EXCLAMATORY WORDS

390. Interjections express only emotion or feeling. They do not express ideas. However, we have a number of words which are used somewhat as interjections are used, which we may class as exclamatory words, but they express more than interjections, for they express ideas as well as emotions; but, like interjections, they are used independently and have no part in the construction of the sentence.

391. Many ordinary words and phrases are used in this way as exclamations. When they are so used they have no place in the construction of the sentence; that is, they do not depend upon the sentence in which they are used, in any way. A noun used in this way is not used as the subject or the object, but simply as an exclamation.

For example; the noun nonsense may be used as an interjection, as in the sentence; Nonsense! I do not believe a word of it. In this sentence, nonsense is a noun used as an interjection and plays no part in the sentence, either as subject or object, but is an independent construction. There are a number of words used in this way:

1. Nouns and pronouns, as fire, mercy, shame, nonsense, the idea, what.

2. Verbs like, help, look, see, listen, hark, behold, begone.

3. Adjectives like, good, well, brave, welcome, strange.

4. Adverbs like, out, indeed, how, why, back, forward.

5. Prepositions like, on, up, down.

6. Phrases like, Oh dear, dear me, good bye.

Words and phrases such as these, used as exclamations, are not true interjections, for they express a little more than feeling. They express an idea which, in our haste, we do not completely express. The other words necessary to the expression of the idea are omitted because of the stress of emotion. For example:

In this sentence it is understood that we mean, Let us have silence, I will hear no more. But in the stress of our emotion, we have omitted the words, Let us have.

If we say, Good! that will do splendidly, you know that we mean, That is good, we have simply omitted That is, which is necessary to complete the sentence. Sometimes when we are greatly excited we abandon our sentence construction altogether and use only the most important words. For example:

This is not a sentence, for it does not contain a verb, yet we know that what was meant was, I see a sail, I see a sail.

Exercise 3

Write sentences using the words given in the foregoing list as exclamatory words, and add as many more to the list as you can think of.