until you have learned to
look past appearances into meanings. Thenceforth the holdings and the
stretchings will be distinct in your mind--will constitute two great
families, not one. Of course individual words may still puzzle you. You
will not perceive that _tender_, for example, belongs with the
stretchings until you go back to its primary idea of something stretched
thin, or that _tone_ has membership in that family until you connect
it with the sound which a stretched chord emits.

FIRST GENERAL EXERCISE FOR THE CHAPTER

Each of the key-syllables given below is followed by (1) a list of fairly
familiar words that embody it, (2) a list of less familiar words that
embody it, (3) several sentences containing blank spaces, into each of
which you are ultimately to fit the appropriate word from the first list.
(The existence of the two lists will show you that learned words may have
commonplace kinfolks.)

First, however, you are to study each word in both lists for (1) its exact
meaning, (2) the influence of the key-syllable upon that meaning, (3) any
variation of the key-syllable from its ordinary form. (A few words have
been introduced to show how varied the forms may be and yet remain
recognizable.)

Also, as an aid to your memory, you are to copy each list, underscoring
the key-syllable each time you encounter it.

(The lists are practical, not meticulously academic. In many instances
they contain words derived, not from a single original, but from cognates.
No list is exhaustive.)

<Ag, act, ig> (carry on, do, drive): (1) agent, agitate, agile, act,
actor, actuate, exact, enact, reaction, counteract, transact, mitigate,
navigate, prodigal, assay, essay; (2) agenda, pedagogue, synagogue,
actuary, redact, castigate, litigation, exigency, ambiguous, variegated,
cogent, cogitate.

_Sentences_ (inflect forms if necessary; for example, use the past
tense, participle, or infinitive of a verb instead of its present tense):
It was ____ into law. The legislators had been ____ by honest motives, but
the popular ____ was immediate. The ____ of the mining company refused to
let us proceed with the ____. Nothing could ____ the offense. The father
was ____, the son ____. The student handed in his ____ at the ____ time
designated. Though ____ enough on land, he could not ____ a ship.
The ____ by missing his cue so ____ the manager that his good work
thereafter could not ____ the ill impression.

<Burn, brun, brand>