Plain English

Convenient

Expedient

Famous

Adequate

Solvent

Wednesday

Pertinent

Morality

Patience

Moderate

Pious

Thursday

Balanced

Biased

Gracious

Stable

Solicited

Friday

Burden

Veil

Fasten

Screw

Furl

Saturday

Construe

Apprehension

Inform

Guide

Judge

PLAIN ENGLISH

LESSON 28

Dear Comrade:

We are beginning with this lesson the study of the use of capitals and of punctuation. The use of capitals as well as punctuation has nothing to do with our spoken words, but both are very important in our written language.

There is nothing that will mark us as uneducated more quickly than bad spelling, faulty punctuation and the incorrect use of capitals.

The rules for the use of capitals may seem somewhat arbitrary. After an understanding of them, however, you will discover that they are not arbitrary, but are based upon a single principle. The word which is of the most importance, or which should receive the most emphasis is the word which is capitalized, as for example, the principal words in a title, the first words in a sentence, proper names, etc.

Study these rules carefully, note the use of the capitals in your reading and watch your written language carefully for a time. Soon the proper use of capitals will seem easy and most natural. In the meantime do not fail to keep up your study of words. Add at least one word to your vocabulary every day.

Did you ever consider how we think in pictures? Nearly every word that we use calls up a certain image or picture in our minds. The content of words has grown and developed as our ability to think has developed.

Take, for example, words like head or hand. Head originally referred to a portion of the body of a living thing; then it was used to refer to some part of an inanimate object which might resemble or call up a picture of an animal's head, for example, the head of a pin. Again, it was used to refer to some part of an inanimate thing which was associated with the head of a human being, as the head of the bed. Then, by the power of association, since the head was considered the most conspicuous and important part of the body, that which was most conspicuous and important was called the head, as the head of the army, the head of the nation.

Then, since the head was the seat of the brain and of the mental faculties, the head was often used instead of the brain or mental faculties. We speak of a clear head or a cool head. Thus we have a number of idiomatic expressions. We may speak of the head of the river; or the subject matter was divided under four heads; or again, the matter came to a head; he is head and ears in debt; we cannot make head against the opposition, etc.

This transfer of our ideas from the physical to the mental and spiritual marks vividly the growth of the language and the development of thought. Trace the words like hands, arm, foot, eye, tongue, in their use, first as physical then as mental or spiritual.

This will be the most interesting pastime and will enlarge the content of the words which you use.

    Yours for Education,
    THE PEOPLE'S COLLEGE.

CAPITAL LETTERS

464. In our written speech we often display our lack of education by our use of capital letters and punctuation. We may understand the use of words and be able to speak fairly well, but if we do not understand the proper use of capitals and of punctuation marks, our written language readily betrays our ignorance.

465. There are a number of rules for the use of capitals which we must observe. Some of the writers in our magazines defy these rules of capitalization, in an effort to seem different from other people, perhaps. These rules for the use of capital letters, like all other rules, are not arbitrary rules laid down by any body of men, but are simply a statement of accepted usage among people. We should not feel that we should say this or that or we are violating a rule of grammar. We should feel rather that the majority of the people who speak and write good English do thus, and so, for this reason, I shall do it also.

This is simply obeying the standard of majority rule. If there is any good and sufficient reason why we feel this should not be a rule, we may be justified in breaking it and making a new rule. Many people feel that our spelling should be simplified and so they insist upon spelling certain words in a more simple way. They feel that they have good and sufficient reason for insisting upon this change and gradually if these reasons appeal to the majority as being good and sufficient reasons, then this simplified mode of spelling will become the accepted usage.

But there seems no good reason why any writer should scatter capital letters with a lavish hand throughout his writing. One feels as though a writer in so doing is expressing his desire to be different, in a very superficial manner. Let us be unique and individual in our thought. If this forces us to a different mode of living or of expression from the rest of the world, then we are justified in being different from the rest. We have thought and reason behind our action. This is far different from the attitude of one who poses as a radical and whose only protest is in the superficial external things. So let us learn and observe these rules for the use of capital letters.

RULES FOR THE USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS

466.Use a capital for the first word of every sentence.