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The Project Gutenberg eBook,Business English, by Rose Buhlig

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Title: Business English

A Practice Book

Author: Rose Buhlig

Release Date: November 18, 2011[eBook #38046]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT

ENGLISH***

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BUSINESS ENGLISH

A PRACTICE BOOK

BYROSE BUHLIG

TILDEN HIGH SCHOOL, CHICAGO

D C HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO

Copyright, 1914,

By D C Heath & Co.

2FI

The author of this book and the writer

of this preface have never met Theirrespective fields of labor are a thousandmiles apart Yet such is the force of ideasthat many of their thoughts and sympathiesare common

Business English! The very name is ananomaly From a literary point of viewthere is no such thing English is Englishwhether it be used to express the creations

of our imagination, our aestheticappreciations, or our daily wants There is

no magical combination of words,phrases, and sentences that is peculiar and

distinctive to business transactions.Business English as used in these pagesmeans effective communication, both oraland written The author's aim throughouthas been to teach the art of using words insuch a way as to make people think andact To do this she has applied theprinciples of literary composition to thehighly complex and ever increasingproblems of our business life She realizesthat business is vital, and that theproblems of commerce are not to be metand handled with dead forms andstereotyped expressions of legal blanks.

To use our language effectively it isnecessary to have an understanding of itselements Thus the author has very wiselydevoted much space to word-study and

English grammar This is a fieldcommonly neglected in books on thesubject The people engaged in businessare, on the whole, woefully weak in thegrammar of our language It is believedthat the treatment herein will be a greataid in correcting this deficiency If wehave ideas, we must express them inwords, and our words should be sochosen and arranged as not to offend, but

to please and interest This result can besecured by a systematic study of Part I

Part II deals with oral and writtencomposition Here the author has arrangedher subjects in such a way as to give thewhole a cumulative effect The methodthroughout is inductive, and sufficientexamples are always given to warrant the

conclusions drawn Most textbooks onBusiness English neglect the subject oforal English This book regards thespoken word as important as the writtenword.

If there be any one feature in thistextbook more to be commended thananother, it is the exposition in Part III Thesituations arising in many different kinds

of business are here analyzed The authorbelieves that the way to become a goodbusiness correspondent is, first, to learnwhat the situation demands and, second, topractice meeting the demands We mustknow before we write Given aknowledge of the subject, we must havemuch practice in expressing ourselves insuch a way as to make our composition

effective The author meets this need bysupplying many and varied exercises forpractice These exercises are live,practical, and up-to-date The problems to

be solved are real, not imaginary Thus thepower to be gained in meeting thesesituations and solving these problems willprove a real asset to those whocontemplate a business career It isconfidently hoped that both teachers andpupils will find in this work materialwhich will help them to preparethemselves to meet the many problems anddemands of our growing commercialneeds

Daniel B DuncanColumbia University

January, 1914.

V The Sentence and its Elements 41

VI The Noun and the Pronoun 57

VII The Adjective and the Adverb 75

IX The Preposition and the

Part II—Composition: Oral and WrittenX Oral English 127

XIII The Clear Sentence 199

BUSINESS ENGLISH

PART I—WORD STUDY AND GRAMMAR

CHAPTER I

INTERESTING WORDS

Business English is the expression ofour commercial life in English It is notsynonymous with letter writing To besure, business letters are important, butthey form only a part of one of the twolarge divisions into which the subjectnaturally falls

First, there is oral expression,

important because so many of our businesstransactions are conducted personally.Thousands of salesmen daily move from

place to place over the entire country,earning their salaries by talkingconvincingly of the goods that they have tosell A still greater number of clerks,salesmen, managers, and officials orallytransact business in our shops, stores,offices, and banks Complaints areadjusted; difficulties are disentangled; andaffairs of magnitude are consummated inpersonal interviews, the matter underdiscussion often being thought tooimportant to be entrusted tocorrespondence In every business oralEnglish is essential.

