The Rules

Learning Basic English, Chap 3. The Rules

CHAPTER THREE
The Rules

THERE, then, is the first part of the English-speaking person's task displayed: finding out and remembering which words are on the Basic list. As you proceed with a survey of the simple rules that govern their use, you may like to test yourself on the knowledge of the pocket vocabulary so far gained. The following exercises are provided both as a check and as a means of coming to closer grips with the words, at first alone and then in action. Work first from memory, then turn to the Basic list for what you do not recall and find your answers there. A key is provided for each exercise that needs one.

EXERCISE I. Underline all Basic words among the following. Then check yourself by the Basic list : number, many, glad, happy, whole, complete, altogether, amount, quantity, often, frequently, seat, chair, tell, say, metal, mineral, meal, food, eat, house, home, building, shop, store, office, business, place, location, position, spot, point, bring, take, get, find, need, want, desire, wish, hope, anticipate, think, thought, read, reading, price, priceless, life, living, existence, corn, pain, night, evening, noon, morning.

EXERCISE II. A surprising number of book titles happen to be completely in Basic. How many can you think of? You should find 18 Basic titles among those given below. (Proper names may of course be used in Basic as in full English.) Check those that are entirely in Basic and underline the non-Basic words in the remainder. The Book of the Dead, War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, Representative Men, The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, North and South, The Land of Heart's Desire, Past and Present, Toilers of the Sea, Arms and the Man, Last Days of Pompeii, Tales of a Wayside Inn, Little Women, The Sketch Book, The Moonstone, Little Man What Now?, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, American Notes, Stones of Venice, The Way of All Flesh, A Sentimental Journey, Tom Brown's Schooldays, Black Beauty, The Old Curiosity Shop, The Woman in White, Sense and Sensibility! The Tongues of Men, We Are Not Alone, The Turn of the Screw.

EXERCISE III. Underline the non-Basic words in the six paragraphs below. Then check yourself by the word list. (You will notice that it is usually possible in these particular passages to find a Basic synonym or approximation which may be substituted for the wider English word without disturbing the syntax of the sentence. The exercise is put together with that in mind. Practice in proofreading near-Basic is useful for a start.

1. A brief enumeration of the most spectacular of the new inventions gives us an idea of the part they have had in making modem America. The telephone speedily became an essential addition to every office and store.
2. Make great the name of the Lord; the worship of the Lord is holy and beautiful. Make clear his high place among the nations, his great works among all peoples. Let the heavens rejoice in their ruler and the earth be full of song.
3. The liver is the largest solid organ inside man's body. It must have a number of important things to do but we are in doubt about some of them. Part of its function is to keep the blood free from poison. All the end-products of digestion go into it before being sent out again as red blood through the body. All the starch and sugar foods are stored there in the form of "glycogen" or animal starch.
4. The world of today is still working out the questions handed down from the French Revolution in the political field and the English Revolution in industry. The revolution in industry has been responsible for more changes in men's ways of living and in the kind of things they do than any other event in history. It was the outcome of uniting science and industry.
5. A cell is generally a flat, round body so small that it may only be seen under a microscope. But there are many other sorts of cell. Cells can be like balls, or square bricks, or stars, or thin threads. And some may be seen very easily without a microscope at all.
6. A tailor should see his military duty as a debt he has to his country. If he does his work quickly and quietly, that soon gets to be his regular way of acting. If he keeps in good spirits and makes a real attempt to do the right thing, he will get a chance to improve in rating. Obedience makes learning easy. Each man in service can have the right state of mind toward his work. He should also have respect for authority. Each order given by any man in authority must be obeyed without question.

