Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases, Grenville Kleiser [learn to read books TXT] 📗
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Title: Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases A Practical Handbook Of Pertinent Expressions, Striking Similes, Literary, Commercial, Conversational, And Oratorical Terms, For The Embellishment Of Speech And Literature, And The Improvement Of The Vocabulary Of Those Persons Who Read, Write, And Speak English
Author: Greenville Kleiser
Release Date: May 10, 2006 [EBook #18362]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTEEN THOUSAND USEFUL PHRASES ***
Produced by Don Kostuch
[Transcriber's Notes]
Original "misspellings" such as "fulness" are unchanged.
Unfamiliar (to me) words are defined on the right side of the page in square brackets. For example:
abstemious diet [abstemious = Eating and drinking in moderation.]
The blandness of contemporary (2006) speech would be relieved by the injection of some of these gems:
"phraseological quagmire"
"Windy speech which hits all around the mark like a drunken carpenter."
[End Transcriber's Notes]
BY GRENVILLE KLEISERHOW TO BUILD MENTAL POWER A book of thorough training for all the faculties of the mind. Octa cloth, $3.00, net; by mail, $3.16.
HOW TO SPEAK IN PUBLIC A practical self-instructor for lawyers, clergymen, teachers, businessmen, and others. Cloth, 543 pages, $1.50. net; by mail, $1.615.
HOW TO DEVELOP SELF-CONFIDENCE IN SPEECH AND MANNER A book of practical inspiration: trains men to rise above mediocrity and fearthought to their great possibilities. Commended to ambitious men. Cloth. 320 pages, $1.50. net; by mail, $1.65.
HOW TO DEVELOP POWER AND PERSONALITY IN SPEAKING Practical suggestions in English, word-building, imagination, memory conversation, and extemporaneous speaking. Cloth, 422 pages, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.65.
HOW TO READ AND DECLAIM A course of instruction in reading and declamation which will develop graceful carriage, correct standing, and accurate enunciation; and will furnish abundant exercise in the use of the best examples of prose and poetry. Cloth, $1.50, net; by mail, $1.65.
GREAT SPEECHES AND HOW TO MAKE THEM In this work Mr. Kleiser points out methods by which young men may acquire and develop the essentials of forcible public speaking. Cloth $1.50, net; by mail, $1.65.
HOW TO ARGUE AND WIN Ninety-nine men in a hundred know how to argue to one who can argue and win. This book tells how to acquire this power. Cloth, 320 pages, $1.50, net; by mail, $1.65,
HUMOROUS HITS AND HOW TO HOLD AN AUDIENCE A collection of short stories, selections and sketches for all occasions. Cloth, 326 pages, $1.25, net; by mail. $1.37.
COMPLETE GUIDE TO PUBLIC SPEAKING The only extensive, comprehensive encyclopedic work of its kind ever issued. The best advice by the world's great authorities upon oratory, preaching, platform and pulpit delivery, voice-building, argumentation, debate, rhetoric, personal power, mental development, etc. Cloth, 655 pages, $5.00: by mail. $5.24.
TALKS ON TALKING Practical suggestions for developing naturalness, sincerity, and effectiveness in conversation. Cloth, $1.00, net; by mail, $1.08.
FIFTEEN THOUSAND USEFUL PHRASES A practical handbook of felicitous expressions for enriching the vocabulary. 12 mo, cloth, $1.60, net; by mail. $1.72.
INSPIRATION AND IDEALS Practical help and inspiration in right thinking and right living. 12 mo, cloth, $1.25, net: by mail, $1.37.
THE WORLD'S GREAT SERMONS Masterpieces of Pulpit Oratory and biographical sketches of the speakers. Cloth, 10 volumes. Write for terms.
GRENVILLE KLEISER'S PERSONAL LESSONS IN PUBLIC SPEAKING and the
Development of Self-Confidence, Mental Power, and Personality.
Twenty-five lessons, with special handbooks, side-talks, personal letters.
etc. Write for terms.
GRENVILLE KLEISER'S PERSONAL LESSONS IN PRACTICAL ENGLISH Twenty lessons, with Daily Drills, special books, personal letters, etc. Write for terms.
FIFTEEN THOUSAND USEFUL PHRASES A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK OF PERTINENT EXPRESSIONS, STRIKING SIMILES, LITERARY. COMMERCIAL, CONVERSATIONAL, AND ORATORICAL TERMS, FOR THE EMBELLISHMENT OF SPEECH AND LITERATURE, AND THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE VOCABULARY OF THOSE PERSONS WHO READ, WRITE. AND SPEAK ENGLISH BY GRENVILLE KLEISER FORMERLY INSTRUCTOR IN PUBLIC SPEAKING AT YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL, YALE UNIVERSITY; AUTHOR OF "HOW TO SPEAK IN PUBLIC," "HOW TO DEVELOP POWER AND PERSONALITY IN SPEAKING," "HOW TO DEVELOP SELF-CONFIDENCE IN SPEECH AND MANNER," "HOW TO ARGUE AND WIN," "HOW TO READ AND DECLAIM," "COMPLETE GUIDE TO PUBLIC SPEAKING," ETC. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY FRANK H. VIZETELLY, LITT.D., LL.D. FIFTH EDITIONFUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY NEW YORK AND LONDON 1919
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
(Printed in the United States of America)
——-
Copyright under the Articles of the Copyright
Convention of the Pan-American Republics
and the United States, August 11, 1910
———
Published. October, 1917
One cannot always live in the palaces and state apartments of language, but we can refuse to spend our days in searching for its vilest slums. —William Watson
Words without thought are dead sounds; thoughts without words are nothing.
