Plain English

170. Should and would are the past-time forms of shall and will. We use them to express action or existence dependent upon some condition, thus:

I should go if I were well enough.

He should join us if you asked him.

In these sentences should and would express action which is possible now or will be in the future, provided some other action takes place.

The same distinction which we found made in the use shall and will has been made with should and would; that is, that should used with the first person, expresses action dependent upon condition; but would, used with the first person, implies exercise of the will. This rule is not closely followed, though it expresses a nice distinction in the use of should and would. In ordinary usage we use either should or would with the first person without any distinction of meaning, as for example:

I should struggle on even if it meant death.

I would stand for my principles though I stood entirely alone.

We do not use should however, with the second and third persons to express an action or existence dependent upon some condition. Should used with the second and third person implies obligation. Would is used with the second or third person to express an action dependent upon some condition, as for example:

He would not go, even if you insisted.

They would come if you invited them.

You would believe him if you could hear him.

You would be surprised if I should tell you the reason.

171. Should and would in all of the sentences which we have quoted are used to express action or existence dependent upon some condition which is expressed in that part of the sentence introduced by such conjunctions as if and though.

The parts of the sentence introduced by these conjunctions express the condition upon which the other action is dependent. When we use should in sentences without this condition, it means practically the same as ought, and implies an obligation. We use should with the first and second and third persons when we use it with this meaning, as for example:

I should have gone yesterday. You should be with us in this fight. They should never fear defeat.

172. Ought could be used in all these sentences and express practically the same meaning. Should used in this way implies obligation.

Exercise 2

Study carefully the following sentences. Write in the blank space preceding each sentence the number of the paragraph in the lesson which governs the use of the helping verb in that sentence.

1. ...... The workers should organize if they desire to control production.

2. ...... The proletariat would destroy this system if they understood their power.

3. ...... Every worker would join his fellows if he could but realize the class struggle.

4. ...... We would all enjoy plenty if we produced for use instead of for profit.

5. ...... The ruling class would not give up their privileges even though they knew that their cupidity endangers society.

6. ...... The injury of one should be the injury of all.

7. ...... The workers' International should stand for the international solidarity of the workers.

8. ...... You should never fear the ridicule of little minds.

9. ...... You would never fear ridicule if you were conscious of your own power.

10. ...... No man should fear to think for himself.

11. ...... No man would fear to think for himself if the world were truly free.

12. ...... Compromise now would mean defeat.

173. May used as a helping verb means present permission in regard to an action or possession, as:

You may come with us.

He may have the money.

174. It may also mean a possible action or possession. You may come with us, for example, might mean that some time in the future it is possible that you will come with us. He may have the money, might mean either He is given permission to have the money, or It is possible that he has it.

May, used with many verb forms, means it is possible. For example: He may be hungry, He may have starved. He may have been starving; that is, it is possible that he is hungry; that he has starved; that he was starving.

175. Might is the past form of may and expresses past permission to do or to be and also possibility in the past. For example: The officer said he might go. That is, he gave him permission to go. You might have helped your comrades; that is, you had the power to have helped.

Might is also used to express permission or the power to do in the present and future, on condition. For example:

He might find work if he were trained.

The workers might destroy this insane system if they would.

Exercise 3

Study carefully the following sentences. Write in the blank space preceding each sentence the number of the paragraph in the lesson which governs the use of the helping verbs may or might in that sentence.

1. ...... The solidarity of the workers might have averted this war.

3. ...... You might join us.

4. ...... The people struggle that they may live.

5. ...... Try; you might succeed.

6. ...... The day may come when this day's deeds shall be remembered.

7. ...... Victory might be ours if we dared to face the issue.

9. ...... It seemed possible that we might win.

10. ...... May we ever be loyal and true!

11. ...... It appeared for a time that we might be involved in war.

12. ...... Let come what may, we will not yield.

176. Can is the present-time form and could the past-time form, and both imply ability or power to do or to be.

You can go means You are able to go,—You have the power to go. You may go means You have permission to go. Can is often used when we should use may, when we mean to give permission. Habit plays a great part in our life and knowledge of the right way does not always suffice. It is only continued effort that will establish correct habits of speech. Good English would be easy of accomplishment if "to do were as easy as to know what it were good to do."

