"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 the Exercises on pages 14 and 15. 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). Is it 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 fired him. The carpenter too had his castles in Spain. He rested his old bones by the wayside, and his gaunt dog stood sniffing at 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, But O for the touch of a vanished hand, It was night in the lonesome October. While the stars, that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle The moan of doves in immemorial elms, Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. 8. With the most connotative words at your command de scribe the following: Your first sweetheart A solemn experience A mysterious experience The circus parade you saw in your boyhood A servant girl A dude An odd character you have known The old homestead Your boarding house A scene suggesting the intense heat of a midsummer day Night on the river The rush for the subway car The traffic policeman Your boss Anything listed in the first part of Exercise 9, page 53. III WORDS IN COMBINATION: HOW MASTERED HE 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; but the end held 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. Preliminaries: General Purposes and Methods Before coming to specific aspects and assignments, however, we shall do well to consider certain large general purposes and methods. I. A Ready, an Accurate, or a Wide Vocabulary? 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. But may is not must. 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 |