To think is to speak low; to speak is to think aloud.
—Max Muller
The first merit which attracts in the pages of a good writer, or the talk of a brilliant conversationalist, is the apt choice and contrast of the words employed. It is indeed a strange art to take these blocks rudely conceived for the purpose of the market or the bar, and by tact of application touch them to the finest meanings and distinctions. —Robert Louis Stevenson
It is with words as with sunbeams, the more they are condensed, the deeper
they burn.
—Southey
No noble or right style was ever yet founded but out of a sincere heart.
—Ruskin
Words are things; and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. —Byron
A good phrase may outweigh a poor library.
—Thomas W. Higginson
The most powerful and the most perfect expression of thought and feeling through the medium of oral language must be traced to the mastery of words. Nothing is better suited to lead speakers and readers of English into an easy control of this language than the command of the phrase that perfectly expresses the thought. Every speaker's aim is to be heard and understood. A clear, crisp articulation holds an audience as by the spell of some irresistible power. The choice word, the correct phrase, are instruments that may reach the heart, and awake the soul if they fall upon the ear in melodious cadence; but if the utterance be harsh and discordant they fail to interest, fall upon deaf ears, and are as barren as seed sown on fallow ground. In language, nothing conduces so emphatically to the harmony of sounds as perfect phrasing—that is, the emphasizing of the relation of clause to clause, and of sentence to sentence by the systematic grouping of words. The phrase consists usually of a few words which denote a single idea that forms a separate part of a sentence. In this respect it differs from the clause, which is a short sentence that forms a distinct part of a composition, paragraph, or discourse. Correct phrasing is regulated by rests, such rests as do not break the continuity of a thought or the progress of the sense.
GRENVILLE KLEISER, who has devoted years of his diligent life to imparting the art of correct expression in speech and writing, has provided many aids for those who would know not merely what to say, but how to say it. He has taught also what the great HOLMES taught, that language is a temple in which the human soul is enshrined, and that it grows out of life—out of its joys and its sorrows, its burdens and its necessities. To him, as well as to the writer, the deep strong voice of man and the low sweet voice of woman are never heard at finer advantage than in the earnest but mellow tones of familiar speech. In the present volume Mr. Kleiser furnishes an additional and an exceptional aid for those who would have a mint of phrases at their command from which to draw when in need of the golden mean for expressing thought. Few indeed are the books fitted to-day for the purpose of imparting this knowledge, yet two centuries ago phrase-books were esteemed as supplements to the dictionaries, and have not by any manner of means lost their value. The guide to familiar quotations, the index to similes, the grammars, the readers, the machine-made letter-writer of mechanically perfect letters of congratulation or condolence—none are sententious enough to supply the need. By the compilation of this praxis, Mr. Kleiser has not only supplied it, but has furnished a means for the increase of one's vocabulary by practical methods. There are thousands of persons who may profit by the systematic study of such a book as this if they will familiarize themselves with the author's purpose by a careful reading of the preliminary pages of his book. To speak in public pleasingly and readily and to read well are accomplishments acquired only after many days, weeks even, of practise.
Foreigners sometimes reproach us for the asperity and discordance of our speech, and in general, this reproach is just, for there are many persons who do scanty justice to the vowel-elements of our language. Although these elements constitute its music they are continually mistreated. We flirt with and pirouette around them constantly. If it were not so, English would be found full of beauty and harmony of sound. Familiar with the maxim, "Take care of the vowels and the consonants will take care of themselves,"—a maxim that when put into practise has frequently led to the breaking-down of vowel values—the writer feels that the common custom of allowing "the consonants to take care of themselves" is pernicious. It leads to suppression or to imperfect utterance, and thus produces indistinct articulation.
The English language is so complex in character that it can scarcely be learned by rule, and can best be mastered by the study of such idioms and phrases as are provided in this book; but just as care must be taken to place every accent or stress on the proper syllable in the pronouncing of every word it contains, so must the stress or emphasis be placed on the proper word in every sentence spoken. To read or speak pleasingly one should resort to constant practise by doing so aloud in private, or preferably, in the presence of such persons as know good reading when they hear it and are masters of the melody of sounds. It was Dean Swift's belief that the common fluency of speech in many men and most women was due to scarcity of matter and scarcity of words. He claimed that a master of language possessed a mind full of ideas, and that before speaking, such a mind paused to select the choice word—the phrase best suited to the occasion. "Common speakers," he said, "have only one set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe them in," and these are always ready on the lips. Because he holds the Dean's view sound to-day, the writer will venture to warn the readers of this book against a habit that, growing far too common among us, should be checked, and this is the iteration and reiteration in conversation of "the battered, stale, and trite" phrases, the like of which were credited by the worthy Dean to the women of his time.
Human thought elaborates itself with the progress of intelligence. Speech is the harvest of thought, and the relation which exists between words and the mouths that speak them must be carefully observed. Just as nothing is more beautiful than a word fitly spoken, so nothing is rarer than the use of a word in its exact meaning. There is a tendency to overwork both words and phrases that is not restricted to any particular class. The learned sin in this respect even as do the ignorant, and the practise spreads until it becomes an epidemic. The epidemic word with us yesterday was unquestionably "conscription"; several months ago it was "preparedness." Before then "efficiency" was heard on
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