On Learning the Basic Words

This account is designed as a simple guide in three stages (A, B, and C), covering all the chief points in Basic English.

In some ways it is different from other accounts of language, because the learner has, at the start, on one page, almost all the material which will ever be needed. The complete word-list takes about a quarter of an hour on the records (see the Book List at the end of this book) which makes it possible to get a rough idea of the sense of anything said or printed in Basic English after only one week’s work; a little time given to examples in Section Three of this book, or taken from the Book List at the end, will do the rest.

Even if you have a good knowledge of normal English, or have made a start with some other system, it is a good thing to put yourself first of all in the position of someone who is taking his very first step. But if what is said seems far more simple than is necessary, keep in mind the fact that what comes later will sometimes be dependent on statements made in these early pages.

The chief business of the learner, then, is to get a good knowledge of the words and their senses, with the help of the records (and of signs and pictures), and the nearest words in his natural tongue. At the same time, by putting every word into some simple statement at an early stage, he will get an idea of its natural uses for talking and writing. With most languages two or three years may be necessary to get a knowledge of 5,000 words; and every new word up to 10,000 may still have its special tricks, which will only be overcome by slow and bitter experience. In Basic English, the end of the work is in view all the time.

The learning of the system may best be done in three stages:

1. The 850 words and their order.
2. Expansions of the words in form and sense.
3. Special uses of the words, and their use for special purposes.

The number of words in the Basic list is so small that it is possible to go through them all in fifteen minutes every day before any other work is done, till their sounds are quite clear and their simple senses are fixed in the memory.

A very quick learner, with special training, might get 100 words in an hour.

A good learner, with a knowledge of more than one language, may get 50 in an hour.

A normal learner whose natural language is not unlike English will get 30—at least after the earlier stages.

A learner who takes an hour to get only 20 words will probably have a bad memory for words, or will be one whose natural language is very different in structure from Basic English.

A normal learner, who is able to take two hours every day for the work, will be wise to give one of these hours to the sounds and simple senses of the words. She will then get the complete list in a month (or if he makes it two hours, he will probably get through this part of the work in two weeks). The second hour every day would then be free for putting the words together, and learning everything which is important about Word-order.

But after a very short time, it is a good idea to make a small selection of words, so as to have enough for some simple statements; and by the time you come to the end of A, you will be able to make five different sorts of simple statements:

1. A word is a sign (page 132).
2. Words give (do not give) clear signs (page 138).
3. Words will give signs to men (pages 137, 140).
4. Words will give signs to men clearly (page 146).
5. Stop! Please give new rules to the quick boys now (pages 150–51).

This ABC and The Basic Words give the teacher with some knowledge of English everything needed for building up further material; but guides in a number of other languages, and in forms designed by experts in different systems, are now in print. In The Basic Dictionary the 7,500 commonest words of normal English are put into Basic—which makes it possible to do the same for any other language in the near future; and in Basic by Examples there are 120 pages of simple examples.

A list of the other books to be used in connection with the ABC is given on the last pages [see Book List, at the end]; and naturally it is a good idea to make a start with some sort of story or general reading-material as early as possible.

This book is all in Basic English, but in the forms of it designed for use in other countries it has been put into the learner’s language and only those words (here generally in italics) to which he has to give attention at the different stages, and the statements needed as examples, are kept in Basic. But when the learner gets to the end (that is to say, after giving about a week to A, a week to B, and an hour to C) he will be in a position to go through the complete story by himself in its Basic English form—as an example of the way in which the words may be put together.

So that the First Step may be of value to the very young in addition to its more general interest, the words in the examples in this part are chiefly such as are commonly used before six years old; from these the teacher will be able to make a simple selection.

The First Step

In learning any language it is necessary first of all to have some idea of the different sorts of words in that language. There are more than 1,500 separate languages still in use, and they are as different as the clothing of those who make use of them; so that no sort of word or form of dress has so wide a distribution as to seem natural in all parts of the earth.

In one country it may be the right thing to put a gold ring or a silver chain round the neck; in another, the space between the chest and the chin may be covered by jewels and ornaments, or by a colored cloth, for comfort; or a soft collar may be common—changed to a stiff one at night. So it would be foolish to go everywhere with the question, “What sort of collar do they have here?” It is better to say: “What, if anything, do they put on their necks?” Or, again, “How are the legs covered?” Then we are at least taking a general point of view, and there is less danger of getting a wrong answer—or no answer at all.

It is the same with words. There may not be ‘nouns,’ ‘adjectives,’ ‘verbs,’ or ‘pronouns’ in every language; but everywhere there are things. So the first and most natural question about a language is, “What names has it for things?”

So we will make a start with the names of things; but first of all it is necessary to get a sort of map of the system in its complete form.

1. Things

Of the 850 Basic Words, no less than 600 are names of things. It is important to have a good number of names for things, because if we went about with a knowledge only of the names of things, we would be able to make ourselves clear for a very great part of the time.

Even without the names of things, we might, no doubt, get a long way by pointing, and by other acts and signs. The trouble is that sometimes it is not clear what we are pointing at; one thing gets in the way of another, and we may not be near enough to make ourselves clear. But if we have a knowledge of the names of things, it is much more probable that our hearers will be in a position to see from the signs on our faces, or from our behavior, what we would have said if we had made use of other sorts of words.

The names of things take the place of pointing; the other words, to which we are coming later, take the place of the other signs which we make.

a. Names of Things Which May Be Pictured

At a meal, for example, if we say “apple” when the fruit comes in, we may be almost as clear as if we say—“Please give me an apple.”

The simplest words of all, then, are the names of the separate things which it is possible to get by pointing; the things round the room, the things which are moved or marketed everywhere, one by one.¹

In Basic there are 200 of these, and when the things of which they are the signs are not themselves present to be pointed at by the learner, a picture will do equally well.²

• ¹ If you are ready to make complete statements from the very start, you may say This is ... every time you do any pointing at things in the room or at pictures. But most learners will be wiser to go quickly through the First Step before making any decision about the best form of simple statement.
• ² Among the 200 there are four words which are a little different from the rest. These are angle, circle, line, square. They are not material things; but they may be pictured, and the pictures make them quite clear.

Questions and Examples

If you are good at making pictures or copying them from books, see which of your pictures are rightly named by your friends; and why they go wrong when they give a wrong answer. Might your pictures have been more clear?

Is it a help to your memory to get some of the names two by two; like boy and girl, sun and moon, hammer and nail, horse and cart, needle and thread? If so, make a list of those which go naturally together.

Put together all the words in the 200 which are names of different parts of clothing (boot, coat, collar, dress, glove, hat, pocket, shirt, shoe, skirt, sock, stocking, trousers). You have, in addition, button, hook, and band, which may go with them.

Now do the same with the parts of the body (such as arm, chin, hair, leg, knee, muscle, nerve, stomach, throat, toe, and tongue).

Then take the things in connection with the building of a house (arch, board, brick, floor, pipe, roof, screw, wall, window, and the rest); and from those go on to such as may be seen in a room (bath, book, box, curtain, cushion, drawer, lock, oven, and the like). In this way you will quickly get an idea of the different groups of words in the Basic system.

What is this group representative of: cup, egg, fork, plate, potato, spoon, tray? (Meal)

Make a list of 10 names among the 200 about whose sound, form, and sense you have no doubt whatever. Let them be names of things which are generally near—to be touched or seen. These will be of use later as a sort of frame in which new words may be fixed for purposes of learning. A different list will probably be necessary for every country; but if the sounds are simple enough, here are 12 from which you may be able to make a selection: arm, hand, head, book, box, door, paint, paper, pen, side, table, tree.

b. General Names

Sometimes, though there may be no doubt that a word is used for a material thing, it is hard to give a clear picture of the thing itself; a building, for example, or a mine. This is because there are different sorts of buildings which themselves have pictures (such as church, house, hospital, library); and because a mine is not a separate thing. All such words are grouped among the 400 ‘General names’.

Then there are solid substances; metals, for example, such as copper. These are certainly very material. In fact they are what things are made of; but only a little of them is in any one place, and even then it generally has the form of some other thing with a common name. So it is hard to make good pictures of substances. But it is possible to take a bit of any one of them and make a change in its form or, with the help of a businessman, get money for it. With these come the liquids, like blood and milk.

Air, mist, smoke, and steam may be put in the same division because they are made up of material parts and their behavior is like that of substances; and foods, like bread, butter, and cheese.

There are 50 words of this sort, and because they are names of substances they are almost as simple to get fixed in the memory as the words which go with pictures. Here is the list:

air, blood, brass, bread, butter, canvas, chalk, cheese, cloth, coal, copper, cork, cotton, dust, earth, glass, gold, ice, ink, iron, lead, leather, linen, meat, milk, mist, oil, paint, paper, paste, powder, rice, salt, sand, silk, silver, smoke, snow, soap, soup, steam, steel, stone, sugar, tin, water, wax, wine, wood, wool.

Another important group of the general names, of which it is frequently possible to give the sense by pointing (and sometimes by pictures), is that of the parts or divisions of material things. Such are back, base, body, cover, edge, end, front, middle, page, side, top.

Then there are persons, named sometimes in relation to sex or family (man, woman, father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister), and sometimes because of what they do (cook, judge, manager, porter, servant); common acts (a shake, a bite, a grip, a kick, a kiss, a laugh, a smile, a cough, a sneeze—or driving, reading, teaching, and writing); the divisions of time (minute, hour, day, night, week, month, year); birth and death, summer and winter, peace and war, question and answer, cause and effect, work and play, profit and loss, art and science, color and form, law, crime, and punishment, prose and verse; words for the feelings (like pleasure and pain, hope and fear, love and hate, belief and doubt); words for the senses (like touch, taste, and smell).

At this point you will have got some idea of more than half the names of things and almost half the complete Basic word-list. So this is the right place for a little note about the other general names which are not names of material things, or parts of material things, like the great mass of the words which we have taken first. As separate words, they are happily all quite as simple in form as the names of material things; but their behavior when put with other words is sometimes not so regular. A little more attention has to be given to them, till any tricks they may have are clear from examples. With so small a number of words this is not hard; and most of the necessary knowledge will come automatically from the examples themselves, from hearing others, and from reading.

Questions and Examples

Make a list of general names used for a number of things which themselves have pictures (animal, apparatus, building, insect, instrument, machine, plant, structure, vessel). Make a list of those which are not separate from the other material things round them (harbor, mine, mountain, river, road, wave).

Put the 50 names of material things into four groups so that you may say ‘a bit of’ (chalk, bread, and so on), ‘a mass of’ (coal, stone, and so on), ‘a drop of’ (blood, water, and so on), ‘a grain of’ (powder, rice, sand). Which will come into more than one group?

Because it is possible for all of them to be measured, you may say ‘an amount of’ (any of them). What other things (in addition to material substances) are frequently said to be measured, in the sense that ‘more or less of’ them is talked about for purposes of comparison, though we are not able to put them in the scales? (agreement, approval, change, competition, expansion, growth, increase, organization, pleasure, shame, and so on).

Here is a list of 100 of the simplest names of things which the learner will be wise to get into his head at a very early stage:

apple, baby, back, ball, bed, bell, bird, boat, book, box, boy, bridge, brother, cat, coat, color, country, cow, day, dog, door, dress, drink, egg, fall, father, fire, fish, floor, flower, fly, front, garden, girl, grass, hair, hand, hat, head, help, hole, horse, house, light, look, man, milk, money, mother, name, night, nose, paint, paper, picture, pig, place, plant, play, pull, rain, ring, room, run, sand, school, shoe, side, sister, sky, sleep, snow, song, start, stick, stop, story, street, summer, sun, table, tail, thing, thought, top, town, train, tree, turn, wall, walk, wash, water, way, wind, window, winter, wood, work, year.

c. Forms for Number

rule. When a word is used for two or more things of the same sort, an ‘s’ is put at the end of the word.

There are four which make a change of form—foot (feet), tooth (teeth), man (men), woman (women). Trousers and scissors are themselves ‘plural’ (that is, more than one) as is clear from the form, but we may say “one leg of his trousers”, or “one blade of the scissors”. There is no change for sheep. For talking, only these have to be specially kept in mind;³ and if you do go wrong it is not very important.

• ³ In addition to the four changes of form, there may be some change in the last three letters (though the sound is much the same as if only ‘s’ had been put at the end) of words ending in f, fe, y, s, x, sh, ch, or o, for writing. Here is the complete list—but you will probably be wise to make no attempt to get it into your head at this point:

  1. Leaf, leaves, self, selves, shelf, shelves, knife, knives.
  2. All ending in y with a stopped sound before it (that is, all but boy, day, key, monkey, play, ray, tray, and way) have the y changed into ies; as army, armies, and berry, berries.
  3. All ending in s, x, sh, ch (but for stomach), or o have es at the end and not simply s; as arch, arches, and match, matches.

Questions and Examples

Make a list of all the words with the endings s and x, and put the ‘plural’ forms in writing, so that you may see how simple and natural the business of ‘plurals’ is in Basic English. Would ‘glasss’ or ‘taxs’ seem natural to you if you were free to give all ‘plurals’ their most simple form in writing?

The wool of sheep is cut with scissors to make trousers for men (and sometimes women). That gives you 5 of the changes of form. Make a statement giving the other 2 changes of form—feet and teeth.

Put a mark against any of these words which have been given the wrong ‘plural’ form: leafs, boxes, seas, arches, crys, potatos, traies, horses, sleep, sheep, smashs.

There is one word which is not ever used in the ‘plural’. Have you any idea which it is? (News)

Give some examples of words which, even without the addition of ‘s’, give the idea of number (group, committee, family).

What is the use of the s on all these words? We say: “I have two sheep”. Why not say: “I have two brother”? The answer is that in this example it is clear enough, but “Come with your sheep” is not clear if more than one sheep is to come with you. So Basic, like other languages, is happy to make the change, even if a small number of the 850 words are not quite regular.

Two words, house and mouth, undergo a small change of sound with the addition of ‘s’: in houses the middle ‘s’ is sounded as in was, and in mouths the ‘th’ is sounded as in the.

d. A (An) and The

Sometimes a thing is talked about as any one of a group which has the same name; sometimes as a special example about which something has been said before.

• A man = “any one man.”
• The man = “that man of whom you have knowledge.”

If anyone says, “Please give me a camera,” you are then free to make the selection from all the possible cameras in the stores. But if he says the camera, you are limited to the special camera which he has in mind (one which, in his opinion, is equally clear in your mind).⁵

We do not normally put ‘a(n)’⁴ before the names of substances, such as, ‘gold’ or ‘snow’ because gold, for example, is not one of the things which are all in front of us to be talked about or pointed at; only part of it is ever there. Some other ‘things’ which are not substances, such as qualities or processes, are looked on in the same way. For example, we do not say ‘a behavior’ or ‘a damage.’ But there is one special purpose for which a(n) is used before names of substances and other such words, and that is to give the sense ‘a sort of.’ So we say ‘a gold unlike any other.’

• ⁴ ‘A’ before an open sound becomes ‘an’: an apple.
• ⁵ So the is a sort of pointing ‘adjective’—not quite as strong as this or that, to which we are coming later (p. 149).

Questions and Examples

If we are on an island and we have only one knife, would you say: Give me a knife, or the knife?

If your house has 4 doors—one at the front, one at the back, and two at the sides—would you say: Let us go in at a front door, or the front door? Would it be possible to go in at the side door?

On a bright night we generally take a look at the moon, not a moon. Why? Are there any other things which would generally be talked about with the, because there is only one of them? (Yes, the sun, the sky.)

Why do we generally give a push and a kick, not the push and the kick?

Make a selection of words like behavior, with which, because of their sense, a(n) will probably be least used (attention, control, cotton, silver, thunder, and so on).

What would be the sense of a cotton, a silver, a paint?

What words are there which do not ever take a before them? (For example, damage, learning, news, transport, waiting, weather.)

2. Qualities

There are 150 names of qualities (‘adjectives’).⁶ They are used before the names of things to give some special idea about the thing—a red book, the hard seat, cold air.

• ⁶ A, the, any, all, every, no, other, some, and such are generally said to be ‘adjectives,’ because they are put before the names of things; but we may let them come in separately as and when they are needed. See pp. 128, 138, 150, 158, and 172.

Questions and Examples

See what groups of names of qualities it would be possible to make; in relation, for example, to color, form, size, and feeling.

Put together all the words like red, which are names of simple qualities, starting with the colors (blue, green, yellow, brown, black, gray, white); words like sharp, hard and soft, sweet and bitter, warm and cold which are the nearest to the senses; then the names of simple feelings like happy, sad, tired.

