Microsoft Word alexicology doc

V. Make up a dialogue using colloquial words from your lists and 
from the extracts given in the chapter. 
a. In the first dialogue, two undergraduates are dis cussing why 
one of them has been expelled from his college. (Don't forget that 
young people use both literary and familiar colloquial words.) 
b. In the second dialogue, the parents of the dismissed student are 
wondering what to do with him. (Older people, as you remember, are 
apt to be less informal in their choice of words.) 

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CHAPTER 2 
Which Word Should We Choose, 
Formal or Informal? 
(continued) 
Formal Style 
We have already pointed out that formal style is restricted to for-
mal situations. In general, formal words fall into two main groups: 
words associated with professional communication and a less exclu-
sive group of so-called learned words. 
Learned Words 
These words are mainly associated with the printed page. It is in 
this vocabulary stratum that poetry and fiction find their main re-
sources. 
The term "learned" is not precise and does not adequately describe 
the exact characteristics of these words. A somewhat out-of-date term 
for the same category of words is "bookish", but, as E. Partridge 
notes, "'book-learned' and 'bookish' are now uncomplimentary. The 
corresponding complimentaries are 'erudite', 'learned', 'scholarly'. 
'Book-learned' and 'bookish' connote 'ignorant of life', however much 
book-learning one may possess". [30] 
The term "learned" includes several heterogeneous subdivisions of 
words. We find here numerous words that are used in scientific prose 
and can be identified by their dry, matter-of-fact flavour (e. g. com-
prise, compile, experimental, heterogeneous, homogeneous, conclu-
sive, divergent, etc.). 
To this group also belongs so-called "officialese" (cf. with the R. 
канцеляризмы). These are the words of the 
27 

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official, bureaucratic language. E. Partridge in his dictionary Usage 
and Abusage gives a list of officialese which he thinks should be 
avoided in speech and in print. Here are some words from Partridge's 
list: assist (for help), endeavour (for try), proceed (for go), approxi-
mately (for about), sufficient (for enough), attired (for dressed), in-
quire (for ask). 
In the same dictionary an official letter from a Government De-