Eureka! Read online

  WALKER ROYCE

  DISCOVER AND ENJOY THE HIDDEN POWER OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

  eureka!

  eureka!

  Copyright © 2011 Walker Royce

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from author or publisher (except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages and/or show brief video clips in a review).

  DISCLAIMER: The Publisher and the Author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the Publisher nor the Author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the Author or the Publisher endorses the information the organization or website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that internet websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

  ISBN: 978-1-60037-944-4 (Paperback)

  978-1-60037-945-1 (eBook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011922094

  Published by:

  MORGAN JAMES PUBLISHING

  1225 Franklin Ave Ste 32

  Garden City, NY 11530-1693

  Toll Free 800-485-4943

  www.MorganJamesPublishing.com

  Cover/Interior Design by:

  Rachel Lopez

  [email protected]

  DEDICATION

  Dedicated to an angelic conifer.

  Or is she a coniferous angel?

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Preface

  Introduction

  1. The ABCs of English

  Parts of Speech

  Punctuation

  Words

  Sentences

  Paragraphs

  Composition and Style

  2. The Beauty of the Beast

  Words Within Words and Words Among Words

  Synonyms

  Antonyms

  Homonyms, Homophones, and Heteronyms

  Anagrams

  Mnemonics

  Jargon

  Acronyms

  Palindromes

  Oxymorons

  Puns and Malapropisms

  3. Abuse, Misuse, and Obtuse Use of English

  Verbosity

  Impotent Adverbs

  Punctuation Abuse

  Misusing or Misspelling Words

  Abusing Me, Myself, and I

  Using Words that are Not Words

  Mispronouncing Words

  The Department of Redundancy Department

  Relative Absolutes

  Double Negatives

  4. Synchronize With Your Audience

  Adjust to Your Context

  Assertiveness and Responsiveness

  Diversity and Versatility

  One-on-One Communications

  Trusted Advisors

  5. Presentations: Accuracy and Precision

  Avoid Information Overload

  Prevent Oral Tedium

  6. Selling an Idea

  Value-Based Selling

  Selling Is Not About Winning

  A Self-Assessment

  7. Interviews

  Resumes

  Some Ideas for Interviewers

  Some Ideas for Interviewees

  8. Is English a Romance Language?

  A Tale of Two Poems

  Conclusions

  My 10 Favorite Words

  My 10 Un-Favorite Words

  Appendix A. A Team Dynamics Workshop

  Preparation

  Workshop Agenda, Material, and Results

  Team Principles

  Appendix B. A Working-Out-Values Camp

  Goals

  Motivation

  Course Syllabus

  Prerequisites

  Camp Infrastructure

  Appendix C. Exercising Observation Skills

  Eureka Puzzles

  Sequence Puzzles

  Relative-Antonym-Synonym-Homophone (RASH) Puzzles

  Games and Other Mental Exercises

  Puzzle Hints

  Bibliography

  PREFACE

  English is a wonderfully diverse language. If you ask fifty different people to describe an object, an event, or an idea, you will get fifty different perspectives, each articulated with distinct words and style. There are no absolutes—no best writer, best speaker, best style—and no best words. However, there are patterns and principles of English usage that are generally persuasive and misusage patterns that are generally ineffective.

  Diversity of thought and communications is critical to teamwork, to achievement in the workplace, to teaching, learning, and parenting, and to growing our networks of friends and family. The perspective from which you attack a problem, tell a story, listen to someone else’s position, or write a message is important to understanding the solution, the moral, or the point. If you are capable of looking, reasoning, and hearing different perspectives, you can be far more effective at communicating and achieving progress in most endeavors.

  I have gained this insight after 50 years on earth—learning, working, partnering, parenting, supervising, and surviving tough circumstances. I don’t remember anyone coaching me to look outside my norms, to examine problems from different points of view, or to communicate differently based on the situation or the audience. Yet over my lifetime, this sort of thinking has struck me as one of the key lessons that should be taught earlier and reinforced throughout our educational years. Finding the right perspective is when breakthroughs occur.

  One of my retirement dreams is to build an adolescent leadership camp where kids can learn some of the things they don’t learn in school. Key elements will include working out personal values, practicing teamwork, and problem solving through a variety of puzzles, games, and workshops. After fleshing out a blueprint for this camp and discussing it with friends, I realized that many of the camp elements relate to lessons learned in communicating more effectively.

  This book captures material that represents one step en route to my camp vision. It synthesizes some provocative perspectives on the English language into a loosely connected set of lessons on communicating effectively and observing your communications and those of others.

