Business English: A Practice Book

WHEN we speak, we make our meaning clear by the expression that we put into our words and sentences. Some sentences we say all in one breath and with not much change in emphasis...

NOT long ago the head of one of the biggest mail order firms in this country said: "Business needs the boys and the girls. Do not let them think they can be but cogs in the grea...

THE study that we have thus far made of the various kinds of businesses would be incomplete did we not briefly outline the different types of organization by which modern busine...

CORRECT buying and the most efficient methods of manufacture play a large part in the successful carrying on of a business, but the most important consideration is the successfu...

A verb is transitive when it needs an object to complete its meaning; that is, when the action passes over (Latin, _transire_, to pass over) from the subject or doer to the obje...

IMAGINE that you are a druggist in a small town. Suppose that a woman comes in to buy two ounces of camphor and in exchange gives you three eggs. In a few moments, perhaps, a ma...

RETELL a story that you know or one that the instructor has read to you. See if you can tell the whole story in fairly long sentences without using a single _and_. You will be a...

BUSINESS men like to talk of brevity. They tell you that a talk or a letter must be brief. What they really mean is that the talk or the letter must be concise; that it must sta...

The _personal_ pronoun is used in place of the name of a person or thing. The pronoun of the _first_ person indicates the speaker, the pronoun of the _second_ person indicates t...

The sentences developing each of the divisions of a composition make one _paragraph_. A paragraph, therefore, is the treatment of one of the natural divisions of a subject. The...

In the preceding chapters we have seen words as they are used singly. We studied their pronunciation and the way in which they were formed to express a definite meaning. In this...

THE following chapters will furnish exercises in composition, both oral and written, based upon the various phases of business. They are intended to show the application of the...

ADVERTISING is one of the most vital forces in the problem of distribution. Every advertisement is a salesman and is written and sent out with the idea of doing the work of one....

Lands, buildings, and houses are called real property or real estate, and the business pertaining to them, the real estate business. Every one of us has more or less to do with...

IN Chapter X definite subjects were assigned for talks. Getting a subject for yourself sometimes seems difficult; you are likely to think that there is no topic upon which you c...

IT is important in the study of prepositions to observe that there are certain words that are followed by certain prepositions. To change the preposition is to convey a differen...

WE are judged by our speech. If we clip syllables, run words together, or pronounce them incorrectly, we shall merit the criticism of being careless or even ignorant. Yet clear...

If you add _s_ to the singular form _dress_, could you distinguish the pronunciation of the plural from the pronunciation of the singular? Does this suggest a reason for adding...

Until the habit of correct usage is formed, every sentence must be watched. When a word modifies a verb, an adjective, or an adverb, another adverb must be used, and an adjectiv...

To learn English words thoroughly we must spend some thought on the way in which they are made up, on the language from which they have been derived, and on the changes in meani...

BUSINESS English is the expression of our commercial life in English. It is not synonymous with letter writing. To be sure, business letters are important, but they form only a...

arranged her subjects in such a way as to give the whole a cumulative effect. The method throughout is inductive, and sufficient examples are always given to warrant the conclus...

I INTERESTING WORDS 1 II PRONUNCIATION 7 III SPELLING RULES 18 IV WORD ANALYSIS 29 V THE SENTENCE AND ITS ELEMENTS 41 VI THE NOUN AND THE PRONOUN 57 VII THE ADJECTIVE AND THE AD...