Thus far we have studied words as grouped together into phrases,
sentences, paragraphs, whole compositions. We must now enter upon a new
phase of our efforts to extend our vocabulary. We must study words as
individual entities.
You may think the order of our study should be reversed. No great harm
would result if it were. The learning of individual words and the
combining of them into sentences are parallel rather than successive
processes. In our babyhood we do not accumulate a large stock of terms
before we frame phrases and clauses. And our attainment of the power of
continuous iteration does not check our inroads among individual words. We
do the two things simultaneously, each contributing to our success with
the other. There are plenty of analogies for this procedure. A good
baseball player, for instance, tirelessly studies both the minutiae of his
technique (as how to hold a bat, how to stand at the plate) and the big
combinations and possibilities of the game. A good musician keeps
unremitting command over every possible touch of each key and at the same
time seeks sweeping mastery over vast and complex harmonies. So we, if we
would have the obedience of our vocabularies, dare not lag into desultory
attention to either words when disjoined or words as potentially combined
into the larger units of thought and feeling.
We might therefore consider either the individuals first or the groups
first. But the majority of speakers and writers pay more heed to rough
general substance than to separate instruments and items. Hence we have
thought best to begin where most work is going on already--with words in
combination.
As you turn from the groups to the individuals, you must understand that
your labors will be onerous and detailed. You must not assume that by
nature all words are much alike, any more than you assume that all men are
much alike. Of course the similarities are many and striking, and the
fundamental fact is that a word is a word as a man is a man. But you will
be no adept in handling either the one or the other until your knowledge
goes much farther than this. Let us glance first at the human variations.
Each man has his own business, and conducts it in his own way--a way never
absolutely matched with that of any other mortal being. All this you may
see. But besides the man's visible employment, he may be connected in
devious fashions with a score of enterprises the public knows nothing
about. Furthermore he leads a private life (again not precisely
corresponding to that of any other), has his hobbies and aversions, is
stamped with a character, a temperament of his own. In short, though in
thousands of respects he is like his fellows, he has after all no human
counterpart; he is a distinct, individual self. To know him, to use him,
to count upon his service in whatsoever contingency it might bestead you,
you must deem him something more than a member of the great human family.
You must cultivate him personally, cultivate him without weariness or
stint, and undergo inconvenience in so doing.
Even so with a word. Commonplace enough it may seem. But it has its
peculiar characteristics, its activities undisclosed except to the
curious, its subtle inclinations, its repugnances, its latent
potentialities. There is no precise duplicate for it in all the wide
domain of language. To know it intimately and thoroughly, to be on
entirely free terms with it, to depend upon it just so far as dependence
is safe, to have a sure understanding of what it can do and what it
cannot, you must arduously cultivate it. Words, like people, yield
themselves to the worthy. They hunger for friendship--and lack the last
barrier of reserve which hedges all human communion. Thus, linguistically
speaking, you must search out the individuals. You must step aside from
your way for the sake of a new acquaintance; in conversations, in sermons,
in addresses, in letters, in journalistic columns, in standard literature
you must grasp the stranger by the hand and look him straight in the eye.
Nor must you treat cavalierly the words you know already. You must study
them afresh; you must learn them over and learn them better; you must come
to understand them, not only for what they are, but for what they will do.
<What Words to Learn First>
What, then, is your first task? Somebody has laid down the injunction--
and, as always when anything is enjoined, others have given it currency--
that each day you should learn two new words. So be it,--but which two?
The first two in the dictionary, or hitherto left untouched in your
systematic conquest of the dictionary? The first two you hear spoken? The
first two that stare at you from casual, everyday print? The first two you
can ferret from some technical jargon, some special department of human
interest or endeavor? In any of these ways you may obey the behest of
these mentors. But are not such ways arbitrary, haphazard? And suppose,
after doing your daily stint, you should encounter a word it behooves you
to know. What then? Are you to sulk, to withhold yourself from further
exertion on the plea of a vocabulary-builder's eight-hour day?
