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?
4. Read the second paragraph of Appendix 2. What does it suggest to you as to Burke's social and mental qualifications?
5. Suppose you were told that a passage of twenty-eight lines contains the following expressions: "mewling and puking," "whining schoolboy," "satchel," "sighing like furnace," "round belly," "spectacles on nose," "shrunk shank," "sans [without] teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." Would you believe the passage is poetry?—that its total effect is one of poetic elevation? Read the Seven Ages of Man (Appendix 4).Isit poetry? How does Shakespeare reconcile the general poetic tone with such expressions as those quoted?
6. What is wrong with the connotation of the following?
The servant told us that the young ladies were all in.All my poor success is due to you.He insisted on carrying a revolver, and so the college authorities firedhim.The carpenter too had his castles in Spain.He rested his old bones by the wayside, and his gaunt dog stood sniffingat them.On the other hand, he had a white elephant to dispose of.When he came to the forks of the road, he showed he was not on the square.Body, for funeral purposes, must be sold at once. City Automobile Agency.
7. Can you express the following ideas in other words without sacrifice of emotional suggestion? Try.
The music, yearning like a god in pain.Alone, alone, all, all alone,Alone on a wide, wide sea!
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,And the sound of a voice that is still!Old, unhappy, far-off things,And battles long ago.
It was night in the lonesome October.How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,In the icy air of night!While the stars, that oversprinkleAll the heavens, seem to twinkleWith a crystalline delight.
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,And murmuring of innumerable bees.
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;To lie in cold obstruction and to rot.
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be trueAs for grass to be green or skies to be blue,—'Tis the natural way of living.
We are such stuffAs dreams are made of, and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep.
8. With the most connotative words at your command describe the following:
Your first sweetheartA solemn experienceA ludicrous experienceA terrifying experienceA mysterious experienceThe circus parade you saw in your boyhoodA servant girlA dudeAn odd character you have knownThe old homesteadYour boarding houseA scene suggesting the intense heat of a midsummer dayNight on the riverThe rush for the subway carThe traffic policemanYour bossAnything listed in the first part of Activity 9 of EXERCISE - Discourse.
The more dangerous pitfalls for those who use words in combination—as all of us do—have been pointed out. The best ways of avoiding these pitfalls have also been indicated. But our work together has thus far been chiefly negative. To be sure, many tasks assigned for your performance have been constructive as well as precautionary; butthe endheld ever before you has been the avoidance of feeble or ridiculous diction. In the present chapter we must take up those aspects of the mastery of words in combination which are primarily positive.
Before coming to specific aspects and assignments, however, we shall do well to consider certain large general purposes and methods.
First, what kind of vocabulary do we wish to acquire? A facile, readily used one? An accurate one? Or one as nearly as may be comprehensive? The three kinds do not necessarily coexist. The possession of one may even hinder and retard the acquisition of another. Thus if we seek a ready vocabulary, an accurate vocabulary may cause us to halt and hesitate for words which shall correspond with the shadings of our thought and emotion, and a wide vocabulary may embarrass us with the plenitude of our verbal riches.
Butmayis notmust. Though the three kinds of vocabulary may interfere with each other, there is no reason, except superficially, why they should. Our purpose should be, therefore, to acquire not a single kind but all three. We should be like the boy who, when asked whether he would have a small slice of apple pie or a small slice of pumpkin pie, replied resolutely, "Thank you, I will take a large piece of both."
That the assignments in this chapter may help you develop a vocabulary which shall be promptly responsive to your needs, you should perform some of them rapidly. Your thoughts and feelings regarding a topic may be anything but clear, but you must not pause to clarify them. The words best suited to the matter may not be instantly available, but you must not tarry for accessions of language. Stumble, flounder if you must, yea, rearrange your ideas even as you present them, but press resolutely ahead, comforting yourself with the assurance that in the heat and stress of circumstances a man rarely does his work precisely as he wishes. When you have finished the discussion, repeat it immediately—and with no more loitering than before. You will find that your ideas have shifted and enlarged, and that more appropriate words have become available. Further repetitions will assist you the more. But the goal you should set yourself, as you proceed from topic to topic, is the attainment of the power to be at your best in the first discussion. You may never reach this goal, but at least you may approach it.
That the assignments in this chapter may assist you in making your vocabulary accurate, you should perform some of them in another way. When you have selected a topic, you should first of all think it through. In doing this, arrange your ideas as consistently and logically as you can, and test them with your reason. Then set them forth in language which shall be lucid and exact. Tolerate no slipshod diction, no vaguely rendered general meanings. Send every sentence, every word like a skilful drop-kick—straight above the crossbar. When you have done your best with the topic, lay it by for a space. Time is a great revealer of hidden defects, and you must not regard your labors as ended until your achievement is the maturest possible for you. If the quantity of what you accomplish is meager, suffer no distress on that account. The desideratum now is not quantity, but quality.
The assignments in this chapter will do less toward making your vocabulary wide than toward making it facile and precise. To be sure, they will now and then set you to hunting for words that are new. Better still, they will give you a mastery over some of your outlying words—words known to your eyes or ears but not to your tongue. But these advantages will be somewhat incidental. Means for the systematic extension of your verbal domain into regions as yet unexplored by you, are reserved for the later chapters of this book.
<2. A Vocabulary for Speech or for Writing?>
In the second place, are we to develop a vocabulary for oral discourse or a vocabulary for writing? It may be that our chief impediment or our chief ambition lies in one field rather than in the other. Nevertheless we should strive for a double mastery; we ought to speak wellandwrite well. Indeed the two powers so react upon each other that we ought to cultivate both for the sake of either. True, some men, though inexpert as writers, have made themselves proficient as speakers; or though shambling and ineffective as speakers, have made themselves proficient as writers. But this is not natural or normal. Moreover these men might have gleaned more abundantly from their chosen field had they not shut it off from the acres adjacent. Fences waste space and curtail harvests.
The assignments in this chapter are of such a nature that you may perform them either orally or in writing. You should speak and write alternately, sometimes on the same topic, sometimes on topics taken in rotation.
In your oral discussions you should perhaps absent yourself at first from human auditors. A bedstead or a dresser will not make you self-conscious or in any way distract your attention, and it will permit you to sit down afterward and think out the degree of your failure or success. Ultimately, of course, you must speak to human beings—in informal conversations at the outset, in more ambitious ways later as occasion permits.
In your writing you may find it advantageous to make preliminary outlines of what you wish to say. But above all, you must be willing to blot, to revise, to take infinite pains. You should remember the old admonition that easy reading is devilish hard writing.