EXERCISE IV. Put the appropriate form of one or other of the 18 operators in the blanks to complete this bit of Basic narrative :

Mr. Jones . . . . . . to his feet . . . . . . his hat on, and . . . . . . out into the night. He . . . . . . a deep breath or two and . . . . . . a small stone jumping across the sidewalk off the toe of his polished boot. He . . . . . . feeling better now that he . . . . . . up his mind. Clearly this . . . . . . the thing to . . . . . .
It . . . . . . late-how late he . . . . . . no idea. His foot steps . . . . . . a hollow sound in the dark street. He . . . . . . unable to . . . . . . an inch in front of him. " . . . . . . anyone . . . . . . up?" he . . . . . . to himself. Then, looking hard at the delicately lighted face of his watch, "But certainly. It . . . . . . only a little after 12. I . . . . . . even . . . . . . in time for a word with James as well as his sons. It . . . . . . possible, at least."
Turning into a side road he . . . . . . to a stop at the third door on the left. He out his hand, feeling for the bell. There . . . . . . quick steps and he . . . . . . out the sound of a woman's voice. Then James's daughter . . . . . . there!
She . . . . . . him in and . . . . . . him a little kiss as he . . . . . . his hand on her arm. She . . . . . . like James. She . . . . . . nothing and . . . . . . no need of words. She . . . . . . a comfort to him. He . . . . . . that her face . . . . . . serious but not sad.
". . . . . . your father by himself?" he . . . . .
"No. John. . . . . . an hour earlier but he . . . . . . . still here. The two sailors . . . . . . with them. William . . . . . . a note. He . . . . . . not . . . . . . till tomorrow. Some sudden business . . . . . . him. It . . . . . . strange not to . . . . . . him here."

EXERCISE V. Fill in directives (prepositions) from the Basic OPERATIONS list to complete the following extract from Carter and Ogden's General History (Nelson, 1938). Remember that compound prepositions may be formed from two Basic words if necessary.

It seems strange ________ us now that the men ________the Old Stone Age were able to go ________ foot ________ Europe ________ Africa, and that ________ place ________ the Straits ________ Gibraltar, there was a land-bridge ________ the two. And they were able ________ go ________ Europe ________ Britain because Britain was joined ________ Europe, and the Thames and the Trent and the Seine all went ________ the. Rhine. South Africa was joined ________ India. America was joined ________ land ________ Asia ________ the one hand and ________ Scotland ________ way ________ Greenland ________ the other. Then ________ great natural changes, Europe became separate ________ Africa. and Britain ________ Europe.
Probably ________ ten thousand years _________ the birth ________ Christ most men had got ________ the stage ________ development named the New Stone Age, and were moving slowly forward ________ a new level ________ existence. They were now expert ________ all the most necessary arts: training animals as servants ________ man; farming; making thread ________ plants and cloth ________ thread; forming pots and cooking vessels. But they were still ________ metals and ________ writing.
________ the museums we may see and take ________ our hands the very things which were used ________ the earliest men. They are, ________ fact, our oldest histories. ________ them we have the most interesting story ________ the development ________ early man, ________ the first attempt ________ cracking a stone ________ the polishing and forming ________ it ________ a very good instrument . fighting or other purposes.
________ thousands ________ years men made other great discoveries. When they were looking ________ stones they somehow came one day ________ a bit ________ bright hard substance, the metal copper. ________time they became expert ________hammering and polishing this substance and made use ________ it _________ ornament. But they saw that copper was not hard enough to make strong fighting instruments and other such things ________ a time they came ________ another metal, tin. Then, later still, ________ getting copper and tin mixed, they were able to make a very hard metal named bronze. This great discovery made possible the use ________ strong bronze instruments ________ place ________ stone ones, and because bronze was better ________ cutting stone and wood, men were now ________ a position to put ________ better buildings. The Great Pyramids ________ Egypt, put ________ the dead, were made ________the help ________ bronze instruments.
answer -36-

EXERCISE VI. Put Basic words from the list of general THINGS in the blanks to make sense of this extract from Stafford Hatfield's Inventions and Their Uses in Science Today, from the chapter on "Sound." (For example, in sentence 1, the missing words are : part; body; use; inventions.)

