第7章 Words Can Make You Great词汇能使你卓越不凡(1)

Wilfred Funk and Norman Lewis

心灵寄语

朋友们，你们是否考虑过你的上级之所以是上级，而你之所以是员工的原因呢？那么请仔细阅读以下这篇文章吧！你会发现，原来秘密在这里！

Your boss has a bigger vocabulary than you have.

That"s one good reason why he"s your boss.

This discovery has been made in the word laboratories of the world. Not by theoretical English professors， but by practical，hard-headed scholars who have been searching for the secrets of success.

After a host of experiments and years of testing they have found out：

That if your vocabulary is limited， your chances of success are limited. That one of the easiest and quickest ways to get ahead is by consciously building up your knowledge of words. That the vocabulary of the average person almost stops growing by the middle twenties.

And that from then on it is necessary to have an intelligent plan if progress is to be made. No haphazard1 hit-or-miss methods will do.

It has long since been satisfactorily established that a high executive does not have a large vocabulary merely because of the opportunities of his position. That would be putting the cart before the horse. Quite the reverse is true. His skill in words was a tremendous help in getting him his job.

Dr. Johnson O Connor of the Human Engineering Laboratory of Boston and of the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken， New Jersey， gave a vocabulary test to 100 young men who were studying to be industrial executives.

Five years later those who had passed in the upper ten percent all， without exception， had executive positions， while not a single young man of the lower twenty-five percent had become an executive.

You see， there are certain factors in success that can be measured as scientifically as the contents of a test-tube， and it has been discovered that the most common characteristic of outstanding success is“an extensive knowledge of the exact meaning of English words”.

The extent of your vocabulary indicates the degree of your intelligence. Your brain power will increase as you learn to know more words.

It has been found by Professor Lewis M. Terman of Stanford University that a vocabulary test is as accurate a measure of intelligence as any three units of the standard and accepted Stanford-Binet I. Q. tests.

The study of words is not merely something that has to do with literature. Words are your tools of thought. You can"t even think at all without them.

Without words you could make no decisions and form no judgments whatsoever2. A pianist may have the most beautiful tunes in his head， but if he had only five keys on his piano he would never get more than a fraction3 of these tunes out.

Your words are your keys for your thoughts. And the more words you have at your command the deeper， clearer and more accurate will be your thinking.

A command of English words will not only improve the processes of your mind. It will give you assurance；build your self-confidence；lend color to your personality；increase your popularity. Your words are your personality.