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You should not forget that one word can represent several 1 1 0 HOW TO READ A BOOK

terms. One way to remember this is to distinguish between the author's vocabulary and his terminology. If you make a list in one column of the important words, and in another of their important meanings, you will see the relation between the vocabulary and the terminology.

There are several further complications. In the first place, a word that has several distinct meanings can be used either in a single sense or in a combination of senses. Let us take the word "reading" again as an example. In some places, we have used it to stand for reading any kind of book. In others, we have used it to stand for reading books that instruct rather than entertain. In still others, we have used it to stand for reading that enlightens rather than informs.

Now if we symbolize here, as we did before, these three distinct meanings of "reading" by Xa, Xb, and Xc, then the first usage just mentioned is Xabc, the second is Xbc, and the third Xc. In other words, if several meanings are related, one can use a word to stand for all of them, for some of them, or for only one of them at a time. So long as each usage is definite, the word so used is a term.

In the second place, there is the problem of synonyms.

The repetition of a single word over and over is awkward and boring, except in mathematical writing, and so good authors often substitute different words having the same or very similar meanings for important words in their text. This is just the opposite of the situation where one word can stand for several terms; here, one and the same term is represented by two or more words used synonymously.

We can express this symbolically as follows. Let X and Y

be two diferent words, such as "enlightenment" and "insight."

Let the letter a stand for the same meaning that each can express, namely, a gain in understanding. Then Xa and Ya represent the same term, though they ate distinct as words.

When we speak of reading "for insight" and reading "for

"enlightenment," we are referring to the same kind of reading, because the two phrases are being used with the same mean-Coming to Terms With an Author 1 1 1

ing. The words are diHerent, but there is only one term for you as a reader to grasp.

This is important, of course. If you supposed that every time an author changed his words, he was shifting his terms, you would make as great an error as to suppose that every time he used the same words, the terms remained the same.

Keep this in mind when you list the author's vocabulary and terminology in separate columns. You will find two relationships. On the one hand, a single word may be related to several terms. On the other hand, a single term may be related to several words.

In the third place, and finally, there is the matter of phrases. If a phrase is a unit, that is, if it is a whole that can be the subject or predicate of a sentence, it is like a single word.

Like a single word, it can refer to something being talked about in some way.

It follows, therefore, that a term can be expressed by a phrase as well as by a word. And all the relations that exist between words and terms hold also between terms and phrases.

Two phrases may express the same term, and one phrase may express several terms, according to the way its constituent words are used.

In general, a phrase is less likely to be ambiguous than a word. Because it is a group of words, each of which is in the context of the others, the single words are more likely to have restricted meanings. That is why a writer is likely to substitute a fairly elaborate phrase for a single word if he wants to be sure that you get his meaning.

One illustration should suffice. To be sure that you come to terms with us about reading, we substitute phrases like

"reading for enlightenment" for the single word "reading." To make doubly sure, we may substitute a more elaborate phrase, such as "the process of passing from understanding less to understanding more by the operation of your