We are too often like the mother in the story. "Can I have a piece of pie?" asked the child. "May I?" the mother corrected. Then the child asked, "May I have a piece of pie?" and the mother answered, "Yes, you can." Knowledge said, may; habit said can, and the ready tongue obeyed the force of habit.

Say the correct word over and over aloud until it sounds right to your ear and flows readily to your tongue.

177. Could is sometimes used in the present sense to denote power to do, conditioned upon willingness, as:

He could if he would.

Exercise 4

Study carefully the following sentences. Write in the blank space preceding each sentence the number of the paragraph in the lesson which governs the use of the helping verbs can or could in that sentence.

2. ...... No one can be free till all are free.

3. ...... They could win their freedom if they would prepare themselves to be free.

4. ...... What can I do, being alone?

5. ...... If all men could catch the vision of freedom, wars would cease.

6. ...... Could you find a better way to spend your time than in study?

7. ...... Men would rise in revolt if they could know the facts.

178. Must and ought imply obligation. Must conveys the idea of being obliged to do an action from necessity or compulsion, as,

You must have known it.

He must go.

Ought was originally the past time form of owe, hence means to be indebted to, to owe. It conveys the idea of a moral obligation, as,

You ought to help the cause.

You ought to understand.

179. Ought is always used with the infinitive, and the same form is used to express both the present and the past time. The difference in time is expressed by a change in the infinitive instead of a change in the form of the helping verb. With may and might and can and could, present and past time are expressed by a change in the form of the helping verb. With the helping verb ought, the difference in time is expressed in the infinitive. For example:

He ought to pay us our wages.

This means, He owes it to us to pay us our wages now.

He ought to have paid us our wages.

This means, He owed it to us to pay us our wages some time in the past.

180. The present infinitive is used with the helping verb ought to express present time and the perfect infinitive is used with ought to express past time.

Exercise 5

Study carefully the following sentences. Write in the blank space preceding each sentence the number of the paragraph in the lesson which governs the use of the helping verb must or ought in that sentence.

1. ...... Service must be the key note of the future.

2. ...... Competition must give place to co-operation.

3. ...... Ought we to fear, who know the truth?

4. ...... Government ought to be the administration of things.

5. ...... No man ought to have the power of life and death over any other human being.

6. ...... It may cost much but humanity must be set free at any cost.

7. ...... What ought to be the attitude of the workers toward war?

9. ...... The day must come when we can live the dream.

181. Do and did are used as helping verbs to give emphasis—to form emphatic verb phrases. Do is the present time form and did the past time form, as for example:

I do wish you would come.

I did hope he would win.

182. When we use the negative not we use the helping verbs do and did to form our verb phrases. For example, we do not say:

I obey not.

I walked not.

He comes not.

They arrived not.

But in expressing the present and past time forms with the negative not, we say instead:

I do not obey.

I did not walk.

He does not come.

They did not arrive.

183. We also use do and did with the present and past time forms of the verb in writing interrogative sentences. For example, we do not say:

Comes he with them?

Studied you yesterday?

Found they the book?

Think you it is true?

But we say instead:

Does he come with them?

Did you study yesterday?

Did they find the book?

Do you think it is true?

Exercise 6

Write in the blank space before each sentence the number of the paragraph which governs the use of the helping verb do or did in that sentence.

1. ...... Slaves do not think; they obey.

2. ...... Men do not obey; they think.

3. ...... Do you know that two per cent of the people own sixty per cent of the wealth?

4. ...... The children of the masses do not have the opportunity to attend school.

5. ...... Did not every nation claim a war for defense?

7. ...... We do desire the freedom of the people.

8. ...... We did hope that war might be averted.

Let us sum up the auxiliary or helping verbs.

184. Helping verbs are used to express:

The different time forms—shall, will, have, had, be.

Power to do or to be—can, could, might.

Permission—may and might.

Possibility—may and might.

Obligation—must, ought and should.

Necessity—must.

Condition—would.

Mark the helping verbs in the following exercise:

Exercise 7

The earth shall rise on new foundations.

We have been naught, we shall be all.

No more tradition's chains shall bind us.