These purposes and methods are general. We now come to the specific fields in which we may with profit cultivate words in combination. Of these fields there are four.
If you read a foreign language, whether laboriously or with ease, you should make this power assist you to amass a good English vocabulary. Take compositions or parts of compositions written in the foreign tongue, and turn them into idiomatic English. How much you should translate at a given time depends upon your leisure and your adeptness. Employ all the methods—the spontaneous, the carefully perfected, the oral, the written—heretofore explained in this chapter. In your final work on a passage you should aim at a faultless rendition, and should spend time and ransack the lexicons rather than come short of this ideal.
The habit of translation is an excellent habit to keep up. For the study of an alien tongue not only improves your English, but has compensations in itself.
EXERCISE - Translation
1. Translate from any accessible book in the foreign language you can read.
2. Subscribe for a period of at least two or three months for a newspaper or magazine in that language, if it is a modern one. Translate as before, but give most of your time to rapid oral translation for a real or imaginary American hearer.
3. When you have completed your final written translation of a passage from the foreign language, make yourself master of all the English words you have not previously (1) known or (2) used, but have encountered in your work of translation.
<2. Mastery through Paraphrasing>
It may be that you are not familiar with a foreign language. At any rate you have some knowledge of English. Put this knowledge to use in paraphrasing; for thus you will enrich your vocabulary and make it surer and more flexible. The process of paraphrasing is simple, though the actual work is not easy. You take passages written in English—the more of them the better, and the more diversified the better—and both reproduce their substance and incarnate their mood in words you yourself shall choose.
You may have a passage before you and paraphrase it unit by unit. More often, however, you should follow the plan adopted by Franklin when he emulated Addison by rewriting theSpectator Papers. That is, you should steep yourself in the thought and emotion of a piece of writing, and then lay the piece aside until its wording has faded from your memory, when you should reëmbody the substance in language that seems to you natural and fitting. Much of the benefit will come from your comparing your version, as Franklin did his, with the original. When you perceive that you have fallen short, you should consider the respects wherein your inferiority lies—and should make another attempt, and yet another, and another. When you perceive that in any way you have surpassed the original, you should feel a just pride in your achievement—and should resolve that next time your cause for pride shall be greater still. Even after you have desisted from formal paraphrasing, you should cling to the habit, formed at this time, of observing any notable felicities in whatever you read and of comparing them with the expression you yourself would likely have employed.
EXERCISE - Paraphrasing
1. Paraphrase the editorial in Appendix 1. You should improve upon the original. Keep trying until you do.
2. Paraphrase the second paragraph in Burke's speech (Appendix 2). Burke lacked the cheap tricks of the ordinary orator, but his discussions were based upon a comprehensive knowledge of facts, a sympathetic understanding of human nature, a vast depth and range of thought, and a well-meditated political philosophy. In short, he is a model forelaborateddiscussions. Set forth the leading thought of this paragraph; you can give it in fewer words than he employs. But try setting it forth with his full accompaniments of reflection and information; you will be bewildered at his crowding so much into such small compass.
3. Try to rival the pregnant conciseness of the Parable of the Sower (Appendix 3).
4. Paraphrase in prose the Seven Ages of Man (Appendix 4). Catch if possible the mood, the "atmosphere," of each of the pictures painted by Shakespeare. Condense your paraphrase as much as you can.
5. In each of the preceding exercises compare your vocabulary with that of the original as to size, precision, and the grace and ease with which words are put together. Does the original employ terms unfamiliar to you? If so, look up their meaning and make them yours; then observe, when you next paraphrase the passage, whether your mastery of these terms has improved your expression.
<3. Mastery through Discourse at First Hand>
Models have their use, but you can also work without models. It is imperative that you should. You must learn to discuss, explain, analyze, argue, narrate, and describe for yourself. Here again you should diversify your materials to the utmost, not only that you may become well-rounded and versatile in your ability to set forth ideas and feelings in words, but also that your knowledge and your sensibility may receive stimulation.
It is feasible to begin by discussing or explaining. Most of the intercourse conducted through language consists in either discussion or explanation. Analysis, ordinarily, is almost ignored. Argument is indulged in, and so is description (though less freely), but they are of the bluntest and broadest. Narration—the recounting of incidents of everyday existence—is, however, widely employed.
In your work of discussion or explanation you may seize upon any current topic—industrial, social, political, or what not—that comes into your mind. Or you may make a list of such topics, writing each on a separate piece of paper; may jumble the slips in a hat; and may thus have always at your elbow a collection of satisfactory themes from which you may take one at random. Or you may invest in language of your own selection the substance of an address or sermon you have heard, or give the burden of some important conversation in which you have participated, or explain the tenor of an article you have read. You should of course try to interest your hearers, and above all, you should impart to what you say complete clarity.
In analyzing you should select as your topic a process fairly obscure, the implications of a certain statement or argument, the results to be expected from some action or policy that has been advocated, or the exact matter at issue between two disputants. Any topic for discussion, explanation, or argument may be treated analytically. Your analysis in its final form should be so carefully considered that its soundness cannot be impeached.
In arguing you may take any subject under the sun, from baseball to Bolshevism, for all of them are debated with vehemence. Any topic for discussion or explanation becomes, when approached from some particular angle, material for argument. Thus the initial topic in the exercise that follows is "The aeroplane's future as a carrier of mail." You may convert it into a question for debate by making it read: "The aeroplane is destined to supplant the railroad as a carrier of mail," or "The aeroplane is destined to be used increasingly as a carrier of transcontinental mail." In arguing you may propose for yourself either of two objectives: (1) to silence your opponent, (2) to refute, persuade, and win him over fairly. The achievement of the first end calls for bluster and perhaps a grim, barbaric strength; you must do as Johnson did according to Goldsmith's famous dictum—if your pistol misses fire, you must knock your adversary down with the butt end of it. This procedure, though inartistic to be sure, is in some contingencies the only kind that will serve. But you should cultivate procedure of a type more urbane. Let your very reasonableness be the most potent weapon you wield. To this end you should form the habit of looking for good points on both sides of a question. As a still further precaution against contentiousness you should uphold the two sides successively.
In narrating you should, as a rule, stick to simple occurrences, though you may occasionally vary your work by summarizing the plot of a novel or giving the gist and drift of big historical events. You should confine yourself, in large part, to incidents in which you have been personally involved, or which you yourself have witnessed, as mishaps, unexpected encounters, bickerings, even rescues or riots. You should omit non-essentials and make the happening itself live for your hearer; if you can so interest him in it that he will not notice your manner of telling it, your success is but the greater.
