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. N othing 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 speaker's aim is to be heard and understood. A clear, crisp articula tion holds an audience as by the spell Of some irresistible power. The choice word, the correct phrase, are instru ments that may reach the heart, and awake the soul if they fall upon the car 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 har mony of sounds as perfect phrasing — that is, the empha sizing oi 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. In this respect it differs from the clause, which is a short sentence that forms a distinct part of a composition, para graph, or discourse. Correct phrasing is regulated by rests.
