A. I. Simple Statements
1. OPERATIONS
We now come to the words representative of the acts or operations of our bodies and of bodies generally.
What is it possible to do to things with our arms and legs, with our hands and feet?
We make them, get them, have them, and keep them. We give them a push or a pull (or a bite, or a blow, or a kick); and they are moved in different directions.
We do all these acts; or, if we do nothing, we let things be where they are (or be moved by others).
We put our bodies in motion in different directions; we come here and go there.
But, chiefly, we put and take other bodies, other things -- in different directions; so that it is important to be clear not only about the names of acts but about the names of the directions in which things are moved.
a. The Names of Simple Acts. Among the names of the things themselves there are some which are in fact names of simple acts. Such are, a push, a pull, a bite, a blow, and a kick, which came into the account of what we 'give.'
Others are: a crush, a fall, a jump, a run, a step, a rub, a turn, a twist, a walk; but these are all the names of forms of behavior, which are only acts pinned down, as one might say, for observation (like an insect on a card), and viewed as something which may be talked about.
When it is necessary to get the motion itself into a statement and to have separate signs for what is going on or being done, language makes use of a special sort of word which is generally named a 'verb.'
These words are frequently very hard for the learner, because they have a long history of changes of form and are full of tricks, whatever attempts are made to get regular rules for them; and most languages have about 4,000 of them in common use.
Basic English has only 15 such words, in addition to be and have (pages 137, 169, 171-73, 191, 195).9
The 10 which come first are:
come-go, put-take, give-get
(which may be taken in twos, because in their chief senses they are opposites),
make, keep, let, and do.
There is not very much to say about these little words at the present stage, because it is best to keep before you the acts and motions for which they are the signs, and to go through the acts themselves with your body.
At a motion picture house, for example, there are generally two doors. By the one we come; by the other we go; and so on.
We put the food for birds; the birds take it.
We give food; the birds get it.
We make money; the banks keep it; we let them; they do the work.
Seem may be grouped with be, as the word for what is not certainly a fact, but is only a question of opinion, or has the air of being something.
The walls are wet.
The walls seem wet (but may be dry).
[For a complete picture of the root senses of the first 12 operation-words, see Section One of this book, page 27.]
Then there are three words of the same sort at a higher level.
These are say, see, and send.
They are said to be at a higher level, because, if necessary, other simpler Basic words might be used in their place. Say is a form of talking, or use of words; see is a form of looking, or use of the eyes; send is a form of putting in motion, or use of transport.
But they are so very frequently needed, and the other possible words are so roundabout, that it is best to have them in the list.
Last, there are the two 'auxiliaries' (may and will), which give us help in saying things about the time at which an act is done, or the degree in which it is possible.
In addition to these, be and have have important uses as 'auxiliaries.'
QUESTIONS AND EXAMPLES
Do the acts named by the words, put, make, and take; or make pictures of someone doing them.
Give suggestions for pictures to make clear the senses of keep andlet. (It is hard to keep a ball balanced on the end of a walking stick. There was a kind girl who let a poor rat go free.)
It may seem harder to get a good picture for seem. But take a look in the looking-glass, and you will seem to be there.
Why is it a complete statement to say the girls take plates, though it is not a complete statement to say the girls put plates?
Motion is a name for change of position in space, as, for example, when things are pushed or pulled by other things or by us. When we do the moving, we make use chiefly of our hands, so which are the 2 simplest acts of the 10 which come first?
We not only put and take things with our hands, moving them from place to place; it is with our hands that we generally give and get them (at the simple physical level). What other act is done chiefly with the hands?
Though we put, take, give, get, and make with our hands, the other 5 acts are done by other parts of the body or by the complete body. We do not come and go on our hands but on our ____. (Why not our 'foots'? Because that would be as bad as biting with our 'tooths'.)
b. BE, HAVE, WILL, MAY. The four words which give the help talked of on page 136 are be, have, will, and may. Of these, be and have, in addition to the help they give in making statements with the operation-words, may be used by themselves.