One ________ of our ________ makes ________ of two good ________ which are overlooked at another. Our eyes have ________ by which ________ may be completely shut out if desired. But when the ________ are off, the ________ which does get in has to go through a small ________ the round black ________ in the ________ of the eye. This ________ quickly and automatically makes an ________ of its ________ to the ________ of ________ the eye is getting, shutting up small when the ________ is strong and opening when the ________ is feeble. It is strange that we have no ________ of this ________ fixed to our ears. They have to take what they get, even if it is unpleasing or gives ________.
On the other hand, our ears have a much wider ________ than our eyes. We are conscious of ________ between 20 a second and 30,000 a second (a ________ of 1,500 to 1, the ________ of our eyes being only about 2 to 1). With increasing ________ our ear ________ gets less. The ________ of the young is better than that of the old: their ears take in much higher ________. The ________ of the bat, a mouse-like ________ with wings, which goes about chiefly at ________ , is one common ________ ; a young ________ has the ________ of ________ its high ________ , but an old ________ has not. And cats and dogs have the ________ of ________ much higher _________ than we do. For this ________ their ears take in a soft "hiss" which has very high ________ in it. When you see a cat in the street again make a very soft hiss at it. It will be conscious of the high ________ over the loud ________ of all the ________ in the street, and put up its ears.
KEY: (This is a harder puzzle than the last. It shows us how many of the key ideas nouns can carry. We have a much greater range of choice open to us when it is these we have to fill in. You may find some alternative renderings, e.g., sounds instead of things in the last blank, which will work as well if not better in the passage.)
answer

EXERCISE VII . Find the points at which this reporter goes outside Basic. The quotations are taken from six feature articles carried by one newspaper at three-day intervals just after Mr. Churchill's comments on the international usefulness of Basic (Harvard University, September 6, 1943). The fact that the stories were in a restricted vocabulary and syntax went quite undetected by office staff and public alike, thus proving to the editor's satisfaction that there is nothing queer about Basic.

1. Big-hearted Cabdriver Left Holding the Baby (headline for one of the articles).
2. Instead there came a telegram but it came too late: "Cannot come to see Barbara today but will come soon" . . . Mrs. Triano like; wise had a heart as wide as all outdoors. "Let's not do anything until the weekend," she said. . . . Dominick gave her a piece of his mind.
3. It may be quite a. while before, as the song puts it, the lights come on again all over the earth, but there were many signs yesterday that this town will be much brighter before very long. . . . Lighting experts, who have been hammering the Office of Civilian Defense as the cause of the screwball rules, made a point yesterday that the Pacific Coast dimout had been given the brush-off. The Atlantic seaboard, they said, might well do the same.
4. A German woman taken to Governors Island for questioning said that the war was forced on Germany but Germany would rule the world. The manager of one F.B.I. branch said that she had a strong belief that the Nazi kind of government was the best. She was a "second cousin" of Rudolf Hess.

