LEARNING TO WRITE ENGLISH 127
Once a reasonable fluency has been achieved by children an
enlargement of their vocabulary soon begins to show itself. Un-
fortunately, this enlargement is too much of a haphazard one in
which fresh words are used without much discrimination. Living
as they do in a world where the biggest and the largest words
seem to be at the command of salesmen and advertisers, children
are apt to get the impression that their own written language
ought to be a somewhat grander affair than their everyday
speech, so that when they take up their pens they ought to discard
simple words like go, get, give, take, see, wish, and buy and employ
such words in their place as proceed, procure, present, accept, perceive,
desire, and purchase. It is in this way that houses become residences,
tooth-pastes become dentifrices, and so on.
At the same time children fall under the influence of the
numerous school tales and adventure stories of the thriller type
which they read, with the result that they like to write about
men and women who do not walk but stalk majestically, lurch
unsteadily, or just waddle along; who do not look at you, but meet
you with a piercing gaze or a surly glare', who do not eat and drink J
their food, but guzzle or gulp it; in short, whatever they may
happen to do will usually be sensational, amazing, marvellous, or
incredible. No wonder, then, that in their early years the children
who write most vigorously fail frequently to use words -with due
discrimination.
It should be noted, too, that the unusual size of the vocabulary
of English—greater than that of French or German—is by no
means an advantage to those who have but half mastered it.
The very wealth at their disposal leads only too often to prodi-
gality in its use. Where three or four words have much the same
meaning care is not always taken to see that the one selected is
the best that might have been used. Nevertheless, It is as a rule
rather, early to insist at the lower age-levels on too careful a
choice of word in children's composition. The natural liveliness
and charm which spring from an excited interest in any subject
which has caught their attention ought to be preserved. An
attempt to root out every word wrongly used is usually made
only by those who prefer dull and correct writing to almost
everything else.
9. SUITABILITY AND PRECISION IN'THE USE OF WORDS
In view of what has just been said it must be one of the prin-
cipal tasks of the teacher of older children to lead children to
discriminate closely between quasi-synonyms. When they read,
for example, that " there he stood on the veranda placidly