o'er, with a mighty uproar;
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.

18. Sister Susie's sewing shirts for soldiers,
Such skill at sewing shirts our shy young
Sister Susie shows.
Some soldiers send epistles
Say they'd rather sleep in thistles
Than the saucy, soft, short shirts for soldiers
Sister Susie sews.

CHAPTER III

WORDS AND SENTENCES

Vocabularies. The collection of words a person can command either in
use or understanding is a vocabulary. Every person has three distinct
ones: his reading vocabulary, his writing vocabulary, his speaking
vocabulary. Of these, the reading vocabulary is the largest. There are
thousands of words he recognizes in reading and although he might not
be able to construct a dictionary definition for everyone, he has a
sufficiently clear idea to grasp the meaning. In this rude
approximation to sense he is aided by the context, but for all
practical purposes he understands the word. If he were writing,
carefully taking time to note exactly what he was expressing, he might
recall that word and so consciously put it into a sentence. He might
use it in exactly the same sense in which he had seen it in print. But
never in the rush of ideas and words in spoken discourse would he risk
using a word he knew so slightly. If nothing more, he would beware of
mispronunciation.

Thus a person could easily deduce from his reading that a _hangar_ is
a building to house airplanes. He might--to avoid repeating the word
_shed_ too frequently--use it in writing. But until he was absolutely
certain of its significance and its sound he would hardly venture to
say it to other men.

Spoken discourse is so alive, it moves so rapidly, that it is never so
precise, so varied in its choice of words, as written material. The
phraseology of written discourse sounds slightly or markedly stilted,
bookish, if repeated by the tongue. This difference--though it may
appear almost trifling--is apparent to everyone. Its recognition can
be partly illustrated by the fact that after President Lowell and
Senator Lodge had debated on the topic, the League of Nations, in
Boston and were shown the reports of their speeches, each made changes
in certain expressions. The version for print and reading is a little
more formal than the delivered sentences. The Senator said, "I want"
but preferred to write "I wish"; then he changed "has got to be" into
"must,"