REQUIREMENTS OF SPEECH

Vocabulary--Parts of Speech--Requisites


It is very easy to learn how to speak and write correctly, as for all
purposes of ordinary conversation and communication, only about 2,000
different words are required. The mastery of just twenty hundred words,
the knowing where to place them, will make us not masters of the English
language, but masters of correct speaking and writing. Small number, you
will say, compared with what is in the dictionary! But nobody ever uses
all the words in the dictionary or could use them did he live to be the
age of Methuselah, and there is no necessity for using them.

There are upwards of 200,000 words in the recent editions of the large
dictionaries, but the one-hundredth part of this number will suffice for
all your wants. Of course you may think not, and you may not be content
to call things by their common names; you may be ambitious to show
superiority over others and display your learning or, rather, your
pedantry and lack of learning. For instance, you may not want to call a
spade a spade. You may prefer to call it a spatulous device for abrading
the surface of the soil. Better, however, to stick to the old familiar,
simple name that your grandfather called it. It has stood the test of
time, and old friends are always good friends.

To use a big word or a foreign word when a small one and a familiar one
will answer the same purpose, is a sign of ignorance. Great scholars and
writers and polite speakers use simple words.

To go back to the number necessary for all purposes of conversation