Chapter 2 - page 18
engulfs
"It engulfs all whose lives touch the sufferer's."
1
Big Book - There Is A Solution - page 18
In this sentence the word engulfs functions as a verb. 2
It swallows up all whose lives touch the sufferer's.
Definitions from Webster's 1930 edition. 3
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Chapter 2 - the following sentence spans pages 18 and 19
deportment, prospect, Holier Than Thou, effective
"That the man who is making the approach has had the same difficulty, that he obviously knows what he is talking about, that his whole
deportment shouts at the new prospect that he is a man with a real answer, that he has no attitude of Holier Than Thou,
nothing whatever except the sincere desire to be helpful; that there are no fees to pay, no axes to grind, no people to please, no lectures
to be endured-- are the conditions we have found most effective."
1
Big Book - There Is A Solution - spans pages 18 - 19
In this sentence the words deportment, prospect and functions as a noun. The word effective functions as an adjective. While "holier-than-thou" is typically an adjective used to describe a self-righteous person, it functions here as a noun representing a specific state of mind or behavior. 2
Deportment describes the way someone behaves.
A new prospect in this context is a person or candidate that is regarded as likely to succeed.
The phrase 'Holier Than Thou' comes from the King James Bible, specifically Isaiah 65:5. Today, people use it to describe someone who behaves as if they believe they are morally better than others.
Bill found that the most successful way to work with an alcoholic was to approach the person with a genuine desire to help, without imposing any hidden requirements or expectations.
Definitions from Webster's 1930 edition. 3
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Footnotes for page 18
1Quotes from the Big Book on listed on this page are from the public domain version, in the United States, of the 2nd edition of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Accessible at 12step.org
2Sentence diagramming, to determine the word usage within the sentence, was performed by CoreNLP at corenlp.run.
3Definitions used are from the Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language 1930 Edition. Access to this dictionary online is at Hathitrust.org