rewards the knight who has reached the summit of the rocky cliff. The bare, black cliff clanged round him, as he based And the long glories of the winter moon! Another line from a different poem imitates the boiling of the water when the sea is running strongly : Save for some whisper of the seething seas. 3. Finally, you should be cautious lest too many monosyllables stand close together. No rules can be invoked. The writer must use his own judgment, but reading of the sentence aloud is about the surest method. The ending of the sentence should not be abrupt with single-word syllables; and the pauses within the sentence should be varied and adapted to the thought. 73. Choose idiomatic English. Every language has its own individual turns of expression, which are called idioms. Some of these exist now as remains of old constructions long since obsolete in other cases. Many of the grammatical constructions are peculiar to English. They are not easily translated into another language, and they are sometimes at variance from established rules. Custom has established them firmly, however, and it would be quite wrong to refuse to give such recognized forms a place in our writing and speaking. We have, for instance, many different classes of phrase idioms, such as every here and there, seldom if ever, day in and day out, time out of mind, I had as lief go, I had sooner, no doubt but that, a friend of mine, the sooner the quicker, the house is to rent, to go up town, whether or no, and kith and kin. The last one illustrates a large class which duplicates or enforces the idea by two words quite similar in meaning. Other recognized idioms arise from the use of combinations of verbs and prepositions. For certain ideas the tendency is to fix a combination; for others, less definite, no particular form is chosen. Now and then the use of the preposition is at variance from the original meaning of one or both words, as, for example, in the combination circumstances under which, when circum really means around or in, and the more literal expression should be circumstances in which. Books like Fernald's Synonyms, Antonyms, and Prepositions fully discuss the use of prepositions in connection with different verbs. In some cases usage divides. All we need to say here is that certain prepositions are often wrongly used. Among these are the following, the correct forms being given. angry at, or toward attend to (something) attend upon (a person) beg of, from (not off) beg for (something) buy or get from, of (not off) differ with (person in opinion) like to (not for to) listen to live in, at (not to) wait for (to await a person or wait on (to serve, court) X THE STUDY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 74. Like human beings words have individuality. Normally, they are active, growing, sensitive organisms. Just like people they change, disintegrate, and even die. Either for good or evil, associations modify the existence of words. Their history is sometimes a reflection of their environment. With the flight of many years, some words grow sedate and stately. Some are worn down out of all semblance of their original selves. Not a few degenerate in a positive manner, and thereby lose their former grace and poetic charm. Like many persons everywhere, words cling to their individual habits, refusing to make any perceptible changes. Some of them at last are lost in the struggle for mere existence. Then we say that they have become obsolete, having been replaced by more active, virile competitors. A study of the progress of our language, then, reveals much of the biography of human thought. Taste, prejudice, and continual change is a part of the life story. Yet what better way is there to study the vicissitudes, the feelings, thoughts, and various ideals of the English race? 75. Five things about words should be mastered in order to understand them fully. You must know about the original form, derivation from the parent language, varied uses from first to last, present meanings, general and applied, and connotation, with any poetic or scientific meanings that might usually be overlooked. Never will you make progress in the study of English if you guess at the meanings of words when you meet them for the first time. Apply certain questions to every new term you. meet. The chief things one wants to know are: From what language did the word come? Did it change when it was first used in English, taking an applied or new meaning? Has it undergone recent changes? Has it ever become more broad in its meaning? or more narrow, poetic, and scientific? Has it now any special associations or uses? What is its connotation in the text I am now reading? 76. Dictionaries tell us the meanings of words. Some of the unabridged volumes (notably the series of volumes in the New English Dictionary) reveal the complete history of every important word. You must remember, though, that the dictionary does not fix standards of usage. It merely records them. The standard always is the use by intelligent writers and speakers. The dictionary can do little but record the consensus of opinion relative to the meaning or use of a certain word. Sometimes dictionaries do not agree; that is because they rely on different groups of scholars. Authorities on words, like most other authorities, do not agree at every point. Pronunciation, for example, varies in different dictionaries. That fact is due to difference in authorities quoted. The New International Dictionary differs from some other dictionaries in the symbols agreed upon for showing individual sounds. Every dictionary shows at some point the key to the symbols which are used. Rules for the division of words into syllables are not thoroughly worked out. Exceptions perhaps are too numerous to permit of any consistent scheme that all will agree to follow. Vowel sounds determine the nature and the number of syllables for individual words. The accent is marked upon one vowel of each recognized syllable. Derivative words may change accent from the original. This often is because the accent in English is recessive; it tends to fall toward the first syllable. The word prefer is accented on the second, but the word preference is accented on the first syllable. Words of more than two syllables usually have at least one secondary accent. The longer the word, the more accents it tends to have. Thus, the word incomprehensible has its main accent on the hens, but others also fall on the first and on the second of the six syllables. Normally, the accent falls on the main part, the root or stem of the word, and yet sometimes even this custom is not followed, since the accent seeks a place near the initial part of the word. Some of the specific rules for accents may now be summarized: 1. Words of a single syllable may not be divided. This rule is inflexible; it permits of no real exceptions. Words, then, like thought, through, strength, height, having but one vowel or its equivalent, must be written without syllable divisions. 2. Do not place syllables containing less than three letters at either the end or the beginning of a line. 3. Most words divide between double consonants; thus, ad-dress, drop-ping, oc-cur, rub-bish, god-dess. 4. Prefixes and suffixes usually form separate syllables, as in the words con-clude, il-lustrate, intro-duce, pre-fix, cool-er, go-ing, judg-ment, live-ly. 5. Two letters which unite to make a single sound cannot be separated by a syllable division. Thus the th and gh in words like pathos and graphic may not be divided. 6. Distinguish between certain words that are similar. Do not confuse the combinations all together and altogether; any way and anyway; a while and awhile. All right must |