Questions And Exercises: Chapter VI. Punctuation, An Art

§26. 1. Study the punctuation of the following sentences in the light of section twenty-six, and say whether any of the commas is needed. If you decide that any comma should be retained, give your reasons. Of the fifteen commas the present writer would retain exactly one.

1. The musical and cultured world which has received the Pianola Piano 80 warmly, is now being asked to accept a host of imitations. For your protection you should know that only in the five pianos named above, is to be found the genuine Pianola.

2. And the costly catalog you spent so much money to produce, is a wreck long before it completes the trip to the prospective customer's desk.

3. Aridity, is the absence of water sufficient to make crops grow.

4. The prevailing winds which come from the Pacific, are forced upward, by the mountains.

5. One reason why so many men make complete failures in the business world, is their total lack of method.

6. It looks to me as though the inference to be drawn from the foregoing, is, that what are known as the big metropolitan morning and evening newspapers find their field of usefulness as advertising mediums confined mostly to the metropolis.

7. He said, that there was no reason why we should go.

8. I think, that there is no reason why we should go.

9. It seems, that there is no reason why we should go.

10. I fear, that there is no reason for these commas.

11. Referring to our advertisements in ENGINEERING NEWS, we are pleased to state, that the results obtained have been very satisfactory.

2. In the following sentences all the commas are needed. The omission of any would lead to a misunderstanding; it would wreck a train of thought Explain in each case what the misunderstanding would be.

1. In trying to expand, the evening papers find themselves jumping up against the already well-established suburban publications,

2. The glades of our new park are fragrant and cool, and musical with the song of birds.

3. We guarantee these socks from the need of being darned, for six months. 4. Go to Lindenwood college for women, in continuous existence since 1831 5. Wanted - A high class hard boiled candy, maker.

6 Rainproof automobile veils will protect the most delicate hat, ever concocted by a milliner, from a storm of huge proportions.

[Note. - Some of these sentences are of course badly constructed, and cannot satisfactorily be patched up by commas.]

§ 27. 1. In the following sentences, dependent elements are wrongly set off. Study all the sentences, and select the four that seem to you the worst. Then copy the four and punctuate them correctly. If a dependent conjunction begins too long a clause, change it to an independent conjunction and make two sentences.

1. Some stores carry this practice to the point of making specialized depart* ments entirely independent of the general buying, production, selling organizations. While the principle of stock distribution or other forms of profit sharing has been adopted by so many companies that it has come to be a recognized method of promoting loyalty.

2. Personality in an employee can be overdone. Although workers give al-legiance to a strong man.

3. Our car ran well enough till it reached a steep grade. Where it stopped short

4. The goods are selling rapidly. Since there is no doubt that they are first quality in every respect.

5. Check the engine before reversing. In order that you may avoid a sudden jarring of the boat.

6. You had better take Minneapolis next Provided, that is, you have cleaned up all the southern territory.

7. All the world's a stage and men and women merely players; their acts being seven ages.

8. This boat is built with sharp prow and equipped with a strong engine, making her very swift

9. This boat is equipped with a very powerful engine; so that she is very swift

10. Take your sample case to your room at the hotel; unless there is a general show-room somewhere in town.

2. Examine again the exercise under section seventeen. Then compose a good paragraph containing a short emphatic sentence, a long sentence without semicolons, and a long sentence containing semicolons.

3, 4. Illustrate the proper use of the decimal period.

5. Write the proper contraction for per centum.

6. Write the name of the present Pope by the use of a ro-man numeral.

7. Write the proper form of address at the beginning of a letter.

8. Hand in one of the following sentences properly punctuated:

1. For the merchant for the shipping clerk for the receiving clerk for the purchasing agent for the hilling and charge department for the cost-keeper for the order clerk for the city delivery room for the weighing and paying department for factory requisitions for lumber and coal dealers grain and stock men - for every business involving sales shipments and receipts there is an EGRY REGISTER that will stand back of the employer.

2. The International Harvester Company Butler Brothers Morris & Company the Western Electric Company with 21,000 employees Crane & Company with thirty-eight branches and nearly 10,000 men on its pay rolls the United States Steel Corporation these and many other large employers of labor are making use of the pension system.

3. Perhaps you remind me that certain of our employes were most carefully selected that many lesser tasks are of such a character that special fitness is not required that men are the most flexible of machines that unless the number of applicants be large there is little chance to discriminate that it is far simpler to analyze a steel bar than a human soul.

9. Hand in two of the following sentences, properly punctuated:

1. Our purpose in adopting a profit-sharing plan was two-fold to stimulate employees to greater efforts and to hold them more permanently.

2. The money incentive has taken various forms a stock interest in the business with dividends profit sharing in the form of gifts or prizes an established high scale of wages regular increases pension systems and insurance features that are payable at some future time.