The Century Vocabulary Builder Part 39

Reread the discussion of _good_ and _things_ in Many-sided Words. Then for each of the words listed below collect or compose twenty or more sentences in which the word is used. As largely as possible, take them from actual experience. In doing this you must listen to the use of the word in everyday talk. After you have made your list of sentences as varied and extensive as you can, try to subst.i.tute synonyms that will express the idea more accurately. Note whether a knowledge of the attendant circ.u.mstances is necessary to an understanding of the original word, to an understanding of the word subst.i.tuted for it.

Bad Fine Matter Affair Nice Common Case Boost

EXERCISE K

a.n.a.lyze each of the words given below into its various uses or applications. Then for it in each of these applications a.s.semble as many synonyms as you can unaided. Finally, have recourse to a dictionary or book of synonyms for the further extension of your lists.

(By way of ill.u.s.tration, let us take the word _quiet_. Through meditation and a.n.a.lysis we discover that it may be applied (a) to water or any liquid not in motion, (b) to a place that is without sound, (c) to a place shut off from activity or bustle, (d) to a person who is not demonstrative or forward in manner. We then think of all the words we can that can be subst.i.tuted for it in each of these uses. No matter how incompletely or unsatisfactorily we feel we are performing this task, we must not give it over until we have found every word we can summon. Then we turn to a dictionary or book of synonyms. Thus for _quiet_ we shall a.s.semble such synonyms as (a) calm, still, motionless, placid, tranquil, serene, smooth, unruffled, undisturbed, pacific, stagnant; (b) silent, still, noiseless, mute, hushed, voiceless; (c) secluded, sequestered, solitary, isolated, unfrequented, unvisited, peaceful, untrodden, retired; (d) demure, sedate, staid, reserved, meek, gentle, retiring, un.o.btrusive, modest, una.s.suming, timid, shrinking, shy.)

Barren Keep Pure Solid Certain Liberal Rare Sorry Cold Light (adjective) Rich Spread Cool Light (noun) Right Straight Deep Long Rude Still Dry Low Short Sure Easy Mean Simple Thick Foul Narrow Slow Thin Full New Small Tender Gentle Obscure Smooth True Grand Odd Sober Warm Heavy Particular Soft Yield Keen

One of the most interesting things to watch in the study of words is their development from a literal to a figurative application. The first man who broke away from the confines of the literal meaning of a word and applied the word to something that only in a figurative sense had qualities a.n.a.logous to the original meaning, was creating poetry. He was making an imaginative flight comparable in daring to the Wright brothers' first aeronautic flight. But as the word was used over and over in this figurative way the imaginative flight became more and more commonplace. At last it ceased to be imaginative at all; through frequent repet.i.tion it had settled into the matter of course. A glance back at the _Concise_ group above will show you that with time the comparison which was once the basis and the life of the figurative use of words is dulled, obscured, even lost.

As a further enforcement of this fact, let us a.n.a.lyze the word _rough_. In its literal application, it may designate any surface that has ridges, projections, or inequalities and is therefore uneven, jagged, rugged, scraggy, or scabrous. Now frequently a man's face or head is rough because unshaved or uncombed; also the fur of an animal is rough.

Hence the term could be used for unkempt, disheveled, s.h.a.ggy, hairy, coa.r.s.e, bristly. "The child ran its hand over its father's rough cheek"

and "The bear had a rough coat" are sentences that even the most unimaginative mind can understand. We speak of rough timber because its surface has not been planed or made smooth. We speak of a rough diamond because it is unpolished, uncut. Note that all these uses are literal, that in each instance some unevenness of surface is referred to.

But man, urged on by the desire to say what he means with more novelty, strikingness, or force, applied the word to ideas that have no surfaces to be uneven. He imagined what these ideas would be like if they had surfaces. Of course in putting these conceptions into language he was creating figures of speech, some of them startlingly apt, some of them merely far-fetched. He said a man had a _rough_ voice, as though the voice were like a cactus in its p.r.i.c.kly irregularities. By _rough_ he meant what his fellows meant when they spoke of the voice as harsh, grating, jarring, discordant, inharmonious, strident, raucous, or unmusical. Going farther, that early poet said the weather was _rough_. He thought of clement weather as being smooth and even, but of inclement, severe, stormy, tempestuous, or violent weather as being full of projections to rend and hara.s.s one. Thus an everyday use of the term today was once wrenched and immoderate speech. Possibly the first man who heard of rough weather was puzzled for a moment, then amused or delighted as he caught the figure. It did not require great originality to think of a crowd as _rough_ in its movements. But our poet applied the idea to an individual. To him a rude, uncivil, impolite, ungracious, uncourteous, unpolished, uncouth, boorish, blunt, bluff, gruff, brusk, or burly person was as the unplaned lumber or the unpolished gem; and we imitative moderns still call such a man _rough_. But we do not think of the man as covered with projections that need to be taken off, unless forsooth we receive _rough_ treatment at his hands. And note how far we have journeyed from the original idea of the word when we say "I gave the report a _rough_ glance," meaning cursory, hasty, superficial, or incomplete consideration.

