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Episode 27: Growing a Vocabulary - Art of Public Speaking - Dale Carnegie · The Art of Public Speaking

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Chapter twenty seven, Growing a vocabulary quote, boys flying kites haul in their
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white winged birds. You can't do that way when you're flying words. Careful
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with fire is good advice. We know careful with words is ten times doubly
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so. Thoughts unexpressed may sometimes fall back dead, but God himself can't kill
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them when they're said unquote Will Carton, the First Settler's story. The term
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the cabulary has a special as well as a general meaning. True. All
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the cabulies are grounded in the everyday words of the language, out of which
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grow the special vocabularies. But each such specialized group possesses a number of words
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of peculiar value for its own objects. These words may be used in other
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vocabularies also, but the fact that they are suited to a unique order of
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expression marks them as of special value to a particular craft or calling. In
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this respect, the public speaker differs not at all from the poet, the
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novelist, the scientist, the traveler. He must add to his everyday's stock
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words of value for the public presentation of thought. Quote. A study of
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the discourses of effective orators discloses the fact that they have a fondness for words
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signifying power, largeness, speed, action, color, light, and all
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their opposites. They frequently employ words expressive of the various emotions. Descriptive words,
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adjectives used in fresh relations with nouns, and apt epithets are freely employed.
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Indeed, the nature of public speech permits the use of mildly exaggerated words,
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which, by the time they have reached the hearer's judgment, will leave
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only a just impression. Unquote footnote How to attract and hold an audience Jay
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berg Asonvine Form the book note habit. To possess a word involves three things.
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To know its special and broader meanings, to know its relation to other
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words, and to be able to use it. When you see or hear
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a familiar word used in an unfamiliar sense, jot it down, look it
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up, and master it. We have in mind a speaker of superior attainments
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who acquite as vocabulary by noting all new words he heard or read. These
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he mastered and put into youths. Soon as vocabulary became large, varied and
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exact. Use a new word accurately five times, and it is yours.
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Professor Alberty Hancock says quote and authors. The cabulary is of two kinds,
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later and dynamic latent those words he understands, dynamic those he can readily use.
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Every intelligent man knows or the words he needs, but he may not
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have them all ready for active service. The problem of literary diction consists in
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turning the latent into the dynamic. Unquote, Your dynamic vocabulary is the one
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you must especially cultivate. In his essay on a college magazine in the volume
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Memories and Portraits, Stevenson shows how he rose from imitation to originality in the
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use of words. He had particular reference to the formation of his literary style.
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But words are the raw materials of style, and his excellent example may
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well be followed judiciously by the public speaker. Words in their relations are vastly
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more important than words considered singly. Quote. Whenever I read a book or
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a passage that particularly pleased me, in which a thing was said or an
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effect rendered with propriety, in which there was either some conspicuous force or some
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happy distinction in the style, I must sit down at once and set myself
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to ape that quality. I was unsuccessful, and I knew it, and
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tried again and was again unsuccessful, and always unsuccessful. But at least in
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these vain bouts I got some practice in rhythm, in harmony, in construction
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and coordination of parts. I have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlet,
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to Lamb, to Wordsworth, to Sir Thomas Browne, to Defoe, to
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Hawthorne, to Montaigne, that like it or not is the way to learn
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to write, whether I have profited or not. That is the way.
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It was the way Keeps learned. And there never a finer temperament for literature
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than Keeps. It is the great point of these imitations that there still shines
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beyond the student's reach, his inimitable model. Let him try as he please.