Make a list of the ‘adjectives’ which are least like names of simple sense-qualities (cheap and dear, hanging, political, and so on).

A third selection will have in it all the words which do not seem to come naturally into the first group or the second. You will probably put quick into this third group; if so, it will be because quick is used of motion, and motion is not a material thing, or a sense, or a feeling, but a change of place. There may be more than one opinion about the sorts of qualities, so that the size of the groups given in different answers will be very different. But your answer will be of use in getting a general idea of the sorts of ‘adjectives’ in the Basic language.

These 25 names of qualities will probably be the simplest to get by heart first: black, blue, clean, cold, dirty, first, good, great, green, hard, high, kind, last, like, long, new, old, open, ready, red, right, round, same, straight, white.

a. Opposites

Words like good and bad have opposite senses, and it is a good idea to get such words into your head together; 50 of the names of qualities have opposites, and 40 of these are themselves names of qualities:

good–bad, straight–bent, sweet–bitter, warm–cold, kind–cruel, bright–dark, living–dead, cheap–dear, same–different, clean–dirty, wet–dry, true–false, strong–feeble, male–female, wise–foolish, past–future, red–green, first–last, early–late, right–left, tight–loose, quiet–loud, high–low, separate–mixed, wide–narrow, young–old, private–public, smooth–rough, happy–sad, long–short, open–shut, complex–simple, quick–slow, great–small, hard–soft, hollow–solid, general–special, normal–strange, thick–thin, black–white.

50 opposites are formed by putting un- before the name of the quality, though till the learner becomes expert in the art of writing it will be best to make use of not.⁷

• ⁷ able, automatic, beautiful, bent, broken, certain, chemical, clean, clear, common, complete, complex, conscious, cut, elastic, equal, expert, fertile, fixed, free, frequent, happy, healthy, important, kind, like, married, medical, military, mixed, natural, necessary, normal, open, parallel, physical, political, probable, quiet, ready, regular, responsible, safe, smooth, solid, straight, sweet, tired, true, wise.

  Un- may be used in addition with a number of the -ing and -ed forms (see p. 176).

Questions and Examples

Make a list of the 10 words among the 50 opposites which are not in the list of twos (awake, blue, certain, complete, delicate, ill, opposite, safe, secret, wrong). Of these, opposite is another opposite of same (page 130); blue is the opposite of the color of an orange (page 183); wrong, of an expansion of the sense of right; secret, of an expansion of the sense of open. The opposite of delicate is frequently strong or rough; of ill, healthy or well (page 147); of old, new. What General Names give opposites of awake, certain, complete, and safe?

Make a list of ‘adjectives,’ like electric and political, which have no opposites of any sort in the Basic list.

What are the opposites of: tight, smooth, separate, sweet, private?

Is present or past the opposite of future?

Do you see any quality which might be the opposite of fat?

Here are most of the opposites in verse:

For which of these are two opposites given here? (Old, short, and right.)

b. Is and Are

Is and are are two forms of the word be (about which more is said on page 191).

To make simple statements, the word is (are, when there is more than one thing) is put between the name of the thing and a quality, or between two names of things.

Was (were, when there is more than one thing) takes the place of is for the past.

A ball is round. A bee is an insect. Words are signs. The cows are married. The last example was foolish.

Round, married, and foolish are said to be qualities or properties of the things named.⁸ But some qualities and names, when put together, do not make sense, like example 4, and you will have a better knowledge of any language if you are able to give reasons why any two words will not go together.

• ⁸ Most languages have this group of quality words, and strange errors of thought may be produced by them. But in general talk or business letters it is not hard to put the words together so that they will make some sort of sense.

c. And and Or

And is used for joining words together:

• The man and the woman are married.

Or is used for the idea of one of two:

• The man or the woman is married.

For other uses of the ‘conjunctions’ and and or, see page 159.

Questions and Examples

Take the name of anything in the list, such as payment, and put different ‘adjectives’ with it in turn (an able payment, an acid payment, a violent payment, a sticky payment, and so on). See which of them make sense in your opinion. Then take those which make good sense, such as a quick payment, and put the word is (or are) before one of the other ‘adjectives’ which go naturally with payment (A quick payment is strange; slow payments are natural; a second payment is necessary, and so on); till you are quite certain how a payment may be talked about. Then do the same with burst, flag, flame, pig, and verse. Now for the first time you are making complete statements, such as are used in normal discussion.

Put all the natural statements you are able to make about the sad story and sad stories (The sad story is ready; sad stories are frequent) into past time. What makes you so certain that some of the possible statements would be foolish? If it is the sense of the words, take care to get all the possible senses of the statement quite clear; if it is our experience of things, keep in mind the fact that our experience may get wider.

Certain names of qualities are in need of special attention because they are less freely used than the others. Some, such as chief, future, may only be used before the name they go with. Awake is not put before the name of a thing or person, but generally comes after some form of be. Same is never used without the (or this or that) before it. In most languages the senses of certain words make the same sort of adjustments necessary; but ten minutes with a selection of examples, when all the rest of the work is done, will put anyone right with any that give trouble in Basic.

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.’

• 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).

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 and let. (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’.)

• Make the paper into a hat.
• Have the hat.
• Put the hat on the head.
• Take the hat from the head.
• Keep the hat here.
• Let the hat go.
• Give the hat to someone.
• Get the hat from someone.
• Go from this place.
• Come to this place.
• Be doing.
• Seem to be (doing).
• Do any act.

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.

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).

• 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.

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?

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.

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 139, and between them is page 140; 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).

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.

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. 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.

• 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).

• The ball is at the edge of the table.
• The ball is going from the hand.
• The ball is going to the hand.
• 3 is after 2.
• 1 is before 2.
• The rod is through the board.
• The ball is between the bricks.
• The ball is under the arch.
• The arch is over the ball.
• The ball is by the arch.
• The black brick is with the ball.
• The black brick is against the white brick.
• The black rod is across the white rod.
• The ball is among the bricks.
• The bricks are about the ball.
• The ball is down.
• The ball is up.
• The ball is on the table.
• The ball is off the table.
• The ball is in the bucket.
• The ball is out of the bucket.

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

• ¹⁵ Two other words used as ‘adverbs’ of direction may here be noted: back (opposite of forward) and round.

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 ’s 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

• ¹⁶ After a form for more than one ending in s, we put simply ’.

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’:

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 (‘préparer’), 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.

• ¹⁷ This use of to is one about which more will be said later when we come to the ‘infinitive’ (p. 209).

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.’

• 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, 173), 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).

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.

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

• ²⁰ For other such forms (she, it) see p. 170.

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!

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 given an international form.

• 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 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.

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. 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.

A II. Word-Order

Generally, it is a good thing to put every word into some form of statement when you have its sound and its sense clear. It is much less hard to get a story into the memory than a list of words; and in a story such as the one about May and the rat, or in any of the examples in Section Three of this book you will have all the words in the right places, even if at first you are not quite certain about some of the details. This is very important because even though you may be quite clear about the sense of the words and how they are used, if you do not put them together in the right order, your statements may be taken in the wrong way by all your friends. For example, if you say “have I an idea” in place of “I have an idea,” it will seem as if you are uncertain about the condition of your mind, when in fact your purpose was to say that something of value was going on inside it.

1. Statements

Take a simple statement, such as you might have made when you got to page 137,

• I will give simple rules to the boys now.

So long as you make no change in the order of the words you may put any of the 600 names of things in the place of rules (which will make 600 different statements), and any of the 150 ‘adjectives’ in the place of simple. This gives you 90,000 possible statements; though, naturally, not all of them will make equally good sense.

Other simple changes in this one example (by taking words from the Basic list which you are now quite certain might go into the places of I, will, give, to, the, boys, and now) will quickly give you more different statements than it would be possible to make by going through them for 1,000,000 years without a stop.²²

This would not be very interesting, but there is certainly enough in that one example to give anyone something to do for an hour or two on a wet day. But till we have some more rules, so that there is a chance of making use of other forms of words than those given in the First Step, we are limited to a small number of fixed statements; and we have no way of putting these statements together into longer ones, with connections between them such as are necessary for discussion and argument.

So let us take a look at the sort of complex statement which it will be possible to make when we get to the end of the division on Word-order, and have a little more knowledge about word-forms and the expansions of the simple senses of the words themselves.

This process is not unlike the behavior of readers who go to the last page of a story to see if it has a happy end. But in learning a language there are no surprises to be kept secret, and the only reason for not starting at the end is that it is not so simple. In fact, there are some teachers who do put boys into deep water before their first swim; but if they are not very good teachers, it is unnecessarily cruel, and a feeling of disgust may be produced by the shock. This book is designed to get the best out of their system by having a quick look at the middle, after a good start has been made on a solid base. So it is more like going to the top of a mountain for a wide view of the land before us; and then we see in the distance:

• The camera-man who made an attempt to take a moving-picture of the society women before they got their hats off did not get off the ship till he was questioned by the police.

There are eight separate points here about which we have so far had no rules.

1. ‘Camera-man’, ‘society women’ (the use of two names of things together, page 156).
2. ‘Who’ (page 162).
3. ‘Before,’ ‘till’ (as connections for two statements, page 161).
4. ‘Off’ (placed before and after a thing, pages 206–07).
5. ‘Moving,’ ‘questioned’ (the addition of ‘ing’ and ‘ed,’) page 176).
6. ‘Made,’ ‘got,’ ‘did’ (= make, get, do, in past time, page 169).
7. ‘Their’ ( = of them, page 170).
8. ‘Police’ (international word, page 235).

The first four of these come into the account of Word-order; the others are later details.

• ²² This 1,000,000 is not a printer’s error. Get the numbers yourself. It takes one second, at least, to make the statement; and 60 × 60 × 24 × 365 × 1,000,000 is much less than 1205 × 2× 16 × 200 × 600 × 20 × 204 × 600 ×119.

Questions and Examples

Make changes in the statement, I will give good rules to you now, by the addition of other words (No, I will not give …).

Now make changes by changing some of the words.

• (I will give bad rules …)

When one of the statements formed by changing a word like good to electric does not make sense, it is interesting to put the question: Would this ever be possible? Care is needed in coming to a decision. For example, in the year 1734, it would not have made sense to say, I will give an electric bell to the servant now. If you had been living then, you might have said that it would not ever be possible.

Make some simple statements like the example you have been given. Here are some suggestions:

• I take a sweet cake from the shelf quietly.
• I give soup to the family regularly.
• The man will put a new roof on the house tomorrow.

Put these words in the right order:

• Tired dogs after rats do go not.
• Of Basic English a good opinion have I.
• Slowly do we will the work.

It would be a good test of the learner’s knowledge of the system at this point to make certain how the numbers given in the footnote on page 154 were worked out. For example, 1205 = 400 general names + 200 picturables + 596 ‘plurals’ (there is no change of form for news, trousers, scissors, sheep) + I, he, you, we, they, this, that, these, those; 2 = will and may. The numbers 200 and 119 do not take in all the words which might be put in these places. (For example, the ‘200’ takes into account only the 150 names of qualities, with their 50 un- forms, though there are clearly some words among the ‘Operations’ which might be used.) What additions are you able to make for these positions?

Like is an ‘adjective’ pointing from one thing to another, so it is quite natural to put the name of the thing with which the comparison is made after it: an instrument like a plow. Two like things may be said to be like one another.

2. Complex Words

We have seen how an ‘adjective’ comes before the name of a thing and says what sort of a thing it is. In the same way, you may put the name of one thing before the name of another, and so get a new name for a new thing.

The word coming first says something about the word which comes after it. House-coal is coal for use in the house, but a coal-house is a place where coal is kept. It will be quite simple to get the sense of other complex words with this example as a guide.

rule. Complex words are formed by putting together two names of things. Word-order and word-form are two which are being used in this book.

An account-book is a book in which money accounts are kept, and the sense of music-book and story-book will be equally clear.

So we get a milkman, who comes with the milk; a postman, who comes with the post (international word, page 235); a dustman, who takes the dust away in his cart; or a camera-man, who makes his living by taking pictures.

In writing complex words, the parts may simply be put together as one word or they may be joined by ‘-’. Very common complex words, which give no trouble to the eye or tongue, are formed without the joining-sign (bedroom, newspaper, raincoat, sundown), but much the greater number of complex words are formed with it (baby-carriage, cow-house, machine-gun, ticket-box), and it is safer to make use of it when in doubt.

Sometimes the words are simply put side by side. Any number of words may be put together to make one complex name in this way, but ‘-’ is not generally used for joining more than two: motion-picture house.

You may go on to say motion-picture house fire, or put an ‘adjective’ in front of the complete new word, as in sudden motion-picture house fire, or good, cheap, motion-picture house fire-apparatus.

This is an uncommonly fertile field for new ideas in language-making; the only limit being what the public is ready for.

In addition to these simple examples, there are certain words which are made up of two Basic parts—not necessarily names of things—but have now got fixed senses or special uses (like into, on page 141). Though the sense is different from what would be the normal suggestion of the parts, the sounds are generally not changed; so they have not been listed as new words among the 850.

Here are some which are used very frequently, and which might give trouble:

• away (= at or to some distance). Go away.
• become (= come to be). Boys become men.
• cupboard (= boards or shelves for cups and other things, with a door). The glasses and spoons are in the cupboard.
• income (= amount of money coming in regularly every year, and so on). Incomes go down after a war.
• inside (= the side or part which is in). The inside of the house.
• into (= to a position in). Go into the house.
• outcome (= what comes out as the end of a process, and so on).These events had a sad outcome.
• outlet (= way by which anything, for example a force or a liquid, is let out). Music is an outlet for the feelings.
• outside = the side or part which is out). The outside of the house.
• today (= this day; formed like tomorrow). They will go today.
• undertake (= take on work, and so on). They will undertake the building.
• upright (= straight up). An upright stick.
• without (= not with, not having). He is without a raincoat.

When we have to make it quite clear that an act was done by (or to) one person or group and no other, my, your, its, and our (the owner-forms of I, you, it, and we; see page 170) are put with self or selves: I will do it myself. There is only one ‘s’ in itself, and about he and they we say himself (female form herself) and themselves.

There is an important group formed by joining one, body (in the special sense of ‘person’), thing, and where on to any, every, and some, and all but the first on to no. (Anyone, anybody, everyone, everybody, someone, somebody, nobody, but no one.) In addition, we have anyhow and somehow.

Questions and Examples

In late years a he-man and a yes-man have come into use in some circles. Is the sense of these clear to you?

Fire-apparatus is used to put out a fire by firemen. See what other words come naturally before or after fire (fire dust, coal fire, and so on).

Do the same with face (face-cloth, face-powder, and so on).

There are two or more possible senses for some common complex words. Which of the two senses of snowman would seem most natural to boys playing in the snow?

Why are glass flowers different from flower glasses? (Because you see with an eye-glass, but not with a glass eye.)

What words would you put together to give the sense of: ‘doctor,’ ‘pavement,’ ‘perambulator,’ ‘calligraphy,’ ‘sailor,’ ‘journal’? (medical man, side-walk, baby-carriage, handwriting, seaman, newspaper.)

What in your opinion would be the sense of these: anybody, footnote, good-looking, however, outlook, overcome, undergo, upkeep, downfall, mother-in-law, outline?

3. Joining Words

All the statements we have made so far are simple, separate statements, with no expansions or ornaments.

When simple statements come one after the other the effect is like that of a number of jumps. It is much the same as putting the names of things together and letting the other person make the connection between your ideas:

• Fly—meat—poison—danger.

The connection is clear when you are in a meat store; and someone may put a cover on the meat. At a meal, the effect might be to send someone running for medical help. In a Science building, where there may be flies of great value, someone might give help to the fly.

If you say, A fly is on the meat. Poison is on the fly. Take care of that dog!—you are doing the same thing with statements; and a number of different sorts of joining words (‘conjunctions’) are necessary to overcome the jumping effect.

And and or are used to make the same sort of connections between statements as between words:

I will come and you will go. I may get the money, or it may go to the Government.

But gives a different sort of connection, with a sense like ‘on the other side’ or ‘on the other hand.’

• He is happy, but you are sad.
• Everyone is happy, but you are sad.

But is used between words as it is between statements.

• Everyone is happy but me.

In statements such as:

• They say that the dog is dead,

the two parts, The dog is dead and They say that, are clear enough.

