Show uncommon sense av II 11 by v john blake READ THE dictionary k RE advice to read the dictionary T is serious I 1 admit it Is not just the book to while away time that must be spent PI on a sick bed it Is not the kind of literature which gets you out of yourself when M 1 you are 1 low spirited and helps you ri to forget your troubles nor Is it the sort of mental tonic 1 1 l b you need after a hard days work at w the office L but it Is IL a very excellent book to N read nevertheless and by read I 1 do not mean to glance at it to find y the definition of a word but to tolf low page after page for as much ns aa halt half on an hour at a time it if you will do that every few days you will begin to find it interesting and make a habit of it ka I 1 began dictionary reading by ach accident aident cl cI dent p I 1 was looking up the meaning g of a L word which I 1 had encountered in an p other volume and the definition of the next word caught my eye I 1 discovered that tills this word was also a stranger to me I 1 ran my eye along the page and L learned that I 1 was in company about which I 1 knew very little so go I 1 kept on and lead six or seven pages and found all of them worth while I 1 knew of course that I 1 would not acquire a vocabulary in any such i fashion as that but it did help me 1 to think about the meanings of words and to discover several which I 1 JI 11 thought thou glit I 1 understood but which I 1 had f not understood at all these stuck in my mind and some few of the others did we use words as we hear them usually our vocabularies are mostly formed by those about us to whom we listen unless we have to be shown which means that we have naturally inquiring minds we take the connection in which the words are used for granted and glancing through the diction ary discloses an asto astonishing number of mistakes which we have made throng through life 0 0 0 exact use of words Is very important f we must think exactly to think well and as we have to think in words we ought to acquire the best possible equipment to think with pick up a good dictionary and open it anywhere run your eye down the page note meanings and derivations notice the use that Is made of the words by authors who are quoted that lu in itself Is interesting and you will be delighted every time you discover a quotation you know as a child Is delighted by seeing a familiar millar fa face in a crowd keep a good dictionary by your desk use it to look up the strange words you meet with and while thus using it 14 read on down or up lip the page and examine into twenty or fifty or a hundred other words you will be surprised not only at the mistakes you have been making but at the improvement ya you U wit will make in your own speech copyright |