. Bayonet, bedlam, copper, damask, dollar, gasconade, gipsy, laconic, lumber, meander, milliner, palace, utopian. Abominate, adieu, amethyst, apothecary, beldam, capricious, cemetery, cheap, checkmate, cobalt, curmudgeon, dainty, daisy, dismal, emolument, salary, fanatic, gentleman, heretic, inculcate, infant, intoxicated, maidenhair (fern), maxim, nausea, onyx, parlor, Porte (the Sublime Porte), pupil, silly, sincere, tariff, trump (card). Atonement, belfry, brimstone, carouse, counterpane, coward, crayfish, dandelion, dirge, drawing-room, easel, gospel-grove, harbinger, Jerusalem artichoke, line (garments), licorice, nostril, porpoise, quinsy, squirrel, summerset, surgeon, thorough, treacle, trifle, wassail, whole.

Written Exercise.—Examine the following passages separately. Classify all the words in two columns, one giving those of Saxon derivation, the other those of Latin derivation. Consult the dictionary in case of doubt. Then compare the English of Dr. Johnson with that of Dr. Blackmore. The former is writing in his own person as an eighteenth century scholar; the latter in the person of the stout John Ridd, a seventeenth century youth.

No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments, and tender officiousness; and therefore, no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained. Kindness is preserved by a constant reciprocation of benefits or interchange of pleasures; but such benefits only can be bestowed, as others are capable to receive, and such pleasures only imparted, as others are qualified to enjoy.—Dr. Johnson, Rambler for July 9, 1751.

When I had travelled two miles or so, conquered now and then with cold, and coming out to rub my legs into a lively friction, and only fishing here and there because of the tumbling water, suddenly, in an open space, where meadows spread about it, I found a good stream flowing softly into the body of our brook. And it brought, so far as I could guess by the sweep of it under my knee-caps, a larger power of clear water than the Lynn itself had; only it came more quietly down, not being troubled with stairs and steps, as the fortune of the Lynn is, but gliding smoothly and forcibly, as if upon some set purpose.—R. D. Blackmore, Lorna Doone.

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CHAPTER X
THE MASTERY OF A WRITING VOCABULARY

Ideas without Words.—It is possible to have ideas without having words in which to express them. Miss Helen Keller[35] had plenty of ideas before any one taught her the words for them. The painter trains himself to express ideas in paint; the sculptor, in stone. The inventor expresses ideas in machinery. Because words however are the commonest means of expression, it is desirable that one should know as many as possible. A person who has ideas will indeed be able to communicate them in some rough-and-ready form of speech; will use a poor word, if he cannot think of a good one, and by hook or crook will manage to be understood. But an unread, untrained man trying to communicate some fine shade of thought is commonly a sorry sight, no matter how bright his mind may be.

Words without Ideas.—On the other hand, it is possible to know words without knowing what they stand for. Some persons of quick verbal memory pick up phrases readily, and utter them glibly, with little sense of their meaning. Gratiano, of Shakespeare’s drama, “spoke an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in Venice.” Such persons as he have given ground for the sarcastic remark that language is the art of concealing thought. The use of meaningless phrases, and the use of words without a care to their exact meaning, is one danger that besets the student of composition. The boy who fluently remarks that he recently lost his little saturnine (meaning canine, i.e. dog); the lady, Mrs. Malaprop, who walks through Sheridan’s play, saying, “You go first, and we’ll precede you”; the man, Launcelot Gobbo, who enlivens The Merchant of Venice with such remarks as that “his suit is impertinent to himself,”—these people need a book of synonyms. Unless a writer is sure that he knows definitely the meaning of the word that his pen is about to trace, he would much better stay his hand.

Ideas and Words.—Though one mind may have ideas but lack their names, and though another may have the names but lack the notions for which they stand, yet both ideas and words are indispensable to the writer. A general recipe for getting ideas is hardly easier to give than a recipe for being great, or for having blue eyes, or for being liked by every one. Ideas are had through new experiences, new acquaintanceships, new sights; through hard thinking, through hard reading,—in short, through living. Mr. Henry James, the eminent novelist, gives a direction for being a good novelist: Try to be one of those people on whom nothing is lost. The student who is eager to know as much as possible of what is worth knowing in life, and is devoured with curiosity to learn the name of everything, is sure to acquire both new ideas and new words.[36]

It is nevertheless not to be denied that to some extent ideas can be bred by the study of the mere words. How true this is appears when it is remembered that words are the embalmed ideas of men. A study of such a list as the Curious Words given in the preceding chapter cannot but add to the student’s mental stores. Thackeray, it is said, used to read the dictionary before he composed. It may be presumed that the habit used not merely to acquaint him with new words, but to arouse his mind and set it to fashioning new thoughts. The attempt to discriminate between words that mean nearly, not quite, the same thing, results in a distinct gain in thought, and in power of thought. It is probable that no two words have exactly the same sense; to discover the difference enriches the discoverer’s store of knowledge, and develops one of the highest mental powers. A command of words not merely affords relief from the pain of dumbness, not merely loosens the tongue; it aids reasoning. Thinking proceeds more securely the moment a hazy notion is given definite shape in the right word. Indeed, the mere search for the right word is always a means of clearing up the thought. To be tortured in mind by inability to find the unique phrase, sometimes means a mere fault in verbal memory; as often, or oftener, it is due to a vagueness of thinking.

By way of summary, then, acquisition of ideas furthers acquisition of words, and vice versâ. To be poor in ideas, or to be poor in language,—either means failure for a writer.

The Two Vocabularies.—Of all the 200,000 words in our language, probably no one man would understand one-half if he saw them, undefined, in a dictionary. Just how large a man’s reading vocabulary can be is not known. Professor Holden, the astronomer, found that his own was about 33,000 words. It is therefore likely that 25,000 is not an unusual number for an educated person to understand. But the reading or passive vocabulary is very different in size from the writing or active vocabulary. To remember the sense of a word when it is seen is far less difficult than to recall the word whenever its meaning rises dimly in the mind. A little child has but one set of words—an active vocabulary; it makes oral use of all the expressions it knows. But the older person reads so much that he comes to recognize myriads of words that rarely rise to his lips or find their way to his pen. There is inevitably therefore a widening gap between the expressions he can recognize and those he can employ. That this should be so is in part desirable. A person of fourteen or sixteen or eighteen must, if he reads carefully, learn to understand many expressions that are too bookish for his own uses. The word temerarious, for instance, is needed once where its unpretentious cousin, rash, is needed a score of times. With some words the young writer needs only a speaking acquaintance; others are good friends that, in Hamlet’s phrase, he should buckle to his soul with hoops of steel. But it is safe to say that if a person can transfer some part of his reading vocabulary into his writing vocabulary, he will be much benefited by so doing. There is probably no reason why a freshman should not enter college master of a writing vocabulary of 5000 words, and a reading vocabulary of 15,000. Shakespeare’s works contain about 15,000 different words, the King James version of the Bible fewer than 6000. Again, each person uses the same words with many different meanings. Every great writer employs the same words in many figurative senses; the fact is perhaps the most striking proof of his literary power. If Shakespeare’s vocabulary were reckoned as including these figurative meanings, it would shoot up to a wonderful figure.

“It would be absurd,” says Professor A. S. Hill, with characteristic good sense, “for a boy to have the desirableness of enlarging his vocabulary constantly on his mind; but if he avails himself of his opportunities, in the school-room or out of it, he will be surprised to find how rapidly his vocabulary grows.” Doubtless however the matter must receive some definite attention, if the best results are to be secured. In the rest of this chapter particular methods of acquiring new words and senses of words will be considered.

A Vocabulary Book.—It will be found helpful to buy a strong blank-book of convenient size, and to copy into this every new word that seems to the student available for his writing; not every new word he meets, for some will impress him as too bookish or pedantic, but those which appear to express happily some idea that has lain unnamed in his mind.

Figurative Uses of Common Words.—A writer owes it to himself and to the reader to get all the service he legitimately can out of common words, because in the end so doing spares both persons a vast deal of unnecessary labor. Examine a handful of the well-worn counters of speech,—such words as poor, heavy, thin, best, full, manner, sense, deep, sweet. They are like dull pebbles brought home from the beach. But dip them back into the brine of a good book, and they become gems. The words specified above appear in a paragraph of Mr. W. D. Howells: “I followed Irving, too, in my later reading, but at haphazard, and with other authors at the same time. I did my poor best to be amused by his Knickerbocker History of New York, because my father liked it so much, but secretly I found it heavy; and a few years ago when I went carefully through it again, I could not laugh. Even as a boy I found some other things of his up-hill work. There was the beautiful manner, but the thought seemed thin; and I do not remember having been much amused by Bracebridge Hall, though I read it devoutly, and with a full sense that it would be very comme il faut to like it. But I did like the life of Goldsmith; I liked it a great deal better than the more authoritative life by Forster, and I think there is a deeper and sweeter sense of Goldsmith in it.”[37]

Observe the various duties that the plainest words were persuaded into doing for Shakespeare. With him the word old applies to widely different things: Old arms, old beard, old limbs, old eyes, old bones, old feet, old heart, old wrinkles, old wit, old care, old woe, old hate, old custom, old days. What does each of these phrases mean? He is fond of contrasting simple words; thus, “He’ll take his old course in a country new.”

