Arming himself with the sword of zeal and the buckler of integrity, he wrote the letter.
He swept the floor every morning, and was a ray of sunshine in the office.
He also emptied the waste baskets and cleaned the cuspidors.
<3. Connotation>
The connotation of a word is the subtle implication, the emotional association it carries—often quite apart from its dictionary definition. Thus the words house and home in large measure overlap in meaning, but emotionally they are not equivalents at all. You can say house without experiencing any sensation whatever, but if you utter the word home it will call back, however slightly, tender and cherished recollections. Bald heads and gray hair are both indicative of age; but you would pronounce the former in disparaging allusion to elderly persons, and the latter with sentiments of veneration. You would say, of a clodpole that he plays the fiddle, but of Fritz Kreisler that he plays the violin. And just as you unconsciously adapt words to feelings in these obvious instances, you must learn, on peril of striking false notes verbally, to do so when distinctions are less gross.
Moreover circumstance as well as sentiment may control the connotation of a word. A word or phrase may have a double or triple connotation, and depend upon vocal inflection, upon gesture, upon the words with which it is linked, upon the experience of speaker or hearer, upon time, place, and external fact, or upon other forces outside it for the sense in which it is to be taken. You may be called "old dog" in an insulting manner, or (especially if a slap on the shoulder accompanies the phrase) in an affectionate manner. You may properly say, "Calhoun had logic on his side"; add, however, the words "but his face was to the past," and you spoil the sentence,—for face gives a reflex connotation to side, slight perhaps and momentary, but disconcerting. Think over the funny stories you have heard. Many of them turn, you will find, on the outcropping of new significance in a phrase because of its environment. Thus the anecdote of the servant who had been instructed to summon the visiting English nobleman by tapping on his bedroom door and inquiring, "My lord, have you yet risen?" and who could only stammer, "My God! ain't you up yet?" Or the anecdote of the minister who in a sermon on the Parable of the Prodigal Son told how a young man living dissolutely in a city had been compelled to send to the pawnbroker first his overcoat, next his suit, next his silk shirt, and finally his very underclothing—"and then," added the minister, "he came to himself." Only by unresting vigilance can you evade verbal discords, if not of this magnitude, at least of much frequency and stylistic harm.
EXERCISE - Connotation
1. Note the contrast in emotional suggestion that comes to you from hearing the words:
"Sodium chloride" and "salt"
"A test-tube of H2O" and "a cup of cold water"
"A pair of brogans" and "a little empty shoe"
"Bump" and "collide"
"A brilliant fellow" and "a flashy fellow"
"Bungled it" and "did not succeed"
"Tumble" and "fall"
"Dawn" and "6 A.M."
"Licked" and "worsted"
"Fat" and "plump"
"Wept" and "blubbered"
"Cheek" and "self-assurance"
"Stinks" and "disagreeable odors"
"Steal" and "embezzle"
"Thievishness" and "kleptomania"
"Educated" and "highbrow"
"Job" and "position"
"Told a lie" and "fell into verbal inexactitude"
"A drunkard" (a stranger) and "a drunkard" (your father).
2. Make a list of your own similar to that in Exercise 1.
3. Read the sentences listed in EXERCISE - Slovenliness III and IV. What do these sentences suggest to you as to the social and mental qualifications of the person who employs them?