he _thinks;_ he does not beg
for _amusement,_ but for _play_; he calls things _nice_ or _nasty,_
not _pleasant_ or _disagreeable._ The synonyms which he learns in after
years, never become so closely, so organically connected with the ideas
signified, as do these original words used in childhood; and hence the
association remains less strong. But in what does a strong association
between a word and an idea differ from a weak one? Simply in the greater
ease and rapidity of the suggestive action. It can be in nothing else.
Both of two words, if they be strictly synonymous, eventually call up
the same image. The expression--It is _acid,_ must in the end give rise
to the same thought as--It is sour; but because the term _acid_ was
learnt later in life, and has not been so often followed by the thought
symbolized, it does not so readily arouse that thought as the term sour.
If we remember how slowly and with what labour the appropriate ideas
follow unfamiliar words in another language, and how increasing
familiarity with such words brings greater rapidity and ease of
comprehension; and if we consider that the same process must have gone
on with the words of our mother tongue from childhood upwards, we shall
clearly see that the earliest learnt and oftenest used words, will,
other things equal, call up images with less loss of time and energy
than their later learnt synonyms.

Sec. 6. The further superiority possessed by Saxon English in its
comparative brevity, obviously comes under the same generalization. If
it be an advantage to express an idea in the smallest number of words,
then will it be an advantage to express it in the smallest number of
syllables. If circuitous phrases and needless expletives distract the
attention and diminish the strength of the impression produced, then
do surplus articulations do so. A certain effort, though commonly
an inappreciable one, must be required to recognize every vowel and
consonant. If, as all know, it is tiresome to listen to an indistinct
speaker, or read a badly-written manuscript; and if, as we cannot doubt,
the fatigue is a cumulative result of the attention needed to catch
successive syllables; it follows that attention is in such cases
absorbed by each syllable. And if this be true when the syllables are
difficult of recognition, it will also be true, though in a less degree,
when the recognition of them is easy. Hence, the shortness of Saxon
words becomes a reason for their