Exercise 186
Punctuate the following:
1. We have an enormous crop of cotton the value of which is estimated at one billion dollars.
2. “The root of the mail order evil is the idea which the retail mail order houses have been able somehow to instill into the minds of the buying public that the local merchants ask too much for their goods.”
3. Mr. Hilton who was sales manager at that time induced the company to adopt this system.
4. The lecture will be delivered by Mr. Brenton who is the head of the advertising department of Whitlock & Co.
5. Our dog whose fur was wet by his plunge into the lake came running toward us.
6. Genevieve who had always been the leader in the games was not present.
7. A late product of the brain of George Westinghouse who was the inventor of the air brake and numerous electrical devices is an air spring for automobiles. This little article has been patented by Mr. Westinghouse who has the sole ownership. The spring which has already proved popular with automobile owners fits over the end of the regular spring and “makes good roads out of bad ones.”
8. Careful selection of investments upon which the safety of your money depends is often difficult. Careful watching of investments which is fully as essential is much harder. Let us tell you about our Investment Service which does this watching for you and keeps you fully protected.
9. As a direct result of the conference between the railroad and steamship interests of the South-Atlantic and Gulf cotton ports which was held recently at Hot Springs Va. an organization which will be known as the South Atlantic and Steamship Cotton Inspection Bureau has been created. The bureau will have a chief inspector who will supervise the conduct of its business at all ports and will arrange for the employment of the inspectors. According to the rules and regulations copies of which have been received by the cotton agencies and the export departments of the various New Orleans firms any bale that shows external damage from water mud bad bagging or other causes must be condemned and its condition noted and reported.
10. How would you like to wear a hat that has been handed down through six generations in each of which it was a treasured possession? The Italian peasants who love finery are proud to do that very thing. Very few of the poorer people who live in Italy own a hat. When you see a beautifully woven Leghorn hat which is also very dirty on the head of a little peasant child you may be pretty sure that she is celebrating her birthday by wearing the family heirloom. These hats which are sometimes willed to a favorite relative and which in some instances go the round of the family are considered almost priceless. It is a frequent sight along the dusty roads outside the little towns to see untidy old women who are sauntering along twisting twine as they go all vanity under the flopping brim of an antiquated hat. This is almost the only souvenir that tourists’ money cannot buy.
—The Chicago Tribune.
Exercise 187—Explanatory Expressions
E. When the subordinate element that comes at or near the close of the sentence gives an additional idea, following the more or less complete idea in the rest of the sentence, it should be set off by a comma; as,
A signature clerk will easily recognize any alteration in a signature, although thousands of checks pass through his hands daily.
He gave a statement of the affairs of the company, explaining that he wished to make a loan.
Rule 10.—A terminal adverbial clause or participial phrase giving an additional idea should be set off from the rest of the sentence by a comma.
Punctuate the following:
1. Popular-priced goods are the safest for a retail stock however you consider the subject.
2. A sheriff seldom finds large quantities of popular-priced goods on hand when he comes to take possession of any retail store although he usually finds expensive articles.
3. They bring higher prices relatively than the heavier things even when they are disposed of under forced sale.
4. The catalogue houses have little fear for five-and-ten-cent stores because sixty-eight per cent of their business is in big goods such as furniture vehicles sewing-machines clothing and relatively expensive things. They do not wish to increase the sale of popular-priced articles although their catalogue may be full of them because it costs them more to pack one hammer or trowel than the profits can stand.
5. Steel conditions remain about as they have been for several weeks excepting that the price of rails has been advancing for the last few days.
6. Steel men are of the opinion that to increase prices too rapidly would spoil a good market because most of the mills are so filled up with orders that they would not be able to take advantage of increased quotations for some time to come.
7. The steel business for the last three months has been very encouraging as it shows that railroads are dropping their policy of waiting until the last minute to buy. It will probably mean more normal operation of mills instead of spasmodic workings as has been the case for the last few years.
8. Boraxated soap chips will benefit your tableware and your hands making dishwashing a pleasure instead of a task.
9. The man who works to the limit of his physical powers is as foolish as the manufacturer who immediately invests all his profits in his business neglecting to have a reserve fund for unexpected demands.
10. A wide-awake manager tries plan after plan testing and re-testing them until he can apply them to his company’s needs.
Write four sentences illustrating Rule 10.
