[Footnote 31: For a full discussion of the form see, _The Art of Story-Writing_,

by J. Berg Esenwein and Mary D. Chambers.]

 

CHAPTER XXVII

 

GROWING A VOCABULARY

 

Boys flying kites haul in their white winged birds; You can't do that way when

you're flying words. "Careful with fire," is good advice we know, "Careful with

words," is ten times doubly so. Thoughts unexpressed many sometimes fall back

dead; But God Himself can't kill them when they're said.

 

--WILL CARLETON, _The First Settler's Story_.

 

The term "vocabulary" has a special as well as a general meaning. True, _all_

vocabularies are grounded in the everyday words of the language, out of which

grow the special vocabularies, but each such specialized group possesses a

number of words of peculiar value for its own objects. These words may be used

in other vocabularies also, but the fact that they are suited to a unique order

of expression marks them as of special value to a particular craft or calling.

 

In this respect the public speaker differs not at all from the poet, the

novelist, the scientist, the traveler. He must add to his everyday stock, words

of value for the public presentation of thought. "A study of the discourses of