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He is still sure of failure. And it is an old and very
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true saying that failure is the only high road to success. Form the reference
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book Habit. Do not be content with your general knowledge of a word press
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your study until you have mastered its individual shades of meaning and usage. Mere
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fluency is sure to become despicable, but accuracy never. The dictionary contains the
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crystallized usage of intellectual giants. No one who would write effectively dare despise its
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definitions and discriminations. Think, for example, are the different meanings of mantle,
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or model, or quantity. Any late edition of an unabridged dictionary is
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good and is worth making sacrifices to own. Books of synonyms and antonyms,
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used cautiously, for there are a few perfect synonyms in any language, will
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be found of great help. Consider the shades of meaning among such word groups
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as thief, peculator, defaulter, embezzler, burglar, yeggman, robber,
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bandit, marauder, pirate, and many more, while the distinctions among Hebrew,
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jew Israelite, and Semite. Remember that no book of synonyms is trustworthy
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unless used with a dictionary. A thesaurus of the English Language by doctor Francis
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A. March is expensive, but full and authoritative. Of smaller books of
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synonyms and antonyms there are plenty. A footnote a book of synonyms and antonyms
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is in preparation for this series. The Writer's Library Study the Connectives of English
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Speech. Fernard's book on this title is a mine of gems, unsuspected pitfalls,
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line the loose use of and or for while, and a score of
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tricky little connectives word derivations of rich and suggestiveness. Our English throws so much
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to foreign tongues and has changed so much with the centuries that whole addresses may
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grow out of a single root idea hidden away in an ancient word origin.
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Translation also is excellent exercise in word mastery and consorts well with the study of
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derivations. Phrase books that show the origins of familiar expressions will surprise most of
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us by showing how carelessly everyday's speech is used. Brewers Addictionary of Phrase and
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Fable, Edward's Word Facts and Phrases, and the Thorntons and American Glossary are
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all good the last and expensive work in three volumes. A prefix or a
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suffix mayes centrally change the force of the stem, as in Master four and
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Master Lee contempt a ball and contemptuous, envious and envy a ball. Thus,
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to study words in groups according to their stems, prefixes and suffixes is
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to gain a mastery over their shades of meaning and introduce us to other related
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words. Do not favor one set or kind of words more than another.
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Quote sixty years and more ago, Lord Brewham, addressing the students of the
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University of Glasgow, laid down the rule that the native Anglo Saxon part of
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our vocabulary was to be favored at the expent of that other part which has
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come from the Latin and Greek. The roar was an impossible one, and
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Lord Brewham himself never tried seriously to observe it, nor in truth as any
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great writer made the attempt. Not only is our language highly composite, but
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the component words have in the quince's phrase happily coalesced. It is easy to
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jest at words in osity and ation, as dictionary words and the like.
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But even Lord Brewham would have found it difficult to dispense with pomposity and imagination
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unquote footnote composition and rhetoric J. M. Hart. The short, vigorous
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Anglo Saxon will always be preferred for passages of special thrust and force, just
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as the Latin will continue to furnish us with flowing and smooth expressions to mingle.
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All sorts, however, will give variety, and that is most to
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be desired. Discuss words with those who know them. Since the language of
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the platform follows closely the diction of every day's speech, many useful words may
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be acquired in conversation with cultivated men, and when such discussion takes the form
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of disputation as to the meanings and usages of words, it will prove doubly
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valuable. The development of word power marches with the growth of individuality. Search
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faithfully for the right word. Books of reference are tripled in value when their
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owner has a passion for getting the kernels out of their shells. Ten minutes
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a day will do. Wonders for the nutcracker quote. I'm growing so peevish
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about my writing, says Flabet. I am like a man whose ear is
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true, but who plays falsely on the violin. His fingers refuse to reproduce
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precisely those sound of which he has the inward sense. Then the tears come
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rolling down from the poor scraper's eyes, and the bow falls from his hand.
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Unquote, the same brilliant frenchman sent the sound advice to his pupil Guidamo
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passon quote. Whatever may be the thing which one wishes to say, there
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is but one word for expressing it, only one verb to animate it,
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only one adjective to qualify it. It is essential to search for this word,
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for this verb, for this adjective, until they are discovered and to
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be satisfied with nothing else unquote what a savage lander once wrote, quote I
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hate false words and seek with care, difficulty, and moroseness those that fit
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the thing. Unquote. So did sentimental Tommy, as related by James M.