We have things (are their owners); and we ourselves are. But the other uses of be and have may all be grouped with those of will and may, which are not ever used by themselves.
All these 'auxiliary' uses are made clear in connection with the other forms which are given in the complete account of the language of acts on pages 171-173. For the present, it is only necessary to have in mind these simple examples of the way in which they come into statements:
The pencils have come (and so they are now here).
The birds will get the food (when we give it to them).
The rat may go (if the hole is open).
Have come is different from the use of have in the pencils have points. When the pencils have points they are sharp, and when they have come they are here.
So it is clear that this use of have is quite a simple expansion of the first sense.
Will get is the future form of get. It says that the getting of the food by the birds is going to be done at some later time.
May has two uses which are not hard to get clear.
It is important to be clear when two uses of a word have no connection, and when they are simply two forms of a wider use.
There are white men, black men, yellow men, and brown men; but we do not say that the word man has four different uses, with no general sense running through them all. The general sense of may is 'it is possible . . .'; and it may be possible in two ways:
In the first, the person talking makes it possible -- by giving the power, the authority, or the chance -- (to go), as in: You may go now (= I let you go now).
In the second, general conditions make it possible, by putting
nothing in the way of a desire-(to go), as in: If the dog is not chained he may go (= it is possible that he will).
The two uses of 'may' will be made clearer by this very touching story:
One day last May there was a rat in a hole. It was a good rat which took care of its little ones and kept them out of the way of men, dogs, and poison.
About sundown a farmer who was walking that way put his foot into the hole and had a bad fall. "Oh," was his thought, when he got on his legs again, "a rat for my dog, Caesar !" Naturally the rat had the same idea and kept very quiet.
After an hour or two, Caesar got tired of waiting, and the farmer put his spade over the top of the hole, so that the rat was shut up till the morning when there might be some sport. But the farmer's daughter, May, had seen him from her window. "What a shame," said May. "Poor rat !
There is no sport in letting cruel dogs loose on good mothers ! I will take the spade away. There -- the rat may go."
Then she took the spade to her father: "See ! your spade was out there in the field, and I went to get it for you.
Here it is ? "You foolish girl," was his answer, 'I put that spade over a rat-hole till the morning, and now -- the rat may go."
The girl was saying: "it is now possible for the rat to go," with the thought -- "For my part, I let her go." The farmer was saying:
"It is now possible for the rat to go," though his thought was -- "For my part, I would not have let her go."
So may is used in two different connections -- but that is not a cause of trouble; any more than the further fact that the name of the girl was May and the name of the month was May (see page 236).
c. DO NOT. When a statement using any of the operation-words but be and have is made with not, the word not is placed before the operation-word, and the needed form of do is put before the not:
Simple rules do not give trouble.10
The woman does not seem to be happy.
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The 'auxiliary' do is not used with be (or with will and may), and only in a special sense, which it is not necessary to go into at this stage, with have.
When not is used with these words it comes after them. Dead men are not conscious.11
Like have, do has a special use by itself, in addition to the help which it gives in statements made with the word not:
Good men do kind acts (see page 192).
QUESTIONS AND EXAMPLES
Here are some examples of the future formed with will:
The cook will make the cake.
A porter will take the boxes.
The meal will be late.
The use of may is equally simple:
Kind friends may come.
The place may be unhealthy.
Animals may have thoughts.
The woman may get the meat.
Put not (with do) into the statements: The birds take the berries. The banks keep the money. Quick payments seem strange.
Not comes after will or may, and before the name of the act. Put will (or will not) and may (or may not) into the statements: Birds take money. Banks keep food. Slow payments seem necessary.
We say: An umbrella will be necessary, when rain is certain, and An umbrella may be necessary, when rain is possible. When would you say: A warm coat may not be necessary?
