yle rather than temerity of phrase. Yet it
never sags into tameness. Notice how everyday expressions ("My business
was to hold my breath," "I took to my heels") add subtly to our belief
that what Defoe is telling us is true. Notice also that such expressions
("the least capful of wind," "half dead with the water I took in," "ready
to burst with holding my breath") without being pretentious may yet be
forceful. Notice finally the naturalness and lift of the sinewy idioms ("I
fetched another run," "I had no clothes to shift me," "I had like to have
suffered a second shipwreck," "It wanted but a little that all my cargo
had slipped off").

8. Once or twice at least, make a mental note of halting or listless
expressions in a sermon, a public address, or a conversation. Find more
emphatic wording for the ideas thus marred.

9. To train yourself in readiness and daring of utterance, practice
impromptu discussion of any of the topics in Activity 1 for EXERCISE -
Discourse.

<Slovenliness>

Though we are to recognize the advantage of working in the undress of
speech rather than in stiffly-laundered literary linens, though we are not
to despise the accessions of strength and of charm which we may obtain
from the homely and familiar, we must never be careless. The man whose
speech is slovenly is like the man who chews gum--unblushingly
commonplace.

We must struggle to maintain our individuality. We must not be a mere copy
of everybody else. We must put into our words the cordiality we put into
our daily demeanor. If we greeted friend or stranger carelessly,
conventionally, we should soon be regarded as persons of no force or
distinction. So of our speech and our writing. Nothing, to be sure, is
more difficult than to give them freshness without robbing them of
naturalness and ease. Yet that is what we must learn to do. We shall not
acquire the power in a day. We shall acquire it as a chess or a baseball
player acquires his skill--by long effort, hard practice.

One thing to avoid is the use of words in loose, or fast-and-loose,
senses. Do not say that owning a watch is a fine proposition if you mean
that it is advantageous. Do not say that you trembled on the brink of
disaster if you were threatened with no more than inconvenience or
comparatively slight injury. Do not say you were literally scared to death
if you are yet alive to tell the story.

EXERCISE - Slovenliness I

Give moderate or accurate utterance to th