Plain English. Marian Wharton

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      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.

      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:

      All of the words used like boys, girls, fish, horses, soldiers, flag, winds, flowers and men, are the names of objects, therefore all of these words are nouns. The subject of a sentence is always a noun or a word used as a noun. However, we may use in a sentence many nouns besides the noun which is used as the subject, the noun about which the statement is made. We will study the use of these nouns later in our lessons.

      The famous palace of the kings of the Moors, at Granada, in Spain, was called the Alhambra. We have six nouns in this sentence, palace, kings, Moors, Granada, Spain and Alhambra, but the noun palace is the noun which is the subject—the noun which is the name of that about which something is said. Palace is the subject; and was called is the predicate in this sentence.

       26. A noun is a word used as the name of something.

      Now we want to learn to distinguish every word that is used as a name. Pick out the nouns as you read your books and papers until you are able to tell every word which is used as a noun, the name of something.

      In the following paragraph, the nouns are printed in italics. Carefully study these nouns:

      The fire in the grate, the lamp by the bedside, the water in the tumbler, the fly on the ceiling above, the flower in the vase on the table, all things have their history and can reveal to us nature's invisible forces.

      Exercise 2

      Underscore every noun in the following quotation:

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