Q2 of 10 Page 180

The lecture was delivered in 1864. What are the shifts in style and diction that make the language different from the way it is used today?

The shifts in style and diction are very evident in the text. Certain words like ‘assuredly’ is less used and words like ‘most distant’ are now incorrect because it has become ‘most distant’. Certain phrases like ‘peerage of words’ or national noblesse of words’ is no more used because aristocracy or nobility hardly exist anymore. Certain formations of sentences are also different like ‘no one has yet said it’ as opposed to how it is said today- ‘no one has said it yet’.


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Discuss in pairs

Choice of diction is very crucial to the communication of meaning.

 1

The text is an excerpt from Sesame and Lilies which consists of two essays, primarily, written for delivery as public lectures in 1864. Identify the features that fit the speech mode. Notice the sentence patterns.

 1

Many sentences and paragraphs in the excerpt begin with the word ‘And’. To what extent does this contribute to the rhetorical style of the lecture?

 2

Study each of the following sentences and notice the balance between its parts. Pick out other sentences in the text that reflect this kind of balance

a. It is right that a false Latin quantity should excite a smile in the House of Commons; but it is wrong that a false English meaning should not excite a frown there.


b. Let the accent of words be watched, by all means, but let the meaning be watched more closely still, and fewer will do the work.