English words

“ The plain man or gentlewoman may write a letter in his or her natural language, and then by turning up the simple words in the dictionary alter them into their learned equivalents. Thus ‘abound’ may be altered into exuperate, ‘too great plenty’ into uberty, ‘he and I are of one age’ into we are coetaneous, ‘youthful babbling’ into juvenile inaniloquence—a useful expression to hurl at an opponent in the Oxford Union. ”

“ If of these the whole power is not accurately delivered, it must be remembered, that while our language is yet living, and variable by the caprice of every one that speaks it, these words are hourly shifting their relations, and can no more be ascertained in a dictionary, than a grove, in the agitation of a storm, can be accurately delineated from its picture in the water. ”

“ It is remarkable that this philosopher, who had so sublime conceptions of the powers of the human mind, and who has displayed such extraordinary acuteness in his investigations, has represented the formation of words, or the utterance of language, as equalling in speed the progress of our very thoughts ”

“ So it is with one who gathers words, loving them. Particular words remain associated with important occasions in the learner's mind. I could thus write a history of my English vocabulary that should be at the same time an account of my comings and goings, my mistakes and my triumphs, during the years of my initiation. ”

“ Take your nouns first, and compare them with the nouns used by your author. You will probably find your words to be very much bigger than his, more sounding, more far-fetched, more classical, or more poetical. All young writers and speakers fancy that they cannot sufficiently revel in fine words. Comparison with the great masters of English will rebuke this pomposity of inexperience, and chasten and improve your style. ”

“ He consciously increases his knowledge of words, deliberately chooses certain terms for particular uses, and carefully decides upon the especial term which in each case seems to him best adapted to convey his meaning. ”

“ Function.—When we wish to assert that a thing possesses a certain quality, we do it by a predicate made up of some form of the verb be together with an adjective; as in the sentence, “The very name was uncanny.”—Page. Here the idea words are the subject noun and the adjective in the predicate; the verb was serves merely as a copula, or tie-word, necessary for the grammatical structure of the sentence, but having little, if any, meaning. ”

“ Let the pupils give similar examples.
+T+.—In the sentence, A man who is wise will be honored, the word who stands for what? +P+.—For the noun man. +T+.—Then what part of speech is it? +P+.—A pronoun.
+T+.—Put the noun man in the place of the pronoun who, and then give me the sentence. +P+.—A man, man is wise, will be honored.
+T+.—I will repeat your sentence, changing the order of the words—A man will be honored. Man is wise. Is the last sentence now joined to the first as a modifier, or are they two separate sentences? ”

“ And thus we see, that as our simple ideas are the materials and foundation of knowledge, so the names of simple ideas may be considered as the elementary parts of language, beyond which we cannot trace the meaning and signification of words. ”

“ There are so many devices for avoiding repetition that only gross carelessness can commit a fault like this. The abundance of terms which may be used—said, remarked, observed, replied, returned, retorted, asked, inquired, demanded, murmured, grumbled, growled, sneered, explained, exclaimed, and the rest of the long list of words of allied meanings—leaves the writer of English without excuse if he fail to vary the words of specification in dialogue. ”

“ But, according to Critical Note 9th, "Words that are entirely needless, and especially such as injure or encumber the expression, ought in general to be omitted." The sentence would be better without this word, thus: "A knowledge of grammar enables us to express ourselves better in conversation and in writing." ”

“ who will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, since while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding, and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be sufficient; that he, whose design includes whatever language can express, must often speak of what he does not understand; ”

“ These can be most readily acquired by noting the meaning of every new word across which one may come in reading, and by constantly consulting a dictionary, preferably one which compares or contrasts words in such a manner as to bring out clearly the finer and nicer distinctions in their meanings—such distinctions as are necessary to the student to put him into possession of the essential differences of the words compared. Learn the meaning of words and your tongue will never slip. ”

“ The vocabulary, of moderate extent, is composed of ordinary words likely to be used in everyday conversation, and is increased slowly, care being taken to repeat the words again and again in succeeding exercises. ”

“ In English, prepositions have largely taken the place of case forms, and it is thought that by them our language can express the many relations of nouns to other words in the sentence better than other languages can by their cumbrous machinery of inflection.
+DEFINITIONS+. +Person is that modification of a noun or pronoun which denotes the speaker, the one spoken to, or the one spoken of+. ”

“ The Parts of Speech, or sorts of words, in English, are ten; namely, the Article, the Noun, the Adjective, the Pronoun, the Verb, the Participle, the Adverb, the Conjunction, the Preposition, and the Interjection.
1. THE ARTICLE.
An Article is the word the, an, or a, which we put before nouns to limit their signification: as, The air, the stars; an island, a ship.
2. THE NOUN.
A Noun is the name of any person, place, or thing, that can be known or mentioned: as, George, York, man, apple, truth. ”

“ Our general ideas—that is, our ideas conceived as common to many individuals, existing in any part of time, past, present, or future—such, for example, as belong to the words man, horse, tree, cedar, wave, motion, strength, resist—such ideas, I say, constitute that most excellent significance which belongs to words primarily, essentially, and immediately ”

“ We find them, in their speculations, conspiring to represent primeval man, to use their own words, as a "savage, whose 'howl at the appearance of danger, and whose exclamations of joy at the sight of his prey, reiterated, or varied with the change of objects, were probably the origin of language.'—Booth's Analytical Dictionary. ”