  Communications are the foundation for humans to live together in harmony. Most of us would benefit from improving our communications skills. This should come as no surprise: Millions of teachers, parents, and supervisors emphasize this every day. Yet it seems like our communications skills are not improving. School-age children and young adults, aspiring workers, and even mature professionals seem disinterested in their communications skills. Plenty of good stuff is available to teach people who are motivated to learn. Therein lies the problem: lack of motivation. My contention is that people who really enjoy the English language are much more motivated to improve.

  How do we motivate more people to enjoy English? With carrots and sticks. The carrots are the attractive elements, styles, and usage patterns that this book will dangle in front of you to improve your effectiveness and enjoyment in listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Our langu
age can be surprisingly entertaining, and the amusement possible (and probable) with English is a big, juicy carrot. The sticks are the repulsive, ugly complexities and misusage patterns that some readers need to be beaten over the head with until they realize just how ineffective and annoying some communications styles can be.

  Observing the diverse ways in which other people use our language is a critical prerequisite for observing and judging our own communications effectiveness. This can be both eye-opening and painful. Observe the breadth and depth of English usage. Notice successful usage, misusage, and amusing usage. Reflect on why a communication was effective or ineffective. The time you spend can result in significant personal returns.

  Now get ready for a strange collection of topics, puzzles, lists, anecdotes, and practical lessons. What they don’t teach you in school is how to enjoy English! If you enjoy it more, you will pay more attention.

  INTRODUCTION

  Have you ever thought about the breadth and depth of the English language? First there are basic elements: letters, phonics, words, punctuation, sentences, and paragraphs. Then there are deeper elements: anagrams, homonyms, heteronyms, homophones, synonyms, antonyms, jargon, palindromes, dialects, acronyms, oxymorons, pleonasms, puns, slang, and many others. It is these deeper elements that provide an almost infinite spectrum of possibilities for communications and miscommunications, as well as for fun and games.

  English is a complex human creation, and it is as quirky as those of us who speak it. We expect certain structural attributes: symmetry, regularity, consistency, and logical construction of words and phrases. In general, our language delivers well on these features, but occasionally, or even frequently, quirks surface. A whirlwind tour through some counterintuitive usages illustrates this point.

  A slim chance and a fat chance mean the same thing. A wise man and a wise guy are very different. One must do something to undo what has already been done. Unto means the same as to in most usages. Quite a few means quite many. Pineapples have nothing to do with pines or apples. A house can burn up or burn down with the same outcome. Filling in forms and filling out forms produce the same results. We have noses that run and feet that smell. Many women get a permanent wave about every six weeks. We fire employees who hardly work and praise them if they work hard. We make amends but cannot make one amend. Folk and folks are both plural and mean the same thing.

  Being a word pervert, I have spent entirely too much time thinking about the following curiosities. Nonword is a word. We can discuss something and still cuss. Furious means full of fury and joyous means full of joy, but gorgeous does not mean full of gorge. A man with hair sounds much hairier than one with hairs. Why can’t we be chalant, plussed, combobulated, or gruntled? Why can’t we use oderants and perspirants? Why can we remember things when we never membered them to begin with? Of all the odds and ends in your drawer, is the largest one an odd or an end? And finally, observe that stifle is an anagram of itself.

  These peculiarities might confuse some people, but to me they represent the spectrum of opportunities for surprise and wonder that make English so powerful, puzzling, humorous, and entertaining. It is a remarkably beautiful language.

  Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era? Although this contrived question takes a little poetic license, it is an admirable creation. Try reading it backward. Such mirror-imaged letter sequences are called palindromes. Individual words can be palindromes: refer, tenet, kayak, rotator. So can contrived phrases. Here’s another: some men interpret nine memos. That is even odder!

  Even odder is a strange word couplet that introduces another aberration. English contains seemingly contradictory words that, used together, can make sense in certain contexts. For example, “These jumbo shrimp are delicious,” or “Just act naturally.” Jumbo is the opposite of shrimp, and someone who acts is clearly not being natural. These phrases are called oxymorons. (For some spellcheckers and copy editors—but not mine—the preferred plural would be oxymora.) There is not much practical use for oxymorons except to elicit a smile.

  Imagine how confusing English must be to people who are learning it as a second language. A Japanese colleague wrote me an email saying that he wants to “clothes the deal as soon as possible.” He also wrote, “My team’ll get the work done and the competition’ll have no chance of winning if my boss’ll approve my proposal.” It is easy to see how such mistakes seem logical to some writers but laughable to some readers. English is rich with such opportunities.

