15,000 Useful Phrases

All you need to speak and write beautifully

I found this 1917 book by Grenville Kleiser called Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases. I didn’t count them all, and 15,000 sounds high, but there are a lot of phrases in the book.

Speaking beautifully is something we all wish we could do, and admire in others when we hear it.

“The choice word, the correct phrase, are instruments that may reach the heart, and awake the soul if they fall upon the ear in melodious cadence; but if the utterance be harsh and discordant they fail to interest, fall upon deaf ears, and are as barren as seed sown on fallow ground.”

Kleiser seems to have pulled many, if not all, from literature and poetry, like an OG large language model.

You’ll see lower down that I built my own short paragraph using only expressions from the book. It was remarkably fun and I highly recommend you give it a shot.

The list

The book starts off in the shallow end, naturally, with pairs of words that sound nice and are expressive:

bubbling frivolities

dreary disrelish

essential prerequisite

eviscerating shrieks

hypnotic fascination

illustrative anecdote

impalpable nothingness

Then he continues with pairs, but this time connected by “and”:

absolute and eternal

chaos and confusion

first and foremost

moody and brooding

pomp and pageantry

Then, you guessed it, three words in a series:

awe, reverence, and adoration

beautiful, graceful, and accomplished

formless, silent, and awful

great, grand, and mighty

greed, lust, and cruelty

worthless, broken, and defeated

poor, miserable, and helpless

pure, honorable, and just

lucid, lively, and effective

majesty, beauty, and truth

Next, he gives us four word serials, testing the patience of editor, no doubt:

quiet, peaceful, sane, and normal

shameless, corrupt, depraved, and vicious

Next he goes through various prepositional phrases with “of,” “into,” etc.:

There are so many good ones here:

accumulation of ages

atmosphere of obscurity

bloom of earth

burst of confidence

elasticity of mind

fickleness of fortune

forest of faces

gust of laughter

hue of divinity

poise of mind

unity of purpose

dissolve into nothingness

elevated into importance

ripened into love

summoned into being

vanish into mystery

He has some business phrases that sound like antiquated emails:

As explained in our previous letter

As we have received no response from you

Kindly let us have your confirmation at your earliest convenience

Our letter must have gone astray

Finally, the grand finale.

Literary expressions. Here are some of my favorites:

A blazing blue sky poured down torrents of light

A book to beguile the tedious hours

An eternity of silence oppressed him

Floating in the clouds of reverie

He could detect the hollow ring of fundamental nothingness

He felt the ironic rebound of her words

She softened her frown to a quivering smile

The crowning touch of pathos

The days when you dared to dream

Voices that charm the ear and echo with a subtle resonance in the soul

Wearing the white flower of a blameless life

When a pleasant countryside tunes the spirit to a serene harmony of mood

Yielding to a wave of pity

Forming my own paragraph from these expressions

I tried writing something using only expressions from the book. It was surprisingly fun. Here it is:

I am at a loss for adequate terms. An awe crept over me. Irrational awe. I am confronted by the hope, a sudden and stinging delight. Lovely beyond all words, like echoes from an antenatal dream.

I would love to hear what you can make with these! Here is the full list of expressions. Reply to this email or leave a comment, and I may share it on the next email.

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Poem of the week

A Complaint

By William Wordsworth

There is a change—and I am poor;

Your love hath been, nor long ago,

A fountain at my fond heart's door,

Whose only business was to flow;

And flow it did; not taking heed

Of its own bounty, or my need.

What happy moments did I count!

Blest was I then all bliss above!

Now, for that consecrated fount

Of murmuring, sparkling, living love,

What have I? shall I dare to tell?

A comfortless and hidden well.

A well of love—it may be deep—

I trust it is,—and never dry:

What matter? if the waters sleep

In silence and obscurity.

—Such change, and at the very door

Of my fond heart, hath made me poor.