That, in addition to its other uses (page 149), is the joining word for all sorts of statements about sayings, opinions, and so on, where there is a connection between the first part and what comes after. The connection is generally clear. We say:

• The opinion of the owner is—the dog is dead.
• The dog is dead—that is the opinion of the owner.
• The opinion of the owner is that—‘the dog is dead.’
• The opinion of the owner is that the dog is dead.

The only trouble is with past time, where the is becomes was:

• The opinion of the owner was that the dog was dead.

But till it is quite clear from examples how the change is made, you may keep the statement in the form, The opinion of the owner was, ‘the dog is dead,’ by giving the words of the person talking.

There are four other words which are specially used for joining statements:

• Because, if, though, while.

Because = for this cause or reason. I will go because he is there.

If = on this condition, chance, or theory (which is in doubt).²³

• He may be there; and if he is there, I will go.
• He may not be there; but If he is there, I will go.
• I will go if he is there.

Though = even if it is true (that). The road is wet, though: there was no rain.

While = in the same stretch of time. I will go while he is there.

Before, after, and till are used in the same sort of way for the purpose of joining two statements; the dependent statement then takes the place of the name of a thing or person.

• I will go before the boys.
• I will go before the boys get ready.
• I will go before you.
• I will go before you are ready.
• I will go before you come.
• He is sad after they go.
• He is happy till they go.

Because so has the sense ‘in that way’ it frequently does the work of a ‘conjunction’:

• I will come; so you may go.

Another group of joining words is made up of when, where, why, and how, which are used in addition for putting questions (see page 166).

• I will go when he is there.
• I see where the ship is.
• He will say why he is angry.
• It is not clear how the box got broken.

• ²³ If has come to be used in a general way where there is a doubt or question about something:They are not certain if he is there, but they will see if there is an answer.

Questions and examples

We were able to make the use of that as a ‘conjunction’ clearer by putting the four stages of its development side by side. The same may be done for the two uses of if:

1. I will go, if the parcel is there (on that condition—but I am not certain that the parcel will be there).
2. I will see the parcel, if it is there (on that theory—but it may not be there).
3. I will see if it is there (because I am in doubt).
4. He is not certain if it is there (it may or may not be there).

Do you see the connection between the first two and the last two? And are you clear that they are different? (No sort of stop is necessary before the if in the last two. Why? Because there is no stop in the sense.) In (2), what I will see is the parcel; in (3), what I will see is ‘if the parcel is there.’ And when it is there I see that (it is there).

Put He was certain that in front of They are in the room if it is true that the door is still shut; and make the necessary changes for past time.

Put joining words between the parts of:

• “Men may come—men may go—I go on for ever.”
• “He will have heart-trouble—he is at work all day,—a medical man has said, ‘Stop!’”
• “—there is no doubt—it is foolish to put a lock on the cupboard—the loss of the spoons—you have no more silver, the lock-maker will not say—it is a waste of time—the lock is safely fixed.” (The words needed are when, after, though, till, that—but not in that order; one of them is needed twice.)

4. Who and Which

We have now seen how an expansion of the names of things is possible by the addition of other names of things, and how statements about things may be made longer by the addition of other statements side by side with them or dependent on them. The use of an ‘adjective’ was the first way of saying something more about a thing; and some ‘adjectives,’ such as automatic, say more than others.

An ‘automatic writing-machine’ would be a writing-machine doing its work without the help of men. But a ‘writing-machine’ is itself a machine for putting signs on paper; and there is clearly a limit to the number of complex ideas which it is possible to put in this ‘adjective’ form. If, for example, the machine is ‘quick,’ we get a ‘quick, automatic writing-machine,’ and then it would be hard to put in a word like ‘electric.’ So who and which may take off some of the weight.

Who is used for persons; which is used for things and animals. “I have a tall father” may become: I have a father, who is tall.

“I have a small, gray hat” may become: I have a small hat, which is gray.

In the same way, who and which may take the place of and he or and it.

In complex statements formed with who and which it is sometimes necessary, if the sense is to be clear, to make a change in the position of the ‘adverbs.’ For example, in the statement, I will go with the man who is here now, now seems to say something about ‘the man.’ To give the sense, ‘I will go now,’ the ‘adverb’ would have to be placed after go, to make clear that its connection is with the first part of the statement.

What is used for ‘the thing which,’ as in I see what is wrong.

Questions and Examples

In the statement, “I will give good, clear, short rules to you,” take out one or more of the ‘adjectives’ with the help of which.

Two whiches may be joined by and. Put which in two places into They have an old monkey, and it is able to get a lock open with a key.

Do you see an ‘adjective’ which would make it possible to say Here is some water which is at 100° C. in 5 words?

Make the necessary changes in the statement, This is the cat who was the property of the man which is dead.

Put who or which into the spaces in this story:

• There was a story in the newspaper yesterday about a woman … is secretary of a hospital for babies … is on an island. She was at a meeting … was very important, when there was a sudden burst of wind … was the cause of the trouble. The records are still in the sea because the only rods … were in the hospital were not long enough to get the papers back.

5. How, When, Where, and Why

We have seen from our simple example of word-order (page 147) that the safe rule for normal ‘adverbs’ is to put them at the end of a statement or of a part of a statement complete in itself (page 163). But there are some special ‘adverbs’ whose sense makes it necessary for them to be placed differently. These are of 5 sorts:

1. ‘Adverbs’ of degree, which come before the word or group of words with which they are used—it is almost six; I was quite ready; we are very happy. But—I am old enough.

2. Not (see page 139), which comes after be or the ‘auxiliary’—I was not happy; he will not come; it was not cold.

3. Joining ‘adverbs,’ which, like who among the ‘pronouns,’ are used in making complex statements. These naturally come between the two parts of the statement to which they give the necessary connection—this is how the apparatus is put together; there is a reason why he is sad; take this coat when you go; this is where the fire was. For the use of these words in forming questions, see page 166.

4. ‘Adverbs’ of place which are the names of certain positions in relation to some point, and so are not complete in themselves. If the point in mind is quite clear from the rest of the statement, then there is no need for it to be named, and the ‘adverb’ is used by itself, as in Do not go far (the sense of far being naturally taken as “far from where you are”). But if it is necessary for the point to be named, then the name of a direction has to be put after the ‘adverb’—from after far (London is far from Tokyo), to after near (We are near to a tea-room), and of after out (They go out of the house).²⁴

5. The two ‘adverbs’ of time, still and ever. Still, like other such words, may be put at the end of the statement, but when used with be, will, and may, it generally comes after these words, and with the simple past and present of every other ‘operation-word’ it frequently comes before it: she is still here; I still have this; he will still have that. Ever is generally used with not or in questions. When used with not, it comes after the not wherever this may be. In questions it is placed after the person or thing doing the act—I do not ever go; have you ever been?

• ²⁴ Naturally such ‘adverbs,’ like other ‘adverbs,’ may have their sense limited by names of directions and so on giving further details of the place or time in question. For example, the boys go out into the street, or far up the mountain, in the same way as events take place early in the morning or late at night. But such additions are clearly different from those noted here as necessary to the sense of the ‘adverb.’

Questions and Examples

How would you put these two statements together with the help of an ‘adverb’:

• I have an interest in fiction; there is a reason.
• It is time; I will have a meal.

Put almost and near in their right places in the statement: It will be dark when we get to the house. Do the same with quite and enough in: We are happy if we are warm.

Put still and ever where they make the best sense in the statement: If I have money I will be a friend to the boy.

Put ever and not into the statement:

• You take sugar.

Make it into a statement with still.

Quite may be used in two senses. You are quite right = You are completely right. The book is quite good = The book is good but not very good.

What is the sense of: This is quite the wrong answer? Take note of the word order.

Though near and far are opposites in sense, they are not quite parallel in form, because near has a use as a ‘preposition,’ which far has not. In place of near to we may make use of near by itself: the table is near (to) the wall, the ships go near (to) the land, but we have to say the house is far from the town, the boys will go far up the mountain.

6. Questions

A simple statement using any form of be, will, may, or have, may be made into a question by changing the order in this way: Is sugar sweet? May I have the sugar?²⁵

With all other names of operations, questions are formed by putting do (or did for past time) before a statement.

• Do you take sugar?
• Do you come here frequently?
• Did they give you a full account of the play?

How, when, where, and why may be put in front of any such question, to get an answer about the way, the place, the time, or the reason of any fact, act, or event.

• Why is sugar sweet?
• Where is the station?
• When will he get the news?
• How do you get there?
• How frequently do you go?

Who is used for questions about persons.

• Who is that?
• Who will you give that to?²⁶

What (or which, when the things are limited to some special group) is used for questions about things.

• What is that strange thing?
• What will you put in the box?
• Which apple will you take?
• Which of these is your book?

• ²⁵ The rule is equally true for be and have used as ‘auxiliaries’ (see pp. 171–73): Have the boxes come? Were they sent today?
• ²⁶ Here we might have put whom (see p. 170), but it is a form which is going out of use.

Questions and Examples

Put in the form of questions:

• The ink is dry.
• You give money very freely.
• They will go tomorrow.

If you have two cats and one of them has been poisoned, would it be right to say:

• What is dead? Which is dead? or Who is dead?

Here is a story:

• On the way to the office in an automobile in the morning, it was necessary to²⁷ put on the brake suddenly because a man was in the road.

To what questions, then, might these be the answers:

1. Because a man was in the road.
2. On the way to the office.
3. In an automobile.
4. Suddenly.
5. In the morning.
6. The brake.
7. A man.

• ²⁷ For this use of to, see pp. 208–10.

B I. Other Word-Forms

With the 850 words, and a knowledge only of the forms which have so far been used, a surprising number of statements are now possible, and a still greater number would be quite clear to every reader. This is because the other forms are chiefly designed to make things go more smoothly. A rough idea of the sense may be got without their help; and most of the expansions of the senses of the words are quite natural developments when taken in connection with the rest of a statement.

Let us go back to the example on page 155 and put the nearest form about which we are certain in the place of any word which we have not come across so far:

“The camera-man who make an attempt to take a move picture of the society women before they get they hats off, do not get off the ship, till he was question …”

There is no doubt that the story is all in past time, so the sense is clear even here. It is only necessary to get the right time-forms of make, get, and do, the ‘pronoun’-form their, and the rule for making ‘adjectives’ when needed, from names like move and question. When you are clear about the behavior of the very small list of ‘operation-words’ and ‘pronoun’-forms on pages 169 and 170, and the working of the rule on page 176 about the addition of the endings -er, -ing, and -ed when needed, you have the complete system.

This is interesting for two reasons:

1. In other languages (and in normal English) there are

2. Even the most strongly supported of the different attempts to make an international language with new words has at least 50 different endings which may be put onto its root-words; and you have to be an expert with most of these endings (and with about 3,000 separate roots) before you are able to make any but the simplest sort of statements, such as those which have been possible in the earlier pages of this ‘A B C.’

The present form used with he, she, or it is made by the simple addition of ‘s.’ Only be, do (does), go (goes), and have (has) are not regular.

One, in addition to being part of the number system (page 236) has two uses as a ‘pronoun.’ The first has the sense “a person or thing” (of those, or of the sort, being talked about): I have no pencil. Please give me one. The other has the sense “any person” (and from this is formed oneself): If one has money, one generally has friends. When one is old, one has to take care of oneself.

For “this is my book” and so on, we may say “this (book) is mine” (yours, his, hers, ours, theirs). That is, these new owner-forms may take the place of my (your and so on) and the name of a thing whenever it is clear from what is being said what the thing is: those are their seats and these are ours. The owner-forms of names are used in the same way: John is not my brother, he is Mary’s.

1. ‘Verb’-Forms (With ‘Pronouns’)

The different forms of the operation-words and ‘pronouns’ may be given in examples which make it clear when and how they are to be used.

Here is be, used with the different ‘pronouns’ in the present.

1. I am where he (she, it) is; so we (you, they) are all in the same place.

Then we have be in the past, and with it the special form which is only used with have or be.

2. This (that) was where these (those) were seen (made, kept, put, given, sent, taken) yesterday.

Example 3 (and 5) gives us the form of the operation-word with the sense ‘in the process of,’ which is used with all the different past, present, and future forms of be.

3. I am (was, will be) going (coming) where he is (was, will be) getting (making, putting) what we are (were, will be) having (giving, keeping) for our meal.

Example 4 gives the present form of have.

4. I (we) have some things which he (she, it) has.

Example 5 gives two complex ways of making the past by using the ‘auxiliary’ have or the complex auxiliary have been with the special forms seen in 2.

5. I (you) have had (got, seen, taken, and so on) what he has been having (saying, seeing, sending, taking).

Examples 6 and 7 give the simple present of all the operation-words other than be and have, with examples of the complex present formed with be.

6. Whenever he lets us, we take (do, get, keep, make, say, see, send) what he makes (does, puts, says, sees, sends, gives); but now he is being (seeming) kind, and is letting me see how he is doing it.
7. Whose are these (those) dogs which come (go) where my (his, her) dog comes (goes), and gets (keeps, puts, takes) its food?

Examples 8 and 9 (10 and 11) give some simple past forms of the operation-words.

8. Our (your, their) dogs came (went) and got what the other dog kept (put, took) there.
9. Before he went (came), I saw how he (they) did (had, kept, said, made, sent) it.

Example 10 gives us another complex way of forming the past by using the past of have with the special past forms which came into example 2.

10. Others, who had done (had, said) it before, gave me (him, her, us, you, them) no help.

Now comes an example of do when used to make a Past statement with not. In addition, you are given the Past of may and will.

11. It seemed that if I (we) let (did not let) the boy whom I saw have it, he might take what he did (would) not take before.

Last of all, we get two more ways of puffing words together to make complex pasts, for which may, might, and would are used.

12. He says that we may have been wrong, because we might (would) not have seemed so foolish if we had not let them take it.

For those who have no knowledge of English, or are only in the early stages, the learning of these different forms and their uses will probably be the hardest part of their work. Putting together examples of all sorts is the best way; and the learner will do well to make lists of such forms which he comes across in reading.

Questions and Examples

Here is a bit of prose:

“Caesar take most of the men what had been with Pompey into her army, and makes peace with the important persons among they. Brutus, which later putting Caesar to death, is one of these, and they says that Caesar be full of regret when, after the fight, no one had saw him, and that she was very happy when he gives himself up.”

Put the words in italics into their right form, using the past form for the names of acts. Then put them into the present and future form. If Caesar and Brutus were women what changes would have to be made?

We may now give some examples of the special use of it for starting statements (see page 147). In it seems to me …, it is true that …, it is wise to …, the it is pointing to what is going to be said. In it is raining (see page 178) the sense of it is open to argument, but seems to have some suggestion of a strange power which is responsible for events.

The use of have with had in example 5 is very like the use of have with the name of a quality. I have the food ready = I have the food got = I have got the food. Here are some other statements in the same form:

• I have done the work.
• A rat has taken the cheese.
• The experts have made a test.
• The workmen have made a hole.

2. Comparison

In the same way in which there are different degrees of heat, it is possible to have different degrees of any quality, and different amounts of a thing or substance. How are these degrees made clear in Basic English? For this purpose, there are the ‘adverbs’ almost, enough, little, much, only, quite, so, very; but sometimes we have to make statements about one thing in comparison with another, and these comparisons are made possible by more and most, which are formed from much. An example will make the use of these two words clear: If I had much money yesterday, and my friends had the same amount; and if I get more money today though my friends do not, I will then have most money. This gives us a sort of rough scale which is used in the same way with qualities. An event may be frequent, more frequent, or most frequent; a person may be tired, more tired, or most tired; an act may be done quickly, more quickly, or most quickly.

rule. Statements of comparison are made by putting more and most in front of an ‘adjective’ or ‘adverb.’

Though more and most may be used with any quality word, a certain number of these words take the endings -er, -est, which have a more natural sound to English ears. These are generally the shorter words like fat, long, red, true.²⁸ The learner will best get these into his head by reading and talking; the sense is the same whichever form is used. But it is necessary to give special attention to two words which are not regular: bad, which makes comparisons with the forms worse and worst, and good, forming better and best.

The ‘adverb’ little, like much, has special forms for comparison.²⁹ These are less and least, and when used with names of qualities, they make the opposite end of the scale to that which is formed by more and most.

The only quality words about which statements of comparison are not made are those whose sense gives no suggestion of degree. Examples of these are first, last, male, female, same.

To make a statement of comparison complete the joining word than is used when the comparison is between unequals, as in: the country is more beautiful than the town; women are less strong than men; and equal comparisons are put into the form as … as, so that we say she is as good as her sister; butter is not as cheap as it was.