[picture of boxes] [picture of weak man]
The boxes may have a fall. The man may be ill.
2. DIRECTIONS
We now come to the directions in which things go when they are moved.
It would not have been surprising if there had been hundreds of these; but happily there are only twenty. [Picture in a 2nd window]
Whenever anything is moved it goes to one thing and from another which is then said to be in the opposite direction.
Letters are sent from America to England; a wheel may be turned from the left to the right; water goes from the bath to the drain; a man goes from his office to his club. When he gets there he is at the club and among his friends.
The water, however, will not be at the drain but in it, and before that it will have gone through a pipe (that is to say, it will have gone into12 the pipe at one end and out13 of it at the other).
But the drain is at a lower level than the bath, so we might equally say that the water goes down the pipe. A monkey going up a tree to get fruit at the top is a good example of motion in the opposite direction.
He goes about the tree looking for a good place, and when he gets on a branch and takes fruit off it he gives us a picture of two other opposites.
Part One of this book comes before Part Two; this page comes after page 53, and between them is page 54; when the book is shut and on the table, this page comes somewhere between the front cover which is over it and the back cover which is under it.
To go across is to go from one side to another. We go across a river, a street, a bridge, and so on. When we are waiting and looking at the water before getting into it, we are by or near the river, and the river is going by us.
If we took a swim in one direction the current would be pushing against us, but if we went the other way the current would be with us; that is to say, it would be going in the same direction, like a dog or a friend going with us for a walk.
Here, as a help in keeping some of these things in mind, is the story of the young man whose death was caused by the noise which got on his nerves after an operation in hospital, though a dog, a rat, and a fly all did their parts in putting him in hospital in the first place.
The dog went after the rat, by the drain, across the street, over the wall, with the fly, through the door, against the rules, to the meat.
The fly got in the meat, into the mouth, down the throat, among the muscles.
The poison got off the fly, at the digestion, about the system.
The noise came from an instrument, under the window, up the steps, through the hospital; and got on the nerves, after the operation, before death.
Take note in this account of the word into, which is formed by putting to and in together to give the sense 'to a position in' (something). This is your first example of a 'complex word' (see pages 156-58).
You will see in addition that the uses of against, after, and before in this story are a little different from their root uses (pages 201, 202-03).
They are examples of simple and natural 'expansions' (see page 183).
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Some of the words we have been talking about are not names of directions but names of positions in which things come to rest after moving in the different directions. For purposes of learning, however, they may be put in the same group.
When the fly goes to the meat, it may come, at the end of its journey, to be on it. So we may equally well say that it goes on the meat.
It may be resting in the meat, or between two bits of meat, or among the bones in the meat, or at the edge of the meat.
All this will be much clearer when the full account is given of the ways in which the senses of words are stretched. [For a clear picture of the root senses of all twenty of the words naming physical directions, see Section One of this book, page 30.]
Two of these little words may seem at first to be quite different from the others. They are of and for.
But if we take a bit off the top, it is clear that this is very like taking a bit of the top.
In fact, of is frequently used after words like part, as in a part of the animal, and, as a further development, with words like number and amount, a number of friends.
From the use with part one may readily see how of has come to be used as a sign of the relation between property and its owner: the leg of the boy, the shoe of the boy.14
For has gone a greater distance from its early use as the name of a position (in front of, before), till it now only takes the place of other groups of words, to make statements about exchange and purpose go more smoothly.
The porter will go for money (= in exchange for money).
The porter will go for the box (= with the purpose of getting the box).
The father will get the reward for the family (= in the place of, in the interests of).
It is not important to give much time at the start to these special uses. Take note of them as you come across them in examples, and more will be said about them on pages 204 and 206.
a. The Names of Directions Because the names of directions generally come before the names of the things to which we go (or from which we take other things, and so on), they have been named 'prepositions,' that is to say, words 'placed before' others.
