5. The months and the days of the week should be capitalized but not the seasons, as,

September, Friday, fall.

6. The exclamation O should be capitalized. 7. Capitals should be used for words derived from proper names, as,

Wesleyan, American, Shakespearean.

159. The apostrophe.

1. The apostrophe should be used in the possessive case, before s when it is the sign of the possessive case, and after s when it is the sign of the plural as,

man's, men's, girl's, three girls'.

2. The apostrophe should be used to mark the plurals of figures, of letters, and of words used as names of themselves, as,

Your 7's are not clear.

Dot your i's.

Your and's are badly written.

3. The apostrophe should be used to mark the omission of a letter, as,

160. Italics.

The boys of '76 (for 1776).

He couldn't do it.

Underscore all words which should be italicized in print. Italics are used for

(a) foreign words and phrases, as Monsieur,
(b) for the titles of books and plays, when
they are not set off by quotation marks,
as, Longfellow's Hiawatha,

(c) for words which the writer wishes to
emphasize. This form of emphasis
should rarely be used,

(d) for words used as the names of themselves. We may for this purpose, however, use the single quotation marks, as and or ' and '.

161. Exercise.

Copy the following passages in correct form:

my brother and i with john, our hired man, and mayor bright from fishkill on the hudson went trout fishing in the adirondacks on monday of last week. it was a beautiful september day; the leaves had begun to show the effect of fall coloring and the air was invigorating. We had some hot discussions on the way for john is a prohibitionist. I mean that he belongs to the party which voted for doctor swallow during the election he used to go down to the party headquarters occasionally at forty-third street, new york city and get literature on the subject. the mayor quoted the declaration of independence and asked john if he thought men who had fought to be free in the revolutionary war would have stood for laws about what they should drink. john said o what have they to do with it; we've grown wiser today

Johns book

mens clothing

your ands, your is and your 7s are all very badly written why don't you write more carefully?

Vive le roi said my uncle, proud of his little knowledge of french

APPENDIX

162. Symbols of correction.

App. p. 00.

Cap. with under the word to be corrected.

See the appendix to this book, page 00.

Use a capital letter.

Not clear.

Connective poor.
Grammar is faulty.

Illegible; cannot be read.
Use italics.

Lower case (a printer's
term); don't use capitals.
Punctuation faulty.

A reference to the rule 5 (c),
or some other, in this book.
Make a new paragraph.
A new paragraph not
needed.
Misspelling.

Disregard the changes made.
The expression is weak.
Too many words used for
the idea.

Wrong word used.
Something omitted.
Cut out.

163. Abbreviations.

Two abbreviations can always be used. These are Mr. and Mrs. So may abbreviations of academic de

grees like D.D. and Dr. Such forms as Jr., Sir., Esq., and Rev.1 can always be used with a man's name, as Dr. Brown, John Smith, Esq., James Potter, Jr., Esq. The use of other abbreviations is in good taste only where they will prove an evident convenience to the reader, as in foot-notes, lesson-plans, and bills. The abbreviation of such titles of honor as Prof. for Professor and Gen. for General is not in good taste. Just as bad is the attempt to abbreviate pseudonyms, as Geo. Eliot for George Eliot. Till is not an abbreviation of until; there is, therefore, no reason for spelling it til. It is a complete word.

1 Rev. should never be used with the surname alone. We should say the Rev. Charles Jones or the Rev. Mr. Jones, or the Rev. Mr. Jones, or the Rev. Dr. Jones, but never the Rev. Jones.