ESL Blogs

Perhaps some of your richest and most satisfying experiences have been with people to whom you can just talk, talk, talk. As you speak, previously untapped springs of ideas and emotions begin to flow; you hear yourself saying things you never thought you knew.

What kinds of people might you find yourself in conversation with? In this session we will discover the suitable vocabulary been uses for these peoples as according to their personality.

One Word Substitutions

1.      Saying little

There are some people who just don’t like to talk. Like you can feel they neither like nor to listen – they act as if conversation is a bore, even a painful waste of time. Try to engage them, and the best you may expect for your efforts is a vacant state, a noncommittal grunt, or an impatient silence. Finally, in frustration, you give up, thinking ‘Are they self-conscious? Do they hate people? Do they hate me?’

The adjective: taciturn

2.     Saying little  – meaning much

A young newspaper woman was sitting next to Calvin Coolidge (former president of the USA) at a banquet, so the story goes, and turned to him mischievously.

‘Mr. Coolidge,’ she said,’ she said, ‘I have a bet with my editor that I can get you to say more than two words to me this evening.’

‘You lose’, Coolidge re-joined simply.

The adjective: laconic

3.     When the words won’t come

Under the pressure of some strong emotion – fear, rage, anger for example, - people may find it difficult, or even impossible, to utter words, to get their feelings, un-jumbled and untangled enough to form understandable sentences. They undoubtedly have a lot the want to say, but the best they can do is splutter!

The adjective: inarticulate

4.     Much talk, little sense

Miss Bates, a character in the novel Emma, by Jane Austen:

‘So obliging of you! No, we should not have heart, if it had not been for this particular circumstance, of her being able to come here so soon. My mother is so delighted. For she is to be three months with us at least, three months, she say so, positively, as I am going to have the pleasure of reading to you………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………, but we shall see presently in Jane’s letter…..’

The adjective: garrulous

5.     Unoriginal

Some people are completely lacking in originality and imagination – and their talk shows it. Everything they say is little, hackneyed, commonplace, humourless – their speech patterns are full of clichés and stereotypes, their phraseology is without sparkle.

The adjective: banal

6.     Words, words, words!

They talk and talk and talk – it’s not so much the quantity you object to as the repetitiousness. They phrase, rephrase, and re-rephrase their thoughts – using far more words than necessary, overwhelming you with words, drowning you with them, until your only thought is how to escape, or maybe how to die.

The adjective: verbose

7.     Words in quick succession

They are rapid, fluent talkers, the words seeming to roll of their tongues with such ease and lack of efforts, and sometimes with such copiousness, that you listen with amazement.

The adjective: voluble

8.     Words that convince

They express their ideas persuasively, forcefully, brilliantly, and in a way that calls for wholehearted assent and agreement from an intelligent listener.

The adjective: cogent

9.     The sound and the fury

Their talk is loud, noisy, clamorous, and vehement. What may be lacking is content is compensated for in force and loudness.

The adjective: vociferous

10. Quantity

They talk a great deal – a very great deal. They may be voluble, vociferous, garrulous, verbose, but never inarticulate, taciturn, or laconic. No matter. It’s the quantity and continuity that are most conspicuous.

The adjective: loquacious

PS: I followed a vocabulary book "Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis". It's taken from there.

Find your way of speech habits and comment it. :)