KEY : 1.
big (Basic has both little and small but only great for the opposite quality. You can think of one reason for the inclusion of little at once. It is listed in the OPERATIONS list and it is primarily for use as an adverb. We can add -ly to form an adverb from great but not from small.)
cab (Basic has automobile and taxi as 2 of the 50 international words.)
left (As used here, the past participle of the verb leave, which is not in Basic.)
holding (Some 300 Basic nouns take endings -er, -ing, or -ed when necessary but hold cannot be one of these as it is not on the list!)
KEY : 2.
instead (A convenient word but Basic cannot afford it when it has the widely useful in and place and of as well as other possible phrases.)
too (A homophone to be avoided for the beginner when to and 2 are Basic. As and well, both Basic words, make it unnecessary.)
cannot (Can slips into most attempted Basic at first. Not able to takes its place here.)
soon (Presently is more economical than soon. It is built from, the quality present by adding the adverb sign -ly, allowed in Basic. Before very long, in a short time, in 10 minutes or so, are other alternatives.)
likewise (Two Basic words, but what would the beginner make of them as a compound?)
until (Choosing till instead of until for the OPERATIONS list avoids confusion of un with the prefix un- permitted in Basic for negatives.)
piece (Another avoidable homophone. The homespun bit saves the beginner from confusion with the Basic word peace.)
KEY : 3 .
while (In OPERATIONS list, but not as a synonym of time. Don't use while as a noun.)
many (Perhaps the most popular addition to Basic. Nearly all beginners let it slip in now and then. A great number and quite a number are useful alternatives.)
screwball (Screwdriver is good Basic but why not screwball? Of course for an audience that understands slang, this sort of word can be used most effectively, but in writing, the Basic practice is to put it in quotation marks, as with technical terms not covered by any special vocabulary. [See Basic English, page 74.] This reporter, writing for an English-speaking, slang-using public, had a good time in his feature articles exploiting the word list for such ingenious slang expressions as push-over, monkey-business, sticking one's neck out, the brush-off, make no bones about, ball-and-chain, coughing up the --, no kick coming, make a crack at someone.)
dimout (A special term needing quotes. Blackout, though compounded of Basic words, is not strict Basic either, but might well have claims today as an international word.)
seaboard (Ingenious, but not Basic any more than the nautical starboard is, or a board of education. Board in the sense either of a border or of a committee is too far removed from a plank of wood to be clear to a beginner.)
KEY : 4 .
rule (The verb rule is not a Basic Operator, though ruling and ruled may be used as substantive and adjective extensions of the noun rule on the list of general THINGS.)
world (cf. The System of Basic English, page 130. "The 'world' is the earth when we are talking of space, but when all the 'world' is shocked it is everyone. In again another sense the 'world' may be things or conditions, as in The 'world' is changing." World is on the special list of words used in translating the Bible.)
kind (On the Basic QUALITIES list the opposite of cruel Basic has the word sort for referring to a grouping of things.)
"second cousin" (In strictly Basic writing additional words introduced in quotation marks are explained by means of some Basic definition either in parentheses or in a footnote. One would question whether this bit of information is important enough to the discussion to introduce in such a way here. Would not some relation of, a family connection of, or from a branch of the . . . . . . . . family be enough?

EXERCISE VIII. With the help of the Basic science list, check through this passage from Raymond McGrath's Twentieth Century Houses (Faber and Faber, 1933), a book written in Basic because it addresses an international public. Mr. McGrath adds only a very small number of architectural terms and general science words to the 850 and keeps strictly to Basic syntax. See if you can account for each word that does not appear on the list in the form in which it is used here. You will find legitimate uses of derivatives, adverbs formed from qualities, measurements, etc., covered by the summary of rules at the foot of the right-hand column of the Basic word list, as well as compounds and proper names. - Can you find three words that are obviously international, and three others that you cannot account for in your examination of the word list?

"Corbusier puts forward in his Ville Contemporaine (1922) a design for a town of 3,000,000 persons in which no more than three-twentieths of the space is taken up with building. The work of all public organizations and all business is housed in 24 tall buildings 6o floors high and grouped at distances of a quarter of a mile in the open center of the town. Round these great g1ass and steel-frame offices in the full light of the sun are the public buildings, theaters, restaurants and places of amusement among stretches of grass and trees. The rest of the town is a series of flats grouped round garden squares 1,200 feet by 6oo feet in buildings 110 feet high planned on the system of Corbusier's Esprit Nouveau Pavilion, but full of that changing effect which is not to be got out of buildings which are regular and parallel to the street. Round the town-limits are stretches of woodlands kept free from building, and to the east the great storehouses, works and goods stations, to the north, south and west the sports places and small dependent garden towns with separate houses. The two chief roads running north and south and cutting one another in the center of the town are 360 feet wide for 18 lines of transport in two directions. . . .. In his design Corbusier keeps one very important point in mind. To make possible a high-rate mass transport by rail he has kept the same number of persons to the space unit in his town as in the great towns of today. In the Ville Contemporaine the normal number of persons housed to the acre is 120. In Paris today it is 145. In the garden town with only 50 persons to the acre the price of rail transport is naturally high, making necessary such attempts at cheap overhead railways as the Railplane. Corbusier has made it clear that the American tall building which is an outcome of competition and the desire for increased profits may, if controlled, become a street on its end; a rightly placed unit taking up only a small part of the room normally needed and so making open green spaces possible in the very center of the town."

