Punctuation How 127 birds in the bird shop besides the parrot. many birds do you know by sight? How many can you recognize by their songs? There must be a canary in the bird shop; can you tell its story? And what is the story of the goldfish? What is the boy trying to teach the puppies? They don't look as if they were learning very fast or as if they had much of a story to tell. Their stories are in the future. Suppose the boy buys one of the puppies for a pet; can you imagine the story of that puppy from the time he leaves the shop until he becomes a big dog? We are sure that some kind and thoughtful children will buy the rabbits and will take good care of them. But even so, they are likely to have some adventures to relate. Perhaps you have some pets that you can tell stories about. Can you imagine a story about the boy or the girl in the picture, how they came to the bird store and what they are going to buy? Or, will you tell a story about the old man who keeps the store? He must have a whole library of animal stories under his skull cap. For the oral lesson as many children as time permits are to tell stories suggested by our picture. Before you begin, arrange a brief outline in your mind. 141. WRITTEN LESSON Write a story suggested by the picture in Lesson 140. It will be interesting to see how many stories the picture has suggested to different members of the class. 142. LANGUAGE LESSON PUNCTUATION Punctuation is used to aid the eye of the reader. It would be very difficult to read a page without any punctuation marks. You could not tell when one sentence ended and another began. The period and question mark show a complete break in the sense. The sentence is ended; the reader pauses. The comma is used to mark shorter pauses It is used to separate and less abrupt breaks in the sense. words, or to show a slight pause or a change in the sense, or an omission of a word. We have seen several uses, illustrated in the following sentences. (See Lesson 100.) Come, John, we are ready to go. Yes, he is here. James said, "I will go." Can you give the rules? For Christmas he had a tool chest, a sled, and a necktie. In all these cases some words are separated by commas from others. Often one part of a sentence must be separated from the rest, or the meaning may be misunderstood. Examine the following sentences. Are two meanings possible? Where should a comma be placed? Frank shot a crow and his father and mother praised him. When the clock struck William John Davis started for home. Always look over your compositions and decide whether commas are needed to make the sense clear. The semicolon is used, like the comma, to separate parts of the sentence from other parts, but it shows a more marked separation, or a longer pause than the comma. Turn to Lesson 76 and see how semicolons are used there. The colon is used in the salutation of a letter and before a series of words. Notice the colon in Lesson 75. The hyphen (see Lesson 100) is used between syllables of a word when one part of the word comes at the end of one line and the other part comes on the next line. It is also used in compound words, as threshing-machine, verb-group. Proverbs 143. ORAL LESSON PROVERBS 129 In fact, people They are found Asia, although, Most of the common proverbs are very old. made proverbs before they knew written language. among the savage and ignorant tribes of Africa and strangely enough, not among the American Indians. Each proverb states in a few words the result of much thinking and experience. When we say, "Haste makes waste," we are merely repeating what people learned thousands of years ago and have found to be true in every generation since then. A proverb is always short, and it often uses some particular instance or example to point a general lesson. Thus when we say, "A new broom sweeps clean," we mean that any new tool does its work more thoroughly than an old, or that a new person at any job is likely to be more thorough for a time than the person who preceded him. Sometimes, indeed, a proverb has several slightly different meanings. In Lesson 78 the proverb "Haste makes waste" was illustrated by a few sentences; and in Lesson 72 a short story illustrated the proverb "Every cloud has a silver lining." Explain the meaning or give examples to illustrate these proverbs. A friend in need is a friend indeed. Handsome is that handsome does. A stitch in time saves nine. He laughs best who laughs last. A rolling stone gathers no moss.' Willful waste makes woeful want. Many proverbs and familiar expressions seem to be remembered because of the rhyme or alliteration. Perhaps your teacher will explain alliteration. How many proverbs do you know? K 144. WRITTEN LESSON Write a story illustrating the meaning of one of the proverbs in Lesson 143 or of some other proverb that you select. Underline all the verbs or verb-groups in your composition. 145. LANGUAGE LESSON SIMPLE SUBJECT, SIMPLE PREDICATE, MODIFIERS As we have seen, every sentence can be divided into its complete subject and complete predicate. In every complete subject, the main word, either a noun or a pronoun, is called the subject word, or the simple subject. In every complete predicate, the main word, a verb or verb-group, is the simple predicate. The simple subject is the word that tells whom or what we are talking about. The simple predicate is the verb that tells something about the subject. In the following sentences the vertical line separates the complete subject from the complete predicate. The simple subject and the simple predicate are printed in italics. 1. The great Hercules | came at last to the garden of Hesperides. 2. Famous golden apples | grew on a tree in the garden. 3. The deeds of Hercules | were known all over the world. 4. With his club and lion's skin, he marched straight on. In each sentence the complete subject is composed of the simple subject (a noun or pronoun) and words which describe or modify it. These are called modifiers. Each complete predicate is composed of the simple predicate (a verb or verb-group) and its modifiers. Select the simple subjects and simple predicates in the sentences in Lesson 106. The simple subject of a sentence is a noun or pronoun. The simple predicate of a sentence is a verb or verb-group. |