But it is no harder to get the idea of a direction than to make the discovery later that names of directions frequently do not come before anything.
For example, we may say, we will go up (simply in the direction up), without the name of any special thing being given. It may be up the mountain, or up the steps (or up the list of names, by an expansion which will be made clear on page 210).
When in, up, over, and the rest are used by themselves in this way, they are said to be used as 'adverbs,' to which we are coming on page 146.15
QUESTIONS AND EXAMPLES
In the group of words we have been talking about, the idea of direction is more important than the idea of position, because in our account of acts it is made clear that an act is done in a certain direction to some thing:
bees take sugar from the flowers; the men give food to the horses; the guides go up the mountains; monkeys come down the trees.
It then seems natural to go one stage farther and say: bees put the sugar in wax; the food is by the horses; the horses take the food off the floor; the guides are on the mountain; the monkey is at the foot of the tree.
Put the words after, by. across, over, with, through, against, and to in different places in the first part of the story of the causes of the young man's death (The dog went to the rat, against the drain, through the street, with the wall, and so on).
See how far the story still makes sense; and give the reasons when the act is not a possible one.
Which of the names of directions will go together two by two; like up and down, to and from?
When the time comes to give attention to such details, it is a safe general rule to make use of of when talking about things and fictions as if they were owners, and the ' a ' form when talking about persons and animals in this connection.
For example, say : the stem of the flower, the end of hope ; but : the cow's horn, the men's trousers, the horses' food.16
b. How to Make Verbs . There are some languages, of which English is one, in which statements are frequently made with 'verbs,' but by making a sort of X-ray picture in our minds of those complex forms, we see that they are made up of operation and direction words.
For example, 'enter' (a room), 'disappear' (into the garden), 'retire' (to bed), 'traverse' (a bridge), 'pursue' (a man) are all forms of 'going,' in one direction or another.
It is equally simple to see that 'mount' (a horse), 'extract' (a tooth), 'approach' (a town), 'ascend' (a mountain) are unnecessary when we are able to say 'get on,' 'take out,' 'come to,' and 'get up.
Let us take again the story of the young man in hospital as it might have been given using 'verbs':
The dog 'pursued' the rat, 'passed' the drain, 'crossed' the street, and 'climbed' the wall, 'bearing' the fly; it 'entered' the door, 'broke' the rules, and 'approached' the meat.
The fly 'invaded' the meat, 'penetrated' the mouth, 'descended' the throat, and 'infested' the muscles.
The poison 'left' the fly, 'attacked' the digestion, and 'permeated' the system.
You will see that there are no names for directions here; but sometimes they are used in addition to the 'verbs':
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The noise 'emanated' from an instrument 'located' under the window, 'proceeded' up the steps, and 'diffused' itself through the hospital; it 'worked' on the young man's nerves, 'following' after his operation.
Some acts have a natural tendency to go in one special direction. Give generally goes with to. Is this clear from the sense of give ?
If not, make the motion of giving something, and see if under or down would come naturally into your mind for the direction taken by your hand.
In the same way you will probably get a feeling that take has a natural connection with from, because taking is the opposite of putting and giving.
You may be able to make a suggestion for come and send. But even an expert in making signs will be in doubt as to the special friends of get among the directions.
The uses of seem are not quite parallel with those of the others in this group. But if you see your face in the looking-glass, it will certainly seem to you to be at the back of the glass.
Things may seem strange, or seem to17 be strange in the same way as they may be ready; and get, like seem, will go with most 'adjectives,' because it is the name of the process of change or development.
For example:
An old dog will not get young again.
Every time you put together the name of one of the 10 simple acts (six of which are free to go in almost any direction) with the
name of one of the 20 directions or positions in space, you are making a 'verb'; that is to say, in some languages a new word would be necessary for the complete act.
In France, for example, they do not get down a tree, or get down into a hole, but there is a special word ('descendre') for get down, and another special
word for get up ('monter'), another for get across ('traverser'), another for get ready ('preparer'), and so on.
