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CHAPTER XI

EXERCISES

The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. GIBBON.

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546. Exercise I (Preface). a. 1. Read the quotation on the title-page. 2. Why is education necessary? 3. Is the primary object of education to teach us how to make money, or how to be good citizens? 4. Write your reasons for desiring an education.

b. 1. How important is language to the progress of the world? 2. What would happen if all the languages were lost? 3. Why should we be careful about our dress? 4. In what way is language like dress? 5. What is meant by shabby dress? by shabby manners? by shabby language?

c. 1. Is it usually easy to become an athlete? Why? 2. Why are not more people successful in life? 3. What are you willing to do to help yourself to get an education? 4. Read aloud at least half an hour in the evening, several times a week, to your mother or father, sister or brother. Read good stories, books of travel and adventure, and biographies. Read carefully and patiently, and you will soon enjoy it and be helped by it.

d. 1. What does Lord Bacon say about the value of reading? (For the use of that in the quotation from Bacon, see § 83, N.) 2. What does he mean by conference? 3. What does Lord Bacon say about the need of practice in writing? When you read aloud, ask questions and talk about what you read. In this way you will learn to speak freely and naturally.

When you write, at home or at school, be as natural as if you were talking, and your reader will feel as if you were with him, speaking to him.

547. Exercise II (page 1). 1. What power does music possess? 2. What, according to Plato, is the power of language? 3. What is meant by the proverb "The pen is mightier than the sword"? 4. Do you think that the sword is sometimes necessary? 5. Write your reasons for thinking that it is (or is not) essential for you to be a good writer as well as a good reader and a good speaker.

548. Exercise III (§§ 2-8, 361-364, 516-518). a. 1. Which is the easier method of making ourselves understood, speaking or writing? Why? 2. Why should we study words? 3. What does Chesterfield say about style? 4. Why do we need a great deal of practice in writing letters? 5. In applying to a stranger for a position, should you prefer to write to him, or to put on your best clothes and have a talk with him? 6. Which do you think he would prefer to have you do? Why?

b. 1. In writing a letter of any kind to anybody try to be as natural as if you were speaking. Read and discuss the letter of Charles Dickens in § 519. 2. Write to an imaginary person a letter on any of the subjects in § 587. Put the letter away for a few days; then read it aloud, to see how it looks and to Ihear how it sounds.

c. 1. What is the difference between a phrase and a clause? 2. Write five sentences containing principal and subordinate clauses. For adjective and adverb phrases and clauses, see §§ 557 and 571.

549. Exercise IV (§§ 9–22, 378–380, 498–509). a. 1. Why should we study grammar? rhetoric? 2. Learn to classify words by the way in which they are used in sentences (§§ 383, 585, b). 3. Write five sentences containing noun phrases; noun clauses.

b. Write five sentences containing compound words. If you are where you have no dictionary, and are in doubt about how to write the compound words, write them first as single words (without a hyphen; as, schoolgirl, warship); if they look odd and illegible, rewrite them as separate words (as, boy scout).

c. 1. A man of peace is a man who desires peace (§ 499). What is a man of war? 2. What is the difference between a man of war and a man-of-war? 3. What would forget-me-not mean without the hyphens? 4. What would grandfather mean if written as two separate words? 5. What is the difference between 'he has a son in law' and 'he has a son-in-law'? between 'eight pound boxes' and 'eight-pound boxes'? 6. Why does commander in chief need no hyphens?

550. Exercise V (§§ 588-603). a. 1. Who were our linguistic ancestors? 2. Where did they live? 3. Why did they separate? 4. Where did they go? 5. What did the Romans do for Britain? 6. How did England get its name? 7. Who were the Normans? 8. How did the Norman Conquest affect the English language? 9. Describe some of the elements in the English language of today.

b. 1. Choose some interesting topic in the history of the Indo-European languages, or in the early history of England, and read about it in the encyclopedia. 2. Write to a friend (real or imaginary), telling him what you have been doing, and ask him if he has any book on the subject.

