You know that there are
elaborate intermarriages among words. You recognize _phonograph_, for
example, as a married couple; you even have confidential word as to the
dowry brought by each of the contracting parties to the new verbal
household.
You have discovered, further, that the language actually swarms with
"pairs"--words joined with each other not in blood or by marriage but
through meaning. You have so familiarized yourself with hundreds of these
pairs that to think of one word is to call the other to mind.
Finally, and in many respects most important of all, you have acquired a
vast stock of synonyms. You have had it brought to your attention that the
number of basic ideas in the world is surprisingly small; that for each of
these ideas there is in our language one generic word; that most people
use this one word constantly instead of seeking the subsidiary term that
expresses a particular phase of the idea; and that you as a builder of
your vocabulary must, while holding fast to the basic idea with one hand,
reach out with the other for the fit, sure material of specific words. Nor
have you rested in the mere perception of theory. You have had abundant
practice, have yourself covered the ground foot by foot.
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