Note how many abstract ideas in Shakespeare are contented with the word heavy, which ordinary people apply merely to coal, lead, and such uninspiring commodities. Heavy accent, heavy news, heavy sin, heavy act, heavy task, heavy day, heavy hour, heavy gait, heavy leave, heavy message, heavy summons. Explain what each means.[38]

Similarly there are light gifts, light behavior, light heart, light loss, light of foot, light wings, light foam. Another drudge of a word, thick, learns new and pleasanter tasks of the great poet. Thick sight, thick perils, thick in their thoughts, thick sighs, thick slumber. Explain each of these phrases. Opposed to thick is thin: thin air, thin drink, thin and slender pittance. These are the things that Shakespeare calls high: high deeds, high descent, high desert, high designs, high disgrace, high exploits, high feats, high good trim, high heaven, high hope, high perfection, high resolve, high reward. One more word, golden. Lesser poets would apply it to physical objects. Shakespeare, too, speaks of the sun “Kissing with golden face the meadows green,” and of “This majestical roof fretted with golden fire.” But elsewhere he manages to apply the adjective to things that cannot so directly be called golden. Thus: “A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross.” “... wear a golden sorrow.” “Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney sweepers, come to dust.” “Nestor’s golden words.” Explain each of these uses.

Of course many of these figurative expressions are too poetical by far for the prose of high school students. Nevertheless, many others would be appropriate in the manuscript of any person,—for instance, high designs, high deeds, high exploits, high resolve. Such uses as these can be cultivated to the enrichment of the vocabulary.

Written Exercise.[39]—Each of the following adjectives applies primarily to physical objects, that can be seen, or heard, or touched, or tasted. But each is often raised to a higher use, being made to name some quality of character, or some other abstract idea. Take the adjectives one by one, and under each write in class as many abstract words as you think can properly be modified by the given adjective. Thus the adjective fine, which is used of such physical objects as sand, cloth, particles, may also apply to courage, sense of honor, presence, phrases, words, deeds.

1. Sweet. 2. Sour. 3. Bitter. 4. Soft. 5. Hard. 6. Smooth. 7. Rough. 8. Delicious. 9. Insipid. 10. Cold. 11. Freezing. 12. Icy. 13. Burning. 14. Chilly. 15. Blue. 16. White. 17. Black. 18. Gray. 19. Brown. 20. Green. 21. Dark. 22. Shadowy. 23. Misty. 24. Cloudy. 25. Windy. 26. Stormy. 27. Transparent. 28. Blunt. 29. Sharp. 30. Keen. 31. Dull. 32. Fragrant. 33. Malodorous. 34. Shining. 35. Beaming. 36. Glowing. 37. Glittering. 38. Blazing. 39. Hazy. 40. Brilliant. 41. Muddy. 42. Rippling.

The Value of Careful Reading.—A writer must perhaps be as dependent on books for his vocabulary as on any other one source. Yet it is possible to read a great deal without absorbing many new expressions. To gain new words and new ideas, the student must compel himself to read slowly. Impatient to hurry on and learn how the tale or poem ends, many a youth is accustomed to read so rapidly as to miss the best part of what the author is trying to say. Thoughts cannot be read so rapidly as words. To get at the thoughts and really to retain the valuable expressions, the student must scrutinize and ponder as he reads. Each word must be thoroughly understood; its exact value in the given sentence must be grasped. It will not do to draft off a long list of new expressions into the note-book, and then investigate the meaning of each after the connection in which each was used has been forgotten. Usually the best way is to look up the meaning when the word is come upon. This is always the best way when a passage is being read with a view to increasing one’s vocabulary. When a tale or poem or essay is being read for its general theme, or for its literary construction, it is often desirable to underline each new word, leaving the meaning to be investigated a little later. In finding the value of the word in its sentence, the student is often little aided by the dictionary. Imagination and reasoning must sometimes be called into play before the definition can be made to apply. The dictionary—particularly the abridged dictionary—is not a magic book, ready to explain every delicate shading that a great author gives a word in a particular connection.

In reading silently it is due the author to read with as much expression as if one were pronouncing the words aloud. One should mentally give every word and phrase its proper accent, should feel the value of every punctuation mark. The force of such a passage as the following, from Carlyle, will be lost unless the reader puts the emphasis in exactly the right places.

Manhood begins when we have in any way made truce with Necessity; begins, at all events, when we have surrendered to Necessity, as the most part only do; but begins joyfully and hopefully only when we have reconciled ourselves to Necessity; and thus, in reality, triumphed over it, and felt that in Necessity we are free.

Literature is full of words descriptive of things that all have seen or heard. We render a service to the memory if in reading we linger long enough to call up the colors, shapes, motions, sounds, that are suggested by the text. Some persons recall sights more easily than sounds, some recall sounds more easily than sights; some can remember motions more easily than either colors, shapes, or sounds. It is therefore good training for the word-memory if we endeavor to recall all kinds of sense impressions. Read the following passage slowly, imagining the sights, motions, and sensations of touch, that are suggested.

A long way down that limpid water, chill and bright as an iceberg, went my little self that day on man’s choice errand—destruction. All the young fish seemed to know that I was one who had taken out God’s certificate, and meant to have the value of it; every one of them was aware that we desolate more than replenish the earth. For a cow might come and look into the water, and put her yellow lips down; a kingfisher, like a blue arrow, might shoot through the dark alleys over the channel, or sit on a dipping withy-bough with his beak sunk into his breast-feathers; even an otter might float down stream, likening himself to a log of wood, with his flat head flush with the water-top, and his oily eyes peering quietly; and yet no panic would seize other life, as it does when a sample of man comes.—R. D. Blackmore, Lorna Doone.

Imagine as vividly as possible each sound and other physical sensation suggested by the following selection, from the book just quoted:—

The volumes of the mist came rolling at me (like great logs of wood, pillowed out with sleepiness), and between them there was nothing more than waiting for the next one. Then everything went out of sight, and glad was I of the stone behind me, and view of mine own shoes. Then a distant noise went by me, as of many horses galloping, and in my fright I set my gun and said, “God send something to shoot at.” Yet nothing came, and my gun fell back, without my will to lower it.

But presently, while I was thinking “What a fool I am!” arose as if from below my feet, so that the great stone trembled, that long lamenting, lonesome sound, as of an evil spirit not knowing what to do with it. For the moment I stood like a root, without either hand or foot to help me, and the hair of my head began to crawl, lifting my hat, as a snail lifts his house, and my heart like a shuttle went to and fro. But finding no harm to come of it, neither visible form approaching, I wiped my forehead and hoped for the best, and resolved to run every step of the way till I drew our own latch behind me.

Yet here again I was disappointed, for no sooner was I come to the cross-ways by the black pool in the hole, but I heard through the patter of my own feet a rough low sound very close in the fog, as of a hobbled sheep a-coughing. I listened, and feared, and yet listened again, though I wanted not to hear it. For being in haste of the homeward road, and all my heart having heels to it, loath I was to stop in the dusk for the sake of an aged wether. Yet partly my love of all animals, and partly my fear of the farmer’s disgrace, compelled me to go to the succor, and the noise was coming nearer. A dry, short, wheezing sound it was, barred with coughs and want of breath; but thus I made the meaning of it:—

What do you see mentally, when you read the following?

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in its head.

The value of minute and thoughtful reading has been set forth by John Ruskin, in his Sesame and Lilies, a book well worth reading, if one is willing to take in good part the earnest, somewhat dogmatic tone which Ruskin so often uses. The oft-quoted passage in which he illustrates his idea of how a poem should be read, is given below. The student who every day reads a few pages as conscientiously as Ruskin would have him, will find his command of words rapidly increasing, and his power of thought increasing likewise.

And now, merely for example’s sake, I will, with your permission, read a few lines of a true book with you carefully, and see what will come out of them. I will take a book perfectly known to you all. No English words are more familiar to us, yet few perhaps have been read with less sincerity. I will take these few following lines of Lycidas:—

“Last came, and last did go,

The pilot of the Galilean lake.

Two massy keys he bore of metals twain

(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain):

He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake:

‘How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,

Enow of such as for their bellies’ sake

Creep and intrude and climb into the fold!

Of other care they little reckoning make

Than how to scramble at the shearers’ feast,

And shove away the worthy bidden guest;

Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold

A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else, the least

That to the faithful herdsman’s art belongs!

What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;

And when they list, their lean and flashy songs

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw.

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,

But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread,

Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw

Daily devours apace, and nothing said.’”

Let us think over this passage, and examine its words.

First, is it not singular to find Milton assigning to St. Peter, not only his full episcopal function, but the very types of it which Protestants usually refuse most passionately? His “mitred” locks! Milton was no Bishop-lover; how comes St. Peter to be “mitred”? “Two massy keys he bore.” Is this, then, the power of the keys claimed by the bishops of Rome, and is it acknowledged here by Milton only in a poetical license, for the sake of its picturesqueness, that he may get the gleam of the golden keys to help his effect? Do not think it. Great men do not play stage tricks with doctrines of life and death: only little men do that. Milton means what he says; and means it with his might too—is going to put the whole strength of his spirit presently into the saying of it. For though not a lover of false bishops, he was a lover of true ones; and the Lake-pilot is here, in his thoughts, the type and head of true episcopal power. For Milton reads that text, “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven” quite honestly. Puritan though he be, he would not blot it out of the book because there have been bad bishops; nay, in order to understand him, we must understand that verse first; it will not do to eye it askance, or whisper it under our breath, as if it were a weapon of an adverse sect. It is a solemn, universal assertion, deeply to be kept in mind by all sects. But perhaps we shall be better able to reason on it if we go on a little farther, and come back to it. For clearly, this marked insistence on the power of the true episcopate is to make us feel more weightily what is to be charged against the false claimants of episcopate; or generally, against false claimants of power and rank in the body of the clergy; they who, “for their bellies’ sake, creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold.”

