Arif Barkat English Book

A Textbook of English Prose and Structure1
Contents
Contents ................................................................................ 1 Part I ...................................................................................... 3 Of Studies ............................................................................. 4 Machines and the Emotions ................................................ 6 On Reverence ..................................................................... 15 Taming Technology ........................................................... 18 Freedom .............................................................................. 34 The Man in Asbestos: An Allegory of the Future ............ 44 From a Liberal Education ................................................ 110 What is Beauty? ............................................................... 115 Shooting an Elephant....................................................... 129 Logic: Love is a Fallacy ................................................... 139 Part II ................................................................................. 155 1The Sentence .............................................................. 156 IIRecognising Word Classes or Parts of Speech ....... 243
IIITenses ........................................................................ 387 IVPunctuation................................................................ 413 VMiscellaneous Expressions in Usage ....................... 514
Index..272
Perenial Themes
Part I
Perennial Themes
Good name, in man or woman, dear my God, Is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals my purse, steals trash; t is something nothing; T was mine, t is his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name, Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.
William Shakespeare Othello, Act III, Scene III
Of Studies
Francis Bacon
(1561-1626)
Born in London and educated at Cambridge, Sir Francis Bacon spent much of his life practicing law, but to the end of it he busied himself with philosophical pursuits, and will be known to posterity chiefly for his deep and clear writings on these subjects. His constant direction in philosophy is to break away from assumption and tradition, and to be led only by sound induction based on knowledge of observed phenomena. Among the distinguished names in English literature, none stands higher in his field than that of Francis Bacon. Reproduced here is a short essay by him which is a model of lucid, vivid, balanced and presice prose writing. Students will see that his essay is replete with short and pithy sententences and aphorisms. It also informs the reader of the significance of various facets of studies. To Bacon Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness, and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business; for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of the particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshaling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar; they perfect nature and are perfected by experiencefor natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men condemn studies, simple men
Perenial Themes
admire them, and wise men use them, for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral philosophy, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.
Discussion
How do you think studies can make a man perfect? To spend too much time in studies, is sloth. Comment. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Elaborate.
Machines and the Emotions

Bertrand Russell
(1872-1970)
The theme of this article is a familiar critique of the industrial culture, that is, impoverishment of the emotional life of man that it supposedly entails. The Pakistani readers should be familiar with this theme as summed up in an oftquoted line of Iqbal: Hay dil kay liyai mot mashino ki hakoomat. The author attempts to elucidate the impact of machines on human emotions within the framework of modern psychological thought, and postulates a link between the desiccated emotional life of modern man and the intensification of his passion for violence. This heightened propensity for violence could be reduced, the author thinks, if people were provided opportunities for exciting and hazardous adventures such as mountaineering. Bertrand Russell is a major intellectual figure of the 20th century. He has written voluminously on philosophy, logic, education, economics, politics, and has had great impact on the thinking of educated classes around the world. On occasions he was a center of intense controversies because of his unorthodox and iconoclastic ideas. His work in fields of philosophy and logic is of lasting importance. The Principles of Mathematics (1903) and Principia Mathematica (written in collaboration with A. N. Whitehead) have the status of classics of mathematical logic. He was awarded Nobel Prize for Peace.
Will machines destroy emotions, or will emotions destroy machines. This question was suggested long ago by Samuel Butler in Erewhon, but it is growing more and more actual as the empire of machinery is enlarged. At first sight, it is not obvious why there should be any opposition between machines and emotions. Every normal boy loves machines; the bigger and more powerful they are, the more he loves them. Nations which have a long tradition of artistic excellence, like the Japanese, are captivated by Western
Perenial Themes
mechanical methods as soon as they come across them, and long only to imitate us as quickly as possible. Nothing annoys an educated and travelled Asiatic so much as to hear praise of the wisdom of the East or the traditional virtues of Asiatic civilisation. He feels as a boy would feel who was told to play with dolls instead of toy automobiles. And like a boy, he would prefer a real automobile to a toy one, not realising that it may run over him. In the West, when machinery was new, there was the same delight in it, except on the part of a few poets and aesthetes. The nineteenth century considered itself superior to its predecessors chiefly because of its mechanical progress. Peacock, in its early years, makes fun of the steam intellect society, because he is a literary man, to whom the Greek and Latin authors represent civilisation; but he is conscious of being out of touch with the prevailing tendencies of his time. Rousseaus disciples with the return to Nature, the Lake Poets with the medievalism, William Morris with his News From Nowhere (a country where it is always June and everybody is engaged in hay making), all represent a purely sentimental and essentially reactionary opposition to machinery. Samuel Butler was the first man to apprehend intellectually the non-sentimental case against machines, but in him it may have been no more than a jeu despritcertainly it was not a deeply held conviction. Since his day numbers of people in the most mechanised nations have been tending to adopt in earnest a view similar to that of the Erewhonians; this view, that is to say, has been latent or explicit in the attitude of many rebels against existing industrial methods. Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful, and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous, and loathed because they impose slavery. Do not let us suppose that one of these attitudes is right and the other wrong, any more than it would be right to maintain that men
have heads but wrong to maintain that they have feet, though we can easily imagine Lilliputians disputing this question concerning Gulliver. A machine is like a Djinn in the Arabian Nights: beautiful and beneficent to its master, but hideous and terrible to his enemies. But in our day nothing is allowed to show itself with such naked simplicity. The master of the machine, it is true, lives at a distance from it, where he cannot hear its noise or see its unsightly heaps of slag or smell its noxious fumes; if he ever sees it, the occasion is before it is installed in use, when he can admire its force or its delicate precision without being troubled by dust and heat. But when he is challenged to consider the machine from the point of view of those who have to live with it and work it, he has a ready answer. He can point out that owing to its operations, these men can purchase more goodsoften vastly morethan their greatgrandfathers could. It follows that they must be happier than their great-grandfathersif we are to accept an assumption which is made by almost everyone. The assumption is, that the possession of material commodities is what makes men happy. It is thought that a man who has two rooms and two beds and two loaves must be twice as happy as a man who has one room and one bed and one loaf. In a word, it is thought that happiness is proportional to income. A few people, not always quite sincerely, challenge this idea in the name of religion or morality; but they are glad if they increase their income by the eloquence of their preaching. It is not from a moral or religious point of view that I wish to challenge it; it is from the point of view of psychology and observation of life. If happiness is proportional to income, the case for machinery is unanswerable; if not, the whole question remains to be examined. Men have physical needs, and they have emotions. While physical needs are unsatisfied, they take first place; but when they are satisfied, emotions unconnected with them become
Perenial Themes
important in deciding whether a man is to be happy or unhappy. In modern industrial communities there are many men, women, and children whose bare physical needs are not adequately supplied; as regards them, I do not deny that the first requisite for happiness is an increase of income. But they are a minority, and it would not be difficult to give the bare necessaries of life to all of them. It is not of them that I wish to speak, but of those who have more than is necessary to support existencenot only those who have much more, but also those who have only a little more. Why do we, in fact, almost all of us, desire to increase our incomes? It may seem, at first sight, as though material goods were what we desire. But, in fact, we desire these mainly in order to impress our neighbour. When a man moves into a large house in a more genteel quarter, he reflects that better people will call on his wife, and some unprosperous cronies of former days can be dropped. When he sends his son to a good school or an expensive university, he consoles himself for the heavy fees by thoughts of the social kudos to be gained. In every big city, whether of Europe or of America, houses in some districts are more expensive than equally good houses in other districts, merely because they are more fashionable. One of the most powerful of all our passions is the desire to be admired and respected. As things stand, admiration and respect are given to the man who seems to be rich. This is the chief reason why people wish to be rich. The actual goods purchased by their money play quite a secondary part. Take, for example, a millionaire who cannot tell one picture from another, but has acquired a gallery of old masters by the help of experts. The only pleasure he derives from his pictures is the thought that others know how much they have cost; he would derive more direct enjoyment from Christmas cards, but he would not obtain the same satisfaction for his vanity.
All this might be different, and has been different in many societies. In aristocratic epochs, men have been admired for their birth. In some circles in Paris, men are admired for their artistic or literary excellence, strange as it may seem. In a German university, a man may actually be admired for his learning. In India saints are admired; in China, sages. The study of these differing societies shows the correctness of our analysis, for in all of them we find a large percentage of men who are indifferent to money so long as they have enough to keep alive on, but are keenly desirous of the merits by which, in their environment, respect is to be won. The importance of these facts lies in this, that the modern desire for wealth is not inherent in human nature, and could be destroyed by different social institutions. If, by law, we all had exactly the same income, we should have to seek some other way of being superior to our neighbours, and most of our present craving for material possessions would cease. Moreover, since this craving is in the nature of a competition, it only brings happiness when we out-distance a rival to whom it brings correlative pain. A general increase of wealth gives no competitive advantage, and therefore bring no competitive happiness. There is, of course, some pleasure derived from the actual enjoyment of goods purchased, but, as we have seen, this is a very small part of what makes us desire wealth. And in so far as our desire is competitive, no increase of human happiness as a whole comes from increase of wealth, whether general or particular. If we are to argue that machinery increases happiness, therefore, the increase of material prosperity which it brings cannot weigh heavily in its favour, except in so far as it may be used to prevent absolute destitution. But there is no inherent reason why it should be so used. Destitution can be prevented without machinery where the population is stationary; of this France may serve as an example, since there is very little destitution and
Perenial Themes 11
much less machinery than in America, England and pre-war Germany. Conversely, there may be much destitution where there is much machinery; of this we have examples in the industrial areas of England a hundred years ago and of Japan at the present day. The prevention of destitution does not depend upon machines, but upon quite other factorspartly density of population, and partly political conditions. And apart from prevention of destitution, the value of increasing wealth is not very great. Meanwhile, machines deprive us of two things which are certainly important ingredients of human happiness, namely spontaneity and variety. Machines have their own pace, and their own insistent demands; a man who has expensive plant must keep it working. The great trouble with the machine, from the point of view of the emotions, is its regularity. And, of course, conversely, the great objection to the emotions, from the point of view of the machine, is their irregularity. As the machine dominates the thoughts of people who consider themselves serious, the highest praise they can give to a man is to suggest that he has the quality of a machinethat he is reliable, punctual, exact, etc. And an irregular life has come to be synonymous with a bad life. Against this point of view Bergsons philosophy was a protestnot, to my mind, wholly sound from an intellectual point of view, but inspired by a wholesome dread of seeing men turned more and more into machines. In life, as opposed to thought, the rebellion of our instincts against enslavement to mechanism has hitherto taken a most unfortunate direction. The impulse to war has always existed since men took to living in societies, but it did not, in the past, have the same intensity or virulence as it has in our day. In the eighteenth century, England and France had innumerable wars, and contended for the hegemony of the world; but they liked and respected each other the whole time. Officer prisoners joined in
the social life of their captors, and were honoured guests at their dinner-parties. At the beginning of our war with Holland in 1665, a man came home from Africa with atrocity stories about the Dutch there; we (the British) persuaded ourselves that his story was false, punished him, and published the Dutch denial. In the late war we should have knighted him, and imprisoned anyone who threw doubt on his veracity. The greater ferocity of modern war is attributable to machines, which operate in three different ways. First, they make it possible to have larger armies. Secondly, they facilitate a cheap press, which flourishes by appealing to mens baser passions. Thirdlyand this is the point that concerns usthey starve the anarchic, spontaneous side of human nature, which works underground, producing an obscure discontent, to which the thought of war appeals as affording possible relief. It is a mistake to attribute a vast upheaval like the late war merely to the machinations of politicians. In Russia, perhaps, such an explanation would have been adequate; that is one reason why Russia fought half heartedly, and made a revolution to secure peace. But in England, Germany, and the United States (in 1917), no Government could have withstood the popular demand for war. A popular demand of this sort must have an instinctive basis, and for my part I believe that the modern increase in warlike instinct is attributable to the dissatisfaction (mostly unconscious) caused by the regularity, monotony, and tameness of modern life. It is obvious that we cannot deal with this situation by abolishing machinery. Such a measure would be reactionary, and is in any case impracticable. The only way of avoiding the evils at present associated with machinery is to provide breaks in the monotony, and every encouragement to high adventure during the intervals. Many men would cease to desire war if they had opportunities to risk their lives in Alpine climbing; one of the ablest and most vigorous workers for peace that it has been my good fortune to know habitually spent his summer climbing the most dangerous peaks in the Alps. If every working man had a month in the year
Perenial Themes 13
during which, if he chose, he could be taught to work an aeroplane, or encouraged to hunt for sapphires of the Sahara, or otherwise enabled to engage in some dangerous and exciting pursuit involving quick personal initiative, the popular love of war would become confined to women and invalids. I confess I know no method of making these classes pacific, but I am convinced that a scientific psychology would find a method if it undertook the task in earnest. Machines have altered our way of life, but not our instincts. Consequently there is maladjustment. The whole psychology of the emotions and instincts is as yet in its infancy; a beginning has been made by psycho-analysis, but only a beginning. What we may accept from psycho-analysis is the fact that people will, in action, pursue various ends which they do not consciously desire, and will have an attendant set of quite irrational beliefs which enable them to pursue these ends without knowing that they are doing so. But orthodox psycho-analysis has unduly simplified our unconscious purposes, which are numerous, and differ from person to another. It is to be hoped that social and political phenomena will soon come to be understood from this point of view, and will thus throw light on average human nature. Moral self-control, and external prohibition of harmful acts, are not adequate methods of dealing with our anarchic instincts. The reason they are inadequate is that these instincts are capable of as many disguises as the devil in medieval legend, and some of these disguises deceive even the elect. The only adequate method is to discover what are the needs of our instinctive nature, and then to search for the least harmful way of satisfying them. Since spontaneity is what is most thwarted by machines, the only thing that can be provided is opportunity; the use made of opportunity must be left to the initiative of the individual. No doubt considerable expense would be involved; but it would not be comparable to the expense of war. Understanding of human
nature must be the basis of any real improvements in human life. Science has done wonders in mastering the laws of the physical world, but our own nature is much less understood, as yet, than the nature of stars and electrons. When science learns to understand human nature, it will be able to bring a happiness into our lives which machines and the physical sciences have failed to create.
Discussion
Is insatiable craving for money a part of human nature? How far social institutions can determine human behaviour? Russell observes that apart from prevention of destitution, the value of increasing wealth is not very great. Do you agree? Is there any incompatibility between machines and human emotions? How do the machines contribute towards heightening of modern mans propensity for violence? How exciting and hazardous pastimes reduce modern mans craving for violence? Explain and comment on Russells observation that machines have altered our way of life, but not our instincts. Why external restraints fail to ensure good human behaviour?
On Reverence
Bertrand Russell
(1872-1970)
In his writings on social and cultural issues, Bertrand Russell is at his best when he questions beliefs whose truth is taken for granted and attitudes which are hallowed by traditions. In On Reverence he shows how emotions of reverence, when invested thoughtlessly, can result in intellectual paralysis and cultural stagnation. His lucid and incisive observations on the topic should provide food for thought to intellectuals who abdicate their role as critics of their societies because of non-discriminating reverence for their heroes and cult-figures.
Admiration of great men, both of our own time and of the past, is a valuable emotion and a stimulus to useful activity. To young men of vigour and enterprise, the achievements of predecessors are an encouragement and a proof of what is possible to achieve. But if this good effect is to result from admiration, it is necessary that the men who are admired should be regarded as something that it is possible to equal by means of sufficient exertion, not as something outside our capacity. It is possible to use the great men of the past as an excuse for laziness, by assuming that what they thought was perfect for all time and need never be re-examined. This attitude is defended by those who adopt it, who call it reverence and condemn all modern initiative as disrespectful. Reverence in this sense has been a misfortune to the human race. One of the most outstanding examples of the harm done by excessive reverence is the influence of Aristotle. For a brief period, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when the West rediscovered him through contact with the Arabs, his writings
acted as an intellectual stimulus. But very soon he became the canon of orthodoxy, and no advance could be made except by showing the falsehood of what he had said. Galileo could not induce professors of astronomy to look through his telescope at Jupiters moons, because they knew from Aristotle that Jupiter has no moons. Throughout Galileos life he was as much criticised for disagreeing with Aristotle as for his supposed conflict with the Scriptures. Two centuries later, when Darwin published Origin of Species, he was met by dogmatic assertion of Aristotles doctrine that each species was separately created. In logic and aesthetics his influence has been, and still is, exceedingly pernicious. In the main, however, Aristotles influence belongs to the past. But the attitude of appealing to the authority of great men as unquestionable has by no means disappeared. Every young man or young woman whose opinions are not on all points those of the older generation is met with arguments inspired by this point of view. Do you think you are wiser than so-and-so? says the indignant parent or teacher. So-and-so is almost always a man who himself disagreed with his parents and teachers, but this fact is ignored. So-and-so lived in other circumstances and necessarily did not know all sorts of things that are known nowadays. Even if So-and-so was just as wise as conservatives suppose, that is no reason for supposing that his opinions are to be accepted as a guide in the circumstances of the present day. There is no subject upon which the opinions of a man who lived long ago can be accepted as dogmas absolving us from the necessity of fresh consideration in the light of our modern environment. Not infrequently, however, men who have acquired great authority never were very wise, even in their own day. One way of being thought wise is to defend current prejudices in glowing and eloquent language so that rhetoric
Perenial Themes 17
conceals the lack of reasoning power and the failure of sympathetic understanding. Great writers and great orators have done incalculable harm in this way. If eloquence could be made illegal, the dangers of popular government would be much less than they are. As, however, this solution is impossible, the only way out lies in an educational system which cultivates an inquiring and scientific outlook. Perhaps, after another two or three centuries, this way out may be tried.
Discussion
Why reverential attitude towards great men leads to intellectual stagnation? What should be the proper attitude towards ones revered heroes? What are negative and positive aspects of reverence for great men?
Taming Technology
Alvin Toffler
The selection has been taken from Future Shock, a book which has greatly influenced contemporary thinking about the impact of technology on all spheres of life. It focuses particularly on the high acceleration of change induced by avalanche of technological advancements which disrupts and disorientates the whole spectrum of social institution, and strains human adaptability to unmanageable limits. The author pleads for a conscious regulation of technological growth to keep the pace of change within limits of human tolerance. Alvin Toffler is amongst the best known contemporary American authors who has won acclaim as a social thinker and futurologist. Amongst other works, he is author of Future Shock and The Third Wavebooks which have had world-wide readership, and received attention from planners and policy makers in many countries.
Future shockthe disease of changecan be prevented. But it will take drastic social, even political action. No matter how individuals try to pace their lives, no matter what psychic crutches we offer them, no matter how we alter education, the society as a whole will still be caught on a runaway treadmill until we capture control of the accelerative thrust itself. The high velocity of change can be traced to many factors. Population growth, urbanization, the shifting proportions of young and oldall play their part. Yet technological advance is clearly a critical node in the network of causes; indeed, it may be the node that activates the entire net. One powerful strategy in the battle to prevent mass future shock, therefore, involves the conscious regulation of technological advance. We cannot and must not turn off the switch of technological progress. Only romantic fools babble about returning to a state of nature. A state of nature is one in which infants shrivel and
Perenial Themes 19
die for lack of elementary medical care, in which malnutrition stultifies the brain.... To turn our back on technology would be not only stupid but immoral. Given that a majority of men still figuratively live in the twelfth century, who are we even to contemplate throwing away the key to economic advance?... To deliberately turn back the clock would be to condemn billions to enforced and permanent misery at precisely the moment in history when their liberation is becoming possible. We clearly need not less but more technology. At the same time, it is undeniably true that we frequently apply new technology stupidly and selfishly. In our haste to milk technology for immediate economic advantage, we have turned our environment into a physical and social tinderbox. The speed-up of diffusion, the self-reinforcing character of technological advance, by which each forward step facilitates not one but many additional further steps, the intimate link-up between technology and social arrangementsall these create a form of psychological pollution, a seemingly unstoppable acceleration of the pace of life. The psychic pollution is matched by the industrial vomit that fills our skies and seas. Pesticides and herbicides filter into our foods. Twisted automobile carcasses, aluminum cans, nonreturnable glass bottles and synthetic plastic form immense kitchen middens in our midst as more and more of our detritus resists decay. We do not even begin to know what to do with our radioactive wasteswhether to pump them into the earth, shoot them into outer spaces, or pour them into the oceans....
Technological Backlash
As the effects of irresponsibly applied technology become more grimly evident, a political backlash mounts. An offshore drilling accident that pollutes 800 square miles of the pacific triggers a shock wave of indignation all over the United States. A multimillionaire industrialist in Nevada, Howard Hughes, prepares a lawsuit to prevent the Atomic Energy Commission from continuing its underground nuclear tests. In Seattle, the Boeing Company fights growing public clamor against its plans to build a supersonic jet transport. In Washington, public sentiment forces a reassessment of missile policy. At MIT, Wisconsin, Cornell, and other universities, scientists lay down test tubes and slide rules during a research moratorium called to discuss the social implications of their work. Students organize environmental teachins and the President lectures the nation about the ecological menace. Additional evidences of deep concern over our technological course are turning up in Britain, France and other nations.... The incipient worldwide movement for the control of technology, however, must not be permitted to fall into the hands of irresponsible technophobes, nihilists.... Worse yet, reckless attempts to halt technology will produce results quite as destructive as reckless attempts to advance it. Caught between these twin perils, we desperately need a movement for responsible technology. We need a broad political grouping rationally committed to further scientific research and technological advancebut on a selective basis only. Instead of wasting its energies in denunciations of The machine or in negativistic criticism of the space program, it should formulate a set of positive technological goals for the future. Such a set of goals, if comprehensive and well worked out, could bring order to a field now in total shambles. By 1980,
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according to Aurelio Peccei, the Italian economist and industrialist, combined research and development expenditures in the United States and Europe will run to $73 billion per year. This level of expense adds up to three-quarters of a trillion dollars per decade. With such large sums at stake, one would think that governments would plan their technological development carefully, relating it to broad social goals, and insisting on strict accountability. Nothing could be more mistaken. No onenot even the most brilliant scientist alive todayreally knows where science is taking us, says Ralph Lapp, himself a scientist-turned-writer, ... It is hardly reassuring to learn that when the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development issued its massive report on science in the United States, one of its authors, a former premier of Belgium, confessed: We came to the conclusion that we were looking for something ... which was not there: a science policy. The committee could have looked even harder, and with still less success, for anything resembling a conscious technological policy.... The horrifying truth is that, so far as much technology is concern, no one is in charge.
Selecting Cultural Styles

So long as an industrializing nation is poor, it tends to welcome without argument any technical innovation that promises to improve economic output or material welfare. This is, in fact, a tacit technological policy, and it can make for extremely rapid economic growth. It is, however, a brutally unsophisticated policy, and as a result all kinds of new machines and processes are spewed into the society without regard for their secondary or long-range effects. Once the society begins its take-off for super-industrialism, this any thing goes policy becomes wholly and hazardously
inadequate. Apart from the increased power and scope of technology, the options multiply as well. Advanced technology helps create overchoice with respect to available goods, cultural products, services, subcults and life styles. At the same time overchoice comes to characterize technology itself. Increasingly diverse innovations are arrayed before the society and the problems of selection grow more and more acute. The old simple policy, by which choices were made according to short-run economic advantage, proves dangerous, confusing, destabilizing. Today we need far more sophisticated criteria for choosing among technologies. We need such policy criteria not only to stave off avoidable disasters, but to help us discover tomorrows opportunities. Faced for the first time with technological overchoice, the society must now select its machines, processes, techniques and systems in groups and clusters, instead of one at a time. It must choose the way an individual chooses his life style. It must make super-decisions about its future. Furthermore, just as an individual can exercise conscious choice among alternative life styles, a society today can consciously choose among alternative cultural styles. This is a new fact in history. In the past, culture emerged without premeditation. Today, for the first time, we can raise the process to awareness. By the application of conscious technological policyalong with other measureswe can contour the culture of tomorrow. In their book, The year 2000, Herman Kahn and Anthony Wiener list one hundred technical innovations very likely in the last third of the twentieth century. These range from multiple applications of the laser to new materials, new power sources, new airborne and submarine vehicles, three-dimensional photography, and human hibernation for medical purposes. Similar lists are to be found elsewhere as well. In transportation,
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in communications, in every conceivable field and some that are almost inconceivable, we face an inundation of innovation. In consequence, the complexities of choice are staggering.... Another technological advance that could enlarge the adaptive range of the individual pertain to human IQ. Widely reported experiments in the United States, Sweden and elsewhere, strongly suggest that we may, within the foreseeable future, be able to augment mans intelligence and informational handling abilities. Research in biochemistry and nutrition indicate that protein, RNA and other manipulable properties are, in some still obscure way, correlated with memory and learning. A largescale effort to crack the intelligence barrier could pay off in fantastic improvement of mans adaptability. It may be that the historic moment is right for such amplifications of humanness, for a leap to a new super-human organism. But what are the consequences and alternatives? ... Should biochemical treatments be used to raise mental defectives to the level of normals, should they be used to raise the average, or should we concentrate on trying to breed supergeniuses? In quite different fields, similar complex choices abound. Should we throw our resources behind a crash effort to achieve low-cost nuclear energy? Or should a comparable effort be mounted to determine the biochemical basis of aggression? Should we spend billions of dollars on a supersonic jet transportor should these funds be deployed in the development of artificial hearts? Should we tinker with the human gene? Or should we, as some quite seriously propose, flood the interior of Brazil to create an inland ocean the size of East and West Germany combined? We will soon, no doubt, be able to put super-LSD or an antiaggression additive or some Huxleyian soma into our breakfast foods. We will soon be able to settle colonists on the planets and plant pleasure probes in the skulls of our newborn infants. But
should we? Who is to decide? By what human criteria should such decisions be taken? It is clear that a society which opts for ... nuclear energy, supersonic transports, macroengineering on a continental scale, along with LSD and pleasure probes, will develop a culture dramatically different from the one that chooses, instead, to raise intelligence, diffuse anti-aggression drugs and provide low-cost artificial hearts. Sharp differences would quickly emerge between the society that presses technological advance selectively, and that which blindly snatches at the first opportunity that comes along. Even sharper differences would develop between the society in which the pace of technological advance is moderated and guided to prevent future shock, and that in which masses of ordinary people are incapacitated for rational decision-making. In one, political democracy and broad-scale participation are feasible; in the other powerful pressures lead towards political rule by a tiny techno-managerial elite. Our choice of technologies in short, will decisively shape the cultural styles of the future. This is why technological questions can no longer be answered in technological terms alone. They are political questions. Indeed, they affect us more deeply than most of the superficial political issues that occupy us today. This is why we cannot continue to make technological decisions in the old way. We cannot permit them to be made haphazardly, independently of one another. We cannot permit them to be dictated by short-run economic considerations alone. We cannot permit them to be made in a policy vacuum. And we cannot casually delegate responsibility for such decisions to businessmen, scientists, engineers or administrators who are unaware of the profound consequences of their own actions.
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Transistors and Sex

To capture control of technology, and through it gain some influence over the accelerative thrust in general, we must, therefore, begin to submit new technology to a set of demanding tests before we unleash it in our midst. We must ask a whole series of unaccustomed questions about any innovation before giving it a clean bill of sale. First, bitter experience should have taught us by now to look far more carefully at the potential physical side effects of any new technology. Whether we are proposing a new form of power, a new material, or a new industrial chemical, we must attempt to determine how it will alter the delicate ecological balance upon which we depend for survival. Moreover, we must anticipate its indirect effects over great distances in both time and space.... Second, and much more complex, we must question the longterm impact of a technical innovation on the social, cultural and psychological environment. The automobile is widely believed to have changed the shape of our cities, shifted home ownership and retail trade patterns, altered sexual customs and loosened family ties. In the Middle East, the rapid spread of transistor radios is credited with having contributed to the resurgence of Arab nationalism.... We can no longer afford to let such secondary social and cultural effects just happen. We must attempt to anticipate them in advance, estimating, to the degree possible, their nature, strength and timing. Where these effects are likely to be seriously damaging, we must also be prepared to block the new technology. It is as simple as that. Technology cannot be permitted to rampage through the society. It is quite true that we can never know all the effects of any action, technological or otherwise. But it is not true that we are helpless. It is, for example, sometimes possible to test new
technology in limited areas, among limited groups, studying its secondary impacts before releasing it for diffusion. We could, if we were imaginative, devise living experiments, even volunteer communities, to help guide our technological decisions.... we may also wish to set aside, even subsidize, special high-novelty communities in which advanced drugs, power sources, vehicles, cosmetics, appliances and other innovations are experimentally used and investigated. A corporation today will routinely field test a product to make sure it performs its primary function. The same company will market test the product to ascertain whether it will sell. But, with rare exception, no one post-checks the consumer or the community to determine what the human side effects have been. Survival in the future may depend on our learning to do so. Even when life-testing proves unfeasible, it is still possible for us systematically to anticipate the distant effects of various technologies. Behavioral scientists are rapidly developing new tools, from mathematical modeling and simulation to...make more informed judgments about the consequences of our actions. We are piecing together the conceptual hardware needed for the social evaluation of technology; we need but to make use of it. Third, an even more difficult and pointed question: Apart from actual changes in the social structure, how will a proposed new technology affect the value system of the society? We know little about value structures and how they change, but there is reason to believe that they, too, are heavily impacted by technology. Elsewhere I have proposed that we develop a new profession of value impact forecastersmen and women trained to use the most advanced behavioral science techniques to appraise the value implications of proposed technology....
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Fourth and finally, we must pose a question that until now has almost never been investigated, and which is, nevertheless, absolutely crucial if we are to prevent widespread future shock. For each major technological innovation we must ask: What are its accelerative implications ? The problems of adaptation already far transcend the difficulties of coping with this or that invention or technique. Our problem is no longer the innovation, but the chain of innovations, not the supersonic transport, or the breeder reactor, or the ground effect machine, but entire inter-linked sequences of such innovations and the novelty they send flooding the society. Does a proposed innovation help us control the rate and direction of subsequent advance? Or does it tend to accelerate host of processes over which we have no control? How does it affect the level of transience, the novelty ratio, and the diversity of choice? Until we systematically probe these questions, our attempts to harness technology to social endsand to gain control of the accelerative thrust in generalwill prove feeble and futile. Here, then, is a pressing intellectual agenda for the social and physical sciences. We have taught ourselves to create and combine the most powerful of technologies. We have not taken pains to learn about their consequences. Today these consequences threaten to destroy us. We must learn, and learn fast.
A Technology Ombudsman
The challenge, however, is not solely intellectual; it is political as well. In addition to designing new research toolsnew ways to understand our environmentwe must design creative new political institutions for guaranteeing that these questions are in fact, investigated; and for promoting or discouraging (perhaps
even banning) certain proposed technologies. We need, in effect, a machinery for screening machines.... Responsibility for doing so must be shared by public agencies and the corporations and laboratories in which technological innovations are hatched. Any suggestion for control over technology immediately raises scientific eyebrows. The specter of hamhanded governmental interference is invoked. Yet controls over technology need not imply limitations on the freedom to conduct research. What is at issue is not discovery but diffusion, not invention but application. Ironically, as sociologist Amital Etzioni points out, many liberals who have fully accepted Keynesian economic controls take a laissez-faire view of technology. Theirs are the arguments once used to defend laissez-faire economics: that any attempt to control technology would stifle innovation and initiative. Warnings about overcontrol ought not be lightly ignored. Yet the consequences of lack of control may be far worse. In point of fact, science and technology are never free in any absolute sense. Inventions and the rate at which they are applied are both influenced by the values and institutions of the society that gives rise to them. Every society, in effect, does pre-screen technical innovations before putting them to wide-spread use. The haphazard way in which this is done today, however, and the criteria on which selections is based, need to be changed. In the West, the basic criterion for filtering out certain technical innovations and applying others remains economic profitability. In Communist countries, the ultimate tests have to do with whether the innovation will contribute to overall economic growth and national power. In the former, decisions are private and pluralistically decentralized. In the latter, they are public and tightly centralized.
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Both systems are now obsoleteincapable of dealing with the complexity of super-industrial society. Both tend to ignore all but the most immediate and obvious consequences of technology. Yet, increasingly, it is these non-immediate and non-obvious impacts that must concern us.... One step in the right direction would be to create a technological ombudsmana public agency charged with receiving, investigating, and acting on complaints having to do with the irresponsible application of technology. Who should be responsible for correcting the adverse effects of technology? The rapid diffusion of detergents used in home washing machines and dishwashers intensified water purification problems all over the United States. The decisions to launch detergents on the society were privately taken, but the side effects have resulted in costs borne by the taxpayer and (in the form of lower water quality) by the consumer at large. The costs of air pollution are similarly borne by taxpayer and community even though, as is often the case, the sources of pollution are traceable to individual companies, industries or government installations. Perhaps it is sensible for de-pollution costs to be borne by the public as a form of social overhead, rather than by specific industries. There are many ways to allocate the cost. But whichever way we choose, it is absolutely vital that the lines of responsibility are made clear. Too often no agency, group or institution has clear responsibility. A technology ombudsman could serve as an official sounding board for complaints. By calling press attention to companies or government agencies that have applied new technology irresponsibly or without adequate forethought, such an agency could exert pressure for more intelligent use of new technology. Armed with the power to initiate damage suits where necessary,
it could become a significant deterrent to technological irresponsibility.
The Environmental Screen