Second, there is written expression.

This takes account of the writing ofadvertisements, circulars, booklets, andprospectuses, as well as of letters And in

the preparation of these oral English isfundamental It precedes and practicallyincludes the written expression Forexample, we say colloquially that a goodadvertisement "talks." We mean that thewriter has so fully realized the buyer'spoint of view that the words of theadvertisement seem to speak directly tothe reader, arousing his interest or perhapsanswering his objection Oral English isfundamental, too, in the writing of letters,for most letters are dictated and notwritten The correspondent dictates them

to his stenographer or to a recordingmachine in the same tone, probably, that

he would use if the customer were sittingbefore him

But in taking this point of view, we

should not minimize the importance ofwritten business English In a way, it ismore difficult to write well than it is totalk well In talking we are not troubledwith the problems of correct spelling,proper punctuation, and goodparagraphing We may even repeatsomewhat, if only we are persuasive But

in writing we are confronted with thenecessity of putting the best thoughts intothe clearest, most concise language, at thesame time obeying all the rules ofspelling, punctuation, and grammar Thebusiness man must be sure of these details

in order to know that his letters andadvertising matter are correct Thestenographer, especially, must bethoroughly familiar with them, so that shemay correctly transcribe what has been

in which the words are put together, theidea back of the sentence, that makes theonly difference.

We shall begin the study of businessEnglish with a study of words, for in allexpression, whether oral or written, aknowledge of words, of their meaning and

suggestive power, is fundamental On thechoice of words depends not only thecorrectness but also the effectiveness ofexpression—the courtesy of a letter, theappeal of an advertisement, thepersuasiveness of a salesman's talk Amastery of words cannot be gained atonce Every time one speaks, he mustconsider what words will best convey hisidea In this chapter only the barestbeginning of such study can be made Theexercises show the value of the subject.

The study of words is interestingbecause words themselves are interesting.Sometimes the interest consists in thestory 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 to Italy or its people." It is nowapplied to a kind of type in which theletters slope toward the right The typewas called italic because it was dedicated

to the states of Italy by the inventor,Manutius, about the year 1500 Anunabridged dictionary will tell all aboutthe word

The word salary tells a curious story.

It is derived from a Latin word, salarium,

meaning "salt money." It was the name ofthe money that was given to the Romansoldiers for salt, which was a part of theirpay Finally, instead of signifying only thesalt money, it came to mean the total pay

Practically all of this information agood dictionary gives In other words, a

dictionary is a story book containing notone, but hundreds of thousands of stories.Whenever possible it tells what language

a word came from, how it got its differentmeanings, and how those meanings havechanged in the course of time For it isnatural that words should change just asstyles change, names of ancient thingsbeing lost and names for new things beingmade As the objects themselves havegone out of use, their names have alsogone When a word has gone entirely out

of use, it is marked obsolete in the

dictionary On the other hand, newinventions must be named Thus newwords are constantly being added to thelanguage and the dictionary because theyare needed

There is a large class of words that weshall not have time to consider They are

c a l l e d technical Every profession,business, or trade has its distinctivewords The technical words that a printerwould use are entirely different from thosewhich a dentist, a bookkeeper, or a lawyerwould use You will learn the technicalterms of your business most thoroughlyafter you enter it and see the use for suchterms

None of the words, therefore, that youwill be asked to search out in thedictionary are, strictly speaking, technical

It is evident that it will do you no good tosearch out the words in the dictionary,unless you learn them—unless you usethem correctly in speaking and writing