In addition, this as form is used for making comparisons with the help of some of the ‘adverbs’ of degree. We say he is almost as old as the manager, the leaves are quite as green as the grass, the coat is only as new as the hat.

Another form of comparison is possible with as and such; for example, such comforts as these, or comforts such as these.

• ²⁸ Take note of the forms: fatter, flatter, redder, sadder, thinner, wetter; and of the fact that in words ending in y, the y is changed to i before the addition of -er, -est: dry, drier, driest.
• ²⁹ There are only three other ‘adverbs’ which have such forms: far, farther (further), farthest; near, nearer, nearest; well, better, best. In addition, inner and outer are formed from in and out.

Questions and Examples

When one is talking to businessmen it is a good thing to make one’s statements as short as possible. How would you say this in 9 words: There is not as great a number of snakes in England as there is in Africa? (There are less snakes in England than in Africa.)

Does it seem strange to you that there are some quality words which do not ever come into statements of comparison? If two things are the same is it possible for them to be more or less like one another than they are? Have you ever been earlier than the first person at a meeting? If so, you may be of the opinion that it is possible for an only son to have brothers.

Put the right words into the spaces in the statement:

When you go ____ from the north you get ____ to the south.

Would this be equally true if we put west and east in place of north and south?

Are there any words of which you are able to say certainly from the sound that they do not take the endings -er, -est? What about dependent, necessary, foolish? Would you put flat and thick in the same group?

What are the errors here:

The baddest boy did wellest in the test?

Pointing at one or other of these pictures, make statements like These birds are wiser than these birds, these birds are less wise than these birds, with happy, angry, foolish, quiet, kind, and violent.

3. Endings in -er, -ing, -ed

rule. 300 of the 600 names of things may take the endings, -er, -ing, -ed³⁰ to make new words having a straightforward connection of sense with them.

Of these names, 200 are general and 100 are the names of pictured things.

The name of a thing is formed by the addition of -er (person who, thing which, does a certain act), and -ing (the doing of the act); the name of a quality by -ing (in the process of doing the act) and -ed (having undergone the act). Though all these endings may be used with any of the 300 names, there are some with which -er and -ed will probably not ever be needed because of the sense. ‘Rainers’ and ‘snowers’ have no place in our experience, and it is a little hard to see what sort of thing would be ‘smiled.’

The names of acts are the most straightforward. Here the -er form becomes the name of the person or thing which does the act in question; -ing makes the ‘adjective’ used about the doer and the name of the act when in process of being done; and the -ed form gives the ‘adjective’ of the person or thing to which the act is done.

Act,³¹ attack, exchange, kiss, roll, smash, turn are among the words in this group.

Another simple group is made up of the names of conditions of feeling or being. With a number of these the change of sense is parallel to that which takes place with the names of acts, -er forming the name of the person or thing having the condition, -ing the ‘adjective’ used about such a person, and so on. Examples are desire, fear, love, regret. With the other words in this group, -er makes the name of the thing causing the condition: comfort, heat, surprise; -ing then naturally gives the ‘adjective’ used of this cause, and -ed that of the thing in which the condition is caused. It may be noted that ‘resting’ and ‘balancing’ are used in two ways—of persons or things in a condition of rest or balance and of those causing such a condition. The only condition word which is not like one of the two sorts of examples given is motion. This is because it is only a special use of the word, for a sign made with the arm or hand, which takes the endings.

There is a very important group of words in which the -ing form is used for the doing of some act for which the thing named is used, or in which it takes the chief part. With substance words the act is frequently that of putting the substance onto something. ‘Oiling’ is putting oil on, an ‘oiler’ is a person or apparatus which does this, and an ‘oiled machine’ is a machine into which oil has been put. Butter, chalk, coal, ink, polish, sugar, water, and a number of other words are of the same sort. (‘Dusting,’ on the other hand, has the sense of taking dust off.) Some words which are not names of substances, such as cover, feather, letter, stamp, have the same behavior. Another list might be made of names of things whose -ing ending gives the sense of putting. ‘Bottling’ is putting into a bottle, ‘pocketing’ is putting in one’s pocket, and ‘potting’ is putting into a pot. With most of the other words in this group the -ing act is clear enough from the purpose for which the thing in question was made. Brush, cart, comb, drain, hammer, plow will give no trouble to anyone. But possibly it may not be quite so clear that ‘detailing’ is giving all the details of something, that ‘wheeling’ is pushing a thing on wheels, or even that ‘handing’ is offering in the hand.

A fourth group is made up of words to which the addition of -ing gives the name of the act by which those things are made. Some of these words are fictions; for example, answer, damage, effect, request, stop. But others are the names of things which are formed by a quite straightforward physical process. We may see a bit of wood ‘cracking,’ or a house ‘burning,’ and we ourselves do the ‘folding’ which makes a fold, and the ‘roofing’ which gives us a roof. It may seem a little strange to some that ‘raining’ is the process of making rain, because it is the rain itself which comes down. But because the rain does not become rain till it comes down in the form of rain, there is a good reason for placing it in this group. With flower it is the process of producing flowers which is named by flowering, so it frequently, as an ‘adjective,’ means simply ‘in flower,’ ‘having flowers out.’ Branch, curve, and arch are a little different from the others, because the ‘branching,’ ‘curving,’ and ‘arching’ generally go on all the time, that is, they are representative more of conditions than of acts. One sense of ‘forking’ (as used, for example, of a road branching into two) comes into this group.

In addition to the four chief groups which have been given attention so far, there are some words which make up only very small groups, or even do not go into any group at all. One such group is that formed by cook, guide, judge, in which the -ing form gives the name of the work which it is normal for a cook, guide, or judge to do. The -er form is here unnecessary, though ‘cooker’ is used for a cooking-apparatus. From farm, garden, market, and mine are formed by the -ing ending the names for the work which is done in those places. But ‘harboring’ is acting like a harbor to, ‘landing’ is coming to land, ‘placing’ is putting in a place, and ‘schooling’ is a form of training which is not necessarily given in school. ‘Causing’ (being a cause of), ‘milking’ (getting milk from a cow and so on), ‘pricing’ (putting a price on) are examples of words with which the endings may be worked quite simply from a knowledge of the root sense. ‘Viewing’ (looking at something as if it was a view), ‘facing’ (turning one’s face in the direction of), and ‘skirting’ (going round the edge of) seem a little less natural. And the learner will probably not see how ‘training becomes teaching or education, or ‘watching’ has the sense of keeping an eye on, without a word of help from the teacher, pointing out the connection between a train of carriages and the train of events which makes up the process of learning, and between the watch which a man’s eye keeps on the clock and the watch which keeps an automatic finger on the time.

Where the act named by a word with the -ing ending may be done in a certain direction or to some thing, it is natural to say looking at the sky, painting a picture.

Another sense given by -ed is ‘with, having, whatever is named by the root word.’ Some -ed forms have only this sense, others have it as a second sense: flowered (of material)—‘with (a design of) flowers on it’; hooked—‘fixed on (by) a hook’ or ‘with (the form of) a hook.’ Some words take -ed in this sense only for forming complex ‘adjectives,’ as bright-eyed.

Certain words which do not take the other endings may have -ed in this sense, as winged, dark-haired, glassed (a glassed-in summer house), leaded (leaded windows). These are not listed for the learner, but will be come across in his reading.

In addition to the 300 names which take 3 endings, all those ending in -ing have a use as ‘adjectives’ and all but meeting may take -er in place of the -ing. A ‘builder’ may be ‘building’ a building, a ‘learner’ may be ‘learning’ (learning) and so on. With them are grouped the -ing ‘adjectives’—boiling, hanging, living, and waiting.

There are twelve names of qualities with -er and -ing endings: clean, clear, complete, cut, dirty, dry, free, open, separate, smooth, shut, and wet. Of these, all but cut and shut may take -ed as well. The rules for changing certain letters before the endings are the same as with names of things, so we get dried, dirtied, wetted, wetting, wetter, and so on. ‘Cleaning’ is making clean, and a man who does this is a ‘cleaner.’ Please, like the names of qualities, takes two of the endings, -ing and -ed.

Here is a list of the 300:

200 General Names

act, air, answer, attack, attempt, back, balance, base, breath, burn, butter, cause, chalk, chance, change, cloth, coal, color, comfort, condition, control, cook, copper, copy, cork, cough, cover, crack, credit, crush, cry, curve, damage, design, desire, detail, disgust, doubt, dust, edge, effect, end, exchange, experience, fear, fire, flower, fold, force, form, front, grip, group, guide, harbor, hate, heat, help, hope, humor, ice, increase, ink, interest, iron, join, journey, judge, jump, kick, kiss, land, laugh, letter, level, lift, light, limit, list, look, love, machine, mark, market, mass, measure, milk, mine, motion, move, name, need, note, number, offer, oil, order, ornament, page, pain, paint, paper, part, paste, place, plant, play, point, poison, polish, powder, price, print, process, produce, profit, protest, pull, purpose, push, question, rain, range, rate, ray, reason, record, regret, request, respect, rest, reward, roll, rub, rule, salt, scale, seat, sense, shade, shame, shock, side, sign, silver, slip, slope, smash, smell, smile, smoke, sneeze, snow, soap, sort, sound, space, stage, start, steam, steel, step, stitch, stone, stop, stretch, sugar, support, surprise, talk, taste, tax, test, thunder, time, tin, top, touch, trade, transport, trick, trouble, turn, twist, unit, use, value, view, voice, walk, wash, waste, water, wave, wax, weather, weight, word, work, wound.

100 Picturable Things

arch, arm, band, bath, bed, board, bone, book, bottle, box, brain, branch, brick, bridge, brush, button, cake, cart, chain, circle, cloud, coat, comb, cord, curtain, cushion, drain, dress, drop, eye, face, farm, feather, finger, fish, floor, fork, frame, garden, glove, hammer, hand, hat, head, hook, house, jewel, knife, knot, line, lock, map, mouth, nail, nerve, net, parcel, pen, pencil, picture, pin, pipe, plane, plate, plow, pocket, pot, prison, pump, rail, receipt, ring, roof, root, sail, school, screw, seed, ship, shoe, skin, skirt, sponge, square, stamp, star, station, store, sun, thread, thumb, ticket, train, wall, watch, wheel, whip, whistle, wire, worm.

• ³⁰ There are other words in the Basic List which take some but not all of these endings. For example, run, runner, running (but not ‘runned’). It is not necessary to have a knowledge of them, but anyone with enough experience may make use of them.
• ³¹ A person acting on the stage is an actor, a seaman is a sailor, and a person to whom the payment of a debt has to be made is a creditor. But the sounds are the same as if the endings were in -er.

Questions and Examples

Here is a list of words. Every one gets the same sort of sense from the addition of the endings as some other word in the list. See which of them go together: pump, polish, fold, roll, ornament, mass, crush, brush, group, damage. You may be at a loss to see which word to put with group. Mass is the answer, because grouping is forming into groups in the same way as massing is forming into masses. Which 2 words would you put these with: sponge, whip, wire, cord?

Put the 4 words dress, range, cloud, map³² in their places in these examples:

1. We have jewels —ing in quality from the poorest to the best.
2. The mother is —ing the baby.
3. Take the digestion into account when —ing out a meal for persons in hospital.
4. The glass was —ed with steam.

Make sense of this statement by completing the -ing form with all the words possible from the list on pages 180–81:

• She is —ing the machine.

Put these letters in the right order to make words with one of the three endings: gitwints, donidonicet, curdodep, aresudem, resruptop.

Might one say raining the field or smiling the man? (No, because only rain is ‘rained’ and only smiles are ‘smiled.’ But we might say raining on the field, smiling at the man.)

A rough guide to the use of the -ed form is: Do not make use of it where it would be wrong to put another sort of ‘adjective.’ For example, we do not say I have blue the wall, so we may not say, in Basic, I have painted the wall. But The wall is blue is quite right, and so is The wall is painted.

• ³² Most words ending, like map, in one letter representative of a stopped sound (but not r, w, x, or y), with one letter representative of an open sound before it, put in the last letter again before -er, -ing, and -ed: control(ler), net(ting), regret(ted). With all words ending in ‘e,’ the ‘e’ is dropped before -er and -ed, and with all but two (shoeing, eyeing), before -ing: hated, lover, hoping. Uniting and united are said with a long first ‘i’ as in night.

B II. Expansions and Special Senses

1. Names of Things and Qualities

In addition to changes in its form, which give us new words, there are two chief ways in which a word may be made to do overtime—by a stretch of the sense to something a little different, or by limiting the sense to some special sort of thing covered by the name.

The greatest number of expansions are formed by using the name of one thing for the name of another which seems in some way to be like it. Starting with that which is nearest to us—ourselves—we readily see parallels between the parts of the body and certain common things. For example, head is used for the round top of anything; foot becomes the general name for a base; any branch or rod roughly in the position of an arm is said to be an arm, while the important use of the arm in the early days for fighting made it seem natural for instruments of war to be looked upon as longer and stronger arms; the connection between the leg of an animal and the leg of a seat or bed is even clearer, and the fact that the chest is the box where our breathing-apparatus is kept, gives us the more general use of chest for ‘box’ and ‘chest of drawers.’ Other important expansions in this field are mouth (an opening), heart (for the seat of the feelings), neck (the narrow part of a bottle, a violin, and so on), tooth (for anything pointed like a tooth), and face (the side which is in front, or before one’s eyes).

Things may be like one another in a number of different ways. The simplest comparisons to make are those dependent on sense qualities—size, form, sound, and so on. Great things are frequently said to be mountains, small things, babies; a number of persons become an army.Plates of steel and glass are so named because they are flat and smooth; thinner substances, such as paper, are leaves. A hollow is a basin, a long, thin bit of anything, a stick; we have cakes of soap, and even family trees. In much the same way the sound of guns comes to our ears like thunder, and some are more moved by the music of the river than by the music of the band.

The comparisons based on purpose or behavior are more complex, and these make up the widest group. The bodies in space which are named suns and moons, are in form and behavior very like our sun and moon. A breath of wind is quite like the breath we give out, and the carriage of a train is used for the same purpose (the transport of persons) as a carriage pulled by horses. But the chain of connection is longer between the bed of a river or a flower-bed and the bed in which we take our rest, between the crimes for which a man is sent to prison and the crimes of the government, or of society, between an automatic machine in the station and a man who is said to be a machine because he does the same sort of thing all the time, or between the kick of an animal and the kick of an engine.

Going a step farther, ‘fictions’ are formed by these ‘as if’ comparisons; that is to say, things which have no true existence are talked of as though they were like what we see round us. It would not be possible to take a walk in a field of interest, though there is something in common between the range of our thoughts and a limited space; strong though the attraction may be which cakes have for a small boy, he is not physically pulled to them as the needle is to the north; and the work of the church puts no weight on the money support it is given, though the roof of the church is certainly resting on its supports of wood or stone.

Certain names of qualities give us another group of ‘expansions’ which have an even more complex connection with the qualities whose names they take, the connection here being dependent on our reactions to the things of which they are used. What is there in common between a bitter taste and a bitter experience, stiff material and stiff behavior, a smooth floor and smooth words, a bright color and a bright face? Most of us have as little desire for a second bitter experience as we have to take a second bitter fruit; a person who is stiff in behavior generally has the look of being made of stiff material; smooth words are as kind to our feelings as a smooth floor is to our feet; we are made as happy by a bright face as we are by a bright color. Only psychology is able to give a complete answer as to why these expansions come naturally in such a number of languages, but the comparisons may be of some help in pointing out the connections we have been talking about.

We now come to a group in which the connection is based on a tendency for things which have one quality to have a second. Cheap things are frequently in bad taste, so things which are in bad taste are said to be cheap, even though a high price may have been given for them. The less complex an act is the less hard it is to do, and so acts which give us little trouble are said to be simple.

Not all expansions of sense are based on the relation of like to like. For example, the name of a feeling or thing may be used for its cause, as with amusement, comfort, pleasure, surprise. Or the name of a thing may be used for the process by which it is produced, as in addition, advertisement, building, discovery. A third group of a like sort is made up by the expansion of the name of a thing to its use, such as brush, sail, whistle.

Sometimes a thing which is part of a greater thing gives its name to it. A number of letters when put down on paper, in the form of words and statements, make a letter which we send to someone; those who come from towns like Tokyo or New York have as much right to say that Japan or the United States is the country of their birth as farmers living in the country of fields and woods; and when a number of men get together to do something they become one body in the eyes of the law.

