Another exercise which will aid in fixing both words and meanings in the mind and also help in the power of recalling them for instant use is to make some kind of word-list according to some principle or scheme.  One plan might be to collect all the words dealing with the idea of book.  Another might be to take some obvious word root and then follow it and other roots added to it through all its forms, meanings, and uses.  One might choose tel (distant) and graph (record) and start with telegraph. Telephone will introduce phone, phonograph; they will lead on to dictaphone, dictagraph; the first half links with dictation; that may lead as far away as dictatorial.  In fact there is no limit to the extent, the interest, and the value of these various exercises.  The single aim of all of them should be, of course, the enlargement of the speaking vocabulary.  Mere curiosities, current slang, far-fetched metaphors, passing foreign phrases, archaisms, obsolete and obsolescent terms, too new coinages, atrocities, should be avoided as a plague.

Consistent, persistent, insistent word-study is of inestimable value to a speaker.  And since all people speak, it follows that it would benefit everybody.

EXERCISES

1.  Explain what is meant by each entry in the foregoing list.

2.  List some verbal curiosities you have met recently.  Examples:  “Mr. Have-it-your-own-way is the best husband.”  “He shows a great deal of stick-to-it-iveness.”

3.  What should be the only condition for using foreign expressions?  Can you show how foreign words become naturalized?  Cite some foreign words used in speech.

4.  Are archaic (old-fashioned), obsolete (discarded), and obsolescent (rapidly disappearing) terms more common in speech or books?  Explain and illustrate.

Synonyms.  As has already been suggested, a copious vocabulary must not be idle in a person’s equipment.  He must be able to use it.  He must be able to discriminate as to meaning.  This power of choosing the exact word results from a study of synonyms.  It is a fact that no two words mean exactly the same thing.  No matter how nearly alike the two meanings may appear to be, closer consideration will unfailingly show at least a slight difference of dignity, if nothing more—­as red and crimson, pure and unspotted.  Synonyms, then, are groups of words whose meanings are almost the same.  These are the words which give so much trouble to learners of our language.  A foreigner is told that stupid means dull, yet he is corrected if he says a stupid knife.  Many who learn English as a native tongue fail to comprehend the many delicate shades of differences among synonyms.