Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases

Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases

Grenville Kleiser

The most powerful and the most perfect expression of thought and feeling

through the medium of oral language must be traced to the mastery of

words. Nothing is better suited to lead speakers and readers of English

into an easy control of this language than the command of the phrase that

perfectly expresses the thought. Every speaker's aim is to be heard and understood. A clear, crisp articulation holds an audience as by the spell of some irresistible power. The choice word, the correct phrase, are

instruments that may reach the heart, and awake the soul if they fall upon

the ear in melodious cadence; but if the utterance be harsh and discordant

they fail to interest, fall upon deaf ears, and are as barren as seed sown

on fallow ground. In language, nothing conduces so emphatically to the

harmony of sounds as perfect phrasing--that is, the emphasizing of the

relation of clause to clause, and of sentence to sentence by the

systematic grouping of words. The phrase consists usually of a few words which denote a single idea that forms a separate part of a sentence. In

this respect it differs from the clause, which is a short sentence that

forms a distinct part of a composition, paragraph, or discourse. Correct

phrasing is regulated by rests, such rests as do not break the continuity

of a thought or the progress of the sense.

GRENVILLE KLEISER, who has devoted years of his diligent life to imparting

the art of correct expression in speech and writing, has provided many

aids for those who would know not merely what to say, but how to say it. He has taught also what the great HOLMES taught, that language is a temple

in which the human soul is enshrined, and that it grows out of life--out

of its joys and its sorrows, its burdens and its necessities. To him, as

well as to the writer, the deep strong voice of man and the low sweet

voice of woman are never heard at finer advantage than in the earnest but

mellow tones of familiar speech. In the present volume Mr. Kleiser

furnishes an additional and an exceptional aid for those who would have a

mint of phrases at their command from which to draw when in need of the

golden mean for expressing thought. Few indeed are the books fitted to-day

for the purpose of imparting this knowledge, yet two centuries ago

phrase-books were esteemed as supplements to the dictionaries, and have

not by any manner of means lost their value. The guide to familiar

quotations, the index to similes, the grammars, the readers, the

machine-made letter-writer of mechanically perfect letters of

congratulation or condolence--none are sententious enough to supply the

need. By the compilation of this praxis, Mr. Kleiser has not only supplied

it, but has furnished a means for the increase of one's vocabulary by

practical methods. There are thousands of persons who may profit by the

systematic study of such a book as this if they will familiarize

themselves with the author's purpose by a careful reading of the

preliminary pages of his book. To speak in public pleasingly and readily

and to read well are accomplishments acquired only after many days, weeks

even, of practise.

Foreigners sometimes reproach us for the asperity and discordance of our

speech, and in general, this reproach is just, for there are many persons

who do scanty justice to the vowel-elements of our language. Although these elements constitute its music they are continually mistreated. We flirt with and pirouette around them constantly. If it were not so, English would be found full of beauty and harmony of sound. Familiar with the maxim, "Take care of the vowels and the consonants will take care of

themselves,"--a maxim that when put into practise has frequently led to

the breaking-down of vowel values--the writer feels that the common custom

FRANK H. VIZETELLY.