Plain English Part 83

Our list of words in this week's lesson contain some of the most common words which we use ending in _ible_ or _able_. The words for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday all end in _able_; the words for Thursday, Friday, and Sat.u.r.day will end in _ible_. Notice them carefully and get fixed firmly in mind the correct spelling. Notice also that most of these adjectives can be changed into adverbs by changing _ble_ to _bly_.

So when you have added these adjectives to your vocabulary, you have also added the adverbs as well.

+Monday+

Probable Capable Usable Considerable Respectable

+Tuesday+

Durable Salable Advisable Available Equitable

+Wednesday+

Tolerable Profitable Remarkable Valuable Comfortable

+Thursday+

Possible Horrible Plausible Intelligible Terrible

+Friday+

Credible Visible Infallible Responsible Sensible

+Sat.u.r.day+

Forcible Permissible Feasible Corruptible Eligible

PLAIN ENGLISH

LESSON 23

Dear Comrade:

In this lesson we are taking up the study of interjections.

Interjections are the language of emotion. This was probably the earliest form of speech. You notice that children use these exclamations often, and the sounds which are imitations of the noises about them.

This language belongs also to the savage, whose peculiar and expressive grunts contain whole areas of condensed thought. As we progress from feeling to thinking, the use of the interjection diminishes.

You will not find interjections used in a book on mathematics or physical science or history. To attempt to read one of these books may make you use interjections and express your emotion in violent language, but you will not find interjections in these books. These books of science are books that express thought and not feeling. But if you turn to fiction and to oratory you will find the interjection used freely, for these are the books which treat of the human emotions and feelings.

Especially in poetry will you find the interjection used, for poetry is the language of feeling and the interjection is an important part of the poet's stock in trade.

In conversation, these exclamatory words are very useful. They fill the gaps in our conversation and they help to put the listener and the speaker in touch with one another. They are usually accompanied by a gesture, which adds force to the word. The tone of the voice in which they are expressed also means a great deal. You can say, Oh! in half a dozen different ways; you may express surprise, wonder, joy, sorrow, pain, or disgust. A great many different and widely separated feelings can be expressed simply by the tone in which you use the exclamatory words. Some one has said that these words grease the wheels of talk.

They serve to help the timid, to give time to the unready and to keep up a pleasant semblance of familiarity.

When we use them in the stress of emotion to express deep feeling, their use is perfectly justified. But one author has called these words "the miserable refuge of the speechless." We use them many times because we have no words with which to express ourselves. This use is unjustified.

Be careful that you do not use them in this way. It has been said that the degree of a man's civilization can be pretty fairly judged by the expletives which he uses. Do not sprinkle your conversation with interjections and even stronger words because you are at a loss for other words.

There is a rich mine of words at your disposal. Do not be satisfied with bits of gla.s.s that have no value, when the rich diamonds of real expression can be yours for just a little digging. Save your emotional language for the time when you really need it to express deep emotion.

Yours for Education,

THE PEOPLE'S COLLEGE.

INTERJECTIONS

+386.+ We have been studying the parts of speech,--the elements of which sentences are composed. But we have another cla.s.s of words which we call parts of speech because they are spoken and written as words, but which are really not parts of speech in the same sense as the words which we have been discussing. These are words which we call interjections.

Interjection means, literally, thrown between, from _jecto_, to throw, and _inter_, between. So interjections do not enter into the construction of sentences but are only thrown in between. Every word that is really a part of the sentence is either a noun, a p.r.o.noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, a preposition or a conjunction.

There are words, however, that we use with sentences which do not enter into the construction. For example, you say:

Oh! I am wounded.

Aha! I have conquered.

Alas! He came too late.

+387.+ Words which we use in these sentences, like, _oh_, _aha_, _alas_, are used to express the emotion which you feel in making the statement.

Your _Oh!_ in a sentence like: _Oh! I am wounded_, would probably sound very much like a groan. But your _Aha!_ in the, _Aha! I have conquered_, will sound like a shout of victory, and your _Alas!_ in the sentence, _Alas! He came too late_, will express grief or regret over the fact that he came too late.

These words do not a.s.sert anything and very much of the meaning which we give them must come from the tone in which they are uttered. Every one, upon hearing them, knows at once whether they express grief or delight.

+388.+ +An interjection is an exclamatory word or phrase used to express feeling or to imitate some sound.+

+389.+ Interjections may be divided into four cla.s.ses:

1. +Words which we use instead of an a.s.sertion to express feeling of various kinds+, as:

(a) Surprise or wonder; as, _Oh_, _Aha_, _What_.

(b) Pleasure, joy, or exaltation; as, _Hurrah_, _Ha, Ha_.

(c) Pain, sadness or sorrow; as, _Alas_, _Alack_.

(d) Contempt or disgust; as _Fie_, _Fudge_, _Ugh_, _Pshaw_.

2. +Words used instead of a question+; as, _Eh?_ _Hey?_

3. +Words used instead of a command+; as:

(a) To call attention; as, _h.e.l.lo_, _Ahoy_, _Whoa_.

(b) To express silence; as, _Shh_, _Hush_, _Hist_.

(c) To direct or drive out, etc., as, _Whoa_, _Gee_, _Haw_, _Scat_.

4. +Words used to imitate sounds made by animals, machines, etc.+, as, _Bow-wow_, _Ding-dong_, _Bang_, _Rub-a-dub_.

When we wish to imitate noises or sounds made by animals, machines, etc., in writing, we spell out the words as nearly as we can, just as we write _ding-dong_ to represent the sound of the bell or _tick-tock_ to indicate the ticking of a clock.

Note that a number of our verbs and nouns have been formed from imitating the sound which these nouns or verbs describe or express, as for instance, _crash_, _roar_, _buzz_, _hush_, _groan_, _bang_, _puff_, etc.