Introduction
Addressing students at the Royal College of Music in January 1918, Sir Hubert Parry distinguished two kinds of mistake, the mistakes we make when we seize our responsibilities as free men and women a little clumsily, and the mistakes we make when we lazily follow whatever the fashionable thinking may be.
MOST of us are capable of being idiots at times. You will remember the familiar saying that “people who do not make mistakes do not make anything.” You cannot have personal initiative without risk of making mistakes and you cannot get things done without personal initiative. One has to put up with the liability of personal initiative to induce a man to behave like an idiot, because one cannot get on without it. One forgives the mistakes for the sake of the keenness and pluck and independence which are such valuable qualities.
But then again, on the other hand, there are a terrible lot of mistakes which are not the result of initiative or independence but very much the reverse. They are rather the effect of lack of it, and of that unfortunate herding instinct of the race which makes people take their cues from one another, and lean up against one another, and do stupid things because so many other stupid people do them.
Abridged
Archive
Word Games
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Keen. Make. Mistake.
2 Herd. Person. Remember.
3 Initiative. Quality. Their.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Homophones Find in Think and Speak
In each group below, you will find words that sound the same, but differ in spelling and also in meaning. Compose your own sentences to bring out the differences between them.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
Subject and Object Find in Think and Speak
Use each word below in two sentences, first as the subject of a verb, and then as the object of a verb. It doesn’t have to be the same verb: some verbs can’t be paired with an object (e.g. arrive, happen), so watch out for these.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1. Mistake. 2. People. 3. Risk. 4. Race. 5. Time. 6. Hand. 7. Make. 8. Person. 9. Effect.
Variations: 1.use your noun in the plural (e.g. cat → cats), if possible. 2.give one of your sentences a future aspect (e.g. will, going to). 3.write sentences using negatives such as not, neither, nobody and never.
High Tiles Find in Think and Speak
Make words (three letters or more) from the seven letters showing below, using any letter once only. Each letter carries a score. What is the highest-scoring word you can make?
Your Words ()
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