Trace each of the following words from its literal to its figurative
applications, giving synonyms for each of its uses.
Open Bright Stiff Hard
Low Cool Sharp Flat
Keen Strong Dull Raw
Small Odd Warm Deep
Eccentric
<Imperfectly Understood Facts and Ideas>
Thus far in this chapter we have been considering many-sided words. We
must now turn to a certain class of facts and ideas that deserve better
understanding and closer analysis than we usually accord them.
These facts and ideas are supposed to be matters of common knowledge. And
in their broad scope and purport they are. Because acquaintance with them
is taken for granted it behooves us to know them. Yet they are in reality
complicated, and when we attempt to deal with them in detail, our
assurance forsakes us. All of us have our "blind sides" intellectually--
quake to have certain areas of discussion entered, because we foresee that
we must sit idly by without power to make sensible comment. Unto as many
as possible of these blind sides of ourselves we should pronounce the
blessed words, "Let there be light." We have therefore to consider certain
matters and topics which are supposed to belong to the common currency of
social information, but with which our familiarity is less thoroughgoing
than it should be.
What are these facts and topics? Take for illustration the subject of
aeronautics. Suppose we have but the vaguest conception of the part played
or likely to be played by aircraft in war, commerce, and pleasure. Suppose
we are not aware that some craft are made to float and others to be driven
by propellers. Suppose such terms as Zeppelin, blimp, monoplane, biplane,
hydroplane, dirigible have no definite import for us. Does not our
knowledge fall short of that expected of well-informed men in this present
age?
Or take military terms. Everybody uses them--clergymen, pacifists,
clubmen, social reformers, novelists, tramps, brick-layers, Big-Stickers.
We cannot escape them if we would. We ourselves use them. But do we use
them with precise and masterly understanding? You call one civilian
colonel and another major; which have you paid the higher compliment? You
are uncertain whether a given officer is a colonel or a major, and you
wish to address him in such fashion as will least offend his sensitiveness
as to rank and nomenclature; which title--colonel or major--is the less
perilous? You are told that a major has command of a battalion; does that
tell you anything about him? You are told that he has command of a
squadron, of a brigade, of a platoon; do these changes in circumstances
have any import for you? If not, you have too faltering a grasp upon
military facts and terminology.
The best remedy for such shortcomings is to be insatiably curious on all
subjects. This of course is the ideal; nobody ever fully attains it.
Nevertheless Exercise M will set you to groping into certain broad matters
relevant to ordinary needs. Thereafter, if your purpose be strong enough,
you will carry the same methods there acquired into other fields of
knowledge.
You may object that all this is as much mental as linguistic--that what is
proposed will result in as large accessions of general information as of
vocabulary. Let this be admitted. Deficiencies of language are often,
perhaps almost invariably, linked with deficiencies of knowledge.
To repair the one we must at the same time repair the other. This may seem
a hard saying to those who seek, or would impart, mere glibness of phrase
without regard for the substance--who worship "words, words, words"
without thought of "the matter." There is such a thing as froth of
utterance, but who has respect therefor or is deceived thereby? Speech
that is not informed is like a house without a foundation. You should not
desire to possess it. Abroad in this world of ours already are too many
people who darken counsel by words without knowledge.