Finally, in describing you should deal for the most part with beings, objects, and appearances familiar to you. Description is usually hard to make vivid. This is because the objects and scenes are likely to be immobile and (at least when told about) to lack distinctiveness. Try, therefore, to lay hold of the peculiar quality of the thing described, and use words suggestive of color and motion. Moreover be brief. Long descriptions are sure to be wearisome.
EXERCISE - Discourse
1. Select topics from the following list for discussion or explanation:
The aeroplane's future as a carrier of mailThe commercial future of the aeroplaneA recent scientific (or mechanical or electrical) inventionA better type of newspaper—its contents and makeupA better type of newspaper—how it can be securedThe connection between the advertising and news departmentsof a newspaper—the actual conditionThe connection between the advertising and news departmentsof a newspaper—the idealSpecial features in a newspaper that are popularA single standard for the sexes—is it possible?A single standard for the sexes—how it can be attained (or approximated)Should the divorce laws be made more stringent?Should a divorced person be prohibited from remarrying?What further marriage restrictions should be placed upon thephysically or mentally unfit?What further measures should be taken by the cities (states, nation) forthe protection of motherhood?Is the division of men into strongly contrasted groups as to wealthone of nature's necessities, or is it the result of a social andeconomic system?Some shortcomings of the labor unionsAre the shortcomings of the labor unions accidental or inherent?Some ways of bettering the condition of the working classesHow municipal (state, national) bureaus for finding employmentfor the laborer may become more serviceableWrongs committed by big business (or some branch of it)Should a man's income above a stipulated amount be confiscatedby the government?Income taxes—what exemptions should be granted?The right basis for business—competition or coöperation?Are the courts equally just to labor and capital?How can legal procedure be changed to enable individuals to secure justtreatment from corporations without resorting to prolonged and expensivelawsuits?Where our interests clash with those of Great BritainHow our relations with Great Britain may be further improvedHow our relations with Japan may be further improvedHow may closer commercial relations with other countries be promoted?What to do about the railroads and railroad ratesA natural resource that should be conserved or restoredDo high tariffs breed international ill-will?Should we have a high tariff at this juncture?To what extent should osteopathy (chiropractic) be permitted(or protected) by law?What is wrong with municipal government in my cityHow woman suffrage affects local governmentHow to make rural life more attractiveThe importance of the rotation of cropsThe race problem as it affects my communityThe class problem as it affects my communityThe school-house as a social centerHow to Americanize the alien elements in our populationTo what extent, if at all, should foreign-born citizens of ourcountry be encouraged to preserve their native traditions and culture?Censorship of the moving pictureEducational possibilities of the moving pictureHow to bring about improvement in the quality of the moving pictureThe effect of the moving picture upon legitimate dramaA church that men will attendHow young men may be attracted to the churchesHow far shall doctrine be insisted upon by the churches?To what extent shall the church concern itself with socialand economic problems?To what extent, if at all, shall Sunday diversions be restricted?The advantages of using the free public libraryCan the cities give children in the slums better opportunities forphysical (mental, moral) development?Should all cities be required to establish zoölogical gardens,as well as schools, for the children?How my city might improve its system of public parksThe most interesting thing about the work I am inOpportunities in the work I am inThe qualities called for in the work I am inThe ideals of my associatesSomething I have learned about lifeSomething I have learned about human natureA book that has influenced me, and whyA person who has influenced me, and howMy favorite sport or recreationWhy baseball is so popularWhat I could do for the people around meWhat I should like for the people around me to do for me.
2. Discuss or explain the ideas listed in Exercise 3 for 'Abstract vs. Concrete' in "Words in Combination: Some Pitfalls" above.
3. Analyze the debatable questions included in the two preceding exercises or suggested by them. That is, find the issues in each question, and show what each disputant must prove and what he must refute.
4. Analyze the results to be expected from the adoption of some policy or course of action by:
A newspaperA business firmThe cityThe farmersThe producers in some business or industryThe consumersThe retail merchants of your citySome group of reformersSome social groupThose interested in a social activity, as dancingYour neighborsYourself.
5. Analyze or explain:
The testing of seed grainHow to raise potatoes (any other vegetable)How to utilize and apportion the space in your gardenHow to keep an automobile in good shapeHow to run an automobile (motor boat)How to make a rabbit trapHow to lay out a campHow to catch trout (bass, codfish, tuna fish, lobsters)How to conduct a public meetingHow a bill is introduced and passed in a legislative bodyHow food is digestedHow to extract oxygen from waterHow a fish breathesHow gold is minedHow wireless messages are sentHow your favorite game is playedHow to survey a tract of landHow stocks are bought and sold on marginsHow public opinion is formedHow a man ought to form his opinionsThe responsibility of individuals to societyThe responsibility of society to the individual.
6. Argue one side or the other, or the two successively, of queries contained or implied in Exercises 1 and 2.
7. Argue one side or the other, or the two successively, of queries listed in Exercise 1 in EXERCISE - Abstract.
8. Give a narrative of:
The earning of your first dollarHow somebody met his matchAn amusing incidentAn anxious momentA surpriseThe touchdownThat fatal seventh inningHow you got the positionWhy you missed the trainWhen you were lostYour first trip on the railroad (a motor boat, a merry-go-round,snowshoes, a burro)A mishapHow Jenkins skatedYour life until the present (a summary)Something you have heard your father tellWhat happened to your uncleYour partner's (chum's) escapadeMeeting an old friendMeeting a boreA conversation you have overheardWhen Myrtle eavesdroppedWhen the girls didn't know Algy was in the parlorA public happening that interests youAn incident you have read in the papersAn incident from your favorite novelBackward Ben at the partySomething that happened to you today.
9. Describe …
For the mood or general "atmosphere":
Anything you deem suitable in Activity 8 in EXERCISE - Connotation.An old, deserted houseYour birthplace as you saw it in manhoodThe view from an eminenceA city as seen from a roof garden by nightYour mother's BibleA barnyard sceneThe lonely old negro at the supper tableA new immigrant gazing out upon the ocean he has crossedThe downtown section at closing hourA scene of quietudeA scene of bustle and confusionA richly colored sceneA scene of dejectionA scene of wild enthusiasmA scene of dulness or stagnation.
With attention to homely detail:
The old living-roomMy aunt's dressesBarker's riding-horseThe business street of the villageA cabin in the mountainsThe office of a man approaching bankruptcyThe Potters' backyardThe second-hand storeThe ugliest man.
For general accuracy and vividness:
The organ-grinderThe signs of an approaching stormThe arrival of the trainMail-time at the village post officeThe crowd at the auctionThe old fishing-boatA country fair (or a circus)The inside of a theater (or a church)The funeral processionThe political rallyThe choir.
