Plain English

There are a number of rules given for the use of commas. These rules, like the rules for the use of capitals, you cannot commit to memory; but, after repeated practice in your o...

Slowly, painfully, _proceeds_ the struggle of man against the power of Mammon. The past _is written_ in tears and blood. The future _is_ dim and unknown, but the final outcome o...

The best of everything is none too good for you. It is your right, your heritage, and the best in the English language will bring you into the company and comradeship of the men...

1. He answered _according to_ the rule. 2. I could not go _on account of_ illness. 3. He won the election _by means of_ fraud. 4. The strike was won _by help of_ all the 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...

The Key to Pronunciation, p. 37 (Spelling Lesson 3), contains characters with diacritical marks not available in Latin-1 character encoding. Therefore, they have been transcribe...

1. Life is what we _make_ it. 2. We acquire the strength that we _overcome_. 3. While he _slept_ the enemy came. 4. All that he _does_ is to distribute what others _produce_. 5....

Knowledge has always been power and the ruling classes of the world, desiring power over the people, have striven to keep knowledge within their own circle; so the art of writin...

There are some primitive tribes to-day who still use knotted strings as an aid to memory. These consist of a main cord, and fastened at given distances are finer cords of differ...

But sometimes we find the adjectives a little farther away from the noun which it describes, and then it becomes a little more difficult to find. You will recall, in our study o...

I shall have been seeing. We shall have been seeing. You will have been seeing. You will have been seeing. He will have been seeing. They will have been seeing.

+323.+ We make a great many mistakes also in the choice of prepositions. For example, the preposition _between_ refers to two objects and should never be used when you are speak...

1. What _are_ the _machines saying_, a hundred of them in one long room? 2. _They must be talking_ to themselves, for I see no one else for them to talk to. 3. But yes, there _i...

1. In that moment _when he saw the light_ he joined our cause. 2. Other men are lenses _through which we read our own minds_. 3. This is perhaps the reason _why we are unable to...

When we wish to imitate noises or sounds made by animals, machines, etc., in writing, we spell out the words as nearly as we can, just as we write _ding-dong_ to represent the s...

+480.+ +Begin the words indicating titles of offices and honor with a capital.+ For example, _President Wilson_, _Doctor Smith_, _Professor Locke_. When you use a title of this...

Notice this sentence: _The manager spoke to the men before he left and told them to stop at the office_. _Manager_ is the antecedent of the pronoun _he_, and _men_ is the antece...

A direct question is one that can be answered. An indirect question is one that cannot be answered. If I say, _Why do you not study?_, I am asking a direct question to which you...

Here we have the conjunction _and_ connecting the two phrases _on the_ _political field_ and _on the industrial field_. Without the use of this connective word, we would have to...

1. He and I are old friends. 2. Did you ask him or me? 3. They promised him and I that they would come. 4. Find the place for she and me. 5. Me and him will get it for you and s...

+286.+ There are some adverbs which scarcely fall into any of the above classes and cannot be said to answer any of these questions. They are such adverbs as _indeed_, _certainl...

+Never use _good_ as an adverb+. _Good_ is always an adjective. _Well_ is the adverb form. _Good_ and _well_ are compared in the same way, _good_, _better_, _best_, and _well_,...

Read carefully the following quotation. All of the verbs and verb phrases are written in _italics_. Study these carefully and decide whether they indicate present, past, future,...

Be careful in the use of your pronouns in this way, for you can express quite a different meaning. For example, if you say, _I care more for you than he_, you mean, I care more...

The business of the New York journalist _is to destroy_ the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to villify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and _to sell_ his race and his country...

We have finished our study of the different parts of speech and are going to enter upon the work of sentence building. In the next few lessons we will gather up all that we have...

Some words ending in silent _e_ retain the _e_ before the suffix beginning with a vowel, to prevent a change in the pronunciation or to preserve the identity of the word. Notice...

"In war," answered the weaver, "the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich make slaves of the poor. We must work to live, and they give us such mean wages that we...

+79.+ In the case of nouns formed of two or more words, when the compound word is so familiar that the parts are not thought of separately the _s_ is added to the whole compound...

In this way we can analyze or break up into its different parts, every sentence. First find the subject, then ask what that subject does, and the answer will be the predicate or...

1. Some plants are poisonous. 2. A rolling stone gathers no moss. 3. Perseverance brings success. 4. Delays are dangerous. 5. A man's actions show his character. 6. He looks wel...

abide abode abode arise arose arisen awake awoke, _r_ awaked be or am was been bear bore borne beat beat beaten begin began begun bend bent, _r_ bent, _r_ bereave bereft, _r_ be...

Adverbs Defined, 41, 282 Use of, 279-281 How to tell, 283 Classes of, 284 Interrogative, 285 Of mode, 286, 397 Phrase Adverbs, 287 To Distinguish from Adj, 288-289 Derivation of...