|
ebooks, books, e-text,
free online
classics, textbooks, online book stores
The Art of Making Money -
by P.T. Barnum
Those who really desire to attain an
independence, have only to
set their minds upon it, and adopt the proper means, as they do in
regard to any other object which they wish to accomplish, and the thing is
easily done.
Happiness and Marriage -
by Elizabeth Towne
If it were not for personal
attractions, particularly the attractions of
one man and one woman, the _latent_ parts of both men and women would
remain forever undeveloped and their strong
points would continue to grow stronger.
Diet and Health
byLulu Hunt Peters, A.B.,
M.D.
Five hundred Calories equal approximately 2 ounces of fat. Two ounces
per day would be about 4 pounds per month, or 48 pounds per year.
Cutting out 1000 Calories per day would equal a reduction of
approximately 8 pounds per month, or 96 pounds per year. These
pounds you can absolutely lose by having a
knowledge of food values (calories)
and regulating your intake accordingly. You can now see the importance
of a knowledge of calories.
What's
HOT! Bestseller
1. The Help
2. The Man From Beijing
3. The Girl Who Played With Fire
4. Split Image
5. The Postmistress
|
You Have The
Answers
We're Still Trying To Figure Out What The Questions Are
The Evolution of Stickers
The History of the Sticker
Headline news
The Sticker News Testimonial Segment
A Commentary
More on the Evolution of Stickers
Dung Sticker Comes Home
Even More Sticker Evolution
Previews, commercials and boring stuff
Special Sticker Diet Show
Discussion With An Old Man
It's Our Anniversary
Soccer Moms Love StickerNewz
The Invention of . . .
Win Free Money
A Nursing Home Revelation
The Bermuda Triangle
Why You Should Never Climb Pikes Peek
Looking Back on Some Past Articles
StickerNewz Giveaway
FREE MONEY
My Two Favorite U.S. Presidents
The Plight of the American Red Man
Decal Manufacturers Deny Thermal . . .
A Spectacular Dream
A Letter From Brittany Brown
QUICKSASSY
Bright Silver Stock
Advertise Your Band or Website on Stickers!!!
Just How Cheap Is Max?
War and Peace by Tolstoy
Hackerstickers - The Newest Craze
In Cold Blood On Ice
Bob Scalps Prices
The Quicksilver Messenger Service
Celestial Beings Sited
Rigley's Maybe It's True
Irv
Irv II: The Bridge
Irv III: The Bridge2
Article 40
Irv IV: The Bridge3
This Just In . . .
ATTILA THE HUN VS. THE YING WOMEN
WHAT IS AN IDIOT SAVANT?
THE INVENTION OF THE NON-ADHESIVE LABEL
LUCILLE WEIGHS IN AT 305 LBS.
Labels, Labels and More Labels
Irv V The Bridge IV
|
Panda Bear Sneezing Video!
REQUIREMENTS OF SPEECH
Vocabulary--Parts of Speech--Requisites
HOW TO SPEAK AND WRITE
CORRECTLY
Produced by Tom Allen, Charles Franks
and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
By
JOSEPH DEVLIN, M.A.
It is very easy to learn how to speak and write correctly, as for all
purposes of ordinary conversation and communication, only about 2,000 different
words are required. The mastery of just twenty hundred words, the knowing where
to place them, will make us not masters of the English language, but masters of
correct speaking and writing. Small number, you will say, compared with what is
in the dictionary! But nobody ever uses all the words in the dictionary or could
use them did he live to be the age of Methuselah, and there is no necessity for
using them.
There are upwards of 200,000 words in the recent editions of the large
dictionaries, but the one-hundredth part of this number will suffice for all
your wants. Of course you may think not, and you may not be content to call
things by their common names; you may be ambitious to show superiority over
others and display your learning or, rather, your pedantry and lack of learning.
For instance, you may not want to call a spade a spade. You may prefer to call
it a spatulous device for abrading the surface of the soil. Better, however, to
stick to the old familiar, simple name that your grandfather called it. It has
stood the test of time, and old friends are always good friends.
To use a big word or a foreign word when a small one and a familiar one will
answer the same purpose, is a sign of ignorance. Great scholars and writers and
polite speakers use simple words.
