Think and Speak

Exercises in oral and written expression, based on old school textbooks

April 30 ns April 17 os

These mental agility puzzles are similar to those NL Clay gave to pupils aged 12-13 between the Wars. They are not tick-box interrogations, but invitations to free, clear and creative thinking using your own ideas, observations and imagination. Think and Speak (1929) was Clay’s first book.

In Think and Speak

★

Featured

By John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

Pen Portraits

Develop your vocabulary and exercise your imagination by conjuring up a mermaid on the shore, or a train waiting at the station.

Read

Metaphors

Choose one of these words and use it metaphorically, not literally.

Read

Tag Questions

Complete each of these statements with a little request for confirmation.

Read

Impossible Adjectives

Find a way of saying something can’t be measured, admitted, or changed — in just one word.

Read

By Neoclassicism Enthusiast, Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Fragments

Say whether these short utterances make whole sentences or not; and if they don’t, add whatever is necessary.

Read

Sentegrams

These sentences, taken from English literature, have been jumbled up like an anagram; see if you can piece them back together.

Read

Apple of My Eye

See if you can imagine an appropriate situation for these phrases, all taken from the English Bible published in 1611 and all still used in everyday speech.

Read

❰

1 2 3 4 5 6

❱