APPLIED ENGLISH GRAMMAR

INTRODUCTION

1. ONE reason why men are superior to animals is that they can express their thoughts to each other better than animals can. Being able to tell their thoughts, men are able to help one another. Men grow wise and strong by learning from one another.

Both men and animals express themselves by cries and motions, but men use words also. Even the little child finds that crying and pointing will not convey all his wishes. He watches his elders, and observes that they have names for things. He soon learns certain names, and is presently giving such commands as "Potato! to me, potato!" Words thus do for him what gestures could never do.

2. Words are articulate sounds that other people understand, and they make up what

is called language. When, however, we use words, we think of them as parts of statements, or requests, or commands, rather than as parts of language.

3. Language is spoken before it is ever written. The word language once meant that which is formed by the lingua, or tongue. By the time the word reached our forefathers in their island of England it had come to mean both oral and written speech.

4. Language is a subject which every one has to study from the time he is a year old until he dies. Whether he goes to school or not makes no difference in the necessity. Everybody has to use language, and has continually to study what he shall say. If he does not study his words, he will always be in trouble.

In order to speak correctly and effectively, it is best to study language with some system. Daily puzzling over words does much for the uneducated man, but he never can feel sure

that he is speaking correctly. Even if we speak well, we cannot be sure why we speak as we do unless we study what is called grammar.1

1 Note the spelling of grammar.

5. Grammar is the systematic study of language, and especially of the forms of words and their combinations in sentences. In this book we can only begin the systematic study of language. We have to do chiefly with what are called "grammatically correct speaking and writing.

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6. Our text-book is called a book of applied grammar, because it attempts to show you how to apply grammatical principles in your everyday use of language. It offers a great many exercises in the art of speaking and writing correctly.