The Project Gutenberg eBook, Business English, by Rose Buhlig docx

[...]... Moreover, they are much the same kind of words, sentences, and paragraphs that appear in any book that is written in what is commonly called the literary style In a business letter the words are largely those of every day use, and but few are technical It is the manner in which the words are put together, the idea back of the sentence, that makes the only difference We shall begin the study of business. .. idea In this chapter only the barest beginning of such study can be made The exercises show the value of the subject The study of words is interesting because words themselves are interesting Sometimes the interest consists in the story of the derivation As an example, consider the word italic Many words in this book are written in italic to draw attention to them Literally the word means "relating... kind of type in which the letters slope toward the right The type was called italic because it was dedicated to the states of Italy by the inventor, Manutius, about the year 1500 An unabridged dictionary will tell all about the word The word salary tells a curious story It is derived from a Latin word, salarium, meaning "salt money." It was the name of the money that was given to the Roman soldiers for... the same time obeying all the rules of spelling, punctuation, and grammar The business man must be sure of these details in order to know that his letters and advertising matter are correct The stenographer, especially, must be thoroughly familiar with them, so that she may correctly transcribe what has been dictated Business English is much the same as any other English It consists in expression by. .. being made As the objects themselves have gone out of use, their names have also gone When a word has gone entirely out of use, it is marked obsolete in the dictionary On the other hand, new inventions must be named Thus new words are constantly being added to the language and the dictionary because they are needed There is a large class of words that we shall not have time to consider They are c a... Exercise 2 The days of the week and the months of the year are interesting in their derivation Monday, for example, represents the day sacred to the Moon as a deity Explain the origin of each of the following: Sunday Saturday May Tuesday January June Wednesday February July Thursday March August October Novembe Decembe Friday April September Exercise 3 Look up the following: derivation of the cancel... will help them to prepare themselves to meet the many problems and demands of our growing commercial needs Daniel B Duncan Columbia University January, 1914 CONTENTS Part I—Word Study and Grammar Page Chapter I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX Interesting Words Pronunciation Spelling Rules Word Analysis The Sentence and its Elements The Noun and the Pronoun The Adjective and the Adverb The Verb The Preposition... 369 BUSINESS ENGLISH PART I—WORD STUDY AND GRAMMAR CHAPTER I INTERESTING WORDS Business English is the expression of our commercial life in English It is not synonymous with letter writing To be sure, business letters are important, but they form only a part of one of the two large divisions into which the subject naturally falls First, there is oral expression, important because so many of our business. .. language Therefore the vocabulary that he uses is worth copying As for stories, there is a kind that furnishes a wealth of material that modern authors are constantly using or referring to, and this is found in stories of the Bible, stories of Greek and Northern gods and goddesses, stories of the Iliad, t h e Odyssey, the Æneid, stories of chivalry—all old stories Every one should know them well, because they... realized the buyer's point of view that the words of the advertisement seem to speak directly to the reader, arousing his interest or perhaps answering his objection Oral English is fundamental, too, in the writing of letters, for most letters are dictated and not written The correspondent dictates them to his stenographer or to a recording machine in the same tone, probably, that he would use if the customer .