Plain English Part 45

Words that end in a double consonant or any two consonants, keep the two consonants, no matter what suffix they take; as, _indent_, _indented_; _skill_, _skilled_, _skillful_.

The only exception to this rule is when the addition of the suffix throws the accent back to a preceding syllable. When this is the case, the final consonant is not doubled. For example: _refer_, _referred_, _ref'erence_; _confer_, _conferring_, _con'ference_.

Look up the following words in the dictionary, watch for the accent, mark and add the suffixes, _ed_, _ing_, _ence_ or _ance_, if possible.

+Monday+

Repel Alter Prefer Debar Answer

+Tuesday+

Inter Offer Demur Wonder Succeed

+Wednesday+

Detain Combat Compel Occur Cancel

+Thursday+

Permit Travel Repeal Control Profit

+Friday+

Forbid Neglect Expel Render Infer

+Sat.u.r.day+

Benefit Retain Submit Reveal Limit

PLAIN ENGLISH

LESSON 13

Dear Comrade:

Did you ever tie a knot in your handkerchief to help you remember to get something you felt almost sure you would forget? Well, tying a knot in a cord was one of the first ways devised by our ancestors of long ago to aid them to remember. They also used this plan to send word to those at a distance or to keep track of things for succeeding generations. A relic of this old device of our forefathers is also found in the rosary on which the Roman Catholic counts his beads as an aid to memory.

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 different colors. Each cord is knotted in different ways to mean different things and each color, too, has its own meaning. A red string stands for soldiers, a yellow for gold, and a green for corn, and so on, while a single knot may mean ten, two single knots twenty, a double knot 100, two double knots 200. In this way, they keep a record of things, transmit orders and use them for various purposes.

Only a generation ago the tax gatherers in the Island of Hawaii kept account of the a.s.sessable property on lines of cordage knotted in this manner, and these cords in some cases were three thousand feet long. The method of keeping track of things by means of a notched stick is easily within the memory of many people living today. For in England in the early part of the last century, accounts of debts to the government were kept by means of tally sticks, which were merely notched sticks.

Such methods as these were the only ways primitive man had of keeping track of things before he had discovered the art of written speech. And even after written speech was known and used, these old methods persisted.

Gradually, step by step, man has come along the path of progress.

Adventurous spirits, not satisfied with the old way of doing things, sought new ways. The conservatives of their day thought them dangerous people, no doubt, and feared that they would destroy the very foundations of society. And this they oft-times did, but only that there might rise a more perfect form of society. It is the seeking, questioning mind that demands the reason for all things, that seeks ever better ways of doing things. They have always throughout the ages refused to bow to the authority of the past but have dared to live their own lives. To them we owe the progress of the world and we are the inheritors of their spirit.

Let us prove our kins.h.i.+p by daring to live our own lives and think our own thoughts.

Yours for Freedom,

THE PEOPLE'S COLLEGE.

INTERROGATIVE p.r.o.nOUNS

+228+. You recall that in our first lesson we studied concerning the four different kinds of sentences which we use in expressing our thoughts, the _a.s.sertive_, the _interrogative_, the _imperative_ and the _exclamatory_. The interrogative sentence is the form which we use in asking a question, _interrogative_ being derived from the Latin _inter_, meaning _between_, and _rogare_, _to ask_, meaning literally _to ask between_. The interrogative sentence differs from the a.s.sertive sentence in the arrangement of the words; for in order to ask questions, we usually place the predicate, or part of it at least, before the subject, thus:

_Can_ you _use_ good English?

_Did_ you _spell_ the word correctly?

_Has_ he _studied_ grammar?

In these sentences, you note that the helping verbs, _can_, _did_ and _has_, are placed first instead of the subject. It is by this arrangement that we put the sentence in the interrogative form.

+229.+ Frequently, however, in asking questions we wish to ask concerning a person or thing whose name we do not know. So we need a word to refer to the unknown object. See how these uses of words grow out of our need! We have three interrogative p.r.o.nouns, _who_ and _which_ and _what_, that we use to meet this need. Notice the use of these three p.r.o.nouns in the following sentences:

_Who_ wrote the Communist Manifesto?

_Which_ of the two men is the better known?

_What_ are the closing words of this famous doc.u.ment?

In these sentences, _who_ and _which_ and _what_ are the interrogative p.r.o.nouns, used to ask questions concerning the unknown persons or objects.

+230.+ +Who refers only to human beings or to personified objects.+

+Which refers either to human beings, animals or things.+

+What refers only to things.+

_Which_ and _what_ have the same form for both the subject and the object. _Who_ has a different form for all three forms, the subject form, the possessive form, and the object form. It uses the same form, however, both in singular and plural.

_Subject form_ _Possessive form_ _Object form_

Who Whose Whom

+231.+ We often make mistakes in the use of the different forms of the p.r.o.noun _who_. We often use the subject form for the object form, using _who_ where we should have used _whom_. For example:

Who did you see?

The correct form is:

Whom did you see?

The p.r.o.noun _whom_ is the object of the verb _see_, hence the object form should be used. However, the use of the subject form _who_ instead of _whom_ is coming into such general use today that some grammarians accept it as a permissible usage. The will of the people influences language, as it does all other human inst.i.tutions, and gradually creates new rules.

Write three sentences, using _who_, _which_ and _what_ as interrogative p.r.o.nouns.