To go back to the number necessary for all purposes of conversation
correspondence and writing, 2,000, we find that a great many people who pass in
society as being polished, refined and educated use less, for they know less.
The greatest scholar alive hasn't more than four thousand different words at his
command, and he never has occasion to use half the number.
In the works of Shakespeare, the most wonderful genius the world has ever known,
there is the enormous number of 15,000 different words, but almost 10,000 of
them are obsolete or meaningless today.
Every person of intelligence should be able to use his mother tongue correctly.
It only requires a little pains, a little care, a little study to enable one to
do so, and the recompense is great.
Consider the contrast between the well-bred, polite man who knows how to choose
and use his words correctly and the underbred, vulgar boor, whose language
grates upon the ear and jars the sensitiveness of the finer feelings. The
blunders of the latter, his infringement of all the canons of grammar, his
absurdities and monstrosities of language, make his very presence a pain, and
one is glad to escape from his company.
The proper grammatical formation of the English language, so that one may acquit
himself as a correct conversationalist in the best society or be able to write
and express his thoughts and ideas upon paper in the right manner, may be
acquired in a few lessons.
It is the purpose of this book, as briefly and concisely as possible, to direct
the reader along a straight course, pointing out the mistakes he must avoid and
giving him such assistance as will enable him to reach the goal of a correct
knowledge of the English language. It is not a Grammar in any sense, but a
guide, a silent signal-post pointing the way in the right direction.
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN A NUTSHELL
All the words in the English language are divided into nine great classes. These
classes are called the Parts of Speech. They are Article, Noun, Adjective,
Pronoun, Verb, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction and Interjection. Of these, the
Noun is the most important, as all the others are more or less dependent upon
it. A Noun signifies the name of any person, place or thing, in fact, anything
of which we can have either thought or idea. There are two kinds of Nouns,
Proper and Common. Common Nouns are names which belong in common to a race or
class, as _man_, _city_. Proper Nouns distinguish individual members of a race
or class as _John_, _Philadelphia_. In the former case _man_ is a name which
belongs in common to the whole race of mankind, and _city_ is also a name which
is common to all large centres of population, but _John_ signifies a particular
individual of the race, while _Philadelphia_ denotes a particular one from among
the cities of the world.
Nouns are varied by Person, Number, Gender, and Case. Person is that relation
existing between the speaker, those addressed and the subject under
consideration, whether by discourse or correspondence. The Persons are _First_,
_Second_ and _Third_ and they represent respectively the speaker, the person
addressed and the person or thing mentioned or under consideration.
_Number_ is the distinction of one from more than one. There are two numbers,
singular and plural; the singular denotes one, the plural two or more. The
plural is generally formed from the singular by the addition of _s_ or _es_.
_Gender_ has the same relation to nouns that sex has to individuals, but while
there are only two sexes, there are four genders, viz., masculine, feminine,
neuter and common. The masculine gender denotes all those of the male kind, the
feminine gender all those of the female kind, the neuter gender denotes
inanimate things or whatever is without life, and common gender is applied to
animate beings, the sex of which for the time being is indeterminable, such as
fish, mouse, bird, etc. Sometimes things which are without life as we conceive
it and which, properly speaking, belong to the neuter gender, are, by a figure
of speech called Personification, changed into either the masculine or feminine
gender, as, for instance, we say of the sun, _He_ is rising; of the moon, _She_
is setting.
_Case_ is the relation one noun bears to another or to a verb or to a
preposition. There are three cases, the _Nominative_, the _Possessive_ and the
_Objective_. The nominative is the subject of which we are speaking or the agent
which directs the action of the verb; the possessive case denotes possession,
while the objective indicates the person or thing which is affected by the
action of the verb.
An _Article_ is a word placed before a noun to show whether the latter is used
in a particular or general sense. There are but two articles, _a_ or _an_ and
_the_.
An _Adjective_ is a word which qualifies a noun, that is, which shows some
distinguishing mark or characteristic belonging to the noun.
This eBook is for the use of
anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.net
|
Word of the Day!
abbreviate - March 10, 2010 (verb) to make briefer, to shorten. Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:00:00 GMT
|
|
Today is: Thursday 03-11-2010
|