Do not think Milton uses those three words to fill up his verse, as a loose writer would. He needs all the three; specially those three, and no more than those—“creep,” and “intrude,” and “climb”; no other words would or could serve the turn, and no more could be added. For they exhaustively comprehend the three classes, correspondent to the three characters, of men who dishonestly seek ecclesiastical power. First, those who “creep” into the fold, who do not care for office, nor name, but for secret influence, and do all things occultly and cunningly, consenting to any servility of office or conduct, so only that they may intimately discern, and unawares direct, the minds of men. Then those who “intrude” (thrust, that is) themselves into the fold, who by natural insolence of heart and stout eloquence of tongue and fearlessly perseverant self-assertion obtain hearing and authority with the common crowd. Lastly, those who “climb,” who, by labor and learning both stout and sound, but selfishly exerted in the cause of their own ambition, gain high dignities and authorities, and become “lords over the heritage,” though not “ensamples to the flock.”

Now go on:—

“Of other care they little reckoning make

Than how to scramble at the shearers’ feast.

Blind mouths—”

I pause again, for this is a strange expression,—a broken metaphor, one might think, careless and unscholarly.

Not so; its very audacity and pithiness are intended to make us look close at the phrase and remember it. Those two monosyllables express the precisely accurate contraries of right character, in the two great offices of the Church—those of bishop and pastor.

A Bishop means a person who sees.

A Pastor means one who feeds.

The most unbishoply character a man can have is therefore to be Blind.

The most unpastoral is, instead of feeding, to want to be fed,—to be a Mouth.

Take the two reverses together, and you have “blind mouths.” We may advisably follow out this idea a little. Nearly all the evils in the Church have arisen from bishops desiring power more than light. They want authority, not outlook. Whereas their real office is not to rule; though it may be vigorously to exhort and rebuke; it is the king’s office to rule; the bishop’s office is to oversee the flock; to number it, sheep by sheep; to be ready always to give full account of it. Now it is clear he cannot give account of the souls, if he has not so much as numbered the bodies of his flock. The first thing, therefore, that a bishop has to do is at least to put himself in a position in which, at any moment, he can obtain the history from childhood of every living soul in his diocese, and of its present state. Down in that back street, Bill, and Nancy, knocking each other’s teeth out!—Does the bishop know all about it? Has he his eye upon them? Has he had his eye upon them? Can he circumstantially explain to us how Bill got into the habit of beating Nancy about the head? If he cannot, he is no bishop, though he had a mitre as high as Salisbury steeple. He is no bishop,—he has sought to be at the helm instead of the masthead; he has no sight of things. “Nay,” you say, “it is not his duty to look after Bill in the back street.” What! the fat sheep that have full fleeces,—you think it is only those he should look after, while (go back to your Milton) “the hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, besides what the grim wolf, with privy paw” (bishops knowing nothing about it) “daily devours apace, and nothing said”?

“But that’s not our idea of a bishop.” Perhaps not; but it was St. Paul’s, and it was Milton’s. They may be right, or we may be; but we must not think we are reading either one or the other by putting our meaning into their words.

[Ruskin goes on to discuss other expressions with the same minuteness.]

Contributions from Other Studies.—In acquiring any new science or art one learns many new terms, some of which are not too technical for use in themes. For that matter, every exercise written in any subject cannot help being to some extent an exercise in English. The vocabulary book should receive contributions from every line of the student’s work.

Translation.—There is no better means of making the memory yield up the words which it has formerly caught, than translation. Professor A. S. Hill quotes the reported words of Rufus Choate: “Translation should be pursued to bring to mind and to employ all the words you already own, and to tax and torment invention and discovery and the very deepest memory for additional, rich, and admirably expressive words.”[40] Every lesson in translating is a lesson in self-expression. Professor Carpenter testifies[41] that the Latin-trained boys entering scientific schools are remarkably superior in power of expression to those not so trained; and his testimony is confirmed by the experience of many other teachers.

Memorizing of Literature.—To the habit of memorizing, many a person is indebted not merely for high thoughts that cheer hours of solitude and that stimulate his own thinking, but for command of words. The degree to which the language of modern writers is derived from a few great authors is startling. Shakespeare’s phrases are a part of the tissue of every man’s speech to-day. Such writers as Charles Lamb bear Shakespeare’s mark on every page. The language of the King James version of the Bible is echoed in modern English prose and poetry. It formed styles so unlike as those of Bunyan, Ruskin, and Abraham Lincoln. Most teachers would declare that a habit of learning Scripture by heart is of incalculable value to a student’s English. In the Authorized Version, and to almost as great an extent in the Revised Version, the Anglo-Saxon element and the Latin are both present in marvellous effectiveness.[42]

It is clear that whatever help one’s writing is to receive from memorizing will come naturally through one’s study of literature. But so many of the strongest words in the language, particularly the Saxon words, have been treasured up in the homely sayings of the people, that I have ventured to suggest a list of proverbs for memorizing. Just how many of these it may be advisable for a given pupil to retain in mind is a matter to be decided by the instructor. Certainly each student will do well to learn a score of those that seem to him best worth remembering. Each saying preserves some fine word in some natural context, a fact that will make the word far easier to recall than it would be if learned as an isolated term. Not more than ten or fifteen minutes a day ought to be given to the memorizing.

ENGLISH PROVERBS[43]

A brave retreat is a brave exploit.

A carper can cavil at anything.

A carrion kite will never make a good hawk.

A child is better unborn than untaught.

A custom more honored in the breach than in the observance.

A dogmatical tone, a pragmatical pate.

A diligent scholar, and the master’s paid.

A dog’s life, hunger and ease.

A dwarf on a giant’s shoulders sees farther of the two.

A fair field and no favor.

A fault confessed is half redressed.

A fine new nothing.

A fool always comes short of his reckoning.

A fool will not be foiled.

A forced kindness deserves no thanks.

A good cause makes a stout heart and a strong arm.

A good name keeps its lustre in the dark.

A grain of prudence is worth a pound of craft.

A great city, a great solitude.

A honey tongue, a heart of gall.

A man may buy gold too dear.

A man must sell his ware at the rates of the market.

A man never surfeits of too much honesty.

A nod for a wise man, and a rod for a fool.

A penny saved is a penny got.

A wicked book is the wickeder because it cannot repent.

A wager is a fool’s argument.

All complain of want of memory, but none of want of judgment.

All the craft is in the catching.

An unpeaceable man hath no neighbor.

Antiquity is not always a mark of verity.

As wily as a fox.

Better lose a jest than a friend.

Better to go away longing than loathing.

By ignorance we mistake, and by mistakes we learn.

Children are certain cares, but uncertain comforts.

Clowns are best in their own company, but gentlemen are best everywhere.

Conscience cannot be compelled.

Cutting out well is better than sewing up well.

Danger and delight grow on one stock.

Decency and decorum are not pride.

Different sores must have different salves.

Dexterity comes by experience.

Do not spur a free horse.

Even reckoning makes long friends.

Every age confutes old errors and begets new.

Every man hath a fool in his sleeve.

Faint praise is disparagement.

Force without forecast is of little avail.

From fame to infamy is a beaten road.

Great businesses turn on a little pin.

Great spenders are bad lenders.

He is lifeless that is faultless.

Heaven will make amends for all.

Let your purse be your master.

Idleness is the greatest prodigality in the world.

Ignorance is a voluntary misfortune.

It is a wicked thing to make a dearth one’s garner.

Lean liberty is better than fat slavery.

Self-love is a mote in every man’s eye.

Sloth is the key to poverty.

Some sport is sauce to pains.

Subtility set a trap and caught itself.

Temporizing is sometimes great wisdom.

The goat must browse where he is tied.

The poet, of all sorts of artificers, is the fondest of his works.

The prick of a pin is enough to make an empire insipid.

The purest gold is the most ductile.

There’s a craft in daubing.

Thrift is good revenue.

Too much consulting confounds.

Truth needs not many words, but a false tale a large preamble.

Truths too fine-spun are subtle fooleries.

Upbraiding turns a benefit into an injury.

Use your wit as a buckler, not as a sword.

What God made, he never mars.

When honor grew mercenary, money grew honorable.

Where vice is, vengeance follows.

Synonyms.—A synonym is a word that means the same or nearly the same thing as some other word. Our language, from its composite nature, is peculiarly rich in synonyms. In hundreds of cases English has absorbed both the Saxon and the French or Latin word for a given idea. Nearly always, in such cases, one of the words has acquired a distinctly different shade of meaning from the other. Indeed, one of the words is sure to acquire a slightly different value, whether from its associations or its sound. While it may roughly be said that there are words which mean the same thing, yet for the really careful writer there are no synonyms.

Synonyms for Adjectives of Praise.—In another sense there are many people who seem to have no synonyms. You have doubtless known persons who lacked all means of differentiating praise,—persons who applied the same adjective to everything, from a pin to the solar system. There are the people who find everything either nice or not nice; the people who eat elegant soups and sigh at elegant sunsets; the people who have jolly times, jolly canes, jolly excuses. To the nice group, the elegant group, and the jolly group, may be added the lovely group, and many others.

Oral Exercise.—Apply several proper adjectives of praise to each of the following: soup, sunset, poodle, lady, moon, time (e.g. meaning an excursion), silk, opera, book-binding, gown, face, mountain, box of sweets, ice-cream, disposition, story, manner, soul, fan, perfume, roses, piano-playing, sermon, editorial or leader, critique.

A Danger.—The study of synonyms cultivates discrimination. But as a study for the purpose of widening the active vocabulary it must be judiciously limited. If one turns to a book of synonyms, one finds on many a page some score of words meaning nearly the same thing. Many of these words are unusual, out-of-the-way expressions, to use which would make a man sound like a prig. Simplicity is a cardinal virtue in writing. If this fact is kept in mind, and the student does not affect too elaborate and bookish words, the study of synonyms will be of the utmost service to him.

