Write the story of the meeting of the two boys as Mr. Fletcher might have told it the next day. First make an outline. Test your work by the form given on page 5.

LESSON 20- PROPER AND COMMON NOUNS

1. Proper and Common Nouns.

What is a proper noun? A common noun? See 1, page 327. With what kind of letters are proper nouns begun?

Arrange the following nouns in two lists, one containing the proper nouns and the other the common nouns:

Be prepared to give a sentence containing a proper noun not used at the beginning of the sentence. Call upon one of your classmates to repeat the sentence and tell where capital letters should be used and what punctuation marks are necessary in writing the sentence. Ask him to give reasons for the use of capital letters and punctuation marks. Some of the more frequently used proper nouns are:

Names of days (Monday); of months (September), but not of seasons (autumn).

Names of cities, counties, countries, sections of countries (Chicago, Cook County, Spain, the North—but not directions, as, He ran north).

Names of streets (Cottage Grove Avenue).

Names of nations and races (the Greeks, the Indians).

Names of historical events and epochs (the Civil War, the Middle Ages).

Titles when attached to proper nouns (President Wilson, General Grant, Professor Cutter, Doctor Gordon, etc.); but when titles are not attached to proper nouns, they are usually written and printed without capitals (We met the doctor, captain, general, etc.), except in the case of a ruler or chief magistrate (the President, the Mayor).

Names of political parties, religious sects, organizations (the Progressives, the Baptists, the Boy Scouts).

Names of the Deity and pronouns referring to Him (God, His). Names that have a distinguishing word (the Hamilton club, the University club) may be written with only the distinguishing word capitalized; but it is not incorrect to capitalize all the words (The Hamilton Club, The University Club).

2. Do, Did, Done.

Repeat the following sentences to yourself several times and be prepared to take part in the rapid repetition of them in class, each pupil giving a sentence:

1. I do it now.

2. I did it yesterday.

3. I have done it many times.

4. He does it now.

5. He did it yesterday.

6. He has done it many times.

7. We do it now.

8. We did it yesterday.

9. We have done it many times.

Answer the following questions, using forms of do:

1. Did you do your work yesterday?

2. Has he done his work?

3. Have you done your work?

4. Did the boys do their work?

5. Did you do this today?

Be prepared to ask your classmates these or similar questions and to judge the correctness of the answers.

Repeat the following sentences to yourself several times and be prepared to take part in the rapid repetition of them in class, each member giving a sentence:

1. I don't like the work.

4. It doesn't look well.

2. He doesn't like the work.

5. He doesn't look well.
6. She doesn't look well.

3. She doesn't like the work.

Read the following sentences, filling the blanks with doesn't or don't:

Read aloud sentence 1 below. Does it sound well? Give reasons for your answer. Select the nouns in this sentence. Which noun is used more than once? In sentence la what word is used to avoid this awkward repetition?

Read the other pairs of sentences in the following list. In each case, tell what word is used to avoid the awkward repetition of a noun.

1. The woman's voice was
harsh when the woman
spoke to the poor boy.
2. Ragged and miserable as the
boy was, the boy did not
look like a beggar.

3. Phineas thought, "He is not
as old as Phineas."

1a. The woman's voice was harsh when she spoke to the poor boy.

2a. Ragged and miserable as the boy was, he did not look like a beggar.

3a. Phineas thought, "He is not as old as I."

If we repeated a noun every time we referred to the person or thing named, our sentences would be awkward and tiresome. To avoid this repetition, we use words that take the place of nouns. These words are called pronouns.

The noun for which the pronoun is used is called its antecedent. Point out the antecedent of the pronoun in each sentence of the preceding list.

Learn:

A word that is used instead of a noun is called a pronoun.

The word or words for which a pronoun stands are called its antecedent.

I, me, thou, thee, you, he, him, she, her, it, we, us, they, and them form a very important class of pronouns, called personal pronouns.

2. Written Exercise.

In the sentences you have just studied make a list of the words that were used instead of nouns.

Make a list of the personal pronouns in the second paragraph of the story in Lesson 17, and opposite each write the noun for which it is used.

LESSON 22 WHO, WHOM, WHICH, THAT, WHAT
AS PRONOUNS

1. Who, Whom, etc., as Relative Pronouns.

Select the nouns for which the italicized words are used in the following sentences. What are words used instead of nouns called?

1. Phineas Fletcher, who tells this story, is the only son of a rich man.

2. The boy to whom the woman spoke so harshly was not

a beggar.

3. The alley in which they waited was narrow and dirty. 4. The hours that Phineas spent with John were very

happy ones.