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 the following ideas: 

The burning of the hen-coop was a mighty conflagration. 
The fact that the point of the pencil was broken profoundly surprised me. 
We had a perfectly gorgeous time. 
It’s a beastly shame that I missed my car. 
It is awfully funny that he should die. 
The saleslady pulled the washlady’s hair. 
A cold bath is pretty nice of mornings. 
To go a little late is just the article.

Another thing to avoid is the use of words in the wrong parts of speech, as a noun for a verb, or an adjective for an adverb.  Sometimes newspapers are guilty of such faults; for journalistic English, though pithy, shows here and there traces of its rapid composition.  You must look to more leisurely authorities.  The speakers and writers on whom you may rely will not say “to burglarize,” “to suspicion,” “to enthuse,” “plenty rich,” “real tired,” “considerable discouraged,” “a combine,” or “humans.”  An exhaustive list of such errors cannot be inserted here.  If you feel yourself uncertain in these details of usage, you should have access to such a volume as The Century Desk Book of Good English.

EXERCISE — Slovenliness II

1.  For each quoted expression in the preceding paragraph compose a sentence which shall contain the correct form, or the grammatical equivalent, of the expression.

2.  Correct the following sentences: 

The tramp suicided. 
She was real excited. 
He gestured angry. 
He was some anxious to get to the eats. 
All of us had an invite. 
Them boys have sure been teasing the canine.