But simply investigating and apportioning responsibility after the fact is hardly sufficient. We must create an environmental screen to protect ourselves against dangerous intrusions as well as a system of public incentives to encourage technology that is both safe and socially desirable. This means governmental and private machinery for reviewing major technological advances before they are launched upon the public. Corporations might be expected to set up their own consequence analysis staffs to study the potential effects of the innovations they sponsor. They might, in some cases, be required not merely to test new technology in pilot areas but to make a pubic report about its impact before being permitted to spread the innovation through the society at large. Much responsibility should be delegated to industry itself. The less centralized the controls the better. If self-policing works, it is preferable to external, political control. Where self-regulation fails, however, as it often does, public intervention may well be necessary, and we should not evade the responsibility. In the United States, Congressman Emilio Q. Daddario, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Science, Research and Development, has proposed the establishment of a Technology Assessment Board within the federal government.... The society might also set certain general principles for technological advance. Where the introduction of an innovation entails undue risk, for example, it might require that funds be set aside by the responsible agency for correction of adverse effects should they materialize. We might also create a technological
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insurance pool to which innovation-diffusing agencies might pay premiums. Certain large-scale ecological interventions might be delayed or prohibited altogetherperhaps in line with the principle that if an incursion on nature is too big and sudden for its effects to be monitored and possibly corrected, it should not take place. For example, it has been suggested that the Aswan Dam, far from helping Egyptian agriculture, might someday lead to salinization of the land on both banks of the Nile. This could prove disastrous. But such a process would not occur overnight. Presumably, therefore, it can be monitored and prevented. By contrast, the plan to flood the entire interior of Brazil is fraught with such instant and imponderable ecological effects that it should not be permitted at all until adequate monitoring can be done and emergency corrective measures are available. At the level of social consequences, a new technology might be submitted for clearance to panels of behavioral scientistspsychologists, sociologists, economists, political scientistswho would determine, to the best of their ability, the probable strength of its social impact at different points in time. Where an innovation appears likely to entail seriously disruptive consequences, or to generate unrestrained accelerative pressures, these facts need to be weighed in a social cost-benefit accounting procedure. In the case of some high-impact innovations, the technological appraisal agency might be empowered to seek restraining legislation, or to obtain an injunction forcing delay until full public discussion and study is completed. In other cases, such innovations might still be released for diffusionprovided ample steps were taken in advance to offset their negative consequences. In this way, the society would not need to wait for disaster before dealing with its technology-induced problems....
Discussion
What is meant by future shock? How can it be averted? How can we prevent technology turning our environment into a physical and social tinderbox? What does the author mean by psychic pollution? What should be the goal of a movement for responsible technology? What is meant by technological backlash? What forms can it take? What technological policy is followed at present by most of the countries? What does the author mean by technological over-choice? What are its implications? Technological questions can no longer be answered in technological terms. Why? Society must now choose its cultural style as an individual chooses his life style. Discuss what should be the criterion for such a choice. What is the nature of technological innovations? long-term consequences of
What can be done to anticipate the distant effects of technologies? What needs to be controlled is not discovery but diffusion, not invention, but application. Discuss.
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What institutions are proposed by the author for regulating technology? Who should bear the costs of de-polluting environment? What can be done to create an environmental screen? Discuss the role of behavioural scientists in ensuring responsible technology.
Freedom
George Bernard Shaw
(1895-1940)
Freedom, both as a term and as a trait has often been used perfunctorily by scholars and the general people alike. It is all the more important to know its meaning and its spirit and then esteem it as such. Reproduced below is the text of a broadcast address by G. B. Shaw that he gave on 17 June 1935. Here he has challenged the old order, the present order, and that which is still to come. The address, one of a series on the subject, is typically Shavian. It raised the storm of argument and controversy which invariably followed Shaws utterances. The essay is sure to provide material to the students for hard thinking. George Bernard Shaw, the Irish-born writer, is regrarded as the most significant British dramatist since Shakespeare. In addition to being a prolific playwright (he wrote 50 stage plays) and novelist, he was also the most trenchant pamphleteer since Jonathan Swift and the most readable music critic and the best theatre critic of his generation. He was also one of literature's great letter writers.
Now remember, ladies and gentlemen, I have no time to talk the usual old nonsense about freedom, tonight. Let us come to business. What is perfectly free person? Evidently a person who can do what he likes, when he likes and where he likes, or do nothing at all if he prefers it. Well there is no such person; and there never can be any such person. Whether we like it or not, we must all sleep for one-third of our lifetime; wash and dress and undress; we must spend a couple of hours eating and drinking; we must spend nearly as much in getting about from place to place. For half the day we are slaves to necessities which we cannot shirk, whether we are monarchs with a thousand servant or humble labourers with no servants but their
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wives. And the wives must undertake the additional heavy slavery of child-bearing if the world is still to be peopled. These natural jobs cannot be shirked. But they involve other jobs which can. As we must eat we must first provide food; as we must sleep we must have beds and bedding in houses with fireplaces and coals; as we must walk through the streets we must have clothes to cover our nakedness. Now, food and houses and clothes can be produced by human labour. But when they are produced they can be stolen. It you like honey you can let the bees produce it by their labour, and then steel it from them. If you are too lazy to get about from place to place on your own legs you can make a slave of a horse. And what you do to a horse or a bee you can also do to a man or woman or a child if you can get the upper hand of them by force or fraud or trickery of any sort, or even by teaching them that it is their religious duty to sacrifice their freedom to yours. So beware! If you allow any person, or class of persons, to get the upper hand of you, they will shift all that part of their slavery to Nature that can be shifted on to your shoulders; and you will find yourself working from eight to fourteen hours a day when, if you had only yourself and your family to provide for, you could do it quite comforably in half the time or less. The object of all honest Governments should be to prevent your being imposed on in this way. But the object of most actual Governments, I regret to say, is exactly the opposite. They enforce your slavery and call it freedom. But they also regulate your slavery, keeping the greed of your masters within certain bounds. When chattel slavery of the negro sort costs more than wage slavery, they abolish chattel slavery and make you free to choose between one employment, or one master, and another; and this they call a glorious triumph for freedom, though for you it is merely the key of the street. When you complain, they promise that in future you shall govern the country for yourself. They redeem this promise by giving you a vote, and having a
general election every five years or so. At the election, two of their rich friends ask for your vote; and you are free to choose which of them you will vote for to spite the othera choice which leaves you no freer than you were before, as it does not reduce your hours of labour by a single minute. But the newspapers assure you that your vote has decided the election, and that this constitutes you a free citizen in a democratic country. The amazing thing about it is that you are fool enough to believe them. Now mark another big difference between the natural slavery of man to Nature and the unnatural slavery of man to man. Nature is kind to her slaves. If she forces you to eat and drink, she makes eating and drinking so pleasant that when we can afford it we eat and drink too much. We must sleep or go mad: but then sleep is so pleasant that we have great difficulty in getting up in the morning. And firesides and families seem so pleasant to the young that they get married and join building societies to realize their dreams. Thus, instead of resenting our natural wants as slavery, we take the greatest pleasure in their satisfaction. We write sentimental songs in praise of them. A tramp can earn his supper by singing Home, Sweet Home. The slavery of man to man is the very opposite of this. It is hateful to the body and to the spirit. Our poets do not praise it: they proclaim that no man is good enough to be another mans master. The latest of the great Jewish prophets, a gentleman named Marx, spent his life in proving that there is no extremity of selfish cruelty at which the slavery of man to man will stop if it be not stopped by law. You can see for yourself that it produces a state of continual civil warcalled the class war between the slaves and their masters, organized as trade unions on one side and employers federations on the other. Saint Thomas More, who has just been canonized, held that we shall never have a peaceful and stable society until this struggle is ended by the abolition of slavery altogether and the compulsion
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of every one to do his share of the worlds work with his own hands and brains, and not to attempt to put it on any one else. Naturally the master class, through its Parliaments, schools and newspapers, makes the most desperate efforts to prevent us from realizing our slavery. From our earliest years we are taught that our country is the land of the free, and that our freedom was won for us for ever by our forefathers when they made King John sign Magna Chartawhen they defeated the Spanish Armada when they cut off King Charless headwhen they made King William accept the Bill of Rightswhen they issued and made good the American Declaration of Independencewhen they won the battles of Waterloo and Trafalgar on the playing fields of Etonand when, only the other day, they quite unintentionally changed the German, Austrian, Russian and Ottoman empires into republics. When we grumble, we are told that all our miseries are our own doing because we have the vote. When we say: What good is the vote? we are told that we have the Factory Acts, and the Wages Board, and free education, and the New Deal, and the dole; and what more could any reasonable man ask for? We are reminded that the rich are taxed a quarter, a third, or even a half and more, of their incomes; but the poor are never reminded that they have to pay that much of their wages as rent in addition to having to work twice as long every day as they would need if they were free. Whenever famous writers protest against this imposturesay, Voltaire and Rousseau and Tom Paine in the eighteenth century, or Cobbett and Shelley, Karl Marx and Lasselle in the nineteenth, or atheists and libertines, murderers and scoundrels; and often it is made a criminal offence to buy or sell their books. If their disciples make a revolution, England immediately makes war on them and lends money to the other Powers to join her in forcing the revolutionists to restore the slave order. When this combination was successful at Waterloo, the victory was advertised as another triumph for British freedom; and the
British wage slaves, instead of going into mourning like Lord Byron, believed it all and cheered enthusiastically. When the revolution wins, as it did in Russia in 1922, the fighting stops; but the abuse, the calumnies, the lies, continue until the revolutionized State grows into a first-rate military Power. Then our diplomatists, after having for years denounced the revolutionary leaders as the most abominable villains and tyrants, have to do a right turn and invite them to dinner. Now though this prodigious mass of humbug is meant to delude the enslaved class only, it ends in deluding the master class much more completely. A gentleman whose mind has been formed at a preparatory school for the sons of gentlemen, followed by a public school and university course, is much more thoroughly taken in by the falsified history and dishonest political economy and snobbery taught in these places than any worker can possibly be, because the gentlemans education teaches him that he is a very fine fellow, superior to the common run of men whose duty it is to brush his clothes, carry his parcels, and earn his income for him; and as he thoroughly agrees with this view of himself, he honestly believes that the system which has placed him in such an agreeable situation and done such justice to his merits is the best of all possible systems and that he should shed his blood, and yours, to the last drop in its defence. But the great mass of our rack-rented, underpaid, treated-as-inferiors, cast-off-on-the-dole workers cannot feel so sure about it as the gentleman. The facts are too harshly against it. In hard times, such as we are now passing through, their disgust and despair sometimes lead them to kick over the traces, upset every thing, and have to be rescued from mere gangsterism by some Napoleonic genius who has a fancy for being an emperor, and who has the courage and brains and energy to jump at the chance. But the slaves who give three cheers for the emperor might just as well have made a cross on a British or American ballot paper as far as their freedom is concerned.
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So far I have mentioned nothing but plain, natural and historical facts. I draw no conclusion, for that would lead me into controversy; and controversy would not be fair when you cannot answer me back. I am never controversial over the wireless. I do not even ask you to draw your own conclusions, for you might draw some very dangerous ones unless you have the right sort of head for it. Always remember that though nobody likes to be called a slave, it does not follow that slavery is a bad thing. Great men, like Aristotle, have held that law and order and government would be impossible unless the persons, the people have to obey are beautifully dressed and decorated, robed and uniformed, speaking with a special accent, travelling in firstclass carriages or the most expensive cars or on the bestgroomed and best-bred horses, and never cleaning their own boots or doing anything for some common person to do it. And this means, off course, that they must be made very rich without any other obligation that to produce an impression of almost godlike superiority on the minds of common people. In short, it is contended, you must make men ignorant idolaters before they will become obedient workers and law-abiding citizens. To prove this, we are reminded that although nine out of ten voters are common workers, it is with the greatest difficulty that a few of them can be persuaded to vote for members of their own class. When women were enfranchised and given the right to sit in Parliament, the first use they made of their votes was to defeat all the women candidates who stood for the freedom of the workers and had given them years of devoted and distinguished service. They elected only one womana titled lady of great wealth and exceptionally fascinating personality. Now this, it is said, is human nature; and you cannot change human nature. On the other hand, it is maintained that human nature is the easiest thing in the world to change if you catch it young enough, and that the idolatry of the slave class and the arrogance of the master class are themselves entirely artificial
products of education and of a propaganda that plays upon our infants long before they have left their cradles. An opposite mentality could, it is argued, be produced by a contrary education and propaganda. You can turn the point over in your mind for yourself; do not let me prejudice you one way or the other. The practical question at the bottom of it all is how the income of the whole country can best be distributed from day to day. If the earth is cultivated agriculturally in vast farms with motor ploughs and chemical fertilizers, and industrially in huge electrified factories full of machinery that a girl can handle, the product may be so great that an equal distribution of it would provide enough to give the unskilled labourers as much as the managers and the men of the scientific staff. But do not forget that when you hear tales of modern machinery enabling one girl to produce as much as a thousand men could produce in the reign of good Queen Anne, that this marvellous increase includes things like needles and steel pens, and matches, which we can neither eat nor drink nor wear. Very young children will eat needles and matches eagerlybut the diet is not a nourishing one. And though we can now cultivate the sky as well as earth, by drawing nitrogen from it to increase and improve the quality of our grassand, consequently, of our cattle and milk and butter and eggsNature may have tricks up her sleeve to check us if the chemists exploit her too greedily. And now to sum up. Wipe out from your dreams of freedom the hope of being able to do as you please all the time. For at least twelve hours of your day Nature orders you to do certain things, and will kill you if you dont do them. This leaves twelve hours for working; and here again Nature will kill you unless you either earn your living or get somebody else to earn it for you. If you live in a civilized country your freedom is restricted by the laws of the land, enforced by the police, who oblige you to do this, and not to do that, and to pay rates and taxes. If you do not obey these laws the courts will imprison you and, if you go too far, kill you. If the laws are reasonable and are impartially
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administered you have no reason to complain, because they increase your freedom by protecting you against assault, highway robbery, and disorder generally. But as society is constituted at present, there is another far more intimate compulsion on you: that of your landlord and that of your employers. Your landlord may refuse to let you live on his estate if you go to chapel instead of to church, or if you vote for anybody but his nominee, or if you practise osteopathy, or if you open a shop. Your employer may dictate the cut, colour and condition of your clothes, as well as your hours of work. He can turn you into the street at any moment to join the melancholy band of lost spirits called the unemployed. In short, his power over you is far greater than that of any political dictator could possibly be. Your only remedy at present is the trade union weapon of the strike, which is only the old Oriental device of starving on your enemys doorstep until he does you justice. Now, as the police in this country will not allow you to starve on your employers doorstep, you must starve on your ownif you have one. The extreme form of the strikethe general strike of all workers at the same moment is also the extreme form of human folly, as, if completely carried out, it would extinguish the human race in a week. And the workers would be the first to perish. The general strike is trade unionism gone mad. Sane trade unionism would never sanction more than one big strike at a time, with all the other trades working overtime to support it. Now let us put the case in figures. If you have to work for twelve hours a day, you have no freedom at all. If you work eight hours a day you have four hours a day to do what you like with, subject to the laws of the land and your possession of money enough to buy an interesting book or pay for a seat at the pictures, or, on a half holiday, at a football match, or whatever your fancy may be. But even here Nature will interfere a good deal; for if your eight hours work has been of a hard physical kind, and when you get home you want to spend your four hours
in reading my books to improve your mind, you will find yourself fast asleep in half a minute, and your mind will remain in its present benighted condition. I take it, then, that nine out of ten of us desire more freedom, and that this is why we listen to wireless talks about it. As long as we go on as we arecontent with a vote and a dolethe only advice we can give one another is that of Shakespeares Iago: Put money in thy purse. But as we get very little money into our purses on pay day, and all the rest of the week other people are taking money out of it, Iagos advice is not very practical. We must change our politics before we can get what we want; and meanwhile we must stop gassing about freedom, because the people of England in the lump dont know what freedom is never having had any. Always call freedom by its old English name of leisure; and keep clamouring for more leisure and more money to enjoy it in return for an honest share of work. And let us stop singing Rule, Britannia, until we make it true. Until we do, let us never vote for a parliamentary candidate who talks about our freedom and our love of liberty; for whatever political name he may give himself, he is sure to be at bottom an anarchist who wants to live on our labour without being taken up by the police for it as he deserves. And now suppose we at last win a lot more leisure and a lot more money than we are accustomed to. What are we going to do with them? I was taught in my childhood that Satan will find mischief still for idle hands to do. I have seen men come into a fortune and lose their happiness, their health, and finally, their lives by it as certainly as if they had taken daily doses of rat poison instead of champagne and cigars. It is not at all easy to know what to do with leisure unless we have been brought up to it. I will, therefore, leave you with a conundrum to think over. If you had your choice, would you work for eight hours a day and
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retire with a full pension at forty-five, or would you rather work four hours a day and keep on working until you are seventy? Now, dont send the answer to me, please: talk it over with your wife.
Discussion
What does the term freedom mean to you? Has the reading helped you modify your interpretation of the term. If yes how and in what respect? Do you think man can ever be free in the real sense of the term.
Oh freedom what liberties are taken in thy name.
Daniel George
The Man in Asbestos: An Allegory of the Future

Stephen Leacock
(1869-1944)
The world of The Man in Asbestos promises to be a utopia from which all human suffering and toil have been eliminated, and in which scientific advancements have conquered all known human problems. However, the reader soon discovers that this world is, in fact, an anti-utopia in which life has lost all meaning and charm. The author uses the vehicle of science fiction very effectively to raise and answer some fundamental questions about human life. Stephen Leacock was a political economist, but is better known as a writer of humorous stories amongst which are Nonsense Novels and Frenzied Fiction.
To begin with let me admit that I did it on purpose. Perhaps it was partly from jealousy. It seemed unfair that other writers should be able at will to drop into a sleep of four or five hundred years and to plunge head first into a distant future and be a witness of its marvels. I wanted to do that too. I always had been, I still am a passionate student of social problems. The world of today with its roaring machinery, the unceasing toil of its working classes, its strife, its poverty, its war, its cruelty, appals me as I look at it. I love to think of the time that must come some day when man will have conquered nature, and the toil-worn human race enter upon an era of peace. I loved to think of it, and I longed to see it. So I set about the thing deliberately.
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What I wanted to do was to fall asleep after the customary fashion, for two or three hundred years at least, and wake and find myself in the marvel world of the future. I made my preparations for the sleep. I bought all the comic papers that I could find, even the illustrated ones. I carried them up to my room in my hotel: with them I brought up a pie and dozens of doughnuts. I ate the pie and the doughnuts, then sat back in the bed and read the comic papers one after the other. Finally, as I felt the awful lethargy stealing upon me, I reached out my hand for the London Weekly Times, and held up the. editorial page before my eye. It was, in a way, clear, straight suicide, but I did it. I could feel my senses leaving me. In the room across the hall there was a man singing. His voice, that had been loud, came fainter and fainter through the transom. I fell into a sleep, the deep immeasurable sleep in which the very existence of the outer world was hushed. Dimly I could feel the days go past, then the years, and then the long passage of the centuries. Then, not as it were gradually, but quite suddenly, I woke up, sat up, and looked about me. Where was I? Well might I ask myself. I found myself lying, or rather sitting up, on a broad couch. I was in a great room, dim, gloomy, and dilapidated in its general appearance, and apparently, from its glass cases and the suffered figures that they contained, some kind of museum.
Beside me sat a man. His face was hairless, but neither old nor young. He wore clothes that looked like the grey ashes of paper that had burned and kept its shape. He was looking at me quietly, but with no particular surprise or interest. Quick I said, eager to begin; where am I? Who are you? What year is this; is it the year 3,000, or what is it? He drew in his breath with a look of annoyance on his face. What a queer, excited way you have of speaking. he said. Tell me, I said again, is this the year 3000? I think I know what you mean, he said; but, really I havent the faintest idea. I should think it must be at least that within, a hundred years or so; but nobody has kept track of them for so long, its hard to say. Dont you keep track of them any more? I gasped. We used to, said the man. I myself can remember that a century or two ago there were still a number of people who used to try to keep track of the year, but it died out along with so many other faddish-things of that kind. Why, he continued, showing for the first time a sort of animation in his talk, what was the use of it? You see, after we eliminated death Eliminated death! l cried, sitting upright. Good God! What was that expression you used? queried the man. Good God! I repeated. Ah, he said, never heard it before. But I was saying that after we had eliminated Death, and Food, and Change, we had practically got rid of Events and
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Stop! I said, my brain reeling. Tell me one thing at a time. Humph! he ejaculated. I see, you must have been asleep a long time. Go on then and ask questions. Only, if you dont mind, just as few as possible, and please dont get interested or excited. Oddly enough the first question that sprang to my lips was What are those clothes made of? Asbestos, answered the man. They last hundreds of years. We have one suit each, and there are billions of them piled up, if anybody wants a new one. Thank you I answered. Now tell me where I am? You are in a museum. The figures in the cases are specimens like yourself. But here, he said, if you want really to find out about what is evidently a new epoch to you, get off your platform and come out on Broadway and sit on a bench. I got down. As we passed through the dim and dust-covered buildings, I looked curiously at the figures in the cases. By Jove! I said, looking at one figure in blue clothes with a belt and baton, thats a policeman! Really, said my new acquaintance, is that what a policeman was Ive often wondered. What used they to be used for? Used for? I repeated in perplexity. Why, they stood at the corner of the street, Ah, yes, I see, he said, so as to shoot at the people. You must excuse my ignorance, he continued, as to some of your social
customs in the past. When I took my education I was operated upon for social history, but the stuff they used was very inferior. I didnt in the least understand what the man meant, but had no time to question him, for at the moment we came out upon the street, and I stood riveted in astonishment. Broadway! Was it possible? The change was absolutely appalling! In place of the roaring thoroughfare that I had known, this silent, moss-grown desolation. Great buildings fallen into ruin through the sheer stress of centuries of wind and weather, the sides of them coated over with a growth of fungus and moss! The place was soundless. Not a vehicle moved. There were no wires overheadno sound of life or movement except, here and there, there passed slowly to and fro human figures dressed in the same asbestos clothes as my acquaintance, with the same hairless faces, and the same look of infinite age upon them. Good heavens? And was this the era of the Conquest that I had hoped to see! I had always taken for granted, I do not know why, that humanity was destined to move forward. This picture of what seemed desolation on the ruins of our civilization rendered me almost speechless. There were little benches placed here and there on the street. We sat down. Improved, isnt it, said the man in asbestos, since the days when you remember it? He seemed to speak quite proudly. I gasped out a question.
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Where are the street cars and the motors? Oh, done away with long ago, he said; how awful they must have been. The noise of them! and his asbestos clothes rustled with a shudder. But how do you get about? We dont, he answered. Why should we? Its just the same being here as being anywhere else. He looked at me with an infinity of dreariness in his face. A thousand question surged into my mind at once. I asked one of the simplest. But how do you get back and forwards to your work? Work! he said. There isnt any work. Its finished. The last of it was all done centuries ago. I looked at him a moment open-mouthed. Then I turned and looked again at the grey desolation of the street with the asbestos figures moving here and there. I tried to pull my senses together. I realized that if I was to unravel this new and undreamed-of-future, I must go at it systematically and step by step. I see, I said after a pause, that momentous things have happened since my time. I wish you would let me ask you about it all systematically, and would explain it to me bit by bit. First, what do you mean by saying that there is no work? Why answered my strange acquaintance, it died out of itself. Machinery killed it. If I remember rightly, you had a certain amount of machinery even in your time. You had done very well with steam, made a good beginning with electricity, though I think radial energy had hardly as yet been put to use.
I nodded assent. But you found it did you no good. The better your machines, the harder you worked. The more things you had the more you wanted. The pace of life grew swifter and swifter. You cried out, but it would not stop. You were all caught in the cogs of your own machine. None of you could see the end. That is quite true, I said How do you know it all? Oh, answered the Man in Asbestos, that part of my education was very well operatedI see you do not know what I mean. Never mind, I can tell you that later. Well, then, there came, probably almost two hundred years after your time the Era of the Great Conquest of Nature, the final victory of Man and Machinery. They did conquer it? I asked quickly, with a thrill of the old hope in my veins again. Conquered it, he said beat it out! Fought it to a standstill! Things came one by one, then faster and faster, in a hundred years it was all done. In fact, just as soon as mankind turned its energy to decreasing its needs instead of increasing its desires, the whole thing was easy. Chemical food came first. Heavens! the simplicity of it. And in your time thousands of millions of people tilled and grubbed at the soil from morning till night. Ive seen specimens of themfarmers, they called them. Theres one in the museum. After the invention of Chemical Food we piled up enough in the emporiums in a year to last for centuries. Agriculture went overboard. Eating and all that goes with it, domestic labour, houseworkall ended. Nowadays one takes a concentrated pill every year or so, thats all. The whole digestive apparatus, as you knew it, was a clumsy thing that had been bloated up like a set of bagpipes through the evolution of its use!
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I could not forbear to interrupt. Have you and these people, I said, no stomachno apparatus? Of course we have, he answered, but we use it to some purpose. Mine is largely filled with my educationbut there! I am anticipating again. Better let me go on as I was. Chemical Food came first: that cut off almost one-third of the work, and then came Asbestos Clothes. That was wonderful! In one year humanity made enough suits to last for ever and ever. That, of course, could never have been if it hadnt been connected with the revolt of women and the fall of Fashion. Have the Fashions gone, I asked, that insane, extravagant idea of I was about to launch into one of my old-time harangues about the sheer vanity of decorative dress, when my eye rested on the moving figures in asbestos, and I stopped. All gone, said the Man in Asbestos. Then next to that we killed, or practically killed, the changes of climate. I dont think that in your day you properly understood how much of your work was due to the shifts of what you called the weather. It meant the need of all kinds of special clothes and houses and shelters, a wilderness of work. How dreadful it must have been in your daywind and storms, great wet masseswhat did you call them?cloudsflying through the air, the ocean full of salt, was it not?tossed and torn by the wind, snow thrown all over everything, hail, rainhow awful! Sometimes, I said, it was very beautiful. But how did you alter it? Killed the weather! answered the Man in Asbestos. Simple as anythingturned its forces loose once against the other, altered the composition of the sea so that the top became all more or less gelatinous, I really cant explain it, as it is an operation that I never took at school, but it made the sky grey, as you see it,
and the sea gum-coloured, the weather all the same. It cut out fuel and houses and an infinity of work with them! He paused a moment. I began to realize something of the course of evolution that had happened. So, I said, the conquest of nature meant that presently there was no more work to do? Exactly, he said, nothing left. Food enough for all? Too much, he answered. Houses and clothes? All you like, said the Man in Asbestos, waving his hand. There they are. Go out and take them. Of course, theyre falling downslowly, very slowly. But theyll last for centuries yet, nobody need bother. Then I realised, I think for the first time, just what work had meant in the old life, and how much of the texture of life itself had been bound up in the keen effort of it. Presently my eyes looked upward: dangling at the top of a mossgrown building I saw what seemed to be the remains of telephone wires. What became of all that. I said, the telegraph and telephone and all the system of communication ? Ah, said the Man in Asbestos, that was what a telephone meant, was it? I knew that it had been suppressed centuries ago. Just what was it for ? Why, I said with enthusiasm, by means of the telephone we could talk to anybody, call up anybody and talk at any distance,
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And anybody could call you up at any time and talk? said the Man in Asbestos, with something like the horror. How awful! What a dreadful age yours was, to be sure. Not, the telephone and all the rest of it, all the transportation and intercommunication was cut out and forbidden. There was no sense in it. You see, he added, what you dont realize is that people after your day became gradually more and more reasonable. Take the railroad, what good was that? It brought into every town a lot of people from every other town. Who wanted them? Nobody. When work stopped and commerce ended, and food was needless, and the weather killed, it was foolish to move about. So it was all terminated. Anyway. he said, with a quick look of apprehension and a change in voice, it was dangerous ! So! I said, Dangerous! You still have danger? Why, yes, he said, theres always the danger of getting broken. What do you mean. I asked. Why, said the Man in Asbestos. I suppose its what you would call being dead. Of course, in one sense theres been no death for centuries past; we cut that out. Disease and death were simply a matter of germs. We found them one by one. I think that even in your day you had found, one or two of the easier, the bigger ones? I nodded. Yes, you had found diphtheria and typhoid, and, if I am right, there were some outstanding, like scarlet fever and smallpox, that you called ultra-microscopic, and which you were still hunting for, and others that you didnt even suspect. Well, we hunted them down one by one and destroyed them. Strange that it never occurred to any of you that Old Age was only a germ! It
turned out to be quite a simple one, but it was so distributed in its action that you never even thought of it. And you mean to say, I ejaculated in amazement, looking at the Man in Asbestos, that nowadays you live for ever? I wish, he said, that you hadnt that peculiar, excitable way of talking; you speak as if everything mattered so tremendously. Yes, he continued, we live for ever, unless, of course, we get broken. That happens sometimes. I mean that we may fall over a high place or bump on something, and snap ourselves. You see, were just a little brittle still,some remnant, I suppose, of the Old Age germand we have to be careful. In fact, he continued, I dont mind saying that accidents, of this sort were the most distressing feature of our civilization till we took steps to cut out all accidents. We forbid all street cars, street traffic, aeroplanes, and so on. The risks of your time, he said, with a shiver of his asbestos clothes, must have been awful. They were, I answered, with a new kind of pride in my generation that I had never felt before, but we thought it part of the duty of brave people to Yes, yes, said the Man in Asbestos impatiently, please dont get excited. I know what you mean. It was quite irrational. We sat silent for a long time. I looked about me at the crumbling buildings, the monotone, unchanging sky, and the dreary, empty street. Here, then, was the fruit of the Conquest, here was the elimination of work, the end of hunger and of cold, the cessation of the hard struggle, the downfall of change and deathnay, the very millennium of happiness. And yet, somehow, there seemed something wrong with it all. I pondered, then I put two or three rapid questions, hardly waiting to reflect upon the answers. Is there any war now?
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Done with centuries ago. They took to settling international disputes with a slot machine. After that all foreign dealings were given up. Why have them? Everybody thinks foreigners awful. Are there any newspapers now? Newspapers! What on earth would we want them for? If we should need them at any time there are thousands of old ones piled up. But what is in them, anyway; only things that happen, wars and accidents and work and death. When these went newspapers went too. Listen, continued the Man in Asbestos, you seem to have been something of social reformer, and yet you dont understand the new life at all. You dont understand how completely all our burdens have disappeared. Look at it this way. How used your people to spend all the early part of their lives.? Why, I said, our first fifteen years or so were spent in getting education. Exactly, he answered; now notice how we improved on all that. Education in our day is done by surgery. Strange that in your time nobody realized that education was simply a surgical operation. You hadnt the sense to see that what you really did was to slowly remodel, curve and convolute the inside of the brain by a long and painful mental operation. Everything learned was reproduced in a physical difference to the brain. You knew that, but you didnt see the full consequences. Then came the invention of surgical educationthe simple system of opening the side of the skull and engrafting into it a piece of prepared brain. At first, of course, they had to use, I suppose, the brains of dead people, and that was ghastlyhere the Man in Asbestos shuddered like a leafbut very soon they found how to make moulds that did just as well. After that it was a mere nothing; an operation of a few minutes would suffice to let in poetry or foreign languages or history or anything else that one cared to
have. Here, for instance, he added pushing back the hair at the side of his head and showing a scar beneath it, is the mark where I had my spherical trigonometry let in. That was, I admit, rather painful, but other things, such as English poetry or history, can be inserted absolutely without the least suffering. When I think of your painful, barbarous methods of education through the ear, I shudder at it. Oddly enough, we have found lately that for a great many things there is no need to use the head. We lodge themthings like philosophy and metaphysics, and so onin what used to be, the digestive apparatus. They fill it admirably. He paused a moment. Then went on: Well, then, to continue, what used to occupy your time and effort after your education? Why, I said, one had, of course, to work, and then, to tell the truth, a great part of ones time and feeling was devoted toward the other sex, towards falling in love and finding some woman to share ones life. Ah, said the Man in Asbestos, with real interest. Ive heard about your arrangements with the women, but never quite understood them. Tell me; you say you selected some woman? Yes. And she became what you called your wife? Yes, of course. And you worked for her? asked the Man in Asbestos in astonishment. Yes. And she did not work?
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No. I answered, of course not. And half of what you had was hers? Yes, And she had the right to live in your house and use your things ? Of course, I answered. How dreadful! said the Man in Asbestos I hadnt realized the horrors of your age till now. He sat shivering slightly, with the same timid look in his face as before. Then it suddenly struck me that of the figures on the street, all had looked alike. Tell me, I said, are there no women now? Are they gone too? Oh, no, answered the Man in Asbestos. theyre here just the same. Some of those are women. Only you see, everything has been changed now. It all came as part of their great revolt, their desire to be like the men. Had that begun in your time! Only a little, I answered; they were beginning to ask for votes and equality. Thats it, said my acquaintance, I couldnt think of the word. Your women, I believe, were something awful, were they not? Covered with feathers and skins and, dazzling colours made of dead things all over them? And they laughed did they not, and
had foolish teeth, and at any moment they could inveigle you into one of those contracts! Ugh! He shuddered. Asbestos, I said (I knew no other name to call him), as I turned on him in wrath, Asbestos, do you think that those jellybag Equalities out on the street, there, with their ash-barrel suits, can be compared for one moment with our unredeemed, unreformed, heaven-created, hobble-skirted women of the twentieth century? Then, suddenly, another thought flashed into my mind The children, I said, where are the children? Are there any? Children, he said, no! I have never heard of there being any such things for at least a century. Horrible little hobgoblins they must have been Great big faces, and cried constantly! And grew, did they not? Like funguses ! I believe they were longer each year than they had been the last, and I rose. Asbestos! I said, this, then, is your coming civilisation, your millennium. This dull, dead thing, with the work and the burden gone out of life and with them all the joy and the sweetness of it. For the old strugglemere stagnation, and in place of danger and death, the dull monotony of security and the horror of an unending decay! Give me back. I cried, and I flung wide my arms to the dull air, the old life of danger and stress, with its hard toil and its bitter chances, and its heart-breaks. I see its value! I know its worth! Give me no rest, I cried aloudYes, but give a rest to the rest of the corridor! cried an angered voice that broke in upon my exultation. Suddenly my sleep had gone.
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I was back again in the room of my hotel, with the hum of the wicked busy old world all about me, and loud in my ears the voice of the indignant man across the corridor. Quit your blatting, you infernal blather-skite, he was calling. Come down to earth I came.
Discussion
What are main features of the utopian world delineated in The Man in Asbestos? What is the authors attitude towards that world? What is your attitude towards it? Is it a credible picture of the world that advancements in science promise to create? Has the story helped you in clarifying your assumptions regarding the nature of human happiness? All utopia are, in fact, a comment on real life. Do you agree with this view?
From a Liberal Education