Normal English has a great number of 'verbs' of the same sort, like 'ascend,' 'descend,' 'climb,' 'traverse,' and 'prepare,' and every one of them is itself a new sound for the learner and has a number of special forms in addition.
Months, or even years, of training are needed to get 4,000 of these sounds and forms fixed in the memory, so that the value of a good working knowledge of the 30 little words for acts and
their directions in Basic English will be clear to all who are interested in cutting down the time which it now takes to get a knowledge of English.
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QUESTIONS AND EXAMPLES
Give a Basic substitute for the 'verbs' in these examples:
The men 'extract' the root with a spade.
The boys 'deposit' nuts in the basket.
The girls 'manufacture' stems for pipes.
The women 'can obtain' fowls at the market.
The nation will 'prepare' for war.
Some goats 'leave' the garden.
Get is the most general of all the names of acts. In fact it will take the place of almost all the others and so may frequently be used when in doubt. For example: the men get the root out with a spade, the boys get nuts into the basket, and so on.
3. HOW, WHEN, AND WHERE
The way in which an expansion of our knowledge of things takes place is, first, by the addition of the names of their qualities, so that we get a man, a good man; and, second, by the addition of the names of acts, so that we get the good man, the good man comes.
The act may be done in any one of the different directions, all of which have their names, as we have seen; or it may be done
in some special way. There are only twenty names of directions, but there is no limit to the number of ways, and a separate sort of word (an 'adverb') is frequently used for the way in which we do things.
RULE. 'Adverbs' are formed by the addition of -ly to an 'adjective.' 18
There are some very common 'adverbs' which are not made from 'adjectives.' They are chiefly words for place, time, or amount:
again, ever, far, forward, here, near, now, out, still, then, there, together, well, little, much.
Of these, far-near, now-then, here-there will go two by two as Opposites; and well (which has another use as an 'adjective' opposite ill, see page 131) is the special form taken by the 'adverb' of good.
Most of these are generally put after the operation-word:
He will go again (far, forward, near, now, out, then, there, and so on) 19
Then there is another group made up of the 'adverbs' of degree: almost, enough, even, only, quite, so, and very. These are used chiefly with 'adjectives' and other 'adverbs.'
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QUESTIONS AND EXAMPLES
Make a list of all the 'adjectives' which would probably not be given the ending ly, because of their sense (cut, hanging, yellow, male, married, past, tall, and so on).
The names of the colors all seem to come naturally in such a list; it would only be possible to do things 'in a blue way' by a strange stretch of the sense.
Do the same with those where the sound might be against the addition (complex, early, parallel, and so on).
For every one of these examples make a list of 6 'adverbs' which make sense in the spaces.
"You are a foolish boy," he said ____.
He went to the house ____.
The airplane came down____.
The statement was____ true.
'Adjectives' of position in space or time may be used as 'adverbs' without a change of form; for example, high, deep, flat, early, last. Make a list of these.
Is the picture representative of any of these 'adverbs':
near, badly, happily, secretly, cruelly, strongly?
A special note is needed about hard, which has no -ly form in Basic, but may itself be used as an 'adverb' in the sense 'with much force,' as in: It is raining hard.
4. I, HE, YOU; THIS, THAT
You now have a language in which things may be talked about by giving their qualities ('adjectives'), and by saying what they
do ('verbs'), the directions in which they go ('prepositions'), and the ways in which the acts are done ('adverbs').
The most necessary words are those which take the place of the simplest sign -- pointing; then come those which do the work of the other signs we make when pointing is not enough.
And there are some words like 'adverbs' which take the place, not of pointing, or of simple signs, but of other words, so that as little time as possible may be wasted in making our ideas clear to others.
Sometimes we are pointing at ourselves, which is the same as saying the person here; or at others (the person there). But at a very early stage some languages get special words for this purpose. We say:
I will come, He will come, and You will come.
