Let us put all these words together and add a word or two: “I saw a man in a steam car.” Now we have a clear picture. What do we learn from this? We learn that a single word does not give us a clear picture, and that it takes three, and four, and sometimes many words, to give us a picture. We can think “I saw a man” or “in a steam car,” but we get a complete thought only when we put these two groups of words together. We notice also that while it takes just a moment to see a picture, it often takes many words to describe it.
What we have done is called grouping; that is, reading several words together just as we read the syllables of a word. Let us try some examples. “Charles gave a sled to his brother.” Here there are two groups: One ending at “sled,” the other, at “brother.” “I went to King Street with my sister to buy a new hat.” Here we have three groups. Can you pick them out?
The last thing we are to learn in this lesson is that every group of words has a picture in it, and that we must not read aloud any word until we have got the thought or the picture in the group.
Pick out the groups in the following sentence, and then read aloud, but be sure you pay attention to the picture in each group: “When-our-school-closes for-the-summer-vacation, some-of-us-go-to-the-country, others-go-to-the-lakes, some-go-to-the-mountains, and-many stay-in-the-city.”
For to-morrow’s lesson[9] I want you to bring in the groups in the following examples, putting hyphens between the words of each group, just as we did in the sentence about the summer vacation.
[CHAPTER VII]
SUCCESSION OF IDEAS
The next step is but a very short one in advance of the second, and yet one of exceeding importance. It deals with the succession of ideas. Every long sentence is made up of small phrases more or less intimately connected. The inflection denotes this connection. If several phrases point forward to a thought further on, the end of each of these will be marked by a rising inflection; if any one of the phrases be of sufficient importance to demand particular emphasis, its end will be marked by the falling inflection.