Composition-Rhetoric Part 20

EXERCISE

Give familiar equivalents for the following words:--

1. emanc.i.p.ate.

2. procure.

3. opportunity.

4. peruse.

5. elapsed.

6. approximately.

7. abbreviate.

8. const.i.tute.

9. simultaneous.

10. familiar.

11. deceased.

12. oral.

13. adhere.

14. edifice.

15. collide.

16. suburban.

17. repugnance.

18. grotesque.

19. equipage.

20. exaggerate.

21. ascend.

22. financial.

23. nocturnal.

24. maternal.

25. vision.

26. affinity.

27. cohere.

28. athwart.

29. clavicle.

30. omnipotent.

31. enumerate.

32. eradicate.

33. application.

34. const.i.tute.

35. employer.

36. rendezvous.

37. obscure.

38. indicate.

39. prevaricate.

+66. Definitions Need to be Supplemented.+--The purpose of exposition is to make clear to others that which we understand ourselves. If the mere statement of a definition does not accomplish this result, we may often make our meaning clear by supplementing the definition with suitable comparisons and examples. In making use of comparisons and examples we must choose those with which our readers are familiar, and we must be sure that they fairly represent the term that we wish to ill.u.s.trate.

+Theme x.x.xVI.+--_Explain any one of the following terms. Begin with as exact a definition as you can frame._

1. A "fly" in baseball.

2. A "foul" in basket ball.

3. A "sneak."

4. A hero.

5. A "spitfire."

6. A laborer.

7. A capitalist.

8. A coward.

9. A freshman.

10. A "header."

(Is your definition exact, or only approximately so? How have you made its meaning clear? Can you think of a better comparison or a better example?

Can your meaning be made clearer, or be more effectively presented, by arranging your material in a different order?)

+67. General Description.+--We may often make clear the meaning of a term by giving details. In describing a New England village we might enumerate the streets, the houses, the town pump, the church, and other features.

This would be specific description if the purpose was to have the reader picture some particular village; but if the purpose was to give the reader a clear conception of the general characteristics of all New England villages, the paragraph would become a general description.

Such a general description would include all the characteristics common to all the members of the cla.s.s under discussion, but would omit any characteristic peculiar to some of them. For example, a general description of a windmill includes the things common to all windmills. If an object is described more for the purpose of giving a clear conception of the cla.s.s of which it is a type than for the purpose of picturing the object described, we have a general description. Such a description is in effect an enlarged definition, and is exposition rather than description.

It is sometimes called scientific description because it is so commonly employed by writers of scientific books.

Notice the following examples of general description:--

1. Around every house in Broeck are buckets, benches, rakes, hoes, and stakes, all colored red, blue, white, or yellow. The brilliancy and variety of colors and the cleanliness, brightness, and miniature pomp of the place are wonderful. At the windows there are embroidered curtains with rose-colored ribbons. The blades, bands, and nails of the gayly painted windmills s.h.i.+ne like silver. The houses are brightly varnished and surrounded with red and white railings and fences.

The panes of gla.s.s in the windows are bordered by many lines of different hues. The trunks of all the trees are painted gray from root to branch.

Across the streams are many little wooden bridges, each painted as white as snow. The gutters are ornamented with a sort of wooden festoon perforated like lace. The pointed facades are surmounted with a small weatherc.o.c.k, a little lance, or something resembling a bunch of flowers.

Nearly every house has two doors, one in front and one behind, the last for everyday entrance and exit, the former opened only on great occasions, such as births, deaths, and marriages. The gardens are as peculiar as the houses. The paths are hardly wide enough to walk in. One could put his arms around the flower beds. The dainty arbors would barely hold two persons sitting close together. The little myrtle hedges would scarcely reach to the knees of a four-year-old child.

2. Ginseng has a thick, soft, whitish, bulbous root, from one to three inches long,--generally two or three roots to a stalk,--with wrinkles running around it, and a few small fibers attached. It has a peculiar, pleasant, sweetish, slightly bitter, and aromatic taste. The stem or stalk grows about a foot high, is smooth, round, of a reddish green color, divided at the top into three short branches, with three to five leaves to each branch, and a flower stem in the center of the branches. The flower is small and white, followed by a large, red berry. It is found growing in most of the states in rich, shady soils.

3. As a general proposition, the Scottish hotel is kept by a benevolent-looking old lady, who knows absolutely nothing about the trains, nothing about the town, nothing about anything outside of the hotel, and is non-committal regarding matters even within her jurisdiction. Upon arrival you do not register, but stand up at the desk and submit to a cross-examination, much as if you were being sentenced in an American police court.

Your hostess always wants twelve hours' notice of your departure, so that she can make out your bill--a very arduous, formidable undertaking. The bill is of prodigious dimensions, about the size of a sheet of foolscap paper, lined and cross-lined for a mult.i.tude of entries. When the account finally reaches you, it closely resembles a design for a cobweb factory.

Any attempt to decipher the various hieroglyphics is useless--it can't be done. The only thing that can be done is to read the total at the foot of the page and pay it.

--_Hotels in Scotland_ ("Kansas City Star").

+Theme x.x.xVII.+--_Write a general description of one of the following:_--

1. A bicycle.

2. A country hay barn.

3. A dog.