Then we have the use of the name of a substance for something which is commonly made of it, a glass for a drinking-vessel, an iron for a dress iron, a tin for a tin box or pot; or the use of the name of a thing for the substance forming it, as horn for the material of horns, card for that of which cards are made.

Last of all, there are a number of expansions based on true connections, which do not, however, go into any group. Most of these are, happily, quite simple. Examples are gold and orange, which give their name to their color, relation for a person in a family relation, force for something which has force, library for the books which go in a library. Not quite so simple are Spring and Fall for the times of year before and after Summer, a note in music for a sound in a scale, (the) rest for what is in addition. It takes a little more thought, or knowledge of the history of words, to see the connection between the point of a pin and the point of a story, between the plane which makes wood smooth and the plane of an airplane, between the frame of a picture and the frame of a structure, or between being certain (of something) and being of a certain (but unnamed) sort. If they have no parallel in his natural language, the learner will probably be wisest to get these last expansions by heart and keep his questions till a later stage.

A special sense is different from an expansion because it gives a word a narrower, not a wider, sense. Special uses are formed when a bit of a substance used for a purpose is covered by the name of the substance. In this way we get a chalk, a cloth, a paper. When a thing becomes important in our experience it is generally given a separate name from its group. We have, for example, shoes and boots, watches and clocks. But sometimes the special need is only responsible for the development of a special use. A ball, if no other details are given, is a ball for sport, a business man is one whose business is trade, a judge is a representative of the law, a stamp is a post office stamp, and the pictures are the motion-pictures. With some words, however, their special sense is not their most important one. The curtain in front of the stage in a theater is not as important as the curtains in our houses, though it is The Curtain; and most of us have less to do with the gloves of the fighter than we have with the gloves which keep our hands warm.

So far, we have given attention only to the expansions and special senses of words in their root form. But the addition of the -er, -ing, and -ed endings frequently makes new expansions and special senses possible. A certain number of these give us words which are necessary in the Basic system. A list may be of use. First, among the expansions, we have clothing, crying, facing, gripping, moving, noted, painting, parting, playing, rubber, shocked, stretcher, training, united, working. Some of the most important special uses are: actor, duster, feeler, maker, producer, sailor, stopper, used.

Quite a number of words have no special sense and no expansion. Some have only a special sense or only an expansion; and though no word may have more than one special sense, because if there were more we might get mixed between them, it may have any number of expansions. For example, starting with the idea of a law as a man-made rule, the word is then used for a general statement of fact, the system of laws in society, and the men responsible for putting these laws into effect. Again, a line, from being a long mark, comes to be used for the way between two points, for things placed in the form of a line (side by side like houses in a street and so on), for the rails of a train, and for a cord (for certain purposes). With a little experience, this sort of word will not give trouble; the sense is made clear by what is being talked about.

Among the names of qualities some have a different sort of expansion in their use as names of things. The simplest example of this is the use of the name of a quality with the before it in the sense “that which is …” or “those who (which) are …” (for example, the beautiful, the old, the dead, the first, the last). But a number of these names of qualities are used as names of things with somewhat more special senses. These are:

acid, chemical, chief, cold, complex, cut, dark, elastic, equal, fat, female, flat, future, good(s)), hollow, living, male, material, opposite, parallel, past, present, public, quiet, right, safe, second, secret, solid, sweet, waiting, wet, wrong, young, and the color words.

Questions and Examples

What are the special senses of current, engine, rail, ring? (electric current, railway engine, engine rail, finger ring). You might make a list of any other Basic words which have a special sense in your experience.

Give the sense of the expansions of the words in italics from their use in these examples:

• The door has a new coat of paint.
• Fear of change was responsible for a government of reaction.
• Some men are not happy in the society of women.
• The girl puts polish on her nails.
• They have put a new wing onto the school-building.

Do you see how the words get a different sense? These ideas may be a help. A door is covered by paint as a man is by a coat; a government of reaction is not unlike the small boy whose reaction to being put into deep water is to have a reaction against anything new; society is made up of a number of persons together, so ‘society’ has a connection with the idea of being with others, or ‘company’; uncut finger-nails get long and pointed like the nails used by the joiner; the side parts of a building sometimes give the idea of the outstretched wings of a bird.

If you have got the different groups of expansions into your head, you will be able to say into which group these words go: invention, iron, stage, solid, deep, paper, net, star, bone. Where would you put humor and wash?

In what branch of work is industry most valued? (Among those who make things. That is why we say Trade and Industry.)

What is the connection between a serious person and a serious event?

2. Words for Operations

BE

Be has no special uses which are not clear from its normal behavior as a connection between whatever is talked about and what is said about it (he is a cook, he is good, he is across the street, he is here). There is in statements like there is enough is listed under there. In this last example the idea of existence is more marked.

In addition, see let.

COME

Come is the opposite of go from the point of view of anyone at a fixed place, but it is not quite so widely used for motion generally. Things may come in all the directions, but whenever come is not clearly needed, there is a tendency to make use of go.

From our point of view, then, thoughts come into the mind in the same way in which smells come into the house. A statement may come out of a book, a new star may come into existence, flowers may come from bulbs, or a meeting may come to an end. Two uses frequently needed, because hearing and hoping are very common, are it came to his ears (that), and this did not come up to my hopes, which is like the water not coming up to our necks in a bath, or the sea not coming up to some fixed mark.

When the thing to which anything comes is not named, it is because everyone will be able to make the necessary addition in his mind. So the sea comes in (to the land), money comes in (to a business), the sun comes up, flowers come up, prices come down, buttons come off, and so on.

There are 5 special uses of come.

DO

Do is most frequently used with the name of some act, or of what is produced by some act. We do a kind act, do the right thing, or do the cleaning; or we may do a picture, and when learning music, we do music. Do by itself, in the sense of do what is necessary, be enough, is used in I will make this do, or this will do (the work, what is necessary). In addition, it may be put in the place of some other operation-word which has come earlier in the statement: He put his hands up and the others did the same.

There are 2 special uses of do.

In addition, see good.

GET

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 these processes, in relation to everything which may be talked about.

We get money for a living, and we get a living by making money. So we get control, experience, help, support; or we get an answer, a light, a shock.

When things have to be moved, we get them up, down, and so on—in all the directions of space. We get a tree up (by the roots), or down (by cutting), or down a mountain; we get a bridge across a river, or food into the house, or an idea into a person’s head, or liquid out of a bottle, or a secret out of a person.

Among the commonest things which get moved about in this way are our bodies. In fact, moving our bodies is so common that we generally say nothing about it, and simply get up (from a seat, or from bed in the morning). So get may be used in the same way as go and come, as in get to the office early. But it is more frequently used when the way in which the act is done is not a simple form of motion like walking, or a normal one like taking a train. He went out of the house (by walking out), or he went into the country (by the morning train). But he got out of the house (through the window, by a trick, secretly), or he got into the country (by running, after some trouble, in the end).

So we get off a ship, or away from danger, or over a wall, or down a tree, or through a test; and by a natural expansion we may get through work or get over a disease.

In the same way get is used with an ‘adjective’ for all changes of condition caused by any act. We get the food ready, or get our fingers sticky, or get the work started. And we ourselves get married, get old, get near the end, and get ready for the future.

There are 5 special uses of get.

In addition, see nerve and good.

GIVE

As we have seen, the natural direction of the act of giving is to, so that the milk is given to the cat; and in the same way we give an answer, a reward, a name, a look, a touch, a push, or a kick to whoever gets them.³³

We give time or attention to our work; experience gives value to our opinions; attention to details gives a sense of knowledge; knowledge of facts gives support to our statements. At a meeting we give a talk; the papers give news of what is said; false news gives trouble.

There are other ways in which it is possible for things to be given, in addition to the natural direction to. We may give out stores, give away money or a secret, or give back a book; the waiters may give food round (to everyone at table); the water may give off steam or gas, the sun gives out light. All these are probably clear to anyone who will give a little thought to the sense of the words.³⁴

There are 5 special uses of give, of which the two last are in need of special notes.

Give up has first the sense of giving to someone over us in power or authority (‘up’), so we give up our tickets, and in war the side which is overcome gives up its arms. From this, frequently colored by the suggestion of putting up one’s hands as a sign that one is not going on with the fight, comes the use of give up by itself as ‘let oneself be overcome,’ or simply ‘not keep on.’ So, by a short further step, we give up hope, smoking, or our rights.

Given to has the sense of ‘with a tendency to’—given to saying foolish things, given to sport, pleasure, drink—generally with the suggestion that the tendency is not a good one.

• ³³ Sometimes the name of what is given is put after that of the getter and the to dropped. This is the normal form when what is given is not material (I gave the ball a kick), and is common when the getter is named by a ‘pronoun’ (I gave him food). But if the thing given is itself named by a ‘pronoun,’ that has to come first (Give It (to) me).

• ³⁴ Though put is the opposite of take, and get of give, put and get, give and take are opposite in the sense of being the opposite acts which make a complete operation. For example, we would generally say:

  • The servants put water on the plants.
  • The plants get water.
  • Plants give fruit (to men).
  • Men take the fruit.

GO

Whenever anything is in motion, or is put in motion, or puts itself in motion, it goes. Machines go smoothly, the moon goes round the Earth, men go to and from places. But in the root sense go is the natural opposite of come.

As we have seen (page 134), we generally come here and go there; here being the place where we now are, and there being some other place to which we are going.³⁵ So, the natural direction of go is away. But because it is the most general word for all sorts of motion, it may be used freely in every sort of direction and expansion.

If, for example, you are able to take a dog to a house, or for a swim, or about, or back, you may say that it goes to a house, for a swim, or about, or back. If it is a well-trained dog, it goes after a rat—and gets it.

When a number of possible directions seem possible for an operation, all of them may be right. So we may go into the accounts, over the accounts, or through the accounts. We may go against authority, against the government, against good taste, against the rules, or against public opinion. In the same way, it is possible to go to any thing or place to business, to work, or even to one’s death.

Sometimes a little common sense may be necessary to take into account the conditions in which something is said. When will the food not go round?—When there is not enough to go round the table. When do two things go together?—When they are parts of one thing, such as a machine, or have some connection in fact or thought. When do we go on?—When on is used in the sense of forward. And so on.

In addition, go is used with ‘adjectives’ like wrong, bad, solid as in everything went wrong today, the food went bad, the jelly went solid.

There are 5 special uses of go.

In addition, see without.

• ³⁵ When we are going to see a friend we take his point of view in such a statement as “I will come to see you in the morning.”

HAVE

The things which we have in the most natural sense are the things of which we are the owners—our houses, our money, and our land. These things are our property. But there is a wider sense in which have is very generally used.

The things which are most like our property, and which we have in the wider sense, are our bodies. We have arms and legs, a head, a throat, muscles, a brain, a mind. In the same way we have a pain, a thought, a desire, a feeling, a disease, or a religion.

A man may have a good voice, a poor digestion, a sense of humor, or respect for others. We may say of a machine that it has had no oil, or no attention, or a smash; and of an opinion that it has no arguments against it; or, after getting the arguments ready, that we have them ready.

Very different things may in some way, or at some time, be talked about as being in this special relation to us; and it is clear that whenever we get or are given anything we then have it.

There are 5 special uses of have.

In addition, see face, mind, name.

KEEP

When we have anything for some time, or go on having it, we keep it for a certain time; and when it is our property, we simply keep it. We say:

“I will keep the book for a week,” and “May I keep the book which you gave me?”

We keep things in some position or condition which they would not be in if we let them go. If I put a ball on the end of my nose, it is hard to keep it there, or to keep it balanced there. It is sometimes equally hard to keep a secret, or to keep a person from doing wrong.

As with get, it may be ourselves or our bodies which we keep in this way, so we keep off the grass, to the right side of the road, or simply on, in the sense of keep going forward (see on). So we see signs in public places such as

• “Keep off the grass.”
• “Keep to the right.”

In the same way we may keep (ourselves) ready, or keep young, or keep doing (something), or keep where we are, or keep our money safe.

We keep the fire burning in the fire-place, and we keep the glasses in the cupboard; and everything which may be put away (sad thoughts), or together (threads, ideas), may be kept away or kept together.

There are 5 special uses of keep.

In addition see eye and word.

LET

The opposite of keeping something is letting it go. But in addition to letting things come and go, and letting our friends put and take, make and have, seem and be whatever is desired, we may let anything in or out (or in any other direction), or let a gun (go) off. When we let the dog loose, it will probably be clear that we let it be loose, free, unchained, and so on.

Let has in addition a use as an ‘auxiliary’ with ‘us,’ to make a request or suggestion for some other person or persons to do something with the person talking:

• Let us go to see her.

It is a sort of order, given to the person talking himself, as well as to others.

There are 5 special uses of let.

MAKE

The simplest act of making takes place when some new physical thing is caused to come into existence, by the maker. Sheep have wool on their backs; men make cloth with the wool.

In a more general sense, most things of which we are the cause may be said to be made by us, such as a law, a decision, a statement, or a religion. Important events are said to make history.

We go into business so as to make money. It is true that the money is not new money, but the process of making it seems to the businessman quite as much an art as that of the man who makes cloth or pictures; he puts it in the bank with a feeling of having made an addition to the income of his family or his country. Clearly he does not get it from his father, or take it by force from those in competition with him. And if he makes use of his money in the right way, it will not be hard for him to make a great number of friends.

If the condition of things or persons is changed by our acts, we make them different. We may make a statement clear, make a talk interesting, or make a friend happy. Hope seems to make all things possible, and a bad cold makes one meal as uninteresting as another. Make goes in the same way with all the operation-words; so that we may make a person do any act, or make him come, go, put, take, and so on.

There are 5 special uses of make.

In addition, see certain, face, love, much, and of.

PUT

Put is the natural word for the operation by which a bottle is caused to get into a box. But the same sort of act which puts the bottle into a box puts it on the table, or puts it down, or puts it away.

So, by an expansion, we may put our troubles or doubts away, or out of our minds; or we may put a person down, in the sense that we get ourselves into a position where we may be said to be on top and he will give us no more trouble. Or we may put an idea before a person, in much the same way as we put food before him. We may put a question to a friend, and he may put his answer into words.

If things are on record, it is because someone has put them on record; and we may be put in the wrong, or put out of doubt, in the same way in which we are put, physically, in (a) prison or out of a room; but because the more important things are generally put before others on a list, one thing is said to be put before another when it is given greater value. There is no limit to the number of things which may be talked of as if they were places or spaces, and for all such purposes putting is the natural operation.

There are 5 special uses of put.

In addition, see mind, off, stop, and up.

SAY

When we put an idea into words, we say the words; but even if our words are not clear we say something. We say things, much as we (are said to) do them or make them, and when we make any statement we may say it in a number of different ways (to ourselves, through the nose, and so on). We may (make it clear or) say that we have a cold in the same way as we may say (do and so on) what is needed. These different uses are a natural outcome of the account of to (pages 208–09), what (page 163), and that (page 160).

SEE

Whenever we make use of our eyes we see things: but by an expansion common in most languages we see the point of a statement when we get its sense.

We see through glass or through a keyhole, and when anyone makes a false statement or comes to us with some trick, we may say that we see through him, or see through the trick. But it is our hope and belief that it will give no trouble even to the oldest reader.

SEEM

Seem is generally used with to be or one of the other operation-words: He seems to have (do, say, see, and so on) nothing. He seems to be angry. To be, however, may sometimes be dropped and seem used by itself in the sense of ‘seem to be’; He seems angry. But this is never possible with the name of a quality ending in -ing: He seems to be waiting (living, hanging). When there is any doubt, it is never wrong to put in to be. For it seems to me, see page 173.

SEND

Things may be sent or made to go in all directions in which they go. So we send a parcel by post, and at the other end of its journey someone may send it forward. In sport, a ball is sent through the air, or across the field, and so on.

TAKE

The word take will give us a good idea of the step from the natural use to the expansions of sense which are possible for the operation-words.

We take what is put for us (generally with our hands), and when we have taken it we ourselves may have it, put it, or give it. When, for example, there are different drinks 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 food, a name, an order, a chance, a cold, a position, a suggestion. The chief thing which almost everyone 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 not in use) we may take a seat, by seating ourselves.

In exchange for money we get a number of things of which we become the owners, and of which, for this reason, we have or take control. So we take a house, or a box at the theater, or a ticket.

