you saw in your boyhood
A servant girl
A dude
An odd character you have known
The old homestead
Your boarding house
A scene suggesting the intense heat of a midsummer day
Night on the river
The rush for the subway car
The traffic policeman
Your boss
Anything listed in the first part of Activity 9 of EXERCISE - Discourse.

III

WORDS IN COMBINATION: HOW MASTERED

The more dangerous pitfalls for those who use words in combination--as all
of us do--have been pointed out. The best ways of avoiding these pitfalls
have also been indicated. But our work together has thus far been chiefly
negative. To be sure, many tasks assigned for your performance have been
constructive as well as precautionary; but _the end_ held ever before
you has been the avoidance of feeble or ridiculous diction. In the present
chapter we must take up those aspects of the mastery of words in
combination which are primarily positive.

<Preliminaries: General Purposes and Methods>

Before coming to specific aspects and assignments, however, we shall do
well to consider certain large general purposes and methods.

<I. A Ready, an Accurate, or a Wide Vocabulary?>

First, what kind of vocabulary do we wish to acquire? A facile, readily
used one? An accurate one? Or one as nearly as may be comprehensive? The
three kinds do not necessarily coexist. The possession of one may even
hinder and retard the acquisition of another. Thus if we seek a ready
vocabulary, an accurate vocabulary may cause us to halt and hesitate for
words which shall correspond with the shadings of our thought and emotion,
and a wide vocabulary may embarrass us with the plenitude of our verbal
riches.

But _may_ is not _must_. Though the three kinds of vocabulary
may interfere with each other, there is no reason, except superficially,
why they should. Our purpose should be, therefore, to acquire not a single
kind but all three. We should be like the boy who, when asked whether he
would have a small slice of apple pie or a small slice of pumpkin pie,
replied resolutely, "Thank you, I will take a large piece of both."

That the assignments in this chapter may help you develop a vocabulary
which shall be promptly responsive to your needs, you should perform some
of them rapidly. Your thoughts and feelings regarding a topic may be
anything but clear, but you must not pause to clarify them. The words best
suited to the matter may not be instantly available, but you