Plain English

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 study.

Winds blow.

Men work.

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:

The whole history of the earth has been one of gradual development, of progress, of slow and painful climbing through the ages. Not only have the hills and the mountains, the rivers and the stars, the trees and the cattle, the beasts and the birds, been developing; but man himself—his mind and his body—has been developing. Men are marvelous little creatures; they have weighed the sun in their balances, measured the stars and analyzed the light and beauty of the rainbow; they have sounded the depths of the ocean; they have learned how the sun and the mountains were born and the rivers were laid in their mighty beds; they have learned how the seas became salt, what the stars are made of. They have learned so much, and yet when it comes to matters of time and space, and law and motion, they still know so little. The only man who is conscious of his ignorance is he who has learned a great deal.—McMillan.

WORDS THAT ASSERT

27. After the primitive man had invented names for the things about him, probably his next step was to invent words of action. He very naturally wanted to tell what all of these various things did. So the words that tell what things do, the words of action, the words that assert, came into the language. A child follows much the same development. As you can readily observe, it first names the objects about it, then learns the words that tell what these objects do.

So the words that tell what things do, become the second class of words. These words we call verbs. The word verb, like the word noun, is taken into our language from the Latin. In Latin, the word verbum means the word; and the verb is practically the word in a sentence, for we cannot have a sentence without a verb. You may string a number of words together, but if you do not have an asserting word, you will not have a sentence.

Notice the following sentences:

Men work.

Flowers fade.

Snow flies.

Winds blow.