And in place of the thing here and the thing there we say: this and that, or this thing and that thing.
If we are talking about more than one thing or person, this and that become these and those.
Who (with which and what) is in this group, but it is not needed till we come to put words in their right order in longer statements.
When I am talking about myself together with others, or when a word is needed for 'you and I together,' the 'plural' form we is used, as in
We will come tomorrow.
When it is two or more of your friends who are coming, you say:
They will come.
But if you are talking to your friends, you say:
You will come,
using the same form for a number of friends as you would for one.20
QUESTIONS AND EXAMPLES
If you make a picture of a house, you may say about this house, This is a house, I will make this house, and so on; or if there are two or more houses, you say about these houses, These are houses, I will make these houses, and so on.
Do the same with that and those, and make use of the names of all the buildings (library, house, church, and so on) and all the vessels (boat, bottle, bucket, basin, pot, and so on) in the list.
When you have given money for a house, you are its owner, and you have the house.
When two or more of your friends have a house, they say We have a house; and you say They have a house. If you are going to give a house to two friends, you say I will give a house to you. What would they then say to their friends, if they made use of the word get?
Such is a less straightforward pointing word than this and that, having the sense 'of this (that) sort,' or even 'of this (that) sort of size (degree)': such ideas are foolish, the gloves are not such a dark color'.
Take note of the word-order -- such before a (it is never used with the).
5. CRIES AND ORDERS
The use of one word by itself with the mark '!' after it is the sign of a strong feeling about the thing or the act named by the word -- Fire !, Danger ! Sometimes the feeling is a desire -- Water ! Very commonly such a cry is an order: Come ! Stop !
The sense is dependent on the place or the conditions in which such words are used. If a man is ill in bed, and he says Water ! -- we may be certain that he would be pleased to have a drink.
But if some boys are looking about for a place where their boats may go sailing, and one of them suddenly sees water, and says Water ! ---the others do not give him a drink.
Three Basic words which are specially used by themselves are Yes !, No !, and Please ! Their use in this way is so common that the "!" sign is not necessary.
A 'cry' may sometimes be made up of more than one word:
Go back !
Oh, what a shame !
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Orders are given by using the root-form of an operation-word without a name or 'pronoun.' In this way they are like cries but in other ways they may be like full statements, keeping the same word-order as in a normal statement:
Come to the theater tomorrow.
Put the gun down.
The "!" sign is not generally used after orders or requests formed of more than one or two words, but may be if they are cried out:
Keep away from the edge!
When 'not' is needed in an order, the 'auxiliary' do has to be used:
Do not go in there.
There are a number of noises which, though not internationally used, are probably clear to everyone when the conditions in which they are used are given.21
Oh !, Ah ! are 'interjections' of this sort, which might have been listed with the group of international words (page 235), if they had been important enough.
Not all the 'interjections' are made with the purpose of saying something to another person.
Sometimes they are only an outlet for one's feelings, as when we say 'Ow !' on coming up against a door suddenly, or 'Phew !' when the heat is very great. It is clearly not necessary for this private language of the feelings to be [sic]
QUESTIONS AND EXAMPLES
One special use of these cries is for military purposes. Fire ! is the order for a gun to be made to go off with a loud noise and smoke. given an international form.
Attention ! is the order to take a stiff position and get ready for another order: Eyes front ! Left turn ! -- and so on. Make a selection of words which might be of use for giving orders in a school (Attention ! Quick ! Come here ! Books shut ! Quiet, please !).
When you are surprised, or overcome by strong feelings, do you make noises which would be clear to everyone in any country ? Do you say : Oh ! Ah ! Pooh ! Bah ! Shssh !?
Make these examples into short cries:
I have a desire for a porter for the bags. (Porter !)
That was a cruel act. (Shame !)
That is a very good thing. (Good !)