<4. Mastery through Adapting Discourse to Audience>
For convenience, we have heretofore assumed that ideas and emotions, together with such expression of them as shall be in itself adequate and faithful, comprise the sole elements that have to be reckoned with in the use of words in combination. But as you go out into life you will find that these things, however complete they may seem, are not in practice sufficient. Another factor—the human—must have its place in our equation. You do not speak or write in a vacuum. Your object, your ultimate object at least, in building up your vocabulary is to address men and women; and among men and women the varieties of training, of stations, of outlooks, of sentiments, of prejudices, of caprices are infinite. To gain an unbiased hearing you must take persistent cognizance of flesh and blood.
In adapting discourse to audience you must have a supple and attentive mind and an impressionable and swiftly responsive temperament as well as a wide, accurate, and flexible vocabulary. Unless you are a fool, a zealot, or an incorrigible adventurer, you will not broach a subject at all to which your hearers feel absolute indifference or hostility. Normally you should pick a subject capable of interesting them. In presenting it you should pay heed to both your matter and your manner. You should emphasize for your listeners those aspects of the subject which they will most respond to or most need to hear, whether or not the phases be such as you would emphasize with other auditors. You should also speak in the fashion you deem most effective with them, whether or not it be one to which your own natural instincts prompt you.
Let us say you are discussing conditions in Europe. You must speak in one way to the man who has traveled and in an entirely different way to the man who has never gone abroad—in one way to the well-read man, in an entirely different way to the ignoramus. Let us say you are discussing urban life, urban problems. You must speak in one way to the man who lives in the city, in another to the man who lives in the country. Let us say you are discussing the labor problem. You must speak in one way to employers, in another to employees, possibly in a third to men thrown out of jobs, possibly in a fourth to the general public. Let us say you are discussing education, or literature, or social tendencies, or mechanical principles or processes, or some great enterprise or movement. You must speak in one way to cultivated hearers and in another to men in the street, and if you are a specialist addressing specialists, you will cut the garment of your discourse to their particular measure.
The same principle holds regardless of whether you expound, analyze, argue, recount, or describe. You must always keep a finger on the mental or emotional pulse of those whom you address. But your problem varies slightly with the form of discourse you adopt. In explanation, analysis, and argument the chief barriers you encounter are likely to be those of the mind; you must make due allowance for the intellectual limitations of your auditors, though many who have capacity enough may for some cause or other be unreceptive to ideas. In description you must reckon with the imaginative faculty, with the possibility that your hearers cannot visualize what you tell them—and you must make your words brief. In narration you must vivify emotional torpor; but lest in your efforts to inveigle boredom you yourself should induce it, you must have a wary eye for signals of distress.
EXERCISE - Adapting
1. Explain to (a) a rich man, (b) a poor man the blessings of poverty.
2. Discuss before (a) farmers, (b) merchants the idea that farmers (merchants) make a great deal of money.
3. Explain to (a) the initiate, (b) the uninitiate some piece of mechanism, or some phase of a human activity or interest, which you know at first hand and regarding which technical (or at least not generally understood) terms are employed. (The exact subject depends, of course, upon your own observation or experience; you are sure to be familiar with something that most people know hazily, if at all. Bank clerk, chess player, bridge player, stenographer, journalist, truck driver, backwoods-man, mechanic—all have special knowledge of one kind or another and can use the particular terms it calls for.)
4. Explain to (a) a supporter of the winning team, (b) a supporter of the losing team why the baseball game came out as it did.
5. Discuss before (a) a Democratic, (b) a Republican audience your reasons for voting the Democratic (Republican) ticket in the coming election.
6. Explain to (a) your own family, (b) the man who can lend you the money, why you wish to mortgage your house (any piece of property).
7. Explain to the owner of an ill-conducted business why he should sell it, and to a shrewd business man why he should buy it.
8. Discuss before (a) old men, (b) young men, (c) women the desirability of men's giving up their seats in street cars to women. (Also modify the question by requiring only young men to give up their seats, and then only to old people of either sex, to sick people, or to people with children in their arms.)
9. Explain the necessity of restricting immigration to (a) prospective immigrants, (b) immigrants just granted admission to the country, (c) persons just refused admission, (d) exploiters of cheap labor, (e) ordinary citizens.
10. Discuss the taking out of a life insurance policy with (a) a man not interested, (b) a man interested but uncertain what a policy is like, (c) a man interested and informed but doubtful whether he can spare the money, (d) the man's wife (his prospective beneficiary), whose desires will have weight with him.
11. Discuss the necessity of a reduction in wages with (a) unscrupulous employers, (b) kind-hearted employers, (c) the employees.
12. Advocate higher public school taxes before (a) men with children, (b) men without children.
13. Advocate a further regulation of the speed of automobiles before (a) automobile-owners, (b) non-owners.
14. Urge advocacy of some reform upon (a) a clergyman, (b) a candidate for office.
15. Combat before (a) advertisers, (b) a public audience, (c) a lawmaking body, the defacement of landscapes by advertising billboards.
16. Describe life in the slums before (a) a rural audience, (b) charitable persons, (c) rich people in the cities who know little of conditions among the poor.
17. Describe the typical evening of a spendthrift in a city to (a) a poor man, (b) a miser, (c) the spendthrift's mother, (d) his employer, (e) a detective who suspects him of theft.
18. Describe the city of Washington (any other city) to (a) a countryman, (b) a traveler who has not visited this particular city. (If it is Washington you describe, describe it also for children in whom you wish to inculcate patriotism.)
19. Give (a) a youngster, (b) an experienced angler an account of your fishing trip.
20. Recount for (a) a baseball fan, (b) a girl who has never seen a game, the occurrences of the second half of the ninth inning.
21. Describe a fight for (a) your friends, (b) a jury.
22. Narrate for (a) children, (b) an audience of adults some historical event.
23. Give (a) your partner, (b) a reporter an account of a business transaction you have just completed.
24. Narrate an escapade for (a) your father, (b) your cronies in response to a toast at a banquet with them.
Thus far we have studied words as grouped together into phrases, sentences, paragraphs, whole compositions. We must now enter upon a new phase of our efforts to extend our vocabulary. We must study words as individual entities.
