214 



Mil STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



Through the mill. Said of one who has learned 

 \perience. 



Thunder. He has stolen my thunder; he has 

 stolen my good thong: 



Tough, A loafer. 



Trust. A combination of manufacturers or 

 dealers made to send prices up. 



ifhtd. the great The lower classes of 

 society. 



Upper crust. The higher classes of society. 



Used up. Tired out. beaten. 



Velvet. The other thousand dollars is vrlvet 

 [clear gain]. 



Wad. A roll of mo: 



Walking paper*. He was given his walking 

 papers [was discharged]. 



Warpath. On the. Ready to fight. 



Water. To water .-toek is to increase the stock 

 without receiving any value for it. 



Wears the breeches. Is said of a woman who 

 the man's place in the home. 



Weather eye. A cautious eye. 



Wherewithal. He has not the wherewithal [the 



Whipper-snapper. An insignificant person. 

 Whittle. Clean as a whistle, cleverly. 

 Whopper. A big lie. 



puller. A politician who makes plans 

 to cany "jobs" through the legislature. 



LETTER WRITING 



It would be foolish to waste time on the im- 

 portance of letter writing. It is the one form of 

 composition that appeals to every one. You 

 may never be called upon to write an essay or 

 a novel or a page of history, but you will often 

 have occasion to write a letter. To be able to 

 write a letter correctly and attractively is an 

 art worth cultivating. It increases one's per- 

 sonality and popularity. Put yourself into a 

 letter and you command those who are at a dis- 

 tance from you. In no art does individuality 

 count for more, yet, as in all arts, the letter 

 writer must conform to a few general principles 

 which have been laid down for those who would 

 write well. 



Materials. A careful letter writer gives 

 attention to the minutest details, the sum total 

 of which makes up a good letter. The first con- 

 sideration is the size and quality of the stationery 

 to be used. White or cream-colored paper, or 

 paper of a light blue tint, may be used for both 

 business and social correspondence. Let it be 

 of good quality, and always have the envelopes 

 to match. Business paper should have a simple, 

 neat heading: if pooihle, one that will contain 

 an advertisement that may bring in an inquiry, 

 if not an order. Unruled paper is always pre- 

 ferred for all forms of correspondence. The 

 ordinary size of paper for business purposes is 

 about 8i inches by 1 1 inches, or about 6 inches 

 by 9 inches. Both sizes may be used with a 

 number 6$ envelope. For notes and short let- 

 ters, 6 by 10 is a suitable size, and for invita- 

 tions, acceptances, and regrets, 5$ by 8. This 

 is not an arbitrary matter, but, in general, 

 adapt the size of the paper to the length of the 

 communication. Two-page paper is preferred 

 for business, and four-page paper for social 

 letters. 



Pale ink and illegible writing are inexcusable, 

 so care should be taken to provide good black 

 ink or blue copying ink that turns black with 

 age and a pen that suits the writer. 



The Form of a Letter. Convenience 

 and custom have prescribed a certain definite- 

 ness of form in the arrangement of a letter. It 

 must consist of the following parts, (1) heading, 

 (2) address, (3) salutation, (4) body, (5) compli- 

 mentary close, (6) signature. 



The Heading. This contains the address 

 of the person written to and the date of the letter. 

 For convenience of reference the address is 

 usually placed in full in the upper right hand 

 corner of the first page and the date written 

 after it either on the same line or the next line 

 below. 



Examples showing the proper method of spac- 

 ing, and the proper punctuation of the heading : 



POUGHKKEPSIE, N. Y., July 1, 1908. 



123 PALL MALL, LONDON, ENG., 

 Sept. 4, 1908. 



The Address. In business correspond- 

 ence the address of the person to whom the 

 letter is sent should be written on the line below 

 the date and well to the left of the page. In 

 informal letters it may be omitted altogether. 

 Some prefer to place the address of the writer 

 or of the person written to after the signature, 

 but it is usually considered more convenient to 

 have them both precede the body of the letter. 

 As in the heading, the address should be written 

 with every necessary detail, including place of 

 residence, street, and number. In the simplifi- 

 cation of capitals the word street or place or 

 avenue may or may not be begun with a capital. 

 This is left to the choice of the writer as custom 

 is not uniform. 



The Salutation. The form of the salu- 

 tation depends upon the relation of the writer 

 to the recipient of the letter. Custom permits 

 a variety of forms even in letters addressed to 

 strangers. Appropriate salutations for formal 

 letters : 



My dear Sir, or Dear Sir: 



My dear Madam, or Dear Madam: 



Gentlemen, or Dear Sirs: 



Most formal of all are Sir or Honorable Sir or 

 His Excellency, addressed to persons in high 

 position. The President of the United States 

 is addressed without any complimentary siiluta- 

 tion. His high office does not require it, though 

 foreign rulers are usually addressed with very 

 elaborate phrases. 



My dear Mr. Jones, or My dear Miss Jones, are 

 proper terms of address between entire strangers, 

 as they are understood to signify respect rather 

 than affection. My dear Mr. Snow is regarded 

 as a rather more formal address than Dear Mr. 

 Snow, though curiously enough if one were 

 writing in England just the opposite would be 

 true. There the pronoun "my" signifies a 

 greater degree of intimacy. These are arbitrary 

 matters, but it is well to note the customs of 

 the place where one is writing. 



It was formerly the custom to begin each 

 word of the salutation with a capital, but now 



