Plain English

The crying of the child annoyed the people.

The crying child ran to its mother.

The coming of the new day will bring peace.

We await the coming day of peace.

PARTICIPLE PHRASES

149. The present and the past participles are each single words; but we may also have participle phrases; that is, two or more words used as a participle, as for example:

His having joined the strikers caused him to lose his job.

The man, having been discharged, left the mill.

In these sentences we have the participle phrases, having joined and having been discharged. Having joined is a participle phrase used as a noun, the subject of the verb caused. Having been discharged is a participle phrase used as an adjective to modify the noun man. Notice that having joined is an active participle describing the action performed by the man who is referred to by the pronoun his. Having been discharged is a passive participle expressing an action of which the subject of the sentence, man, is the receiver.

These are both perfect participles, expressing actions which are complete at the present time.

150. We have also progressive participles expressing action which is continuing or progressing. These progressive participles are also used in both the active and the passive forms. The progressive active participle is formed by using having been with the present participle, as having been working. The progressive passive participle is formed by using being with the past participle, as for example, being watched, being driven, being gone, etc. So we have six participles, three active and three passive.

Note the following table:

These participle phrases may be used either as nouns or as adjectives.

Exercise 1

In the following sentences mark the participles and the participle phrases. Underscore those used as nouns with a single line; those used as adjectives with two lines.

1. He denies having been hired by the employer.

2. Our friends, having arrived, joined us at dinner.

3. The rain, falling incessantly, kept us from going.

4. Having often seen him passing, I judged he lived near.

5. The man, being discouraged and ill, was unable to do his work well.

6. Happiness shared is happiness doubled.

7. Having finished his work, he rests at last.

8. The army, beaten but not vanquished, waited for the morrow.

9. The men, having been unemployed for months, were desperate.

10. Being prepared will not save us from war.

11. "Rest is not quitting this busy career;Rest is the fitting of self to its sphere.It's loving and serving the highest and best;It's onward, not swerving; and that is true rest."

Exercise 2

Write the six participle forms of the verbs see and teach, and use in sentences of your own construction.

INFINITIVES

151. We have found that the various forms of the participles may be used as other parts of speech. They partake of the nature of a verb and either of a noun or an adjective. Notice the following sentences:

Traveling is pleasant.

Eating is necessary.

Can you think of any other way in which you could express the same thought? Do you not sometimes say,

To travel is pleasant.

To eat is necessary.

We have expressed practically the same thought in these two sentences, which is expressed in the sentences above, where we used the participle. To travel and to eat are used as nouns, subjects of the verb is just as traveling and eating are used as nouns, the subjects of the verb is.

Here we have another form of the verb used as a noun. When we use the verb in this way, we are not speaking of the traveling or eating as belonging to or being done by any particular person, nor do we indicate whether one person or more than one is concerned in the action. It might be anyone doing the traveling or eating, and it might be one person or a thousand. We are making a general statement of everybody in the world, so we call this form the infinitive.

152. Infinite means unlimited, without limit as to persons or number. Almost every verb in the language may be used in this way, and since to is generally used before the infinitive, to is often called the sign of the infinitive. For example:

To be, or not to be, that is the question.

To have and to hold is the problem.

He likes to travel.

You note in all of these infinitives to is used with the simple form of the verb.

153. To is generally omitted after verbs like help, hear, bid, feel, let, make, see and have, or words of similar meaning. For example:

Help me (to) find it.

He bade me (to) stay.

Feel it (to) shake.

Make him (to) come.

Hear me (to) sing.

Let us (to) go.

See him (to) run.

Have him (to) copy this.

154. To is also omitted after need and dare when not is used.

155. To is sometimes omitted after prepositions:

He will do anything for his class, except (to) fight for it.

He would do nothing but (to) go away.

156. We have a number of different forms of the infinitive, both active and passive. Note the following table:

157. Notice that only the present and perfect infinitives have the passive form. The progressive infinitives cannot be used in the passive. Remember also that only incomplete verbs, those which require an object to receive the action, can have a passive form.

The verb loved, which we have used in the above table, has a passive form because it is an incomplete verb, for there must be that which is the object of our love.

