Plain English. Marian Wharton
words a richer meaning. Brotherhood, justice, for example! The world is coming to understand these glorious words more fully and giving them a new interpretation.
You will see a new beauty and glory in words after you have finished this course and you will have a mastery of this wonderful language of ours.
Watch carefully the use of words in your reading. Especially this week distinguish the nouns and verbs. Use your dictionary constantly and add a few words to your vocabulary every day.
Whenever there is a word used in these lessons which you do not thoroughly understand, look it up at once in your dictionary and master it then and there. Make a list in your note book of the words you look up and at the end of the week go over them again and see if you have them clearly in mind. Watch also the pronunciation of the words. Do not try to do everything all at once, nor should you be discouraged if your progress seems slow. We approach the goal one step at a time and each step takes us nearer and nearer. Just keep steadily at it, Comrade.
KINDS OF SENTENCES
19. We have found that we use sentences to express our thoughts. But we also find that we use these sentences in different ways for different purposes. Can you notice any difference in the following sentences?
Two classes have always existed.
To which class do you belong?
Join your class in the struggle.
When I say, Two classes have always existed, I am making a simple assertion, stating what I know or believe to be true.
When I say, To which class do you belong? I am asking a question.
When I say, Join your class in the struggle, I am giving a command or making a request.
20. These three kinds of sentences are called assertive, interrogative and imperative.
An assertive sentence states a fact or an opinion.
An interrogative sentence asks a question.
An imperative sentence gives a command, makes a request or expresses a wish.
21. Any of these three kinds of sentences may be exclamatory; that is, it may express surprise, excitement, impatience, or some other emotion. For example:
Hurrah! Freedom is coming!
This is an assertion expressed as an exclamation.
Oh! Why should war continue?
Here we have a question in the form of an exclamation.
Come! Keep your courage up.
In this, we have a command, an imperative sentence, expressed in the form of an exclamation.
An exclamatory sentence expresses surprise, excitement or some other emotion.
In these three forms of sentences, the assertive, the interrogative and the imperative, together with the exclamatory, we are able to express every thought and feeling which demands expression, either for practical or artistic purposes.
The sentence is the basis of spoken and written language and as we trace its development we trace the history of the evolution of man and the growth of his power of expression, as he has developed his powers of mind.
22. Every sentence must begin with a capital letter.
Every assertive and imperative sentence should end with a period.
Every interrogative sentence should end with a question mark.
The word in an exclamatory sentence which expresses strong emotion is followed by an exclamation point. The sentence itself if in interrogative form should be followed by a question mark; if in the assertive or the imperative form it may be followed either by an exclamation point or a period.
Exercise 1
Mark the assertive sentences among the following with an a in the blank space. Mark the interrogative sentences with a q for question; the imperative sentences with a c for command; and the exclamatory with an e for exclamation.
1. ...... Books are the true levelers.
2. ...... Put not your trust in princes.
3. ...... To err is human; to forgive divine.
4. ...... What are the rights of a child?
5. ...... Seize common occasions and make them great.
6. ...... Not until all are free, is any free.
7. ...... Freemen! Shall not we demand our own?
8. ...... Is a world of happiness but a Utopian dream?
9. ...... He who will not work, shall not eat.
10. ...... Strike at the polls for freedom!
11. ...... Do the majority want social justice?
12. ...... A friend is the hope of the heart.
13. ...... How beautiful is the vision of peace!
14. ...... Acquire the thinking habit.
15. ...... Is it glorious to die for our country?
16. ...... Lo! Women are waking and claiming their own!
17. ...... Claim your right to the best.
18. ...... What is the highest good?
19. ...... Workers of the world, unite!
20. ...... To remain ignorant is to remain a slave.
WORDS—THEIR USES
23. We have learned from our study that we use sentences to express our thoughts. These sentences are made up of words; therefore we call words parts of speech. Words are only fractions or parts of speech, and it is by combining them into sentences that we are able to express our thoughts.
There are many thousands of words in the English language. It would be impossible for us to study each word separately. But these words, like people, are divided into classes, so we can study each class of words. These thousands of words are divided into classes much as people are, or rather as people ought to be; for words are divided into classes according to the work which they do. In the Industrial Commonwealth there will be no upper or lower class, but men will be divided into groups according to the work which they do. There will be various industrial groups, groups of agricultural workers, groups of clerical workers, etc. So words are divided into classes according to the work which they do in helping us to express our ideas.
24. Words are divided into kinds or classes according to their use in sentences.
There are eight of these classes of words, called parts of speech.
THE NAMES OF THINGS
25. What a word does determines what part of speech it is. When primitive man, long ago, first began to use words, in all probability the first words which he invented were those used to name familiar objects about him. He invented a word for man, boy, tree, animal, etc. Gradually, all the things he met in his daily life received a name. About one half of the words in our language are of this class, the names of things.
Every word which is used as a name of something is called a noun. This word noun is derived from the Latin word which means name, so it is quite the same thing as saying name. Notice the following sentences:
Boys run.
Fish swim.
Horses neigh.
Soldiers march.
Flags wave.
Flowers fade.
Girls