“ LESSON 12. MODIFIED SUBJECT. ADJECTIVES. +Introductory Hints+.—The subject noun and the predicate verb are not always or often the whole of the structure that we call the sentence, though they are the underlying timbers that support the rest of the verbal bridge. Other words may be built upon them.
We learned in Lesson 8 that things resemble one another and differ from one another. They resemble and they differ in what we call their qualities. Things are alike whose qualities are the same, as, two oranges having the same color, taste, and odor. ”

“ For I may be allowed, I suppose, to say we have seen many great scholars mere learned men, and graduates in the last degree of study, whose English has been far from polite, full of stiffness and affectation, hard words, and long unusual coupling of syllables and sentences, which sound harsh and untuneable to the ear, and shock the reader both in expression and understanding. ”

“ And therefore the Purity of our Language consisteth in preserving this Character, in writing with the English Strength and Spirit: Let us not envy others, that they are more soft, diffused, and rarified; be it our Commendation to write as we pay in true Sterling; if we want Supplies, we had better revive old Words, than create new Ones. ”

“ When we go on from the consideration of words to that of sentences we find that here Good Use is more clearly defined. The rules for the construction of sentences are to a large extent more formal than those which govern the choice of terms, and the most obvious of them are conveniently collected and arranged under the name of Grammar. ”

“ I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to I forget that WORDS ARE THE DAUGHTERS OF EARTH, AND THAT THINGS ARE THE SONS OF HEAVEN. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote. ”

“ Our writers have laid many languages under contribution, and thus furnished an abundance of irregular words, necessary to be explained, but never to be acknowledged as English till they conform to our own rules. ”

“ Once more, they should, if possible, be such as have a certain intrinsic worth and value of their own, independent of their value as illustrative of the point in language directly to be proved—some weight of thought, or beauty of expression, merit in short of one kind or other, that so the reader may be making a second gain by the way. ”

“ As verbs are the only words that assert, +every predicate+ must be a +verb+, or must contain a verb.
Be prepared to analyze and parse five of the sentences that you have written.
+Model+.—Laws are obeyed. Diagram and analyze as in Lesson 11.
+Parsing+.—Laws is a noun, because——; are obeyed is a verb, because it asserts action.
LESSON 17. Select and write all the verbs in the sentences given in Lessons 28, 31, 34, and tell why they are verbs.
LESSON 18. SENTENCE-BUILDING. From the following nouns and verbs, build as many sentences as possible, taking care that every one makes good sense. ”

“ The taste for beauty, truth, and harmony in language can be developed by careful study of well-selected phrases and literary expressions as furnished in this book. A good literary style is formed principally by daily study of great English writers, by careful examination of words in their context, and by a discriminating use of language at all times. ”

“ OBS. 6.--Well-educated people commonly utter their words with more distinctness and fullness than the vulgar, yet without adopting ordinarily the long-drawn syllables of poets and orators, or the solemn phraseology of preachers and prophets. ”

“ The English vocabulary offers a fruitful field of study. First of all, the cast of thought that it expresses is individual. Ours is a distinct, not necessarily superior, civilization; and all the forms of intellectual activity represented by our tongue are so characteristic that one may well believe in the formative influence of a language over the people speaking it. ”

“ I shall resume this subject in Lecture XI. QUESTIONS ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES.
What has usually been the object of philosophical investigations of language? (page 32.) —Do the syntactical dependances and connexions of words depend on their original import?—Is the power of association and custom efficient in changing the radical meaning of some words?—Have words intrinsically a signification of their own; or is their meaning inferential; i.e. such as custom has assigned to them? ”

“ He possessed it as every one who dabbles in poetry with us, possesses what may be called the poetical vocabulary, as distinguished from the vocabulary of common speech and of modern prose: I mean, such expressions as perchance for perhaps, spake for spoke, aye for ever, don for put on, charméd for charm’d, and thousands of others. ”

“ His phraseology rolls ever in solemn and majestic periods, in which every substantive marches ceremoniously accompanied by its epithet; grand pompous words peal like an organ; every proposition is set forth balanced by a proposition of equal length; thought is developed with the compressed regularity and official splendour of a procession. ”

“ We may excuse faulty attire, forgive the social slips of those who have forgotten from their little book on etiquette—in a word, we can overlook almost all shortcomings and errors of conduct save those only of speech. There is something in a man’s words that marks him with the mark of Cain or puts the halo around his brow. Yet, what a curious thing is language? Words are the least part of it. Their aptness, inflections, tones, pronunciations, stresses, and combinations—their parallelisms and contrasts—all these are immeasurably greater than the mere words themselves. ”

“ That pomp of language, that full and tuneful diction, that felicitousness in the choice and exquisiteness in the collocation of words, which to prosaic writers seem artificial, is nothing else but the mere habit and way of a lofty intellect. ”

“ The very language we speak thinks for us by the subtle distinctions which already are marked for us by its words, and every one of these is the contribution of the wit of one and another sagacious man in all the centuries of time. ”

“ We acquire our vocabulary largely from our reading and our personal associates. The words we use are an unmistakable indication of our thought habits, tastes, ideals, and interests in life. In like manner, the habitual language of a people is a barometer of their intellectual, civil, moral, and spiritual ideals. A great and noble people express themselves in great and noble words. ”

“ But Man, by means of words, has widened the scope of his thinking, remembering, has created philosophy, literature, poetry, painting, has made possible civilization, the industrial era. Vocabulary—the ability to fix his reflex actions into coherent speech—has crowned him supreme among animals. ”

“ Attend minutely to your style, whatever language you speak or write in; seek for the best words, and think of the best turns. Whenever you doubt of the propriety or elegance of any word, search the dictionary or some good author for it, or inquire of somebody, who is master of that language; and, in a little time, propriety and elegance of diction will become so habitual to you, that they will cost you no more trouble. ”