You may think the order of our study should be reversed. No great harm would result if it were. The learning of individual words and the combining of them into sentences are parallel rather than successive processes. In our babyhood we do not accumulate a large stock of terms before we frame phrases and clauses. And our attainment of the power of continuous iteration does not check our inroads among individual words. We do the two things simultaneously, each contributing to our success with the other. There are plenty of analogies for this procedure. A good baseball player, for instance, tirelessly studies both the minutiae of his technique (as how to hold a bat, how to stand at the plate) and the big combinations and possibilities of the game. A good musician keeps unremitting command over every possible touch of each key and at the same time seeks sweeping mastery over vast and complex harmonies. So we, if we would have the obedience of our vocabularies, dare not lag into desultory attention to either words when disjoined or words as potentially combined into the larger units of thought and feeling.
We might therefore consider either the individuals first or the groups first. But the majority of speakers and writers pay more heed to rough general substance than to separate instruments and items. Hence we have thought best to begin where most work is going on already—with words in combination.
As you turn from the groups to the individuals, you must understand that your labors will be onerous and detailed. You must not assume that by nature all words are much alike, any more than you assume that all men are much alike. Of course the similarities are many and striking, and the fundamental fact is that a word is a word as a man is a man. But you will be no adept in handling either the one or the other until your knowledge goes much farther than this. Let us glance first at the human variations. Each man has his own business, and conducts it in his own way—a way never absolutely matched with that of any other mortal being. All this you may see. But besides the man's visible employment, he may be connected in devious fashions with a score of enterprises the public knows nothing about. Furthermore he leads a private life (again not precisely corresponding to that of any other), has his hobbies and aversions, is stamped with a character, a temperament of his own. In short, though in thousands of respects he is like his fellows, he has after all no human counterpart; he is a distinct, individual self. To know him, to use him, to count upon his service in whatsoever contingency it might bestead you, you must deem him something more than a member of the great human family. You must cultivate him personally, cultivate him without weariness or stint, and undergo inconvenience in so doing.
Even so with a word. Commonplace enough it may seem. But it has its peculiar characteristics, its activities undisclosed except to the curious, its subtle inclinations, its repugnances, its latent potentialities. There is no precise duplicate for it in all the wide domain of language. To know it intimately and thoroughly, to be on entirely free terms with it, to depend upon it just so far as dependence is safe, to have a sure understanding of what it can do and what it cannot, you must arduously cultivate it. Words, like people, yield themselves to the worthy. They hunger for friendship—and lack the last barrier of reserve which hedges all human communion. Thus, linguistically speaking, you must search out the individuals. You must step aside from your way for the sake of a new acquaintance; in conversations, in sermons, in addresses, in letters, in journalistic columns, in standard literature you must grasp the stranger by the hand and look him straight in the eye. Nor must you treat cavalierly the words you know already. You must study them afresh; you must learn them over and learn them better; you must come to understand them, not only for what they are, but for what they will do.
What, then, is your first task? Somebody has laid down the injunction— and, as always when anything is enjoined, others have given it currency— that each day you should learn two new words. So be it,—but which two? The first two in the dictionary, or hitherto left untouched in your systematic conquest of the dictionary? The first two you hear spoken? The first two that stare at you from casual, everyday print? The first two you can ferret from some technical jargon, some special department of human interest or endeavor? In any of these ways you may obey the behest of these mentors. But are not such ways arbitrary, haphazard? And suppose, after doing your daily stint, you should encounter a word it behooves you to know. What then? Are you to sulk, to withhold yourself from further exertion on the plea of a vocabulary-builder's eight-hour day?
To adopt any of the methods designated would be like resolving to invest in city lots and then buying properties as you encountered them, with no regard for expenditure, for value in general, or for special serviceability to you. Surely such procedure would be unbusinesslike. If you pay out good money, you meditate well whether that which you receive for it shall compensate you. Likewise if you devote time and effort to gaining ownership of words, you should exercise foresight in determining whether they will yield you commensurate returns.
What, then, is the principle upon which, at the outset, you should proceed? What better than to insure the possession of the words regarding which you know this already, that you need them and should make them yours?
The natural way, and the best, to begin is with an analysis of your own vocabulary. You are of course aware that of the enormous number of words contained in the dictionary relatively few are at your beck and bidding. But probably you have made no attempt to ascertain the nature and extent of your actual linguistic resources. You should make an inventory of the stock on hand before sending in your order for additional goods.
You will speedily discover that your vocabulary embraces several distinct classes of words. Of these the first consists of those words which you have at your tongue's end—which you can summon without effort and use in your daily speech. They are old verbal friends. Numbered with them, to be sure, there may be a few with senses and connotations you are ignorant of— friends of yours, let us say, with a reservation. Even these you may woo with a little care into uncurbed fraternal abandon. With the exception of these few, you know the words of the first class so well that without thinking about it at all you may rely upon their giving you, the moment you need them, their untempered, uttermost service. You need be at no further pains about them. They are yours already.
A second class of words is made up of those you speak on occasions either special or formal—occasions when you are trying, perhaps not to show off, but at least to put your best linguistic foot foremost. Some of them have a meaning you are not quite sure of; some of them seem too ostentatious for workaday purposes; some of them you might have been using but somehow have not. Words of this class are not your bosom friends. They are your speaking acquaintance, or perhaps a little better than that. You must convert them into friends, into prompt and staunch supporters in time of need. That is to say, you must put them into class one. In bringing about this change of footing, you yourself must make the advances. You must say, Go to, I will bear them in mind as I would a person I wished to cultivate. When occasion rises, you must introduce them into your talk. You will feel a bit shy about it, for introductions are difficult to accomplish gracefully; you will steal a furtive glance at your hearer perchance, and another at the word itself, as you would when first labeling a man "my friend Mr. Blank." But the embarrassment is momentary, and there is no other way. Assume a friendship if you have it not, and presently the friendship will be real. You must be steadfast in intention; for the words that have held aloof from you are many, and to unloose all at once on a single victim would well-nigh brand you criminal. But you will make sure headway, and will be conscious besides that no other class of words in the language will so well repay the mastering. For these are words youdouse, and need to use more, and more freely—words your own experience stamps as valuable, if not indeed vital, to you.
The third class of words is made up of those you do not speak at all, but sometimes write. They are acquaintance one degree farther removed than those of the second class. Your task is to bring them into class two and thence into class one—that is, to introduce them into your more formal speech, and from this gradually into your everyday speech.
The fourth class of words is made up of those you recognize when you hear or read them, but yourself never employ. They are acquaintance of a very distant kind. You nod to them, let us say, and they to you; but there the intercourse ends. Obviously, they are not to be brought without considerable effort into a position of tried and trusted friendship. And shall we be absolutely honest?—some of them may not justify such assiduous care as their complete subjugation would call for. But even these you should make your feudal retainers. You should constrain them to membership in class three, and at your discretion in class two.
