|
If you want to improve your conversation, you will make matters of good usage something of a hobby. Occasionally, in library or bookstore, you will leaf through a list of "Common Usage Errors" appended to most college composition books or rhetorics. In your own talk you will make it a point, informally as well as formally, to avoid these errors. You will say, He's lying (not laying) down. It doesn't (not don't) matter. He is unlucky like me (not like I). But, though you recognize such errors and avoid them, you will daily include among your morning prayers a renewed resolve never to embarrass others for making them. You will resolve to be careful not to "rub in" the error even indirectly. If, for example, someone said, "It's different than anything else," you will not acquiesce with, "Yes, it's different from anything else," putting just enough emphasis on the from to make the whole company conscious of your implied correction. You will, however, resolve to help others and promote correct conversation — whenever, and if, you can do so charitably and unobtrusively. When someone, for example, grossly misuses a word, so that sooner or later it may cause him to be held up to ridicule, you will seek a tactful way of setting him right. If, meaning bolshevik sympathizer he says bolshevik baiter, you might, after a sentence or two, say, "It's curious that bolshevik sympathizers so often are church baiters." This will tip him off to the correct usage without calling attention to his now past misuse. |
|||
|
