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21

y one of several good interpretations that might be chosen.

Knowing the price we must pay, the sacrifice we must make, the burdens we must carry, the assaults we must endure--knowing full well the cost--yet we enlist, and we enlist for the war. For we know the justice of our cause, and we know, too, its certain triumph.

--From "Pass Prosperity Around," by ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE, before the Chicago National Convention of the Progressive Party.

Strongly emphasizing a single word has a tendency to suggest its antithesis. Notice how the meaning changes by merely putting the emphasis on different words in the following sentence. The parenthetical expressions would really not be needed to supplement the emphatic words.

I intended to buy a house this Spring (even if you did not).

I INTENDED to buy a house this Spring (but something prevented).

I intended to BUY a house this Spring (instead of renting as heretofore).

I intended to buy a HOUSE this Spring (and not an automobile).

I intended to buy a house THIS Spring (instead of next Spring).

I intended to buy a house this SPRING (instead of in the Autumn).

When a great battle is reported in the papers, they do not keep emphasizing the same facts over and over again. They try to get new information, or a "new slant." The news that takes an important place in the morning edition will be relegated to a small space in the late afternoon edition. We are interested in new ideas and new facts. This principle has a very important bearing in determining your emphasis. Do not emphasize the same idea over and over again unless you desire to lay extra stress on it; Senator Thurston desired to put the maximum amount of emphasis on "force" in his speech on page 50. Note how force is emphasized repeatedly. As a general rule, however, the new idea, the "new slant," whether in a newspaper report of a battle or a speaker's enunciation of his i

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