We shall not
acquire the power in a day. We shall acquire it as a chess or a baseball
player acquires his skill--by long effort, hard practice.
One thing to avoid is the use of words in loose, or fast-and-loose,
senses. Do not say that owning a watch is a fine proposition if you mean
that it is advantageous. Do not say that you trembled on the brink of
disaster if you were threatened with no more than inconvenience or
comparatively slight injury. Do not say you were literally scared to death
if you are yet alive to tell the story.
EXERCISE - Slovenliness I
Give moderate or accurate utterance to the following ideas:
The burning of the hen-coop was a mighty conflagration.
The fact that the point of the pencil was broken profoundly surprised me.
We had a perfectly gorgeous time.
It's a beastly shame that I missed my car.
It is awfully funny that he should die.
The saleslady pulled the washlady's hair.
A cold bath is pretty nice of mornings.
To go a little late is just the article.
Another thing to avoid is the use of words in the wrong parts of speech,
as a noun for a verb, or an adjective for an adverb. Sometimes newspapers
are guilty of such faults; for journalistic English, though pithy, shows
here and there traces of its rapid composition.
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