Whenever we take something into our body we simply take it; so we take a drink, or a breath, or even a smell. We make an attempt, a decision, a sign, a statement, or a protest, because by such acts something new seems to come into existence; but we take a look (at), take an interest or pleasure (in), because these things are looked on as waiting for us to take them. Another use of the same sort is taking a part (in a play). If we make trouble, it is frequently because we do not take trouble or take care; and the trouble we make is there for others to see and put right.

When we go for a walk we are sometimes said to take a walk (a run, a journey); and as in walking we take a step (forward) to get somewhere, so we take steps to get something, or to get it done.

When we come to the directions in which things may be taken there is little chance of serious error. If you have got over any doubts about the division between take and put by making the motions yourself, it will be clear to you that you take hope from a person. You do not put hope from him, because you do not put coal from a box. In the same way in which a cart takes away dust, sleep may take away pain. We take off our clothing, take forward designs, and take back statements when facts make it clear that they are false. Amusements take our minds off work.

In the same way as we take in food (into the mouth), we may be said to take in details. As we take work which is offered to us in the sense of making it our business to do it, so by a little stretch we take care of something when we make the care of it our business; and as we take down a book (from the shelf), so, by a not unnatural expansion, we take down words (from the mouth, on a writing-machine). We take a part of anything (away) from it, and we take a small number from a greater one, as when we take 3 from 5.

There are 5 special uses of take.

In addition, see hand, note, part, place, root, and side.

3. Names of Directions

ABOUT

When we are among things, the things are about us; but round now generally takes the place of about in statements like he had a number of friends round him. We still say there was no one about when the crime took place; but about is more commonly used in expansions such as a book (talk, discussion) about religion; he is clear (right) about the facts; he has no doubts about it, or he is making trouble about it.

There is 1 special use of about.

In addition, see come.

ACROSS

As we may go across the road, so one line may be across another.

See come and put.

AFTER

Though after still sometimes has the sense at the back of, in the same way as before may be used for in front of, it is generally used as the opposite of before in statements about time. So something may be a long time after an event, or after my coming or after I came.

There are 2 special uses of after.

AGAINST

From the simple use of against in talking of a spade against a wall we get sailing against wind and working against change.

AMONG

A thing which is in a group with others is said to be among them; so I am among my friends, or a fork is among the knives. In the same way, a man may be among his books; and among other things he may do work among the poor and make a distribution of food among his boys. If the distribution is unequal, there may be a fight among them.

AT

At is used for marking position in space or time. We may make a start or a stop at any point on a line, or at the end. In the same way we may be at Tokyo, on our journey, or get to the hotel at four on a certain day. If the door is the point at which we come in, we may be said to come in at the door (though generally we come in through doors and windows).

A man may be at the top of a tree, or at the head of the government, or at a meeting. The water may be at a high level, goods may be at a low price, or at any price (levels and prices being taken as measured on a scale). We may take our meals at any time, or at regular hours. Points of time are marked by an event; so we may go away at the request of a friend, and a gun may go off at a touch.

There are 10 special uses of at.

In addition, see all, angle, hand, loss, present, rate, school.

BEFORE

Though before is generally used of time, it still has its earlier sense of ‘in front of’ when we come before a judge, or put the facts before him. On the line of time, we come across some things before others; one event is before another event, or I will see him before coming. And from this it is a natural step to the use of before as a joining word between statements—I will see him before I come (page 161). We generally do first the things which are most pleasing to us; and so the sense is clear if I say, “I will go to prison before I will let my friend down.”

BETWEEN

Whenever only two things are in question, between is used in the place of among. They have a space or a distance or a material between them; time comes between events, and there is music between the acts of a play. There is a connection between, or a relation between, any two things between which we make a comparison. When one or other of two parcels is offered to us, we have to make a selection between them; when two boys are given one cake, they have to make a division of it between them, and the end will probably be a fight between them.

BY

When a tree is near a river it is by it. In the same way, I may take a walk by the river, and if I go by something on my way somewhere, I generally go past it, so the two senses are united in the train went by (me). From I go to Leeds by London, it is a simple expansion to say that I go to town by a different way³⁶ or do a thing by daylight. One further step gives us it was done by a trick or he did it by a new process, which makes by a pointer to the ‘way’ in which any effect is produced, and so to the cause, doer, or maker of anything. So we may have a picture by Rubens which is covered by our insurance, or be troubled by ants, ruled by the authorities, or given punishment by death.

There are 10 special uses of by.

In addition, see side, surprise, and word.

• ³⁶ But we say that we go by steamer (train, automobile), and by land (sea).

DOWN

Even those who are clear that the sun comes up in the morning and goes down at night, and that they go up to the top of a mountain or go down to a lower level, are sometimes troubled by the fact that they go down a street. Why down?

If the end of the street is at a lower level the answer is simple, and if the numbers of the houses go up from 1 to 100, that is another reason for going up or down. But if the street is flat, and the houses are not numbered, it is only a question of feeling, so this gives us one of the 2 special uses.

In addition, see let.

FOR

When we have come to an end of all the names of directions in which we do things with our arms and legs, and all the expansions for the directions of time and of thought, we are still at a loss for ways of talking freely about purpose.

Our purpose is the direction in which our desires and thoughts go. When a friend is late we may be kept waiting for him. When food is in our minds, we have a desire for food, we have a need for food, we go for food (= to get food).

So there are places for food, rooms for dancing or used for dancing. We send in our names for a position, put up our goods for offers, go into business for profit; we are given food for thought, when we do not get enough for our needs from what we do for a living; and we have time for it when there is no work for us to do. When we give support to a person or a suggestion we are for them.

It is a very short step from the idea of purpose to the idea of exchange, as is clear from the fact that what we do for a living or for money is done in exchange for a living or for money. We do not get money for nothing; we make payment for goods. If we are acting for another (for his purposes), we get credit for our care and trouble, or punishment for being foolish. We give a check for a certain amount, because that amount will be given in exchange for it.

Some statements about purpose are made by using the word to with an operation-word (pages 208–09); for gives us another way of getting round most of these:

• I am ready for food (= to have food).
• This is timed for tomorrow (= to take place tomorrow).
• There is no need for noise (= to make a noise).

There are 10 special uses of for.

In addition, see as, bad, exchange, eye, name, take.

FROM

The natural opposite of to is from. We go from a place, in the same way as we go to it, and the use of away, as in he was going away from the meeting, makes the sense of direction stronger. So we put food (away) from us. If we get away from the point, we make an attempt to get back to it; and if we have got away from danger, we are free or safe from it.

When we take anything out of a box we equally take it from the box; so we are said to get profit from a business, or goods from a store. In much the same way, it is clear from the history of language that one word frequently comes from another.

The chief expansion of from is as a general word for ‘starting from,’ and so (frequently) ‘caused by.’ We may say that from this time forward (or on) the weather was bad, or that a mark on our skin was from a blow.

There are 2 special uses of from.

IN

One of the words with the greatest number of uses is in. From the physical use (in the pot, in the water, in the room, in the road, in the field, in space) there is a ready expansion to whatever is talked about as if it was a space (in the year, in flames), or a solid or liquid thing (in the light, in trouble), or a vessel (in the mind). So we get: Be in business, in comfort, in danger, in doubt, in error, in fear, in need; or (of spaces of time), in the week, in (the) summer, in (the) winter, or again (of the mind), in thought.

So a person may be in a hat (that is to say, his head is in a hat), or in shoes, or in chains, or all in black. He may be foolish in company, experienced in crime, or in the dark about what the government is doing.

Sometimes an ‘adjective’ is necessary to give the right sense: in bad condition, in some degree, in my opinion, in my hearing, or in such a form (that)—which is not far from in the hope (that).

A little harder are in so far (as), in relation (to), in comparison (with), in connection (with); but no language, old or new, has any better way of getting these complex ideas across, so that in takes a very high place among words, because of the great amount of work which it is able to do for us.³⁷

There are 10 special uses of in.

In addition, see addition, belief, bit, common, detail, end, fertile, front, hand, interest, knot, memory, mind, order, part, question, request, step, store, support, take, taste, time, touch, turn, view, voice, way.

• ³⁷ There is a small number of fixed uses with common things—in bed, in church, in prison, in town.

OF

The expansion of of from a bit of the cake, through a day of the month, to a sort of box, is so very natural that no account of it is necessary. Let us put down some other simple uses of this sort: a group of friends, a store of apples, a bucket of great size; or again, the property of the owner, a copy of an old picture, the invention of radio; a representative of the government and memories of the past. It would probably be a waste of time to give any more examples of such natural developments of ‘of.’ Everyone has the power of making more with any of the words in the list.

There are 10 special uses of of.

OFF

There is very little to say about off which would not be clear to anyone who has taken the skin off an apple. There is no doubt, for example, about the sense of he put me off doing it or what you say is off the point. A bit of wood off a table may be cut off or broken off, the light may be turned off, and one part of a room may be curtained off.

There are 2 special uses of off.

In addition, see go, let, put.

ON

Most of the uses of on are very near to the physical sense. On the top, on one side, on the same side, on the right side, are all quite natural. We may be on our feet, on land, or on the water, a coat may be on a hook, a name on a list. Not far from these are the words on one’s lips, the trouble on one’s mind, the song on one’s brain, rules and knowledge based on facts, or the goods on the market.

Music may be on the piano or all on one note and our hair may be on end. An event may take place at 5 on a certain day, in a certain week, month, or year.³⁸ Living on one’s income is specially hard when there is a tax on goods.

There are 10 special uses of on, the last of which is the use with go and keep with different operation-words or with, as in go on doing, keep on going, go on with the work, and so on.

In addition, see act, approval, attack, condition, credit, dependent, design, effect, eye, foot, get, hand, hard, impulse, keep, look, nerve, put, record, side, so, watch, work.

• ³⁸ See pp. 202 and 205. The key to the right direction-word in connection with time is “at a point, on a line, in a circle.” (But take note of the special use at night, see p. 216.)

OUT

Though out as a simple direction is the opposite of in, it is not possible to say: “I am in the room and you are ‘out it.’” The opposite of being in (or coming into) a place is being (or going) out of it. So we get out of as the opposite of all those uses of in with physical things or places, among which we may put, for this purpose, mind; and with these are to be grouped out of control, out of danger, out of hearing, out of touch, out of work. (See of, page 217.) A small number of fixed uses like he went out (of the house or room), or the light (fire) went out (of existence) will be clear enough in the statements in which we come across them.

There are 2 special uses of out.

In addition, see get, go, let, make.

OVER

As the natural opposite of under, over is equally simple and limited in all its chief uses. Some things which are over others may be much farther away from them than the cover which is over the meat, or the fat which is over (or on) the bone. A window may be over a door, or an airplane may be over a house, so that over becomes a more general way of saying ‘on top of’ or ‘higher than’; and by a simple further development we go over a wall and over the side of a ship, or a road goes over a mountain.

A very common expansion gives us authority or power over a person; and a number on any scale which is more than another may be said to be over it, so that a person 22 years old is over 21.

There are 3 special uses of over.

THROUGH

When we go through the air, or take breath through the nose, our going and our breathing are made possible by the air and our noses—much as the hole through which the rat goes is the cause of its getting away. So through comes to have the expansion, as an effect of: he got his position through you, or he made a friend through being ill.

TO

The chief expansions of the simple use of to give very little trouble,³⁹ and are common in most languages. There are great numbers of words which give us a feeling that to is needed after them. Attention to details is as natural as an addition to the family, an answer to a question, or a right to property.

Another very frequent use of to is for the idea of in relation to (see page 206). For example, we generally say this line is parallel to that line (though with would be equally possible here), or this amount is equal to that amount. We say this is joined to that, near to that, special to that, or a danger to that; again, a man may be in debt to, or married to, a woman.

The behavior of a girl to her lover may be a blow to his self-respect, and if she was kind to him at the start a wound to his feelings will be very much harder for him to put up with.

The connection between to and for in a desire for food has been made clear under for.

There are 10 special uses of to, the last of which—able to (do)—is in need of a separate note. It will probably become clear if we say first that to is used before an operation-word whenever there is a desire or purpose to do or have something:

• He is ready to go.
• He is making an attempt to get away.
• He has a desire to go up the mountain.
• I sent (took, got) him to have some food.⁴⁰

Generally, whenever ‘for the purpose of’ might be used, to may be put before the operation-word:

• He has enough trouble to make him angry.
• He has authority to get the baby back.
• This is a place to be in for a long time.
• It is time to go.

In the same way we say he is able enough to do this; or more frequently and simply, he is able to do this. And from such uses it is not hard to get the expansion he is said (an ‘adjective’) to be doing this, or he is said to be able to do this. For he has to do this, see have (page 214).

To is the only name of a direction which has this sort of special use with the simple form of the ‘verb,’ which is named the ‘infinitive’ in books on language.

In addition, see about, addition, angle, as, bit, come, credit, face, from, get, give, go, have, in, let, make, mind, of, put, scale, seed, so, stop, that, way, word.

• ³⁹ There is a small number of fixed uses of to with common things—we go to bed (church, prison, school, sea, work).
• ⁴⁰ But I let (made, saw) him go, as is made clear in the account of let.

UNDER

The idea of being under something is very simple and limited. In all languages its possible expansions are almost all quite straightforward. The position of authority or control is clearly the same as that of the dog which is on top in a fight; and so we are under a ruler, or under his power, or authority. In the same way we are under the control or direction of a manager, or do our work under him.

The sense of going under, or being under a cloud, or under a person’s thumb is not hard to make out, even when seen for the first time; but we might equally well make use of some other comparison such as being overcome by hard conditions, or with public opinion against one, or under a person’s power.

There are 2 special uses of under.

UP

Most of the uses of up do not get far away from the physical direction which is given by going from some point or place to another at a higher level. Water has to come down a slope of some sort to get to the sea, so we go up a river as we go up a mountain. And in the same way we go up and down a scale or a list.

If we take a bit of paper or cloth, or the collar of a coat, and give the edge a turn, it will be turned up or down. By going one step farther materials or bedding may be rolled up.

Up is very freely used where it is not truly necessary, in examples like building up a business. So it frequently has the sense of ‘up to the top,’ or ‘up to some complete form,’ or ‘up to some natural limit.’

There are 10 special uses of up.

WITH

From the use of with = ‘together with,’ it is a very natural step in most languages to the sense of ‘having’ or ‘making use of.’ What we have is with us. So we say a man with a hat, or with wide interests; sand may get mixed with salt; a story with a purpose may be about a person with authority.

In all forms of agreement, comparison, connection, and competition, the fact that the two sides are said to be in agreement (comparison, connection, or competition), and so, in a sense, are together in that agreement, makes with the right joining word—even when they are having a fight (an argument, a discussion, angry words) with one another. So we may be in business with anyone; or when we make use of books we may be rough with them, because the idea of having them (in the hands) and doing something with them is stronger than the sense of to which would make good sense (as in kind to); but in quick with his fingers (= in the use of his fingers) there is no feeling of to, so with is the most natural connection.

In the same way we give a person a blow with the hand, or with a stick, because hands and sticks are what we have with us and make use of. But frequently by is equally possible, as in a table covered by (with) a cloth.

There are 2 special uses of with.

In addition, see get, go, have, keep, step, touch, up, young.

B III. Special Uses

1. The 250 Fixed Word-Groups

We now come to certain uses of the Basic words which are not expansions of the sense but changes of sense (sometimes not clear from the senses of the separate words) which come about when certain words are used together, as a group. They are named ‘idioms’ in the language books, and have three chief causes:

1. Attraction to the uses of other words—when we come to a stop (like a place).
2. Loss of some of the words normally used—as when fear of change keeps a government in (the same place, that is, keeps it in power).
3. Some special picture formed in the past, but no longer clear to everyone—as in the example of put up with.

There is no need to take much trouble about these special uses if your interest in Basic is limited to business letters, or to hearing radio talks; or if you will be talking chiefly to persons without a knowledge of normal English. But it is a good thing to have them all together, so that the learner may see the complete story in front of him.

The best way is to get used to them by experience—by reading books in Basic and making a note of uses which do not seem natural to you from a knowledge of the words by themselves.

Then you may go quickly on to the list of Fixed Uses which are necessary; there you are given a selection of ‘idioms’ which it would not be possible to go far without.⁴¹

The only words for which more than a very short note is needed are in two groups:

1. Come and go, put and take, give and get, together with let and keep, have and make. (All with 5 examples.)
2. At, by, in, on, to, and up, together with for and of. (All with 10 examples.)

This gives us 130 examples, and there are 20 other special uses with words in this group. In addition, there are 100 special uses with the rest of the Basic list—making 250 in all. In fact, a quick writer would make a copy of the complete list (giving every use in Basic English which is not quite regular) in less time than it takes to get through a normal meal.