A Game of Chess Thomas Henry Huxley
(1825-1895)
Education does not just mean the training of mind through formal means, but also implies that learning which nature has in store for man. Man-imparted education, according to Huxley, is one which is artificial, and is only meant to make gooddefects in Natures methods; to prepare the child to receive Natures education, neither incapably nor ignorantly, nor with willful disobedience; and to understand the symptoms of pleasures. Thomas Henry Huxley, who applied scientific methods of investigation to all the problems of life, in the address which he delivered at the South London Working Mens College in 1868, has prompted his audience to enhance their capbability to learn from nature, failing which they are bound to be plucked and to him Natures pluck means extermination. To Huxley, education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name he includes not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws.
Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game of chess. Dont you think that we should all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check? Do you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn, upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight?
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Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmatedwithout haste, but without remorse. My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture a calm, strong angel who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than winand I should accept it as an image of human life. Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mighty game. In other words, education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws. For me, education means neither more nor less than this. Anything which professes to call itself education must be tried by the standard, and if it fails to stand the test, I will not call it education, whatever may be the force of authority, or of numbers, upon the other side.
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It is important to remember that, in strictness, there is no such thing as an uneducated man. Take an extreme case. Suppose that an adult man, in the full vigour of his faculties, could be suddenly placed in the world, as Adam is said to have been, and then left to do as he best might. How long would he be left uneducated? Not five minutes. Nature would begin to teach him, through the eye, the ear, the touch, the properties of objects. Pain and pleasure would be at his elbow telling him to do this and avoid that: and by slow degrees the man would receive an education which, if narrow, would be thorough, real, and adequate to his circumstances, though there would be no extras and very few accomplishments. And if to this solitary man entered a second Adam or, better still, an Eve, a new and greater world, that of social and moral phenomena, would be revealed. Joys and woes, compared with which all others might seem but faint shadows, would spring from the new relations. Happiness and sorrow would take the place of the coarser monitors, pleasure and pain; but conduct would still be shaped by the observation of the natural consequences of action; or, in other words, by the laws of the nature of man. To every one of us the world was once as fresh and new as to Adam. And then, long before we were susceptible of any other mode of instruction, nature took us in hand, and every minute of waking life brought its educational influence, shaping our actions in rough accordance with natures laws, so that we might not be ended untimely by too gross disobedience. Nor should I speak of this process of education as past for anyone, be he as old as he may. For every man the world is as fresh as it was at the first day, and as full of untold novelties for him who has the eyes to see them. And Nature is still continuing her patient
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education of us in that great university, the universe, of which we are all membersNature having no Test Acts.1 Those who take honours in Natures university, who learn the laws which govern men and things and obey them, are the really great and successful men in this world. The great mass of mankind are the Poll, who pick up just enough to get through without much discredit. Those who wont learn at all are plucked; and then you cant come up again. Natures pluck means extermination. Thus the question of compulsory education is settled so far as Nature is concerned. Her bill on that question was framed and passed long ago. But, like all compulsory legislation, that of Nature is harsh and wasteful in its operation. Ignorance is visited as sharply as willful disobedienceincapacity meets with the same punishment as crime. Natures discipline is not even a word and a blow, and the blow first; but the blow without the word. It is left to you to find out why your ears are boxed. The object of what we commonly call educationthat education in which man intervenes and which I shall distinguish as artificial educationis to make good these defects in Natures methods; to prepare the child to receive Natures education, neither incapably nor ignorantly, nor with willful disobedience; and to understand the preliminary symptoms of her pleasure, without waiting for the box on the ear. In short, all artificial education ought to be an anticipation of natural education. And a liberal education is an artificial education which has not only prepared a man to escape the great evils of disobedience to natural laws, but has trained him to appreciate and to seize upon
Legislation (repealed in 1854) which excluded from Oxford and Cambridge any student who would not profess faith in the 39 Articles of the Church of England.
the rewards which Nature scatters with as free a hand as her penalties. That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of Nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself. Such a one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal education; for he is, as completely as a man can be, in harmony with Nature. He will make the best of her, and she of him. They will get on together rarely; she as his ever beneficent mother; he as her mouthpiece, her conscious self, her minister and interpreter.
Discussion
State briefly, what do you mean by education. What does the author mean by artificial education? What purpose do you think artificial education serves? What is the difference between Natures education and the artificial education? How do the two co-relate?
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What is Beauty?
Will Durant
(1885-1981)
Beauty has been the subject of philosophical examination and literary citation through ages. Whether it mothers love or is mothered by love is a question discussed comprehensively by Will Durant in the essay excerpted below from his Pleasures of Philosophy. Extensively benefiting from the wisdom of philosophers both (classical and modern) on the subject Will Durant provokes the reader to question the established notions and to form a mature judgement. The idea behind including this essay in the course is to develop among students the habit of critical and informed evaluation of terms and ideas which we take for granted. Will Durant, the American historian, whose works on philosophy and world history have been read by millions, has brought philosphy from the desk of the literati to the door step of the laity by making it a pleasure without effecting its enlightening characteristics. William James Durant was educated at Saint Peter's College and Columbia University. His doctoral dissertation, Philosophy and the Social Problem, was published in 1917. From 1907 to 1911 he taught at Seton Hall College, and in 1917 he taught philosophy at Columbia University. In his writings, Durant makes complex subjects easily understood by the average reader. That he succeeded in this is proved by the success of The Story of Philosophy (1926), of which millions of copies were sold in more than a dozen languages.
I believe, said Anatole France , that we shall never know exactly why a thing is beautiful. This judgement of a great artist and a great scholar might counsel us to turn our backs upon the problem we have set ourselves. If we go forward it must be with the understanding that in philosophy there are many Absolutes, but no certainties.
It is strange enough that this question has not found a larger place in philosophy and psychology. Every heart hears the call of the beautiful, but few minds wonder why. The savage sees beauty in thick lips and livid scars; the Greek found it in youth, or in sculptured symmetry and calm; the Roman found it in order, sublimity, and power; the Renaissance found it in colour; and the modern soul finds it in music and the dance: everywhere, and at all times, people have been moved by beauty of some sort, and have spent many lives in seeking it. But only philosophers have been anxious to understand its nature and to discover the secret of its power. The question belongs to psychology, but the psychologists have left it to philosophy, as every science leaves to philosophy the problems it cannot solve. (Hence most important problems belong to philosophy, and it has small excuse for being dull.) The physical emphasis of modern science, its passion for laboratories and experiments, its tendency to seek mathematical and quantitative formulas for all phenomena, have left it helpless in dealing with such elusive (if not always intangible) realities as beauty; not till the biological approach finds further acceptance in psychology will the esthetic problem fall into its proper place. Meannwhile philosophy is privileged to rush in where science fears to tread; and even the dry bones of metaphysics tremble and thrill a bit as beauty for a while replaces truth, and seeks a niche in wisdom. Nevertheless the philosophers have not taken readily to the alluring subject, and have left it for the most part in a primitive obscurity. There was something pagan in it, which repelled religious men, and something irrational in it which left the sceptical intellectualist unmoved. Baumgarten, the first thinker to recognize the nature of beauty as a distinct realm of inquiry, and the first to give it the terrible name of esthetics, apologized for including so undignified a subject-matter among the
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mansions of philosophy; doubtless he feared that even under the repellent label which he had put upon it the problem would make his readers think of statues and fair women; and he blushed at the possibility. Even where beauty was most honoured and most producedin ancient Greecephilosophers were helpless to pierce the secret of its lure. Pythagoras began the game of aesthetics by reducing music to a mathematical relation, and ascribing a subtle harmony to the spheres. The pre-Socratic Greeks, being, like pre-Darwinian scientists, under the domination of physics and mathematics, sought to define beauty in spatial and quantitative terms: music was a regularity of sounds, and plastic beauty was a regularity of proportions. Plato, who was nothing if not a moralist (anxious to halt the decadence of his people), went to another extreme, and merged the beautiful in a sublime identity with the good. Art was to be a part of ethics; and except for the pedagogical uses of music (even then, it seems, they coddled with verse mans memory of dates and kings), there was to be a minimum of art in the Masters paradise. In Aristotle we find the typical Greek answer to our question; beauty is symmetry, proportion, and an organic order of parts in a united whole. It is a conception that pleasantly accords with that co-operation of the part with the whole which has echoed through these chapters; and the temptation to systematize and formulize is here almost irresistible. But why symmetry and proportion, order and unity, should delight the soulhere is a question that lures us beyond our formulas. Winctelmann and Lessing added little to these answers, and took their lead too readily from the oppressive Greeks. Beauty remained an affair of structure and form, or carved and painted marble, and temples rising serenely on the hills; it was a quality almost indigenous to the Parthenon and its frieze. That a statue
imitated some warm and living loveliness, and that the secret of beauty might better be sought in the original than in the copy, found little welcome in these stern and academic minds, more classic than the Greeks. In Kant and Schopenhauer a new note sounds: beauty becomes that quality whereby an object pleases us regardless of its use, stirring in us will-less contemplation, a disinterested happiness. In this objective and impartial perception, Schopenhauer would have it, esthetic appreciation and artistic genius lie; the intellect is for a moment emancipated from desire, and realizes those eternal forms, or Platonic Ideas, which constitute the outward aspects of the universal Will. But in Hegel we are back once more with the Greeks: beauty is again unity in variety, the conquest of matter by form, the sensuous manifestation of some metaphysical ideal. No wonder the dullest books in the world are those which men have written about Beauty. Love, then, is the mother of beauty, and not its child; it is the sole origin of that primary beauty which is of persons and not of things. But how shall we account for myriad objects which seem beautiful to us and yet have no apparent connection with love? How shall we explain the endless beauty of the external world? As so many words in our lexicons have secondary and acquired, as well as primary and original, meanings, so every instinct has primary as well as secondary objectives and satisfactions. The instinct to get food becomes the general instinct of acquisition, eager for anything of value. The instinct to fight for food or mates spreads into a general instinct of pugnacity in which fighting is its own reward. So the aesthetic emotion (part of that tender emotion which accompanies the instinct of love) may overflow from the person desired to the objects attached to her, to her attitudes and forms, to her manners of action and speech,
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and to anything that is hers by possession or resemblance. All the world comes to partake of the fair ones splender. Music has spread afar on all sides from this amorous origin; but it is still bound to its mother, and no lass can love without it. The girl who woos with music seldom goes to the piano after a few years of marriage; why should one seek to charm an animal that has been captured and tamed? The male who roared and mewed behind his fiancee loses his musical propensities when matrimony lays its dire compulsions upon him; and only under protest does he submit to the social necessity of bearing with Stravinsky, Schonberg, and Richard Strauss. But love alone does not explain enough in these derivative fields of auditory beauty; the pleasure of rhythm enters as an independent element. Inspiration and expiration, the systole and diastole of the heart, and even the bilateral symmetry of the body, dispose us to the rhythmic rise and fall of sounds; and not love only but all the soul is pleased. We make a rhythm from the impartial ticking of the clock and the even stamp of marching feet; we like rocking, dancing, verse, antistrophes, antitheses and extremes. Music soothes us with its rhythm and lifts us on its lullaby to worlds less brutal than the earth. It may relieve pain, improve digestion, stimulate love, and help to capture escaped lunatics. It enabled the Jesuits of Paraguay to bring some alleviation, and yet some increase, to the work of their Indian slaves. It may enable the soldier to march into the jaws of death with some rhythmic satisfaction. Haydn did greater service to the Hapsburgs than any general, and no one knows how much of the Imperial Russian armys unquestioning courage came from their powerful national hymn. Thoreau thought there was nothing so revolutionary as music, and marveled that our institutions could withstand it. But that was because Thoreau was a revolutionist;
music may lull us into passivity as well as arouse and stimulate us to action. Where you want to have slaves, said Tolstoi to Gorki, there you should have as much music as possible. Music dulls the mind. The old Russian Puritan would have agreed with Plato, in whose Utopia no man would have followed music after he had reached sixteen. Art seems to have its origin in the deliberate imitation, by animal or man, of the colours which nature develops on bird and beast in the mating season, and flaunts before the eyes of the selecting mate. The bird ornaments its nest with bright objects, as we have seen; and man adorns his body with vivid colours that fan desire. When clothing came, the colours passed from the body to the raiment, but with the same purpose of attracting the eye; and red was kept as the colour that most stirred the blood. So song and dance, music and poetry and many forms of sculpture flower out of love. Architecture alone seems to be independent; but only because the secret of its power lies not in the beautiful but in the sublime. Sublimity is related to beauty as male to female; its delight comes not from the desired loveliness of woman, but from the admired strength of man. Woman is probably more susceptible to the sublime than man, and man is more susceptible to beautykeener to use it, more passionate in desiring it, more persistent in creating it. The sublime, as Burke showed is the powerful and dangerous to one who is secure. Hannibal and Caesar made no comments (at least for posterity) on the sublimity of the Alps; to them they were a terror rather than a scene. Contrast with their male indifference the feminine sensitivity of Rousseau, who discovered the Alps for the modern soul. But Rousseau was safe; he did not have to lead armies across those desolate heights. Perhaps (as Sergi argues) the Greeks failed to produce landscape painting because nature was
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still too uncontrolled a danger in their lives to let them stand aside and see its grandeur. It is in the appreciation of landscape that beauty wanders farthest from its source in love. Much of the joy which natural scenery gives us is due to masculine sublimity; but much of it comes from a restful beauty akin to the warm repose which every fair bosom promises. Here is a Corot: green waving field, shadegiving oaks, and brooks that ramble leisurely beneath overhanging boughs: where does womans beauty lurk in this natural delight? Cherchez la femme. Yet even here there are subtle bonds. A child is for the most part insensitive to the beauty of the earth and sky; only by imitation and instruction does it thrill to them. But let love lay its warmth and passion on the soul, and suddenly every natural thing seems beautiful; the lover pours out upon trees and streams and bright cool dawns the overflow of his affection and his happiness. Flowers are fair above everything else that nature gives us; and yet those flowers too are symbols and means of generation, and the tokens, among men, of tenderness and devotion. When the years dull us with repetition, and loves passion dies away, the appreciation of nature ebbs; and the very old, like the very young, are not moved by the charm and fragrance of the woods, or the gay splendor of the stars, or the undiscourageable fingers of the rising sea. Across all the glory of earth and sky Eros has left his trail. This overflow of love, which spreads from persons to things, and beautifies the very soil we tread on, reaches at last to the creative fury of art; having once known beauty, man carries its picture in his memory, and weaves from many fair things seen an ideal beauty that binds into one vision the partial perfections of them all.
Biologically, art arises in the song and dance of mating animals, and in their efforts to enhance with artifice that efflorescence of colour and form with which nature marks the season of love. When the bower-bird build the first bower for his pleased and fluttering mate art was born. Historically, art arises in the decorative painting, clothing, or mutilation of the body among savage tribes. The Australian native, according to Groos, always carries in his sack a provision of white, red and yellow paint. On ordinary days he is content with a few spots of colour in his cheeks; but in time of war he daubs his flesh with bizarre designs calculated to discourage the enemy; and on festive and amorous occasions he illuminates his entire body with paint to catch the eyes of the girls. For both of these gameswar and lovered is the favorite colour; some tribes so value it that they undertake great expeditions, lasting several weeks, to renew their supply. The men paint more than the women; and in some localities unmarried women are sternly forbidden to colour their necks. But paint gets washed away; and the savage, like the Greek (who scorned painting for its quick decay) seeks some more lasting art. He takes to tattooing, piercing himself at a thousand points with a needle that deposits the pigment underneath the skin. Very frequently he resorts to scarification; skin and flesh are cut, and the scar enlarged by filling the wound with earth for a while. Along the Torres Straits the men bear such scars on their shoulders like commanding epaulets. Worst of these primitive arts is incision. The Botocudo gets his name from the botoque, or plug, which is inserted into the lower lip and into the ears in early youth, and repeatedly replaced by a larger plug until the openings are as much as four inches in diameter. Civilized ladies, reading of such barbarism, shake their ear-rings in horror.
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The first use of clothing, apparently, was artistic rather than utilitarian. When Darwin, in pity for a freezing Fuegian, gave him a red cloth to wrap about his body, the native joyfully tore the bright garment into strips, and distributed these among his fellows, who bound them round their limbs as ornaments. From this delightful sacrifice of utility to beauty how small a step there is to the modern girl who wears furs in summer and bares her neck fearlessly to the winter wind! Architicture began with tombs that housed the dead; the most ancient architectural monuments in the worldthe Pyramids are tombs. Churches began as shrines to the dead and places for worshipping them. Gradually the burial-place was taken out into the neighbouring ground; but still, in Westminster Abbey, the graves of great ancestors are within the church. From these beginnings came the proud temples raised by the Greeks to Pallas Attene and the other gods; and from similar beginnings came those fairest works ever reared by man, the Gothic cathedrals, whose alters, like those early tombs, harbor the relics of the holy dead. Drama seems to have come from religious ritual and festal processions. To the days of the sceptical Euripides it remained a sacred thing at Athens; and modern drama, the most secular of contemporary arts, began in the Mass and in the pious parades which pictured for the medieval mind the life and death of Christ. Sculpture found a new splendor in the adornment of the cathedrals; and painting reached its zenith under the inspiration of Christianity. But even in the service of religion art showed its secret bondage to love. A pagan element of splendid flesh intruded into the holiest pictures of the Renaissance. The Madonnas became plump Venuses, the St. Johns were tender Adonises, and the St. Sebastians were candid studies in the nude. When the
Renaissance passed from Rome to Venice the pagan element triumphed, and sacred yielded to profane love. As even religious art drinks at the fount of Eros to sustain itself, so with every other element that enters into the creation of beauty. Rhythm enters, but at once associates itself with love to generate the song, the dance, and poetry. Imitation enters, and helps to beget sculpture and painting; but very soon it is love, filial or sexual, that determines the object which imitation makes. Combine rhythm and imitation with the love-motif and you have nine-tenths of literature; even the divine song of Dante, though designed as an allegory of human life, becomes in the end a lyric of love. It is this subterranean river of erotic energy that feeds the creative passion of the artist. In some the relationship takes the form of a rapid development of sex and art at once; and from this union the romantic type of genius comes. Sappho, Alexander and Lucretius; Byron, Shelley, Keats and Swinburne; Hugo, Rousseau and Verlaine; Petrarch, Bruno and Giorgione; Schiller, Heine and Poe; Schumann, Schubert and Chopin; Strindberg, Artxybasheff and Tchaikovsky: these are of the type in which imagination dominates intellect, and in which sex and art, drawing riotously from the same source, consume the artist and leave him physically or spiritually dead before his youth is ended. Because desire is a torment in them, they are sensitive, emotional, forever suffering, and imaginative beyond restraint; the extreme, the exotic and the strange lure them everywhere. It is they who create the poetry, the painting, the music and the philosophy of love; and every lover cherishes them. But in other artists the flood of sex is damned, and channeled almost wholly into creation. Love loses its power, emotion is controlled, reason flourishes, and intellect dominates everything. Out of this immense sublimation comes the classic genius:
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Socrates, Sophocles, Aristotle; Archimedes, Caesar, Galileo; Giotto, Leonardo, Titian; Bacon, Milton, Newton, Hobbes; Bach, Kant, Goethe, Hegel; Turgenev, Flaubert, Renan, Anatole France. These are calm men, who have mastered desire and lifted their chaos into a dancing star. They work slowly with resolution and patience, rather than with inspiration: and passion; they speak and act with measure and restraint; they develop slowly, create better after thirty than before, achieve a tardy fame, and live for the most part to a great old age. They do not excel the romantic type in that fund of superior energy which is the common dominator and source of all genius; but from that fund they draw little nearly all for art. Michelangelo, Beethoven and Napoleon were supreme because in them both types of genius were fused into an almost superhuman unity. A mans genius, said Nietzche, is a vampire: it burns him up in its flame. But so does love; and if both consume a man at once he will speak passionately and brilliantly, but his voice will soon be stilled. All genius, like all beauty and all art, derives its power ultimately from that same reservoir of creative energy which renews the race perpetually, and achieves the immortality of life. If our instincts were not deceived by cosmetics or perverted by finance, our sense of beauty would be biologically right, and love would be the best eugenics. Beauty would be again, as nature wished it to be, the flower and herald of health, and the guarantor of perfect children; it would make once more for the good of the race and not for its enfeeblement; ethics and esthetics would coincide, and we should arrive at Platos conclusion, that the principle of goodness reduces itself to the law of beauty. The master hesitated in this matter and did not know just where to bend the kneeto stern Athenes wisdom, or Aphrodites
smiling loveliness. Perhaps he was wise to hesitate; and beauty as we have it now could hardly be made the prop and basis of a perfect state. But of what use is wisdom if it does not make us love the beautiful and create new beauty fairer than nature gives? Wisdom is a means; beauty, of body and soul, is an end. Art without science is poverty, but science without art is barbarism. Even divine philosophy is a means, unless we broaden its flight to cover all the coordinated significance, instrumentalities and values of the fullest life. And a philosophy that is not stirred by loveliness is unworthy of a man. Everything is gone of Egypt but the colossal grandeur which it lifted from the sand; everything is gone of Greece but its wisdom and its art. Living beauty is greatest, but age withers it and time decays; only the artist can seize the passing form and stamp it in a mould that resists mortality. Let Gautier speak:
All things pass; strong art alone Can know eternity; The marble bust Outlives the state: And the austere medallion Which some toiler finds Under the earth Preserves the emperor. Even the gods must die; But sovereign poetry Remains, Stronger than death.
Discussion
What was your view of beauty before reading the essay? Has the essay helped you modify your concept of the term? If yes, in what respects?
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Do you think that beauty is the child of love or vice versa? Do you feel that the subject deserves the amount of deliberation on the part of philosophers and psychologists, it is given?
Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess, and to gain applause which he cannot keep.
Dr. Johnson
There is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it.
George Eliot
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Shooting an Elephant
George Orwell
(1903-1950)
Few people have written about the inhumanity of colonial rule with greater sensitivity, compassion, and insight than George Orwell. In Shooting an Elephant he focuses on the dehumanizing impact of tyranny not only on its victim but also on the tyrant himself. The story is an excellent piece of self-exploration. In it the author demonstrates the rare ability of rising above the assumptions, prejudices and rationalizations of ones group, and judging ones own conduct in terms of universal human values. George Orwell has a lasting place amongst English novelists because of Animal Farm (1945) and 1984. He was a leading figure amongst the British writers who re-interpreted the imperialist era in humanistic terms, and helped their compatriots to shed the white mans-burden complex and to see the dark side of imperialism.
In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of peoplethe only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. I was subdivisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way antiEuropean feeling was very bitter. No one had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European woman went through the bazars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over her dress. As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter. This happened more than once. In the end the sneering yellow faces of young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance, got badly on my nerves. The young Buddhist priests were the worst of all. There were several
thousands of them in the town and none of them seemed to have anything to do except stand on street corners and jeer at Europeans. All this was perplexing and upsetting. For at that time I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better. Theoreticallyand secretly, of course, I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British. As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the gray, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboosall these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt. But I could get nothing into perspective. I was young and ill-educated and I had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East. I did not even know that the British Empire is dying, still less did I know that it is a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it. All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evilspirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible. With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priests guts. Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty. One day something happened which in a roundabout way was enlightening. It was a tiny incident in itself; but it gave me a better glimpse than I had before of the real nature of imperialismthe real motives for which despotic governments
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act. Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police station at the other end of the town rang me up on the phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it? I did not know what I could do, but I wanted to see what was happening and I got on to a pony and started out. I took my rifle, an old 44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful in terrorem. Various Burmans stopped me on the way and told me about the elephants doings. It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one which had gone must. It had been chained up, as tame elephants always are when their attack of must is due, but on the previous night it had broken its chain and escaped. Its mahout, the only person who could manage it when it was in that state, had set out in pursuit, but had taken the wrong direction and was now twelve hours journey away, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in the town. The Burmese population had no weapons and were quite helpless against it. It had already destroyed somebodys bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and devoured the stock; also it had met the municipal rubbish van and, when the driver jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon it. The Burmese sub-inspector and some Indian constables were waiting for me in the quarter where the elephant had been seen. It was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palm-leaf, winding all over a steep hillside. I remember that it was a cloudy, stuffy morning at the beginning of the rains. We began questioning the people as to where the elephant had gone and, as usual, failed to get any definite information. That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes. Some of the people said that the elephant had gone in one direction, some said that he had gone in another, some professed not even to have heard
of any elephant. I had almost made up my mind that the whole story was a pack of lies, when we heard yells a little distance away. There was a loud, scandalized cry of Go away, child! Go away this instant! and an old woman with a switch in her hand came round the corner of a hut, violently shooting away a crowd of naked children. Some more women followed, clicking their tongues and exclaiming; evidently there was something that the children ought not to have seen. I rounded the hut and saw a mans dead body sprawling in the mud. He was an Indian, a black Dravidian coolie, almost naked, and he could not have been dead many minutes. The people said that the elephant had come suddenly upon him round the corner of the hut, caught him with its trunk, put its foot on his back and ground him into the earth. This was the rainy season and the ground was soft, and his face had scored a trench a foot deep and a couple of yards long. He was lying on his belly with arms crucified and head sharply twisted to one side. His face was coated with mud, the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and grinning with an expression of unendurable agony. (Never tell me, by the way, that the dead look peaceful. Most of the corpses I have seen looked devilish.) The friction of the great beasts foot had stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a rabbit. As soon as I saw the dead man I sent an orderly to a friends house nearby to borrow an elephant rifle. I had already sent back the pony, not wanting it to go mad with fright and throw me if it smelt the elephant. The orderly came back in a few minutes with a rifle and five cartridges, and meanwhile some Burmans had arrived and told us that the elephant was in the paddy fields below, only a few hundred yards away. As I started forward practically the whole population of the quarter flocked out of the houses and followed me. They had seen the rifle and were all shouting excitedly that I was going to shoot the elephant. They had not shown much interest in the elephant when he was merely ravaging their homes, but it was different now that he was going to be shot. It
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was a bit of fun to them, as it would be to an English crowd; besides, they wanted the meat. It made me vaguely uneasy. I had no intention of shooting the elephant. I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessaryand it is always unnerving to have a crowd following you. I marched down the hill, looking and feeling a fool, with the rifle over my shoulder and an evergrowing army of people jostling at my heels. At the bottom, when you got away from the huts, there was a metalled road and beyond that a miry waste of paddy fields a thousand yards across, not yet ploughed but soggy from the first rains and dotted with coarse grass. The elephant was standing eight yards from the road, his left side toward us. He took not the slightest notice of the crowds approach. He was tearing up bunches of grass, beating them against his knees to clean them, and stuffing them into his mouth. I had halted on the road. As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him. It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephantit is comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machineryand obviously one ought not to do if it can possibly be avoided. And at that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow. I thought then and I think now that his attack of must was already passing off; in which case he would merely wander harmlessly about until the mahout came back and caught him. Moreover, I did not in the least want to shoot him. I decided that I would watch him for a little while to make sure that he did not turn savage again, and then go home. But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. It blocked the road for a long distance on either side. I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothesfaces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot. They were
watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white mans dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowdseemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the natives, and so in every crisis he has got to do what the natives expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothingno, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white mans life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at. But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him. At that age I was not squeamish about killing animals, but I had never shot an elephant and never wanted to (Somehow it always seems worse to kill a large
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animal.) Besides, there was the beasts owner to be considered. Alive, the elephant was worth at least a hundred pounds; dead, he would only be worth the value of his tusks, five pounds possibly. But I had got to act quickly; I turned to some experienced looking Burmans who had been there when we arrived, and asked them how the elephant had been behaving. They all said the same thing: he took no notice of you if you left him alone, but he might charge if you went too close to him. It was perfectly clear to me what I ought to do. I ought to walk up to within, say, twenty-five yards of the elephant and test his behavior. If he charged, I could shoot; if he took no notice of me, it would be safe to leave him until the mahout came back. But also I knew that I was going to do no such thing. I was a poor shot with a rifle and the ground was soft mud into which one would sink at every step. If the elephant charged and I missed him, I should have about as much chance as a toad under a steam-roller. But even then I was not thinking particularly of my own skin, only of the watchful yellow faces behind. For at that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not afraid in the ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone. A white man mustnt be frightened in front of natives; and so, in general, he isnt frightened. The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on, and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do. There was only one alternative. I shoved the cartridges into the magazine and lay down on the road to get a better aim. The crowd grew very still, and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the theater curtain go up at last, breathed from innumerable throats. They were going to have their bit of fun after all. The rifle was a beautiful German thing with cross-hair sights. I did not then know that in shooting an elephant one
would shoot to cut an imaginary bar running from ear-hole to ear-hole. I ought, therefore, as the elephant was sideways on, to have aimed straight at his ear-hole; actually I aimed several inches in front of this, thinking the brain would be further forward. When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kickone never does when a shot goes homebut I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, a mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant. He neither stirred, nor fell, but every line of his body had altered. He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralyzed him without knocking him down. At last, after what seemed a long timeit might have been five seconds, I dare sayhe sagged flabbily to his knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. One could have imagined him thousands of years old. I fired again into the same spot. At the second shot he did not collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright, with legs sagging and head drooping. I fired a third time. That was the shot that did for him. You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock that last remnant of strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, his belly toward me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay. I got up. The Burmans were already racing past me across the mud. It was obvious that the elephant would never rise again, but he was not dead. He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising
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and falling. His mouth was wide openI could see far down into caverns of pale pink throat. I waited a long time for him to die, but his breathing did not weaken. Finally I fired my two remaining shots into the spot where I thought his heart must be. The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet, but still he did not die. His body did not even jerk when the shots hit him, the tortured breathing continued without a pause. He was dying, very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further. I felt that I had got to put an end to that dreadful noise. It seemed dreadful to see the great beast lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die, and not even to be able to finish him. I sent back for my small rifle and poured shot after shot into his heart and down his throat. They seemed to make no impression. The tortured gasps continued as steadily as the ticking of a clock. In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away. I heard later that it took him half an hour to die. Burmans were bringing dahs and baskets even before I left, and I was told they had stripped his body almost to the bones by the afternoon. Afterward, of course, there were endless discussions about the shooting of the elephant. The owner was furious, but he was only an Indian and could do nothing. Besides, legally I had done the right thing, for a mad elephant has to be killed, like a mad dog, if its owner fails to control it. Among the Europeans opinion was divided. The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie. And afterward I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.
Discussion
Why do the experiences as a police officer in Burma upset and perplex the author? What does the author mean by dirty work of Empire? Why silence was imposed on all Englishmen working in the colonies as part of the imperial machinery? What awakened the author to the hollowness of white mans rule in the East? Why had the imperial officials to wear a mask while in the colonies? How does the colonial setting dehumanize the colonial functionaries? What impression do you form about the character of the writer? It is said that during the colonial period Englishmen underwent a metamorphosis while crossing the Suez Canal. After reading the story can you guess why it was so?
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Logic: Love is a Fallacy