Many very simple words, including several of those already treated in this chapter, are two-sided in that they are both literal and figurative.

EXERCISE L

Trace each of the following words from its literal to its figurative applications, giving synonyms for each of its uses.

Open Bright Stiff Hard Low Cool Sharp Flat Keen Strong Dull Raw Small Odd Warm Deep Eccentric

Thus far in this chapter we have been considering many-sided words. We must now turn to a certain cla.s.s of facts and ideas that deserve better understanding and closer a.n.a.lysis than we usually accord them.

These facts and ideas are supposed to be matters of common knowledge. And in their broad scope and purport they are. Because acquaintance with them is taken for granted it behooves us to know them. Yet they are in reality complicated, and when we attempt to deal with them in detail, our a.s.surance forsakes us. All of us have our "blind sides" intellectually-- quake to have certain areas of discussion entered, because we foresee that we must sit idly by without power to make sensible comment. Unto as many as possible of these blind sides of ourselves we should p.r.o.nounce the blessed words, "Let there be light." We have therefore to consider certain matters and topics which are supposed to belong to the common currency of social information, but with which our familiarity is less thoroughgoing than it should be.

What are these facts and topics? Take for ill.u.s.tration the subject of aeronautics. Suppose we have but the vaguest conception of the part played or likely to be played by aircraft in war, commerce, and pleasure. Suppose we are not aware that some craft are made to float and others to be driven by propellers. Suppose such terms as Zeppelin, blimp, monoplane, biplane, hydroplane, dirigible have no definite import for us. Does not our knowledge fall short of that expected of well-informed men in this present age?

Or take military terms. Everybody uses them--clergymen, pacifists, clubmen, social reformers, novelists, tramps, brick-layers, Big-Stickers.

We cannot escape them if we would. We ourselves use them. But do we use them with precise and masterly understanding? You call one civilian colonel and another major; which have you paid the higher compliment? You are uncertain whether a given officer is a colonel or a major, and you wish to address him in such fashion as will least offend his sensitiveness as to rank and nomenclature; which t.i.tle--colonel or major--is the less perilous? You are told that a major has command of a battalion; does that tell you anything about him? You are told that he has command of a squadron, of a brigade, of a platoon; do these changes in circ.u.mstances have any import for you? If not, you have too faltering a grasp upon military facts and terminology.

The best remedy for such shortcomings is to be insatiably curious on all subjects. This of course is the ideal; n.o.body ever fully attains it.

Nevertheless Exercise M will set you to groping into certain broad matters relevant to ordinary needs. Thereafter, if your purpose be strong enough, you will carry the same methods there acquired into other fields of knowledge.

You may object that all this is as much mental as linguistic--that what is proposed will result in as large accessions of general information as of vocabulary. Let this be admitted. Deficiencies of language are often, perhaps almost invariably, linked with deficiencies of knowledge.

To repair the one we must at the same time repair the other. This may seem a hard saying to those who seek, or would impart, mere glibness of phrase without regard for the substance--who worship "words, words, words"

without thought of "the matter." There is such a thing as froth of utterance, but who has respect therefor or is deceived thereby? Speech that is not informed is like a house without a foundation. You should not desire to possess it. Abroad in this world of ours already are too many people who darken counsel by words without knowledge.

EXERCISE M

A second lieutenant is the commissioned officer of lowest grade in the United States army. Name all the grades from second lieutenant to the grade that is highest.

An admiral is the officer of highest grade in the United States navy. Name all the grades down to that which is lowest.

Name as many as possible of the different ranks of the clergy in the Roman Catholic Church, in the Church of England.

Give ascendingly the five t.i.tles in the British n.o.bility.

Name the different kinds of vehicles.

Name the different kinds of schools.

Name all the different kinds of boats and ships (both ancient and modern) you can think of.

Give the nautical term for the right side of a ship, for the left side of a ship, for the front, for the rear, for the forward portion, for the rear portion.

Name the various kinds of bodies of water (oceans, rivers, lagoons, etc.)

Give all the terms of relationship of persons, both by blood and by marriage. What relation to you is your grandfather's brother? your cousin's daughter?

Name all the bones of the human head.

Give the names of the different parts of a typical flower.

Name as many elements as you can. What is the number usually given? What was the last element discovered, and by whom?

Name the elements of which water is composed. Name the princ.i.p.al elements in the composition of the air.

Make as long a list as possible (up to thirty) of words that appeal to the sense of sight (especially color words and motion words), to the sense of hearing, of smell, of taste, of touch.

Find words descriptive of various expressions in the human face.

Name all the terms you can a.s.sociated with law, with medicine, with geology.

Name the planets, the signs of the zodiac, as many constellations as you can.

Name the seven colors of the spectrum, and for each name give all the synonyms you can. What are the primary colors? the secondary colors?

Give the various races into which mankind has been divided, and the color of each.

Name every kind of tree you can think of, every kind of flower, every kind of animal, every kind of bird.

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