158. The complete verbs,—verbs which require no object,—cannot have a passive form for there is no object to become the receiver of the action. Take for example the verb dwell. This is a complete verb which can have no passive form. You cannot dwell anything, therefore you cannot say to be dwelt or to have been dwelt.

So complete verbs have only the four active forms, as follows:

159. Infinitives, like participles, may be used either as nouns or adjectives. When used as nouns, they are used in the various ways in which nouns are used. The infinitive may be the subject of a sentence, thus:

To hesitate now will be fatal.

To be defeated is no crime.

160. The infinitive may be the object or complement of the verb. For example:

He wanted to see you.

His desire is to learn.

161. The infinitive may be used as the object of a preposition; as,

He is about to go.

They will do anything for the cause except to live for it.

162. The infinitive may be used as an adjective to modify a noun. For example:

He showed me the way to go.

We must have food to eat and clothes to wear.

The question to be decided is before us.

Claim your right to live.

163. The infinitive may also be used as an adverb to modify the meaning of a verb, adjective or adverb, thus:

He was forced to go.

They are slow to learn.

The fruit was not ripe enough to eat.

Note that the infinitives in these sentences may all be changed into adverb phrases. As for example in the first sentence, He was forced to go, the infinitive to go, which modifies the verb forced, may be changed to the adverb phrase, into going, thus, He was forced into going. In the second sentence, They are slow to learn, the infinitive to learn may be changed into the adverb phrase in learning, thus, They are slow in learning. In the last sentence, The fruit is not ripe enough to eat, the infinitive to eat, which modifies the adverb enough, may be changed into the adverb phrase, for eating, as for example, The fruit was not ripe enough for eating.

164. The infinitive is quite a useful form of the verb, and we will find that we use it very frequently in expressing our ideas. While it is not the asserting word in the sentence, it retains the nature of a verb and may have both an object and an adverb modifier. As for example, in the sentence:

I wish to learn my lesson quickly.

To learn is the infinitive, used as a noun, the object of the verb wish. The infinitive also has an object, to learn—what? My lesson is the object of the infinitive to learn. We also have an adverb modifier in the adverb quickly, which tells how I wish to learn my lesson. So the infinitive retains its verb nature, in that it may have an object and it may be modified by an adverb.

Exercise 3

Notice carefully the use of the infinitives in the following sentences. Underscore all infinitives.

1. To remain ignorant is to remain a slave.

2. Teach us to think and give us courage to act.

3. Children love to be praised, but hate to be censured.

4. To obey is the creed taught the working class by the masters.

5. To be exploited has always been the fate of the workers.

6. Ferrer wrote on his prison wall, "To love a woman passionately, to have an ideal which I can serve, to have the desire to fight until I win—what more can I wish or ask?"

7. The people wish the man to be punished for the crime.

8. Primitive man found plenty of wood to burn.

9. We have learned to use coal and oil.

10. The lecture to have been given this evening has been postponed.

11. They are eager to hear the news.

12. He has failed to come.

13. We felt the house shake on its foundation.

14. Have him find the book for me.

15. To be defeated is no crime; never to have dared is the real crime.

16. The rich will do anything for the poor except to get off their backs.

17. To have slept while others fought is your shame.

18. Claim your right to do, to dream and to dare.

Exercise 4

Write sentences containing the six infinitive forms of the verb obey.

DON'TS FOR INFINITIVES

165. Don't split your infinitives. Keep the to and the infinitive together as much as possible. Don't say, They intended to never come back. Say rather, They intended never to come back. Sometimes, however, the meaning can be more aptly expressed by placing the adverb modifier between the to and the infinitive, as for example:

To almost succeed is not enough.

It will be found to far exceed our expectations.

In these sentences the adverbs almost and far express our meaning more closely if they are placed between the to and the infinitive. Ordinarily, however, do not split your infinitives, but place the adverb modifier either before or after the infinitive.

166. Don't use to by itself without the rest of the infinitive. Don't say, Do as I tell you to. Say instead, Do as I tell you to do; or, Do as I tell you. Don't say, He deceived us once and he is likely to again. Say rather, He deceived us once and he is likely to deceive us again, or to do so again.