Max Schulman
This fascinating story with sparkling wit and dramatic dialogues could be seen as a pedagogical device to explain some of the logical fallacies we tend to commit in our thinking and argumentation. A sensitive awareness of these fallacies should save us from a lot of pointless controversies and irrational attitudes. It should also be of interest to see the narrator trying to play the Pygmalion, and ending in a well-deserved fiasco.
Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astuteI was all of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, as precise as a chemists scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. Andthink of it!I was only eighteen. It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey Burch, my room-mate at the University of Minnesota. Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough fellow, you understand, but nothing upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of reason. To be swept up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender yourself to idiocy just because everybody else is doing itthis, to me, is the acme of mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey. One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such distress on his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis. Dont move, I said. Dont take a laxative. Ill get a doctor. Raccoon, he mumbled thickly. Raccoon? I said, pausing in my flight.
I want a raccoon coat, he wailed. I perceived that his trouble was not physical, but mental. Why do you want a raccoon coat? I should have known it, he cried, pounding his temples. I should have known theyd come back when the Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my money for textbooks, and now I cant get a raccoon coat. Can you mean, I said incredulously, that people are actually wearing raccoon coats again? All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Whereve you been? In the library, I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus. He leaped from the bed and paced the room. Ive got to have a raccoon coat, he said passionately. Ive got to! Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They weigh too much. Theyre unsightly. They You dont understand, he interrupted impatiently. Its the thing to do. Dont you want to be in the swim? No, I said truthfully. Well, I do, he declared. Id give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear. Anything? I asked, looking at him narrowly.
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Anything he affirmed in ringing tones. I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to get my hands on a raccoon coat. My father had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a trunk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey had something I wanted. He didnt have it exactly but at least he had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly Espy. I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in nature. She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the emotions, but I was not one to let my heart, rule my head. I wanted Polly for a shrewdly calculated, entirely cerebral reason. I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in furthering a lawyers career. The successful lawyers, I had observed, were almost without exception, married to beautiful, gracious, intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications perfectly. Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportions, but I felt sure that time would supply the lack. She already had the makings. Gracious she was. By gracious I mean full of graces. She had an erectness of carriage, an ease of bearing, a poise that clearly indicated the best of breeding. At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the speciality of the housea sandwich that contained scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and a dipper of sauerkrautwithout even getting her fingers moist.
Intelligent she was not. In fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed that under my guidance she would smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful. Petey, I said, are you in love with Polly Espy? I think shes a keen kid, he replied, but I dont know if youd call it love. Why? Do you. I asked, have any kind of formal arrangement with her? I mean are you going steady or anything like that? No. We see each other quite a bit, but we both have other dates. Why ? Is there, I asked, any other man for whom she has a particular fondness? Not that I know of. Why? I nodded with satisfaction. In other words, if you were out of the picture, the field would be open. Is that right? I guess so. What are you getting at? Nothing, nothing, I said innocently, and took my suitcase out of the closet. Where are you going? asked Petey. Home for the weekend. I threw a few things into the bag.
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Listen, he said, clutching my arm eagerly, while youre home, you couldnt get some money from your old man, could you, and lend it to me so I can buy a raccoon coat? I may do better than that, I said with a mysterious wink and closed my long bag and left. Look, I said to Petey when I got back Monday morning. I threw open the suitcase and revealed the huge, hairy, gamy object that my father had worn in his Stutz Bearcat in 1925. Holy Toledo! said Petey reverently. He plunged his hands into the raccoon coat and then his face. Holy Toledo! he repeated fifteen or twenty times. Would you like it? I asked. Oh, yes! he cried, clutching the greasy pelt to him. Then a canny look came into his eyes. What do you want for it? Your girl, I said, mincing no words. Polly? he said in a horrified whisper. You want Polly? Thats right. He flung the coat from him. Never, he said stoutly. I shrugged. Okay. If you dont want to be in the swim, I guess its your business. I sat down in a chair and pretended to read a book, but out of the corner of my eye I kept watching Petey. He was a torn man. First he looked at the coat with the expression of a waif at a bakery window. Then he turned away and set his jaw resolutely. Then he looked back at the coat, with even more longing in his face. Then he turned away but with not so much resolution this
time. Back and forth his head swiveled, desire waxing, resolution waning. Finally he didnt turn away at all; he just stood and stared with mad lust at the coat. It isnt as though I was in love with Polly, he said thickly. Or going steady or anything like that. Thats right, I murmured. Whats Polly to me, or me to Polly? Not a thing, said I. Its just been casual kickjust a few laughs, thats all. Try on the coat, said I. He complied. The coat bunched high over his ears and dropped all the way down to his shoe tops. He looked like a mound of dead raccoons. Fits fine, he said happily. I rose from my chair. Is it a deal? I asked, extending my hand. He swallowed. Its a deal, he said and shook my hand. I had my first date with Polly the following evening. This was in the nature of a survey; I wanted to find out just how much work I had to do to get her mind up to the standard required. I took her first to dinner. Gee, that was a delish dinner, she said as we left the restaurant. Then I took her to movie. Gee that was a marvy movie, she said as we left the theater. And then I took her home. Gee, I had a sensaysh time, she said as she bade me good night. I went back to my room with a heavy heart. I had gravely underestimated the size of my task. This girls lack of
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information was terrifying. Nor would it be enough merely to supply her with information. First she had to be taught to think. This loomed as a project of no small dimensions, and at first I was tempted to give her back to Petey. But then I got to thinking about her abundant physical charms and about the way she entered a room and the way she handled a knife and fork, and I decided to make an effort. I went about it, as in all things, systematically. I gave her a course in logic. It happened that I, as a law student, was taking a course in logic myself, so I had all the facts at my finger tips. Polly, I said to her when I picked her up on our next date, tonight we are going over to the Knoll and talk. Oo, terrif, she replied. One thing I will say for this girl: you would go far to find another so agreeable. We went to the Knoll, the campus trysting place, and we sat down under an old oak, and she looked at me expectantly. What are we going to talk about? she asked. Logic. She thought this over for a minute and decided she liked it. Magnif, she said. Logic, I said, clearing my throat, is the science of thinking. Before we can think correctly, we must first learn to recognize the fallacies of logic. These we will take up tonight. Wow-dow! she cried, clapping her hands delightedly. I winced, but went bravely on. First let us examine the fallacy called Dicto Simplicitor. By all means, she urged, batting her lashes eagerly.
Dicto Simpliciter means an argument based on an unqualified generalization. For example: Exercise is good. Therefore everybody should take exercise. I agree, said Polly earnestly. I mean exercise is wonderful. I mean it builds the body and everything. Polly, I said gently, the argument is a fallacy. Exercise is good is an unqualified generalization. For instance, if you have heart disease, exercise is bad, not good. Many people are ordered by their doctors not to exercise. You must qualify the generalization. You must say exercise is usually good, or exercise is good for most people. Otherwise you have committed a Dicto Simpliciter. Do you see? No, she confessed. But this is marvy. Do more! Do more! It will be better if you stop tugging at my sleeve, I told her, and when she desisted, I continued. Next we take up a fallacy called Hasty General-ization. Listen carefully: You cant speak French. I cant speak French. Petey Burch cant speak French. I must therefore conclude that nobody at the University of Minnesota can speak French. Really? said Polly, amazed. Nobody I hid my exasperation. Polly, its a fallacy. The generalization is reached too hastily. There are too few instances to support such a conclusion. Know any more fallacies? she asked breathlessly. This is more fun than dancing even. I fought off a wave of despair. I was getting nowhere with this girl, absolutely nowhere. Still, I am nothing if not persistent. I
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continued. Next comes Post Hoc. Listen to this: Lets not take Bill on our picnic. Every time we take him out with us, it rains, I know somebody just like that, she exclaimed. A girl back homeElua Becker, her name is. It never fails. Every single time we take her on a picnic Polly, I said sharply. its a fallacy. Eula Becker doesnt cause the rain. She has no connection with the rain. You are guilty of Post Hoc if you blame Eula Becker. Ill never do it again, she promised contritely. Are you mad at me? I sighed deeply. No, Polly, Im not mad. Then tell me some more fallacies. All right. Lets try Contradictory Premises. Yes, lets, she chirped, blinking her eyes happily. I frowned, but plunged ahead. Heres an example of Contradictory Premises: If God can do anything can He make a stone so heavy that He wont be able to lift it? Of course, she replied promptly. But if He can do anything. He can lift the stone. I pointed out. Yeah, she said thoughtfully. Well, then I guess He cant make the stone. But He can do anything. I reminded her. She scratched her pretty, empty head. Im all confused, she admitted.
Of course you are. Because when the premises of an argument contradict each other, there can be no argument. If there is an irresistible force, there can be no immovable object. If there is an immovable object, there can be no irresistible force. Get it? Tell me some more of this keen stuff, she said eagerly. I consulted my watch. I think wed better call it a night. Ill take you home now, and you go over all the things youve learned. Well have another session tomorrow night. I deposited her at the girls dormitory, where she assured me that she had had perfectly teriff evening, and I went glumly home to my room. Petey lay snoring in his bed, the raccoon coat huddled like a great hairy beast at his feet. For a moment I considered waking him and telling him that he could have his girl back. It seemed clear that my project was doomed to failure. The girl simply had logic-proof head. But then I reconsidered. I had wasted one evening; I might as well waste another. Who knew? May be somewhere in the extinct crater of her mind, a few embers still smoldered. May be somehow I could fan them into flame. Admittedly it was not a prospect fraught with hope, but I decided to give it one more try. Seated under the oak the next evening I said, Our first fallacy tonight is called Ad Misericordiam. She quivered with delight. Listen closely, I said. A man applies for a job. When the boss asks him what his qualifications are, he replies that he has a wife and six children at home, the wife is a helpless cripple, the children have nothing to eat, no clothes to wear, no shoes on their feet, there are no beds in the house, no coal in the cellar, and winter is coming.
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A tear rolled down each of Pollys pink cheeks. Oh, this is awful, awful, she sobbed. Yes its awful, I agreed, but its no argument. The man never answered the bosss question about his qualifications. Instead he appealed to the bosss sympathy. He committed the fallacy of Ad Misericordiam. Do you understand? Have you got a handkerchief? she blubbered. I handed her a handkerchief and tried to keep from screaming while she wiped her eyes. Next, I said in a carefully controlled tone, we will discuss False Analogy. Here is an example: Students should be allowed to look at their textbooks during examinations. After all, surgeon have X-rays to guide them during an operation, lawyers have briefs to guide them during a trial, carpenters have blueprints to guide them when they are building a house. Why, then, shouldnt students be allowed to look at their textbook during an examination ? There now, she said enthusiastically, is the most marvy idea Ive heard in years. Polly, I said testily, the argument is all wrong. Doctors, lawyers, and carpenters arent taking a test to see how much they have learned, but students are. The situations are altogether different, and you cant make an analogy between them. I still think its a good idea, said Polly. Nuts. I muttered. Doggedly I pressed on. Next well try Hypothesis Contrary to Fact. Sounds yummy, was Pollys reaction.
Listen: If madame Curie had not happened to leave a photographic plate in a drawer with a chunk of pitchblende, the world today would not know about radium. True, true, said Polly, nodding her head. Did you see the movie? Oh, it just knocked me out. That Walter Pidgeon is so dreamy. I mean he fractures me. If you can forget Mr. Pidgeon for a moment, I said coldly. I would like to point out that the statement is a fallacy. May be Madame Curie would have discovered radium at some later date. May be somebody else would have discovered it. May be any number of things would have happened. You cant start with a hypothesis that is not true and then draw any supportable conclusion from it. They ought to put Walter Pidgeon in more pictures, said Polly. I hardly ever see him any more. One more chance, I decided. But just one more. There is a limit to what flesh and blood can bear. The next fallacy is called Poisoning the Well. How cute! she gurgled. Two men are having a debate. The first one gets up and says, My opponent is a notorious liar. You cant believe a word that he is going to say ... Now, Polly, think. Think hard. Whats wrong? I watched her closely as she knit her creamy brow in concentration. Suddenly a glimmer of intelligencethe first I had seen ... came into her eyes. Its not fair, she said with indignation. Its not a bit fair. What chance has the second man got if the first man calls him a liar before he even begins talking?
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Right ! I cried exultantly. One hundred percent right. lts not fair. The first man has poisoned the well before anybody could drink from it. He has hamstrung his opponent before he could even start.... Polly, Im proud of you. Pshaw, she murmured, blushing with pleasure. You see, my dear, these things arent so hard. All you have to do is concentrate. Thinkexamineevaluate. Come now, lets review everything we have learned. Fireaway. she said with an airy wave of her hand. Heartened by the knowledge that Polly was not altogether a cretin, I began a long, patient review of all I had told her. Over and over and over again I cited instances, pointed out flaws, kept hammering away without let up. It was like digging a tunnel. At first everything was work, sweat and darkness. I had no idea when I would reach the light, or even If I would. But I persisted. I pounded and clawed and scraped, and finally I was rewarded. I saw a chink of light. And then the chink got bigger and the sun came pouring in and all was bright. Five grueling nights this took but it was worth it. I had made a logician out of Polly; I had taught her to think. My job was done. She was worthy of me at last. She was a fit wife for me, a proper hostess for my many mansions, a suitable mother for my wellheeled children. It must not be thought that I was without love for this girl. Quite the contrary. Just as Pygmalion loved the perfect woman he had fashioned, so I loved mine. I determined to acquaint her with my feelings at our very next meeting. The time had come to change our relationship from academic to romantic.
Polly, I said when next we sat beneath our oak, tonight we will not discuss fallacies. Aw, gee, she said, disappointed. My dear, I said, favoring her with a smile, we have now spent five evenings together. We have gotten along splendidly. It is clear that we are well matched. Hasty Generalization, said Polly brightly. I beg your pardon, said I. Hasty Generalization, she repeated. How can you say that we are well matched on the basis of only five dates? I chuckled with amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons well. My dear, I said, patting her hand in a tolerant manner. Five dates is plenty. After all, you dont have to eat a whole cake to know that its good. False Analogy, said Polly promptly. Im not a cake. Im a girl, I chuckled with somewhat less amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons perhaps too well. I decided to change tactics. Obviously the best approach was a simple, strong, direct declaration of love. I paused for a moment while my massive brain chose the proper words. Then I began: Polly, I love you. You are the whole world to me, and the moon and the stars and the constellations of outer space. Please, my darling, say that you will go steady with me, for if you will not, life will be meaningless. I will languish. I will refuse my meals. I will wander the face of the earth, a shambling, hollow-eyed hulk.
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There, I thought, folding my arms that ought to do it. Ad Misericordiam, said Polly. I ground my teeth. I was not Pygmalion; I was Frankenstein, and my monster had me by the throat. Frantically I fought back the tide of panic surging through me. At all costs I had to keep cool. Well, Polly, I said, forcing a smile, you certainly have learned your fallacies. Youre darn right, she said with a vigorous nod. And who taught them to you, Polly? You did. Thats right. So you do owe me something, dont you my dear? If I hadnt come along you never would have learned about fallacies. Hypothesis Contrary to Fact. she said instantly. I dashed perspiration from my brow. Polly, I croaked, you mustnt take all these things so literally. I mean this is just classroom stuff. You know that the things you learn in school dont have anything to do with life. Dicto Simpliciter, she said, wagging her finger at me playfully. That did it. I leaped to my feet, bellowing like a bull. Will you or will you not go steady with me? I will not, she replied,
Why not? I demanded. Because this afternoon I promised Petey Burch that I would go steady with him. I reeled back overcome with the infamy of it. After he promised, after he made a deal, after he shook my hand! The rat I shrieked, kicking up great chunks of turf. You cant go with him, Polly, Hes a liar. Hes a cheat. Hes a rat. Poisoning the Well, said Polly, and stop shouting. I think shouting must be a fallacy too. With an immense effort of will, I modulated my voice. All right, I said. Youre a logician. Lets look at this thing logically. How could you choose Petey Burch over me? Look at mea brilliant student a tremendous intellectual, a man with an assured future. Look at Peteya knothead, a jitterbug, a guy wholl never know where his next meal is coming from. Can you give me one logical reason why you should go steady with Petey Burch? I certainly can, declared Polly. Hes got a raccoon coat.
Discussion
What impression do you form about the character of the narrator of the story? Explain significance of the title of the story. What makes Logic Love is a Fallacy a very interesting story? What fallacies do you come across most frequently in discussions with your friends? Give examples.
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Part II
Structure
I dont need none, shouted the lady of the house before the young man at the door had had a chance to say anything. How do you know, lady? he said. I just might be selling grammar books."
1The Sentence
The sentence is a sequence of words capable of standing alone to make an assertion, ask a question, or give a command, usually consisting of a subject and a predicate. The Subject of a sentence is the person or thing the subject is about. In some sentences the subject is understood, e.g. Stop! (The subject you is understood). Generally though, the complete subject includes the noun or noun substitute alone, without any of its modifiers. It normally occurs before the verb in sentences: e.g.
The woman in the frilly pink dress came into the room. (the noun woman is the subject) Where are you going? (the noun substitute, pronoun you, is the subject)
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The Predicate of a sentence consists of the verb and its modifiers and complements. The predicate expresses the action or condition of the subject. Predicates may be simple or compound: The simple predicate is the main verb or verb phrase in the predicate:
She visited Switzerland last year. (main verb) The children were swimming in the sea. (verb phrase)
A compound predicate has two or more main verbs:
The clown joked, danced and sang. (3 main verbs) He should have bought more fish. (verb+complement) Little girls cry very easily. (verb+modifier)
Complements: While some verbs are complete in themselves (Birds fly), other verbs need a noun, noun substitute or adjective to complete their meaning. The term complement, then, means something that is needed to complete a grammatical construction. Complements may be a direct object, an object complement, a predicative adjective, or a predicative nominative. The direct object is the noun which indicates the receiver of the action:
My brother plays organ. She celebrated birthday yesterday.
the her
The object complement follows the direct object and refers to the same thing, usually after verbs of naming or calling:
The director appointed Miss Sarah as personnel officer.

The predicative adjective is an adjective in the predicate referring to the subject:
Akram was cheerful.
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My brother is quite fat.

The predicative nominative is a noun or noun subject in the predicate naming or referring to the subject:
Those women are dentists. All of my sons have been scouts.

Types of sentence structure
Sentences can be divided into three kinds according to the way they are built, i.e. according to the number of clauses included and whether the clauses are independent (main) clauses or dependent (subordinate) clauses. A simple sentence expresses one main idea. Thus it has one main clause which may have word or phrase modifiers (adjectives or adverbs or prepositional phrases):
My father was born in India.

A compound sentence expresses two or more main ideas in two or more independent (main) clauses:
My father was born in India but he came to
Pakistan when he was a boy. Main idea (1) main idea (2)
A complex sentence expresses one main idea and at least one subordinate idea. Thus it contains one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses:
My father came here from India when he was a small boy. main idea subordinate idea
A compound-complex sentence is a combination that includes at least one dependent clause and at least two independent clauses:
Although the tickets had been bought, Tom didnt reach on time;
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(subordinate clause) (independent clause) and we missed the train. (independent clause)
Common Sentence Problems
Students frequently experience some common problems with sentence construction. Avoiding these problems will give them a definite advantage as they strive to improve their communication skills.
Sentence Fragments
A sentence fragment is a part of a sentence used as though it were a whole sentence. In formal writing it is treated as a serious grammatical mistake though it is accepted in conversation and in writing which imitates the patterns of speech, such as dialogue in a narration. Sentence fragments are not uncommon in colloquial writing, and are sometimes used in informal expository writing. However, their use in formal expository writing is unacceptable. The fact that for literary effects, good writers occasionally use sentence fragments should not be taken as a justification for those which result merely from inadequate command of the language. Most unwarranted fragments in students writings result from confusion of main and subordinate clauses or of verbs and verbals.
He entered each missspelled word in a notebook. Which he kept for that purpose. I refused to go to the concert. Because I had been up late last night and needed sleep. He is always complaining about his grades. Although he does nothing to improve them. It was difficult to decide which choice to make. To return to university or to accept the job.
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It was a wonderful week. Fishing and swimming every day and going to movies every night. The Pakistani team scored 13 runs in the last over. Thus tying the score.
Fragmentary sentences may be corrected either by changing the faulty period to comma, thus incorporating the separated phrase or subordinate clause within the sentence to which it belongs, or by expanding the fragment into a main clause so that it can stand as an independent sentence.
Exercise
Logical thinking is a skill that can be developed. First by learning what it is and then by practising it.
I am answering your advertisement for experienced draftsmen. Which appeared in a recent issue of The News. I would like to be considered for one of those positions. This has been one of those days we all have once in a while. When, no matter how careful we are, everything seems to go wrong. This spring my brother had to make a very difficult decision. Whether to sell his business and
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move to Karachi. Or to remain here where all his friends and relatives are. Two of the most unforgettable characters in my life are my parents. Unforgettable not only because of our affectionate bond but also because of the striking differences in their personalities. It is an important question, my dear friend. One which cannot be answered without much thought.
Government budgets are difficult to understand. Especially when they are packed with daunting statistics and couched in esoteric jargon. The possible solution to the problem of juvenile delinquency could be more and better recreational facilities. Facilities that would fill the spare time of the teen-ager and keep him occupied. National elections and student elections may be compared as closely as an
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object and its photograph. The only difference being in size. He died alone and in poverty. Deserted by those who had once sung his praises and borrowed his money. The judge said that the court was not inclined to show mercy. This being the third time the defendant had been convicted of the same. Then the game began to move faster. Almost
immediately after Shahid's move came our first goal. After I had done some hard thinking, I realised that many of my brother's decisions were in my best interest. Now we are all happier than we had been. Beyond the high buildings, over the opposite bank of the river, the sun hung low. Its glow smothered by a haze. Treaties of peace are seldom observed for long
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periods. This being the lesson of history. Statistics are not yet available to show the actual decrease in accidents. Since this program is still in the process of being completed and traffic has doubled in the past few months. A popular person usually has three good personality traits. A sense of humour, consideration for others, and good grooming.
The whole area is honeycombed by caves. Many of which are still unexplored. What he wants to know is. Will you accompany him to the town?
Comma Splice
The use of a comma, instead of a period or semicolon, between two main clauses not joined by a connective is called a comma splice or comma fault.
The meeting seemed to last for hours, nothing was accomplished. When in high school a weekend meant two days of nothing to do, in college it means two days in which
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you have to work to catch up. In all the three plans there is free choice of doctors, dentists, and hospitals, the only requirement is that they must be registered with the Authority. The difficulties are great but not insuperable, although the answer is not in sight, it can be obtained by patient and persistent work. In the past college education was a privilege
for a few people, today it has become a necessity for many.

Fused or Run-on Sentences
When two sentences run together without any separating punctuation or without an intervening connective, they are said to be fused.
This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly it should be thrown with great force. I knocked on the door when the man came I gave him my most ingratiating smile. Why do you ask what concern is it of yours?
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In a situation such as this one there is no way of reaching a compromise unless both sides are willing to make concessions the dispute will become a stalemate. I will not object on the other hand don't expect me to lend you any support on this issue.
Ways to eliminate the error
The meeting seemed to last for hours; nothing was accomplished.
The meeting seemed to last for hours; and nothing was accomplished. The meeting seemed to last for hours because nothing was accomplished. The meeting seemed to last for hours; furthermore, nothing was accomplished.
Exceptions
When two main clauses are short and closely related they may be separated by a comma only.
Laws grind the poor, the rich rule the laws.

Exercise
The following sentences contain one or more errors: Write correct versions.
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My mother stood by helplessly. While the plumber peered into the pipes black mouth and explained the problem in words that only plumbers understand. Proper names sometimes become common nouns that are used to name one of a class of things, an example of this kind of language evolution is the word maverick. Non-fiction is the presentation of factual
material, fiction is storytelling. The brakes of an automobile generate heat. Far more heat than most of us realise, for example, bringing a car to a full stop from 70 miles an hour generates enough heat to melt a pound of iron. There was no sound but the faint hiss and crunch of the packed snow. Shifting under our feet as we walked. It was a hushed, empty world through which we moved.
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The art of putting things off sometimes takes strange forms, it seems to thrive on the feeling that things will turn out all right, somehow. Even when putting them off is the very thing that will keep them from turning out all right. There is a great amount of detrimental reading material on the magazine shelves, most of this cannot be defended, even by the most liberal-minded person.
It will cost a great deal of money, there is no guarantee that the plan will succeed. Driven by the brisk March wind, green and white waves raced across the surface of the river, we caught glimpses of them through the train window. There are two wires sticking out from two small holes in the centre of the board, they have to be crossed to turn on ignition.
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Thanks to radar, ships and aeroplanes can "see" in fog as clearly as in broad daylight. But this does not mean that men have solved the problem of fog, fogbound ships fall behind their schedules, airports close down during a fog. I believe that the expression of a newspaper's opinions should be confined to its editorial page. Where the reader can judge the opinions for themselves.
Slanted news is sometimes worse than no news at all. In every community, even the crew of a pirate ship, there are acts that are enjoined and acts that are forbidden. Acts that are applauded and acts that are reprobated. A pirate must show courage in attack and justice in the distribution of spoils, if he fails in these respects, he is not a "good" pirate. Many companies are looking for experts in
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pollution control, this is a rapidly expanding field.

Wordiness
Wordiness means using more words than are needed. This is a very common weakness in students writings and is a major cause of reducing their quality. It must be realised that every word which is not performing any function in a sentence impedes communication. No one likes to listen to a speaker who talks too much and says so little; similarly, no reader has the patience to cut through a jungle of useless words or constructions to get at the message of the writer. However, removing wordiness does not mean adopting the style of telegrams or classified advertisements. It only means cutting out words which are contributing nothing to the meaning or effect of a sentence. Deadwood is a term used for a particular kind of wordiness: lazy words and phrases that clutter up a statement without adding anything to its meaning. Here are a few instances:
Anyone acquainted with violin construction knows that the longer the wood is seasoned, the better the result will be as far as the tone of the instrument is concerned. Because of the fact that she had been ill, she missed the first two weeks of the classes. Tests were run for a period of three weeks.
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The control is exercised by means of the steering wheel. We are in receipt of your letter of June 14. He glanced at the document in a suspicious manner. Anyone interested in the field of Mughal history should take this course. His gossip was of a sordid and ugly character. He seldom talks on any subject of a controversial nature.
In spite of the fact that he is lazy, I like him.

Redundant words or expressions are those which are repeated unnecessarily. Trimming them away improves readability and lucidity of writing. However, one should discriminate between repetition which lends force and vitality to a statement, and repetition which is a mere distraction. Here is an excerpt from a speech:
There is an old Chinese proverb saying that each generation builds a road for the next. The road has been built for us, and I believe it is incumbent upon us, in our generation, to build our road for the next.
Notice how the words road and generation are repeated for integration and coherence of thought. As a contrast examine the following sentences:
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In the modern world of today time has a meaning different from what it had when transportation was slow. He painted the wall bright red, but the resultant effect was not what he had anticipated. The hazy figures in the background are vague and indefinite, and they add a sinister note to the painting.
Behind the house was an enclosed court which was rectangular in shape. The bench was lying horizontal to the ground. He is a distinguished scholar of eminence in his field. The problem of feeding our ever-increasing population is one of our most serious problems. The advantage of getting a broader view of life through travel is only one of the advantages of
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spending the summer vacation travelling through some foreign countries. I have a friend of mine who works as an agent of this firm. The doctors had given him up as a hopeless case. But after wearing the amulet given by pir sahib and slaughtering four black lambs to ward off evil spirits, he was miraculously restored back to health.
Deadwood and redundant expressions have to be excised straight away. But some constructions need to be recast to achieve economy of words.
Reducing a sentence or a clause to a phrase or a single word
The snow lay like a blanket. It covered the countryside. The snow which lay like a blanket covered the countryside. The snow covered the countryside like a blanket. The snow blanketed the countryside. He is a shrewd businessman and knows the value of money.
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A shrewd businessman, he knows the value of money. People who work hard often achieve their goals.
Using active voice
The students were instructed by the teacher to complete their assignment by the due date. The teacher instructed the students to complete their assignment by the due date. The door was opened stealthily by the burglar.
The burglar opened the door stealthily.

Exercise
Identify words or phrases of low information content in the following sentences. In some cases you may have to delete deadwood, in others to revise a phrase or rewrite the sentence.
Measure the current with the aid of an ammeter connected to test points 9 and 14. In an effort to increase production, it was found necessary by the plant superintendent to hire four additional assemblers. The purchase of new machine would result in a
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reduction of the operating expenditure to the tune of about a million rupees per month. We wish to state that if you have any further queries regarding this matter, please feel free to contact Mr. Khan at any time. The end result was in the form of a mixture that required further analysis. A stability test did in fact prove that the damaged instruments were a contributing factor in
reducing measurement accuracy. In my opinion, I think the situation has grown worse. We are in agreement with the committees decision to make an effort to encourage greater student participation in activities conducted by the community. Reading is in relation to mind what exercise is with respect to body.
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He was elected unanimously by all the members.

Parallelism
Parallelism means expression of similar ideas in similar grammatical structures. A writing which observes parallelism is easy to read and comprehend and the reader does not lose his way in long and complex sentences. On the other hand, a writing which violates parallelism puts off even a very determined reader. A consideration of the following sentences would explain this cardinal principle of writing.
Dentists advise brushing the teeth after each meal and to avoid too much sugar in the diet. Einstein liked mathematical research more than to supervise a large laboratory.
To chew carefully is as necessary for good digestion as eating slowly. The company guaranteed increases of salary and that the working day would be shortened The student wanted to know what the calculus problems were and the due date for turning in the assignments. This product is sturdy, light, and costs very little. She said that you would need both a down payment
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and to have a loan approved. Gathering sales information and to present all the statistics in wellwritten reports are a part of her job. In my opinion Hamid is capable, reliable, and ought to be promoted. When the professor went to the university for his honorary degree, he was cheered wildly by admirers, wined and dined by his old colleagues, and
gave interviews press.

Exercise
to
the
The following sentences observe parallelism. Underline the elements that are parallel in form.
The ideal conditions for skiing are sunshine, powdery snow, and uncrowded slopes. This corporation manufactures copiers, duplicators, and selfcorrecting typewriters. These typewriters work easily, speedily, and noiselessly.
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If you want to learn a foreign language well, you should try to think in the language and to speak the language as much as possible. You can learn a foreign language in the classroom, at home, or in the foreign country where the language is spoken. If the supply of oil drops and if the demand increases alternative fuels will have to be found.
At an international seminar, participating countries discussed who the major producers of oil were and how much they would export. His mind was filled with artistic projects, schemes for outwitting his creditors, and vague ideas about social reform. The high technology nations must in coming years, direct vast resources to rehabilitating their physical environment and improving what has come
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to be called the quality of life. The passengers may now choose a jet on which the food, the music, the magazines, the movies, and the stewardess miniskirt are all French. He may choose a Roman flight on which the girls wear togas. Or he may select the Old English flight on which the girls are called serving wenches and the decor is that of an English pub.
Parallelism in correlative constructions

Parallelism is particularly important when joining parts of sentences with one of the following co-ordinating conjunctions:
either neither not only also
... ... ...
or nor but
It should be ensured that each part of a correlative construction is followed by an expression of the same grammatical form.
Parallelism violated The instrument not only requires mechanical repair, but also it will have to be realigned electrically. Parallelism restored The instrument requires not
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only mechanical repair but also electrical realignment.

Exercise
He has been not only successful as a store owner but also as a stock analyst. Hamid has a reputation for being both honest and to be fair. Either Hamid will fly to Peshawar or drive there. The president must not only represent his own political party but also the entire nation.
A physician in a small town must not only be proficient in general medicine but surgery as well. Francis Bacon, the great inductive thinker, neither had scientific equipment, nor knowledge of experimentation.
Parallelism in sub-paragraphs
Three tests were conducted to isolate the fault.
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In the first test a matrix was imposed upon the face of the cathode ray tube.... The second test consisted of voltage measurements taken..... A continuity tester was connected to the unit for test 3 and.......
To be parallel the sub-paragraphs should start in the same way. An improved version is indicated below:
In the first test a matrix was... In the second test a series of... In the third test a continuity tester was...
Parallelism in listing of items

In business and technical writing, enumeration of lists of items occurs quite frequently. These are easy to read and grasp if put in parallel forms. Examine the following examples:
1. In this particular case following are the important variables:
i. pressure and temperature of the boiler, ii. what type of fuel is required, iii. the amount of oxygen, iv. fuel temperature.
2. This report addresses the following tasks: i. to redesign the mix for the concrete slabs, ii. an evaluation of the compressive strength with the use of the test cylinders for various designs, and, iii. determining both the theoretical and actual material costs per cubic yard. 3. You can avoid a good deal of tedious and unnecessary work by following these simple rules: i. use one side of each card only, ii. include only one major point on a single card, iii. get all the information accurately the first time you consult a source, and iv. put all direct quotations in quotation marks.
Exercise
The following sentences lack parallelism. Write improved versions.
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He continued his work, without hope, without pleasure, and having no assurance that people would understand the significance of what he was trying to do. For the sake of your friends, your parents, and in the interest of your future, I hope you will reject the offer. Studies of men in isolated Antarctic outposts, experiments which have been carried out on sensory deprivation,
investigations into on-thejob performance in factories, all show a falling off of mental and physical abilities in response to under-stimulation. Riding on the rollercoaster and to spin the wheel of luck were his two greatest pleasures at the carnival. In college you will be both required to study on your own and to take extensive notes.
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The advertising experts place great emphasis on arousing need for a product, making the product attractive, and that the product be fairly inexpensive. Many immigrants came here to seek their fortune or because they desired freedom of worship. The frightened soldier did not know whether he had been ordered to stand trial for disorderly conduct or because he had disobeyed.
The practice of bonded labour should not be legalised because of its immorality, injustice, and it violates fundamental human rights. Our intellectuals try explaining most of our problems in terms of conspiracies by our enemies, and thus fail to focus on our own moral failures which in most cases are their real cause.
Modifiers
Adverbs and adjectives (and phrases or clauses acting as adverbs and adjectives, e.g. prepositional phrases) are modifiers. They
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limit, describe, or identify the words they modify. Thus they are used to make ideas more exact and clear.
He threw a stone. The naughty boy threw a sharp stone. (Adjectives modify nouns.) My brother repaired the radio. My brother carefully repaired the radio. (An adverb modifies a verb.) Eight a.m. is a busy time. Eight a.m. is an unusually busy time. (An adverb modifies an adjective.) The girl plays the guitar.
The girl in the red dress plays the guitar. (A prepositional phrase modifies a noun.)
Problems related to modifiers
A part of a sentence which modifies any other part is called a modifier.
Nothing grows well in the shade of a big tree. Kill not the goose that lays the golden egg. The orchestra, consisting largely of amateur musicians, played a selection of old songs.
A careless use of modifiers results in vagueness, ambiguity and confusion which reduce the readability and effectiveness of a
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writing. The problematic modifiers can be divided into three classes: the misplaced, the two-way and the dangling modifiers. Misplaced Modifier: As a matter of general principle a modifier should be placed close to what it modifies. Otherwise it is likely to be mistaken to modify some other element in the sentence leading thus to confusion and reduced readability. Modifiers which can be misinterpreted because of their inappropriate placement in a sentence are termed as misplaced modifiers.
We listened breathlessly to the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves munching our peanuts and crackers. They were delighted to see a field of daffodils climbing up the hill. You can order a dress that will be delivered to you by telephone.
Exercise
My uncle wore the brilliant red scarf around his neck which he had just bought in London. The presiding judge reprimanded the hesitant witness, quoting from the statutes. The small businessman finds it difficult to compete with the large corporations having limited funds. Many of our grandparents came to this country from
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other lands filled with a desire for a better life. The orator thanked his listeners for applauding his speech with charm and tact. The salesman tried hard to sell us the new car with glowing words of praise. On this July night, the composer played his composition for piano and orchestra, dripping with perspiration. One politician is said to have posted his campaign
cards to his voters pinned together with a thousandrupee note. The investigators spotted the wreckage of the plane peering through the binoculars. There is a bracelet in the Taxila Museum that is four thousand years old.
Dangling Modifier: A dangling modifier is one which has nothing in the main clause to modify and is thus left dangling. Examine the following sentence:
Impressed by newspaper stories, seemed inevitable.
the war
Who was impressed? The opening phrase needs something to modify.
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The following version gets rid of this difficulty by making we the subject of the main clause.
Impressed by the newspaper stories, we felt that war was inevitable.