Apart from the words in class four, you will not to this point have made actual additions to your vocabulary. But you will have made your vocabulary infinitely more serviceable. You will be like a man with a host of friends where before, when his necessities were sorest, he found (along with some friends) many distant and timid acquaintance.
Outside the bounds of your present vocabulary altogether are the words you encounter but do not recognize, except (it may be) dimly and uncertainly. Some counselors would have you look up all such words in a dictionary. But the task would be irksome. Moreover those who prescribe it are loath to perform it themselves. Your own candid judgment in the matter is the safest guide. If the word is incidental rather than vital to the meaning of the passage that contains it, and if it gives promise of but rarely crossing your vision again, you should deign it no more than a civil glance. Plenty of ways will be left you to expend time wisely in the service of your vocabulary.
EXERCISE - Analysis
1. Make a list of the words in class two of your own vocabulary, and similar lists for classes three and four. (To make a list for class one would be but a waste of time.) Procure if you can for this purpose a loose-leaf notebook, and in the several lists reserve a full page for each letter of the alphabet as used initially. Do not scamp the lists, though their proper preparation consume many days, many weeks. Try to make them really exhaustive. Their value will be in proportion to their accuracy and fulness.
2. Con the words in each list carefully and repeatedly. Your task is to transfer these words into a more intimate list—those in class four into class three, those in three into two, those in two into one. You are then to promote again the words in the lower classes, except that (if your judgment so dictates) you may leave the new class three wholly or partially intact. To carry out this exercise properly you must keep these words in mind, make them part and parcel of your daily life. (For a special device for bringing them under subjection, see the next exercise.)
3. To write a word down helps you to remember it. That is why the normal way to transfer a word from class four into class two is to put it temporarily into the intermediary class, three; you firstseeorhearthe word, nextwriteit, afterwardsspeakit. The mere writing down of your lists has probably done much to bring the words written into the circuit of your memory, where you can more readily lay hold of them. Also it has fortified your confidence in using them; for to write a word out, letter by letter, makes you surer that you have its right form. With many of your words you will likely have no more trouble; they will be at hand, anxious for employment, and you may use them according to your need. But some of your words will still stubbornly withhold themselves from memory. Weed these out from your lists, make a special list of them, copy it frequently, construct short sentences into which the troublesome words fit. By dint of writing the words so often you will soon make them more tractable.
4. Make a fifth list of words—those you hear or see printed, do not understand the meaning of, but yet feel you should know. Obtain and confirm a grasp of them by the successive processes used with words in the preceding lists.
Another means of buttressing your command of your present vocabulary is to define words you use or are familiar with.
Do not bewilder yourself with words (likeand, the) which call for ingenuity in handling somewhat technical terms, or with words (likething, affair, condition) which loosely cover a multitude of meanings. (You may, however, concentrate your efforts upon some one meaning of words in the latter group.) Select words with a fairly definite signification, and express this as precisely as you can. You may afterwards consult a dictionary for means of checking up on what you have done. But in consulting it think only of idea, not of form. You are not training yourself in dictionary definitions, but in the sharpness and clarity of your understanding of meanings.
About the only rule to be laid down regarding the definition of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs is that you must not define a word in terms of itself. Thus if you definegrudginglyas "in a grudging manner," you do not dissipate your hearer's uncertainty as to what the word means. If you define it as "unwillingly" or "in a manner that shows reluctance to yield possession," you give your hearer a clear-cut idea in no wise dependent upon his ability to understand the word that puzzled him in the first place.
Normally, in defining a noun you should assign the thing named to a general class, and to its special limits within that class; in other words, you should designate its genus and species. You must take care to differentiate the species from all others comprised within the genus. You will, in most instances, first indicate the genus and then the species, but at your convenience you may indicate the species first. Thus if you affirm, "A cigar is smoking-tobacco in the form of a roll of tobacco-leaves," you name the genus first and later the characteristics of the species. You have given a satisfactory definition. If on the other hand you affirm, "A cigar is a roll of tobacco-leaves meant for smoking," you first designate the species and then merely imply the genus. Again you have given a satisfactory definition; for you have permitted no doubt that the genus is smoking-tobacco, and have prescribed such limits for the species as exclude tobacco intended for a pipe or a cigarette.
In defining nouns by the genus-and-species method, restrict the genus to the narrowest possible bounds. You will thus save the need for exclusions later. Had you in your first definition of a cigar begun by saying that it is tobacco, rather than smoking-tobacco, you would have violated this principle; and you would have had to amplify the rest of your definition in order to exclude chewing-tobacco, snuff, and the like.
EXERCISE - Definition
1. Define words of your own choosing in accordance with the principles laid down in the preceding section of the text.
2. Define the following adjectives, adverbs, and verbs:
Miserable Rebuke WiseAngrily Rapidly BoundlessSwim Paint WhitenHaughtily Surly Causelessly
3. So define the following nouns as to prevent any possible confusion with the nouns following them in parentheses:
Wages (salary) Ride (drive)Planet (star) Truck (automobile)Watch (clock) Reins (lines)Jail (penitentiary) Iron (steel)Vegetable (fruit) Timber (lumber)Flower (weed) Rope (string)Hail (sleet, snow) Stock (bond)Newspaper (magazine) Street car (railway coach)Cloud (fog) Revolver (rifle, pistol, etc.)Mountain (hill) Creek (river)Letter (postal card)
4. While remembering that the following words are of broad signification and mean different things to different people, define them according to their meaning to you:
Gentleman CourageHonesty BeautyHonor Good mannersGenerosity A good whileCharity A little distanceModesty Long ago
So much for the words which are already yours, or which you can make yours through your own unaided efforts. For convenience we have grouped with them some words of a nature more baffling—words of which you know perhaps but a single aspect rather than the totality, or upon which you can obtain but a feeble and precarious grip. These slightly known words belong more to the class now to be considered than to that just disposed of. For we have now to deal with words over which you can establish no genuine rulership unless you have outside help.
You must own a dictionary, have it by you, consult it carefully and often. Do not select one for purchasing upon the basis of either mere bigness or cheapness. If you do, you may make yourself the owner of an out-of-date reprint from stereotyped plates. What to choose depends partly upon personal preference, partly upon whether your need is for comprehensiveness or compression.
