Plain English. Marian Wharton
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Exercise 4
Underscore the nouns in the following:
How many abstract nouns?
How many concrete?
How many singular?
How many plural?
If fifty men did all the work
And gave the price to five;
And let those five make all the rules—
You'd say the fifty men were fools,
Unfit to be alive.
And if you heard complaining cries
From fifty brawny men,
Blaming the five for graft and greed,
Injustice, cruelty indeed—
What would you call them then?
Not by their own superior force
Do five on fifty live,
But by election and assent—
And privilege of government—
Powers that the fifty give.
If fifty men are really fools—
And five have all the brains—
The five must rule as now we find;
But if the fifty have the mind—
Why don't they take the reins?
Exercise 5
Select all the nouns in the following. Write their singular, plural and possessive forms. Decide whether they are abstract or concrete, common or proper or collective, masculine, feminine or neuter.
Brother!
Whoever you are, wherever you are on all the earth, I greet you.
I extend to you my right hand.
I make you a pledge.
Here is my pledge to you:—
I refuse to kill your father. I refuse to slay your mother's son. I refuse to plunge a bayonet into the breast of your sister's brother. I refuse to slaughter your sweetheart's lover. I refuse to murder your wife's husband. I refuse to butcher your little child's father. I refuse to wet the earth with blood and blind kind eyes with tears. I refuse to assassinate you and then hide my stained fists in the folds of any flag.
Will you thus pledge me and pledge all the members of our working class?—Kirkpatrick.
SPELLING
LESSON 4
Some of our consonants also have more than one sound. We have also certain combinations of consonants which represent one sound. This combination of two letters to represent one sound is called a digraph, as gh, in cough, ch in church. A digraph may either be a combination of two consonants or of two vowels or of a vowel and a consonant. The following table contains the consonants which have more than one sound:
c—k as in cat
c—s as in vice
g—j as in ginger
g—hard as in go
s—sh as in sure
s—zh as in usual
s—soft as in also
s—z as in does
x—soft as in extra
x—gz as in exist
The following table gives the digraphs most commonly used:
ng—as in ring, tongue
ch—as in church and much
ch—k as in chasm
ch—sh as in chagrin
th—as in then, those
th—as in thin and worth
ce—sh as in ocean
ci—sh as in special
dg—j as in edge
gh—f as in rough
ph—f as in sylph
qu—kw as in quart
qu—k as in conquer
sh—as in shall
si—sh as in tension
si—zh as in vision
ti—sh as in motion
The use of these digraphs gives us a number of additional sounds. Notice the use of the consonants which have more than one sound and also the digraphs in the spelling lesson for the week. Mark the consonants and digraphs.
Monday
Commence
Certain
General
Gradual
Sugar
Tuesday
Soldier
Season
Pleasure
Exact
Exercise
Wednesday
Singular
Chemistry
Chapter
Machine
Changing
Thursday
Theory
Thither
Ocean
Racial
Budget
Friday
Philosophy
Enough
Quorum
Bouquet
Phonetic
Saturday
Permission
Asia
Attention
Marshall
Martial
PLAIN ENGLISH
LESSON 5
Dear Comrade:
We want to say just a word about the lesson assignment. This has been arranged on a schedule of days merely to assist you in systematizing your time and making the most of the leisure at your disposal. It is not intended that you should slavishly follow it. We thoroughly believe in individuality and all that contributes toward its development. But we are also confident that many foolish things are done in the name of liberty. Whenever we set ourselves to the performance of any task we necessarily limit our activities in some other direction. Power comes by concentration of force. Whenever we combine with others for the accomplishment of any purpose, it becomes necessary to have some plan of action and we give and take for the end which we have in view. The musician because he follows the law of harmony in music has not given up his liberty. He has only found a new freedom which enables him to make glorious music where only discord reigned before. System in our work does not mean loss of liberty or of individuality but only finding a channel through which individuality can flow into the great ocean of real freedom.
So