TEST QUESTIONS These questions are for the student to use in testing his knowledge of the principles in this lesson. They are suggestive merely, dealing largely with the practical application of the principles, and are to be placed in the notebook for future reference. 1. Does your own life show that there is a close relation between actual experience and imagination? Along what lines does your imagination work? 2. Why are self-made men very often successful business executives, promoters, and advertisers? 3. What man of your acquaintance has the best reproducing imagination? Who the best creative imagination? Who the best fancy? Has the mental characteristic of each any connection with the work in which he is engaged? 4. What is meant by adaptation to the audience? Did you ever see a speaker fail because of weakness in this respect? 5. Have you ever heard a man spoil a description or narrative because of unorganized or poorly ordered details? 6. What is the effect upon an audience of over-refinement and too much detail? 7. Will you not add to the list of subjects for word-painting on page 181 to be expressed by a few suggestive words? What kind of images comes most readily to your mind? 8. What are the natural principles governing the enlargement of a vocabulary? 9. What do we mean by "increasing the stock of live words" 10. Why is context of great importance? 11. Which of your favorite authors has the largest vocabulary? Which one uses his words most accurately? 12. Could you improve upon our plan of vocabulary-building? How? Can you suggest other interesting and effective devices to fix the words and to give rapid command in speech? LESSON 11 VOCABULARY-BUILDING 1. WORD ANALYSIS In the last lesson, we gave exercises designed to cultivate in the student exactness in the use of each word added to his vocabulary. Exercises to insure facility or prompt selection of the proper word at a given place were also outlined. Finally, both precision and promptness were re-enforced by practice on synonyms and antonyms. If a student were to read a great deal, note each new expression, find all its synonyms and antonyms, and then practice with his enlarged vocabulary after the manner suggested in Lesson 10, he would soon have easy command of wide language resources. But there is another way to supplement the process as described so that still greater returns may be reaped from a given amount of effort. Such a further study-word analysis, as we shall call it—we shall take up in this lesson. If one can analyze properly a given number of words over which he has complete command, he will thereby be given insight into the meaning of two or three times as many more. Furthermore, word analysis will make the consultation of the dictionary a real pleasure and that dry book will become attractive. No doubt every student has noticed that certain of our words are similar in some of their parts; for instance, telegraph, phonograph, biography, multigraph, lithograph, graphite, and others have the common part, -graph. This common element, of course, has a meaning which helps to make up the total meaning of each word in which it occurs. It is from the Greek word grapho (I write). It is used with other significant parts to make up the meaning of the words mentioned above. 1. Telegraph (to write from a distance), from two Greek words, tele (far or distant) and grapho (I write). When a telegraph was first invented, it actually did write on a traveling strip of paper and the operator did not have to depend on sound as now. 2. Phonograph (a recorder or writer of sounds), from phone (sound) and grapho (I write). 3. Biography (a record or history of someone's life), from bios (life) and grapho (I write). 4. Multigraph (a machine to write many copies), from the Latin word multi (many) and grapho (I write). 5. Lithograph (a print from a stone plate), from lithos (stone) and grapho (I write). Many of our color pictures are lithographs. 6. Graphite (a material with which we may record or write), from grapho (I write) and -ite (of the nature of). By studying the first and second words above (telegraph and phonograph), we see why a far-speaking or far-sounding apparatus came to be called a "telephone." This and many similar words bear evidence that the thorough analysis of a comparatively small vocabulary leads the way to the grasp of a far larger stock of words. Just as we have made use of the graph-group, so also we might take the tele-group and study the structure of telephone, telegraph, telepathy (mental influence from a distance), telegraphone, telepost, and many others which the student, from this hint, may be able to look up in the dictionary for himself. In this lesson we shall list the most serviceable of the word parts which occur often in the building-up of larger words. Words like tele and grapho are called "root words." In word-building, we use not only certain fundamental roots, but also prefixes and suffixes. A prefix is a part of a word which is put in front of a root word to make up a larger, new word. A suffix is added after the root word for a similar reason. Thus, to the root change we prefix inter- and get interchange. Inter- means "between" or "among. When I say, "I can change this article," I mean that for the article I may get another-no matter what; but if I say, "I can interchange these things," I mean that the change must be within a definite group and the substitution of one for the other must be among the members of the group. The suffix -able has an obvious meaning. Therefore, interchangeable means "able to be changed within a given set or number." Here we have a root, a prefix, and a suffix. In analyzing words we look for (1) roots, (2) prefixes, and (3) suffixes. A mastery of a relatively small number of these parts will give command over a large vocabulary. 2. SOURCES OF ENGLISH WORDS Before listing certain serviceable roots, prefixes, and suffixes, it may be well to mention briefly the way in which the present English vocabulary was built up. It is generally known that modern English is a composite of many languages. Some of our words are of Greek origin, some come from the Latin, some are of Germanic origin, and others are from still other sources or are directly borrowed from modern foreign languages. An example of this last group is chic (pronounced "sheek"), a French word used to mean "stylish," "pert," or "attractively lively." Understanding that there are many sources of vocabulary, we must nevertheless recognize three great well-springs of modern English: Latin, Greek, and Anglo-Saxon. In very ancient times, a barbaric people lived in England. They spoke a Celtic language. But these people were conquered and pushed back into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland by invaders from Scandinavia and Germany. The conquerors may be considered the founders of our language as we now have it. Though the old Celtic survives to a certain extent in parts of Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and Brittany, modern English has only a few of its words. They are mostly the names of persons and places, such as Cobb, Jones, Thames, and Kent. Of the common names, the most important are darn, flannel, tartan, plaid, gruel, and brand. The incoming Anglo-Saxon language became the backbone of Old English and later modern English. We need not go into the grammatical form of this language and its various changes. We are concerned mostly with its words and their structure. They are simple, direct, and forceful, usually representing concrete images and strong emotions rather than generalizations and intellectual refinements. Thus we find most of the natural phenomena and objects in this tongue: hill, dale; sea, land; wood, water, stream; heat, cold; rain, hail, sleet, thunder; sun, moon, stars; earth, fire; spring, winter, summer; morning, noon, and night. Family life is also cared for: father, mother, husband, wife, widow, son, daughter, child, brother, sister, home, roof, fireside, hearth, etc. The following are typical words expressing strong emotions: love with its smile, anger and frown, shame and blush, guilt and gloom, sorrow and tears. This strong, concrete language, drawing something from the Celtic, became the language of England until the Norman invasion in 1066. It was through the Norman French that classical (Latin and Greek) words were introduced. The Normans, under William the Conqueror, set about to replace the English tongue with their own language. But they were by no means successful. The two peoples mingled |