Home » Languages » English (Sr. Secondary) » English Essay on “Get into the Habit of Looking Intensely at Words” complete Paragraph and Speech for School, College Students, essay for Class 8, 9, 10, 12 and Graduation Classes.

English Essay on “Get into the Habit of Looking Intensely at Words” complete Paragraph and Speech for School, College Students, essay for Class 8, 9, 10, 12 and Graduation Classes.

Get into the Habit of Looking Intensely at Words

Words are so common that we do not connect them with romance. Yet a little thought will show us how wonderful they are. Words are the tools of thought. This is true in two senses. First, we think in words. It was only when man learnt to talk that he learnt to think; and we cannot do any connected thinking without words. Secondly, it is by means of words that we convey our thoughts to others. What happens when I speak to you? I mentally put what I want to say into words. As I do this, my speech organs set up certain vibrations in the air and these strike upon your ears. Your ears at once convert these into sounds, which your brain at the same moment translates into meanings or thoughts. In this wonderful way the thoughts in my mind become corresponding thoughts in your mind.

What are words? A word is primarily a sound. The spoken word existed for ages before the invention of writing; and even now, there are millions in the world who can neither read nor write, and to whom, therefore, words are only sounds. The written or printed word is only a symbol to the eye of the spoken word heard by the ear. The invention of writing (and later of printing) enlarged the range of spoken words in space, and preserved them in time. The spoken word can reach only as far as a man’s voice can carry; but the written word can go round the world. The spoken word dies as soon as it is spoken; but the written word remains for future generations to read. For all this, the word proper is the spoken word—a sound that stands for a thought. Even when we read silently, we mentally hear the words we read, as sounds.

Many words suggest more than they literally, mean. They are metaphors and similes. We talk about seeing an idea, grasping an argument, bowing to a ruling, weighing a decision, pocketing an insult, facing a difficulty. Think, too, of the associations called up by the word “home”. It means to us far more than its mere dictionary definition. It calls up happy childhood days, pictures of our family life, the love of father and mother, brothers and sisters, and of faces, we have loved and lost. And some words bring with them the flavour of old romance, like knight, giant, magic, chivalry, hermit, steed, hound, tournament.

Words often have, besides sound and sense, suggestion due to associations gathered round them by time. Words are worth studying – “looking at intensely”; for by means of these wonderful little sounds, we can communicate thought, kindle the imagination, and stir the emotions.

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