To adopt any of the methods designated would be like resolving to invest
in city lots and then buying properties as you encountered them, with no
regard for expenditure, for value in general, or for special
serviceability to you. Surely such procedure would be unbusinesslike. If
you pay out good money, you meditate well whether that which you receive
for it shall compensate you. Likewise if you devote time and effort to
gaining ownership of words, you should exercise foresight in determining
whether they will yield you commensurate returns.
What, then, is the principle upon which, at the outset, you should
proceed? What better than to insure the possession of the words regarding
which you know this already, that you need them and should make them
yours?
<The Analysis of Your Own Vocabulary>
The natural way, and the best, to begin is with an analysis of your own
vocabulary. You are of course aware that of the enormous number of words
contained in the dictionary relatively few are at your beck and bidding.
But probably you have made no attempt to ascertain the nature and extent
of your actual linguistic resources. You should make an inventory of the
stock on hand before sending in your order for additional goods.
You will speedily discover that your vocabulary embraces several distinct
classes of words. Of these the first consists of those words which you
have at your tongue's end--which you can summon without effort and use in
your daily speech. They are old verbal friends. Numbered with them, to be
sure, there may be a few with senses and connotations you are ignorant of--
friends of yours, let us say, with a reservation. Even these you may woo
with a little care into uncurbed fraternal abandon. With the exception of
these few, you know the words of the first class so well that without
thinking about it at all you may rely upon their giving you, the moment
you need them, their untempered, uttermost service. You need be at no
further pains about them. They are yours already.
A second class of words is made up of those you speak on occasions either
special or formal--occasions when you are trying, perhaps not to show off,
but at least to put your best linguistic foot foremost. Some of them have
a meaning you are not quite sure of; some of them seem too ostentatious
for workaday purposes; some of them you might have been using but somehow
have not. Words of this class are not your bosom friends. They are your
speaking acquaintance, or perhaps a little better than that. You must
convert them into friends, into prompt and staunch supporters in time of
need. That is to say, you must put them into class one. In bringing about
this change of footing, you yourself must make the advances. You must say,
Go to, I will bear them in mind as I would a person I wished to cultivate.
When occasion rises, you must introduce them into your talk. You will feel
a bit shy about it, for introductions are difficult to accomplish
gracefully; you will steal a furtive glance at your hearer perchance, and
another at the word itself, as you would when first labeling a man "my
friend Mr. Blank." But the embarrassment is momentary, and there is no
other way. Assume a friendship if you have it not, and presently the
friendship will be real. You must be steadfast in intention; for the words
that have held aloof from you are many, and to unloose all at once on a
single victim would well-nigh brand you criminal. But you will make sure
headway, and will be conscious besides that no other class of words in the
language will so well repay the mastering. For these are words you
_do_ use, and need to use more, and more freely--words your own
experience stamps as valuable, if not indeed vital, to you.
The third class of words is made up of those you do not speak at all, but
sometimes write. They are acquaintance one degree farther removed than
those of the second class. Your task is to bring them into class two and
thence into class one--that is, to introduce them into your more formal
speech, and from this gradually into your everyday speech.
The fourth class of words is made up of those you recognize when you hear
or read them, but yourself never employ. They are acquaintance of a very
distant kind. You nod to them, let us say, and they to you; but there the
intercourse ends. Obviously, they are not to be brought without
considerable effort into a position of tried and trusted friendship. And
shall we be absolutely honest?--some of them may not justify such
assiduous care as their complete subjugation would call for. But even
these you should make your feudal retainers. You should constrain them to
membership in class three, and at your discretion in class two.
Apart from the words in class four, you will not to this point have made
actual additions to your vocabulary. But you will have made your
vocabulary infinitely more serviceable. You will be like a man with a host
of friends where before, when his necessities were sorest, he found (along
with some friends) many distant and timid acquaintance.
Outside the bounds of your present vocabulary altogether are the words you
encounter but do not recognize, except (it may be) dimly and uncertainly.
Some counselors would have you look up all such words in a dictionary. But
the task would be irksome. Moreover those who prescribe it are loath to
perform it themselves. Your own candid judgment in the matter is the
safest guide. If the word is incidental rather than vital to the meaning
of the passage that contains it, and if it gives promise of but rarely
crossing your vision again, you should deign it no more than a civil
glance. Plenty of ways will be left you to expend time wisely in the
service of your vocabulary.