KEY: International words: theater; restaurant; sports. Additional words: plan (word used on special list of 50 for economics); center and series (international science terms).

EXERCISE IX. Sancho, Lengua Indian from Paraguay, and a character in Dana Sage's The Moon was Red (Simon and Schuster, 194j), describes himself in faultless Basic as "the brightest Indian on earth." 'Supposedly the product of a recent Harvard University experimental class in Basic English for foreign students, Sancho speaks Basic throughout the book-except, that is, for momentary relaxations in the syntax and the addition of an occasional non-Basic word. The fact that he sticks as closely to strict Basic as he does is to be explained, of course, by his creator's interest in dramatic effect. Actually, anyone half as bright as Sancho and in touch with native speakers at the language would find it unnatural and unnecessary to crouch behind the protective barricade of beginning English. To all clear-thinking, language-conscious men like this one, Basic gives a head start which will launch them quickly into full-verb uses of the names of acts, into wholesale prefix and suffix additions to Basic word-roots, into the acquisition of handy little extras like shall and can 'and must and many and few, and into the adoption-with the help of The General Basic English Dictionary - of more varied and specific terminology at whatever points it may be useful. Reading and contact with English-speaking people are all they need. Their language remains Basic only in so far as it is reared on a firm foundation, a solid base.
The first bricks of his own particular linguistic pyramid you can see building in the samples of Sancho's "Basic" given below. Run through them, proofreading the excerpts to the extent that you underline every instance of digression from Basic to wider English that he makes. Question each point at which you think he goes outside the syntax of the system even though your lack of familiarity with its detail may leave you a little uncertain about it as yet.

1. Truly you are glad to see me go.
2. It's too bad that this should be so.
3. You wish to have a fight with me, Señor?
4. . . .although their desire has always been to do this in the Latin-American way.
5. He can become very hard and very angry when damage is done to his hopes of brotherhood-and then look out!
6. I must say this, Señora, that I've no liking for any white person but Don OK.
7. We Indians will hold it in our memory until the end of time that in return they gave us death.
8. Always when you send telegrams by air you say please. Each "please" has a cost of almost 30 cents.
9. As your great and good father often said, it is easy to be happy.
10. You may be sure that this man is still angry and dangerous.
11. May you rest most peacefully.
12. As I am clothed now I would feel shame to be seen by our most respectable friends.
13. This man left Guagui and went quickly along the edge of the water until he came to Peru.
14. . . . or else this feebleness will certainly overcome you.
15. He has taken a chance on this valuable material.
16. No man is ever so misguided by another as by himself.
17. There will soon be no pure white blood left.
18. I'm one among many Indians with no knowledge where this gold is hidden.
19. He was like a bat in the night. -
20. There are strange beings in the darkness, out of sight.
21. What is your judgment concerning this danger?
22. Do not be uneasy. You have - likewise had your doubts.
23. The rain has stopped now, to be sure.
24. That was why he laughed. In our midst we see it every day.
25. Truly, I'm happy that my own hands are clean.