Oh! Liberty! Can man resign thee?

Can dungeon's bolts and bars confine thee?

Capital could never have existed if labor had not first existed.

What can I do? I can talk out when others are silent. I can say man when others say money.

Do you hear the children weeping, O my brothers?

Political freedom can exist only where there is industrial freedom. Political democracy can exist only where there is industrial democracy.

Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.

If there is anything that cannot bear free thought, let it crack.

No doctrine, however established, should be protected from discussion.

Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives the preaching of a new gospel.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Every man is a consumer and ought to be a producer.

No picture of life can have any variety which does not admit the odious facts.

I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.

Exercise 8

Note the use of the helping verbs in the following quotation. Could you use might or must or ought anywhere and strengthen the emphasis?

"I have looked at this claim by the light of history and my own confidence, and it seems to me, so looked at, to be a most just claim, and that resistance to it means nothing short of a denial of the whole of civilization.

This then is the claim:

It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which shall be worth doing and be of itself pleasant to do; and which should be done under such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious.

Turn that claim about as I may, think of it as long as I can, I cannot find that it is an exorbitant claim; yet if society would or could admit it, the face of the earth would be changed; discontent and strife and dishonesty would be ended. To feel that we were doing work useful to others and pleasant to ourselves, and that such work and its due reward could not fail us! What serious harm could happen to us then? And the price to be paid for so making the world happy, must be revolution."—William Morris.

Dear Comrade:

As we begin the study of the story of the alphabet and the evolution of written speech, we discover that primitive man imagined the art of writing to have had divine origin, to have been handed down from the powers above.

It is natural for us to personify and envelop in mystery the things that we do not understand. So these primitive people have attributed the discovery of the art of writing to the gods and have looked upon the parchment containing the written word which they cannot understand, as possessing magical power; but as we come to learn the origin and causes of things, they are divested of their mystery and become no longer gods and enslavers of men. We understand the laws that govern their action and they become our servants. Take lightning for example. Primitive people personified the lightning or called it the thunder bolts of Jove or attributed it to an act of divine providence. We have learned the laws that govern the action of electricity and so this mighty giant is no longer a god to whom we bow in submission, and who slays us at his whim. He has become our most faithful servant who travels along the wires at our behest and obeys our every bidding. So in the early stages, the art of writing belonged only to the favored few and was made the means of enslavement of the common people instead of the means of liberation.

Knowledge has always been power and the ruling classes of the world, desiring power over the people, have striven to keep knowledge within their own circle; so the art of writing was known only to the few. The few books in circulation were laboriously written by hand and circulated, largely among the clergy, who used it as priests have ever used their power—from medicine man to Pope,—for the enslavement of the people and the protection of the privileges of a few. This is aptly illustrated in the law which was known as "the benefit of clergy" which was not entirely repealed until the year 1827. Under this statute, exemption from trial for criminal offenses was given to the clergy and also to any man who could read. If a person were sentenced to death for some criminal offense, the bishop of that community might claim him as a clerk and if, when given a Latin book, he could read a verse or two, the court would declare "he reads like a clerk" and the offender was only burned in the hand and then set free.

The invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century which made possible the diffusion of knowledge among the people, was the beginning of the emancipation of the workers of the world. But while we realize, perhaps, what this art of writing means to us and by the knowledge of its growth and development no longer ascribe it to divine origin or consider it a blessing designed by a supreme being for a favored few, still most of us know very little of the interesting evolution which made possible the alphabet which is the basis of our written and spoken language of to-day. When we realize how through all these long centuries man has been struggling, striving, evolving, developing, reaching out toward fuller, freer and richer life, it gives us courage in our struggle and makes us see ourselves, not as individuals alone, but as links in a mighty chain clasping hands with that primitive man of the past, from whom we have inherited the power we now possess, and reaching forth also to clasp the hands of those who shall come and handing on to them the things for which we have struggled and added to the inheritance of the past.

Next week we will have the story of man's first beginning in the art of writing.

THE VERB "BE"

185. The verb is perhaps the most difficult part of speech to master because it has more form changes than any other part of speech.

In this lesson we are going to emphasize the most important things to remember in the study of the verb and also call attention to the most common mistakes.