A Method of Study.—Below are listed a good many groups of synonyms. They are to be studied now and to be used hereafter for reference in the work of writing. Each group contains only a few of the words that might demand a place if the question were merely one of meaning. The words here chosen are such as may properly appear in the work of any high school student, if there is need of them to express the student’s meaning.

Even in these groups some words are simpler, and therefore in general more desirable. The class should first examine the entire list, underlining carefully the simpler words in each group. These, simpler words are regularly to be preferred when their meaning is exact enough for the idea in mind. The others are to be mastered for the sake of the distinctions they express, and for their occasional usefulness as a means of avoiding repetitions.

The underlining finished, the groups may further be studied with a view to discriminating the various terms. Fifteen minutes a day is enough to devote to this work, and in some cases it may be best to examine minutely only a part of the list, leaving the rest to be used for reference.

Written Exercise.—It will be found useful to spend five minutes a day in copying off several times each unfamiliar word. Unless the hand is accustomed to tracing the word, the mind will not be likely to demand this act of the hand in the moment of composition.

Oral Exercise.—Each student may be asked to pronounce every word that he has not been in the habit of using orally. Since the same term is likely to have been neglected by many of the class, a considerable amount of ear-training will be received by all.

Oral Exercise.—One of the best, because most natural, ways of studying synonyms, is to examine a page of good prose with a view to seeing whether synonyms could have been used as effectively as the actual words in the text. Choose such a page, underline the important words, and examine the list to find the group to which each belongs. Then substitute for the word in the text the other words of the group, and see whether the author’s choice was wise.

Oral Exercise.—Each group should be taken up in turn and discussed by the class after the meanings of unfamiliar words have been looked up in the dictionary. The force of each word as a synonym of the others in its group should be brought out by illustrative sentences. The differences in meaning should be talked about until they are thoroughly understood. Fernald’s Synonyms, Antonyms, and Prepositions, and Smith’s Synonyms Discriminated, are good books of reference if any doubtful question arises.

Written Exercise.—Study an assigned number of groups, and pick out the word which seems to have the most general meaning, the word which, more than any other, includes the remaining members of the group. Thus, in the series Actual, authentic, genuine, real, the last is the most general term. Real applies to a larger number of things than any of its synonyms.

Written Exercise.—Study an assigned number of groups, and say what idea the members of each have in common, and, if possible, what additional idea each member has. Thus, Adept, adroit, deft, dexterous, handy, skilful, each have the idea skilful. Adept means skilful in some art or occupation. Adroit means skilful with the hand, or with the mind,—i.e. tactful. Deft, dexterous usually mean skilful with the hand; deft refers to movements of the fingers, dexterous to quick motions, as of the hand. Handy means skilful at manual exercises.

Oral Exercise.—One member of each group should be pronounced, and the student asked to give from memory the other members.

Oral or Written Exercise.—Only one part of speech is represented in each group. The student should be asked to give corresponding parts of speech. Thus, the adjective series Actual, authentic, genuine, real, yields the adverbs actually, authentically, genuinely, really, and the nouns actuality, authenticity, genuineness, reality.

Groups of Synonyms[44]

Abandon, cast off, desert, forswear, quit, renounce, withdraw from.

Abate, decrease, diminish, mitigate, moderate.

Abhor, abominate, detest, dislike, loathe.

Abiding, enduring, lasting, permanent, perpetual.

Ability, capability, capacity, competency, efficacy, power.

Abolish, annul, eradicate, exterminate, obliterate, root out, wipe out.

Abomination, curse, evil, iniquity, nuisance, shame.

Absent, absent-minded, absorbed, abstracted, oblivious, preoccupied.

Absolve, acquit, clear.

Abstemiousness, abstinence, frugality, moderation, sobriety, temperance.

Absurd, ill-advised, ill-considered, ludicrous, monstrous, paradoxical, preposterous, unreasonable, wild.

Abundant, adequate, ample, enough, generous, lavish, plentiful.

Accomplice, ally, colleague, helper, partner.

Active, agile, alert, brisk, bustling, energetic, lively, supple.

Actual, authentic, genuine, real.

Adept, adroit, deft, dexterous, handy, skilful.

Address, adroitness, courtesy, readiness, tact.

Adequate, competent, equal, fitted, suitable.

Adjacent, adjoining, bordering, near, neighboring.

Admire, adore, respect, revere, venerate.

Admit, allow, concede, grant, suffer, tolerate.

Admixture, alloy.

Adverse, disinclined, indisposed, loath, reluctant, slow, unwilling.

Aerial, airy, animated, ethereal, frolicsome.

Affectation, cant, hypocrisy, pretence, sham.

Affirm, assert, avow, declare, maintain, state.

Aged, ancient, antiquated, antique, immemorial, old, venerable.

Air, bearing, carriage, demeanor.

Akin, alike, identical.

Alert, on the alert, sleepless, wary, watchful.

Allay, appease, calm, pacify.

Alliance, coalition, compact, federation, union, fusion.

Allude, hint, imply, insinuate, intimate, suggest.

Allure, attract, cajole, coax, inveigle, lure.

Amateur, connoisseur, novice, tyro.

Amend, better, mend, reform, repair.

Amplify, develop, expand, extend, unfold, widen.

Amusement, diversion, entertainment, pastime.

Anger, exasperation, petulance, rage, resentment.

Animal, beast, brute, living creature, living organism.

Answer, rejoinder, repartee, reply, response, retort.

Anticipate, forestall, preclude, prevent.

Apiece, individually, severally, separately.

Apparent, clear, evident, obvious, tangible, unmistakable.

Apprehend, comprehend, conceive, perceive, understand.

Arraign, charge, cite, impeach, indict, prosecute, summon.

Arrogance, haughtiness, presumption, pride, self-complacency, superciliousness, vanity.

Artist, artificer, artisan, mechanic, operative, workman.

Artless, boorish, clownish, hoidenish, rude, uncouth, unsophisticated.

Assent, agree, comply.

Assurance, effrontery, hardihood, impertinence, impudence, incivility, insolence, officiousness, rudeness.

Atom, grain, scrap, particle, shred, whit.

Atrocious, barbaric, barbarous, brutal, merciless.

Attack, assault, infringement, intrusion, onslaught.

Attain, accomplish, achieve, arrive at, compass, reach, secure.

Attempt, endeavor, essay, strive, try, undertake.

Attitude, pose, position, posture.

Attribute, ascribe, assign, charge, impute.

Axiom, truism.

Baffle, balk, bar, check, embarrass, foil, frustrate, hamper, hinder, impede, retard, thwart.

Banter, burlesque, drollery, humor, jest, raillery, wit, witticism.

Beg, plead, press, urge.

Beguile, divert, enliven, entertain, occupy.

Bewilderment, confusion, distraction, embarrassment, perplexity.

Bind, fetter, oblige, restrain, restrict.

Blaze, flame, flare, flash, flicker, glare, gleam, gleaming, glimmer, glitter, light, lustre, shimmer, sparkle.

Blessed, hallowed, holy, sacred, saintly.

Boasting, display, ostentation, pomp, pompousness, show.

Brave, adventurous, bold, courageous, daring, dauntless, fearless, gallant, heroic, undismayed.

Bravery, coolness, courage, gallantry, heroism.

Brief, concise, pithy, sententious, terse.

Bring over, convince, induce, influence, persuade, prevail upon, win over.

Calamity, disaster, misadventure, mischance, misfortune, mishap.

Candid, impartial, open, straightforward, transparent, unbiassed, unprejudiced, unreserved.

Caprice, humor, vagary, whim.

Candor, frankness, truth, veracity.

Caricature, burlesque, parody, travesty.

Catch, capture, clasp, clutch, grip, secure.

Cause, consideration, design, end, ground, motive, object, reason, purpose.

Caution, discretion, prudence.

Censure, criticism, rebuke, reproof, reprimand, reproach.

Character, constitution, disposition, reputation, temper, temperament.

Characteristic, peculiarity, property, singularity, trait.

Chattering, garrulous, loquacious, talkative.

Cheer, comfort, delight, ecstasy, gaiety, gladness, gratification, happiness, jollity, satisfaction.

Churlish, crusty, gloomy, gruff, ill-natured, morose, sour, sullen, surly.

Class, circle, clique, coterie.

Cloak, cover, gloss over, mitigate, palliate, screen.

Cloy, sate, satiate, satisfy, surfeit.

Commit, confide, consign, entrust, relegate.

Compassion, forbearance, lenience, mercy.

Compassionate, gracious, humane.

Complete, consummate, faultless, flawless, perfect.

Confirm, corroborate.

Conflicting, discordant, discrepant, incongruous, mismated.

Confused, discordant, miscellaneous, various.

Conjecture, guess, suppose, surmise.

Conscious, aware, certain.

Consequence, issue, outcome, outgrowth, result, sequel, upshot.

Continual, continuous, incessant, unbroken, uninterrupted.

Credible, conceivable, likely, presumable, probable, reasonable.

Customary, habitual, normal, prevailing, usual, wonted.

Damage, detriment, disadvantage, harm, hurt, injury, prejudice.

Dangerous, formidable, terrible.

Defame, deprecate, disparage, slander, vilify.

Defile, infect, soil, stain, sully, taint, tarnish.

Deleterious, detrimental, hurtful, harmful, mischievous, pernicious, ruinous.

Delicate, fine, minute, refined, slender.

Delightful, grateful, gratifying, refreshing, satisfying.

Difficult, laborious, toilsome, trying.

Digress, diverge, stray, swerve, wander.