The dangling modifiers which occur most frequently in students essays begin with a verbal phraseparticiple, gerund, or infinitiveand are left hanging because the originally intended subject is not retained in the main clause. A sentence with a dangling verbal phrase may be revised either by re-wording the main clause or by expanding the opening phrase into a subordinate clause. Dangling Modifier: To qualify for the position, a rigorous examination must be passed. Correct Version: To qualify for the position you must pass a rigorous examination. Dangling Modifier: After recording the information and filling the forms, the Dean checked the papers to see if I had followed the instructions. Correct Version: When I had recorded the information and filled in the forms, the Dean checked the papers to see if I had followed the instructions. Two-way Modifier: A two-way modifier may refer to more than one person or thing which makes it difficult to understand what the writer means.
Drivers who speed often have accidents. Galileo declared after considerable pressure he would recant his views. The mayor said when the city council met he would discuss the proposed budget. The President said in the press interview his opponent spoke like a gentleman.
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Exercise
While correcting papers, the message came from the principal. Although a Muslim, the priest received me in the church most graciously. Having written the last poem, the book was now ready for the printer. While digging for change, his car hit the toll booth. The blaze was put out before any damage was done by the local fire department.
Having run five blocks to cash my weekly cheque, the cashier said that the bank was about to close for the day. While running with the ball, my ankle twisted, and that was the end of the session for me. Ailing and near starvation, both fame and fortune had abandoned the oncecelebrated poet. Fastened to the tree stump, rage and despair filled the heart of the captive.
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Be sure to purchase enough material to finish your article before you start. Without expecting a reply, a letter was written to the Chairman. While cleaning his eye glasses, his car skidded dangerously into the curb. A firm in Lahore has developed a bullet-proof helmet for soldiers made of plastic. By getting your purpose clearly in mind at the
beginning, the actual writing will be easier. The students counted twelve shooting stars sitting on the porch last night. After making many discoveries, the scientific acumen of the chemist was appreciated. The best fruit he likes is peaches. While running for the bus, my wallet must have dropped out of my pocket.
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He advertised for a second-hand sewing machine in his usual highflown language. The leader of the safari promised in the morning we would see a herd of elephants.
Stringy Sentences
In a stringy sentence too many clauses are connected, usually with and, but, so and because, forming one very long sentence. Such sentences are monotonous to read and tax the attention of the reader. There may also be impairment of meaning because all ideas or statements stringed together appear to have equal importance.
My room-mate, Hamid goes to the college and from the beginning of this semester until last week,
he had not studied at all and the reason was that he had no exam during that period. But the day before yesterday, I was astonished because I saw him studying and later on he told me he had studied all day long and the reason was that he was going to have an exam the next day and he wanted to get a good grade in the exam.
Stringy sentences can be corrected by subordinating some ideas, by dividing them into more than one sentences, or by reducing co-ordinate clauses to compound predicates.
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Subordination of ideas
Hamid went to Peshawar University to study sociology and he liked it much and urged his friends to take it also. At Peshawar University, Hamid studied sociology which he liked so much that he urged his friends to take it. The small cars are less expensive and they are more manoeuvrable in parking and travel more miles on the gallon.
The small cars, which are less expensive and more manoeuvrable in parking, travel more miles on gallon.
Division into more than one sentences
Dr. Fleming was studying a colony of bacteria and he noticed that a substance in the dish was impeding the growth of bacteria and he continued his investigations and discovered penicillin. While Dr. Fleming was studying a colony of
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bacteria, he noticed a substance impeding its growth. After further study he discovered penicillin.
Reduction of co-ordinate compound predicate clauses to a
The professor built a hut near the lake and he furnished it simply and settled down for a life of contemplation and writing. The professor built a hut near the lake, furnished it simply and settled down for a life of contemplation and writing.
Exercise
Given below are some stringy sentences. Revise them by one of these methods: subordination, division into more than one sentence, and reduction of co-ordinate clauses to a compound predicate.
A true scientist studies all available facts, and he makes a generalisation, and in time these generalisations may become a law. It is easy to complain of our petty discomforts and forget that people all over the world are so much worse off and so we should really be grateful.
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Many museums offer special services to the school children and these include lectures and guided tours. Asmat was a college teacher and it is believed that her short story Aarzoo was based on an experience in her college, and it is a very moving story. Suburban life has made many men into clockwatchers and trainwatchers, and this development has not
helped either their peace of mind or their digestion. For proper comprehension it is wise to read that material quickly at first and then to see the main points and finally to prepare its mental outline. The mayor was an astute politician, so he refused to commit himself on the issue until after the elections. The engineer examined the blue print carefully and then said that the bridge
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could never be constructed that way. By the year 2010 our colleges will have twice as many students as they have now and this increase will require a tremendous building programme. During the past two decades hotels have sprung up along the motorways and they have encouraged travel by car so that more people are seeing the country.
Separation of Related Elements

In a sentence there should usually be no unnecessary separation between related elements, such as, subject and verb, verb and complement, or modifier and its referent. The basis for this principle is simple: separation of related parts puts extra burdens on the reader and makes his task difficult. A report or article in which split constructions abound tires the reader soon and he is likely to toss it aside unread unless, of course, he has some strong compulsion to read it through. Split constructions are one of the major factors which reduce readability of written works.
Many people, feeling that it represents something intractable in human nature, are distrustful of ambition. We hold these truths that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights to be self-evident.
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The manager, after considering what the visit would cost and how long it would take, withheld his approval. The evidence shows, if you examine it carefully and objectively, that the manger was involved in the fraud. Everyone of my instructors, I am firmly of the opinion, acts though his course was the only one I am taking.
Exercise
Revise the following sentences to eliminate any unnecessary separation.
His friends, even those who are his blind supporters, admit that he was first in losing temper. I was until yesterday of this opinion. He said while he did not object to our going to the theatre that he would like to stay home. The travel agent promised that he would well in time get the tickets.
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We have since his dismissal had no more trouble. We should have, if democratic culture is to be promoted, comprehensive educational reforms. This involves a thorough revision by eminent scholars and educationists of the present curricula in which democratic values find no place. The student organisations, as they are responsible for creating intolerance,
should be banned from educational campuses. The students unions should continue to exist and their elections held regularly. But the student organisations which have degenerated into gangs of criminals must not be allowed to participate in them or to manipulate them.
Faulty Comparisons
Faulty comparisons are a common feature of students writings. One can easily get rid of this problem by exercising a little care. The most common faults are pointed out below. Incomplete comparisons: Statements involving comparisons should be written out in full particularly if any misunderstanding is likely to arise through shortening one of the terms:
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Ambiguous: I owe him less than you. Clearer: I owe him less than I owe you. or I owe him less than you do. Ambiguous: He admires Iqbal more than other modern poets. Clearer: He admires Iqbal more than he does other modern poets or He admires Iqbal more than other modern poets do.
There is another category of incomplete comparisons in which one term of the comparison is omitted. Advertisers frequently state that a certain product is better or more durable without telling us with what the product is being compared. Finer quality at greater savings is a popular slogan. Such incomplete comparisons are acceptable only in advertising. There can, however, be contexts in which it may not be necessary to state a complete comparison because it is obvious.
Habib Bank serves you better. She will be much happier in Lahore. He has better understanding of the national political scene. He is a much stronger man.
One has to exercise ones judgement to determine whether the sentences given above are acceptable or need correction.
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Comparing comparable things. Only things of the same category can be compared: people with people, buildings with buildings, apples with apples, and so on.
The economies of some Far Eastern countries are stronger than many European countries (economies and countries are not comparable). Some people consider the cultural policies of the present government as poor as the previous government.
Comparing a thing with a group of which it is a part: Include the word other or else when comparing a thing with the group of which it is a part. Examine the following sentences and point out the logical defect in them. How would you remove it?
After training hard for a year, Ahmad was a faster 100-meter runner than any boy in his class. The economy of Malaysia is growing faster than that of any Asian country.
Exercise
Our library is better for research than the State College. Trains in Pakistan are more reliable than India. Most highways in the US are wider than Europe.
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The ideas of educated people are different from the uneducated people. Swimming in the sea is harder than a lake. The clock in the gym is faster than the office. The automobiles of today are more powerful than ten years ago.
Summary of Sentence-Level Problems
Given below are rules which cover some of the sentence-level faults found in students writings. Read them carefully and see if you have any comments to make.
Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.
Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isnt. Verbs has to agree with their subjects. Competent writers who always avoid sentence fragments. Avoid commas, that are not necessary. If you reread your speech, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided.
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Dont use contractions in formal writing. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in sentences which tend to be long and complex, to their antecedents. A writer must not shift ones point of view unless it is justified by the logic of your subject.
Apostrophe has its proper uses; do not use it when it is not needed. Put similar ideas in grammatical forms which are similar. Passive voice should be used sparingly. Closely related elements of a sentence, unless it is absolutely unavoidable, should not be separated.
IIRecognising Word Classes or Parts of Speech

In English it is usual to classify words into word classes, but at the same time it is important to remember that it is the function of a word in a sentence which determines what part of speech a word is. For example, a word may belong to any word class without changing its form:
He will fast during the month of Ramadan. (verb) After one he broke his fast. (noun) She types fast. (adverb) Naseem is a fast worker. (adjective)
We can distinguish between major and minor word classes: Major Word Classes: Adjectives and Adverbs: These are Nouns, Main Verbs,
Minor Word Classes: These are Pronouns, Auxiliary Verbs, Determiners, Articles, Prepositions, Conjunctions, and Interjections.
Major Word Classes Noun

A noun can be easily identified because it is usually modified by a, an, or the.
A- Classification
Nouns may be broadly classified as follows:
B- Functions of Nouns
Function Examples Position
1. as subject of verb
Ali mangoes.
loves Before the verb After the verb After the verb
2. as object of verb direct object indirect object (after verbs like buy, bring, give, take, owe, sell, write, pay) 3. as object preposition
Ali loves Leila. Ali sent flowers. Leila
of She took them After from Ali. preposition
(in a prepositional phrase)
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4. as complement subjective complement (after verbs like be, seem, appear, become)
Leila is secretary.
the After the verb
objective complement (after verbs like appoint, consider, name, They elected nominate, choose) Leila secretary. 5. as noun adjunct Ali waited at the Before a noun bus-stop. After a noun Ali, chairman of After a noun the committee, gave a speech. Ali, come here. Usually at the beginning of a sentence
6. as appositive
7. in direct address
C- Nouns and Number:

In English, nouns can have either singular (one) or plural (more than one) number. Singular nouns comprise:
1. Those denoting one: a shoe, this flower, that magazine. 2. Mass (uncountable) nouns: the tea, our democracy, that advertisement. 3. Proper nouns: Jonathan, Germany.
Usually plural count nouns (denoting more than one) are the only nouns which occur in the plural: two flowers, those shoes, these chopsticks. Generally the plural is formed by addings ores to the singular, but there are two exceptions: (i) Some nouns ending ins are actually singular and not plural e.g. measles, subject names, linguistics, statistics, billiards, and news etc. Some nouns only ever occur in the plural e.g. cattle, deer, trout, people, scissors, arms, and stairs etc.
(ii)
D- Rules of forming plural nouns

Rule 1: Nouns are regularly Day days, roof roofs, shoe made plural by the addition shoes ofs:
Rule 2: Other nouns are made plural by addinges: Nouns ending in sibilant (s) Bus buses, box boxes, church sounds spelled with s, ch, sh churches, dish dishes, and x: curry curries, baby babies, key Nouns ending in y preceded by keys, monkey monkeys a consonant: y is changed to i (s only is added if y is preceded by a vowel): One-syllable nouns ending in a single f or fe: f is changed to v: Leaf leaves, thief thieves, knife Exception: chiefs, knives handkerchiefs, roofs, safes, beliefs.
Singular
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Nouns ending in o: -es only: -s only:
Buffalo buffaloes, mangoes Bamboo bamboos, radios, piano pianos
mango radio
Rule 3: Other nouns have other types of plural: Children, oxen en ending Tooth teeth, foot feet, man men, woman women, mouse mice, goose geese of Boyfriends, breakdowns,
internal vowel change Rule 4: The compounds: plural
In most compounds the Grown-ups, check-ups, endings is added to the last assistant directors, stepfathers, part: doorbells
Both hangers-on, Brothers-in-law,
With a few compounds, the Passers-by, commanders-inpluralization occurs to the first part: Chief
foreign/regular plurals
Englishmen, policemen Sometimes internal changes occur: vowel
A few compounds have both the menservants, women doctors first and the last part in the plural:
Rule 5: Foreign plurals: There are two ways of pluralising foreign words that have become part of the English Stimulus stimuli/stimiluses language: by the addition of the regulars Virus /viruses plural by the addition of a foreign Cactus plural (usually in technical cacti/cactuses writing) Nucleus Some foreign words take both nuclei/nucleuses the regular and the foreign Radius plural. radii/radiuses Larva Curriculum curricula/ Index indices/indexes Crisis Neutron crises/ larvae/
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/neutrons Bureau Plateau plateaux/plateaus bureaux/
Nouns and Gender

Every noun in English belongs to one of four genders: masculine, feminine, neuter, and common: The masculine gender is used when the noun refers to males (persons and animals): man, bull, master poet (and is used with third person pronouns he, him, his etc.) The feminine gender is used when the noun refers to females (persons or animals): Woman, cow, mistress, poetess (and is used with she, her, etc) The neuter gender refers to nouns that are neither masculine nor feminine; that is, they are inanimate: Book, water, table, happiness, democracy, biology (and is used with it, its, etc.) The common gender refers to nouns that are of either sex, masculine or feminine: Baby, person, parent, bird
Note these exceptions: He and she can be used for animals whom we consider as having human qualities, especially family pets:
Has Blackie had her milk yet?

Conversely, babies and very young children are often referred to as it:
The baby is crying for its milk.

She is occasionally used for inanimate objects when we consider them to have animate qualities, for example, ships and cars, and sometimes countries:
What a beautiful yacht! What have you named her? Malaysia is celebrating her national day next month.
The feminine gender is shown in three ways in nouns:
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by the suffixess, e.g. mistress, hostess by a word in front of another word, e.g. billygoat, nanny goat by a totally different word, e.g. nephew, niece.
Main verbs
Verbs are a class of words that serve to indicate the occurrence or performance of an action, the existence of a state etc.
Kinds of Verbs
There are two types of verbs in English: Main Verbs and Auxiliary Verbs. Main verbs are either regular (play, like, press) or irregular (drink, buy), though irregular verbs are not completely irregular. Regular Verbs: The great majority of English verbs are regular; that is, they have four forms:
The base (the uninflected or unchanged form) play
Thes form plays Theing form playing Theed form played

Irregular Verbs: The irregular main verbs in the English language are small in number but important in function. They resemble regular verbs in having regulars anding forms, but they differ from regular verbs in that sometimes the base form changes in the past form and/or past participle form. There are three types of irregular verbs:
Verbs in which all three parts (the base, the past, the past participle) are identical: letletlet.
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Verbs in which two of the three parts are identical: buildbuiltbuilt. Verbs in which all three parts are different: speakspokespoken.
Verb Patterns
There are six basic verb patterns in English and a larger number of sub-patterns. These are listed below, together with examples:
a. Linking Verbs:
In this pattern, the verb is a linking verb. Such verbs usually describe a state or condition:
Appear (satisfied) stay (young) grow (old) Feel (ill) smell (sweet) fall (sick)
Look (pretty) sound (angry) run (wild) Seem (happy) taste (sour) turn (bitter)
Linking verbs form the following patterns: Verb + Noun or Verb +(to She is a very attractive be) woman. Noun: The complement is a He became a Professor of noun phrase or nominal Physics. clause. He seems (to be) a very bright child.
Verb +Adjective or Verb + Your hair looks nice. (to be) Adjective: The complement it an adjective. He sounded furious over the phone.
Mother is at home. Verb + Necessary Adverbial: The verb is She leaned out of the window. followed by an adverbial. The meeting lasted two hours.
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The flowers dollar.
cost
one
b. Verbs with One (Transitive Verbs)

Verb +Noun: The object is He poisoned the cat. a noun phrase. Everybody sang national anthem. She tidied the house. Verb + Bare Infinitive: The May I verb is used with a bare dishes? infinitive (i.e. without to) help with
Object
the
the
Verb +toinfinitive: The She agreed to write to her object is a toinfinitive. aunt. They decided to go for a Verb + -ing form: The verb swim. is followed by aning form. He denied causing the accident. Such verbs include: She disliked going to
Avoid
consider
finish deny enjoy
music lessons.
Admit postpone Dislike risk
Verb + thatclause: The verb has a thatclause (where that can be omitted). I admit (that) he is a good lecturer. Verbs: You forget (that) I am your Accept claim father. understand Admit discover Feel recommend Demand insist doubt forget require
I wonder if/whether she Verb + wh- word: The verb will come. has a clause introduced by a wh- word: how, why, He still doesnt know how where, who, whether, if. to tie his shoelaces. Verb: Decide Guess forget doubt discuss wonder
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(c) Verbs with Object + Verb(+.): Shall I help you carry that
These transitive verbs have box? an object which is followed We felt the house shake. by another verb. Verb + Object + Bare You made me spill my tea. Infinitive: The verb and object are followed by an infinitive She asked the maid to wash the floor. without to. They advised us to stay in our seats.
Verb + Object infinitive: Verbs: Ask Get advise allow
to-
cause forget tell intend They saw the thief running away. Can you smell something burning?
Require teach Urge order
Verb + Object + -ing form:
She could feel her heart beating.
We found deserted.
the
house
I want the work finished by noon. Verb + Object + -ed form: He couldnt make himself heard.
She gave the door a hard kick. dollars. (d) Verbs with two Objects: May I ask you a favour? She owed him a thousand
Verb + Noun + Noun: Verb + indirect object + direct She gave her mother the object. gloves. She gave the gloves to her mother.
Verbs: to verbs:
She cooked her father a
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bring offer promise read take
give
hand
meal.
owe She cooked a meal for her father. send teach show write
for verbs: cook learn find make get save I convinced him that I was innocent.
We must remind him that Note: The above pattern hes on duty tonight. may be replaced by a direct object + to/for + noun The workers told the employers that they phrase. wanted more money. Verb + Object + a thatclause (where that is often She told me why she had come. omitted): Verbs: Assure persuade Remind inform convince tell Tell me what your name is. This shows how wrong you were. I cant decide what to do next.
Verb + Object + a wh- Ill enquire how to get there. clause (or how- clause):
I showed her where to sit.
Verb + Object + wh- word He ordered himself bottle of wine. + toinfinitive:
She made her mother a new dress. Can you spare me a few minutes of your time? He found her (to be) a very hardworking colleague. They appointed him (to be) the tennis coach.
(e) Verbs with Object and Object Complement

Verb + Noun + Noun Phrase (where the complement is a noun He left phrase): filthy. the apartment
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He painted his car black. OR Verb + Noun + (to be) Noun: to be may appear before the noun phrase complement. Verbs: Appoint found Consider think imagine suppose They imagined him (to be) crazy. Many students thought the exam (to be ) unfair.
Verb + Noun + Adjective (where the complement is an adjective): Verbs:
Paint Make
serve keep
leave wash
Please put the milk in the refrigerator. They kept their daughter indoors.
OR
The detective followed the
Verb + Noun + (to be)
suspect for two hours.
Adjective: to be may She cried. appear before the adjective The dress fits. complement. Verbs: Feel Imagine suppose think know believe The heater blew up. The fugitive gave up. Zubair (understood cigarettes) smokes. object =
They went jogging. Verb + Object + Necessary Adverbial: The verb has an adverbial following the object. She came visiting.
(f) Verbs without Object or Complement (Intransitive Verbs):
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Verb + toinfinitive: Verbs with no object or complement.
Note (i) It may be a phrasal verb without an object.
(ii) The missing object is understood. Verb + -ing Form:
Transitive and intransitive verbs:

A sentence typically contains a noun or a pronoun as its subject and a verb (or verb phrase) as its simple predicate. However, the mere presence of both a noun and a simple predicate does not necessarily make a meaningful sentence. For example:
The manager wrote.

That word group is not a meaningful thought. It lacks the information about what the manager wrote and therefore needs an object of the transitive verb wrotea word that tells us what the manager wrote. For example:
The manager wrote the letter.
Letter is the direct object of the verb wrote because letter tells us what the manager wrote. To determine the object of a verb, ask yourself whom? or what? after the verb. For example: The manager wrotewhat? The letter. Henry likeswhom? Nancy. Nancy is the object of Henrys liking. Many verbs, of course, do not require objects. For example:
John wept. The manager travels.

The verbs wept and travels do not have objects. A verb that requires an object for meaning is called a transitive verb because the action transfers to the object. A verb that does not require an object for meaning is called an intransitive verb because the action is complete in itself and the action in the verb does not transfer from the subject through the verb and to the object of the action. For example:
Transitive
Jack sent the report today. Akram drives his car twice a week.
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Ali attended yesterday.

Intransitive:
the
class
Jack sleeps on a waterbed. Akram drives on the left side of the road. Ali attends on Tuesday only.
This discussion about transitive and intransitive verbs can help us use correctly the principal parts of six troublesome verbs: lie, lay, sit, set, rise, and raise. The key to understanding and using these verbs properly is in knowing the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. The principal parts of lie, lay, sit,set,rise and raise are as follows:
Present Past Past participle
lie lay sit set
lay laid sat set
lain laid sat set
rise raise
rose raised
risen raised
Lie and lay have different meanings. To lie means to recline and is intransitive, and to lay means to place and is transitive. For example:
I lie on the couch. I lay on the couch yesterday. I had lain on the couch two days until you arrived. I lay the book on the desk each morning. I laid the book on the desk yesterday. I had laid the book on the desk, as you directed.
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Because lie is intransitive, it never requires an object to complete its meaning. Because lay is transitive, it always requires an object to complete its meaning. To sit means to be seated and is intransitive, and to set means to place and is transitive. Sit never requires an object because it is intransitive. Set always requires an object because it is transitive-- it requires a word that tells us what was set. For example:
The boys normally sit on the north end. The boys sat on the south end yesterday. The boys had sat on either the north end or south end until they got 50-yard seats. He sets the manual on my credenza.
He set the manual on my credenza yesterday. He had already set the manual on my credenza before you told him not to do so.
To rise means to get up and is intransitive, and to raise means to lift and is transitive. Rise, as an intransitive verb, never requires an object to complete its meaning. Raise, a transitive, always requires an object to complete its meaning-- to tell the reader what was raised. For example:
I rise by 7 a.m. most mornings. I rose at 6 a.m. yesterday. I had risen before 7 a.m. every morning until my alarm clock broke.
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I raise the windows myself. Salman raised the windows today. We had raised the windows every morning until we were told to keep them closed.
Subject-Verb Agreement
The basic principle governing subject-verb agreement is simple: singular subjects take singular verbs and plural subjects take plural verbs. Generally students have no difficulty in following this principle. However, there are a few situations which leave even experienced writers somewhat uncertain. The following rules cover most of such situations. 1. When two or more singular subjects are connected by and, a plural form of the verb is required.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
He and his brother are identical twins.

Exceptions
(i) When each of the singular subjects is considered individually, the singular form of the verbs is used. This usage is most frequent after each or every.
Here, every man and woman seeks selffulfilment by serving the community.
(ii) When the two singular subjects refer to the same person.
My brother and boss has something to say about this matter.

(iii) Mathematical computations may take a singular or a plural verb.
Five and five is ten. Five and five are ten.
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2. When two or more singular subjects are connected by or, nor, or but, a singular form of the verb is required.
Ahmad or Iqbal is to represent the country. Neither Ahmad nor Iqbal has a clean record. Not Ahmad but Iqbal was involved in the forgery case.
3. When one of the two subjects connected by or, nor, or but, is singular and the other is plural, the verb agrees in number with the nearer one.
Neither Iqbal nor his lawyers were present in the court when the judgement was announced. Not only the students but also their teacher was
feeling drowsy afternoon class.
in
the
4. When two subjects connected by or or nor differ in person, the verb agrees with the nearer.
Neither Ahmad nor I am to blame. Ahmad or you are to clear up this muddle.
5. A singular subject followed immediately by as well as, in addition to, including, no less than, with, together with or a similar construction requires a singular verb.
The husband as well as the wife needs advice. This invention, as well as its commercial applications, was the result of this research effort.
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The coach together with his assistants was credited with the outstanding performance of the team.
This convention sometimes seems illogical. There is a tendency, therefore, to avoid the construction altogether and use alternative ones.
Both the husband and the wife need advice. The coach and his assistants were credited with the outstanding performance of the team.
6. A singular subject followed by a plural modifier requires a singular subject.
The attitude of these men is definitely hostile.
A list of the names of all survivors is available.

7. Such indefinite pronouns as anybody, anyone, each other, everybody, neither, nobody, no one, and some body generally require a singular verb.
Anybody who does that is just reckless. Somebody has been raiding my refrigerator. Nobody in the office accepts responsibility for this.
8. The pronouns any and none take either singular or plural verbs.
None is expected to come during the vacation. None are expected to come during the vacation.
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9. When the subject is a relative pronoun, the verb agrees with the antecedent of that pronoun. (The one-of-those-who cases)
He is one of those men who never care for the feelings of others. This is one of those problems which defy any solutions. One of the girls who sing in the drama is being married.
10. When a sentence is introduced by the expletive there or the adverb here, the verb agrees with the following subject, not with the introductory word.
Here is your money. Here are the receipts for your deposits.
There are chances.
no
second
11. When a sentence is introduced by the expletive it, the verb is always singular, regardless of the number of the subject.
It is we whom they want.

12. A verb agrees with its subject and not with its complement.
Our chief trouble was the honey bees that swarmed around us on the trip. The black flies that swarmed about us on our trip were our chief trouble. What annoys me about them is their unending complaints.
13. When the word order is inverted, care must be taken to make the verb agree with its subject and not with some other word.
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Throughout the story appear thinly disguised references of authors past association with the anarchist groups. Accompanying the senator were his secretary and other numbers of his staff.
14. A collective noun takes a singular verb when the class it names is considered as a unit, a plural verb when the members of the class are considered individually.
The jury has completed its deliberations. The jury are divided in their opinions.
The committee has already held its first meeting of the year. The committee are arguing amongst themselves. Sentences like the last one often sound unnatural, and it is better to substitute a clearly plural subject (the committee members, the jury members)
15. Plural numbers take a singular verb when they are used in a phrase to indicate a sum or a unit.
A million dollars is a great deal of money. Ten years is too long to wait.
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16. Certain names which are plural in form but singular in meaning generally take a singular verb.
Economics has been called the dismal science. No news is good news. Semantics is the study of meanings.
Exercise
Identify the subject of each of the following sentences and select the verb form that agrees with it.
He is one of those people who (is, are) always making trouble. All (is, are) well. There (is, are) two mistakes in your work.
The father no less than the children (is, are) to blame. The gangster, with all his henchmen, (were, was) arrested. There (is, are) an apple and an orange for each child. Here (is, are) a piece of cake and a glass of milk. Two hundred pounds (were, was) his best weight. (Is, are) there two pictures like that?
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The engine in addition to the body (was, were) in bad shape.

Exercise
Rewrite the following sentences to remove any subject-verb disagreement, or to improve any awkward construction caused by following established conventions too closely. Some sentences may be satisfactory as they are:
Neither of the applicants are fully qualified. The cost of food, clothing, and household goods have risen so steeply during the last couple of years. He is one of those men who is seen at all functions and parties in the town.
There is, I believe, two or three things we must check while employing a domestic servant. Not only his grades but even his behaviour were much below the required standards. The extent of his injuries are yet to be determined. The Gymkhana Club led the league at the beginning of the season and are now at the third place. Either Ahmad or I am going to represent the
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Institute in the Punjab University debates. One of the students who scores A grades in all the courses will be awarded a scholarship. The works of such a poet contains something for each one of us. There has never been any reports which were made public. This is one of those questions that has more than one correct answers.
Neither the students nor their teacher find the timetable very convenient. Somebody, perhaps Ahmad or Hamid, have reported the accident to the police. All of the wheat produced in the world belong to one of the fourteen species. The hockey team buy their own uniform. Upon the students rest the responsibility of keeping their hostels clean.
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Physical fitness, as well as psychological health, are taken into account while recruiting cadets for the air force.
Adverbs
An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, an adverb and even a whole clause or sentence.
They walked quickly. (modifies the verb walked) He was very tired. (modifies the adjective tired) She spoke fairly slowly. (modifies the adverb slowly)
Thus he was punished. (modifies the sentence he was punished)

Adverbs usually express time, place, manner, frequency or degree.
They arrived soon. (Time) He stood there alone. (Place) Everyone worked diligently. (Manner) We often eat out. (Frequency) She almost slipped on the pavement. (Degree)
Besides the kinds of adverbs above, there are also relative and interrogative adverbs.
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Relative adverbs
This is the time when cherry blossoms come out. Show me the spot where the accident happened. We dont know the reason why he left.
Interrogative adverbs
When are you leaving? Where do you live? Why do you look so sad?
Exercise
Fill in each blank with a suitable adverb of the type indicated in the brackets.
All the speakers presented their points.. (Manner) He seemed..able to sit up. (Degree) You need to sign your name. (Place) The plans will be finalised.(Time) It is that we find such faithful friends. (Frequency) Her reaction was a unexpected one. (Degree)
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The police searched the place. for clues. (Manner) We have not discovered the answer. (Time) He has .given us any trouble. (Frequency) Most people.. speak English. (Place)
Adverb particles are words which have the same form as prepositions but function as adverbs. Unlike prepositions they do not introduce a phrase ending with a noun or pronoun. Adverb particles follow verbs and express place or direction of movement.
1a. They talked on (adverb particle)
1b. He went on a trip. (preposition) 2a. His father suddenly walked in. (adverb particle) 2b. I have no faith in him. (preposition)
Some adverbs end in ly, but they must not be confused with adjectives which end in ly too, such as lovely, likely and brotherly. Some adverbs have two forms, one without and the other with ly. The words in pairs like cheap/cheaply, deep/deeply, loud/loudly and quick/quickly may be used interchangeably. However, those in pairs like close/closely, hard/hardly, high/highly and late/lately do not have the same meanings. Close, hard, high and late can be used either ad adjectives or as adverbs, and when used as adverbs they are different from the adverbs closely, hardly, highly and lately. Generally the form with ly is used more idiomatically.
1a. He sat close to the stage.
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1b. Watch closely what he does. 2a. The students try hard. 2b. She could hardly see anything in the dark.
Exercise
Say whether the word in bold print in each sentence is used as an adjective or an adverb.
She held fast to her decision despite attempts to make her change her mind. They found it a tight squeeze having so many people in one small room.
She is always quick with her answers. The report was submitted too late for the preliminary hearing. She considers it lowly to serve at tables. His thesis fell short of expectations. The discussion went on well into the night. The alarm was so loud that she woke up with a start. Everyone in the room was hard at work when I entered.
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Shortly after, he left his hometown for good. Her lively personality gained her many friends. The proposals have to come in early if they are to be discussed at the meeting. It is necessary to delve deep into the matter in order to find out the truth. This substance would be deadly if taken in large doses.
The lecturers will leave on a study tour in early March.

Adjectives
An adjective is a word that modifies, or changes, the meaning of a noun or pronoun. It may point out, describe or limit the meaning of the noun or pronoun. Characteristics of Adjectives The majority of adjectives can be both (i) attributive or descriptive (Hes an intelligent child), and (ii) predicative (All her children are intelligent). Most of them can also be modified by intensifiers, e.g. fairly, rather, quite, very. Most can also take comparative and superlative forms when used for degrees of comparison. Kinds of Adjectives and their Functions Attributive (or Descriptive) Adjectives As the name suggests, attributive adjectives attribute some quality to a person or thing. As such, they are placed after the determiners but before the noun which is head of a phrase. Attributive adjectives include those that are generally descriptive, i.e. assign qualities (beautiful, intelligent, clear) or physical states of size, shape, age, colour, temperature, as well as proper adjectives referring to nationalities, geographical
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places, religions, holidays, dates, names titles, etc., e.g. Italian food, Parisian styles, Christian beliefs. Although most adjectives can be either attributive or predicative, some can only be used in the attributive position; i.e. before a noun adjunct or a noun, e.g. a former tenant, the late prime minister, an occasional drink, a hard worker, a big liar, a Buddhist monk. Some attributive adjectives are derived from nouns, e.g. a law school, a flower garden, the weather forecast, criminal law, an atomic scientist, pay-day, airmail. Predicative Adjectives Such adjectives act as complements of verbs: as subject complements after linking verbs like be, seem,
look, feel You look happy this morning. Patent leather is smooth and shiny.
as object complements after verbs like believe, find, consider
They considered him the best architect.
We found delightful.
the
park
as a complement to a subject which is a finite clause or nonfinite clause
Whether the mail will come is unclear. Riding a skateboard isnt as easy as you may imagine.
as object complements to clauses
Most parents consider their children goodlooking.

Some groups of adjectives can only be used in the predicative position, e.g. health adjectivesShe felt ill; He felt faint.
Post-modifying Adjectives
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Adjectives, in particular predicative adjectives, are sometimes post- modifiers (i.e. they follow the word they modify):
As a reduced relative clause Was there anything (which was) interesting on the news? The people (who were) involved were punished. As post-modifiers in compounds
Court martial, postmaster general
Participle Adjectives
A large number of adjectives have the same form asing or ed participles:
His ideas on religion are astonishing. She seemed satisfied with my explanation.
Such adjectives can also be attributive: his astonishing ideas.
Compound Adjectives
Look at the forms occurring in the examples below:
A two-drawer file cabinet hand-held computers

The hyphen is necessary to connect the adjective parts into one unit of description. Note the use of singular forms in the transformations:
She gave me five dollars. She gave me a five-dollar bill. Her son is six years old. She has a six-year-old son. The boxing champion hits hard and often wins. The hard-hitting boxing champion often wins.
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And with physical description, note the form derived from a noun + -ed:
He plays tennis with his left hand. He is a left-handed tennis player.

Here are some common compound adjectives using theed form:
Broad-shouldered, narrow-shouldered Bow-legged Dark-haired, fair-haired Empty-headed Level-headed Flat-chested Mean-spirited

Add to this list as you find more.
Exercise
Rewrite the following sentences by making a compound adjective out of each underlined phrase:
He made a request at the last minute. She has a daughter with blue eyes and fair hair. There will be a delay of twenty minutes. She wrote a report of ten pages. They want to hire a secretary who works hard. They bought a house that is sixty years old.
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She has a cat with three legs. He provided a meal that was cooked well. They bought a car at a high price. We needed a rope that was ten feet long to get the cat out of the tree. Adjectives as Heads
Some adjectives can function as heads of noun phrases: i) adjectives denoting a class or group of people (plural)
The rich can afford to eat meat every day. The unemployed suffer most in times of inflation.
Note that a definite article precedes such adjectives. ii) adjectives denoting an abstract quality
Many people study the supernatural in folklore. Adjective Patterns

There are three main types of adjective patterns: A. Adjective + prepositional phrase The meaning of an adjective is often completed by the use of a prepositional phrase: afraid of, angry with, pleased about, etc. Usually the preposition is fixed by an idiom but there may be a choice of preposition.
You must be more accurate in your work. Doctors say that milk is good for you. You are interested in yoga, arent you?
B. Adjectives + thatclause A that clause is used as a complement following:
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personal subjects:
Are you sure that hes honest? Shes surprised that youre going abroad.
Note: Other adjectives and participles that take that- clauses: sure, glad, certain, confident, proud, sad alarmed, annoyed, pleased, shocked. Introductory It as the subject:
Its sad that he is so ill. Its fortunate that he only took her radio.
C. Adjective + toinfinitive: The adjectives used in this pattern are followed by a toinfinitive. Some can be recomposed.
The house was difficult to find. It was difficult to find the house.
Its easy to please father. Father is easy to please. She was careful not to step in the puddle. Its good to eat fresh peaches again. Position of adjectives in a series:
Adjectives in a series tend to occur in a certain order, though there may be many exceptions. As a rule, avoid long strings of adjectives. Two or, at the most, three adjectives modifying one noun phrase seem to be the limit in English. The accompanying box shows an acceptable scheme of adjective order. You will find exceptions, but you can use this framework for guidance in your own writing. You can choose to use a comma between two adjectives only if the adjectives belong to the same category. If you want to use a comma, test to see if you could use the word and between adjectives. If you can, a comma would be acceptable.
The short, yellow bristles of grass (two adjectives of physical description)
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A delicious, expensive French meal (no comma between expensive and French)
When three adjectives of the same category are used in a series with and, use comma between the items in the series:
a messy, dirty, depressing room

ORDER OF ADJECTIVES Dete rmin er Obser Physical Description vatio n Origi n
and
But never use a comma between the last adjective and the noun it modifies.
Mater Qualifie ial r
Hea d Nou n
Siz Shap e e four her lovel y short
Ag e Ol d
Colo ur Tree s Blac k silk Business suit
some Delici ous Inexp ensiv e our that Comf ortabl e big litt le litt le roun d Ol d Chine se food
Engli sh Mexi can
oak
Dining Rocking
table chair
Seve ral
Ivory
bead s
Minor Word Classes Pronouns

Pronouns are words that are used in place of a noun or noun phrase; that is, they can function as the subject or object of a clause. Different kinds of pronouns are: Personal pronouns: They replace nouns which refer directly to persons and are of two kinds, those functioning as subjects and those functioning as objects in sentences. The personal pronouns which function as subjects are I, you, he, she, it, we, and they while those which function as objects are me, you, him, her, it, us, and them. Possessive pronouns: They are used to express possession. Mine, yours, his, hers, ours, and theirs are possessive pronouns. (Its is not used as a possessive pronoun, only as possessive adjective.)
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Emphatic and reflexive pronouns: These have the same form but not the same function. They are myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, and themselves. An emphatic pronoun emphasises the noun which is the subject of the sentence and which it refers to. It may come immediately after the subject or at the end of the clause or sentence. A reflexive pronoun functions as the direct object of a sentence and refers to the same person as the subject.
1- Tom himself will plan the whole program. (emphatic pronoun) 2- Tom will plan the whole programme himself. (emphatic pronoun) 3- Maria reminded herself to make that important telephone call. (reflexive pronoun)
Demonstrative pronouns: These point to the nouns they replace. Demonstrative pronouns are this, that, these, and those. Relative pronouns: A relative pronoun introduces a subordinate adjective clause and relates it to a noun or pronoun in the main
clause. Who, whom, whose, that and which are relative pronouns.
1- I have briefed the student who is to lead the discussion. 2- Please list the names of the candidates whom you have interviewed. 3- Any person whose membership has lapsed will have to reapply to become a member. 4- The arrangements that have been made for the visitors accommodation are adequate.
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5- This plant, which is a species of cactus, thrives in dry conditions.

