<Prying Into a Word's Relationships>

Hitherto in our study of verbal relationships we have usually started with
the family. Having strayed (as by good luck) into an assembly of kinsmen,
we have observed the common strain and the general characteristics, and
have then "placed" the individual with reference to these. But we do not
normally meet words, any more than we meet men, in the domestic circle. We
meet them and greet them hastily as they hurry through the tasks of the
day, with no other associates about them than such as chance or momentary
need may dictate. If we are to see anything of their family life, it must
be through effort we ourselves put forth. We must be inquisitive about
their conjugal and blood relationships.

How, then, starting with the individual word, can you come into a
knowledge of it, not in its public capacity, but in what is even more
important, its personal connections? You must form the habit of asking two
questions about it: (1) Is it married? (2) Of what family or families was
it born? If you can get an understanding answer to these two questions, an
answer that will tell you what its relations stand for as well as what
their name is, your inquiries will be anything but bootless.

Let us illustrate your procedure concretely. Suppose you read or hear the
word _conchology_. It is a somewhat unusual word, but see what you
can do with it yourself before calling on the dictionary to help you.
Observe the word closely, and you will obtain the answer to your first
question. _Conchology_ is no bachelor, no verbal old maid; it is a
married pair.

Your second and more difficult task awaits you; you must ascertain the
meaning of the family connections. With Mr. Conch you are on speaking
terms; you know him as one of the shells. But the utmost you can recall
about his wife is that she is one of a whole flock of _ologies_. What
significance does this relationship possess? You are uncertain. But do not
thumb the dictionary yet. Pass in mental review all the _ologies_ you
can assemble. Wait also for the others that through the unconscious
operations of memory will tardily straggle in. Be on the lookout for
_ologies_ as you read, as you listen. In time you will muster a
sizable company of them. And you will draw a conclusion as to the meaning
of the blood that flows through their veins. _Ology_ implies speech
or study. _Conchology_, then, must be the study of conches.

Your investigations thus f