Exercise 188
Punctuate the following letters, supplying a heading and an introduction for each:
1
Dear Madam:
We wish to acknowledge your letter of recent date assuring you that we thank you for the opportunity you have given us of opening a monthly charge account in your name. We shall spare no effort to make every transaction as satisfactory as possible hoping thus to merit a liberal share of your patronage.
Our bills are rendered on the first of each month being payable between that date and the fifteenth.
Yours very truly,
2
Dear Mr. Warner:
In reply to your inquiry I am sending the following information assuring you that I am glad to be of service to you.
The Lancaster Company has apparently abandoned its plan of erecting a new building this year difficulties having arisen it is said in their securing a suitable location. About two years ago the firm purchased a site on the corner of Harrison and Second streets but they sold it again last year taking advantage of a decided rise in real estate values. It is understood we believe that the company will build in the near future even now having two or three possible sites under consideration.
Sincerely yours,
3
Dear Sir:
We offer you the benefits and privileges of our Special Charge Account whereby purchases may be paid for in weekly or monthly installments. You will find this a most convenient arrangement because it permits you to have a charge account without the usual hardship of payment at a fixed time. Moreover a Special Charge Account costs you nothing since our prices are the same whether you pay cash or have purchases charged. Please fill out the enclosed application blank mailing it to us to-day.
You will no doubt enjoy reading the enclosed booklet as it gives much interesting information on fashion tendencies. The illustrations too are unusually attractive although they hardly do justice to the beautiful garments that we sell.
Yours truly,
Exercise 189
Study the punctuation in the following selections from The Wall Street Journal; then write them from dictation:
1
Trouble in Introducing Steel
“Strange as it now seems,” said one of Carnegie’s “young men,” now the vice-president of a large and prosperous corporation in New York, “in the early days of the steel industry we had the greatest difficulty in the world in weaning the old manufacturers away from the use of wrought iron, though they admitted the superiority of steel. They would look at it, test it, and agree that it seemed to possess all the desirable qualities claimed for it, but it was more or less untried by time, and they preferred to stick to the old wrought iron, with which they were familiar.
“I remember one old chap with whom I had wrestled long, but in vain, coming into my office and picking up a long, soft steel rivet, which had been bent double and hammered flat.
“‘How many did you break in making this?’ he asked, picking it up and examining it curiously.
“‘That’s the first one we hammered over, and, what is more to the point, we can do it with all steel of that type,’ I replied.
“The polite incredulity in his face stirred my professional pride, and I said, ‘If I let you go to the mills, pick out a dozen of those rivets just as they come from the rolls, and hammer them with your own hands, will you use that steel hereafter, if it comes up to the test?’
“He said he would, and the rest was easy, for it is much easier not to break than to break that kind of steel. Before long the old man came back with perspiration dripping from the end of his nose but with the light of conviction shining in his eye. The firm had a new customer.”
2
Conservation
Leslie M. Shaw, former Secretary of the Treasury, was in New York, attending a meeting of a board of which he is a member. Something was said about the present-day discussion of money power, and Shaw said that it reminded him of a speech he had made in Seattle in the campaign of 1896.
“I was speaking to a filled hall and had almost finished,” said Shaw, “when a long-whiskered man arose about the middle of the hall and held up his hand, saying he wanted to ask a question.
“‘Go ahead,’ I said.
“‘How, then, Mr. Speaker, do you explain the unequal distribution of wealth?’ was his question.
“When I answered him with, ‘In the same way that I explain the unequal distribution of whiskers,’ bedlam broke loose.
“As soon as I could get quiet restored, I said: ‘Now don’t think I returned the answer I did to make fun of your whiskers. You will observe that I have no whiskers, as I dissipate them by shaving them off. Nature gives me abundance of whiskers, and, if I conserved them as you do, I also should be abundantly supplied. Now, it is the same way with money. The man who conserves his money has more than his share, as with whiskers; while the man who dissipates his money is without his allotment.’”
Exercise 190—The Semicolon (;)
The semicolon is used between the propositions of a compound sentence when no coördinate conjunction is used. (See Exercise 176, 2.)
It is not work that kills men; it is worry.
It is important not to overdo this use of the semicolon. Do not use it unless the two principal clauses of the sentence taken together easily form one idea.