Disavow, disclaim, disown, recall, renounce, repudiate, retract.

Dispose, draw, incline, induce, influence, move, prompt, stir.

Earlier, foregoing, previous, preliminary.

Effeminate, feminine, womanish, womanly.

Emergency, extremity, necessity.

Empty, fruitless, futile, idle, trifling, unavailing, useless, vain, visionary.

Erudition, knowledge, profundity, sagacity, sense, wisdom.

Eternal, imperishable, interminable, perennial, perpetual, unfailing.

Excuse, pretence, pretext, subterfuge.

Exemption, immunity, liberty, license, privilege.

Explicit, express.

Faint, faint-hearted, faltering, half-hearted, irresolute, languid, listless, purposeless.

Faithful, loyal, stanch, trustworthy, trusty.

Fanciful, fantastic, grotesque, imaginative, visionary.

Folly, imbecility, senselessness, stupidity.

Fling, gibe, jeer, mock, scoff, sneer, taunt.

Flock, bevy, brood, covey, drove, herd, litter, pack.

Fluctuate, hesitate, oscillate, vacillate, waver.

Grief, melancholy, regret, sadness, sorrow.

Hale, healthful, healthy, salutary, sound, vigorous.

Ignorant, illiterate, uninformed, uninstructed, unlettered, untaught.

Impulsive, involuntary, spontaneous, unbidden, voluntary, willing.

Indispensable, inevitable, necessary, requisite, unavoidable.

Inquisitive, inquiring, intrusive, meddlesome, peeping, prying.

Intractable, perverse, petulant, ungovernable, wayward, wilful.

Irritation, offence, pique, resentment.

Probably, presumably.

Reliable, trustworthy, trusty.

Remnant, trace, token, vestige.

Requite, repay, retaliate, satisfy.

Oral or Written Exercise.—In the following, vary the overworked words as much as possible. Permit repetition only when it is necessary for clearness.

1. I think the committee selected to select theme topics for the class to write upon, should be careful not to select too many topics on one subject, since the nature of one student differs from that of another. I think that the few who are not satisfied with the topics the committee have selected, should be required to select and hand in a list of topics on which they would like to write.

2. There are two distinct stories running through the Merchant of Venice: the story of the pound of flesh and the story of the caskets. These stories run parallel to each other through the play, as far as the third act, where the story of the caskets is ended by the lucky choice of Bassanio. But from here a new story, the story of the rings, commences, and continues through the rest of the play, crossing the story of the pound of flesh and finally taking the place of this story.

Future Revision.—Henceforth one distinct object for which every theme should be revised is variety of words. It soon becomes a keen satisfaction to read one’s own work aloud to detect overworked expressions. In the pursuit of variety, the scholar not merely grows sensitive to the ugly recurrence of the same sound; he grows bold to repeat words if the repetition is demanded for clearness or force. Some things seem to have but one name in English; more’s the pity; but we must make the best of the case.

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CHAPTER XI
RIGHT NUMBER AND SKILFUL CHOICE OF WORDS

Let it be supposed that a person has learned to plan a composition logically and to write with grammatical correctness; that further he has acquired a noble unrest which keeps him searching for new words and fine distinctions; what should be his next care?

After the power of thinking coherently, the ability most important to a writer is that of picking out from the wide world of words the one expression that mates his unworded idea. His choice of words—i.e. his diction—must meet three requirements. If it is to be clear, it must mean the same to the reader’s intellect that it does to the writer’s. If it is to forcible, it must move the reader’s feelings as it moved the writer’s. Furthermore, if it is to be beautiful, it must please a reader who has good taste.

Clearness.—Clearness, the intellectual quality of style, has already been referred to ([p. 43]), for it is the quality aimed at in making sentences coherent. That the idea should be made unmistakably clear is the first requisite of good writing. The thinking must be clear; the division of the theme into paragraphs, and of paragraphs into sentences must be clear; and the words must be clear. We have presently to ask what effect number and choice of words have upon clearness.

Force.—Force is the emotional quality of style. It may occur in a very moderate degree, just enough to interest the reader slightly, or it may be present to such an extent as to move the deepest springs of feeling. It is hard to give suggestions for securing force, because language is better adapted to communicating ideas than emotions. We find that language furnishes very few names for feelings. Furthermore, these names, even such as love, fear, anger, do not in themselves move us. What a marvellous variety of emotion each of us feels in a day! how many delicate tints of pleasure! how many shades of regret or fear, of painful memory or suggestion! The psychologists tell us that we do no act which does not bring with it some touch of pleasure or of pain. And yet most of these shades and tints and touches of feeling neither have names nor can be communicated by words. Nevertheless, though language cannot directly convey feeling, it can sometimes suggest feeling. If your reader has experienced a given emotion, some word of yours may recall that to his mind. One secret of being forcible lies in choosing theme subjects that interest the reader; subjects that set up a train of feeling and memory in his mind. Other secrets are, to choose suggestive words and figures of speech, and to refrain from wearing out interest by too many words. We shall presently inquire, what words and figures are most suggestive.

Something may be done to secure force by so arranging words as to attract the reader’s attention. It will be noted that emphasis ([p. 110]) and climax ([p. 112]) are means of force.

Beauty.—Beauty is the quality of style which satisfies what is called, for lack of a better word, the æsthetic sense; this is little else but saying, beauty of style satisfies the sense for beauty. One element of beauty is simplicity, a quality closely allied to clearness, yet not the same. Euphony, or absence of ugly sounds, is another element of beauty. Variety is another element of beauty. It is clear that the last exercise in Chapter X is as much an exercise in beauty as in vocabulary. In the present chapter we shall have space to consider only one element of beauty,—that of simplicity.

Prolixity.—If a writer descends into tedious details, or if he repeats the same idea over and over in slightly different words, without developing or adding to the thought, he is said to be prolix. Prolixity offends chiefly against force, for it kills interest. This fault may affect merely a single sentence or paragraph, or it may infest a whole composition. It does not much beset the writer who plans his work ahead. It can be corrected only by rewriting.

Written Exercise.—The following prolix passage should be rewritten, only the essential thoughts being kept. Any mistakes and crudities of style should be corrected.

“My friend the doctor was a collector of ancient coins and was always roaming about the ruins of old cities in search of coins. He would wander around and pick up valuable relics like the Venus he wore in his seal ring. He was always finding something worth keeping. He would pick up a precious bit of antiquity and put it in his pocket, and so he always carried with him a regular collection of relics. One afternoon he was out among the mountains picking up relics and not looking up to see whether any one was near. When he looked around he saw five or perhaps six rough fellows who were standing there behind him. He fell to quivering with fright and stood trembling and shaking, but managed to greet them. After he had greeted the five or six men they all walked along down the road until they came to an inn that was there on the mountain-side. It was an inn and not a cave there in the mountains, as was incorrectly said by one member of the class.”

Surplusage.--Surplusage consists of words that can be excised without hurting the sense of the passage. In tyros it is perhaps less of a fault than the opposite one of deficiency,—the absence of needed words; for fulness of expression is essential to clearness, and surplusage often results from the desire to be clear. Verbosity, however, dulls the edge of the keenest thought. Like prolixity, it weakens. Just as many a prolix speaker could make a brilliant oration if he knew when to stop, so many a wordy writer could make an effective sentence if he knew what to prune away. As Mr. Lowell would say:[45] Thoughts are never draped in long skirts like babies, if they are strong enough to go alone.

The redundant use of the following common words should be avoided:—

1. From, in the phrases from thence, from whence.

2. Of, especially in the expressions off of, remember of, treat of. “Keep off [not off of] the grass.” “This book treats [better than treats of] chemistry.”

3. On, with the words the next morning. “He was rebellious on the seventh of July, but the next morning [not on the next morning] he reappeared in a more submissive frame of mind.”

Oral Exercise.—Prune away every word that can be spared; note the increase in force. Slight changes may be made in the wording.

1. All of the ships were lost; no kind of a one was saved.

2. I know from my own personal knowledge that a man who stands upright in his own manhood, honest and conscious of the rectitude of his purposes, is safe against calumny and slander.

3. I don’t think it a good precedent to set in this house for any man to vote for a bill in which he has a personal interest, and I don’t remember of ever having done so of myself. I shall, therefore, for this reason, refrain from voting, but I want to say a word on this bill, and I want to talk to the democrats.

4. Real-estate dealer is knocked down by an accident and is run over by a cab.

5. Commencing on Monday, March 29, supported by the New York Garrick Theatre Stock Company, Mr. Mansfield will commence an engagement of two weeks at the Grand Opera House.

Written or Oral Exercise.—In the following sentences some of the underscored expressions should be expressed more briefly by changing clauses to phrases or phrases to single words. Thus: men who deserved and won renown may shorten to men of deserved renown.

1. Men who deserved and won renown, and women who were peerless, have lived upon what we should now call the coarsest fare, and paced the rushes which were strewn in their rooms with as high, or as contented thoughts, as their descendants, persons who are fed better and clothed better than they, can boast of.

2. If children are able to make us wiser, it is sure that they can also make us better. There is no one who is more to be envied than a good-natured man when he is watching how children’s minds perform their workings, or when he is overlooking the play they engage in.

Deficiency of Words.—It was said in a former paragraph that in young writers surplusage is perhaps less of a fault than is the lack of needed words. Verbosity robs a theme of force; deficiency robs it of force and clearness. It is human nature to try to say a thing more briefly than is possible. Forgetting that pitch, stress, and gesture do much to make spoken words intelligible, the easy-going writer does not tax himself to attain full and lucid expression. He forgets that a piece of writing may be so condensed as to be dense.

