Remember that dogmatism has no place in the study of grammar. "Grammarians are the guardians, not the authors, of language." We do not say, "You should say this or that, or you violate a rule of grammar," but we say "The common usage among those who use good English is thus and so." If we do not believe that the common usage is the best usage, then we follow the democratic method of seeking to change the common usage into that which we consider the more sensible way. Thus, those who advocate simplified spelling have not sought to pass a law whereby every one should be compelled to spell words exactly as they sound, but they have striven to influence our writers and people in general to use this more sensible way of spelling words.
So think while you study. Do not try to learn rules and formulas. See why the rules and formulas exist. Once having seen this you do not need to learn them—you know them already. The study of any language is an intellectual discipline of the highest order.
So apply yourself diligently to this most interesting study and you will see that the result of this application will affect your daily life in every particular.
Yours for Education,
THE PEOPLE'S COLLEGE.
WORDS ADDED TO NOUNS
33. When man began to invent words to express his ideas of the world in which he lived, we have found that probably the first need was that of names for the things about him. So we have nouns. The second need was of words to tell what these things do, and so we have verbs. But primitive man soon felt the need of other classes of words.
The objects about us are not all alike. For example, we have a word for man, but when we say man that is not sufficient to describe the many different kinds of men. There are tall men, short men, white men, black men, strong men, weak men, busy men, lazy men. There are all sorts of men in the world, and we need words by which we can describe these different types and also indicate which man we mean.
34. So we have a class of words which are called adjectives. Adjective is a word derived from the Latin. It comes from the Latin word ad, meaning to, and the Latin word jecto, which means to throw; hence an adjective is a word thrown to or added to a noun.
If you will stop to think for a moment, you will see that it is by their qualities that we know the things about us. Some men are strong, some are weak, some are tall, some are short. These qualities belong to different men. And we separate or group them into classes as they resemble each other or differ from one another in these qualities. Things are alike which have the same qualities; things are unlike whose qualities are different. Apples and oranges are alike in the fact that both are round, both are edible. They are unlike in the fact that one is red and one is yellow; one may be sour and the other sweet. So we separate them in our minds because of their different qualities; and we have a class of words, adjectives, which describe these various qualities.