Especial care must be taken not to confuse coördinate conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs. The following are conjunctive adverbs: then, therefore, consequently, moreover, however, so, also, besides, thus, still, otherwise, accordingly. When they are used to join principal clauses, they should be preceded by a coördinate conjunction or a semicolon; as,
Fruit was plentiful, and therefore the price was low.
Fruit was plentiful; therefore the price was low.
When there is a series of phrases or clauses, each of which is long and contains commas within itself, the sentence becomes clearer if the members of the series are separated by semicolons instead of by commas; as,
You know how prolific the American mind has been in invention; how much civilization has been advanced by the steamboat, the cotton-gin, the sewing-machine, the reaping-machine, the typewriter, the electric light, the telephone, the phonograph.
Write the following from dictation:
1
No man can deny that the lines of endeavor have more and more narrowed and stiffened; no one who knows anything about the development of industry in this country can fail to have observed that the larger kinds of credit are more and more difficult to obtain, unless you obtain them upon the terms of uniting your efforts with those who already control the industries of the country; and nobody can fail to observe that any man who tries to set himself up in competition with any process of manufacture which has been taken under the control of large combinations of capital will presently find himself either squeezed out or obliged to sell and allow himself to be absorbed.—Woodrow Wilson: The New Freedom.
2
If the total amount of savings deposited in the savings banks were equally divided among the population of the country, the amount apportioned to each person in 1820 would have been twelve cents; in 1830, fifty-four cents; in 1840, eighty-two cents; in 1850, $1.87; in 1860, $4.75; in 1870, $14.26; in 1880, $16.33; in 1890, $24.75; in 1900, $31.78; in 1910, $45.05, and it is steadily increasing. Remember the fact that the population had increased from 10,000,000 in 1820 to over 90,000,000 in 1910; the “rainy day” money, therefore, assumes gigantic proportions.
3
In Germany, says The Scientific American, wood is too expensive to be burned, and it is made into artificial silk worth two dollars a pound and bristles worth four dollars a pound; into paper, yarn, twine, carpet, canvas, and cloth. Parquet flooring is made from sawdust; the materials may be bought by the pound and then mixed, so that the householder can lay his own hardwood floors according to his individual taste and ingenuity.
4
The country gentlemen and country clergymen had fully expected that the policy of these ministers would be directly opposed to that which had been almost constantly followed by William; that the landed interest would be favored at the expense of trade; that no addition would be made to the funded debt; that the privileges conceded to Dissenters by the late king would be curtailed, if not withdrawn; that the war with France, if there must be such a war, would, on our part, be almost entirely naval; and that the government would avoid close connections with foreign powers and, above all, with Holland.
—Macaulay.
Exercise 191—The Colon (:)
The colon is always used to indicate that something of importance follows, usually an enumeration or a list of some kind, or a quotation of several sentences or paragraphs; as,
1. Three things are necessary: intelligence, perseverance, and tact.
2. The buffalo supplies them with almost all the necessities of life: with habitation, food, and clothing; with strings for their bows; with thread, cordage, and trail-ropes for their horses; with coverings for their saddles; and with the means of purchasing all that they desire from traders.
3. Quoting from the current number of the —— Magazine, he read: (four paragraphs).
Punctuate:
1. For the first fifty miles we had companions with us Troche a little trapper and Rouville a nondescript in the employ of the fur company.
2. About a week previous four men had arrived from beyond the mountains Sublette Reddick and two others.
3. Reynal was gazing intently he began to speak at last “Many a time when I was with the Indians I have been hunting gold all through the Black Hills there’s a plenty of it here you may be certain of that I have dreamed about it fifty times” etc.
4. Objects familiar from childhood surrounded me crags and rocks a black and sullen brook that gurgled with a hollow voice among the crevices a wood of mossy distorted trees.
Exercise 192
The colon is used after thus, as follows, the following, or similar expressions; as,
Name the adverbs in the following: He left hurriedly rather early in the morning.
The colon is not used after namely, as, that is, for example, for instance, and the like. Such expressions are preceded by the semicolon and followed by the comma.
Punctuate the following:
1. The Christmas presents that he wants are the following a toy train a toy automobile a toy circus and a printing press.
2. Do the exercise thus first lunge to the left second raise the arms forward and third wind the wand.
3. We are offering for sale three residences of the size that you wish namely 438 Bishop Ave 1614 Winchester St and 2015 Logan Square.
