Show phrase making phrase making is serious business A good sounding phrase that may tickle the ear and the senses may after all be bad philosophy and give ge a wrong impression former president roosevelt did mui much h harm to foreign estimation of the american character through his frequent reference to the strenuous life and the big stick it g gave ave the impression that we were a nation of dollar chasers the only object of the strenuous life and that we cultivate power the big tick stick to use it on whom we desired another phrase of more recent v vintage 1 that did us as ch much uch harm was set adrift by none other than pre president ident wilson him amr self it was the famous au a too proud to fight the prem president dent meant that there are times when the base issues involved V in a controversy would make one ne be above bay fighting etc but the phrase sounded good and the local dent let it ny fly without explanatory statements As a consequence a goodly part of the world has hascon clu ded that we were too proud to fight even in the face of genuine justification all this goes to show that great men an are areas as human as the commma comann herd they like good sounding words and phrases and sometimes do themselves an djury through their use |