KEY. The sentences go out of Basic at the following points. Why, and what sort of necessary revision is available, you will be able to judge either now or by the end of this chapter. (1) glad; (2) too, should; (3) wish; (4) although, always; (5) can, brotherhood, look (v); (6) must, liking; (7) hold, until, return; (8) always, each; (9) often, easy; (10) sure, dangerous; (11) rest (v), peacefully; (12) feel, respectable; (13) left (v), along, until; (14) else, feebleness; (15) valuable; (i6) misguided; (17) soon, pure, left; (18) many, hidden; (19) bat; (20) darkness, sight; (21) judgment, concerning; (22) uneasy, likewise; (23) stopped (v), sure; (24); laughed (v), midst; (25) own. We shall have more to say in the next chapter about the foreign learner-the usual beginner in a language, that is, who would like his task simplified as much as possible and will give only the time he must to acquiring a second language that is useful, if not essential, in his work. But our first concern is to complete the technique of simplification for an English-speaking person, the second part of our initial task as set forth on page 15. As we pursue the detail of Basic sentence structure it is well to bear this in mind. Since, as Mr. Ogden reminds us, nearly a quarter of the human race already knows some English, those who can use it fairly fluently need not trouble to learn the grammatical rules which will at first limit the idiom of the foreigner. They know how to handle English. Provided they keep approximately to the vocabulary of Basic they will be largely understood.
That, for many English-speaking people, will have to be enough. They will learn to curb their vocabulary. And even when they don't exert any control over the words they use, the foreigner with a grasp of Basic English will be able to guess at much of what they say, and will make out, with the help of his General Basic English Dictionary, more of what they write. The operators of Basic are, after all, the language of the market place, and at least three-quarters of its words are likely to be within the vocabulary of a kindergarten child. When English-speaking people do grasp something of the technique of simplification that the word list makes possible and apply it where needed, instead of talking loudly or slowly or resorting to signs or a foggy recollection Of schoolbook French or German or Spanish as the need may suggest, the outcome will be rewarding indeed. And should this lead them to correspond with foreign learners, to read here and there, or to write down some material for their use, Ogden's one-page expansion of the word-list rules for English translators will stand them in good stead. (Basic English: A General Introduction with Rules and Grammar, Kegan Paul, London, page 32.)

"(i) Use all the nouns (6oo), adjectives (150) and particles as in standard English, avoiding obscure idioms, far-fetched metaphors, and intricate word order.
"(ii) The usual variants from the sixteen Operators (verb-forms) and the seven Pronouns in the vocabulary are available; also Plurals, Comparatives, Adjectives used as Nouns, Ad verbs (in -ly) formed from Adjectives and the prefix un-.
"(iii) Noun forms can generate four derivatives: two nouns (-er and -ing suffixes) and two adjectives (-ing and -ed suffixes), where these are in use in standard English. -
"(iv) Proper names, Mathematical and Metric Systems, and International Terms may be incorporated at discretion."

A list of the first 50 international terms (since slightly revised) is provided on page 71 of Ogden's text. For your convenience at this stage, although it is included among special word lists in the Appendix (page 110) the revised international list is reproduced below:

alcohol
aluminum
automobile  
bank
bar
beef
beer
calendar
check
chemist
chocolate
chorus
cigarette
club
coffee
colony
dance
engineer
gas
hotel
influenza
lava
madam
nickel
opera

orchestra
paraffin
park
passport
patent
phonograph
piano
police
post
program
propaganda
radio
restaurant
sir
sport
taxi
tea
telegram (telegraph)
telephone
terrace
theater
tobacco
university
whisky
zinc