Ambiguity often springs from the omission of merely a word or two. Reading such a phrase as “the secretary and treasurer,” we are vexed with doubt whether one person is meant, or two; the omission of the article seems to imply that the two offices are vested in a single officer. The lack of a few words may turn force into weakness. A German newspaper thus burlesques the compression to which editors sometimes feel impelled: “Ottokar took a small brandy, then his hat, his departure, besides no notice of his pursuers, meantime a revolver out of his pocket, and lastly his own life.”

The following common words should not be omitted:—

1. The main part of an infinitive at the end of a sentence. Wrong: “He did what he wished to.” Right: “He did what he wished to do.”

2. The adverb much before certain adjectives. Wrong: “He was very pleased to comply.” Right: “He was very much pleased to comply.”

3. (a) The preposition at with home. Wrong: “I stayed home and slept home.” Right: “I stayed at home and slept at home.” (b) The preposition on with days of the month. Wrong: “The seventh of July he rebelled.” Right: “On the seventh of July he rebelled.” Compare page 231. 3.

4. A demonstrative used for clearness. Wrong: “He chose between the lot of the rich and of the poor.” Right: “He chose between the lot of the rich and that of the poor.”

5. The conjunction that when needed for clearness. Wrong: “I wish such a beefsteak as that one over there may never be served on this table.” What is the ambiguity here, at the beginning?

Oral Exercise.—Indicate how by the addition of words each sentence may be corrected:—

1. Altogether it was a day like unto which the memory of the oldest inhabitant could not recall.

2. He received his early education at Brownsville and Whitesville academy, remaining about a year at each place.

3. There was a minister who, being informed by the church officials that they had raised his salary $100, declined to accept it.

4. The following great reductions indicate the heavy losses we are taking closing out the balance of our stock.

5. This mutual esteem was shown by their cordial welcome of the guests as well as the uniform courtesy shown by the latter.

6. Poor Evelina was obliged to choose between a blue and green dress.

7. Streaks of lightning and claps of thunder rattled through the narrow streets of Paris.

8. I am an historical painter by profession, and living for some time at a villa near Rome.

Specific Words.—Suppose it were desired to make clear to a friend how the sunset looked—a difficult task. One would hardly succeed if one had no better words to offer than the general terms clouds, beautiful, lovely, bright. The friend, if he cared to know, would insist on specific words: What kind of beauty? was it quiet beauty, or awful beauty, or picturesque beauty? What kind of brightness? was it redness? If so, was the sky blood-red, or merely pink? What kind of clouds?—great masses of storm cloud, or high frozen clouds, or mottled “mackerel” clouds? To be clear, then, words must be specific enough to give the idea intended. Just how specific they should be depends on the audience. They must be familiar to the hearer or reader, if they are to be understood without explanation. All audiences would understand the general term tool; all would understand the genus name saw, which specifies a kind of tool. But many would not understand the species name rip-saw; for to most people rip-saw is unfortunately a technical term. In choosing specific words the line should therefore be drawn between common terms and technical terms, the latter not to be employed without explanation, except in addressing special audiences.

Specific words are usually as forcible as they are clear. Most people’s feelings are roused by the thought of a particular object, not of a class name. Flower is a class name; it does not move one. Clover is a specific name; it calls back the old farm, the old friends, the old joys and sorrows. No word will really interest the reader unless he has previously used it or heard it in association with his feelings. Take the word contusion; it means something forcible to a doctor, but not to a boy, for the latter never used it. But say bruise—which means exactly the same thing. That’s forcible. It feelingly reminds us of the hour in which that dead branch broke and delivered us over to the law of gravitation.

Pick out from these words those that are in themselves forcible to most people: paternal solicitude, fatherly care; home, domicile; altruism, unselfishness. You see at once that certain of these words get their force from the long associations of childhood. In childhood we use the simpler words of the language, those that are derived from the Anglo-Saxon mother-tongue. Anglo-Saxon words, therefore, are usually forcible. Compare [page 183].

Oral Exercise.—Reduce the following names step by step to a particular genus and a particular species. Thus: animal, mammal, quadruped, graminivorous animal, cow, Alderney.

• 1. Reduce machine step by step till you reach stop-watch.
• 2. Reduce machine to revolver.
• 3. Reduce living organism to moss-rose.
• 4. Reduce living organism to oyster.

Similarly, extend the following species names step by step to family names.

• 1. Extend pen-knife to instrument.
• 2. Extend Longfellow to man of letters.

General Words.—We found that most specific words are of Anglo-Saxon origin. Most general words are of Latin origin. Both these statements are only roughly true, of course; but the distinction is worth making. The language of science is mostly of Latin origin, because it consists so largely of class names. Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers had fewer class names, for they had not progressed far enough to care to classify everything. When, later, the English came to study history, and philosophy, and science, they had either to invent new Anglo-Saxon words for class names, or else use Latin words. They chose the latter course. Consequently we have such Latin class names as animal, and such individual names as cat, dog, horse, pig. We speak of white, blue, green, red; but when we want a class name for these, we say color, a Latin word. From all this it may be seen that any great number of general words gives a scientific, abstract tone to writing. General words are absolutely necessary for the exact purposes of science and philosophy. They are adapted, as Professor Carpenter puts it, to “precise and elaborate distinctions of thought.” They do not give a clear mental image; that is, you cannot see beauty, or smallness, or animal, or color—you can see only a beautiful object, a small object, a particular animal, a particular color. But, still, general words mean exactly what they say. Animal means exactly this: a summing up of all the qualities that are common to all individual animals. All the things called animal have in common powers of sensation and voluntary movement. When such a distinction is wanted, it is wanted badly, as we say. There is no better mark of literary mastery than knowing just when to use a general word, just when a specific one. Examine a few pages from Robert Louis Stevenson, to see with what exquisite fitness words of Latin origin may be used in the midst of Anglo-Saxon words when the appeal turns from the feelings to the intellect.

There are many reasons why a writer may not wish to be too specific. In the sentence, “I picked up my traps and left,” the colloquialism traps answers every essential purpose. The reader does not care to have tooth-brush and books and papers all specified. People are not to be blamed for referring vaguely to death as a passing away, for the specific word is harsh at best. Such expressions as pass away are called euphemisms. Many euphemisms are legitimate; but whether a given one should be employed is a question of taste, a question of beauty. It seems a beautiful expression when Keats says, “to cease upon the midnight with no pain,” instead of, “to die painlessly at twelve o’clock;” but it is a mark of false modesty and bad taste to insist on saying rose for got up, retire for go to bed, lower limbs for legs.

Again, one should not always hesitate to set down an idea because one has not the sharpest, clearest possible notion of it. Vague ideas are sometimes valuable ones. They should receive earnest thought that they may take definite shape. But if they seem to defy definite form, they certainly should not be thrown away merely for that. Catching one’s exact idea is often as difficult as catching a trout. But a glimpse of the fine fish that gets away is worth something,—there are few of us who can resist the temptation to tell about it when we get home. Speaking of the mind, Emerson says, “It is wholesome to angle in those profound pools, though one be rewarded with nothing more than the leap of a fish that flashes his freckled side in the sun and as suddenly absconds in the dark and dreamy waters again.”[46] In Wordsworth’s poem, The Solitary Reaper, we hear of a song about old, unhappy, far-off things. That was exactly Wordsworth’s own vague notion, and down he set it—in words that make it clear (so to speak) that his idea was sweet and vague. Ruskin, describing the façade of St. Mark’s in Venice, tries to give a sense of the bewildering multiplicity of beautiful things on that wonderful front by saying, a confusion of delight. If he had used more definite words we should have missed the effect.

Oral Exercise.—Examine the passages from Johnson and Blackmore ([pp. 192-3]). Which passage contains more of general words than of specific? Which is more forcible in subject-matter? Which in diction.

Oral Exercise.—In the following passage, choose the better expression from each pair of brackets. Each pair contains one general and one specific term; choose the term which gives greater force or greater clearness than the other.

1. And therefore, first of all, I tell you earnestly and authoritatively (I know I am right in this) you must get into the [way, habit] of looking [rightly, intensely] at words, and [telling, assuring] yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable—nay, letter by letter. For ... you might read all the books in accuracy]—you are forevermore in some [way, measure] an educated [man, person]. The entire difference between education and non-education (as regards the merely [mental, intellectual] part of it) consists in this [exactitude, accuracy]. A well-educated gentleman may not [read, know] many languages, may not be able to speak any but his own, may have read very few books. But whatever language he knows, he knows [well, precisely]; whatever word he [says, pronounces] he [says, pronounces] rightly. Above all, he is learned in the peerage of words, knows the words of [true, veritable] descent, and [old, ancient] blood, at a glance, from the words of [new, modern] canaille, remembers all their ancestry, their intermarriages, distant relationships, and the extent to which they were admitted, and offices they held, among the national noblesse of words at any time and in any [place, country]. But an uneducated person may know, by [heart, memory], many languages, and [use, talk] them all, and yet truly [know, apprehend] not a word of any—not a word even of his own. An ordinarily [clever, good] and sensible seaman will be able to make his way ashore at most [ports, places], yet he has only to speak And this is so [well, strongly] felt, so [conclusively, well] admitted, by educated persons, that a false accent or a [bad, mistaken] syllable is enough in the parliament of any civilized nation, to [assign, send] man to a certain degree of [lower, inferior] standing forever.

Oral Exercise.—Which words in the following are general, which specific? Does each seem appropriate in its place, or ought some words to have been more specific, others more general?