167. Don't use and for to. Don't say, Try and go if you can. Say instead, Try to go if you can.

Correct the following sentences:

We ought to bravely fight for our rights.

I will do all my employer tells me to.

We shall try and get our lessons.

I ought to at least help my comrades but I am afraid to.

Exercise 5

Study carefully the infinitives in the following quotation. Notice which are active and which are passive infinitives.

The twenty thousand men prematurely slain on a field of battle, mean, to the women of their race, twenty thousand human creatures to be borne within them for months, to be given birth to in anguish, to be fed from their breasts and to be reared with toil, if the members of the tribe and the strength of the nation are to be maintained. In nations continually at war, incessant and unbroken child-bearing is by war imposed on all women if the state is to survive; and whenever war occurs, if numbers are to be maintained, there must be an increased child-bearing and rearing. This throws upon woman, as woman, a war tax, compared with which all that the male expends in military preparations is comparatively light.

It is especially in the domain of war that we, the bearers of men's bodies, who supply its most valuable munition, who, not amid the clamor and ardor of battle, but singly, and alone, with a three-in-the-morning courage, shed our blood and face death that the battle-field might have its food, a food more precious to us than our heart's blood; it is we, especially, who, in the domain of war, have our word to say, a word no man can say for us. It is our intention to enter into the domain of war and to labor there till in the course of generations we have extinguished it.—Olive Schreiner.

Exercise 6

Mark the participles and infinitives.

Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!Bright and yellow, hard and cold,Molten, graven, hammer'd and roll'd;Heavy to get, and light to hold;Hoarded, barter'd, bought, and sold,Stolen, borrow'd, squander'd, doled:Spurn'd by the young, but hugg'd by the oldTo the very verge of the churchyard mould;Price of many a crime untold:Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!Good or bad a thousand-fold!How widely its agencies vary—To save—to ruin—to curse—to bless—As even its minted coins express,Now stamp'd with the image of Good Queen Bess,And now of a bloody Mary.—Thos. Hood.

SPELLING

LESSON 9

In our English lessons, we have been studying the division of words into parts of speech. We have been studying them as we use them in expressing our thoughts but we may study them in other ways also. We may study them as words alone.

Studied in this way we find that we have simple, compound and derivative words. For example, man, man-slaughter, manly. Man is a simple word. Man-slaughter is a compound word formed of twosimple words. Manly is a derivative word derived from man.

When a compound word is first formed, it is usually written with a hyphen; but after the word has been used awhile the hyphen is often dropped and the two parts are written together as a simple word.

A simple word is a single word which cannot be divided into other words without changing its meaning.

A compound word is composed of two or more simple words into which it may be divided, each retaining its own meaning.

A derivative word is one which is derived from a simple word by the addition of another syllable.

In next week's lesson we will take up the study of these derivatives.

Divide the compound words in this week's lesson into the simple words of which they are composed.

Monday

Birthday

Coal-tar

Craftsman

Foreman

Gunpowder

Tuesday

Handkerchief

Headquarters

Lawsuit

Lockout

Bookkeeper

Wednesday

Motorman

Newspaper

Pasteboard

Postage-stamp

Postmaster

Thursday

Salesman

Second-hand

Shirtwaist

Sidewalk

Staircase

Friday

Trademark

Time-table

Typewriter

Tableware

Sewing-machine

Saturday

Undergarment

Underhand

Water-mark

Woodwork

Workshop

PLAIN ENGLISH

LESSON 10

Dear Comrade:

We have been studying this course in Plain English for some weeks now and I trust that you have been enjoying as well as benefiting by the study of our wonderful and expressive language. Did you ever stop to think what a wonderful step it was in evolution when man first began to use the spoken word? And yet it was a still more wonderful step in advance when he began to use the written word for our highest evolution, and development would have been impossible without the help of written speech. An illiterate man may be a good workman and prosperous so far as the material things of life and his immediate contact with his fellow men are concerned, but we have only to think for a moment of what this world would be if we had no written language, to understand what a mighty power it has been in evolution.

