In Chapter VII you made a study of printed distinctions between synonyms.
In Chapter VIII you were given lists of synonyms and made the distinctions
yourself. Near the close of Chapter VIII you were given words and
discovered for yourself what their synonyms are. This third stage might
seem to reveal to you the full joys and benefits of your researches in
this subject. Certainly to find a new word for an old one is an
exhilarating sort of mental travel. And to find a new word which expresses
exactly what an old one expressed but approximately is a real acquisition
in living. But you are not yet a perfectly trained hunter of synonyms.
Some miscellaneous tasks remain; they will involve hard work and call your
utmost powers into play.
Of these tasks the most important is connected with the hint already given
that many words, especially if they be generic words, have two or more
entirely different meanings. Let us first establish this fact, and
afterwards see what bearing it has on our study of synonyms.
My friend says, "I hope you will have a good day." Does he mean an
enjoyable one in general? a profitable or lucrative one, in case I have
business in hand? a successful one, if I am selling stocks or buying a
house? Possibly he means a sunshiny day if I intend to play golf, a snowy
day if I plan to go hunting, a rainy day if my crops are drying up. The
ideas here are varied, even contradictory, enough; yet _good_ may be
used of every one of them. _Good_ is in truth so general a term that
we must know the attendant circumstances if we are to attach to it a
signification even approximately accurate. This does not at all imply that
_good_ is a term we may brand as useless. It implies merely that when
our meaning is specific we must set _good_ aside (unless
circumstances make its sense unmistakable) in favor of a specific word.
_Things_ is another very general term. In "Let us wash up the things"
it likely means dishes or clothes. In "Hang your things in the closet" it
likely means clothes. In "Put the things in the tool-box" it likely means
tools. In "Put the things in the sewing-basket" it likely means thread,
needles, and scissors. In "The trenches are swarming with these things" it
likely means cooties. A more accurate word is usually desirable. Yet we
may see the value of the generality in the saying "A place for everything,
and everything in its place."
_Good_ and _things_ are not alone in having multitudinous
meanings. There are in the language numerous many-sided words. These words
should be studied carefully. True, they are not always employed in
ambiguous ways. For example, _right_ in the sense of correct is
seldom likely to be mistaken for _right_ in the sense of not-left,
but a reader or hearer may frequently mistake it for _right_ in the
sense of just or of honorable. In the use of such words, therefore, we
cannot become too discriminating.