Page 307 - Word Power Made Easy: The Complete Handbook for Building a Superior Vocabulary

KEY: 1–no, 2–no, 3–yes, 4–no, 5–no, 6–no, 7–no, 8–no, 9–no, 10–yes

Can you recall the words?

Do you know that new nerve patterns are formed by repeated actions? As a very young
child, you tied your shoelaces and buttoned your clothing with great concentration—the
activity was directed, controlled, purposeful, exciting. As you grew older and more skillful,
you tied and buttoned with scarcely a thought of what you were doing. Your ngers ew
about their task almost automatically—for the habit had formed a nerve pattern and the

action needed little if any conscious attention.
That’s simple enough to understand. If you do not remember your own experiences, you
can observe the phenomenon of struggling with a skill, mastering it, and nally making it
a self-starting habit by watching any young child. Or you can simply take my word for it.
You need not take my word for the way a mastery of new words is acquired. You can see
in yourself, as you work with this book, how adding words to your vocabulary is exactly

analogous to a child’s mastery of shoelacing. First you struggle with the concepts; then you
eventually master them; nally, by frequent work with the new words (now you see the
reason for the great number of exercises, the repetitious writing, saying, thinking) you
build up new nerve patterns and you begin to use the new words with scarcely any
consciousness of what you are doing.
Watch this common but important phenomenon closely as you do the next exercise. Your
total absorption of the material so far has given you complete mastery of our ten basic

words. Prove that you are beginning to form new nerve patterns in relation to these words
by writing the one that ts each brief de nition. The more quickly you think of the word
that applies, the surer you can be that using these words will soon be as automatic and
unself-conscious as putting on your shoes or buttoning/zipping yourself up in the morning.

1. talkative
1. L__________________
2. noisy, vehement, clamorous
2. V__________________

3. incoherent; sputtering
3. I__________________

4. gabbing ceaselessly and with little meaning
4. G__________________
5. disinclined to conversation
5. T__________________

6. talking in hackneyed phraseology
6. B__________________

7. showing a fine economy in the use of words
7. L__________________