English First
How to Not Talk Like a Christian Yuppie
by
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The Verbal Advantage Success Edition CD’s is a vocabulary building tool by Charles Harrington Elster. It used to cost $300, but now is only $140. It seems to be marketed specifically to business types who want to make a good first impression, climb the ladder of success, and hope to become executives of major corporations, but it can help anyone who wants to speak and write English with clarity, precision, and finesse.
It’s organized into 10 levels of increasing difficulty. To the educated person, the first few or even several levels may seem too easy. You’ll be tempted to say, “Oh, this is stupid. This program is for dummies. I already know most of these words.” Patience. You may know, or think you know, most of the words, but when he gives you the exact definition and pronunciation, you may occasionally be surprised. With most words, he gives you synonyms, antonyms, and other related words, so there are additional opportunities to learn new words. Finally, throughout the entire program, he gives you multiple pearls of wisdom on how to avoid common errors in pronunciation and word usage, and I think that this is the most important part for Christians.
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About the Book
Communicating the importance of proper diction for Christians, in English First, author Pan Troglodytes provides a guide for learning to talk and write like a humble Christian, in American English. Using both the Bible and the dictionary as resources, Troglodytes shows how to avoid using vogue words, jargon, redundancies, and other overly contrived, complicated, or awkward words that make people look pretentious, conceited, ignorant, and foolish.
English First provides a host of examples to help speakers and writers keep their speech and writing plain and simple. It discusses misuses and mispronunciations of words and explains their true meaning and use in American English. For example, the word heinous is pronounced “haynus,” not “heenus.” Th e word comprise means “includes, consists of, or contains”; it does not mean “makes up.” The whole comprises its parts—the parts make up or compose the whole.
In addition to coaching Christians to speak correctly and simply, English First provides an interpretation of words, phrases, and passages in the Bible that speak to today’s issues of abortion, homosexuality, and corporal punishment in child rearing.
About the Author
Pan Troglodytes is a nobody who lives nowhere and has achieved nothing of significance.