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The author of this book and the writer of this preface havenever met. Their respective fields of labor are a thousand milesapart. Yet such is the force of ideas that many of their thoughtsand sympathies are common.
Business English! The very name is an anomaly. From aliterary point of view there is no such thing. English is Englishwhether it be used to express the creations of our imagination,our aesthetic appreciations, or our daily wants. There isno magical combination of words, phrases, and sentences that ispeculiar and distinctive to business transactions. Business Englishas used in these pages means effective communication, bothoral and written. The author's aim throughout has been toteach the art of using words in such a way as to make peoplethink and act. To do this she has applied the principles of literarycomposition to the highly complex and ever increasingproblems of our business life. She realizes that business is vital,and that the problems of commerce are not to be met andhandled with dead forms and stereotyped expressions of legalblanks.
To use our language effectively it is necessary to have anunderstanding of its elements. Thus the author has very wiselydevoted much space to word-study and English grammar. Thisis a field commonly neglected in books on the subject. Thepeople engaged in business are, on the whole, woefully weak inthe grammar of our language. It is believed that the treatmentherein will be a great aid in correcting this deficiency. If wehave ideas, we must express them in words, and our wordsshould be so chosen and arranged as not to offend, but to pleaseand interest. This result can be secured by a systematic studyof Part I.[iv]
Part II deals with oral and written composition. Here theauthor has arranged her subjects in such a way as to give thewhole a cumulative effect. The method throughout is inductive,and sufficient examples are always given to warrant theconclusions drawn. Most textbooks on Business English neglectthe subject of oral English. This book regards the spoken wordas important as the written word.
If there be any one feature in this textbook more to be commendedthan another, it is the exposition in Part III. Thesituations arising in many different kinds of business are hereanalyzed. The author believes that the way to become a goodbusiness correspondent is, first, to learn what the situationdemands and, second, to practice meeting the demands. Wemust know before we write. Given a knowledge of the subject,we must have much practice in expressing ourselves in such away as to make our composition effective. The author meetsthis need by supplying many and varied exercises for practice.These exercises are live, practical, and up-to-date. The problemsto be solved are real, not imaginary. Thus the power tobe gained in meeting these situations and solving these problemswill pro