The Century Vocabulary Builder Part 3

1. Study the editorial in Appendix 1 for unforewarned changes in mood and a.s.semblages of mutually uncongenial words. Rewrite the worst two paragraphs to remove all blemishes of these kinds.

2. Compare Burke's speech (Appendix 2) with Defoe's narrative (Appendix 5) for the difference in tone between them. Does each keep the tone it adopts (that is, except for desirable changes)?

3. Note the changes in tone in the Seven Ages of Man (Appendix 4). Do the changes in substance, make these changes in tone desirable?

4. In the following pa.s.sages, make such changes and omissions as are necessary to unify the tone:

How I loved to stroll, on those long Indian summer afternoons, into the quiet meadows where the mild-breathed kine were grazing! An old cow that switches her tail at flies and puts her foot in the bucket when you milk her, I absolutely loathe. How I loved to hear the birds sing, to listen to the fall of ripe autumnal apples!

It wasn't the girl yclept Sally. This girl was not so vivacious as Sally, but she had a mug on her that was a lot less ugly to look at. Gee, when she stood there in front of me with those mute, ineffable, sympathetic eyes of hers, I was ready to throw a duck-fit.

Old Grimes is dead, that dear old soul; We'll never see him more; He wore a great long overcoat, All b.u.t.toned down before.

Abstract terms convey ideas; concrete terms call up pictures. If we say "Honesty is the best policy," we speak abstractly. n.o.body can see or hear or touch the thing _honesty_ or the thing _policy_; the apprehension of them must be purely intellectual. But if we say "The rat began to gnaw the rope," we speak concretely. _Rat_, _gnaw_, and _rope_ are tangible, perceptible things; the words bring to us visions of particular objects and actions.

Now when we engage in explanations and discussions of principles, theories, broad social topics, and the like--when we expound, moralize, or philosophize,--our subject matter is general. We approach our readers or hearers on the thinking, the rational side of their natures. Our phraseology is therefore normally abstract. But when, on the other hand, we narrate an event or depict an appearance, our subject matter is specific. We approach our readers or hearers on the sensory or emotional side of their natures. Our phraseology is therefore normally concrete.

You should be able to express yourself according to either method. You should be able to choose the words best suited to make people understand; also to choose the words best suited to make people realize vividly and feel. Now to some extent you will adopt the right method by intuition. But if you do not reinforce your intuition with a careful study of words, you will vacillate from one method to the other and strike crude discords of phrasing. Of course if you switch methods intelligently and of purpose, that is quite another matter. An abstract discussion may be enlivened by a concrete ill.u.s.tration. A concrete narrative or portrayal may be given weight and rationalized by generalization. Moreover many things lie on the borderland between the two domains and may properly be attached to either.

Thus the abstraction is legitimate when you say or write: "A man wishes to acquire the comforts and luxuries, as well as the necessaries, of life."

The concreteness is likewise legitimate when you say or write: "John Smith wishes to earn cake as well as bread and b.u.t.ter."

In most instances general terms are the same as abstract, and specific the same as concrete. Some subtle discriminations may, however, be made. Of these the only one that need concern us here is that the wording of a pa.s.sage may not be abstract and yet be general. Suppose, for example, you were telling the story of the prodigal son and should say: "He was very hungry, and could; not obtain food anywhere. When he had come to his senses, he thought, 'I should be better off at home.'" This language is not abstract, but it is general rather than specific. When Jesus told the story, he wished to put the situation as poignantly as possible and therefore avoided both abstract and general terms: "And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!"

Many a person who shuns abstractions and talks altogether of the concrete things of life, yet traps out circ.u.mstance in general rather than specific terms. To do this is always to sacrifice force.

EXERCISE - Abstract

1. Discuss as abstractly as possible such topics as those listed in Activity 1 for EXERCISE - Discourse, or as the following:

Is there any such thing as luck?

Is the Golden Rule practicable in the modern business world?

Is modesty rather than self-a.s.sertion regarding his own merits and abilities the better policy for an employee?

Are substantial, home-keeping girls or girls rather fast and frivolous the more likely to obtain good husbands?

Is it desirable for a young man to take out life insurance?

Is self-education better than collegiate training?

Should one always tell the truth?

2. Discuss as concretely as possible the topics you have selected from 1.

Use ill.u.s.trations drawn from life.

3. Restate in concrete terms such generalizations as the following:

Experience is the best teacher.

Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

To him who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

The bravest are the tenderest.

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

Pride goeth before destruction.

The evil that men do lives after them.

4. Compare the abstract statement "Truths and high ethical principles are received by various men in various ways" with the concrete presentation of the same idea in Appendix 3. Which expression of the thought would be the more easily understood by the average person? Why? Which would you yourself remember the longer? Why?

5. Compare the statement "The second period of a human being's life is that of his reluctant attendance at school" with Shakespeare's picture of the schoolboy in Appendix 4.

6. Burke, near the close of his speech (Appendix 2), presents an idea, first in general terms, and then in specific terms, thus: "No contrivance can prevent the effect of...distance in weakening government. Seas roll, and months pa.s.s, between the order and the execution, and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point is enough to defeat a whole system."

Find elsewhere in Burke's speech and in the editorial (Appendix I) general a.s.sertions which may be made more forceful by restatement in specific terms, and supply these specific restatements.

7. State in your own words the general thought or teaching of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. (_Luke_ 15: 11-24.)

8. Make the following statements more concrete:

In front of our house was a tree that at a certain season of the year displayed highly colored foliage.

A celebrated orator said: "Give me liberty, or give me death!"

On the table were some viands that a.s.sailed my nostrils agreeably and others that put into my mouth sensations of antic.i.p.ated enjoyment.

From this window above the street I can hear a variety of noises by day and a variety of different noises by night.

As he groped through the pitch-dark room he could feel many articles of furniture.

9. State in general terms the thought of the following sentences:

A burnt child dreads the fire.

A st.i.tch in time saves nine.

A cat may look at a king.

A barking dog never bites.

If his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?

If two men ride a horse, one must ride behind.

Stone walls do not a prison make.

A merry heart goes all the day.

Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just.

As the twig is bent, so the tree is inclined.

10. Describe a town as seen from a particular point of view, or at a particular time of day, or under particular atmospheric conditions. Make your description as concrete as possible.

11. Compare your description with this from Stevenson: "The town came down the hill in a cascade of brown gables, bestridden by smooth white roofs, and spangled here and there with lighted windows." Stevenson's sentence contains twenty-five words. How many of them are "color" words? How many "motion" words? How many of the first twenty-five words in your description appeal to one or another of the five senses?

12. Narrate as vividly as possible an experience in your own life. Compare what you have written with the account of Crusoe's escape to the island (Appendix 5). Which narrative is the more concrete? How much?

<2. literal="" vs.="" figurative="" terms="">

Phraseology is literal when it says exactly what it means; is figurative when it says one thing, but really means another. Thus "He fought bravely"