If you are a scholar,Murray'smany-volumedNew English Dictionarymay be the publication for you; but if you are an ordinary person, you will probably content yourself with something less expensive and exhaustive. You will find theCentury Dictionary and Cyclopedia, in twelve volumes, orWebster's New International Dictionaryan admirable compilation. TheNew Standard Dictionarywill also prove useful. All in all, if you can afford it, you should provide yourself with one or the other of these three large and authoritative, but not too inclusive, works. Of the smaller lexiconsWebster's Collegiate Dictionary, Webster's Secondary School Dictionary, thePractical Standard Dictionary, and theDesk Standard Dictionaryanswer most purposes well.
A dictionary is not for show. You must learn to use it. What ordinarily passes for use is in fact abuse. Wherein? Let us say that you turn to your lexicon for the meaning of a word. Of the various definitions given, you disregard all save the one which enables the word to make sense in its present context, or which fits your preconception of what the word should stand for. Having engaged in this solemn mummery, you mentally record the fact that you have been squandering your time, and enter into a compact with yourself that no more will you so do. At best you have tided over a transitory need, or have verified a surmise. You have not trulylearnedthe word, brought it into a vassal's relationship with you, so fixed it in memory that henceforth, night or day, you can take it up like a familiar tool.
This procedure is blundering, farcical, futile, incorrect. To suppose you have learned a word by so cursory a glance at its resources is like supposing you have learned a man through having had him render you some temporary and trivial service, as lending you a match or telling you the time of day. To acquaint yourself thoroughly with a word—or a man— involves effort, application. You must go about the work seriously, intelligently.
One secret of consulting a dictionary properly lies in finding the primary, the original meaning of the word. You must go to the source. If the word is of recent formation, and is native rather than naturalized English, you have only to look through the definitions given. Such a word will not cause you much trouble. But if the word is derived from primitive English or from a foreign language, you must seek its origin, not in one of the numbered subheads of the definition, but in an etymological record you will perceive within brackets or parentheses. Here you will find the Anglo-Saxon (Old English), Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian, Scandinavian, or other word from which sprang the word you are studying, and along with this authentic original you may find cognate words in other languages. These you may examine if you care to observe their resemblance to your word, but the examination is not necessary. It could teach you only the earlier or otherformsof your word, whereas what you are after is the originalmeaning. This too is set down within the brackets; if your search is in earnest, you cannot possible miss it. And having discovered this original meaning, you must get it in mind; it is one of the really significant things about the word. Your next step is to find the present import of the word. Look, therefore, through the modern definitions. Of these there may be too many, with too delicate shadings in thought between them, for you to keep all clearly in mind. In fact you need not try. Consider them of course, but out of them seek mainly the drift, the central meaning. After a little practice you will be able to disengage it from the others.
You now know the original sense of the word and its central signification today. The two may be identical; they may be widely different; but through reflection or study of the entire definition you will establish some sort of connection between them. When you have done this, you have mastered the word. From the two meanings you can surmise the others, wherever and whenever encountered; for the others are but outgrowths and applications of them.
One warning will not be amiss. You must not suppose that the terms used in defining a word are its absolute synonyms, or may be substituted for it indiscriminately. You must develop a feeling forthe limitsof the word, so that you may perceive where its likeness to the other terms leaves off and its unlikeness begins. Thus if one of the terms employed in definingcommandiscontrol, you must not assume that the two words are interchangeable; you must not say, for instance, that the captain controlled his men to present arms.
Such, abstractly stated, is the way to look up a word in the dictionary. Let us now take a concrete illustration. Starting with the wordtension, let us ascertain what we can about it in theCentury Dictionary and Cyclopedia. Our first quest is the original meaning. For this we consult the bracketed matter. There we meet the French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian kinsmen of the word, and learn that they are traceable to a common ancestor, the Latintensio(n), which comes from the Latin verbtendere. The meaning oftensio(n)is given as "stretching," that oftendereas "stretch," "extend." Thus we know of the original word that in form it closely resembles the modern word, and that in meaning it involves the idea of stretching.
What is the central meaning of the word today? To acquaint ourselves with this we must run through the definitions listed. Here (in condensed form) they are. (1) The act of stretching. (2) Inmechanics, stress or the force by which something is pulled. (3) Inphysics, a constrained condition of the particles of bodies. (4) Instatical electricity, surface-density. (5) Mental strain, stress, or application. (6) A strained state of any kind, as political or social. (7) An attachment to a sewing-machine for regulating the strain of the thread. Now of these definitions (2), (3), (4), and (7) are too highly specialized to conduct us, of themselves, into the highway of the word's meaning. They bear out, however, the evidence of (1), (5), and (6), which have as their core the idea of stretching, or of the strain which stretching produces.
We must now lay the original meaning alongside the central meaning today, in order to draw our conclusions. We perceive that the two meanings correspond. Yet by prying into them we make out one marked difference between them. The original meaning is literal, the modern largely figurative. To be sure, the figure has been so long used that it is now scarcely felt as a figure; its force and definiteness have departed. Consequently we may speak of being on a tension without having in mind at all a comparison of our nervous system with a stretched garment, or with an outreaching arm, or with a tightly strung musical instrument, or with a taut rope.
What, then, is the net result of our investigation? Simply this, thattensionmeans stretching, and that the stretching may be conceived either literally or figuratively. With these two facts in mind, we need not (unless we are experts in mechanics, physics, statical electricity, or the sewing-machine) go to the trouble of committing the special senses oftension; for should occasion bid, we can—from our position at the heart of the word—easily grasp their rough purport. And from other persons than specialists no more would be required.
EXERCISE - Dictionary
For each of the following words find (a) the original meaning, (b) the central meaning today. (Other words are given in the exercises at the end of this chapter.)
Bias Supersede SlyAversion Capital MeerschaumExtravagant Travel AlleyConcur Travail FeeAttention Apprehend SuperbMagnanimity Lewd AdroitAltruism Instigation QuiteBenevolence Complexion UrchinCharity Bishop ThoroughfareUnction Starve NaughtySpeed Cunning MoralSuccess Decent AnticCrafty Handsome SavageUsury Solemn UncouthCostume Parlor WindowPresumption Bombastic ColleaguePetty Vixen AldermanQueen Doctor Engage
To thread with minute fidelity the mazes of a word's former history is the task of the linguistic scholar; our province is the practical and the present-day. But words, like men, are largely what they are because of what they have been; and to turn a gossip's eye upon their past is to procure for ourselves, often, not only enlightenment but also entertainment. This fact, though brought out in some part already, deserves separate and fuller discussion.
In the first place, curiosity as to words' past experience enables us to read with keener understanding the literature of preceding ages. Of course we should not, even so, go farther back than about three centuries. To read anything earlier than Shakespeare would require us to delve too deeply into linguistic bygones. And to read Shakespeare himself requires effort—but rewards it. Let us see how an insight into words will help us to interpret the Seven Ages of Man (Appendix 4).