Make this order into its opposite by the use of not:
Get the meal ready before I come back.
At this point, most learners will probably have a good working
knowledge of the 850 words and their senses. On pages 126-27 there
was a list of the first 100 names of things for general use. Here is a
suggestion for the last 100:
addition, adjustment, agreement, amusement, apparatus, approval, argument, art, attraction, authority, base, brass, cause, committee, comparison, condition, connection, control, credit, crime, current,
debt, decision, degree, development, digestion, discovery, discussion, disease, disgust, distance, distribution, education, effect, error, event, existence, expansion, experience, expert, fact, fiction, flight,
government, harmony, history, humor, impulse, increase, industry, instrument, insurance, invention, level, limit,
manager, mass, metal, nation, observation, offer, opinion, organization, position, power, process, produce, profit, property, prose, protest, purpose,
range, rate, reaction, regret, representative, respect, rhythm, science, selection, sex, shame, shock, society, structure, substance, suggestion, support, system,
tax, tendency, test, theory, transport, unit, value, vessel, weight, wine.
9. In its simplest sense be is the word for existence; but, as we have seen, its forms (is and are) are used for making simple statements (p. 132).
10. We might equally well say; Simple rules give no trouble.
11. In talking, it is very common to say little words like not so quickly that the o is not sounded. Do not, in writing the words, then becomes don't (with a change of sound to doant as in road).
But at first there is no need to give any attention to such details. Do not, have not, is not, and may not, for example, are quite natural English, though in everyday talk don't, haven't, isn't, and mayn't are commoner.
Another trick with not is the change of not ever to never, but here again it is wiser to keep the learning of these special forms to the very last. When you are expert enough to say what you have to say clearly and simply it will be time to make your talk more natural and more polished.
12. Into is formed by putting together to and in (for the process of getting inside anything). (See p. 141.)
13. For an account of out in relation to in, see pp. 207-08.
14. Sometimes in place of using ' of ' to give the idea of property, 's is put after the name of the owner as in the animal's tail (for the tail of the animal).
These little words are like drops of oil put into a machine when necessary. When is it necessary ? Experience with the machine is better than a long list of possible reasons.
15. Two other words used as 'adverbs' of direction may here be noted: back (opposite of forward) and round.
16. After a form for more than one ending in s, we put simply '.
17. This use of to is one about which more will be said later when we come to the 'infinitive' (p. 209).
18. Because of the sense or the sound, it is not possible to make this addition to every one of the 150 'adjectives,' but over 100 have this regular ending.
We do not say cut-ly (because of the sense), or parallel-ly (because of the strange sound).
Tallly, smallly, and longly are not formed; and there are no adverbs for like and same.
In writing the adverb forms from adjectives ending in y, the y is changed into i; for example, angrily, healthily.
In addition there are the not quite straightforward forms: truly (from true), fully (from full); automatically, elastically, and electrically; ably, feebly, possibly, probably, responsibly, and simply.
19. There is frequently used for making everyday statements like: There is a kettle on the fire, or There are no cracks in the glass (p. 220). Such statements are not unlike those starting with it (see pp. 172, 178), where it is not used for the name of something talked about earlier.
The special places of other adverbs, like ever and still, will be made clear when we come to word-order (p. 165).
20. For other such forms (she, it) see p. 170.
21. Basic makes no general use of words which might seem to be international because they are formed from sounds ('onomatopoeia').
But a small number of names of noises, such as 'the buzz of a bee,' 'the pop of a cork,' or the 'tick of a clock,' will have a limited value as simple sounds.
Naturally, other languages may have other names for such noises; but a cuckoo, a hiccup, and a miaou, meow or mew will probably give little trouble. Other suggestions made in
Basic English (p. 37) are cluck, crash, croak, flap, splash, and wheeze; but, naturally, they are only to be used in connection with the things or acts by which they are caused, and chiefly for ornament or amusement.
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