1. Her dress was dark and rich; she had pearls round her neck, and an old rococo fan in her hand.—Henry James.

2. When gratitude has become a matter of reasoning, there are many ways of escaping from its bonds.—George Eliot.

3. Friendships begin with liking or gratitude—roots that can be pulled up.—George Eliot.

4. What scene was ever commonplace in the descending sunlight, when color has awakened from its noonday sleep, and the long shadows awe us like a disclosed presence? Above all, what scene is commonplace to the eye that is filled with serene gladness, and brightens all things with its own joy?—George Eliot.

Oral Exercise.—Is there danger of misconception from the use of the following words? If so, how can the danger be avoided? Discuss in class. Fair, fine, certain, charity, democratic, republican, nature.

Simple Words.—Several years ago a gentleman[47] secured from a large number of successful authors brief pieces of advice to young writers. In one particular there was an extraordinary unanimity among these authors. Nearly all agreed that a young writer should try to express himself simply. They agreed on other matters too,—for example, on the need of clear thinking and an inclination to take much pains in expression. But it was noticeable that even writers whose own work is not characterized by simplicity seemed to admire this quality.

The greatest men are simple. Affectation, straining for effect, is a mark of a little mind. The greatest art is simple,—governed by a noble restraint. Over-decoration, whether in a picture, a piece of music, in dress, in the furnishing of a room, or in a theme, is always a mark of bad taste.

What is called fine writing—the use of over-ambitious words to express simple thoughts—grows up in various ways. Sometimes it springs from a desire to be funny. Exaggeration has always been a favorite device of the humorist—especially of the American humorist. There are students who learn to use this kind of humor so well that an unconscious habit of bombast pursues them into their more serious work. Most of us can force a smile at such writing as the passage given below, or even laugh at it when there are enough people present to help us:—

“It was in the sixth that Captain Anson, aided and abetted by sundry young men generally called ‘Colts,’ waded in to snatch laurel, trailing arbutus, and other vegetables from the coy hand of fame. He did it, too, and he now has laurels to throw to the birds. Ryan went first to the bat, and pasted a warm one through short that turned the grass black along its path.”

But when a young fellow has read so much of this sort that he drags similar diction into his themes, the fun becomes vulgarity.

In general, use always the simplest word that will express your meaning exactly. Compare pages 216, 217.

Written Exercise.—Write in simple English the equivalents of the following passages. Some are from students’ themes; others from newspapers.

1. The svelte[48] young debutante received a perfect ovation.

2. In my estimation it is far more to be desired that a tyro in the art of composition should select those subjects with which his acquaintance is the most extensive.

3. In all my experience I have never enjoyed the acquaintance of two youths of more superior ability.

4. It is impossible for me to disassociate from my mind the conception that such a course would be disastrous to the ambitions of the team.

5. Public sentiment would not permit an individual or an infinitesimally small minority to clog the wheels of progress in order to prevent the escape of a few dollars from the individuals composing the obstructive element.

6. Let us indeed refrain from any course of action which will militate against the onward march of the civilizing power of the public schools of this great and growing nation.

7. While the birds were carolling their sweetest strains and the grass hung heavy with water-pearls, Peter Brant was taking his life. A more seductive place to die in than the little garden back of 7000 Congress street is inconceivable.

Literal and Figurative Words.—Before it can be decided how far the young writer should use figures of speech, it is necessary to find out the real difference between a literal word or statement and a figurative word or statement. If figures are always mere embellishments of language, the journeyman had better shun them anxiously; for his true object is to express his thought, not to decorate it. If, however, some figures are not embellishments but ordinary building-material, the case is different.

When, on seeing biscuits for the first time, a child refers to them as moons, he is not making an effort to adorn his language. He is unconsciously using a figure of speech because he does not know the literal, proper, conventional name, biscuit. If the child had formerly lived in a country where apples grew but potatoes did not, the first time he saw a potato he would probably call it a ground-apple. As a matter of fact there are people that have gone through some such experience with potatoes. The French word pomme de terre indicates this.

Most words were once figures of speech, that is, tropes. A trope, from the Greek word τρέπω, to turn, is merely the turning away of a word from its ordinary meaning to give a name to some new idea. The root of many a word shows the figure that was used to express a given new idea. The root spir- means to breathe. Since the inability to breathe is one part of the process of death, the expression to breathe out became a figurative expression for the whole idea of “to die.” In expire, applied to death, the idea of breathe is usually not felt. The figure is forgotten, and we therefore call it a root-figure, or radical figure. As may be seen from the roots of the Curious Words on [page 191], language is figurative through and through.

This is true not only of language already made, but of that which is daily making. In every mind shades of thought are constantly occurring for which there are either no names, or none which the mind can learn in the interval before expression is necessary. If the exact word is not at hand, a comparison must be made. The shade of thought must be named by telling what thing in the reader’s experience it is like.

Does the attempt at comparison result in a vague, inexact phrase, or in an exact one? The youth who declares that his lesson is as “hard as thunder,” has expressed himself but vaguely. The same is true of the young lady who declares that it rained “like anything.” Let us examine briefly the chief kinds of tropes, and note whether they are necessarily less clear and exact than literal statements.

A person sees an accident, and reports that “a score of hands” picked up the injured boy. Here is synecdoche. The “hands” stand for the persons—a part for the whole; a “score” probably stands for a dozen,—the whole number of hands in the group of people, for the smaller number that actually touched the boy. Or, the “score” may be called hyperbole, that is, exaggeration. A critic might say that either figure is inexact here. True, in a way. But if the writer had reported that he seemed to see a score of hands, the phrase would be faithful to his thought. We may take the seemed for granted, and reply to the critic that for exact purposes in a law court, “seemed to see a score of hands” might be nearer the truth than an attempt at greater precision.

Suppose, now, that the writer who reported the accident said that the boy was in great pain, so that his face was “as white as ivory.” Here is a simile,—an explicit statement of likeness in two things which are different in most respects. This particular simile is certainly more exact than the literal word white would be.

If now the writer had said, “I caught a glimpse of compressed lips and ivory face,” the comparison would have been not explicit, but implied. An implied comparison is called metaphor. Metaphor is from the Greek for carrying over, because it carries over bodily the name of one thing to another. To speak of a man as “bold as a lion,” is simile; to call him a “lion” outright, is metaphor. It is less clear to call a man a lion than to say in what respect he is like a lion; it is less clear to say, “ivory face” than to say “face white as ivory.”

The case of the boy who was injured may have got into the newspapers. To speak more figuratively, the press may have taken up the matter. Press stands here for the editors of the various journals. This last figure is metonymy. In metonymy one thing is put for another that is often associated with it. In the sentence given, metonymy does not seem to detract from clearness; at all events it saves a roundabout expression.

Metaphor and metonymy, by ascribing life to inanimate things, often become personification. So above, where the press takes up a matter. It is evident that personification need not make a sentence less intelligible.

Once more, let us suppose that the reporter who first learned of the boy’s accident remarked, on handing in his account of it, “The early bird catches the worm.” The remark is pure allegory—describing some act or thing indirectly by describing something else. If the hearer knows enough of the situation to understand the allegory, he undoubtedly receives a forcible impression, and may be helped to a clearer view. Allegory is a kind of expanded metaphor. It is more liable to misinterpretation than most figures; but the allegorical proverbs of our language, and the popularity of such books as the Pilgrim’s Progress, show that it is a favorite form of expression. Like general words, allegory can be used to say things which policy may forbid being said more directly.

From the discussion it appears that tropes can often be made to yield a clear and sufficiently exact phrase. Often however a trope lends force or beauty rather than clearness. It is forcible rather than clear to call a man a lion. It is beautiful rather than clear to speak of the Pleiades as “a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid.” Such a phrase as this is legitimate enough in poetry; it would be legitimate in highly imaginative prose. But the fact cannot be dodged that it would be out of place in the midst of plain prose description.

The practical conclusion is obvious. Use tropes without hesitation when they are really needed to give clearness and force. Never use a trope for decorative purposes only. The ability to write plain, bare English is absolutely indispensable. The ability to write figuratively is an enviable, but not a necessary, possession.

When the need of a figure is actually felt, the choice should be made with scrupulous care. If tropes occur to you in numbers, “like flocks of pigeons,” choose only the pigeon that can carry a message. To secure lucidity, employ a figure which makes use of something already clear to the reader. Every-day life and common things are the best sources for both similes and metaphors. To secure force, select such figures as appeal to the emotional experiences of everybody. If you wish to hold attention and move your reader, appeal to such primal feelings as love, hate, fear, courage, joy, sorrow, aspiration, hope. Note how Shakespeare appeals to the human animal’s dread of deep water: he makes Cardinal Wolsey say, “I have ventured, like wanton boys that swim on bladders, this many summers in a sea of glory.” In Macbeth he appeals to the joy of release from pain: he calls sleep the balm of each day’s hurt.

A good figure of speech must be consistent. Although a lively imagination changes its metaphors from minute to minute, it must not change them so fast as to suggest ridiculous things. If the metaphor gets mixed, clearness and force go to the winds. The other day the writer heard a young man earnestly exclaim: “Now I shall have to toe the bee-line!” The thought of that youth, lifted to a perilous position where his toes sought vainly in the trackless air for a “bee-line,” was quite too much for the gravity of his hearers. This trope that failed to be a trope was about as effective as the famous lightning-change series of metaphors uttered by Sir Boyle Roche: “Mr. Speaker, I smell a rat. I see him floating in the air. But I will nip him in the bud.” Mixed metaphors may arise from mere liveliness of imagination,—a good fault sometimes. More frequently it arises from vague thinking or from grandiloquence. The examples on [page 246] show how liable fine writing is to this fault. A figure that is not in good taste is incomparably worse than no figure at all.

Oral Exercise.—Name each trope, and explain how each gets its force; what emotion each touches.

(a) “Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart.”—Wordsworth.