Interrogative pronouns: These pronouns are used to ask questions and they are who, whom, whose, what, and which.
Who initiated the scheme? Whom can we consult about the matter? Whose is this bright idea? What has been done for the unprivileged in society? Which is the shortest route to the campus?
Indefinite pronouns: They are used to refer to people or things in a very general way. Among the common indefinite pronouns are someone, somebody, something, anyone, anybody, anything, everything, nobody, nothing, none, each, some, both, all, several, few, many, much, more, little, less, other, others, one, two, three, and so on.
Someone must have tampered with the lock. Anybody who will not work to earn a living deserves to go hungry. Everything that needs to be done has been done. None among those involved wishes to make a complaint. Several of us have applied for the scholarship. Much needs to be done to improve conditions. Others will be affected if you make a mistake.
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Among many three have distinctions.
students, scored
Reciprocal pronouns: They refer to two or more nouns in a reciprocal relationship. The two reciprocal pronouns are each other and one another.
All the staff members compete with one another for the annual awards. These two friends do not trust each other.
Pronoun Reference
A common cause of ambiguity in writing is lack of clarity about the relationship between pronouns and their antecedents. One should take special care to avoid ambiguous, weak, or general reference.
The manager told Mr. Tahseen that he was increasing his workload.
(Whose- the managers or Mr. Tahseens workload?) Mr. Tahseen was given an increased workload by the manager. The manager increased Mr. Tahseens workload. The customers did not sign the cheques, so we are sending them back. (Which--the cheques or the customers.) We are returning the unsigned cheques to the customers.
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Ambiguous reference occurs when a pronoun refers to two antecedents so that the reader does not know at once which antecedent is meant.
Hamid smiled at Iqbal when he was awarded the silver cup. When the children brought the dusty rugs out to the garden, the teacher beat them. No one should make such a statement about our President unless he tries to destabilise the elected government.
General reference occurs when a pronoun refers to an antecedent expressed in terms too general to be clear.
More than twenty percent of those who enter college fail to graduate, which is a shame.
Weak reference occurs when the antecedent has not been expressed; it exists only in the mind of the writer.
Although the professor lectured for over an hour, it was an interesting experience. (The antecedent of it- lecture- is implied but not stated.) Although the professor talked for over an hour, the lecture was an interesting experience.
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He was a very superstitious person, and one of these was that walking under a ladder would bring bad luck. Father is very much interested in psychiatry, but doesnt believe that they know all the answers.
Exercise
Rewrite the following sentences after correcting faulty pronoun references.
They worked very hard, but it made them neither rich nor comfortable. After the barbers had cut the childrens hair, some
of them looked as if they had been scalped. I expect to receive D in history and, at best, another D in accountancy, which means that I will be on probation next semester. When the aeroplane struck the hangar, it burst into flames. If this hat does not fit your head, it should be made smaller.
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The loyal forces fought the guerrillas until they were almost entirely destroyed. Since the concert was scheduled for the same night as the debate, it had to be postponed. To make the gate fit the opening of the fence, it had to be made smaller. When Hamid brought Majid to the conference we asked for his credentials. Some of the eye-witnesses described the man as short, others said he was
tall, and yet others said he was about average. It confused the police investigators. Mother bought us a new rug and new curtains, and we hired a man to paint the wall and ceiling. That, certainly, improved the appearance of the room. The bigger car will be expensive to operate. Not only will its repairs cost more but its gasoline consumption will be greater. You should take this into account.
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To have a decent job, a nice home and family, good friends, and enough money to buy a few luxuries. Such is my ambition. He does not have a good word to say for anybody. His parents are oldfashioned, his friends are selfish, his colleagues are conceited, and his boss is arrogant. This makes me discount anything he tells me about a person. After the storm, the trail to the top of the mountain
was washed out in some spots and was littered in many places with fallen branches. It made the ascent nerve-wrecking. They were having their dinner outdoors by candlelight, but a strong wind blew them out. Although he is fond of poetry, he has never himself written one. The famous author has an enormous library, and he makes them available to his friends.
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Because modern artists have an idiom of their own, it leads to much misunderstanding.
Exercise
Review the pronoun-antecedent relationship in the following passage, and propose improvements where necessary.
For most of the students examinations are a cause of great tension. This assumes quite serious proportions in the semester system which has frequent tests after short intervals of time. Because of this those who are of nervous disposition tend to
develop psychological problems. In others, it may create aversion for learning. Because of this, merit of examinations as an educational tool has been an issue of debate amongst educationists. Those who have positive views about them think that they prepare them for the rigours of practical life in which one has to face examination-like situations recurrently. Others think that examinations divert their attention away from
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real learning and force them to focus on strategies for tackling examinations. These two, they emphasise, could be very different or even antithetical activities.
Auxiliary verbs
Auxiliary verbs are commonly called helping verbs because they are always followed by a main verb in the verb phrase. By themselves they cannot form a verb phrase. There are two types of auxiliaries: Primary Auxiliary Verbs and Modal Auxiliary Verbs. The two types are illustrated below:
Primary Modal do can, may, shall, will, have could, might, should,
be would, used to, must, ought to, need, dare

The Primary Auxiliaries (do, have, be)
Do
Do performs many functions: (i) as a main verb with the meaning of perform:
I do my homework every night. She does her washing in the evenings.

(ii) as a substitute verb for the whole of a clause:
I can speak French as well as he does. (=as he speaks French) A: Who wants to come with me to town?
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B: I do (nt).
(iii) as a dummy operator in the do- construction. When a verb phrase contains no auxiliary verbs, it contains no word that can act as an operator for the purpose of forming yes-no questions and negative sentences with not:
I like mangoes. He needs a haircut.

For such verbs, a dummy operator has to be introduced for forming questions and negatives.
Do you like mangoes? I dont like mangoes.

The auxiliary do has the full range of tense forms like other main verbs, including (a) the present participle doing, and (b) the past participle done:
What have you been doing all weekend? I have done all the exercises in my science book.
Have
Have has the following functions: (i) as a main verb meaning posses:
I have a new antique watch. I have coffee and toast for breakfast.
(ii) The do-construction is used for interrogative and negative sentences with have as main verb:
Do you have much jewellery? Does he have sugar in his coffee? Did you have a good time last night?
(iii) The auxiliary have is used to form the perfect aspect; i.e. a form of have is followed by a verb in the past participle form:
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The present perfect (I have baked several cakes for my friends.) The present perfect progressive (She has been baking cakes all morning.) The past perfect (I had baked three cakes by midday.) The past perfect progressive (She had been baking cakes all day and felt tired.)
(iv) In the construction of have + toinfinitive, only the finite (present and past) forms of have can be used:
She has to look after her baby sister.
They have to sit for their written test on Monday. I had to repeat my question.
Note that in such construction, have/has/had to- carries the same meaning of necessity as must.
Be
The Auxiliary be has eight different forms: be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been. Be is used as an auxiliary even when it functions as a main verb:
I am a boy/ She is a girl.

It normally has no do- constructions unlike have, although the main verb be may have the do- construction in (a) imperative sentences, and (b) negative imperatives:
Do be quiet! Dont be silly.

In the construction of be + toinfinitive, only the finite (present and past) forms of be can be used:
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The motor rally is to start tomorrow. Not (The motor rally will be/ is being to start tomorrow.)
The main function of the auxiliary be is in the construction of: (a) The progressive aspect (be + -ing present participle)
He is opening exhibition now.

(b) The passive (be + -ed past participle)
the
Many students injured in the clash.

The Modal Auxiliaries
were
Modal auxiliaries help to add a variety of special meanings (such as ability, permission, possibility, etc.) to the meaning of the main part of the verb. They do not haves forms,ed participles, oring forms. Can, may, shall and will have special past forms, but the rest of the modal auxiliaries do not.
Nonnegative (all persons) Can Could May Might Shall Should Will, ll Would, d Must Ought to Used to Need Dare
Un-contracted negatives
Contracted negatives
Cannot, can not Could not May not Might not Shall not Should not Will not ( ll not) Would not ( d not) Must not Ought not to Used not to Need not Dare not
Cant Couldnt Maynt Mightnt Shant Shouldnt Wont Wouldnt Mustnt Oughtnt to Didnt use(d) to Usednt to Neednt Darent
Note 1- Maynt is rarely used, and is mostly used in British English.
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2- Shant is rare in American English. 3- Ought usually has the to-infinitive in questions and negative sentences, but occasionally the bare infinitive is used.
Toinfinitive: You oughtnt to drink so much. Bare infinitive: You oughtnt drink so much.
4- Used to always takes the to-infinitive and occurs only in the past tense. It may take the do-construction with used to:
She didnt use (d) to smoke so much. Did she use (d) to work for your father?
Dare and Need can be constructed in two ways: i) as model auxiliaries ( with bare infinitive and without the inflicted forms dares / needs ;dared/ needed); or ii) as main verbs (with toinfinitive, -s inflections and past forms).
Dare and need as auxiliaries are mainly used with negative and interrogative sentences, whereas as main verbs they can be used in all forms:
Need Positive Negative
As a auxiliaries
model As a main verb. She needs to wash her hair.
She neednt wash She doesnt need to wash her hair. her hair.
Interrogativ Need she wash her Does she need to wash her e hair? hair? Negative interrogativ e Neednt she wash Doesnt she need to wash her hairs? her hair?
As with the auxiliary verb do, other auxiliaries can act as substitute for a whole or part of a sentence following the auxiliary:
She can mend a puncture as well as he can (=mend a puncture). A: He is working hard on his model boat.
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B: yes he is (=working hard on his model boat). You can write in this workbook but you mustnt (=write) in that text. Special meanings of Modal Auxiliaries Can (past could)
Physical ability:
Can you reach the top shelf? I can lift that box by myself.
Learned ability:
She can type.
He could read when he was three years old.

Have the power to:
This factory can produce dozens of cars a day.

Requesting permission (informal):
Can I borrow your car? I wonder if I could speak to you for a while.
Possibility: (in theory):
The roads improved.

(tentative possibility):
can
be
He could have left his car keys in his office.

Can=sometimes:
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Electrical storms can be dangerous.

Could=suggestions:
You could peel potatoes for me.

Could=permission in the past:
those
When I was at university, I could get cheap air fares.

Cant=prohibition or negation of Permission:
You cant go swimming today. May (past might)

Requesting permission (formal/ polite):
May I see you tonight? Might I borrow your car?

Possibility:
The Monsoon rains may damage the wheat harvest. The missing child might have been kidnapped.
Suggestion (polite):
Might I suggest that we continue our discussion another day? You might check the errors in this paper.
May not=cant/ prohibition:
You may not stay out until midnight. Shall (past should)
Probability/expectation:
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The train should be here any moment. They should be home by now.
Improbability (negative form)
There shouldnt be any trouble.

Obligation: insistence(restricted to formal documents and regulations)
Nine people shall be elected to the committee.

which may not be fulfilled:
You should hand in your essays next Friday.

Suggestions:
Shall we go and see the films.
Advisability:
She should eat less if she wants to loose weight. You should stay in bed if you are unwell.
Prohibition (negative advice):
You shouldnt be so rude. I shouldnt have left the door unlocked. Will (past would)
Willingness:
The maid will help you with your bags. Who will lend me five dollars until tomorrow?
Prediction:
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Faisal will have arrived in New York by now.

Predictability:
A dog will attack a child if it is teased.

Request:
Will you take my court to the cleaners? Would you carry this upstairs for me?
Invitations:
Would you like to come with me to town?
How would you like to come to Penang with my family? Will you be free to come to dinner tomorrow night?
Offers:
Would you like another glass of milk?

Refusal (negative forms):
She wont follow my advice. They wouldnt come over for supper.
Promise:
I promise I wont (will not) ask for more money.
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I will give you the book as soon as Ive read it. Must (=have to)
Certainty (about an event):
There must be some mistake. I must leave right away.

Inference (about an event in the--or present):
There must be a fire near by. There must have been a thousand people at the wedding.
Obligation/compulsion:
You must be back by three oclock.
He must return the money immediately.

Mustnt =prohibition (negation of permission):
You mustnt smoke in here.

Advice not to do something
You mustnt keep your mother waiting. Ought to (=should)

Probability:
My friend ought to be here soon.

Obligation (which may not be fulfilled):
I ought to go to the library tonight (but I probably wont).
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You ought to do your homework every day.

Prohibition (=negative advice):
You oughtnt spend so much time on the golf course.

Advice:
You ought to clean the air conditioner at least once a year. Everyone ought to go to the dentist every six months. Used to
Past habit or custom:
He used to play tennis very often but now hes too busy. We used to eat meat every day when it was cheaper. Need
Need= must (in questions and negatives) i.e. obligation and necessity
Need he have a reason for marrying her? Does he need to attend the orientation programme?
Lack of necessity/compulsion:
He need not worry about his grades.
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They neednt go to the lecture hall yet. Dare

Threat/warning:
Dont you dare slam the door in my face! Dont you dare talk about my brother like that!
Dare=have the courage:
No soldier dare disobey his commanding officer. I wouldnt dare enter his room without permission.
Determiners
Determiners precede nouns and modify them by determining or defining them. Determiners include articles, possessive adjectives, genitives, demonstrative adjectives, interrogative
adjectives, quantifiers, numerals and ordinals. The articles are the indefinite articles a, an and the definite article the. The possessive adjectives are my, your, his, her, its, our and their. Genitives are possessives formed of nouns. Examples are Roberts, Jamess, the boys, the girls. The demonstrative adjectives are this, that, these and those. The interrogative adjectives are whose, what, which, whatever and whichever. Quantifiers include every, each, one, either, neither, all, half, no, some, any, both, several, more, most, enough, many, much, few, little, a few, a little, fewer, less, fewest and least. The ordinal numerals are one, two, three and so on. They are also quantifiers. The ordinals are first, second, third and so on. General ordinals include next, last, other, another and further.
Articles
The indefinite article is used with singular countable nouns in a general or indefinite context, a with a noun starting with a consonant sound, and an with one starting with a vowel sound. If an adjective comes between the article and the noun, the article used is according to the initial sound of the adjective.
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a bicycle a union a clever answer an animal an hour an interesting story

The indefinite article can also be used with proper nouns as illustrated below:
A Mr. Brown from the audience offered a suggestion. An Einstein appears only once.
The definite article is used in a more specific reference with all kinds of nouns, countable and uncountable, singular and plural, except most proper nouns. Proper nouns usually carry the definite article only if they include a word which is generally a common noun. This is often the case with places, for example, countries, seas, rivers and mountains.
the
United Kingdom (compare England)
United States (Compare North America) the Indian Subcontinent (Compare India) the Black Sea the Atlantic (meaning the Atlantic Ocean) the Himalayas (meaning the Himalayan Mountain) the
The definite article is used with a noun which is:
unique or is the only one of its kind in the context,
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the second or later reference to a particular noun, qualified by a phrase or clause. He is the leader. A student won the prize. The student was very pleased with himself. The progress of this student is excellent.
No article is used for an indefinite reference to a plural noun or an uncountable noun. The determiner all or some may sometimes be used instead, according to the meaning intended.
1a. Boys like soccer. 1b. All boys like soccer. 2a. Salt must be added.
2b. Some salt must added to the soup.
be
No article is used in expressions involving the special function of a noun, such as bed, school, hospital, prison.
1a. I always go to bed early. 1b. The man lay dying on the bed. 2a. The children go to school in the afternoon. 2b. There is a celebration held at the school.
No article is used in referring to ordinary meals, but an article has to be used for a meal which is a special function or gathering.
1a. Its time for lunch.
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1b. Everyone was invited to the lunch for the new representative. 2a. Please stay for tea. 2b. A tea was held in his honour.
No article is used in expressions referring to means of transport or the time of the day.
1a. We always go to work by bus. 1b. The bus was very crowded. 2a. He stays up late at night. 2b. The baby woke up late in the night.
No article is necessary in certain common phrases.
1a. He was suspicious of friend and foe. 1b. I met a friend yesterday. 2a. They strolled arm in arm in the park. 2b. The victim lost an arm in the accident. 3a. The sorting is done by machine. 3b. A machine is used to sort out the articles.
No article is necessary in expressions involving ones special responsibility or job in a particular or known context.
1a. The society made him chairman.
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1b. He was the chairman of a large firm. 2a. He was elected leader. 2b. The leader of the group was away.
Prepositions
Functions of prepositions
The function of prepositions is to connect a noun structure to some other word in a sentence. This noun structure may be:
1. a noun The salesman showed the pots and pans to his wife. 2. a pronoun: The salesman showed the pots and pans to her. 3. a gerund phrase:The salesman did not mind
showing the pots and pans to her. 4. a noun phrase: The salesman showed the pots and pans to whoever might want to buy them.
Prepositions also have special functions as: part of a verb (verb-preposition combinations):
look over (=review); get up (=wake up)

an adverb (mostly adverbs of place and direction):
They sit down. (down=adverb) They went down the steps. (down=preposition)
Forms of prepositions
Prepositions may consist of one, two or three parts:
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Examples of single part prepositions:
about before for on to above below from over under after beside in past until along between into since up around by of till with at down off through without
Examples of two part prepositions:
according to because of out of along with due to owing to as for except for up to away from
Examples of three part prepositions:
by means of in relation to in comparison with on top of in front of

Positions of prepositions:
Generally a preposition comes before its noun object:
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He gave the book to the teacher.

However, it may appear in final position in:
1. a question Which school does he go to? 2. an adjective clause There is the school that he goes to. 3. A noun clause I dont know which school he goes to.
Meanings of Prepositions
Concepts of Time, Place, Direction and Distance, etc. can be expressed by prepositions. Such prepositions normally have an adverbial position in a sentence. Preposition of Time These can express:
one point in time:
atwith noon, night, midnight; with the time of day. Periods of time: onwith days. inwith periods longer or shorter than a day; i.e. with parts of the day, with months, with years, with seasons. Extended time (duration): since, for, by, from..to, fromuntil, during, (with)in, while.
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Examples
They are getting married on Saturday at 4 oclock in the evening. The reception will be on Sunday at 3 oclock in the afternoon. He has been away from home since 16 March. World War II lasted from 1939 to/until 1945. He has not felt well for a long time, ever since his accident. She has been away from school for two weeks.
Ill ring you again within the month.

Note
At can be used for indefinite periods such as: at night, at lunchtime; or for short holiday periods: at the weekend, at Easter. Prepositions are almost always omitted before phrases beginning with last, next, this, that, today, yesterday, tomorrow:
Did you attend the lecture yesterday? I saw that film last week. Ill bring the photos next time I come to your house. My parents are going overseas this year.
Prepositions of Place These can express: i) the point itself: in, insidefor something contained:
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There is plenty of food in the refrigerator. You will find some stamps in the second drawer of my desk. My father owns a cottage in the country. Please play inside. Its too hot outside.
on, on(to)the surface:
A coconut tree fell on to the roof of his house. Theres a Beware of Dogs sign on the gate.
ata general vicinity:
Ill meet you at the Majestic Hotel. We are still living at 64 Primrose Avenue. Please sit at the table when you eat! I stayed at my cousins house last night. Turn left at the next intersection.
ii) Away from the point: away (from)general places or vicinities:
I came (away) from the library. I stayed away from the haunted house.
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He drove away from the scene of the accident.

offat a distance from the point:
The car ran off the road when it knocked the signpost. The Channel Islands are off the coast of France. The marble rolled off the table.
across, through, over, alongmoving from one place to another:
He kicked the ball through the window. He walked across the park to his office.
The boy jumped over the fence to get away from the angry bull. They went along the railway line looking for the missing child.
out ofmoving from a bounded area:
The gunmen were persuaded to come out of the old house. They chased the dogs out of the school compound.
iii) Towards the point: to, into, towardsmovement towards a particular place:
I went to South America last year.
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He went to the airport to get his mother. The car went slowly into the tunnel. The people crowded into the streets to watch the National Day celebrations. The ambulance sped towards the entrance of the hospital.
iv) Towards and then away from the point: behind, through, across, round, by, pastmovement towards a place and then away from it:
He walked across the bridge on his way to the shops.
The car skidded round the corner. They drove past the new Town Hall. The students ran by the judges as they crossed the finishing line.
v) Vertical and horizontal movement from the point: up, down, along, across, overmovement in relation to a direction:
The old man walked slowly across the street. The dog followed his master across the road. Two schoolboys walked along Manchester Street.
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She crossed over the road to post a letter. The ball rolled over the grass. The elderly couple climbed slowly up the steps. The boy skated down the road on his new skateboard.
vi) Higher than the point: overgenerally higher than the point:
There is a thick fog over the entire city. The planes fly over the city to get to the airport.
overdirectly above:
The doctor leaned over the patient. He had a deep cut over his eye. A lamp hung over the dining-table.
abovedirectly higher than the point; on a higher level:
We flew above the clouds. There was a dark cloud above the bank.
on top ofclose to the point; sometimes touching:
The tourists put their bags on top of the bus. Youll find a bottle of ink on top of my desk.
vii) Lower than the point:
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underdirectly below:
The boy hid the money under a rock in the garden. There is a small stream under that bridge.
underneathclose under; sometimes touching:
She wore a pretty dress underneath her thick coat.

beneath, belowdirectly under; at a lower level:
The police found the body beneath a pile of wood.

viii) Neighbouring the point:
by, beside, next toat the side of ; near: He sat by the river reading a book.
She was standing by the window looking at the rain. They live in a small village beside the sea. John likes to sit beside his father in the car. He sits at the desk next to the door. I dont like wool next to my skin.
betweenrelating the positions of one object to more than two objects:
In the photograph Maria was standing between her father and mother.
among, amidin the middle of (several objects):
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She found her gold chain amid the ruins of the burnt house. I live among the mountains.
oppositefacing:
She sits opposite her friend in the school library.

aroundsurrounding; all round:
She put a frame around the painting. We sat around the table and discussed the film.
in front ofat the beginning (in relation to the point):
He was standing in front of a long queue.
A three-wheeled car was in front of my car.

nearclose to the point; not far from the point:
I like to have my bed near (to) the window.

Conjunction
The work of a conjunction is to join words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. But while doing so, it can also express certain idea or notions such as time, contrast, reason, etc.
Types of Conjunctions
There are two main kinds of conjunctionsco-ordinate and subordinate: Co-ordinate Conjunctions join together words, phrases and clauses of equal rank. There are two types of co-ordinate conjunction: Simple Co-ordinate Conjunctions: and, or, but, nor:
I looked for the dictionary on the shelf and in the cupboard. (phrases)
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The thunder rolled and the lightening flashed. (clauses)

Correlative Co-ordinate Conjunctions (i.e. those that go in pairs): either or, neither nor, both and, not only but also:
Neither wheat nor groundnuts grow well in this soil. (phrases) Hes not only a talented pianist but also a good painter. (clauses)
Subordinate Conjunctions join clauses of unequal rank, i.e. they join sub-clauses to main clauses:
Main clause clause
sub-
I can buy a car when I have saved a thousand dollars more.

Subordinate conjunctions are of three kinds:
Simple Subordinate Conjunctions: After, (al)though, as, because, before, if, how(ever), like, once, since, that, till, unless, until, when(ever), where(ever), whereas, whereby, whereupon, while, whilst. Compound Subordinate Conjunctions:
except that, for all that, in that, so that, in order that, in order + to infinitive, such that. But (that), now (that), providing (that), provided (that), supposing (that), considering (that), given (that), granting (that),
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granted (that), admitting (that), assuming (that), presuming (that), seeing (that), immediately (that). As for as, as long as, as soon as, in-so-far as, according to, so as (+ to infinitive). As if, as though, in case. Sooner than, rather than.
Correlative Subordinate Conjunctions: (i.e. those that go in pairs):
if... then, (al)though yet/nevertheless, more/less/-er that, as as, so as, so (that), such as, such (that), no sooner than, whether or, the the. Note: Some subordinating conjunctions are also prepositions: as, like, since, until, till, after, before, but.
Function of Conjunctions
Co-ordination of words
(of the same word class):
Nouns The violin or the cello is a suitable instrument for her. Adjectives The house is beautiful but old-fashioned Conjunctions If and when the electricity is installed, we can move to the house. Adverbs He works slowly but skilfully.
Co-ordination of Clauses (or parts of clauses)
Maria plays the guitar and she also sings in three languages. Arshad is a
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bright student but he makes little effort. You may study French or you may take Dutch.
Co-ordination of Parts of Clauses: (Note: This occurs where repeated items may be omitted.)
Subjects: I bought some apples, mangoes, and I bought some limes. Rashid and his sister are frequent visitors to London. Verb Phrases:
She writes, or used to write, to her pen-friend every month. Complements: He is tall but skinny. Adverbials: I can mend the hole in your dress by hand or by sewing machine.
The special meanings of Conjunctions
The following examples will show that conjunctions are also used to express certain ideas in English:
To express contrast (but, yet, nevertheless, still, however) Adeel is intelligent but lazy.
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We opened the factory a year ago; still we are not showing a profit. Mr Hamid is a strict headmaster; nevertheless the pupils like him.
To express choice (or lack of choice) (or, either or, neither nor, else)
We shall spend our vocations either in France or in Spain. We had to pay a high price or (else) he would have sold it to someone else. Either you will obey the rules or you will be sent home.
To express deduction or conclusion (for, therefore, so)
The road was blocked by a landslide, therefore we had to take the old road. She expected to receive free medical treatment for she was a poor widow. The business is improving so we can give larger bonuses this year.
To express time (when, while, as, before, after, till, until, since, whenever)
My mother has got thinner since I last saw her. Ill pass on your message whenever I see him. Mrs Ahmad wept after she received the bad news.
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To denote place (where, wherever)
She found her purse where she had left it in the bus. Wherever the cat goes, her kittens follow.
To express manner or comparison (as, as as, so as. as if, as though, than)
He is nearly as tall as his father.

To express condition (if, unless)
Unless the rain stops, the football match will be postponed. If I win the welfare lottery, Ill go for a trip around the world.
To express reason (as, because, since)
The man was sent to prison because he had committed a crime. Since the test is on Friday, you should be reading your books.
To express purposes (so that, that, in order that)
We took a taxi to the stadium so that we wouldnt be late for the game. A note was sent to all the classrooms in order that every boy would know to wear a tie on Mondays.
To express result (so that, such that)
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Mr Munir is so busy with his work that he has no time for his family. There was such a crowd at the theatre that the police had to be called.
Omission of conjunctions
When several items are linked together, the conjunction is usually omitted (or left out) before all items except the last one.
Please bring me a tomato sandwich, an egg sandwich and a bottle of coke. This year she is studying History, Geography, French and Spanish.
Often the conjunctions are omitted before the adverbs then, so and yet:
My income is low (and) yet I still manage to live on it. Her mother is seriously ill (and) so she has to visit the hospital every day. The car hit the kerb (and) then bounced across the road divider.
Interjections
When we wish to express our feelings we some time use an interjectiona word of exclamation whose only function is to express emotion or feeling. Interjections can express such emotions as:
surprise Oh, What a lovely present! satisfaction: Ah, thats much neater essay!
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great satisfaction: Aha those are the books Ive been looking for.
great surprise: Wow, did you see that goal?
pain: Ouch, youre treading on my foot! Ow, Ive hurt myself. excitement/delight: Yipee, grandfather is coming to visit us! disgust: Ugh, what a filthy kitchen. pleasure, pain: Ooh, the waters lovely and cool.
Ooh, aches terribly.
my
back
IIITenses
As their main function, verbs describe an action or a state of being on the part of the subject. However, verbs also tell when an action took place or when the state of being existed and this property of the verb is the tense of a verb. In English, we use three simple tenses (Present, Past, and Future) to express an action that is simply occurring. And we use three compound tensescalled perfectto express an action that we consider to be completed. Each of the six tenses has a companion form called the progressive form, which tells us that the action named by the verb is a continued or progressive action. The progressive consists of the present participle (theing form of the verb) plus the proper form of the verb to be. Here in this chapter we shall concentrate on those forms of tenses that students mostly find confusing.
Simple past/present perfect

We use the simple past tense (was, wanted, taught etc) about a past event when we know the time it happened or when the time is important. We use the present perfect (have + past participle) about a past event when what happened is more important than when it happened, or when we do not know the time it happened. The effect of the event on the present is also important. Write the verbs in these sentences in the simple past(when the time is stated) or in the present perfect(if the time is not stated):
I (meet) him. I have met him. I (meet) him on Tuesday. I met him on Tuesday.
Exercise
I (see) your advertisement in the Star of 12th November. I (teach) English in Spain. I (obtain) an EFL diploma in 1975. When I left school, I (train) to be a secretary. I never (work) with computers.
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I (use) a telephone switchboard before. I (go) to university when I was eighteen. I (see) from your CV that you (study) engineering.
Present perfect progressive
The present perfect progressive tense (have been verb-ing) describes something which started in the past and which is still happening. Make sentences in the present perfect progressive from these prompts:
a-working there How long have you been working there? b-five years I have been working there for five years.
Exercise
a- working in your present job b- three years astudying computer science b- six months ateaching English b- eighteen months awaiting b- twenty minutes a- thinking about the job b-all day
Past perfect tense
We use the past perfect tense (had + past participle) to refer to something which happened before something else in the past.
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I failed my examination and then I retrained as an accountant. After I had failed my examination, I retrained as an accountant.
Exercise
Rewrite these sentences using the past perfect:
I taught in London and then I was a teacher in Spain. I left St Johns College and then I went to Browns College. I trained for three years and then I left the country.
I studied in Paris and then I left the country. I did a secretarial course and then I worked for Greenalls. I talked to the employment officer and then I decided to start my own business. My business failed and then I started to work for Mitchell Electronics. My children grew up and then I went back to work.
After verb-ing
Instead of using the past perfect tense, we sometimes use the construction after verb-ing.
Rewrite the sentences in the above Exercise, like this:
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I failed my examination and then I retrained as an accountant. After failing my examination, I retrained as an accountant.
The past perfect continuous tense
The past perfect continuous tense expresses duration of a single event or happening up to the past time. In other words it occurs with two signals: one indicates the length of the activity in progress, and the other indicates a specific point in time in the past:
They had been trying to reach us by phone all day. They had been planning for a long time to move to the city.
She had been studying for several hours before she realised she was hungry.
Will
The will + infinitive future (negative-will + not = wont) is sometimes used when you make an immediate decision about the future and sometimes used when you predict (give your opinion about) the future.
Exercise
Identify as to which kind of will future the following sentences are:
I will go and look in the files. We will need two bathrooms. I wont be a moment. Do you think Jonathan will be all right?
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Of course he will be all right. I will send you details of my suitable flats. You answer the door and I answer the phone. How will I spend all the extra money? I will find out the details tomorrow.
The Future: present progressive/going to
The going to + infinitive future expresses a plan or intention, the present progressive (with a future time expression)is used when there is a definite arrangement.
I am going to visit my mother. (My intention; my mother may be surprised)
I am visiting my mother tonight. (We have a definitive arrangement; she is probably prepared a special meal.)
Exercise
Write the verbs in these sentences in the present progressive or with going to.
Junaid (to stay) with his grandmother. He (to leave) school next year. He (to see) the careers adviser this week. She (to be) a ballet dancer.
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He (to move in) on Saturday. She (to start) work next week. What are you (to do) when you leave school? I (to meet) the personnel officer at 11 am.
Special Problems in Use of Tenses
Students often make mistakes or feel uncertain in some uses of tenses. Some of these uses are clarified here. Conversion of direct to indirect discourse: In converting direct to indirect discourse the tenses of the original quotation are whenever possible pushed one stage further into the past. An original present tense form becomes past and original past form becomes past perfect. Since there is no tense more past than past perfect an original verb in that tense does not change.
He said, I want to visit Japan.
He said he wanted to visit Japan. He said, I wanted to visit Japan. He said he had wanted to visit Japan. He said, I had wanted to visit Japan before the imposition of the visa restrictions. He said he had wanted to visit Japan before the imposition of the visa restrictions.
Discrimination between the use of past and present prefect tenses: Examine the following sentences:
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Ahmad was an orthopaedic surgeon for ten years. Ahmad has been an orthopaedic surgeon for ten years.
Do these two sentences mean exactly the same thing?
I have finished reading the book yesterday. I finished reading the book yesterday. I have finished reading the book.
Exercise
I (went or have gone) to the concert yesterday.
I (didnt get or havent got) my parcel yet. I (know or have known) him for more than twenty years. I (already did or have already done) it. I (am working or have been working) here a month. He (is or has been) in this country for two years. I (made or have made) that point when I expressed my
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disagreement with the proposal. I (have or have had) an account in the bank for the past twenty years.
Past or past perfect: The past perfect is used to indicate that, of the two past actions, one took place before the other.
Exercise
In the sentences that follow, use the past or past perfect tense for the verbs in parentheses.
I (join) the Institute after he (graduate). When he (move) to Rawalpindi, I (know) him for five years. I (wait) there an hour, when he (come).
The commandant of the academy (explain) in an interview the circumstances in which the tragic incident (take) place. The committee members (conclude) that the statues recovered from the tourist (be) authentic. By the time the police (arrive), the disturbance (be) settled. The teacher (leave) the classroom when this incident (take) place.
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I (feel) deeply hurt because he (betray) my trust. Ahmad (play) the game for forty-five minutes when he (replace) by a substitute. I never (fail) before the last term.
Consistent use of tenses: One should be consistent in the use of tenses. Examine the following passage and note the inconsistent use of tenses:
I sit down at my desk with intention of studying for the next four hours. Before many minutes past I heard a great deal of noise down on the floor bellow me; a water fight is in progress. I
forgot about studying for half an hour, for it is quite impossible to concentrate on mathematics in the midst of all this commotion. After things quieted down I began studying again but had hardly started when a magazine salesman comes into my room.
Exercise
The following sentences contain errors in the use of tenses. Remove them.
If Ahmad would have sent his application earlier, he would have been accepted.
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The building was evacuated before the fire company had arrived. This report deals with conditions that have been corrected a long time ago. His boss always indicated that he has the utmost confidence in him. The principal is pleased to see that the hockey team had done so well.
The Active-Passive Issue
English verbs have two voices, active and passive, which show whether the subject performs or experiences the action indicated by the verb. In writing, choosing between the voices is a matter of style, not correctness. However, in most circumstances the passive voice is less forceful than the active. The general principal, therefore, is to use active voice unless the situation
justifies the use of the passive. Some guiding principles are given below. Use the passive voice sparingly. Avoid weak and awkward passive constructions.
Our transportation problems were solved when his car was loaned to us by my father. My father solved our transportation problems by loaning us his car. This weekend cooking was done by my room-mate and shopping was done by me. This weekend my roommate did cooking and I did shopping.
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Do not use the passive voice when it results in an awkward shift in sentence structure.
The older people sat and talked, the younger ones danced and sang songs, and games were played by the children.
Use the passive voice when the subject is obvious or unknown or is not to be disclosed.
The president was elected by a huge majority. The jewels were stolen last might. An error has been found in the statement of accounts supplied by the bank.
Use the passive voice when right distribution of emphasis requires it. Examine the following two sentences, each one in two different versions. Which versions would you prefer?
Although love for the Muslim Ummah glows in every line of Allama Iqbals Shikwa, numerous ulema denounced him as a heretic because of it. Although love for the Muslim Ummah glows in every line of Allama Iqbals Shikwa, he was denounced as a heretic by numerous ulema because of it. The NWFP Government granted charter to the GIK Institute in 1993.
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The GIK Institute was granted charter by the NWFP Government in 1993.
Exercise
Would you like any change of voice in the following sentences?
In letters to his father, requests for money were frequently made by him. The building which is sixty years old has been condemned. He was not prepared for the test; consequently, only half of the questions were answered.
The Lahore-to-Islamabad motorway will be completed by the end of this year. A distinction is made by the political scientists between political and economic rights. The city needs money to provide adequate civic amenities to its inhabitants, and it will probably be raised by imposing new taxes.
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The judge said that the verdict would be given by him later. According to the press reports, the idea of special courts has been disapproved by the judiciary. After the carpenters had finished, work was begun by the bricklayers. It is required that the applicants should be over twenty-one years in age.
IVPunctuation
Ability to use punctuation marks correctly, that is, according to the accepted conventions is an indispensable part of writing skills. A large number of students exhibit palpable deficiencies in this respect. To help them brush up and increase their knowhow about punctuation, a quick review of the main punctuation marks is provided in this section. It needs to be realised that a writer with inadequate command of punctuation rules denies himself immense resources of English language for effective and elegant expression.
Exercise
A consideration of the following pairs of sentences should help you to appreciate the big difference a small comma can make in the meaning of a sentence. Which indicates (of the two sentences) that there were only two people in the car?
The two passengers who were seriously hurt were taken to a nearby hospital. The two passengers, who were seriously hurt, were taken to a nearby hospital.
2. In which has the speaker pried into the private lives of his friends?
Everyone I know has a secret ambition. Everyone, I know, has a secret ambition.
3. Which sentence has cannibalistic overtones?
We are going Ahmad, before we further. We are going Ahmad before we further.
4. Which is a matter of identification?
to eat, proceed to eat proceed
He is the one, I believe. He is the one I believe.

