Plain English. Marian Wharton
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Note that the only change in the verb form in the present ACTIVE is the s-form for the third person singular. In the present passive the only change is the special form of the verb be for the first and third persons, singular.
When we want to tell what occurred yesterday or some time in the past, stated in the active and passive form, we say:
We have one other division of time which we must express—the future. Primitive man doubtless lived principally in the present, but with the development of memory and the means of recording events by a written language, he was able to make the deeds and achievements of the past a vital part of his life. But not until the faculty of thinking developed was the mind able to project itself into the future and make tomorrow the hope of today. Future time expresses hope, desire, growth.
Then you remember we had to devise a way of describing an action perfected or completed at the present or at some time in the past or at some time in the future—so we have present perfect, past perfect and future perfect.
146. But these are not all the phases of time which we can express. We have progressive, continuous action. So each of these six time forms has a progressive form.
Only the Present and Past Progressive forms have a passive form. The rest of the Progressive forms are expressed in the active forms only.
Exercise 3
Write the four following sentences in their active and passive forms, as the sentence, War sweeps the earth, is written.
1. Education gives power.
2. Knowledge frees men.
3. Labor unions help the workers.
4. The people seek justice.
Exercise 4
Underscore all the verbs and verb phrases in the following quotation. Write all the time forms of the transitive verb, lose, as the time forms of the verb see are written in the foregoing table.
When we study the animal world and try to explain to ourselves that struggle for existence which is maintained by each living being against adverse circumstances and against its enemies, we realize that the more the principles of solidarity and equality are developed in an animal society, and have become habitual to it, the more chance it has of surviving and coming triumphantly out of the struggle against hardships and foes. The more thoroughly each member of the society feels his solidarity with each other member of the society, the more completely are developed in all of them those two qualities which are the main factors of all progress; courage, on the one hand, and, on the other, free individual initiative. And, on the contrary, the more any animal society, or little group of animals, loses this feeling of solidarity—which may chance as the result of exceptional scarcity or else of exceptional plenty—the more the two other factors of progress, courage and individual initiative, diminish; in the end they disappear, and the society falls into decay and sinks before its foes. Without mutual confidence no struggle is possible; there is no courage, no initiative, no solidarity—and no victory!—Kropotkin.
SPELLING
LESSON 8
In pronouncing words of more than one syllable we always lay a little greater stress upon one syllable of the word; that is, that syllable receives the emphasis of the voice so as to make it more prominent than the other syllables. This is called accent, and the syllable which receives the special stress is called the accented syllable.
Accent is the stress of the voice upon one syllable of the word.
You will notice when you look up the pronunciation of words in your dictionary that a little mark called the accent mark is placed after the accented syllable, as for example: di-vide'.
Many words differ in meaning according to which syllable receives the accent. Our spelling lesson for this week contains a number of these words.
These words, when accented on the first syllable, are nouns; when accented on the second syllable, they are verbs.
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
PLAIN ENGLISH
LESSON 9
Dear Comrade:
You have been studying several weeks now in this Plain English Course and we trust you are enjoying the unfolding of the powers of expression. We have been necessarily studying rules to some extent but you have seen how these grew out of the need for expression. We have been breaking the sentence up into its different parts. First we had the names of things and now we are studying the words used to tell what these things do and are—namely verbs. And as our life has grown complex and our powers of thinking diversified covering the whole range of time, past, present and future, we have had to invent many forms of the verb to express it all.
Now do not try to commit these facts concerning the verb to memory. You are not studying English in order to know rules. You are studying English that you may be able to say and write the things you think. So first of all, think, think! That is your inalienable right! Do not accept anything just by blind belief. Think it out for yourself. Study until you see the 'why' of it all. "Independent thinking has given us the present, and we will forever continue to make tomorrow better than today. The right to think is inalienable, or a man is a machine. Thought is life or a human soul is a thing."
And do not lack the courage of your own thoughts. You do not need to cringe or apologize to any man. "Our life is not an apology but a life." Dare to think and dare to express and live your thought.
Did you ever read Emerson's definition of genius? "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,—that is genius." Then he says, "We dismiss without notice our own thoughts, because they are ours. Tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense, precisely what we have thought and felt all along and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another."
Have you not experienced this? How often we hear some one express a truth and we say to ourselves, "That is just what I have long believed but I have never dared say so." We have been so taught all our lives to depend on some outside power and discredit the power within ourselves, that we pay no attention to the thoughts that are ours for who are we that we should dare to think and perchance disagree with those who have assumed authority over us! But that is precisely what we should dare to do—to think and to do our own thinking always. Who dares place anything before a man!
So think as you