George Carver

“ A simple sentence is one consisting of a single clause or assertion.
Time flies.
Time came and went.
Time and tide wait for no man.
Men and women laughed and cried.
The subject of a simple sentence may consist of one noun or pronoun with its modifiers, or of two or more nouns with their modifiers. In the latter case, the subject is called a compound subject. Similarly, the predicate may contain one verb or two or more verbs. Occasionally a sentence will have a compound subject and a compound predicate, as in the last example given. ”

“ But the greatest pleasure of all in writing is the pleasure that comes to you yourself. To get real enjoyment from writing you should write on a subject you know thoroughly or on one that interests you—preferably both. ”

“ It will then be much easier to question every letter, every word, every phrase, every sentence, every paragraph, every idea, besides the whole composition and each of its parts.
Make everything in your composition justify itself. Whenever you are satisfied to do mediocre work the [11] rest of the world is satisfied with the valuation you have set on yourself. Be your own severest critic. Show your own writing no mercy. Some of the world’s most successful writers of advertisements as well as of novels have rewritten their best work time and again before giving it to the public. ”

“ Choose a subject that can be covered in the number of words at your disposal. If you are writing a four-hundred-word theme, “The American High School” is a poor subject. It would take a series of volumes to exhaust the possibilities in that title. Even eliminating a large portion of it by taking the topic “High School Newspapers,” “High School Debating,” “High School Dramatics,” or “High School Athletics,” helps but little. Narrowing any one of these subjects so that it applies only to your own high school still leaves you with more material than can well be put into a short theme. ”

“ Since man’s progress through the ages is a passage from the undeveloped to the highly developed, one wonders what the buildings of a thousand years from now will be like. From that day in the remote past, when the first cliff dweller conceived the idea of enlarging his home by carving out another terrace in the rock above it, to this day when we have a skyscraper 750 feet high, man’s building has approached nearer and nearer to the clouds. ”

“ Good writing will not result merely from trying to satisfy an instructor. You can write well only if you have a compelling reason for writing; if you desire to convince, inform, or entertain a definite reader.
Know the state of mind you want your reader to be in when he finishes reading your composition. Write for a definite reader such as a college freshman, a high school student, an automobile owner, a ten-year-old boy, a proprietor of a retail store in a town of from 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants. ”

“ If you have noticed, the colors then are fresh and vivid from the light behind the clouds, though a faint mist makes them more elusive than the colors of broad day. In the sweet peas the same airy, translucent color is repeated—the wan white, the sober purple blending into lavender, the rose in infinite variety. ”

“ There the blended sights and sounds form a quiet setting for fanciful thoughts. The old Pacific rolls in its oily swells with only a rippling murmur; the droning roar of the surf a half mile down the shoreline rises from the tug of waves on tons of pebbles; the white hull of a launch is dipping, dipping [36] far out upon the water, its regular exhausts sounding faint and thin. These sights and sounds are dreamy and far off; under the mood of them the quiet mind builds sweet, lazy air castles, to be forgotten and renewed.
209. Arrange ideas in some definite order within the paragraph. ”

“ A gerund is a noun made by adding the suffix -ing to a verb (walking, hoping, sitting, being) .
An infinitive is a form of a verb, usually preceded by the word to, often used to name the action signified by the verb (to think, to have gone) .
A clause is a sentence element consisting of a subject (in the nominative case) and a predicate (with the verb in a finite form—that is, not an infinitive or a participle) .
Predicates
The fundamental word in the predicate is the verb.
A verb is a word—or a word-group—the function of which is to assert something about the subject. ”

“ Children should be seen and not heard.
Tell why your father, mother, brother, or sister ought to be chosen mayor, superintendent of schools, cashier of the bank, or anything else.
How would it be possible for you to be elected president of your class, win a letter in athletics, make Phi Beta Kappa, run 100 miles in 48 hours total time, earn $2,000 within the next year, or something else that now looks improbable?
What would happen if you could see a copy of a newspaper that would not be printed for another month?
What would you say if called on to speak at a college mass meeting? ”

“ The writer best appreciates the good writing of others, just as the amateur musician gets more pleasure from a symphony concert than does the average person in the audience. The football player sees fine points in a football game that are lost on the spectator who never tried to box a tackle or elude an end. The girl who makes her own clothes can see distinctions in gowns that all look alike to her brother. It takes the craftsman in any field of endeavor to appreciate the work of a master. ”

“ He finds—on occasion—that his composition seems to write itself. The characters he thought he had created have minds of their own and refuse to let him treat them like puppets. His thoughts seem to be alive and to exist apart from him. They insist on expressing themselves in their own way. An experienced writer does some of his best work when he seems to be merely the medium through which ideas are seeking to translate themselves from whatever world it is they inhabit to this one. ”

“ Pick a football team from the heroes of fiction or of history.
Write a good sized advertisement that could be sold to some merchant who does not advertise in one of the college publications.
What are the ten leading colleges in the country?
What is an educated man?
My alarm clock.
Write a plea to induce young men and women to stay on the farm or in the community where they were reared.
Should the higher grade go to the student who does well in his daily work or to the student who does well in an examination?
A woman’s place is in the home. ”

“ Boxing is a very well-known sport. It is widely popular both in Europe and in America. It originated several centuries ago. The main reason for the popularity of boxing is that it is a very interesting sport. The spectator is held by the rapid action of the boxers. In the early days of boxing the men were slow and relied chiefly upon strength, but the modern boxer has developed speed and uses short, quick blows. If the boxer of the past should fight the boxer of the present, the affair would be very one-sided, because the latter would soon tire out his opponent by his quickness. ”

