This very paragraph will serve as an illustration of such language. Our understanding of language of this kind depends upon our knowledge of the meanings of words, upon our understanding of the relations between word groups, or parts of sentences, and especially upon our appreciation of the relations in thought that sentences bear to one another. Each of these will be discussed in the following pages. Later it will be necessary to consider the relations in thought existing among paragraphs.
+32. Word Relations.+—In order to get the thought of a sentence, we must understand the relations that exist between the words and word groups (phrases and clauses) that compose it. If the thought is simple, and expressed in straightforward terms, we grasp it readily and without any conscious effort to determine these relations. If the thought is complex, the relations become more complicated, and before we are sure that we know what the writer intends to say it may be necessary to note with care which is the main clause and which are the subordinate clauses. In either case our acquiring the thought depends upon our understanding the relations between words and word groups. We may understand them without any knowledge of the names that have been applied to them in grammar, but a knowledge of the names will assist somewhat. These relations are treated in the grammar review in the Appendix and need not be repeated here.
+33. Incomplete Thoughts.+—We have learned (Section 27) that the introduction of unfamiliar words may cause us to form incomplete images. When the language is not designed to present images, we may, in a similar way, fail to get its real meaning if we are unfamiliar with the words used. If you do not know the meaning of fluent and viscous, you will fail to understand correctly the statement, "Fluids range from the peculiarly fluent to the peculiarly viscous." If we wish to think precisely what the writer intended us to think, we must know the meanings of the words he uses. Many of us are inclined to substitute other ideas than those properly conveyed by the words of the writer, and so get confused or incomplete or inaccurate ideas. The ability to determine exactly what images the writer suggests, and what ideas his language expresses, is the first requisite of scholarship and an important element of success in life.
EXERCISES
A. The first step in acquiring knowledge is to determine what it is that we do not know. Just which word or words in each of the following sentences keep you from understanding the full meaning of the sentence? Notice that a dictionary definition will not always make the meaning clear.
1. It is really more scientific to repeat a quotation from a political speech correctly, or to pass on a story undistorted, than it is to know of the rings of Saturn or the striation of diatoms.
2. The process of testing a hypothesis requires great caution in order to prevent mistakes.
3. The aërial foliage stem is the most favorable for studying stem structure.
4. Taken collectively, isotherms indicate the distribution of mean temperature over the region embraced in the map.
5. Vibrations of the membrane of the tympanum are "damped" by the ossicles of the middle ear, which also receive and pass on the auditory tremors to the membrane closing the oval window.