Re: Convince vs. Persuade (WAS: Displays versus Appears )

["Herman Holtz" <h -dot- holtz -at- worldnet -dot- att -dot- net>]

> However, to reverse my argument of yesterday, there are
> compensations for a large vocabulary. Several writers (Robert Hamlet")

    I must confess that despite my lament, I do know of at least one
perfectly good reason to be the master of a large vocabulary, even if you
cannot use more than one-half the words in your writing because few readers
would understand them. The argument is made by some that your ability to
think--i.e., to reason, to analyze, to judge--are in some proportion to the
size of the vocabulary at your disposal. We think with words (at least, I
do, and sometimes, although I am fluent in English only,  I think with words
or phrases I happen to know from another language, such as German, French,
or Yiddish, that express a thought more precisely than I can express it in
English. (Try to translate Gemutlichkeit, for example.) And sometimes the
thought is much saltier when expressed in another tongue, and suits your
mood best to mutter it to yourself when some bum cuts you off in traffic. So
the large vocabulary does have its uses, even if you never tax it for words
and phrases to express yourself in writing.



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