These fixed uses are unnecessary for anyone who is going through the Basic system for the first time; but they are listed here, so that at the end there is nothing more to come. The learner may then go back to them when the working of the rest of the system is clear. Most of them are important chiefly for purposes of ornament or smooth writing, but there are some by which very common needs are covered without going a long way round. These are specially listed on pages 231–32, where the learner is given a Basic Selection. It may be noted that for memory purposes all the 250 special uses are given in the form of stories, and the reader may be interested in working out the connections.

• ⁴¹ In The Basic Words are listed another 250 special uses (marked, **) which are of great help in writing high-level Basic, but are not necessary for the learner.

Acts (10 groups of 5)

COME

1. The governments will come to an agreement about the taxes.
2. The train will come to a stop at the station.
3. Strange facts will come to light.
4. A newspaper man came across some private papers under the seat.
5. How did this come about?

GET

1. He had no money because he got a book out last year.
2. His friends said they would get a play up for him.
3. But he did not get on (well) with the chief actor.
4. He got (himself) into bad ways through drink.
5. He got (himself) out of doing any more work.

GIVE

1. Mothers give birth to babies.
2. She gave her word to the family that she would take care of the little boy.
3. The wall gave back the sound (light).
4. They did not give up hope till the news was certain.
5. Newspapers are given to printing false statements.

GO

1. The color of the walls did not go with my dress.
2. An old man in the front had gone to sleep.
3. Something (the gun) went off with a loud noise.
4. The light went out in the middle of my talk.
5. I am going to make a protest to the gas company.

HAVE

1. I had a talk with him this morning.
2. His arguments had no effect on me.
3. Our thoughts have no existence outside our heads.
4. They have to go into such questions because of their interest in history.
5. I will have nothing to do with foolish discussions.

KEEP

1. She keeps house for her father.
2. He has only her to keep him company.
3. We kept the manager on till everyone was out of work.
4. He kept his interest up all through the winter.
5. I will keep up with the changes in public opinion, and take his place.

LET

1. The teacher let the boy off (punishment) when she saw how unhappy he was.
2. She will not let us into her secret.
3. She had been letting out the skirt because it was getting tight.
4. A good man would not let his friends down.
5. Please let me (the machine) be.

MAKE

1. He made up a story which was not quite true.
2. It was not hard to make out the sense of his words.
3. He had made the material into trousers in error.
4. She made much (little) of it.
5. It is unkind to make sport of persons dressed in a strange way.

PUT

1. A common way of putting an idea (suggestion) across is by advertisement.
2. He put up an argument (fight) when the trainer said the horse had been poisoned.
3. Someone had made an attempt to put it to death.
4. They put the discussion (talk, meeting) off till the morning.
5. The chances are generally against you if you put money on a horse (event).

TAKE

1. He took up the question (painting) with great interest.
2. He did not take into account all the details.
3. He said he would take a picture, but he had no camera.
4. We took him for an expert.
5. The news took us by surprise.

Directions (8 groups of 10)

AT

1. The men are at war (peace, work, play, rest).
2. They were happy at first (last).
3. They were at a great distance from their country.
4. They did not go to bed at night.
5. At times they were covered with small insects.
6. There was some surprise at their desire to get back.
7. There were at least (most) 1,000 persons at the station.
8. They had the interests of their country at heart.
9. They were bad at (good at, quick at, slow at, expert at, working at) languages.
10. They are looking at (pointing at, laughing at, firing at) the camera-men.

BY

1. Robinson Crusoe was on an island by himself.
2. He had to make everything for himself by hand.
3. I was working there by night (day).
4. I had come across some coal on the island by chance.
5. By the way, have you ever been down a coal mine?
6. No smoking, by order.
7. A young miner got the Basic words by heart in less than a week.
8. He got the word order into his head by slow degrees.
9. Little by little (bit by bit, day by day), he made himself expert at the special uses.
10. He is coming here at 4, by this clock.

FOR

1. He has no regret for his acts.
2. For example, he was cruel to his sister.
3. He was responsible for her death.
4. He went away for this reason.
5. He kept away for fear of the law.
6. He will go to prison for the first (second, last) time.
7. He will be there for a long time.
8. There is no cause for protest.
9. Every judge would say the same thing, word for word.
10. Men are like animals, but for their brains.

IN

1. The Judge said that the prisoner was in the right (wrong).
2. He took a tin tray in exchange for his picture.
3. The picture itself was done in metal (wood).
4. The head is turned in a strange way (direction).
5. Strange things are done in the name of art.
6. He is in love with a woman who is not in love with him.
7. The machine was in motion when he got out.
8. It will be in operation (use) again today.
9. He gave the facts in answer to a question.
10. Basic is a very good system in fact (and in theory).

OF

1. Do not go out of the room so quickly.
2. You were talking of writing a book of general knowledge.
3. I am full of good ideas.
4. These facts may be of use (value, help, interest) to you.
5. Clothing made of wool is best in a cold country.
6. The Englishman’s love (care, control) of animals (the boy’s grip of the facts) is surprising.
7. A man of 50 (years) is not old.
8. In the future, we may be conscious of events at a distance.
9. Basic is the best system because of its simple rules.
10. That was very kind of you; and your last point is a good example of advertisement.

ON

1. The light (water, gas, play) is now on.
2. The pictures are on view.
3. I came on purpose to see them.
4. This design is on a great (small) scale.
5. I have a friend on the committee.
6. He is an expert on old prints.
7. He has gone on a journey to the East to get some more.
8. The profit (loss, interest) on his business is chiefly through insurance.
9. Look! The house is on fire!
10. Let us go (keep) on putting water on it. We will go on with the fight till the firemen come.

TO

1. That music is not to my taste.
2. They are dancing to bad music.
3. The question is not open to argument.
4. The machines are face to face (back to back).
5. Your answer is not to the point.
6. To my surprise and regret, it is still going on.
7. Bad music is dear to the public.
8. The chances are 10 to 1 that it will be better in the future.
9. Most of us are slow to get used to new forms of art.
10. I was able to make this last use clear earlier.

UP

1. At school, dressing up was one of my greatest pleasures.
2. Now, it is hard even to get my overcoat buttoned up.
3. In a cold country, all one’s force is used up in the attempt to keep warm.
4. Bread has to be cut (broken) up for the birds.
5. Even if your house is shut (locked) up, the rain may get in.
6. Yesterday there was ice in the bath and the drains got stopped up.
7. Get the pipes fixed up again before the spring!
8. The wet places on the walls will have to be touched up.
9. There is no need to get worked up about it.
10. In England, they have to put up with small troubles of this sort.

In addition to the special uses so far listed, there are 10 more names of operations and directions with separate special uses, making another 20.These are:

1. The bricks will do damage to the window.
2. They did well (badly) because they had the support of the authorities.
3. The glass is about to be broken.
4. It was a foolish act, but after all they were young.
5. A girl was looking after the store.
6. He took a walk down (up) the street (road).
7. If you are good at fighting, that is no reason for looking down on lovers of peace.
8. His ideas took form from day to day (year to year and so on).
9. It was clear from their strange behavior that they were almost off their heads.
10. His experience in the war did not put him off his balance.
11. He said straight out what he had in mind.
12. All the details of the Basic system have been worked out.
13. The teacher is reading the list out loud.
14. When the page is turned over, you will see another list.
15. You will get the words into your head if you say them over frequently.
16. Being under fire makes learning harder.
17. The idea was under discussion for a long time.
18. A simple system has weight with the education experts.
19. There is no need to be angry (pleased) with slow learners.
20. I went without sweets for a month to get the money for this book.

We are now at the end of the 150 special uses of names of acts and directions. Here are 100 more with some of the other words in the Basic List, making the 250 complete.

First come those with the other words in the group headed ‘Operations’:

1.

To some it seems as if there is very little hope of change in language teaching.

2.

As to (for) that view, it is natural but probably false.

3.

Such questions are not at all interesting to the normal man.

4, 5.

He and his friends are happy all day (night) talking to one another about business.

6, 7.

That is to say, they are better at making money than at forming theories; though here and there a man with money may have respect for someone who has ideas about language.

8, 9.

But, talking generally, it is as true as (truer than) ever that there is little in common between them.

10, 11.

So as to get language taken seriously by governments, schools, and so on, some new system is necessary.

12, 13.

So that Basic may be the very thing for that purpose as well (as for those we have been talking about).

With General Names

14.

The hole was produced by an acid acting on the material.

15, 16.

In addition to this, the color was taken out, which was sad because the coat had been sent on approval.

17, 18.

The story is that a young woman made an attack on her lover with acid in the belief that he had been false to her.

19, 20, 21.

The police had no belief in his story till they saw that his coat was in bits (had come to bits).

22.

The woman was out of breath when they came up to her.

23.

She was let go on condition that she got married to the man.

24.

He got a new coat on credit.

25, 26.

But it was to his credit that he had no designs on her money.

27, 28, 29, 30, 31.

This story is given in detail because it is an example of how, in the end, even in front of one’s lover, acting on impulse is sometimes not in one’s interests.

32.

If you are at a loss for something to do, why not go to Chicago?

33.

In a short time you will probably be making love to the daughter of a gunman.

34, 35.

Then I will be able to put up a stone in memory of you, with a beautiful design I have in mind.

36.

This puts me in mind of another friend who came to a bad end.

37.

I have a (good) mind to make a book about him.

38.

He had a name for keeping on the right side of the law.

39, 40.

Some businessmen took note of this fact when their accounts were not quite in order.

41, 42.

In part because he was their friend, and in part because he saw a chance of profit, he said he would take part in the organization of their company.

43, 44, 45.

A meeting took place at which the public took a different point of view from the controlling body about the accounts in question.

46, 47.

What story the other men gave is not on record, but at any rate they went free and my friend was sent to prison.

48.

While in prison he made little ships which were much in request.

49, 50, 51.

One day he was walking in step with the other prisoners, side by side with one of his new friends, when one of the prison watchmen took him on one side.

52, 53, 54.

“I am going to put a stop to this talking,” he said, and in support of this statement he gave him a blow across the face, which was not in (very) good taste.

55, 56, 57.

In time, the wound became serious, and he was out of (not in) touch with a good medical man, so it was not long before he, in his turn was taken dead from the prison.

58, 59, 60, 61.

In view of these sad experiences, if you have a voice in the business of your friends, don’t let them give way to bad impulses, or they may get in the way of the law.

62, 63, 64.

I had this story by word of mouth from my friend at his death, and to keep my word to him, I am now working on a book about crime and punishment.

With Pictured Names

65, 66.

They put their boxes in the train at right angles to one another, and sent them ‘carriage forward.’

67.

The man on the train said he would keep an eye on them.

68, 69, 70.

The camera-man had an eye for form, but he hadn’t the face to say that she was making a face.

71, 72, 73, 74.

He went to the mountains on foot, on the one hand; she, on the other hand, went by train, though her knowledge of the country was at first (second) hand.

75, 76.

When they got there, she took in hand the cooking operations, and he went to get some fish, but his fishing-line was in knots.

77.

After a time this got on his nerves.

78, 79.

Resting in the shade of a tree which had taken root near the river, he let his memory go back to his days at school.

80, 81, 82.

These flowers will have gone to seed before I get up from here, he said to himself, unconscious of what might be in store for him from the woman on watch by the fire.

With Names of Qualities—general

83, 84.

Make certain before you get married that you have something in common.

85, 86.

Everything is dependent on his comfort, so be fertile in bright ideas.

87, 88.

Do your best to get the better of bad humor.

89.

Do not let your good-mornings (days, nights) become automatic.

90, 91.

It is hard on a man if he no longer has any peace because he is married.

92, 93, 94.

The days may go past quickly enough at present, and everything may seem all right.

95, 96.

Though two persons do not get tired of one another straight away, they may later.

97, 98.

But it is clear from watching the happy faces of animals with young that my worst fears may not come true.

With Names of Qualities—opposites

99, 100.

Is this a record? I am 100 years old and have not ever been the worse for drink.

C. A Key Selection

1. Some Common Needs

a. Simple Acts

To be expert in Basic it is necessary to have a knowledge of the best ways of covering names of common acts and things which do not have a place among the 850. A number of ready-made answers to the questions with which the Basic writer is most frequently faced have been produced after long experience with the system, and much time will be wasted if you do not make use of them.

Naturally it is with words representative of acts that we have most trouble, because we have to get round the ‘verb’ form. Let us first take some of the simple physical acts and see what Basic is able to do with them. When you ‘speak’ to a person, you say something to him; but if you are ‘speaking’ at a meeting, you give a talk, or you may make a statement on, for example, a political question. If you are able to ‘speak’ a language, it would be said in Basic that you have a knowledge of it. ‘Telling’ a story is giving it. In the same way, we may give an account, or the news. But to ‘tell’ a person how to do something is to give directions, and for ‘as I was telling you’ we say as I was saying. When the voice is used in ‘singing,’ we give a song. The music comes to the ears of those who ‘hear’ (are hearing) it, and if they are ‘listening’ they give it their attention. If, however, someone only ‘heard’ of it later, he would have news of it. The newspaper man who ‘wrote’ about it put his account into writing or down on paper, and those who ‘read’ of it, saw it in the paper, or were reading it, or possibly went through it with care, and they may send a letter to the paper, giving a different opinion.

The mouth has an even more important use than talking, and that is ‘eating,’ which is taking food, or having a meal. When we are given more to ‘eat’ than we have room for, we are unable to get through it. Sometimes (when the meat is old) you may have to ‘bite’ it very hard, or get your teeth into it much as the dog gets his teeth into your leg; but generally it is enough to give it the necessary number of bites. When you ‘bite’ off a bit, you have a bite of it or at it. And if what you ‘bite’ has a bad taste you may quickly ‘spit’ it out, which is to say put it out of your mouth.

In most operations of the body it is necessary to ‘touch’ something. In Basic we put a hand, or finger, or some other part of the body on it, or give it a touch. When we ‘touch’ or ‘bump into’ things by chance we come up against them. When we ‘touch’ a thing very hard, as when we are angry, we ‘hit’ it or give it a blow. If we ‘touch’ new paint with something pointed, like our nails, we will ‘scratch’ it—that is to say, we will make a mark on it. When we are ‘scratching’ an insect bite, we give it a rub; and when a cruel little boy ‘scratches’ his sister’s arm till the blood comes, he gets his nails into it. If a sharp blade had been used in place of the nails, he would have ‘cut’ her or given her a cut, but if he had been cutting through something like thread or a cake, he would have got it cut. It is quite possible to ‘break’ a number of things which we ‘cut.’ The thread would then be broken, or we would get it broken. If we ‘broke’ a plate it might equally well be smashed, but if it ‘broke’ itself it would probably come to bits. ‘Cutting’ and ‘breaking’ are two of the most important operations in connection with changes of form.

We now come to acts by which the places of things are changed. The quickest way to get a thing from one place to another is to ‘throw’ it. In Basic we send the ball to a baby, or over the wall, or across the river. A sudden noise may ‘throw’ or put us off our balance, and a blow, given hard enough, will send us violently against the table. Whoever ‘catches’ the ball gets it (in his hand), and if he is able to get a grip of it (as when he ‘catches’ someone’s arm) he ‘holds’ it, that is to say he keeps it or has it in his hand. When we are simply given something to ‘hold’ we take it, and when we have ‘hold’ of it, we have a grip of it. Most of us are not very good at ‘catching,’ so it is wiser to ‘bring,’ get or take things to our friends and not to ‘throw’ them. In other words, it is safer to come with them.

