Speech is great blessings but it can also be great curse, for while it helps us to make our intentions and desires known to our fellows, it can also if we use it carelessly, make our attitude completely misunderstood. A slip of the tongue, the use of unusual word, or of an ambiguous word, and so on, may create an enemy where we had hoped to win a friend. Again, different classes of people use different vocabularies, and the ordinary speech of an educated may strike an uneducated listener as pompous. Unwittingly, we may use a word which bears a different meaning to our listener from what it does to men of our own class. Thus speech is not a gift to use lightly without thought, but one which demands careful handling. Only a fool will express himself alike to all kinds and conditions to men.

---

A 'slip of the tongue' means something said