5. Which is the dedication of self-confessed polygamist?
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I dedicate this book to my wife, Mary, for constantly reminding me of the uselessness of a scholarly career. I dedicate this book to my wife Mary for constantly reminding me of the uselessness of a scholarly career.
6. In which case is the Prime Minister probably feeling more alone?
The Prime Minister, who was recently ousted by the masses and his wife, arrived in London yesterday.
The Prime Minister, who was recently ousted by the masses, and his wife arrived in London yesterday.
7. In which case has the speaker managed to change his friends attitude towards him?
Now, my friends listen to me. Now my friends listen to me.

8. Which is the neurotic personality?
She too eagerly awaits the spring. She, too, eagerly awaits the spring.
9. Which sentence shows extraordinary powers of persuasion?
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I left him convinced he was a fool. I left him, convinced he was a fool.
10. Which makes certainty seem an objective hard to attain?
Its sometimes a difficult to be sure. Its sometimes a difficult, to be sure.

11. Which is more flattering to Mrs. Khan?
little little
Mrs. Khan is a pretty generous woman. Mrs. Khan is a pretty, generous woman.
12. Which expresses sincere regret?
Im sorry you cannot come with us. Im sorry, you cant come with us.
13. Which convict has a hollow leg?
The escaping convict dropped a bullet in his leg. The escaping convict dropped, a bullet in his leg.
14. Which is a libel on the fair sex?
Thirteen girls knew the secret, all told. Thirteen girls knew the secret; all told.
15. Which is denial that politics had anything to do with Ahmads appointment?
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Ahmad didnt get the appointment, because he is Congressite. Ahmad didnt get the appointment because he is Congressite. Use of Comma
The comma is used to make the internal structure of the sentence clear. It does so in three general ways: (1) by separating elements which might otherwise be confused, (2) by setting off interrupting constructions, and, (3) by marking words out of normal order.
Separation of elements which might otherwise seem to run together

1. To prevent a confused, ambiguous, or awkward reading.
Hamid our milkman has been hurt.
Hamid, our milkman has been hurt. Hamid, our milkman, has been hurt. I do not care for money isnt everything. A hundred yard below the bridge was flooded. When we had finished eating the cigarettes were passed around.
To separate two main clauses joined by a co-ordinating conjunction (and, or, nor, but). The real purpose of this convention is to prevent possible misinterpretation on first reading.
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He sprained his ankle and his temper was ruined. He sold his car and his wife was angry.
Comma is not used, when the subject of the first clause is understood as the subject of the second:
I discussed the question with the family and then made my decision.
3. To separate elements in a series
He promised them only blood, sweat, toil, and tears. It is said of Akbar that he was first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his people.
We were tired, hungry, and disconsolate. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
4. To separate two or more adjectives that modify the same noun.
He is a young, energetic, and enterprising person.

5. To separate contrasted elements in this, not that, construction.
He is sick, not drunk. We were disgusted, not angry. This problem needs handling with sympathy, not harshness.
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6. To separate direct quotations from such constructions as He said, She replied, etc. 7. In the following miscellaneous constructions:
In figures - 22,745; 1,000,000; 150,743, 290. In names followed by titlesA. B. Zahid, M.D. At the end of the salutation in informal letterDear Hamid, After introductory yes or noyes, Ill do it.
8. To separate elements in dates, addresses, and place names.
The meeting of the senate was held on Tuesday, August 15, 1997.
Exercise
In the following sentences insert commas where they are needed for ease of reading or are conventionally required. Some of the sentences may be satisfactory as they are.
Below the town glittered with a million lights. The students sat tensely while the question papers were being distributed and then began to write feverishly. I cannot stay longer for my brother will be expecting me to meet him at the station. The room was a clutter of discarded clothing,
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scattered books and newspapers overflowing ashtrays and dirty dishes. He praised the food and the waitress seemed pleased. After all his plans were too ambitious. Throughout the game was hopelessly one-sided. He broke his wrist and his right ankle was discoloured and swollen. The correct sum is 4550 not 6550.
He traded his car and his wife was angry. II. Use of commas to set off an interrupting construction
Any construction which comes between subject and verb, verb and complement, or between any two elements not normally separated, may be called an interrupting construction. A distinction, however, has to be made between constructions which actually interrupt and those which come between related elements without interrupting them.
The man, you say, has gone. The man you want has gone.
1. To set off an appositive. An appositive is an identifying word or phrase (a noun or pronoun and its modifiers) which is considered grammatically equivalent to the noun or pronoun it identifies.
Hamid, the champion, has retired.
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His father, the president of the company, will be responsible. They want us, you and me, to go. I went to see Dr. S. Hamid, the English professor.
2. To set off nouns of address. A noun of address is a proper or common noun used to name the listener when we are speaking to him directly. Such nouns may occupy the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence, so that strictly speaking they are not always interrupters.
I think, madam, that you had better leave. Sir, you are like a pin, but without either its head or its point.
I wish I were going with you, Hamid.

3. To set off conjunctive adverbs and other transitional markers.
We thought, moreover, that we could get away with it. You must try, first of all, to consider it objectively.
4. To set off a non-restrictive modifier. A modifier is said to be restrictive when it specifies a particular member or members of a group. When a modifier does not limit a class to a particular group or individual but modifies the whole class, it is said to be non-restrictive.
All the students who were absent will be required to do an additional assignment.
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College students, who represent a superior intellectual group, must be asked to accept the responsibility of leadership. Soldiers who have flat feet had better stay out of the infantry. Soldiers, who are selected by physical fitness tests, should show a lower sickness rate than that of the total population.
Restrictive modifiers are so much a part of the whole subject that they cannot be omitted without changing the basic meaning of a sentence. Non-restrictive modifiers, on the other hand, can be omitted without significant change in basic meaning. Compare the following revisions of the examples quoted above.
All students... will be required to do an additional assignment. College students... must be asked to accept the responsibility of leadership. Soldiers... had better stay out of the infantry. Soldiers... should show a lower sickness rate than that of the total population.
Restrictive modifiers are not set off by commas, because they are felt to be essential part of the element they modify. Nonrestrictive modifiers are felt to be similar to the interrupting constructions and are therefore enclosed by commas.
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Exercise
Distinguish between restrictive and non-restrictive modifiers in the following sentences. Set off the non-restrictive modifiers by commas.
Girls who hate cooking are poor matrimonial risks. Boys who are physically frail should not be subjected to strenuous athletic programmes. The man driving the car is Hamid. Hamid driving a bus was charged with obstructing the traffic.
Salesmen who dont argue with customers make more money. Salesmen most of whom are young men lead an unsettled life. The pilot realising his plight radioed for instructions. The pilot who radioed for instructions is no more in contact with the tower. His father satisfied with the decision wisely kept quiet.
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His father resentful of his extravagance asked for monthly rendition of accounts. They questioned the man who reported the robbery. The man who reported the robbery is not traceable. The man at the back of the room was told to leave. The man evidently hurt seriously was taken to the hospital. The fighters who were quite obviously stalling were disqualified.
Exercise
In the following sentences provide commas to set off appositives, nouns of address, conjunctive adverbs, and nonrestrictive modifiers. Some sentences may require no additional punctuation.
Mr. Sheikh the new maths instructor was born in Swabi. The man wearing the jinnah cap is his uncle. The tall man who happened to be wearing a jinnah cap said he had never seen an elephant in his life. Do you think Hamid that we could have a game of
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chess after finishing this work. Is this your umbrella Mr. Sheikh? The suit that he bought two years ago fits him better than the one he bought last winter. The doctor looking grave came towards us. I thought however that things would be different this time. The woman evidently on the edge of tears could hardly finish her story.
Sir may I interrupt you for a while? My father who is an electronic engineer helps me with my assignments. The dog which had been evidently trained sat beside the table and begged for food. First turn on the gas and oil; second set the choke; third pull the rope. I had a talk with the man who witnessed the accident.
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I had a talk with his father who is not so crotchety as you led me to believe. This disease is killing off most of the old elms; consequently the people in our neighbourhood are planting maples. No I mean Mr. Hamid who lives on the Masson Road. I hear that Hamid the leader of the expedition was badly hurt in the blizzard.
A scientist called Hamid was chiefly responsible for this project. Mr. Hamid our next door neighbour has a son who was second in the All Pakistan Declamation Contest. There is some talk that he has been selected to represent Pakistan in the contest to be held in London. That however may be a rumour only. III. Use of commas to mark an inversion
1. To emphasise an inverted element.
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Myself, I will vote in favour of it. Except for physics, my courses are quite easy.
But if the inversion is so common as to seem normal, the comma is usually omitted.
Yesterday I had a bad time of it. In the following sentences the verbs are underlined.
2. To separate a long introductory phrase or an adverbial clause preceding the main clause. When a sentence opens with a long phrase or adverbial clause, it is conventional to use a comma between this element and the main clause.
Pulling over to the curb at the first opportunity, I
waited for the fire engine to pass. Being ignorant of the facts of the situation, I could say nothing. If I go, you will be sorry. When you say that, smile.
This convention is not universal, for writers sometimes feel that a particular introductory construction is so closely related in meaning to the main clause that the separating comma is undesirable. The general principle is to use the comma if it makes the sentence clearer and readers job easier.
Exercise
In the following sentences insert commas to set off inversions and introductory constructions where desirable.
Dissatisfied with our performance the director announced extra sessions of practice.
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In a last desperate effort to score the team went into a spread formation. If you want it take it. On learning that his wife had never formally renounced her share of the property and could still block its sale we told the real estate agent that we were no longer interested. As far as I know that is the answer. Just the other day I saw his mother.
Whoever he is he should be helped. If he objects tell him to talk with me. Knowing that he had a tendency to make a tenminute speech in five minutes Hamid timed his delivery with a stop-watch. Angry my roommate threw the tickets in the fire-place.
Misuse of the commas
Too many commas are far more annoying than too few. The following rules should be carefully observed. a. Do not use a comma instead of a period between independent sentences.
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He spoke very quietly, as I listened, I had the impression that he was speaking to himself. There was nothing more to be said, when they took that attitude, further negotiation was impossible.
b. Do not use a comma between closely related elements except to mark an interrupting construction. The comma should reveal the structure of a sentence, not disguise it. Closely related elements (subject-verb or verb-object) are unnecessarily separated if a single comma is placed between them.
My car, is at the service station. He said, he would try.
The student who lost this money, may need it.

Excessive use of commas
One should be as frugal in the use of commas as possible. The modern tendency is to keep punctuation to a minimum. Hence it is usual to avoid commas which serve no recognisable purpose. It should not be assumed that a comma must be used in a particular sentence because convention recommends it. There are times when slavishly following the rules will chop a sentence into pieces.
However, it is not, in my opinion, desirable. Yesterday a little, old lady, in a dilapidated, old Honda, picked me up, and brought me home.
The following jingle offers sound advice about use of a comma:
When in doubt, leave it out.
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Exercise
Prof. Khans office the one at the end of the lecture theatres contains most if not all the books you need. Mr. Khan the principal of our school is a strict disciplinarian. It is the pressure of getting work done on time not the work itself that gets on my nerves. Protected from wind rain and cold an underground house will have low fuel bills. The owner will not
have to pay for exterior painting which is necessary every few years on a surface house. If the country ever decides that people should move underground. Ill be the first to go. In my walk through the streets of my home town I was depressed to find apartment houses and supermarkets in places where there used to be playgrounds and fruit gardens.
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Semantics which is concerned with the meanings of words and their effects on human behaviour is a proper study for university students. Infinite patience an enquiring mind and a sense of humour are assets in any profession. The dull dreary morning sky looked ominous to the members of the expedition. A majority of the graduating class fifty five
percent in fact aspires for jobs in foreign companies. Musicians dont retire they stop when there is no more music in them. England is a paradise for women and hell for horses Italy a paradise for horses hell for women. A hiker who is lost in the woods should remember these rules carry a compass know how to use it and dont panic. This two storey structure was built in the 1950s.
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Mr. Burkbaaz the well known actor was murdered in august 1993. Hyphens function in two ways to form compounds and to divide words at the end of the line.
Exercise
Will it be correct to use commas at the places marked with brackets? Give reasons for your choice.
Sometime students who have attended preparatory schools [ ] have trouble adjusting to large public universities. It is often noticed [ ] that a persons physical
characteristics influence his personality. Primitive agricultural tools [ ] and bits of clay pottery were found buried in the river bed. He wanted more time for study [ ] and contemplation. Student who do not do well in engineering studies [ ] may have talent and aptitude for some other field. The sharp command of the coach to the payers in the
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back field [ ] was drowned out by the cheering crowed.

Summary of the uses of the commas
Use comas to separate items in a series. Use commas to separate two or more adjectives that modify the same noun. Use a comma before and, but, or nor, for, yet when they join independent clauses. Use commas to set off nonessential clauses and nonessential participial phrases. Use a comma after certain introductory elements:
After words such as well, yes, no, why etc., when they begin a sentence. After an introductory participial phrase.
After a succession of introductory prepositional phrases. After an introductory adverb clause.

Use commas to set off expressions that interrupt the sentence:
Appositives. Words in direct address. Parenthetical expressions.

Use a comma in certain conventional situations:
To separate items in dates and addresses. After the salutation of a friendly letter and the closing of any letter.
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Do not use unnecessary commas.

Use of Semicolons and Colons
Both semicolon and colon are quite commonly used marks of punctuation. Their functions are different, and they cannot be used interchangeably. The semicolon is a mark of separation; the colon a mark of anticipation directing the readers attention to what follows. Use Semicolons to separate closely related independent clauses not connected by a conjunction.
Out of quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. His mother wont let him; she is afraid he might get hurt. A statesman is a politician who places himself at the
service of the nation; a politician is a statesman who places the nation at his service.
In these sentences a period could be used instead of the semicolon. But the clauses, even though grammatically independent, are felt to be so closely related that a period makes too sharp a separation. A semicolon provides a more emphatic separation than the comma; it affords an easier transition between statements than the period; it is, therefore, the most appropriate punctuation to balance two contrasted ideas parallel in form.
But however immature they are, these characters are not dull and insipid; on the contrary, they are lively and hauntingly real. Take care of the adults; the children can take care of themselves.
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It was not the hours or the wages that discouraged me; it was the constant monotony of the work.
Use a semicolon before a transitional connective (conjunctive adverb) between two main clauses.
It wont work; therefore there is no sense in buying it. His argument has some merit; however, he goes too far. His eyes went bad; consequently he had to resign his position as a proof-reader.
Use a semicolon to separate elements in a series when they contain internal punctuation.
Among those who attended the meeting were Dr. A. Hamid, the Chairman of Electrical Engineering Department; Mr. A. G. Kazi, the Registrar of the University; and Dr. Hadi, the Director of Research and Extension Services.
Misuse of Semicolon
Do not use a semicolon as the equivalent of a colon.
My record shows that the following students have not handed in the assignment; Mr. X, Mr. Y, and Mr. Z.
Do not use a semicolon as the equivalent of a comma.
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A comma is an internal punctuation and is used only within a sentence; a semicolon is a stronger mark and is used between grammatically independent statements. A semicolon may be substituted for a comma between main clauses joined by a conjunction when more emphatic punctuation is desired; but a semicolon cannot be substituted for a comma between a main clause and a subordinate construction.
Although I seldom have trouble with grammar or spelling; I never seem to use the right punctuation.
Avoid indiscriminate substitution of semicolons for periods. The semicolon and the period have different functions and should not be used interchangeably. The normal punctuation between independent statements is the period but if a writer wishes to relate their contents more closely than a period would permit, he may use a semicolon.
The nomad of the past moved through blizzards and parching heat, always pursued by hunger, but he carried with him his
buffalo-hide tent, his family and the rest of his tribe; he carried his social setting with him and, as often as not, the physical structure that he called his home in contrast the new nomads of today leave behind their physical structure and, but for the family, their entire setting.
The Colon
Use colon to mean note what follows. Before a list of items, especially after expressions like as follows and the following.
The application for the membership of the Hockey
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Club asked the following questions: (i) how well do you play hockey? (ii) were you member of the college or school team? and (iii) have you ever played in any major tournament? There will be special discount on the following items during the next two months: refrigerators, deep freezers, airconditioners, micro ovens, etc.
Before a long, formal statement or quotation.
The President concluded his revolutionary speech with these ringing words: Is life so dear as to be purchased at price of chains and slavery? I know not what course others may take; but, as for me, give me liberty, O, God, or give me death! Here are the four main uses of the comma: (i) to prevent misreading; (ii) to separate items in a series;
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(iii) to set off expressions which interrupt the sentence; and (iv) to set off introductory phrases and clauses.
Between independent clauses when the second clause explains or restates the idea of the first.
(i) The prisoner refused to make a request for parole: he felt safe and comfortable in the prison. (ii) The reasons for the success of the play are obvious: it has an engaging plot, witty dialogues, and a powerful theme.
(iii) The human brain is a wonderful organ: it starts to work as soon as you are born and doesnt stop until you get up to deliver a public speech. (iv) Communism is like prohibition: its a good idea but it wont work. (v) Politicians are the same everywhere: they promise to build bridges even where there are no rivers.
Use colon in certain conventional situations
(i) Between minutes
hours
and
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3:30 A.M. (ii) Between chapters and verses in referring to passages from the holy books Genesis 4:2 (iii) Between volumes and numbers or between volume and page number of a periodical Forum 22:4 Engineer 22:110-115 (iv) After salutation of a business letter Dear Sir: Dear Madam:
Gentlemen: Dear Ahmad:

Exercise
Mr.
Punctuate the following sentences. Some of them call for semicolons or colons and some need other punctuation marks.
Mr. Khan is a graduate of three celebrated Pakistani educational institutions Cadet College Hassan Abdal Government College Lahore and Lahore University of Business Management. The other members of the delegation are Dr. M A Qureshi Dr. Fazal Khalid and Dr M. Mujahid.
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Every new study reaches the same grim conclusion the world is on a treadmill when it comes to feeding the growing populations of developing countries. The evidence is incontrovertible therefore I urge you to act. Think of all that has happened in the last five decades spaceships and penicillin computers and dish washers air conditioners and atomic power five day workweeks and internets.
The humanities are the study of man his languages his literature his philosophy and his culture.
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The building inspectors found no major violations nevertheless they insisted on the installation of brighter electric lights in the hallways. Let me not pretend to learning I do not have though I studied literature and philosophy in college most of it to my shame has gone with the wind. The sceptics admit something must have been seen the question to be answered is what it was.
Television is in the middle of a new controversy over the old problem how good are its programmes and who should make them better. In most espionage projects there are three elements the individual who has access to secret material the contact man who persuades him to steal it and the agent who transmits it to where it is wanted. We are enclosing the information requested
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however our backlog of mail address is so greater that we cannot promise delivery of goods before December 1997. The revival of the old marriage rituals has some positive aspects it seems to fulfil the need of the urbanites to recapture feelings of community life which they miss in the big cities. Their aim and ideals seem admirable their methods however are questionable.
Knowledge without commitment is wasteful commitment without knowledge is dangerous.

Hyphenation
Hyphens are used for two purposes: to divide a word at the end of line, and to join two words as a compound. 1. Use a hyphen to divide a word at the end of a line. a. Divide a word between pronounceable parts only. Onesyllable words should never be divided.
play-ed
played
b. Do not divide a word so that a single letter stands alone. If possible do not divide a word so that only two letters are carried over to the next line.
i-solate democra-cy democ-racy
iso-late
c. A word having double consonants should be divided between the consonants.
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control-ling lion
bil-
d. Words having prefixes and suffixes should be divided between the prefix and the root of the word or between the roots of word and the suffix. e. Hyphenate compound words between the elements of the compound
arm-chair blackbirds sail-boat

2. Use a hyphen between elements of a compound. Some compounds (blackboard, steamship) are written solid; others (dirt cheep. wedding ring) are nearly always written as separate words; still others (father-in-law, ready-made, up-to-date) are usually hyphenated. There is an increasing tendency to write compounds as solid, especially in an informal style, but in general a hyphen is preferred in the following types. a. Hyphenate a compound modifier preceding a noun.
A self-made man An off-the-cuff judgement
A round-by-round report A tear-jerking story

b. Hyphenate a compound consisting of a prefix and a proper name.
Anti-Hitler Russian
c. Hyphenate compounds of ex and a noun
Pro-
ex-wife president self-satisfied conceit Dash
ex-
d. Hyphenate most compounds beginning with self
self-
But selfless and selfsame are written solid.
The dash should not be used as a general utility mark to substitute for a comma, a period, semicolon, or colon. It is a specialised punctuation mark which serves the following purposes: a. To stress a word or a phrase at the end of a sentence
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In the whole world there is only one person he really admireshimself. And now it is my pleasure to present a man we all know and admire and to whom we are all deeply indebtedProf. A.B. Khan. He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamppostsfor support rather than illumination. An after-dinner speech should be like a ladys dresslong enough to
cover the subject and short enough to be interesting.

b. To sum up or complete an involved sentence.
To live as free men in a free country; to enjoy the right to think and speak as we like; to feel that the state is the servant of its people; to be a partner in the conduct of the affairs of the nationall this is what democracy means to us.
c. To mark an interrupted or unfinished quotation
Id like to he said, but Im

d. When used in pairs, to set off a pronounced interruption.
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There will never again beyou may be sure of thisso glorious an opportunity. This answerif we can call it an answeris completely meaningless.
e. To mark a sharp turn in thought
He is a humble manwith a lot to be humble about. He praised Hamids intelligence, his high sense of responsibility, his efficiency, his hardworkand then
promoted his junior colleague. I know two kinds of audience onlyone coughing and one not coughing.
f. To enclose parenthetical element (to give greater emphasis to elements that could also be set off with commas).
Still we do must cruelties fanaticism burning. Capitalisation
condemnwe condemnthe of slavery, and witch-
Capitalise the first word of each sentence and of each line of regular poetry. Capitalise the first word of a direct quotation.
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Capitalise proper nouns. Capitalise adjectives formed from proper nouns. American Pakistani
Capitalise nouns or pronouns referring to deity.
God His
Lord
He
Capitalise names of offices only when they are used as titles.
Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Liaqat Ali was the first prime minister of Pakistan.
Capitalise north, south, east and west and their derivatives only when they refer to geographical areas.
They live in the East.
The east side of the field is wet. The North. The northern side of the town.
Capitalise titles of books, magazines, plays and the headings of chapters or sections of work. A common noun or adjective is not capitalised unless it is part of a proper noun.
Punjab University A university in Punjab

Capitalise all important words in the names of organisations, business firms, buildings etc.
House of Representatives Department of Interior
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GIK Institute Engineering Sciences Technology, Topi Russian Greek Sanskrit mathematics bookkeeping Mathematics I Bookkeeping II
of &
Do not capitalise the names of school subjects except for proper nouns and adjectives.
Capitalise the parts of a compound word as if each part stood alone.
French-speaking students God-given rights anti-American feeling
Afro-Asian Solidarity Indo-European languages Anglo-American block

Capitalise the first word of a sentence after a colon if the writer wants to give it emphasis. Do not capitalise it if the sentence is closely related to the preceding clause.
Indeed, if Galileo had not been a highly knowledgeable amateur theologian he would not have gotten himself into serious trouble: the professionals resented his intrusion. Quite a few teachers in the department of science
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would tell their students: We scientists deliver the laws of nature to the philosophers who have to interpret them.
Exercise
Remove unnecessary capitalisation in the following sentences:
He is a four-star General in the Pakistan Army. The Rector advised the new entrants how to make the best use of their stay at the campus. My father wants me to be a University Professor but
I personally like to join a multi-national. Go East for about 2 miles and turn North. His father is an Air Vice Marshall in the PAF. Modern Universities developed from the European Monastery schools of the Middle Ages. The University of Engineering and Technology has fourteen Faculties, each one being under the supervision of a separate Dean.
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We have to take two courses in Applied Psychology.

Exercise
In the following passages identify the words that should be capitalised.
The league of nations, an international association of countries created after world war I, has been compared with the united nations. The league was formed in january, 1920, in geneva, under the leadership of the late president of the united states woodrow wilson.
The charter of the united nations was developed from proposals agreed upon at a conference held at dumbarton oaks, an estate in wahsington, d.c. Dr. Khan chairman department of science has notified that students who wish to qualify for advanced-standing courses in chemistry or physics must maintain eighty-five percent score in earth science I or biology I. She asked, what makes the things hold together.
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The greeks called their chief god zeus; the romans called him jupitor. Ayub Khan secured confirmation as the president through manipulated votes of an electoral college. Underlining (Italics)
Use underlining (italics) for titles of books, periodicals newspapers, works of art, ships, etc.
(i) The Pakistan Times (ii) Herald

Note: The use of quotation marks for titles is generally limited to short compositions such as stories or parts of books such as chapters or articles. Use underlining (italics) for words and letters referred to as such and for foreign words.
Conventions about numbers

Do not begin a sentence with a numeral.
212 candidates took the test for award of the scholarships. Two hundred and twelve candidates took the test for award of the scholarships.
Hyphenate all compound (two-word) numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine. Do not hyphenate a fraction unless it is used as an adjective.
This event took place thirty-two years back. He won by a two-thirds majority. Two thirds of the students deserves first-class marks.
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Spell out numbers of one or two words. Write numbers of more than two words as numerals.
12,776 ten cents
1857 seventy-nine
Exceptions: In statistical and technical writing, all numbers are generally written as numerals. Write out numbers like third, forty-first etc. rather than writing them as numerals with letter endings (3rd, 41st, etc.)
The nation is celebrating the fiftieth year of its independence.

Exception: Street numbers are generally written as numerals with letter endings.
The office is located at 56th street, F-6/1. Quotation Marks

Use quotation marks to enclose a direct quotationa persons exact words.
English historian George Macaulay was noted for his garrulity as much as for his wisdom. An acquaintance once remarked, He is certainly more agreeable since his return from India. Now he has flashes of silence that makes his conversation perfectly delightful.
A direct quotation should begin with a capital letter.
The professor said, Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men
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represent the triumph of mind over matter.

When a quoted sentence is divided into two parts by an interrupting expression such as she said or I asked, the second part begins with a small letter.
In less than five minutes, Ahmad assured, the messenger will be here for the package. John cannot see a belt, remarked Thatcher, without being tempted to hit below it.
If the second part of a broken quotation is a new sentence, it begins with a capital letter.
Come back soon, he said. We are expecting some guests.
If the quotation is only a fragment of a sentence it does not begin with a capital letter.
Having little substance or coherence, his speech appeared to be spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. The American universities, observed a Chinese student, are athletic associations in which certain opportunities for study are provided for the feeble-bodied
When a quoted passage consists of more than one paragraph, place quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph and at the end of the entire passage. Do not place quotation marks at the end of any paragraph but the last. Single quotation marks are used to enclose a quotation within a quotation.
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What do you suppose Ahmad meant when he said you bore me? Hamid said plaintively. Use quotation marks to enclose titles of chapters articles, other parts of books or magazines, short poems, short stories, and songs. In his poem Shikwa Iqbal pours out his anguish over the pathetic conditions of the Muslims. His article Sources of Renewable Energy was
published in June, and it greatly influenced the thinking of the national planners and policy makers.
Quotation marks to set off words. Words used in some special way within a sentence are often set apart by quotation marks or by italics. A word used as word. A word used as a word or as an example rather than for its meaning is italicised or enclosed in quotation marks.
People often confuse the meanings of affect and effect Some writers use its in place of its and vice versa.
Apologetic use of slang and colloquial expressions: In serious writing, a colloquial expression is sometimes put in quotation marks to show that the writer knows it is not considered appropriate in formal usage.
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The speeches in the conference indicated that many nations consider us little more than fall guys.
Words used Derisively: Sometimes a writer may use quotation marks around a term to show that it is being used derisively or sarcastically.
This remarkable piece of art consists of a large canvas covered with mud. He is so genteel that he avoids any reference to human body.
When used with quotation marks, the other marks of punctuation are placed according to the following rules: Commas and periods are always placed inside the closing quotation marks.
I pay the school master, said the philosopher, but it is the schoolboys who educate my son.
semicolons and colons are always placed outside the closing quotation marks.
Universities are the cathedrals of the modern age; they shouldnt have to justify their existence by utilitarian criteria.
Question marks and exclamation points are placed inside the closing quotation marks if they belong with the quotation; otherwise they are placed outside.
Is the intellect always fooled by the heart? asked the student.
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Did he say, we are going? Did he ask, Are we going?
Ellipsis /.../
An ellipsis is used to perform the following functions. To indicate any omission in quoted material: The use of three spaced periods, called an ellipsis (plural, ellipses) indicates that one or more words have been omitted from quoted material. If an ellipsis comes at the end of a sentence, the sentence period is retained.
Nothing and no one can destroy the Chinese people.... They yield... but they never break.
I would die for my country... but I would not let my country die for me.
To indicate that an entire paragraph or an entire line or more of poetry has been omitted. A full line of ellipsis is used
.............................................. .............................................. .................

To indicate interruptions in thought or hesitation in speech.
The fact that an opinion has been widely held... is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. He fainted again, and when he came to, he uttered his last sentence,
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Tell... mother I... died... for my country. Apostrophe

An apostrophe () is used to mark contractions, the plural form of some expressions, and the possessive case of nouns.
Apostrophe in contractions
When a contraction is appropriate in writing, an apostrophe is used to indicate the omission of one or more letters.
cant Ill dont Im Oclock The 93 class highlights of 97
Its
An apostrophe is used with dates from which the first figures are omitted.
The apostrophe, it may be noticed, always falls at the exact place at which a letter or letters have been omitted.
Apostrophe in possessive forms
To form the possessive case of a singular noun, an apostrophe and an s are added.
Hamids book heavens sake the bosss office
for
N. B. when a word of more than one syllable ends in an s sound, the singular possessive may be formed by adding the apostrophe alone.
the witness testimony for conscience sake

To form possessive case of plural noun ending in s, only an apostrophe is added.
the scholars lodge the soldiers marching songs

A few plural nouns that do not end in s form the possessive by adding an apostrophe and an s just as singular nouns do. In hyphenated words and names of organisations only the last word is possessive in form.
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father-in-laws business Zafar Law Associates office

The words minute, hour, day, week, month, year, etc., when used as possessive adjectives require an apostrophe.
this years crop a weeks delay Apostrophe in plurals of letters and figures There are two Ss two ls in this word. That happened back in 1940s. The answer should have two 8s in it.
The last exercise had more +s than-s.

Exercise
Punctuate the following passages
Aristotle the great greek philosopher was tutor to the future king alexander the great. One day they were doing a lesson in mathematics which required many calculations. alexander always impatient suddenly threw aside his work and exclaimed why must I go through these little steps why cant I get the answer
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immediately I m the future king. There is no royal road to knowledge answered his tutor A well known bore was seated opposite Prof. Cyprian at a dinner party. During a lull in the conversation he leaned toward the professor and said you know Prof. cyprian I passed your house this morning. Thank you said Prof. Cyprian quietly. Thank you very much.
Clare Luce former American ambassador to Italy tells about a big reception in Rome when the handshaking line suddenlystopped leaving a flustered american girl standing in front of the ambassador. Oh Mrs. Luce she said its so wonderful to be over here in Rome seeing all these old romantic ruins and you too. Dorothy Parker asked by an annoying guest at a party if she had ever had
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her ears pierced murmured no but I have often had them bored. A man of mediocre intellect who had become a prominent politician in Ceylon once amazed parliament with a brilliant speech. As he sat down amid thunderous applause a single voice in the opposition cried out Author author. It is not easy to be natural before an audience. actors know that. When you were a child say four years old
you probably could have mounted a platform and talked naturally to an audience. But when you are twenty-four or fortyfour what happens when you mount a platform and start to speak. Do you retain that unconscious naturalness that you possessed at four? You may but it is almost certain that you will become stiff and stilted and mechanical and draw back into your shell like a snapping turtle. The
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problem of training adults in public speaking is not one of superimposing additional characteristics it is largely one of removing impediments of getting people to speak with naturalness. An employment office was checking on an applicants list of references. How long did this man work for you a former employer was asked. About four hours was the quick reply. Why he told us he had been there a long time said the
caller. Oh yes answered the ex-employer he was here for two years.
Exercise
Punctuate the following passage:
Failure is probably the most fatiguing experience a person ever has. There is nothing more enervating than not succeeding being blocked not moving ahead. It is a vicious circle. Failure breeds fatigue and the fatigue makes it harder to get to work which compounds the failure.
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We experience this tiredness in two main ways as start up fatigue and performance fatigue. In the former case we keep putting off a task that we are under some compulsion to discharge. Either because it is too tedious or too difficult we shirk it. And the longer we postpone it the more tired we feel. Such start up fatigue is very real even if not actually physical not something in our muscles
and bones. The remedy is obvious, though perhaps not easy to apply an exertion of will power. The moment I find myself turning away from a job or putting it under a pile of other things I have to do I clear my desk of everything else and attack the objectionable item first. To prevent start up fatigue always tackle the most difficult job first. Years ago when editing Great Books of the Western World I undertook to write
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102 essays one on each of the great ideas discussed by the authors of those books. The writing took me 2 years working at it among my other tasks seven days a week. I would never have finished if I had allowed myself to write first about the ideas I found easiest to expound. Applying my own rule I determined to write the essays in strict alphabetical order from angel to world never letting myself skip a tough idea.
And I always started the days work with the difficult task of essay writing. Experience proved once again that the rule works. Performance fatigue is more difficult to handle. Here we are not reluctant to get started but we cannot seem to do the job right. Its difficulties appear insurmountable and however hard we work we fail again and again. That mounting experience of failure
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carries with it an ever increasing burden of mental fatigue. In such a situation I work as hard as I can then let the unconscious take over. Stress Pattern of Words
All English words with more than one syllable have a stress pattern. In dictionaries strongly stressed syllable of a word is marked with a heavy accent mark () and a weaker stress, if any, with a lighter accent (). Here are a couple of entries from the Chambers English Dictionary: Immediately after the main entry in bold face there is phonetic respelling of the words which indicate where the main accent falls. This information provided by all good dictionaries is indispensable to know the correct pronunciation of words. Given below is a list of commonly usedand commonly mispronouncedwords. Consult your dictionary to find out the syllable which carries the main accent in each case.
argue minister molecular alternate peculiar photography exponent alternative indicate tribute initial exodus
monogamy immovable opinion orchestra omelette origin oxygen ozone parabola transfer transformable extrapolate cement interim magnitude majesty Radar Notice
Africa enthusiasm operate algebra topography preface periodicity indefinite extempore canvass principal cathedral calculate precipitate perpendicular thermodynamics arithmetic thermometer minimum cemetery duplicate peripheral geography purpose metallurgist lyceum equivalent impossible plasticity mobile metallography
trigonometry agent popular immortal premeditate prestige infantry triangle incomparable sociology hydrogen eighteen centenary examinable volunteer purview general patience parallel variable dissect elephant diagonal
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Window peninsula October penalty incinerate legitimate separable parameter particle energy impermeable scientific
iron electricity hippopotamus illustrate January temperature passenger components diagram extraordinary deformation informative conceptual interesting beginning satellites machine cucumber vector vocabulary homogeneity unanimity
dynamic insignificant generate interest generate occur fitness although cassette however career library pattern
VMiscellaneous Expressions in Usage

First or open conditions
First conditional sentences with if refer to a possible or a probable happening in the future. Its structure comprises if + present and will + infinitive.
If you apply for a job with an important company like Int. Air, you will have to make a good impression. If we play tennis, I will win. Note
Should can be a present or a future form. The future form of must is will have to.
Exercise
Write the verbs in these first conditional sentences in the right tenses.
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We (to let) you know if you (to be) on the short-list. If you (to be) short-listed, you (to have) another interview. If you (to join) us, you (to spend) a fortnight in London. You (to work) as part of a team if you (to get) the job.
Second conditions
In these type of sentences we use special tenses with if when we are talking about unreal situationthings that will probably not happen, situations that are untrue or imaginary, past events that did not happen, and similar events. In these cases we use would and past tense to distance our language from reality.
If I knew her name, I would tell you.
He would be perfectly happy if he had a car. What would you do if you lost your job?
This structure can be used to make a suggestion sound less definite (for example if you want to be more polite).
If I were etc
We often use were instead of was after if. This is common in both formal and informal styles. In a formal style it is much more common than was, and many people consider it more correct, especially in American English. The grammatical name for this use of were is subjunctive.
If I were rich, I would spend all my time travelling. If my nose were a little shorter, I would be quite pretty.
Note that were is not normally used instead of would be in polite requests.
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We should be grateful if you would be so kind as to let us have your cheque as soon as possible. (not if you were so kind.)
Polite requests
I would be grateful if you could is used in business letters to make polite requests.
Exercise
Rewrite these requests, using this form:
Please give me further information about the post. I would be grateful if you could give me further information about the post.
Please send me an application form. I want you to tell me how much the salary is. Please send me details of the job you advertised. I want you to give me a description of the post. Please return my curriculum vitae. Please tell me what qualifications you require.
Wishful thinking
Sometimes we say something in the same second condition structure, which will never really be true. For example:
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If I had a camera, I would change the whole history of photography. If I were the prime minister, I would eliminate poverty from the country.
Ifwas/were to
This is another way of talking about unreal or imaginary future events.
If the boss was/were to come in now, wed be in real trouble. What would you do if I was /were to lose my job.
It can be used to make a suggestion less direct, and so more polite.
If you were to move your chair a bit, we could all sit down.
This structure is not used with state verbs:
If I knew her name I would tell you. (not were to know)

Future in ifclauses
We normally use a present tense with if (and most other conjunctions) to refer to future.
Ill phone you if you have time.

