The most powerful and the most perfect expression of thought and feeling through the medium of oral language must be traced to the mastery of words.
Nothing is better suited to lead speakers and readers of English into an easy control of this language than the command of the phrase that perfectly expresses the thought.
Every speakers aim is to be heard and understood. A clear, crisp articulation holds an audience as by the spell of some irresistible power.
The choice word, the correct phrase, are instruments that may reach the heart, and awake the soul if they fall upon the ear in melodious cadence; but if the utterance be harsh and discordant they fail to interest, fall upon deaf ears, and are as barren as seed sown on fallow ground.
In language, nothing conduces so emphatically to the harmony of sounds as perfect phrasing—that is, the emphasizing of the relation of clause to clause, and of sentence to sentence by the systematic grouping of words.
The phrase consists usually of a few words which denote a single idea that forms a separate part of a sentence.
The study of words, phrases, and literary expressions is a highly interesting pursuit. There is a reciprocal influence between thought and language. What we think molds the words we use, and the words we use react upon our thoughts. Hence a study of words is a study of ideas, and a stimulant to deep and original thinking.