In line 2 of this passage appears the wordmerely. In Shakespeare's time it frequently meant "altogether" or "that and nothing else." As here used, it may be taken to mean this, or to have its modern meaning, or to stand in meaning midway between the two and to be suggestive of both; there is no way of determining precisely. In line 12 the wordpardmeans leopard. In line 18sawsmeans "sayings" (compare the phrase "an old saw");modernmeans "moderate," "commonplace";instancesmeans what we mean by it today, "examples," "illustrations." (Line 18 as a whole gives us a vivid sense of the justice's readiness to speak sapiently, after the manner of justices, and to trot out his trite illustrations on the slightest provocation.) The wordpantaloonin line 20 is interesting. The patron saint of Venice was St. Pantaleon (the term is from Greek, means "all-lion," and possibly refers to the lion of St. Mark's Cathedral).Pantalooncame therefore to signify (1) a Venetian, (2) a garment worn by Venetians and consisting of breeches and stockings in one. The second sense is preserved, substantially, in our termpantaloons. The first sense led to the use of the word (in the mouths of the Venetians' enemies) for "buffoon" and then (in early Italian comedy) for "a lean and foolish old man." It is this stock figure of the stage that Shakespeare evokes. In line 22hosemeans the covering for a man's body from his waist to his nether-stock. (Compare the present meaning: a covering for the feet and thelowerpart of the legs.) In line 27meremeans "absolute." In line 28sansmeans "without."
Of the words we have examined, onlysansis obsolete, thoughpard,saws, andpantaloonare perhaps not entirely familiar. That is, only one word in the passage, so far as its outward form goes, is completely alien to our knowledge. But how different the matter stands when we consider meanings! The words are words of today, but the meanings are the meanings of Shakespeare. We should be baffled and misled as to the dramatist's thought if we had made no inquiries into the vehicle therefor.
In the second place, to look beyond the present into the more remote signification of words will put us on our guard against the reappearance of submerged or half-forgotten meanings. We have seen that the wordtensionmay be used without conscious connection with the idea of stretching. But if we incautiously place the word in the wrong environment, the idea will be resurrected to our undoing. We associateardorwith strong and eager desire. For ordinary purposes this conception of the word suffices. Butardoris one of the children of fire; its primary sense is "burning" (comparearson). Therefore to pronounce the three vocables "overflowing with ardor" is to mix figures of speech absurdly. We should fall into a similar mistake if we said "brilliant fluency," and into a mistake of another kind (that of tautology or repetition of an idea) if we said "heart-felt cordiality," forcordialitymeans "feelings of the heart."Appreciatemeans "set a (due) value on." We may perhaps say "really appreciate," but scrupulous writers and speakers do not say "appreciate very much." Ahumor(compare humid) was once a "moisture"; then one of the four moistures or liquids that entered into the human constitution and by the proportions of their admixture determined human temperament; next a man's outstanding temperamental quality (the thing itself rather than the cause of it); then oddity which people may laugh at; then the spirit of laughter and good nature in general. Normally we do not connect the idea of moisture with the word. We may even speak of "a dry humor." But we should not say "now and then a dry humor crops out," for then too many buried meanings lie in the same grave for the very dead to rest peacefully together.
Even apart from reading old literature and from having, when you use words, no ghosts of their pristine selves rise up to damn you, you may profit from a knowledge of how the meaning of a term has evolved. For example, you will meet many tokens and reminders of the customs and beliefs of our ancestors. Thuscoxcombcarries you back to the days when every court was amused by a "fool" whose head was decked with a cock's comb;crestfallentakes you back to cockfighting; andlunatic("moonstruck"),disaster("evil star"), and "thank your lucky stars" plant you in the era of superstition when human fate was governed by heavenly bodies.
Further, you will perceive the poetry of words. Thus towheedle isto wag the tail and topatteris to hurry through one's prayers (paternoster). What a picture of the frailty of men even in their holiness flashes on us from that wordpatter! Breakfast isthe breaking of the fast of the night.Routine(the most humdrum of words) is travel along a way already broken.Goodbyis an abridged form of "God be with you."Dilapidatedis fallen stone from stone.Daisyis "the day's eye,"nasturtium(from its spicy smell) "the nose-twister,"dandelion"the tooth of the lion."A lordis a bread-guard.
You will perceive, moreover, that many a dignified word once involved the same idea as some unassuming or even semi-disreputable word or expression involves now. Thus there is little or no difference in figure between understanding a thing and getting on to it; between averting something (turning it aside) and sidetracking it; between excluding (shutting out) and closing the door to; between degrading (putting down a step) and taking down a notch; between accumulating (heaping up) and making one's pile; between taking umbrage (the shadow) and being thrown in the shade; between ejaculating and throwing out a remark; between being on a tension and being highstrung; between being vapid and having lost steam; between insinuating (winding in) and worming in; between investigating and tracking; between instigating (goading on or into) and prodding up; between being incensed (compareincendiary) and burning with indignation; between recanting (unsinging) and singing another tune; between ruminating (chewing) and smoking in one's pipe. Nor is there much difference in figure between sarcasm (a tearing of the flesh) and taking the hide off; between sinister (left-handed) and backhanded; between preposterous (rear end foremost) and cart before the horse; between salary (salt-money, an allowance for soldiers) and pin-money; between pedigree (crane's foot, from the appearance of genealogical diagrams) and crowsfeet (about the eyes); between either precocious (early cooked), apricot (early cooked), crude (raw), or recrudescence (raw again) and half-baked. To ponder is literally to weigh; to apprehend an idea is to take hold of it; to deviate is to go out of one's way; to congregate is to flock together; to assail or insult a man is to jump on him; to be precipitate is to go head foremost; to be recalcitrant is to kick.
Again, you will perceive that many words once had more literal or more definitely concrete meanings than they have now. To corrode is to gnaw along with others, to differ is to carry apart, to refuse is to pour back. Polite is polished, absurd is very deaf, egregious is taken from the common herd, capricious is leaping about like a goat, cross (disagreeable) is shaped like a cross, wrong is wrung (or twisted). Crisscross is Christ's cross, attention is stretching toward, expression is pressed out, dexterity is right-handedness, circumstances are things standing around, an innuendo is nodding, a parlor is a room to talk in, a nostril is that which pierces the nose (thrill means pierce), vinegar is sharp wine, a stirrup is a rope to mount by, a pastor is a shepherd, a marshal is a caretaker of horses, a constable is a stable attendant, a companion is a sharer of one's bread.