are generally short, and often grammatically incomplete, though they may
be understood by the hearer. Sometimes this incompleteness is justified by
the idiom of the language, but more often it is the result of carelessness
on the part of the speaker. The hearer understands what is said either
because he knows about what to expect, or because the expression is a
familiar one. Such carelessness not only causes the omission of words
grammatically necessary, but brings about the incorrect pronunciation of
words and their faulty combination into sentences.

You speak much more often than you write. Your habits of speech are likely
to become permanent and your errors of speech will creep into your written
work. It is important therefore that you watch your spoken language.
Occasions will arise when the slang expressions that you so freely use
will seem inappropriate, and it will be unfortunate indeed if you find
that you have used the slang so long that you have no other words to take
their place. An abbreviated form of _gymnasium_ or of _mathematics_ may
not attract attention among your schoolmates, but there are circles where
such abbreviations are not used. By watching your own speech you will find
that some incorrect forms are very common. Improvement can be made by
giving your attention to one of them, such as the use of _guess_, or of
_got_, or of _don't_ and _doesn't_.

In making a written report of conversation you should remember that short
sentences predominate. A conversation composed of long sentences would
seem stilted and made to order. What each person says, however short, is
put into a separate division and indented. Explanatory matter accompanying
the conversation is placed with the spoken part to which it most closely
relates. Notice the indentations and the use of quotation marks in several
printed reports of conversation.