Another group of ‘verbs’ is made up of those for the different positions of the body. A person or thing that is ‘lying’ on something may be said simply to be on it, or to be resting on it. When a person who is ‘lying’ down gets into an upright position, he ‘stands’ or gets up. But he is still ‘standing’ when he is on his feet. Things that ‘stand’ in a certain position are (placed) there. If you are tired of ‘standing’ or ‘lying’ you will probably ‘sit,’ that is, take a seat or be seated. If not, you will make a move in some direction. If time is short you will ‘run’ or go quickly; if you are doing this to keep healthy, you will be taking a run, but if there is some danger which you are getting away from you will go (off) at a run. A little ice on the road would then make you ‘slip’ so that you had a slip or fall. It is not a long step from slipping in this sense to its use to give the idea of doing some simple act quickly and smoothly—and generally quietly—as in: slipping your arm out of your coat, or slipping the money into your pocket, or slipping out of the house.

b. Complex acts

Turning now to acts which are more complex than those of which we have been talking in the simple, physical group, we come first to the processes of the mind. To ‘think about’ is to give thought to and simply to ‘be thinking’ is to be in thought. But to ‘think’ that a thing is so is to be of the opinion or take the view that; and to ‘know’ that it is so is to be certain of it, or possibly only conscious of it. Other facts which we ‘know,’ we may have knowledge or experience of. If we are talking of ‘knowing’ a person we say we are a friend of that person or have come across him. This last is used, more widely, of books, pictures, and any other things which we have seen. To ‘understand’ what we ‘know’ we have to be clear about it or have a grip of it, though when we ‘understand’ horses, all we are saying is that we have a good knowledge of them. But we do not ‘understand’ a friend till we see his point of view, which is not unlike seeing the point of a person’s statement, or, in other words, what he ‘means.’ This may be what he is talking of, but is sometimes only what he has in mind. When our words ‘mean’ something, they have the sense of it. Two words which clearly have a connection with ‘knowing’ are ‘remember’ and ‘forget.’ We only ‘know’ things so long as we have a memory of them or keep them in mind. When we ‘forget’ them, we put them out of our mind, or they go out of our mind, or we have no memory of them, and so they are no longer a part of our knowledge.

When we ‘feel,’ we have a feeling of pain or pleasure, or a feeling (in the sense of an idea) that a thing is so, or we may be feeling angry or be conscious of a touch. If we ‘feel’ the wall to see if it is dry, it is possible to say that we put our hand on it. We are pleased with things, or friends of persons when we ‘like’ them; or we may get on well with them. Of good food and pictures we sometimes say we have a taste for them. More generally, anything which we ‘like’ has our approval, and we give our approval to it. It is natural for us to ‘want’ such things, and then we have a desire for them. If they are very necessary for our well-being, we will be in need of them. And when we ‘want’ things of which we have not got enough, we are in need of more.

One way in which we ‘learn’ things is to get facts into our heads. We get knowledge of them somehow (in the process of which we are learning), generally by being ‘taught.’ We will probably go to someone who is a teacher of the branch of knowledge in which we are interested, and he will give us training or teaching. If he is a teacher of history he will ‘show’ us the effect of the past on the present and so make it clear to us; and he may ‘show’ us pictures by letting us see them—or putting them on view—and examples of old buildings by taking us round. We, on our side, will ‘show’ the interest we take by giving signs of it. If buildings have no attraction for us, we may even have to ‘try,’ or make an attempt, to give signs of an interest which is not there.

The organization of society is dependent on the two operations of ‘buying’ and ‘selling.’ When we ‘buy’ things we get them (in exchange for money or at a price) or we give money for them. If we have no money we may ‘promise’ to give it later by giving our word to do so. The person who ‘sells’ gets money for what he gives us. If he ‘sells’ things regularly he probably keeps them in his store, and if he ‘sells’ what he makes he puts it on the market. One way of getting things without payment is to ‘find’ them. We may come across money in the street, or see that free meals are being given to the poor, and if we make a discovery of some new land there will no doubt be money in it. Unhappily most of us ‘lose’ things more frequently than we ‘find’ them. We may only be unable to put our hands on a thing when it is needed, or have no idea where it is, but if it has been taken from us it will probably have gone for ever. Certainly we will not see it again if it has been ‘destroyed’ because then it will have been burned or smashed or broken. When a number of things are ‘destroyed’ at the same time great destruction is done. We ‘destroy’ animals by putting an end to them. Some attempts at ‘destroying’ them do no more than ‘hurt’ them, giving them pain, and possibly wounds which may do serious damage to them.

A great part of existence is taken up with ‘growing’ and ‘sleeping.’ Boys and girls get taller, trees get higher, old men generally get fatter, while one’s powers, up to a certain point, get greater. When things are increasing in these ways they are in the process of growth or development. We ‘fall asleep’ very simply by going to sleep, and then we are having a sleep. At the end of all we ‘die.’ We are said to go to our death, come to our end, or, as writers put it, take our last breath. In our experience everything which ‘begins’ will later ‘finish.’ We made a start with the physical acts, and you got started at the same point. We have now come to the end of the names of acts which may give you trouble, and though you have not quite got to the end of the Basic story, you will get it done in a very short time.

c. Other Suggestions

Our third and last group is made up of words of all sorts which may be a cause of trouble.

There are three words which are used in a special way with operation-words, ‘can,’ ‘ought,’ and ‘shall.’ What I ‘can’ do I am able to do or it is possible for me to do. Things I ‘ought’ to do, it is right (wise) for me to do or my business to do; in the statement, “the train ‘ought’ to be here in half-an-hour,” the sense is that it is probable from the facts that it will be so. ‘Shall’ is covered by will in statements which are not questions; but “Shall I do it?” becomes “Am I going to do it or not?” or “Am I wise to do it?”

Here are some words of number and amount with which care is necessary. When ‘each’ person in a group gets something, the distribution is made to everyone (separately). If there were six of them ‘altogether,’ they would make six; but if this number was ‘altogether’ wrong it would be quite or completely so. The ‘whole’ group is simply all the group, and the ‘whole’ story about them is the complete story. A ‘few’ men are very frequently two or three, but it is safer, if you are uncertain, to say that they are a small number—the opposite of ‘many,’ which is a great number or quite a number. ‘Too many’ is more than enough, or over-much; ‘too’ tired is over-tired, but a person who is ‘too’ tired to go is so tired that he is unable to go. If he is ill ‘too,’ he is ill in addition. Things which are done once are done one time only, but things which were true ‘once’ were true at one time or in the past.

Some suggestions in connection with time-words may make things go more smoothly. A long time ‘ago’ is a long time back, or in the old days, and an event which has taken place ‘already’ has taken place in the past or before. An account of such events is an account of what has taken place so far or up to now. A person who is ‘already’ there is there now; but if he is not there ‘yet,’ he is still not there, or so far he has not come. “And ‘yet,’” as a joining statement, has the sense of but even though this is so. Friends we have not seen ‘since’ last year we have not seen for a year. Events which have taken place ‘since’ then have taken place after then. But in the statement, “‘Since’ it is late let us go to bed,” ‘since’ has the sense of because. What we will do ‘next’ is what we will do after this, but when we ‘next’ do it is when we do it again; and the house ‘next’ to this is the house nearest to it. ‘Always’ is generally at all times, which used loosely may sometimes be frequently. When we have the future specially in view, as in “I will ‘always’ be your friend,” for ever is a better way of putting it. Without change and without end are the right words in other connections.

‘Unless’ is a very common word which is quite simply got round with if and not. For example, “It will not be done ‘unless’ I do it” becomes “It will not be done if I do not do it.”

Here are two examples of the sort of quality words, much used in everyday talk, which do not go in quite a straightforward way into Basic. A ‘busy’ person may simply be one with much business, but it is generally better to say he is working hard or has much to do. A ‘deaf’ person is one whose hearing is bad.

Last of all, if you are given the tricks with a representative selection of general names you may get the idea of how others are covered. 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.” That which has ‘life,’ has existence; but ‘life’ when used for the things which have ‘life’ is living things, or all living things. Living by itself is sometimes used for ‘life,’ as in “Living is interesting.” A ‘hill’ is a bit of land at a higher level than the country round. Our short ways of saying this are a slope, or small mountain (when the size makes this possible), or, of country which is full of ‘hills,’ highlands. Though everyone who has a ‘home’ has not necessarily a house, he has at least a place where he is living (though one night in a hotel does not make it a ‘home’), and when he is happily at ‘home’ it may be because he is with his family. Where one is living will, in addition, be one’s ‘address’ for private purposes, but the ‘address’ of one’s business letter will be at one’s place of business.

2. Words Formed by Endings

Most of the forms made by the addition of endings are needed only at the second level—that is to say, when we give as much attention to how things are said as to what is said; but a certain number of them are necessary even in the early stages. From among the -er words a list may be made of names given to persons doing different things, all of which are important. Some of these are actor, builder, carter, designer, driver, farmer, fisher(man), gardener, jeweler, joiner, learner, miner, painter, potter, printer, producer, reader, ruler, sailor, teacher, trader, trainer,⁴² waiter, worker, writer. From among the names of operations we get keeper and maker. Then there is a small group of things which have some special purpose: burner, cooker, duster, folder, hanger, pointer, roller, rubber, steamer, stopper, stretcher.

Some forms are needed as part of a special fixed use with the name of a direction. With up we have buttoning, dressing, locking, stopping, touching, and working. Firing, laughing, looking, and pointing go with at. Others are acting (on), dancing (to), talking (of), turning (over), and working (out or on). In all these the -ed form may equally well be used. In addition, there are pleased with and used to. To be used to anything is to have had experience of it, so that it is no longer new or strange.

Then there are some words to which the endings give an important new sense. A prisoner is a person kept in prison and so on, and a reader may be a school book for learning reading (as well as a person reading). Clothing⁴³ is a name for the covers we put on our bodies, to keep ourselves warm and so on. Crying is needed for the behavior of those who are unhappy. A marked man is one who is marked out for punishment or destruction, and a noted man is one who is in the public eye. Pained is troubled in mind or feeling. A painting is a picture done with paint. A parting is a line of division in the hair as well as a separating. Training is teaching or education (see page 179).

The -ing and -ed forms of certain words, though not much changed in sense, are important because so common. These are: base (basing, based), burn (burning, burned), cook (cooking, cooked), drop (dropping, dropped), heat (heating, heated), play (playing, played), rain (raining), shock (shocking, shocked), snow (snowing), trouble (troubling, troubled), waste (wasting, wasted).

• ⁴² See p. 179.
• ⁴³ Said with a long ‘o’ as in ‘roll’ and a ‘th’ as in ‘though.’ In ‘breathing’ (in which the ‘ea’ is sounded as in ‘increase’) and ‘mouthing,’ there is a like change in the sound of ‘th’; and in ‘housing’ the ‘s’ is sounded as in ‘was’.

3. The Most Necessary Fixed Word-Groups

Here is our list of 50 (of the 250) fixed word-groups which are hardest to do without:

• at war (peace, work, play, rest)
• bad (good, quick, working) at
• at last (first)
• by himself
• for example
• but for
• responsible for
• in motion (flight)
• in use (operation)
• out of the room
• control, grip of
• full of
• off his head
• go (keep) on (doing and so on)
• worked out
• go (be turned) over
• be able to
• put up with
• angry (pleased) with
• come to a stop
• get (a book) out
• get out of doing
• give up
• go to sleep
• (guns) go off
• (lights) go out
• have an effect on
• make up a story
• put off (a meeting)
• as if
• one another
• there is
• in addition to
• in the belief (that)
• in bits
• in memory of
• take part in
• take place
• and so on
• put a stop to
• give way to
• in (out of) the way
• at right angles
• dependent on
• good morning (day, night)
• at present
• tired of
• straight away
• 10 years old
• as well (as)

The Last Step

1. Points to Keep in Mind

The general account of the Basic system is now complete but you will not have the necessary working knowledge till you have gone through all the words in the Basic list in turn to get a clear idea of their behavior and special uses.

The Basic Words is the guide for this purpose. In this book, every word of the 850 is given its parallels in French and German; so anyone with some knowledge of these languages will have a key to the sense of the words. It is not possible, however, to do more than give rough parallels, because words which seem to be used for the same thing in two languages are in fact frequently used in very different ways, and a word in German, one of whose senses is the same as one of the senses of an English word, may have other senses which the English word has not.

In addition to the French and German parallels examples are given and there is some account in Basic of every expansion and special sense. Naturally, it is not possible to get round the senses of the 850 words very happily inside the limits of the system, because the selection of these words has been based on our most important needs. So the only point of putting Basic into Basic is to make the sense clearer. It is not an attempt to give ‘ways round’ which may be seriously used.

In The Basic Words it will be seen which words take endings, and which may be used as other sorts of words. All the words now used as International are listed. With them may be grouped the necessary material for measuring and numbering (see page 236). In addition, all the Special Uses (first-level and second-level) are listed, and examples are given of all the special tricks of separate words. For example, it will be seen that fruit is generally used as if it was the name of a substance, and that fish may be looked on in the same way. Such details do not all get attention in the ABC.

In Basic, full use is made of the fact that words of a narrow range may be covered by words of a wider range, if account is taken of the way in which the sense of a word is pinned down by the connection in which it is used. We do not, for example, have the word ‘husband’ among our 850, and the Basic parallel given in The Basic Dictionary is married man. This is all right in a general way, but when it comes to statements other words may be happier. If we are talking of “her first husband,’ we may say “the man she was first married to,” but if the question is put, “How is your husband today?” it would be better to say “How is Mr. X today?”

In The Basic Dictionary, the Basic parallels are given in detail, but in any special connection it is generally possible to say something very much shorter; and though some suggestion is made as to which words will most probably be of use, experience and common sense are the best guides. For example, a ‘claim’ is given as “a request based on a right,” but a “claim for insurance” is a “request for payment of the insurance.”

Again, when there is an expansion of the sense, care may be needed to get the right effect in Basic. ‘Severe’ is ‘hard’ or ‘cruel’, but if used about a cold in the head these words would be quite foolish. Clearly, in this connection, ‘bad’ is the right thing to say. In other words, when two or three suggestions are put before you, give some thought to the point of what you are saying before making a selection.

2. International Words

An international language has to be as simple as possible for the learner, and for this reason all words which are truly international are naturally looked on as part of the Basic system. To give a new word in place of one which is common to every language would clearly be foolish. But what is an international word? Or, and this is more to the point, who makes the decision as to what words are international? In the end it is you, the men and women of Japan, of China, of Russia, of Scandinavia, of Africa, who will be the judges. But though the last word will be yours, the first decisions have been made by a smaller body, a representative committee of experts, who have gone through the material with care to get a small group of words which, in their opinion, will not be questioned by most. In addition, there is a waiting-list of 300 suggestions which will not be taken as international till the general reaction to them has been tested more fully by a special committee of radio authorities.

The words about which the experts have come to a decision are printed in The Basic Words. There are 51 of these, the ‘adjective’ international itself, and the names of things:

alcohol, aluminum, automobile, bank, bar, beef, beer, calendar, chemist, check, 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; together with 12 names of sciences:

Algebra, Arithmetic, Biology, Chemistry, Geography, Geology, Geometry, Mathematics, Physics, Physiology, Psychology, Zoology.

With these, 15 words may be noted which come into special names used internationally:

College, Dominion, Embassy, Empire, Imperial, King, Miss, Mr., Mrs., Museum, President, Prince, Princess, Queen, Royal.

These words are not necessarily international.

In addition to the 50 words which have been fixed as international and are of value for Basic, a further 50 may be listed about which there is at present more doubt. These will be used with care for a year or two for the purpose of testing reactions. Here is the list:

ammonia, asbestos, autobus, ballet, café, catarrh, champagne, chauffeur, circus, citron, cocktail, cognac, dynamite, encyclopedia, glycerine, hyena, hygiene, hysteria, inferno, jazz, liqueur, macaroni, malaria, mania, nicotine, olive, omelette, opium, paradise, penguin, platinum, potash, pyjamas, pyramid, quinine, radium, referendum, rheumatism, rum, salad, sardine, tapioca, toast, torpedo, vanilla, violin, visa, vodka, volt, zebra.

As little change as possible is made in place-names, but when a form would seem very strange to an Englishman or an American it is given as in normal English. Examples are Germany and Rome. Happily there is a tendency to take such names over into the English language untouched.

In addition to what has been listed, measuring words, number words, and words in the money systems of the different countries are said to be international, and given in their English form.

The days and months of the year are worked in the same way.

Here are the days of the week:

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Here are the months of the year:

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.

Here are the necessary words for numbers:

one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen …, twenty, twenty-one …, thirty, forty, fifty, hundred, thousand, million, once, twice, half, quarter, third, fourth, fifth.

3. Science

The learner who has got so far in the system and is able to make use of it for general purposes may at this point put the question “Of what use is Basic to me in my special field?” The answer is that by getting 150 more words into his head, making the number up to 1,000, he will have everything necessary for talking about a branch of science, or any other special field. 100 of these words are general science words (there may be other such general lists for other fields), of value in the discussion of any branch of knowledge which comes under the heading ‘Science.’ The other 50 are made up from the narrower field in which special interest is taken. An account of these lists is given on pages 391–93 of Section Three. Happily, much more is international for science than for general purposes, and it is hoped that, in the future, all true science words may become international by agreement, making Basic necessary only as the framework of discussion.