  English speakers understand that English is a rat’s nest of inconsistent rules. Most people who learn it as a second language find it extremely challenging compared to their native tongue. Although English may seem overly complex, from a different perspective it is a breathtakingly beautiful beast. Within its grammar rules, exceptions to rules, word forms, and styles dwells alluring beauty. Inherent in the complexities of English are tremendous opportunities for simple mistakes or plays on words that can result in both intentional and coincidental entertainment.

  Everyone has experienced hilarious typographical errors. In a presentation I gave to some U.S. Air Force generals, the word uninformed was mistakenly spelled uniformed. These uniformed officers laughed when I commented that they wouldn’t have noticed this typo because uninformed and uniformed were synonyms within the conference room where we were meeting. (The purpose of the seminar was to inform uninformed uniformed officers.)

  This anecdote is a facetious example of how a one-letter difference can alter the meaning of a word, a sentence, or a whole topic. Words that look the same or sound the same can actually have wildly different meanings. To communicate effectively, readers, writers, speakers, and listeners need to be careful about word selection, punctuation, spelling, and context.

  Of the two italicized words in the preceding paragraph, facetious is one of my favorites. (It has all five vowels in alphabetical order.) Actually is actually one of the ugliest words in our language. I can’t resist ridiculing such impotent adverbs. Actually, I hope that you actually understand how overused the word actually actually is.

  Words count. One secret to good communications is to use the right words to say things as clearly as possible. Instead of choosing the simple word, or the precise word, too many people opt for the unusual word. (Notice that unusual is self-defining. What other seven-letter words in the English language contain three us?) There are good times to use unusual words, and the best communicators make use of them when they are trying to make a point that requires a precise word. In most instances, however, the simple word results in the most clarity.

  Many people have a tendency to speak or write without being direct. They choose a mushy word with a fuzzy meaning, or they use excessive verbiage. (Verbiage sounds like two words that, crammed together, have just the right connotation: verbal garbage.) A more extreme word for roundabout communications would be circumlocution, a beautifully self-defining and unusual word. It has powerful sounds —a soft c, two hard cs, a short u, a long u, and an ml phonetic sound, all wrapped into one word. It is hard to parse the five syllables in your brain and reason through what the word means. (Therein lies the self-definition.) It is a long-winded and somewhat snobby way to say unclear, evasive, or beating around the bush. Despite being unusual, circumlocution is a precise and useful word. In the proper context, it has teeth. When you hear it, it sinks in and sits with you; it has an impact that you will remember.

  Synonyms are a powerful language element with wondrous usage and misusage patterns. Most synonyms mean roughly the same thing. You choose one over another because it more precisely captures the subtle detail you need for your context.

  Precise words used thoughtfully help you communicate more clearly. Consider three words that most people use interchangeably: moron, imbecile, and idiot. Most everyday usage suggests these three words are just synonyms for stupid. A little research reveals that moron, imbecile, and idiot are clinical definitions of intelligence, or the lack thereof. These definitions a
re considered obsolete; the words are now used mostly with derogatory connotations. Being a stupidity aficionado, I exercise these words frequently, mostly to describe my own actions. I use them not as synonyms but rather to focus my thoughts on just how stupid I was. Here are their precise definitions:

  Moron: A person with a mental age of from eight to twelve years. Generally has communications and social skills enabling some degree of academic education or vocational training.

  Imbecile: A person with a mental age of from three to seven years. Generally is capable of some degree of communications and can perform simple tasks under supervision.

  Idiot: A person with a mental age of less than three years. Generally is unable to learn connected speech or guard against common dangers.

  With this understanding, wouldn’t you use these words differently? Isn’t it moronic just how many non-morons in the world misuse the word moron?

  Then there are homonyms. Here is an example of homonyms at work to create a smile (or a groan):

  A man goes to his psychiatrist. “Doc, I keep having these alternating recurring dreams. First I’m a teepee, and then I’m a wigwam, then a teepee, then a wigwam. It’s driving me crazy. What’s wrong with me?”

  The doctor replies, “It’s simple. You are too tense.”

  Such humor is known as a pun, and puns are one of the most beautiful dimensions of our language. As I was writing this book, I read a letter to the New York Times editors that aligned well with my purpose for the book.

  To the Editor:

  “Pun for the Ages,” by Joseph Tartakovsky (OP-Ed, March 28), is an entertaining and informative review of the positive and negative aspects of wordplay, and well timed in its proximity to April Fool’s Day.

  But he doesn’t mention one relevant and important point. America is facing a crisis of escalating illiteracy. In 2007, a report by the National Endowment for the Arts concluded that students’ reading skills are stagnating or falling, and that employers routinely complain that new hires are unable to write clearly or even to comprehend what they read.