“ The car looks cheap.
He is in the house.
Home is where the heart is.
In these sentences, red, a house, cheap, in the house, and where the heart is, are parts of the predicate, though they characterize the subject. Such elements are called complements because they complete the assertion of the verb; if adjectives, they are called adjective [47] complements, or better, predicated adjectives; if nouns, they are called noun complements, or predicated nouns; if clauses or phrases, they are called complements, or predicated phrases or clauses. ”

“ SENTENCE CORRECTNESS
The language spoken and written by educated persons and by trained writers in all parts of the English-speaking world has certain forms and usages to which everyone must conform if he wishes to be recognized as a well-educated man or woman. Conformity to the word-forms and to the sentence structure of this widespread language is called correctness.
300. Use the nominative case for the subject of every finite verb. I, thou, he, she, we, they, who, are nominatives. ”

“ Such a treatment of essentials as this is necessary partly as a review, but especially because a teacher and a student cannot discuss many of the commonest sentence faults unless they have a mutually intelligible terminology. A student must be able to recognize such grammatical elements as a subject or an object, a participle or an infinitive, a phrase or a clause, in order to produce correct and effective sentences. There is a minimum amount of grammatical knowledge without which a writer cannot rewrite his compositions so as to avoid the commonest errors and imperfections. ”

“ But however irrational may be the spelling of many English words, every student must master spelling. Nor is this a difficult task if attacked with persistence and determination. The chief obstacles are carelessness and lack of courage. Of the 450,000 words in the largest dictionaries, probably not more than one thousand are commonly misspelled by any one person—even the worst speller alive. Completely mastering a few words each day for one year, therefore, will enable any one to become a good speller. ”

“ Thus, defense is an important element in boxing.
Moreover, boxing, besides aiding in defense, is a healthful sport. The body is developed greatly after one goes out for boxing as is shown by the increase or decrease in weight, as the case may be. The weight decreases if one has been in the habit of taking no exercise as he begins training, but the weight soon increases again as the body makes the proper readjustments. Persons who are fleshy soon lose their superfluous fat. ”

“ Grammar school days arrived at last, and with them came the habit of giggling and playing, at the expense of lessons and of trying the teacher’s patience and temper. During her first year in high school, however, she calmed down and worked hard to establish a reputation. She was very enthusiastic over athletics and frequently yelled herself hoarse at basketball or football games. Much of her time at this period of her life was spent in reading books of various types and in out-of-door sports. ”

“ Good writing is most likely to result when the writer [9] fuses his own experience and observation with the experience and observation of others. Gather all the material possible without trying to decide, while you are getting it, what is important and what is not. ”

“ What are the advantages of a small or of a large college?
Buying a new car.
What should be considered in criticizing an amateur dramatic performance or a speech?
What is the leading honor an undergraduate can win at your college?
How many things will you buy before you buy a car?
If you had an assured income for the rest of your life, how would you spend your time?
Should a washing machine be in every home?
What is a gentleman? ”

“ Now, as always before, it is the custom to give way to great manifestations of joy when the football team wins over a university that is much older and much better established. Just as soon as the report comes in that Drake is gaining, feeling begins to run high; when it is said that Drake is ahead, we begin to hold our breath; but when the report spreads that Drake has won, excitement breaks out like a vast tidal wave and sweeps everything before it.
114. Weld paragraph to paragraph so that they will obviously be parts of the whole instead of separate units. ”

“ A complex sentence is one which contains not only a main assertion (or more than one) , but also one or more subordinate assertions—that is, it contains one or more assertions which are grammatically incorporated as a noun or an adjective or an adverb into the main clause or into another subordinate clause.
I saw that he had finished.
Heavy automobiles which carry large loads run smoothly. ”

“ Writing and Rewriting is based on the conviction that college freshmen can be taught to see and to correct their own errors and faults.
Criticism by means of marginal numbers, referring to pieces of advice in a rhetoric or a manual, has long been utilized to economize the instructor’s time. It has not been generally realized, however, that this method, which requires the student to inspect and rewrite a faulty sentence in the light of an illustration in his book, is successful also in teaching him to rewrite faulty sentences before he submits his manuscript to his instructor. ”

“ Nearly every real American boy wants to learn how to protect himself, and a course in boxing is the best way to learn defense. In boxing, the individual learns where the best blows are planted and also how to ward off these blows. If a boy knows these punches he will not be imposed upon by his companions. Even in later life men often become quarrelsome and come to blows, but the man [29] who has learned the fundamentals of boxing always comes out in the lead. ”

“ Scoring in Basketball
A score in basketball is made every time a player throws the ball into one of the baskets placed at each end of the court. In the West Branch High School the gymnasium is well equipped with everything the students need for their athletic contests....
[21]
Better. A score is made in basketball every time a player succeeds in throwing the ball into the basket guarded by his opponents. If this goal, as it is called, is made from the field, it counts two points. Sometimes, however, one team is given a free throw at the basket as the result of a foul’s being made. ”

“ Work done after Monday will be carried on by a night shift, although some work on the halls can be done during class hours. Workmen say that the building was erected in record breaking time. It has taken less than a month to complete the job.
Revise. The seven-hundred-word sentence used by the legislature, however, is merely an example of the prevalent tendency of people to disregard the elementary principles of composition and grammar. Everyone may have a faint recollection of having studied, at some remote period of his career, the important rules [104] of “unity, mass, and coherence.” ”

“ In my last year we had a new superintendent who was interested in athletics, and we then had teams in basketball, football, baseball, and track.
Right. At that time they reorganized a girls’ basketball team which had been dropped two years before, and they made me jumping center. Although our high school was not a large one, we played some very good games, and managed to make a good record for the four years. In my last year we had a new superintendent who was interested in athletics, and we then had teams in basketball, football, baseball, and track. ”