551. Exercise VI (§§ 23-39, 402, 604-606). 1. Use the singular and plural of the words in §§ 23-28 in oral and written sentences. 2. How do you pronounce c and g in Latin and Greek words? Give examples. 3. Spell, pronounce, and define the words in § 39 (consulting the dictionary if necessary). 4. Use these words in oral and written sentences. 5. Spell, pronounce, and define the following Latin and Greek words,

and give their plurals (consulting the dictionary if necessary): amanuensis, apex, arcanum, axis, basis, dogma, effluvium, encomium, erratum, focus, medium, metamorphosis, nucleus, spectrum, vortex. 6. Point out the fault in each of the following words: cherubims, candelabras, bandittis, seraphims, vertebræs.

552. Exercise VII (§§ 40-54). 1. Write sentences containing the nominative (or objective) and the possessive case, singular and plural, of child, deer, goose, mouse, sheep, woman, Watkins, father-in-law, cash girl, man clerk. 2. Write sentences containing the possessive case (or a phrase with of) of Moses, Socrates, Allen and Greenough, the Charles E. Osgood Company.

553. Exercise VIII (review). 1. Pick out the nouns in §§ 588-594, and tell how they are used. 2. Change singulars to plurals, and plurals to singulars.

554. Exercise IX (§§ 56–64, 403). (a) How do you know whether such words as this, that, his, whose, which, and other are adjectives or pronouns? (§ 56.) (b) Write five sentences containing personal pronouns as objects. (c) What is the dif ference between daub and bedaub, moan and bemoan, thump and bethump? (d) Form some words with the prefixes be-, mis-, over-, un-, under-. (e) Read and discuss Lowell's letter in § 519. (ƒ) Write a letter to an imaginary boy (or girl) accepting (or declining) an invitation to a party. (g) From the following parentheses select the proper forms; give your reasons:

1. She is no better than (I, me, he, him). 2. They invited you and (I, me, she, her). 3. It couldn't have been (she, her, he, him, they, them). 4. They sat in the same seat with you and (I, me). 5. What would you do if you were (she, her, he, him, they, them)? 6. What difference does it make to you and (I, me, he, him)? 7. Was it (we, us, they, them)? 8. No, that 's (she, her, he, him) over there. 9. They won't let you and (I, me) go. 10. Do you like her better than (I, me, he, him, they, them)?

555. Exercise X (§§ 65-74, 520-522, 524, 527, 528). a. In the following sentences correct the faulty use of nouns and pronouns; rewrite the sentences :

1. His father became a sailor when he was ten years old. 2. When she rebuked her, she was very angry. 3. He ran into the house, and found him in the library with his mother. He asked him if he would meet him at the river, after school. 4. When he examined the wound, he said that he would recover. 5. It was at Rome, while Gibbon sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, that Gibbon had his vision of the decline and fall of Rome. 6. Yesterday we found the boat. It was leaking, and it was so short a time till sunset that it was impossible to take it back to camp. 7. The thief followed the policeman until they reached the crowded part of the street, where he turned into a narrow alley. 8. At daybreak the wind blew harder and harder. I had been in Yarmouth when people said the wind blew great guns, but I had never known a wind like this wind. 9. Harry saw him watching him while he spoke to us, and he evidently thought he was a spy. 10. Mr. Arnold and his man Sam started toward the river. Sam looked at Mr. Arnold and saw that Mr. Arnold was very pale. 11. At a turn in the road they saw the figures of two men start up in front of them. They tried to cry out. One of them fell before he could utter a sound; the other had only time to cry for help.

b. Write five subjects for five compositions, and the first sentence of each composition. (See § 354, N.)

c. Write the beginning and the end of a letter to your mother or sister; to an old schoolmate; to a poor woman whose window you broke.

556. Exercise XI (§§ 75-91, 387-391). a. Fill the following blanks with who or whom, and give your reasons:

4.

I. She invited those

she said liked sailing. 2. He was a man

- there was reason to admire. 3. did you suppose me to be? did you think she was? 5. Let them be

6. There is a boy

they may.

I suppose is suitable. 7. It depends on

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