LBE Chap 2 Vocabulary

Learning Basic English, page 22.
CHAPTER TWO, Part b.
The Vocabulary

EXERCISE VI. Now cover the right-hand half of the page and try out these. In Basic :

When we bestow something on a person
and when we receive something from him
If we authorize a person to do something
and if we publish the fact
If we devote ourselves to an undertaking
and if we sanction it
If we abandon an idea or relinquish hope
When we strike a man
and when we signal to him
When we prepare for something
and when we ponder it or think about it
When we promise to do a thing
and when we submit to it
A man escaping from prison
and recovering from a disease
If we reply to someone
and if we elicit an answer from him
If we obtain a seat
and if we vacate it
When we support a thing
If we assist a person
and if we hinder him, probably
When we disclaim a thing
and if we reclaim it or have it returned
When we despair
and when we please someone

we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we
we

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answers

Give and get are a useful pair of verbs. Of get, Ogden says, speaking in Basic, in The System of Basic English, page 95: "When anything is our property, it may have been given to us, or we may have taken it, or it may have come to us in some other way. Get is the most general word for all such processes, in relation to everything which may be talked about." He follows up his statement, with a useful summary of the range of uses of get in common practice.

EXERCISE VII. Consider Put and Take.

When we deposit money in the bank
and when we withdraw it
When we pick up a book in the library
and when we borrow it
If we return it to its shelf
If we impose upon someone
and if we depose a ruler
and if we replace him with another
If we tolerate something
When a man deceives us
and if we eject him from a house
When we terminate a discussion
and if we reopen a question
If we have a tooth extracted
When we procrastinate
and when we repose
If we sign a statement
and if we frame a picture
If we patch a sleeve
If we bite into an apple
If we look at a thing
and if we feel of it
If we straighten or tidy a room
If we dissect something
If you photograph anyone
If you destroy something
If you ask a man something and
if you inform him of certain facts
Humiliating a person
and robbing him
If a man murders another
If we arrest the wrongdoer
and if we imprison him

, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, he
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, you
, you
, you
, you
, you
, you
, he
, we
, we

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answers

Such examples give an idea of the covering range of put and take. Of take, in The System of Basic English, page 102, Ogden has this to say : "We take what is put for us (generally with our hands) and when we have taken it we put it somewhere ourselves. When, for example, there are different sorts of food which have been put out, the question is, What will you take? A great number of things which are put for us are given; so take will go with most of the things which are said to be given to us, such as a name, an order, a chance, a cold, a position, a suggestion. The chief thing which almost anyone is ready to take, if it is given freely or in payment, is money. In the same way (when it is offered to us or is free) we take a seat."

EXERCISE VIII. In Basic : Keep and Let.

If we retain a thing
and if we relinquish it
When we avoid a place
and when we avoid a person
If we unlock and enter a building
and if we admit someone else
and if we refuse to admit him
If a teacher detains a boy after school
and if she dismisses him
If we refrain from doing something
and if we permit some other person to do it
If we prevent him

, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, she
, she
, we
, we
, we

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answers

We may keep a secret or a Cat or a cow, and let a house or an office, keep up with the Joneses and let down our hair, keep our friends up late and let ourselves in for trouble or keep out of it.

EXERCISE IX. Make from things / make things happen.

When we create or concoct something
If we removel a thing
and if we invent a reason for doing so
If we equate two things
and if we reduce one of them
If we increase it
If we decipher a bit of writing
and if we explain it to someone
When we clarify a thing
and if we obfuscate
When a doctor cures a man
If you pamper a person
and if you exasperate him
If you soothe him
If you adopt a baby
If you err

, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, he
, you
, you
, you
, you
, you

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answers

There are hundreds of things men make from other things (cloth from wool, buildings from wood, etc.) and then there is the use of make indicating compulsion, making things happen. For example :

If we compel a person to do something
If we repair a watch or a machine
If we starve a person
and if we feed him by force
If we hatch a chicken
and if we drive a cow through a gate
If we pull a thing toward us
If you direct a man's work
If you send him away

, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, you
, you

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answers

EXERCISE X . Say.
Breaking down send, which is itself a Basic operator, into the parts make and go is a reminder that there are 3 of the i 6 operators that permit of restatement in simpler terms : say, see, and send. They are on a higher level of complexity than the nine fundamental forms of behavior you have been exercising, although simpler than other highly complex verbs which they help one to dispense with (in Basic, do without).

When we repeat a thing
When we deny something
When we refuse someone
When we accept him
If we quote him
and if we mimic him
If we announce him
and if we introduce him to people
If we contradict him
and if we lie to him

, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we
, we

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answers

(a) Saying is a more Basic way of speaking, reciting, stating, remarking, commenting, uttering, vouchsafing, asserting, declaring, and the rest.
(b) Seeing, similarly, though we can get round it by a cumbersome circumlocution, is a highly useful word and a Basic substitute for observing, descrying, witnessing, noting, remarking, spying, beholding, in some of their uses, as well as perceiving, discovering, grasping, comprehending, knowing, understanding, and other ways of "seeing with the mind's eye."
Give wider English equivalents to show the work being done by see in the following Basic statements :
I will see you tomorrow, when I have more time.
Come and see me some day.
I see what the trouble is.
He doesn't see the point.
He doesn't see well.
(c) Send also helps to keep the English of Basic natural and smooth although, as we have seen, make go is a more analytic way of referring to the same act. We send a person here or there, or send things to him by rail or post, too frequently to manage conveniently without the short familiar expression. Send helps to eliminate more complex terms like throw, dismiss, dispatch, mail, expel, transmit, convey, discharge, produce, exude, emit, propel, drive, request by message, donate from a distance, and return.
Those 12 operators name acts. The next operator, do, is the most general name of all the more than 4,000 familiar acts that men and machines perform, the acts which are reducible to phrases using one or other of the Basic 12. We could not do without it. Do has a number of uses with which all English-speaking people are familiar, including the almost pronoun-like job of substitution for a fuller statement to avoid repetition, as in "He made an error in that yesterday, and today he did it again," and "She came late and so did he."
Another important use of do is its use in negative expressions, "I do not go there every day," and still another its use for emphasis, "He did do it, I say," and "Do make less noise."
Do also acts as the sign of a question before all the subjects of all the other operators we have been using. It even supplies this sign before itself, as in "Did he do it?" as well as before seem and have, two of the three other operators not yet discussed. The exception is the verb to be. We don't ask "Do you be there?" Nor does Basic. But the rest of the Basic operators ask questions this way. Have is the only one of the 15 with which did is sometimes unnecessary. We say, "Had he three boys with him or only two?" and "Did he have three boys with him or two?" though the second of these is in some circles frowned upon. Basic follows common practice here as in all its syntax rulings for verbs, though no doubt the foreign learner would be happier if he were taught only one form. ²
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2. He would be happier still if English took the reasonable course of dropping all otiose^a inflections and always said, e.g., did give for gave or I be here for I'm here, He be seeing for He sees, and so on. But a foreigner who spoke so, though he could be well understood, would stir the risible faculties. And so taught, he would have more difficulty in understanding common English. So Basic avoids all such simplifications.
2.a. "otiose" (oh' shi ose) -- lazy, ineffective, futile, superfluous, useless -25- Part C.
Exercise XI. The other operators besides do with auxiliary as well as full verb use are have and be.
Exercise XII. If you fill in blanks from memory in the next exercise you will review these relation words in the order in which they occur on the Basic list. < prev a < LBE > next c>

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