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Barry in his novel bearing his hero's name as a title, No Wonder
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t Sanders became an author and a lion. Tommy with another lad is writing
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an essay on a day in church in competition for a university's scholarship. He
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gets on finally, until he pauses for lack of a word. For nearly
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an hour, he searches for this elusive thing, until suddenly he is told
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that the allotted time is up and he has lost. Barry may tell the
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rest quote essay. It was no more an essay than a twig is a
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tree for the gaucherd stuck in the middle of his second page. Yes,
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stuck is the right expression, as his chagrined teacher had to admit when the
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boy was cross examined he had not been up to some of his tricks.
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He had stuck, and his explanations, as you will admit, merelyphasized his
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incapacity. He had brought himself to public scorn for lack of a word.
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What word, they asked testily, But even now he could not tell.
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He had wanted a Scotch word that would signify how many people were in church,
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and it was on the tip of his tongue, but would come no
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farther. Puckle was nearly the word, but it did not mean so many
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people as he meant. The hour had gone by, just like winking.
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He had forgotten all about time. Whilst searching his mind for the word.
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The other five examiners were furious, you little tatty Dooley. Cathro roared,
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whether not a dozen words to while from? If you had an ill will
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to puckle? What ailed you at mansie? Or I thought of mansie,
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replied Tommy woefully, for he was ashamed of himself. But but a mansie's
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a swarm. It would mean that the folk in the kirk were buzzing thegither
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like bees instead of sitting still. Even if it does mean that, said
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mister Duffy with impatience, what was the need of being so particular? Surely
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the art of essay writing consists in using the first word that comes and hurrying
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on That's how I did, said the proud McCloughlin, Tomy's second competitor.
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I see, interposed, mister Gloak, that McCloughlin speaks of there being a
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mask of people in the church. Mask is a fine Scotch word. I
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thought of mask, whimpered Tommy. But that would mean the kirk was crammed,
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and I just meant it to be middling. Four flow would have done,
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suggested mister Lonimer. Flows, but a handful, said Tommy Curen.
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Then you Jackanapes Curran's know enough. Mister Lorimer flung up his hands in despair.
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I wanted something between Karen and mask, said Tommy, doggedly, yet
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almost at the crying mister Ogilvie, who had been hiding his admiration with difficulty,
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spread a net for him. You said you wanted a word that meant
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middling full. Well, why did you not say middling full or fell mask?
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Yes? Why not, demanded the ministers, unconsciously caught in the net.
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I wanted one word, replied Tommy, unconsciously avoiding it. You jewel,
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muttered mister Ogilvie under his breath. But mister Cathroe would have banged the
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boy's head had not. The ministers interfered. It is so easy too to
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find the right word, said mister Glogue. It's no, it's difficult as
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to hit a squirrel, cried Tommy. And again mister Ogilvie nodded approval.
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And then an odd thing happened. As they were preparing to leave the score,
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Catherine, having previously run Tommy up by the neck. The door opened
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a little, and there appeared in the aperture the face of Tommy, tear
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stained but excited. I ken the word now, he cried. It came
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to me at once. It is handel, mister Ogilvy said, in an
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ecstasy to himself. He had to think of it till he got it,
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And he got it. The Laddie is a genius. Unquote. Questions and
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exercises One, What is the derivation of the word vocabulary? Two briefly discussed
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any complete speech given in this volume with reference to a exactness, be variety
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and see charm in the use of words. Three give original examples of the
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kinds of words studies referred to on pages three, three seven and three three
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eight. Deliver a short talk on any subject using at least five words which
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have not been previously in your dynamic vocabulary. Five. Make a list of
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the unfamiliar words found in any address you may select. Six. Deliver a
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short extemporaneous speech giving your opinions on the merits and demerits of the use of
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unusual words in public speaking. Seven. Try to find an example of the
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overuse of unusual words in a speech. Eight have you used reference books in
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words studies? If so, state with what result. Nine Find as many
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synonyms and antonyms as possible for each of the following words excess, rare,
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severe, beautiful, clear, happy, difference, care, skillful, involved,
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enmity, prophet, absurd, evident, faint, friendly, harmony,
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hatred, honest, inherent. End of Section twenty seven.