But we use ifwill when we are talking about later results rather than conditions.
Ill give you Rs. 100 if you stop smoking. (Stopping smoking is a condition of
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getting the money- it must happen first.) Ill give you Rs. 100 if itll help you to go on a holiday.(The help is a result- it follows the gift of money.)
Ifshould; ifhappen to
We can suggest that something is unlikely, or not particularly probable, by using should (not would) in the if- clause.
If you should run into Junaid, tell him he owes me a letter.

If you happen to has a similar meaning.
If you happen to pass a supermarket, perhaps you could get some eggs.
Should and happen to can be used together.
If you should happen to finish early, give me a ring.

Would is not normally used in the main clause in these structures.
If he should be late, well have to start without him.(not would)

Impossible past or third conditions
We use the third conditional about past events where the condition cannot be fulfilled because the action in the if clause did not happen. Notice how the third conditional is formed: Would (not) + have + past participle; if + had (not) + past participle
They wanted to see you again because you did well at your first interview. They wouldnt have wanted to see you again if
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you hadnt done well at your first interview.

Exercise
Express these sentences in the third conditional:
I didnt go to university because I didnt have the opportunity. I moved because I didnt have a good job. Because my father died I left school at sixteen. I missed the train because there was a traffic jam. She didnt get the job because she wasnt qualified.
Because you werent on Scale III, you didnt have four weeks holiday.
If only
We can use if only to say that we would like things to be different. It means the same as I wish but is more emphatic. The clause with if only often stands alone, without a main clause. We use the same tenses after if only as after I wish.
Past, to talk about the present
If only I knew more people. If only I was/were better looking.

Would + infinitive to refer to the future
If only it would stop raining, we could go out. If only somebody would smile.
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Past perfect (had + past participle) to refer to the past
If only she hadnt told the police, everything would have been all right.
Unless
Unless has a similar meaning to if not, in the sense of except if.
Come tomorrow unless I phone. (=if I dont phone/except if I phone.) Ill take the job unless the pay is too low. (if the pay isnt too low.) Ill be back tomorrow unless there is a plane strike.
When unless cannot be used
Unless (except if) can be used instead of if not when we refer to exceptional circumstances which would change a situation (see
above examples). We do not use unless to refer to something negative that would be the main cause of the situation that we are talking about.
My wife will be very upset if I dont go back tomorrow. (not unless I go back)
If the speaker doesnt get back, this will be the main cause of his wifes unhappiness- if not doesnt mean except if.
Ill be surprised if he doesnt have an accident soon. (not unless) Shed look nicer if she didnt wear so much make-up. (not unless)
Special use of get
Get + past participle
Get can be used with a past participle. This structure often has a reflexive meaning, to talk about things that we do to ourselves.
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Common expressions are get washed, get dressed, get lost, get drowned, get engaged/married/divorced.
You have five minutes to get dressed. She is getting married in June.
Get + past participle is also used to make passive structures, in the same way as be + past participle.
My watch got broken while I was playing. He got caught by the police while driving very fast.
This structure is less often used to talk about longer, more deliberate, planned actions.
Our house was built in 1872. (not got built) Parliament was opened on Thursday. (not got opened)
Get + object + past participle
This structure can be used to mean finish doing something. The past participle has a passive meaning.
It will take me hour to get the done. After you have children dressed, make the beds?
another washing got the can you
Another meaning is arrange for something to be done by somebody else.
I must get my hair cut. You ought to get your watch repaired.
We can also use the same structure to talk about things that happen to us. In this case, get means experience.
We got our roof blown off in the storm last week.
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I got my car stolen twice last year.

Geting;get + infinitive
Geting is sometimes used informally to mean starting, especially in the expressions get moving, get going.
Wed better get movingits late.
Question tags
In conversation we frequently add tags to a statement to make a question. Rewrite these questions using question tags.
Are you enjoying it? Youre enjoying it, arent you? I hope they havent made a mistake? They havent made a mistake, have they?
Exercise
Is that what you wanted?
Do I need a new cheque book? Will you send me a monthly statement? I hope that doesnt stop you spending it? Do you want to come with him? I hope they havent got the amount wrong?
Would like
The expression Would you like (to do) can be used to offer something or to ask someones preference. Write sentences from these notes using Would you like.
What/drink What would you like to drink?
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Something to drinkWould you like something to drink? Where/work Coffee or tea Something to eat Travel by train or plane What time/come How/travel When/leave Work in a factory
Rather or prefer to
These sentences offer you a choice or ask about preferences. Reply using Id rather (do) or Id prefer to (to do)
Would you like to work in a factory? (rather/office)
Id rather work in an office. Would you like to work in a factory? (prefer/office) Id prefer to work in an office. Would you like to go to the cinema? (rather/theatre) Would you like to travel abroad? (prefer/stay at home) Would you like to go to university? (rather/get job)
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Would you like to be a secretary? (rather/manager) Would you like to go shopping on Wednesday? (prefer/wait until Thursday)
Affect and effect
Affect is a verb. It means cause a change in or influence.
The cold weather affected everybodys health.

Effect is usually a noun meaning result or change. The expression to have an effect on is similar to affect.
The war seriously affected petrol prices. The war had a serious effect on petrol prices.
In a formal style, effect can also be used as a verb, meaning carry out, cause to happen.
We did not effect much improvement in sales last year.

Afraid
afraid and fear
In an informal style, be afraid is more common than fear.
Dont be afraid. (Not dont fear.) Are you afraid of the dark? She is afraid that I might find her.
Im afraid = Im sorry
I am afraid (that) often means I am sorry to tell you (that). It is used to introduce apologetic refusals and bad news.
Im afraid (that) I cant help you.
Perenial Themes 535
Im afraid that theres been an accident. Can you lend me a pound? Im afraid not. Its going to rain. Yes, Im afraid so.
Not used before a noun
Afraid is one of the adjectives that are not usually used before a noun in attributive position.
Johns afraid. John is a frightened man. (not an afraid man.)

We often use very much instead of very before afraid, especially when Im afraid means Im sorry to tell you.
Im very much afraid hes out.
Also, as well, and too

1. Position
Also, as well and too have similar meanings, but they do not go in the same position in clauses. Also usually goes with the verb, in mid-position; as well and too usually go at the end of a clause. As well is less common in American English.
She not only sings; she also plays the piano. She not only sings; she plays the piano as well. She not only sings; she plays the piano too.
2- Reference
These words can refer to different parts of a clause, depending on the meaning. Consider the sentence we have meetings on Sundays as well. This can mean three different things:
(Other people have meetings on Sundays, and) we have meetings on Sundays as well.
Perenial Themes 537
(We do other things on Sundays, and) we have meetings on Sundays as well. (We have meetings on other days, and) we have meetings on Sundays as well.
When we speak, we show the exact meaning by stressing the word or expression that also/as well/too refer to.
Imperatives and short answers

As well and too are used in imperatives and short answers, but not usually also.
Give me some bread as well, please. (More natural than Also give me)
Shes nice. Her sister is as well.(More natural than also) Ive got a headache. Ive too.(More natural than I also have.)
In very informal speech, we often use me too as a short answer.
Im going home. Me too.

More formal equivalents are So am I or I am too, but not I also.
Also referring to whole clause
Also can be used at the beginning of a clause to refer to the whole clause.
Its a nice house, but its very small. Also, it needs a lot of repairs.
Too in a formal style
In a formal or literary style, too can be placed directly after the subject.
Perenial Themes 539
I, too, have experienced despair.

As, because, since and for
All four of these words can be used to refer to the reason for something. They are not used in the same way.
as and since:
as and since are used when the reason is already known to the listener/reader, or when it is not the most important part of the sentence. As- and since-clauses often come at the beginning of sentences.
As its raining again, well have to stay at home. Since he had not paid his bill, his electricity was cut off.
As- and since-clauses are relatively formal; in an informal style, the same ideas are often expressed with so.
Its raining again, so well have to stay at home.
Because
Because puts more emphasis on the reason, and most often introduces new information which is not known to the listener/reader.
Because I was ill for six months, I lost my job.
When the reason is the most important part of the sentence, the because-clause usually comes at the end. It can also stand alone. Since and as cannot be used like this.
Why am I leaving? Im leaving because Im fed up! (Not. Im leaving as/since Im fed up!) Why are you laughing? Because you look so funny.
A because-clause can be used at the end of a sentence to say how one knows something.
Perenial Themes 541
You didnt tell me the truth, because I found the money in your room. (=. I know because I found)
for
For introduces new information, but suggests that the reason is given as an afterthought. A for-clause could almost be in brackets. For-clauses never come at the beginning of sentences, and cannot stand alone. For, used in this sense, is most common in a formal written style.
I decided to stop and have lunch for I was feeling hungry.

as if and as though
meaning
as if and as though mean the same. We use them to say what a situation seems like.
It looks as if/though its going to rain.
I felt as if/though I was dying. She was acting as if/though she was in charge.
tenses
We can use a past tense with a present meaning after as if/though. This shows that a comparison is unreal. Compare:
She looks as if shes rich. (Perhaps she is rich.) He talks as if he was rich. (But he is not) You look as though you know each other. Why is she looking at me as though she knew me? Ive never seen her before in my life.
Perenial Themes 543
However, we do not use a past perfect for a past unreal comparison.
He talked as if he was rich, but he wasnt. (NOT.as if he had been rich.)

In a formal style, were can be used instead of was in an unreal comparison. This is normal in American English. He talks as if he were rich.
informal use of like
In an informal style, like is often used instead of as if/though, especially in American English. This is not considered correct in a formal style.
It seems like its going to rain. He sat there smiling like it was his birthday.
Had better
Meaning
We use had better to give strong advice, or to tell people what to do (including ourselves).
Youd better turn that music down before your Dad gets angry. Its seven oclock. Id better put the meat in the oven.
Had better may suggest a threat. It is not used in polite requests. Compare:
Could you help me, if youve got time? (request) Youd better help me. If you dont, therell be trouble. (order/threat)
Had better refers to the immediate future. It is more urgent than should or ought. Compare:
Perenial Themes 545
I really ought to go and see Fred one of these days. Well, youd better do it soonhes leaving for South Africa at the end of the month.
Note that had better does not usually suggest that the action recommended would be better than another one that is being consideredthere is no idea of comparison. The structure means It would be good to .., not It would be better to..
forms
Had better refers to the immediate future, but the form is always past (have better is impossible). After had better we use the infinitive without to.
Its lateyou had better hurry up. (NOT.You have better) (NOT.You had better hurrying/to hurry)
In British English, better can come before had for emphasis.
I promise Ill pay you back. You better had. We normally make the negative with had better not + infinitive. Youd better not wake me up when you come in. (You hadnt better wake me is possible but very unusual.)
A negative interrogative form Hadnt. better.? Is possible.
Hadnt we better tell him the truth?

Normal un-emphatic short answer forms are as follows:
Perenial Themes 547
Shall I put my clothes away? Youd better! He says he wont tell anybody. Hed better not.
Had is sometimes dropped in very informal speech.
You better go now. I better try again later.

Happen
Happen can be used with a following infinitive to suggest that something happens unexpectedly or by chance.
If you happen to see Joan, ask her to phone me. One day I happened to get talking to a woman on a train, and she turned out
to be a cousin of my mothers.
In sentences with if, the idea of by chance can be emphasised by using should before happen.
Let me know if you should happen to need any help.

Lest
Lest has a similar meaning to in case or so thatnot. It is very rare in modern British English, and is found mostly in older literature and in ceremonial language. It is a little more common in formal American English.
They kept watch all night lest robbers should come. We must take care lest evil thoughts enter our hearts.
Lest can be followed by a subjunctive verb in a formal style to emphasise the importance of the action/idea.
The government must take immediate action, lest the
Perenial Themes 549
problem of child poverty grow worse.

For fear that is used in a similar way, and is also unusual in modern English.
He hid in the woods for fear that the soldiers would find him.
Although and though
Although + clause + clause Clause + (al) though + clause Clause + though 1. Conjunctions
Both these words can be used as conjunctions, with the same meaning. In informal speech, though is more common.
(Al)though the government refuses to admit it, its economic policy is in ruins. (Al)though I dont agree with him, I think he is honest. Id quite like to go out, (al)though it is a bit late.
We use even though to emphasise a contrast. (Even although is not possible.)
Even though I didnt understand a word, I kept smiling. 2. Though used as an adverb
We can use though as an adverb, to mean however.
Nice day. Yes. Bit cold though.
Perenial Themes 551
The strongest argument, though, is economic and political.

Much and many
1. The difference
Much is used with singular nouns; many is used with plurals.
I havent got much time. How much of the roof needs repairing? You can have as much of the milk as you like. I dont know many of your friends. She didnt stay for as many days as she had intended.
2. Much/many + noun
We can use much and many before noun phrases as determiners. We do not generally use of when there is no other determiner (e.g. article or possessive).
She didnt eat much breakfast. (not much of.) There arent many large glasses left. (not many of.)
However, much of can be used without a following determiner in a few cases, for instance, personal and geographical names.
I have seen too much of Howard recently. Not much of Denmark is hilly. 3. Much/many of + determiner + noun
Perenial Themes 553
Before determiners (e.g. a, the, my, this) and pronouns, we use much of and many of.
You cant see much of a country in a week. How much of the house do you want to paint this year. I wont pass the exam: I have missed too many of my lessons. You didnt eat much of it. How many of you are there? 4. Much/many without a noun
We can drop a noun after much or many, if the meaning is clear.
You havent eaten much.
Did you find any mushrooms? Not many.

Note that much and many are only used like this when a noun has been dropped. They are not used as the complements of nouns: other structures are used.
There was not much (food). Thats too much (food). (But not the food wasnt much.)
Because you couldnt say the food wasnt much food. Many is not usually used alone to mean many people.
Many people think its time for a change. (Not Many think.) 5. Much as adverb
We can use much as an adverb.
Perenial Themes 555
I dont travel much these days.

Much can come before some verbs expressing enjoyment, preference and similar ideas, especially in a formal style.
I much appreciate your help. We much prefer the country to the town. Janet much enjoyed her stay with your family.
Small and little
Small simply refers to size. It is the opposite of big or large.
Could I have a small notebook, please? You are too small to be a policeman.
Usually, the adjective little not only refers to size, but also expresses some emotion.
Poor little thing- come here and let me look after you. Whats that nasty little boy doing in our garden? Tell the little beast to go out. Theyve bought a pretty little house in the country.
In a few fixed expressions, little is used in the same way as small or short.
Little finger the little hand of a clock A little while a little way
Until
1. Until and till
Perenial Themes 557
These two words can be used as prepositions and conjunctions. They mean exactly the same. Till is informal in British English (in American English, till is the preferred informal spelling).
OK, then, I wont expect you until/till midnight. Ill wait until/till I hear from you. The new timetable will remain in operation until June 30. 2. Until/till and to
To can sometimes be used as preposition of time with the same meaning as until/till. This happens after from
I usually work from nine to five. (OR from nine until/till five.)
We can also use to when counting the time until a future event.
Its another three weeks to the holidays. (ORuntil/till the holidays.)

In other cases, to is not generally used.
I waited for her until six oclock, but she didnt come. (Not I waited for her to six oclock.) 3. Place and quantity: until/till not used
Until and till is used only to talk about time. To talk about distance, we use to, as far as or up to; up to is also used to talk about quantity.
We walked as far as/up to the edge of the forest. (Not till the edge)
Perenial Themes 559
The minibus can hold up to thirteen people. (Not until thirteen) You can earn up to Rs. 500 a week in this job.
It is sometimes possible to use until/till before a place name in the sense of until we get to
You drive until the park and then Ill take over. 4. Tenses with until
Present tenses are used to refer to the future after until.
Ill wait until she gets here. (Not until she will get here.)
Present and past perfect tenses can emphasise the idea of completion.
You are not going home until you have finished that report. I waited until the rain had stopped. 5. Structure with not until
In a literary style it is possible to begin a sentence with not until, using inverted word order in the main clause.
Not until that evening was she able to recover her self-control. Not until I left home did I begin to understand how strange my family was.
Perenial Themes 561
Worth
1. Worth a few pounds

Worth can be followed by a noun phrase which describes the value of something.
That piano must be worth a few pounds. I dont think their pizzas are worth the money. Shall I talk to Rob? Its not worth the trouble.
In questions about the value of something, either what or how much can be used.
What/how much is that painting worth? 2. five pounds worth of

A possessive structure can be used before worth in measurement expressions.
Could I have a few pounds worth of petrol, please? 3. Its worth talking to him
When we talk about the value of an activity, we can use aning form with worth. Theing clause cannot be the subject, but we often use a structure with preparatory it. (This structure is more common in British than in American English.)
Its worth talking to Junaid. (NotTalking to Junaid is worth.) Is it worth visiting Leicester?
It can be used to refer to an action mentioned earlier.
Shall we take the car? No, its not worth it.
Perenial Themes 563
4. Hes worth talking to

Ideas like the ones in No. 3 above can also be expressed by a structure in which the object of theing form (Junaid, the car, Leicester) is made the subject of the sentence.
Junaids worth talking to. The car isnt worth repairing. (NotThe car isnt worth repairing it/worth to be repaired.) Is Leicester worth visiting? She is not worth getting angry with. 5. Worthwhile
In structures withing forms, worthwhile (or worth while) is sometimes used instead of worth, particularly to express the idea worth spending time.
Is it worthwhile visiting Leicester?
Infinitives are also possible after worthwhile.
We thought it might be worthwhile to compare this years accounts with last years. Note also the structure worth somebodys while. Would you like to do some gardening for me? Ill make it worth your while. (=Ill pay you enough.) 6. Well worth
Worth can be modified by well.
Leicesters visiting. worth)
well worth (Notvery
Perenial Themes 565
Least and fewest
1. The least as superlative of little
determiner:
The least is used before uncountable nouns as a determiner referring to quantity; it is the superlative of little (=not much), and the opposite of most.
In a slow bicycle race, the winner is the person who travels the least distance in one minute without falling off or turning round.
Note also the expression the least of (=smallest of), used before plural abstract nouns.
What will your mother think? Thats the least of my worries.

Anyat all
The least can have a similar meaning to anyat all. This happens mostly before singular abstract nouns in non-assertive
contexts: for instance in questions, negative clauses and ifclauses.
Do you think theres the least chance of Labour winning the elections? Whats the time? I havent got the least idea. She is not the least bit afraid of horses. 3. The fewest as determiner: superlative of few
The fewest is used before plural nouns as the superlative of few.
The translation with the fewest mistakes isnt always the best.
Least is often used instead of fewest before plural nouns (the least mistakes), especially in an informal style. Some people feel this is incorrect.
Perenial Themes 567
4. (the) least with adjectives: the opposite of (the) most or (the) est
(The) least is used before adjectives in the same way as (the) most or (the)est, but with the opposite meaning.
The least expensive holidays are often the most interesting. Dont give the job to Keith: hes the least experienced. Im least happy when I have to work at weekends. 5. Least as adverb
Least can be used as an adverb (the opposite of most).
She always arrives when you least expect it.
I dont much housework, and I cooking least of all. 6. At least

At least means not less than (but perhaps more than).
like like
How old do you think he is? At least thirty. He has been ill at least eight times this year.
We can also use at least as a discourse marker to suggest that one thing is certain or all right, even if everything else is unsatisfactory.
We lost everything in fire. But at least nobody was hurt. 7. Not in the least
Perenial Themes 569
We can use not in the least in a formal style to mean not at all, especially when talking about personal feelings and reactions.
I was not in the least upset by her bad temper. She did not mind working late in the least.
American and British English
These two varieties of English are very similar. There are a few differences of grammar and spelling, and rather more differences of vocabulary and idiom. Modern British English is heavily influenced by American English, so some of the contrasts are disappearing. Pronunciation is sometimes very different, but most American and British speakers can understand each other without great difficulty.
Grammar
Here are examples of the most important differences. Note that in many cases two different forms are possible in one Varity of English, while only one of the forms is possible or normal in the other variety.
American English British English
He just went home. Or Hes just gone home.
He is just gone home.
Do you have a problem? Or have you got a problem?
Have you got a problem?
Ive never really gotten to know her. I (can) see a car coming. Will you buy it? I may.
Ive never really got to know her.
I can see a car coming. I may (do). Hello, is that Susan?
(on the phone) Hello, is this Susan? It looks like it is going to rain. He looked at me real strange. (Very informal) or He looked at me really strangely. (formal)
It looks as if/like its going to rain. He looked strangely. at me really
He probably has arrived by now. He has probably arrived by now. Or He has probably arrived. Besides get and fit some other irregular verbs have different forms in British and American English.
Vocabulary
There are very many differences. Some times the same word has different meanings (GB mad=crazy; US mad= angry). And very
Perenial Themes 571
often, different words are used for the same idea (GB lorry = U S truck). Here are a few examples, with very brief information about the words and their meanings.
airplane anyplace, anywhere apartment area code attorney lawyer busy cab/taxi call collect can candy check/bill coin-purse cookie , cracker corn, sweet crib crazy cuffs
aeroplane anywhere flat/ apartment dialling code (phone) barrister, solicitor engaged (phone) taxi reverse the charges (phone) tin sweets bill (in a restaurant) purse biscuit corn, maize cot mad turn-ups (on trousers)
diaper doctors office dumb, stupid elevator eraser fall , autumn faucet, tap flashlight flat(tire) french fries trash, garbage garbage can, trashcan gas(oline) gear shift highway, freeway hood intersection mad mail
nappy doctors surgery stupid lift rubber ,eraser autumn tap (indoors) torch flat tyre, puncture chips rubbish dustbin, rubbish bin petrol gear lever (on a car) main road, motorway bonnet (on a car) crossroads angry post
Perenial Themes 573
mean movie, film one-way (ticket) pants, trousers pavement pitcher pocketbook, purse, handbag (potato) chips railroad raise rest room round trip schedule, timetable sidewalk sneakers spigot, faucet stand in line stingy store, shop
nasty film single (ticket) trousers road surface jug handbag crisps railway rise (in salary) public toilet return (journey/ticket) timetable pavement trainers (=sports shoes) tap (out doors) queue mean (opposite of generous) shop
subway truck trunk two weeks vacation windshield zee zipper
underground van, lorry boot (of a car) fortnight, two weeks holiday(s) windscreen (on a car) zed (the name of the letter z zip
Expressions with prepositions and particles

Different from/than Check something (out) Do something over/again Live on X street On a team Monday through/to Friday
Different from/to Check something Do something again Live in X street In a team Monday to Friday
Spelling
A number of words end inor in American English andour in British English (e.g. color/colour). Some words end iner in American English andre in British English (e.g. center/centre). Many verbs which end inize in American
Perenial Themes 575
English (e.g. realize) can be spelt in British English withize orise. Some of the commonest words with different forms are:
American English English

Aluminum Analyze Catalog(ue) Center Check Color Defense Honor Jewelry Labor Pajamas Practice, practise Program Realize Theater Aluminium Analyse Catalogue Centre
British
Cheque (issued by a bank) Colour Defence Honour Jewellery Labour Pyjamas Practise (verb) Programme Realise/realize Theatre
Tire Trave(l)ler Whiskey
Tyre (on a wheel) Traveller (scotch) whisky; (Irish) whiskey
Pronunciation
There are, of course, many different regional accents in both Britain and America. The most important general differences between American and British speech are as follows: Certain vowels are nasal (pronounced through the nose and mouth at the same time) in some varieties of American English.) British English has one more vowel than American English. This is the rounded short 0 (//) used in words like cot, dog, got, gone, off, stop, lost. In American English these words are pronounced either with /:/, like the first vowel in father, or with /:/, like the vowel in caught. (This vowel is also pronounced rather differently in British and American English.) Some words written with a + consonant (e.g. fast, after) have different pronunciations: with /a:/in standard southern British English, and with // in American and some other varieties of English. The vowel in home, go, open is pronounced // in standard southern British English, and /o/ in American English. The two vowels sound very different. In standard southern British English, r is only pronounced before a vowel sound. In most kinds of American English, r is pronounced in all positions where it is written in a word, and it changes the quality of a vowel that comes before it. So words
Perenial Themes 577
like car, turn, offer sound very different in British and American speech. In many varieties of American English, t and d both have a very light voiced pronunciation /d/ between vowelsso writer and rider, for example, can sound the same. In British English they are quite different: /rait(r)/ and /raid(r)/. Some words which are pronounced with /u:/ in most varieties of American English have /ju:/ in British English. These are words in which th, d, t or n (and sometimes s or l) are followed by u or ew/ Enthusiastic US/inu:zistik/ GB / inju:zistik// Duty Tune New Illuminate US/du:ti/ US/tu:n/ US /nu:/ US /Ilu:mineit/ GB /dju:ti/ GB /tju:n/ GB /nju:/ GB /Ilju: mineit/
Words ending in unstressedile (e.g. fertile, reptile, missile, senile) are pronounced with /ail/ in British English; some are pronounced with /l/ in American English. Fertile US /f3:rtl/ (rhyming with turtle) GB /f3:tail/ (rhyming with her tile) Some long words ending inary, -ery, orory are pronounced differently, with one more syllable in American English. Secretary US /'sekrteri/ GB /'sekrtri/
Borough and thorough are pronounced differently.
US /'bro, 'ro/
GB /'br, 'r/
Words borrowed from French are often stressed differently, especially if their pronunciation ends with a vowel sound. The final vowel is usually stressed in American English but not in British English. Pat Ballet US /p'teI/ GB /'pteI/ US /b'leI/ GB /'b
Perenial Themes 579
A. N. Whitehead, 6 active voice, 120, 231 Active-Passive Issue, 231 Adjectives, 128, 143, 175, 176, 177, 179, 180, 181, 216 Adverbs, 128, 143, 171, 216 Africa, 12 Alexander, 74 Alvin Toffler, 18 American Declaration of Independence, 37 Anatole France, 65 Animal Farm, 79 Anthony Wiener, 22 Archimedes, 75 Aristotle, 15, 16, 39, 67, 75 Articles, 143, 202 Artxybasheff, 74 Athens, 73 Aurelio Peccei, 21 Bach, 75 Bacon, 4, 75 Beethoven, 75 Bertrand Russell, 6, 15 Brazil, 23, 31 Bruno, 74 Burma, 79, 88 Byron, 38, 74 Caesar, 70, 75 Cambridge, 4, 63 Capitalisation, 262 China, 10 Chopin, 74 clause, 109, 110, 111, 120, 130, 131, 151, 152, 171, 176, 177, 180, 182, 183, 190,
203, 207, 215, 239, 246, 247, 251, 254, 255, 264, 283, 284, 290, 291, 292, 293, 297, 302, 303 Cobbett, 37 Colon, 254 Comma Splice, 113 Common Sentence Problems, 110 complement, 108, 136, 144, 151, 152, 167, 176, 180, 241 compound predicate, 107, 135 Conjunction, 214 Cornell, 20 Dangling Modifier, 130, 131 Dante, 74 Darwin, 16, 73 Deadwood, 117, 119, See wordiness Determiners, 143, 202 Egypt, 76 Emilio Q. Daddario, 30 England, 11, 37, 42, 63 Erewhon, 6 Faulty Comparisons, 138 Flaubert, 75 France, 10, 11, 20, 65, 75 Frenzied Fiction, 44 Future Shock, 18 Galileo, 16, 75 Gautier, 76 George Bernard Shaw, 34
George Orwell, 79 Germany, 11, 12, 23 Giorgione, 74 Giotto, 75 Goethe, 75 Gorki, 70 Greece, 67, 76 Greek, 7, 66, 67, 72 Groos, 72 Hegel, 68, 75 Heine, 74 Herman Kahn, 22 Hobbes, 75 Holland, 12 Hugo, 74 Hyphenation, 259 Interjections, 143, 220 Iqbal, 6 Kant, 68, 75 Karl Marx, 37 Keats, 74 King Charles, 37 King John, 37 Lake Poets, 7 Lasselle, 37 Leonardo, 75 Lessing, 67 Lucretius, 74 Magna Charta, 37 Max Schulman, 89 Michelangelo, 75 Middle East, 25 Milton, 75 Misplaced Modifier, 129 MIT, 20 Modifiers, 128, 129 Moulmein, 79 Napoleon, 75 Newton, 75 Nietzche, 75 Nonsense Novels, 44
A Textbook of English Prose and Structure 580 noun, 107, 108, 128, 143, 145, 148, 149, 151, 152, 160, 167, 173, 175, 178, 179, 181, 182, 183, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 239, 241, 251, 260, 263, 272, 289, 290, 298, 299, 303 object, 108, 112, 114, 137, 144, 152, 160, 161, 162, 163, 176, 182, 183, 207, 213, 248, 286, 304 Origin of Species, 16 Oxford, 63 Parallelism, 121, 124, 125 Paris, 10 participle, 130, 151, 161, 191, 193, 223, 225, 283, 284, 285, 286 Peacock, 7 Petrarch, 74 Philosophy and the Social Problem, 65 Plato, 67, 70, 75 Pleasures of Philosophy, 65 Poe, 74 Predicate, 107 Prepositions, 143, 205, 206, 207, 209 Principia Mathematica, 6 Principles of Mathematics, 6 Pronoun Reference, 185 Pronouns. See , See , See Pronunciation, 307, 314 Punctuation, 235 Pythagoras, 67 Queen Anne, 40 Ralph Lapp, 21 Renaissance, 66, 73 Renan, 75 Retzsch, 61 Rome, 74 Rousseau, 7, 37, 70, 74 Run-on Sentences, 114 Russia, 12, 38 Saint Peter's College, 65 Samuel Butler, 6, 7 Sappho, 74 Schiller, 74 Schopenhauer, 68 Schubert, 74 Schumann, 74 Semicolon, 253 sentence, 107, 109, 110, 111, 117, 120, 128, 129, 130, 131, 133, 135, 136, 140, 141, 143, 145, 160, 167, 171, 173, 183, 195, 205, 207, 232, 235, 237, 238, 241, 242, 246, 247, 248, 251, 254, 255, 260, 261, 262, 264, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 290, 292, 293, 302, 304 Sentence-Level Problems, 140 Shakespeare, 3, 34, 42 Shelley, 37, 74 simple predicate, 107, 160 Socrates, 75 Sophocles, 75 Spanish Armada, 37 Stephen Leacock, 44 Strindberg, 74 Stringy Sentences, 133 subject, 107, 108, 118, 130, 131, 136, 141, 144, 145, 160, 161, 163, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 176, 180, 182, 183, 223, 231, 232, 239, 241, 242, 248, 261, 291, 303, 304 Subject-Verb Agreement, 163 Suez Canal, 88 Swinburne, 74 Tchaikovsky, 74 Tenses, 223, 228, 302 Test Acts, 63 The Story of Philosophy, 65 The Third Wave, 18 Thomas Henry Huxley, 60 Titian, 75 Tolstoi, 70 Tom Paine, 37 Trafalgar, 37 Turgenev, 75 Two-way Modifier, 131 United States, 12, 20, 21, 23, 29, 30 Utopia, 70 Venice, 74 verb, 107, 108, 128, 136, 143, 144, 151, 152, 160, 161, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 171, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 195, 206, 223, 224, 226, 228, 231, 241,
Perenial Themes 581 248, 289, 290, 297, 313 Verb Patterns, 151 verbals, 110 Verlaine, 74 Vocabulary, 309 Voltaire, 37 Waterloo, 37 Westminster Abbey, 73 Will Durant, 65 William Morris, 7 Winctelmann, 67 Wisconsin, 20 Word Classes, 143, 182 Wordiness, 117

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it could become a significant deterrent to technological irresponsibility.

The Environmental Screen

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Oh freedom what liberties are taken in thy name.

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The Man in Asbestos: An Allegory of the Future

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From a Liberal Education

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