4. The following are the two that we liked best 438 Bishop Ave and 2015 Logan Square.
5. One use of the comma is to set off an appositive for example Mr Kearne the buyer has left the city.
6. The comma is used to set off an independent adverb as We have not yet decided however when we shall leave.
7. The plan is this I’ll do the work and you pay for the materials.
8. The officers are as follows Edward Lawrence for President John Kelly for Secretary and Fred Morrison for Treasurer.
Exercise 193—The Dash(—)
The dash is used to set off parenthetical expressions that have very little connection with the rest of the sentence; as,
In New York the Harlem River tunnel was comparatively a simple one, but the first East River tunnels—the two subway tubes from the Battery to Brooklyn—presented all the difficulties known to subaqueous construction.
These tunnels extend on under the great Pennsylvania terminal building—another of the same decade’s accomplishments—to East Thirty-fourth Street.
The dash is also used to indicate a sudden change or break in the thought; as,
1. When the millennium comes—if it ever does—all of our problems will be solved.
2. “I believe—” began the lawyer.
“Believe!” interrupted his client. “I don’t want you to believe. I want you to know.”
The dash is used before a word that summarizes the preceding part of the sentence; as,
He had robbed himself of the most precious thing a man can have in business—his friends.
After a comma the dash has the effect of lengthening the separation; as,
One thing the Puritans desired,—freedom to worship God.
Exercise 194—Parenthesis Marks ()
Parenthesis marks are used to enclose explanatory expressions that are not an essential part of the sentence; as,
The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that the receipts of cattle at the six leading markets (Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, South Omaha, St. Joseph, and Sioux City) from January 1 to August 1 of this year are 15 per cent less than they were in the corresponding period of last year.
Wrong.—Do not use parenthesis marks to cancel a word or a passage. A line should be drawn through a word that is wrong.
Bring to class five sentences that illustrate the correct use of parenthesis marks.
Exercise 195—The Hyphen (-)
The hyphen is used when a word has been divided. It is always used at the end of the line and never at the beginning.
When several short words are taken together to form one word, they are hyphenated; as,
a one-hundred-pound bag of coffee
As a rule, when two words taken together are each accented, they must be written with the hyphen. When only one is accented, no hyphen is used; as,
follow-up, first-class, self-reliant, railroad, steamship
As a rule, nouns which are compounded of a participle and a noun use the hyphen; as,
talking-machine, driving-wheel
When fractions are written out, the hyphen is used; as,
one-third, three-fifths
In other numerals expressing a compound number the hyphen is also used; as,
twenty-one, sixty-six
Exercise 196
Punctuate the following letters, supplying a heading and an introduction for each:
1
Gentlemen:
We are glad to tell you that contrary to the fears expressed in your last letter there are no present indications of sudden changes at least no indications of drops in prices. With the exception of two fruits and one vegetable grapes cantaloupes and cauliflower all commodities sold on the wholesale fruit and produce markets here were quoted yesterday at the prices announced last Friday.
The change in grape prices affected the Red Peru variety in which the supply has almost stopped the price being raised from $1.05 to $1.25 a box. If one may trust the forecast of local merchants the price will probably remain at this higher point until the supply is exhausted. Cantaloupes seem to be a trifle scarce especially the pineapple variety the price of which was raised from $1.10 to $1.30 a crate. Cauliflower was raised to $1.35 a dozen heads the staple price probably for the rest of the season.
Excepting these items we shall be glad to receive any orders at Friday’s quotations.
Yours truly,
2
Gentlemen:
Your order of the 20th instant forwarded from our Trenton office came this morning. We regret to say however that we do not carry the Sanito brand of canned goods as we do not consider the grade first-class. If the Monsoon brand which is generally acknowledged to be excellent will serve your purpose we can fill your order at once.
We are now in a position to supply the trade with Mrs. Keller’s coffee of which we have fortunately secured several thousand packages at a very low price. If you wish any at $2.50 per dozen packages less than half the retail price you will notice let us hear from you at once.
Yours truly,
3
Dear Sir:
We acknowledge your letter of October 5 but we regret that as yet we have no information in regard to the excess charge of $1.02 which you were obliged to pay on the express shipment of one piece 27 yds. of plaid silk chiffon. We have taken up the matter with the mill however and as soon as we receive their report we shall write you again.
Asking your indulgence meanwhile we are
Yours truly,