fall. (Exceptions: until, and Adjectives ending in -ful, as care-ful.)

(9) Final y, if preceded by a consonant, usually changes to i before added syllables (except -ing) beginning with a vowel; as, rely, reliable; comply, compliance; pretty, prettiest.

(h) Final y, if preceded by a vowel, or followed by -ing, is kept; as donkey, donkeys; volley, volleying; cry, crying.

292. A capital should begin —

(a) The first word of every sentence.

(b) The first word in every line of verse.

(c) Every Proper Noun or Proper Adjective (as English, Latin).

(d) The names of the days of the week and the months of the year.

(e) Titles of honor (as His Excellency, the Governor). (f) Names or titles of God (as Providence, the Lord). (g) The main words in a heading, or in a title of a book (as, "The Man with the Iron Mask").

(h) Words meant to be regarded as important (as, "during the Civil War," etc.).

(i) The first word of a formal quotation (as, Pope says, "The proper study of mankind is man ").

(k) The Pronoun I, and the Interjection O.

293. The points used to mark the end of the sentence are the period (.), the question mark (?) and the exclamation (!).

(a) The exclamation mark is used after exclamatory sentences, and frequently after interjections, or spoken as exclamations.

names

(b) The question mark is used after interrogative sentences, or after direct questions.

(c) The period is used at the end of declarative and imperative sentences. But after a short emphatic command the exclamation mark may be used (as, Go away!).

(d) The period is used also to mark abbreviations; as Rev. Mr. J. E. Brown, D.D.

294. The marks used within a sentence are the comma (,), the semicolon (;), the colon (:), the quotation marks (""), the dash (—), and the parentheses, ().

295. The comma is used

(a) After a Nominative of Address; as, John, come here.

(b) Just before a quotation; "He said, "I wish to speak.'

(c) To separate words in a series, or pairs of words in a series; as, "I bought pen, ink, paper and blotters"; Young and old, rich and poor, sick and well, all heard him gladly."

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(d) To separate explanatory or thrown-in words or expressions from the rest of the sentence; as,

Words in apposition :—

The old blacksmith, Perkins, has moved.

Inserted phrases and statements : ·

I think, in fact, you were mistaken.

The old man, now reduced to poverty, was ready to die. I saw, when the battle was over, that no advantage had been won.

Mr. Fish, who painted this picture, is here to-day.

296. The semicolon is used to separate coördinate members, or the main parts of sentences when each part contains commas; as, "After the spring rains the grass begins to be green; under the warmth of the sun, now more and more noticeable, the buds swell and open." (Find other illustrations in this book.)

297. The colon is used chiefly to indicate that a list or a statement (sometimes an emphatic quotation) is to follow; as, "I bought the following articles: a pound of tea, a quantity of sugar," etc. Or, "He then spoke these words: You have gone far enough.'

298. The quotation marks are used to inclose direct quotations, and sometimes to indicate nicknames, slang expressions, and titles of books.

If a quotation occurs within a quotation, single quotation marks are used as well as the double ones; as, "John said, 'I heard father cry, "Don't enter this house again."""

were

299. The dash is used to mark a breaking off in the sentence; as, "As I was going along Pearl Street you ever there?" If after such an interruption the sentence is resumed again, another dash must be used.

300. The parentheses inclose words that might be omitted and still leave a complete sentence; as, "When I reached home (it had been raining all the evening) I was tired and miserable."

301. Other marks used in writing are as follows:

(a) The apostrophe (') is used to mark the omission of a letter, as in can't, ne'er, o'clock; and it is a part of all Nouns in the Possessive Case (see paragraphs 215–217).

(b) The hyphen (-) is used to separate the syllables of a word, chiefly at the end of a line when a part of the word must go on the next line; as, sepa-rate, pronunciation, chatter-ing. The hyphen is also used to separate the parts of a compound word; as, a piece of rose-quartz, capitol-dome.

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(c) Such marks as a b 1 2, etc., are used to call attention to notes at the foot of the page, or elsewhere. (d) The caret (、) calls attention to a word or words omitted, and supplied above or in the margin.

(e) Underscoring a word once means that it should be printed in italics or read with emphasis; twice, that it should be printed in small capital letters; three times, that it is to be printed in large capitals, as in a heading or title of a chapter or of a book.

NOTES FOR TEACHERS

1. Nothing is said here or elsewhere to indicate whether the Exercises are to be worked orally or in writing; the decision is left in every case to the teacher. Now and then, however, an Exercise is so long that children could hardly be expected to work the whole of it in writing.

2. Proper Nouns are taken first, because young children knowing nothing of Grammar will recognize instantly that Jack, for example, is a name, while they might fail to see at once that boy is also a name.

3. The classification of Nouns, into Proper and Common, is carried no farther in this book, for reasons of simplicity. Common Nouns might be subdivided into Class Nouns, Abstract, and Collective Nouns, but these technical terms it was thought best not to introduce in an elementary grammar. A Collective Noun is a sort of Common Noun, because it is the name of all groups of its kind. This is plain when we consider the plurals of Collective Nouns, as armies, flocks. When Abstract Nouns are pluralized, as fears, pleasures, arts, etc., they assume to some extent the nature of Class Nouns. A complete classification would add another class of Common Nouns, viz. Material Nouns - the names of kinds of material, as, gold, iron, metal, liquid, dirt, glass. When such Nouns are pluralized, as oils, calicoes, clays, soils, etc., they obviously become Class Nouns.

4. Teachers may be found who are careful to tell their pupils that a Noun is the name of a thing and not the thing itself, and who yet will say that a Verb tells what a Noun does. A very little thought will show that a Verb (if it speaks at all of doing) tells of the action of some person or thing, and not of the action of some Noun.