The serious student of Basic will find interesting and valuable the remainder of the book from which these rules are taken, with its condensed summary of the system to give an estimated 90 per cent accuracy in its operation (pages 34-42), for foreigners, and the more detailed digest of grammatical principles that follows (pages 43-74). Any potential teacher of Basic, either native English speaking or foreign, will do well to study this last, as will students of English grammar at any level. Its explanation of the simplification of English syntax which Basic has achieved is illuminating, and so also is the fuller discussion of syntax in the ABC of Basic English, a handy guide covering all the chief points in the system as a first course in English, and written in Basic for translation into other languages. (French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch editions of the ABC are already in circulation.) Then again, there is The Basic Words already mentioned, with its listing of the root senses of the 850 and their French and German equivalents, and its examples of all necessary and legitimate extensions and idioms-a gold mine for anyone interested in the subject of metaphor. And there is the Short Account which together with the English version of the ABC and a large selection of samples of Basic at work makes up the volume The System of Basic English (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934).
But what of the interested person to whom these and the 100 or more additional publications on or in Basic are not always or immediately available? Through 15 active years the reference library has grown. Slight revisions have appeared .in later printings of key texts. The war and the shrinking world have sharply increased an already growing demand for materials and for instructors and writers trained in Basic, even while paper shortages limit the supply of texts. The 50,000 copies of Basic English and Its Uses, for instance, the supply allowed for the English edition under paper restrictions, proved inadequate, almost at once, to the demand. Reprintings of key texts have met with delay through the same restrictions. Inquiries about Basic in the United States alone, as they come in to the Commission on English Language Studies at Harvard week by week, are indicative of lively interest in sometimes - unexpected places. Not only educators but people in other professions are turning it to their 'use. Doctors and ministers, industrialists and advertising 'agencies, social workers, public speakers, clubmen, army and navy personnel, many of whom have found answers to their questions about the system recently in Basic English and Its Uses, now want to get at the details. Their requests for instruction are being met by the organization of workshops and college courses using Basic at many points. Their demand for a single volume that will give them quick proficiency in the manipulation of the word list at a competent level has led, to the compilation of this material.
The need for such a comprehensive question answerer for English-speaking people is clearly expressed, and in only recently acquired Basic at that, in a letter reaching the Harvard Commission as this handbook goes to press. Its author, an army major in a Pacific outpost, writes on "paper taken from the Japanese" and speaks at some length on the difficulties he has encountered in getting hold of answers to his questions. First hearing of the system six months ago in a broadcast from an Australian church where a reading from the Basic New Testament was being used, he assures us that only a keen interest in the simplification of language held him to his task. "Giving the right amount of credit to the hard conditions under which I am living and to the fact that I ant quite a distance from bookstores in Australia, the United States and England," he comments, "still my experience so far is that what materials I have got [this included the Life article, October 18, 1i943, the General Basic English Dictionary and The Basic Words, procured for him by his wife and reaching him only after a three months' wait] do not give ready answers to some questions which might well have been answered better from the start, without the need for getting a great number- of Basic English books. I have given some of these questions in my letters to you. Such questions make one who is less interested than I am give up his interest."
The major's questions cover a range of detail. They concern :
1. The content of word lists in special subject fields. (See page 111 of Appendix.)
2. The problem of saying "Thank you" in Basic. (One of his own letters, in pleasantly smooth Basic, starts out with "It was very kind of you to give me . ." There are available other expressions like "That is very good of you," and comments upon the value of a thing or the fact that it is pleasing to get it. The beginner in English adds Thank you to his repertoire very soon, of course, when he is in contact with English-speaking people, just as he adds the English names of meals and sorts of food and clothing, and expressions like "How do you do?" (which, though made up of Basic words, is a double-starred idiom in The Basic Words for use at a later stage in foreign countries).
3. Whether the -ly adverb ending may be put on words like earth and friend in Basic (the answer is no) and on words like surprising and marked (derivatives) (the answer is yes).
4. Whether derivatives may be formed from international words. (Such derivative uses as telephoningand dancerare permissible. They will be as readily understood as talking and walker. )
His own competent handling of the Basic vocabulary, in a letter of well over 1500 words, gives evidence of what self-instruction under difficulties can achieve when the interest is strong. But in its opening, acknowledgment is made to John Sweeney of the Commission "for pointing out in your letter of August twenty-first and in earlier letters some of the errors in my writing." This handbook aims at the same sort of service on a wider scale. The do's and don't's assembled for convenience on the pages following are not intended to give a beginner the impression that there is virtue in scrupulous adherence to fine points of Basic usage on all occasions. But if he wants to know them, here are answers to questions that may come up until he is familiar with The Basic Word s and the ABC of Basic English .
Remember that for all ordinary purposes it is sufficient to keep to the word list, with legitimate recourse to: international terms; titles such as king, president, empire, and so on; proper names, and 12 names of sciences-algebra, arithmetic, and so on; calendar names like Tuesday, December; numbers given either as figures or in word form (75, fifth); names of weights and measures and money like ounce, centimeter ,dollar; and words like oh and buzz; slang and technical terms in quotation marks and any additional word that yen med for some special purpose defined as you go along. That much and keeping to the 18 operators for your verbs will assure you 90 per cent Basic, and guarantee a clear, simple level of discourse on a rational, factual level. It is only for the beginner in English and for text-making purposes and early reading exercise that one has to comb the little language free from snarls. If all teachers, translators, and broadcasters using Basic are aware of these they can use their own discretion. -43-
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CHAPTER THREE The Rules

CHAPTER THREE
The Rules