6. Give an account of one day's effort to improve your own conversation.
7. Give a list of subjects you heard discussed during any recent period you may select.
8. What is meant by "elastic touch" in conversation?
9. Make a list of "Bromides," as Gellett Burgess calls those threadbare expressions which "bore us to extinction"--itself a Bromide.
10. What causes a phrase to become hackneyed?
11. Define the words, (a) trite; (b) solecism; (c) colloquialism; (d) slang; (e) vulgarism; (f) neologism.
12. What constitutes pretentious talk?
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
FIFTY QUESTIONS FOR DEBATE
1. Has Labor Unionism justified its existence?
2. Should all church printing be brought out under the Union Label?
3. Is the Open Shop a benefit to the community?
4. Should arbitration of industrial disputes be made compulsory?
5. Is Profit-Sharing a solution of the wage problem?
6. Is a minimum wage law desirable?
7. Should the eight-hour day be made universal in America?
8. Should the state compensate those who sustain irreparable business loss because of the enactment of laws prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks?
9. Should public utilities be owned by the municipality?
10. Should marginal trading in stocks be prohibited?
11. Should the national government establish a compulsory system of old-age insurance by taxing the incomes of those to be benefited?
12. Would the triumph of socialistic principles result in deadening personal ambition?
13. Is the Presidential System a better form of government for the United States than the Parliamental System?
14. Should our legislation be shaped toward the gradual abandonment of the protective tariff?
15. Should the government of the larger cities be vested solely in a commission of not more than nine men elected by the voters at large?
16. Should national banks be permitted to issue, subject to tax and government supervision, notes based on their general assets?
17. Should woman be given the ballot on the present basis of suffrage for men?
18. Should the present basis of suffrage be restricted?
19. Is the hope of permanent world-peace a delusion?
20. Should the United States send a diplomatic representative to the Vatican?
21. Should the Powers of the world substitute an international police for national standing armies?
22. Should the United States maintain the Monroe Doctrine?
23. Should the Recall of Judges be adopted?
24. Should the Initiative and Referendum be adopted as a national principle?
25. Is it desirable that the national government should own all railroads operating in interstate territory?
26. Is it desirable that the national government should own interstate telegraph and telephone systems?
27. Is the national prohibition of the liquor traffic an economic necessity?
28. Should the United States army and navy be greatly strengthened?
29. Should the same standards of altruism obtain in the relations of nations as in those of individuals?
30. Should our government be more highly centralized?
31. Should the United States continue its policy of opposing the combination of railroads?
32. In case of personal injury to a workman arising out of his employment, should his employer be liable for adequate compensation and be forbidden to set up as a defence a plea of contributory negligence on the part of the workman, or the negligence of a fellow workman?
33. Should all corporations doing an interstate business be required to take out a Federal license?
34. Should the amount of property that can be transferred by inheritance be limited by law?
35. Should equal compensation for equal labor, between women and men, universally prevail?