Suppose we had no way by which we could communicate with our friends at a distance. Suppose there were no written words by which we could set down the countless dealings between man and man. What a hopeless tangle this social life of ours would soon become! Suppose also that we had no knowledge of the past, no knowledge of the discoveries and inventions of past generations except that which could be handed down to us through oral speech. All our knowledge of history, of the deeds and development of the past, all the observations by which science has uncovered to us the mysteries of nature would be largely lost to us. It was the invention of writing alone which made possible man's growth from barbarism to civilization, and it is more true than we oftentimes realize, that it is "only a wall of books that separates the civilized man of to-day from the savage of yesterday." And yet I wonder if we have ever stopped to think how this art of writing developed. Knowledge of the alphabet and of the letters by which we form our words and hence are able to express our ideas, has become such a common-place thing to us that we have forgotten what a wonder it is and how it has slowly grown and developed through the centuries. Yet there are races to-day that have no written language such as we know and to whom our written language seems truly a miracle.

The story is told of an Indian who was sent from one colony to another with four loaves of bread accompanied by a letter stating their number. The Indian ate one of the loaves and of course, was found out. The next time when he was sent upon a similar errand he repeated the theft but he took the precaution to hide the letter under a stone while he was eating the bread so that it might not see him!

But it is only the things that we do not understand which we invest with mystery and as we study the story of the alphabet in this series of letters we find that it has been a natural development accomplished by the growing powers of man. In succeeding letters we will trace this most interesting story of the alphabet.

Yours for Education,THE PEOPLE'S COLLEGE.

HELPING VERBS

168. We have found that whenever a verb is used by itself in making an assertion it denotes either present or past time. When we use a verb phrase, it expresses some other time than the past or present. These verb phrases are formed by using shall, will, have, had, and the various forms of the verb be with some form of the principal verb. These verbs which help to form verb phrases are called helping, or auxiliary verbs. Auxiliary means helping.

We have used have and had with the past participle to form the present perfect and past perfect time forms. We have used shall and will with different forms of the verb to denote future time, and we have used different forms of the verb be in making the various other time forms. So shall, will, have, had and the various forms of the verb be are helping verbs, which we use to help us in making verb phrases.

169. But these are not all of the helping verbs. There are other helping verbs which we use in forming verb phrases to express different ideas. These are such verbs as should and would, may and might, can and could, must and ought, do and did.

Exercise 1

Fill the blank spaces in the following sentences with the appropriate forms of the helping verbs, shall, will, have, had and be.

1. When......the workers organize?

2. Education......help us win.

3. The world......had enough of war.

4. We......deceived by the masters.

5. The workers......organized into craft unions.

6. They......never ceased the struggle.

7. The state......founded on exploitation.

8. Mutual aid......been an important factor in evolution.

9. The truth......taught to the people.

10. The victory......gained by the proletariat.

11. The nations of Europe......preparing for war for years.

12. The International......recognized war for defense.

13. We......not made the class distinctions, but we......recognize them as long as they exist.

14. The evolution of animals and the evolution of plants......proceeded according to the same general laws.

15. We......never win while the majority remains ignorant.

16. The strikers......betrayed by their leaders.

SHOULD AND WOULD

170. Should and would are the past-time forms of shall and will. We use them to express action or existence dependent upon some condition, thus:

I should go if I were well enough.

He should join us if you asked him.

In these sentences should and would express action which is possible now or will be in the future, provided some other action takes place.

The same distinction which we found made in the use shall and will has been made with should and would; that is, that should used with the first person, expresses action dependent upon condition; but would, used with the first person, implies exercise of the will. This rule is not closely followed, though it expresses a nice distinction in the use of should and would. In ordinary usage we use either should or would with the first person without any distinction of meaning, as for example:

I should struggle on even if it meant death.

I would stand for my principles though I stood entirely alone.

We do not use should however, with the second and third persons to express an action or existence dependent upon some condition. Should used with the second and third person implies obligation. Would is used with the second or third person to express an action dependent upon some condition, as for example:

He would not go, even if you insisted.

They would come if you invited them.