(b) “What is hope?—a smiling rainbow children follow through the wet.”—Carlyle.

(c) “She speaks poniards, and every word stabs.”—Shakespeare.

(d) “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive; but to be young was very heaven.”—Wordsworth.

(e) “Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the night.”—Beecher.

Oral Exercise.—Examine the phrases that you made by finding adjectives to fit abstract qualities ([p. 202]), and decide in each case whether clearness or force is the chief resulting characteristic.

Oral Exercise.—Restore force to the following figures by changing whatever is incongruous in them. Reject any that are irretrievably bad in taste, or hackneyed.

1. The singing was led by the organ assisted by four violins.

2. In graceful and figurative language he pointed the finger of scorn at the defendant.

3. It was 8 o’clock when the guests attacked the following menu.

4. The trailer struck the car amidships.

5. The colonies were not yet ripe to bid adieu to British connection.

6. Let us cast off the shackles of doubt and bind ourselves with the bonds of faith.

7. No human happiness is so serene as not to contain some alloy.

8. Boyle was the father of chemistry, and brother of the Earl of Cork.

9. The marble-hearted marauder might seize the throne of civil authority, and hurl into thraldom the votaries of rational liberty.

10. It is to be hoped, now that lovely woman discountenances the flowing bowl, that the rising generation will abjure it, and follow the weaker sex in taking nothing stronger than the cup which cheers but not inebriates.

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CHAPTER XII
LETTER-WRITING

Why Important.—There are two general classes of letters: informal or personal, and formal or impersonal. Each kind is governed by the general principles of clearness and courtesy. Mischief is sure to follow if either of these principles is disregarded. A writer may indulge in extravagance of statement when he writes for the public, and “there is no harm done, for the speaker is one and the listener is another.”[49] But it is quite a different matter when one is making business promises, or trying to pacify a distant friend with whom there is a misunderstanding. A shrewd politician knows enough not to write too many letters, and not to write anything that he cannot stand by. A woman of tact knows that the success of her social plans may turn upon the choice of a single word in the leave-taking of a note.

Business Letters.—These are formal, impersonal. A good business letter is (1) clear, (2) courteous, (3) brief. It shows unmistakably (a) who is writing, (b) to whom, (c) where, (d) when. It is definite in its language, so that there need be no return letter of inquiry as to any part of its meaning. It observes the best conventions of address and signature. It refrains from brusque remarks, even in reply to a rude letter. It is appreciative. A good business man always takes into account that a handful of trade is a handful of gold; if he is favored with orders, he goes to the trouble of thanking his customers. It does not curtly abbreviate sentences and signatures. Life is not so short but that we may avoid writing such insults as this: “Y’rs rec’d and contents noted. Have ordered Jones to push the deal through. Shall see you soon. Y’rs respy.”

Headings and Signatures in Business Letters.—A business letter should show where it was written, and where the answer should be sent. If these places are the same, the one address may be indicated either at the beginning or at the end, preferably the former. Street and number should always be given in the case of city addresses. The date of writing should be placed at the beginning, the month being written or abbreviated, not indicated by a figure. The heading ought also to indicate to whom the letter is sent. Since in theory or in fact there may be other persons of the same name, the correspondent’s address should usually be placed beneath his name. The most common signatures in business letters are Yours truly, Yours very truly, and Yours respectfully. In writing a business letter, a girl signs her full name. Then at the left she writes her name, preceded by Miss, and followed by her address.

Titles in Business Letters.—Firm names need not be preceded by Messrs., although this form certainly adds to the courtesy of the communication. Names of individuals should regularly be preceded by Mr. Whether a person should be addressed by his professional title depends somewhat upon the character of the business. In the United States a commercial letter is sufficiently courteous if Mr. precedes the name of the person addressed. This title is in better taste, as applied to business men, than Esq. But there is no objection to the use of certain titles, and they are desirable if the business be one which pertains to the profession of the person addressed. Initials should always be given. “Rev. Brown,” “Hon. Jones,” are inexcusable forms.

The Envelope.—The address on the envelope should be as legible as possible. Names of states should not be contracted. As Professor J. M. Hart remarks, “The only current abbreviations that seem to be safe are Penna., Conn., and D. C.”[50] New York City may be written for New York, N. Y. The same rules for titles apply to the envelope as to the heading. If the comma is placed after one line of the address, it must be placed after the others. It is needed after none.

Written Exercise.—Write a business letter, replying clearly and courteously to the following imaginary communication.

14 Grasmere Street,
Boston, Mass.,
Dec. 4, 1897.

Miss Helen Roe,
Graysville, Penna.

Dear Madam:—

We beg to acknowledge the receipt of your order of Dec. 2. Since you mention the fact that the goods are intended as a Christmas surprise, we have taken the liberty of holding them, and writing for orders as to desired date of shipment to the address you specify. We remain,

Very respectfully yours,

Weaver and Weaver.

Written Exercise.—Write a petition to some person or persons in authority, following in general the form given below:—

The Faculty of Lewis Institute.

Gentlemen: We, the undersigned, respectfully ask the privilege of organizing a new literary society, to be called the Parnassian. We enclose a copy of the proposed constitution, which we are ready to sign. If further information is desired, we shall be glad to appoint a committee to wait upon you at any time you may designate.

L. Gustafson,
H. Bulkley, etc.

Formal Social Letters.—Formal correspondence indicates by its style the mere acquaintance of the correspondents, or, in the words of Miss Morton,[51] “the bounds of distance which for any reason it is desirable to maintain.” A formal letter should actually be formal. If one attempts to do an elaborate thing, one ought to do it thoroughly and properly. A letter that begins with formal brevity and runs off into colloquial prolixity is a burlesque. A letter that begins in the third person and ends in the first is a farce.

Written Exercise.—Following in general the models given below, write (1) a formal invitation to dinner; (2) an acceptance of this invitation; (3) regrets at inability to accept.

1. Mr. Frederick Estoff, Jr., requests the pleasure of Mr. Edward Edwards’ company at dinner on Tuesday, June fourth, at seven o’clock, to meet Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Estoff.

12 Pear Street, June twenty-eighth.

2. Mr. Edward Edwards accepts with much pleasure the kind invitation of Mr. Frederick Estoff, Jr., to dinner for June fourth, to meet Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Estoff.

14 Sycamore Street, June twenty-eighth.

3. Mr. Edward Edwards regrets extremely that a previous engagement prevents his acceptance of Mr. Frederick Estoff, Jr.’s kind invitation to dinner for June fourth, to meet Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Estoff.

14 Sycamore Street, June twenty-eighth.

Personal or Informal Letters.—The letter one writes informally to an acquaintance, a friend, or a relative, should be in tone pretty nearly what one’s conversation with the given person would be. To give such a letter the tone which represents exactly the relation between the two people is a hard task. The nicest sense of tact is required in order not to be too stiff and not too familiar. Personal letters demand the art of colloquial composition. Those unperceptive persons who have but one style of composition,—that of a book, or that of a clerk,—make sorry work of personal letters. Suppose that you have always known one of these persons. You have played with him, read with him, perhaps fought with him. When you meet, he calls you by your first name. When he writes to ask you to visit him, he addresses you as Dear Sir, and signs himself Respectfully! His letter gives you a chill. There is too little of the personal letter-writing of the better sort, the leisurely, careful, courteous, old-fashioned kind of written talk,—writing that, like Thomas Cholmondeley’s, could be signed, “Ever yours and not in haste.”

Written Exercise.—Write a note inviting a friend of your own age to dinner, to an informal party, or to an excursion. Such a note usually begins on this wise,—My Dear Tom, or Dear Tom, rather than on this,—Dear Friend. A similar note to an acquaintance would begin: My dear Mr. ——, My dear Miss ——, etc.

Written Exercise.—Write a personal letter to the instructor, concerning some matter in which you would like to interest him. This letter will not be read to the class.

Written Exercise.—Write to some friend a long letter, observing the ordinary rules for paragraphing. Suggested subjects: an account of your life since last meeting your friend; a comparison of the town you now live in with that in which you and the friend formerly lived; an explanation of some scheme in which you wish the friend’s co-operation.

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CHAPTER XIII
REPRODUCTION, ABSTRACT, SUMMARY, ABRIDGMENT

Literal Reproduction.—The word reproduction is often used in Rhetoric in a somewhat general sense, to mean any version of another composition. As we shall use it, the term means literal reproduction; in other words, a version that follows the phrasing of the original as nearly as the time given for study will permit. Writing of reproductions trains the memory and adds immensely to one’s command of words.

Below are given lists of brief selections, most of them requiring not more than ten minutes to reproduce. It is suggested that a given paragraph or page be slowly read aloud to the class, two or three times, and that the class afterward write the piece as nearly as possible in the author’s words. Each student should then insert in his vocabulary book any new words or phrases that seem to him particularly serviceable. These memoranda will prove invaluable later on, when similar topics (not the same ones) are to be written about by the student himself. To illustrate: a student after reading two or three personal descriptions might jot down for future use such phrases as the following: Eyes.—Laughing, startled, heavy-lidded, hazel, vacant, protruding, lustrous, expressive, liquid, dreamy, speaking, glad. Nose.—Aquiline, Roman, beak-like, shapely, snub, sharp, insignificant. Hair.—Grizzled, frowsy, shaggy, glossy, dishevelled, unkempt, tumbled. Manner.—Alert, jaunty, affable, sprightly, haughty, pretentious, modest, diffident, reserved, ostentatious, demure, animated. Figure.—Gaunt, emaciated, lank, vigorous, robust, grotesque, massive, insignificant, thick-set, portly, sturdy, stalwart, erect, decrepit, fragile. Expression.—Rueful, crafty, frank, wistful, stolid.