There is pleasure in thus employing newmaterial, as everybody knows Use youreyes and ears When you hear a newword, or read one, focus the mind upon itfor a moment until you can retain a mentalpicture of its spelling and of itspronunciation Then as soon as possiblelook it up in the dictionary to fix itsspelling, pronunciation, and definition Dothis regularly, and you will have reason to

be proud of your vocabulary

An excellent way to increase thenumber of words that you know is to readthe right kind of books The careful study

of the words used in the speeches andaddresses of noted men is good practice.The conditions that called forth the speechwere probably important, and the speech

itself interesting, or it would not bepreserved When a man has an interesting

or important message to give, he usuallygives it in clear, exact, simple language.Therefore the vocabulary that he uses isworth copying As for stories, there is akind that furnishes a wealth of materialthat modern authors are constantly using orreferring to, and this is found in stories ofthe 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 oneshould know them well, because they arethe basis of many allusions in which asingle word oftentimes suggests a whole

story The meaning of the word herculean,

for instance, is missed if you do not knowthe story of Hercules and know that he

was famous for his strength.

Exercise 1

Atlas is an interesting word Originally

it was the name of a Greek god, whocarried the world on his shoulders Then it

is supposed that in the sixteenth centurythe famous geographer Mercator prefixedhis collection of maps with the picture ofAtlas supporting the world Thus acollection of maps in a volume came to be

called an atlas Consult an unabridged

dictionary for the origin of each of thefollowing:

rival fortune cereal boycottdollar finance china derrick

bankrupt milliner java mercurycash pullman cashmere colossalmint grocer macadam turbine

Exercise 2

The days of the week and the months ofthe year are interesting in their derivation.Monday, for example, represents the daysacred to the Moon as a deity Explain theorigin of each of the following:

Sunday Saturday May OctoberTuesday January June NovemberWednesday February

July DecemberThursday March August

Friday April September

peevish chapelphặton tawdry disaster omnibus

Exercise 4

Explain the origin of each of thefollowing:

curfew tulip turquoise

good-byepompadour

aster amethyst dismalhyacinth dunce tantalize titanicdandelion humor umbrella volcanodahlia villain sandwich tanglebegonia echo lunatic babble

Exercise 5

Name the image that each of thefollowing suggests to you:

howl sputter rasping munchskim prance clatter tricklesqueal click wheeze shufflemoan thud trudge bulgesqueak patter chuckle gobblesquawk spatter toddling swish

Exercise 6

Bring to class a list of words which,because they are the names of moderninventions, have come into the language inmodern time

Exercise 7

How many words can you name whichmight be called the technical terms of

school life, words which always carrywith them a suggestion of the schoolroom? Bring in a list of twenty suchwords.

in a list of twenty or more such words

CHAPTER II

PRONUNCIATION

We are judged by our speech If weclip syllables, run words together, orpronounce them incorrectly, we shallmerit the criticism of being careless oreven ignorant Yet clear enunciation andcorrect pronunciation are sometimesdifficult We learn most words by hearingothers say them, and, if we do not hear thetrue values given to the different syllables,

we shall find it hard to distinguish thecorrect from the incorrect forms Childrenwhose parents speak a foreign language

usually have to watch their speech withespecial care; Germans, for example, find

difficulty in saying th and Irish people in saying oi as in oil The exercises in this

chapter are given for the purpose ofcorrecting such habits The words in theexercises should be pronouncedrepeatedly, until the correct forms areinstinctive

Train the ear to hear the difference

between sounds, as in just and in jest.

Don't slide over the final consonant in

such words as going and reading Watch words containing wh The dictionary tells

us that where was originally written hwar, the h coming before the w; and we still pronounce it so, although we write the w before the h The word whether is of the

same kind The dictionary tells us that it

was first spelled hweder Such words

should be carefully noted and theirpronunciation practiced

Then there is the habit of slurringsyllables We may understand what ismeant by the expression "C'm' on" or

"Waja say?", but most of us would prefernot to be included in the class of peoplewho use either Correct speech cannot bemastered without an effort

In the following exercises watch everyvowel and every consonant so that youmay give each one its full value

Exercise 10—Diacritical Marks

Although an a is always written a, it is

not always given the same quality orlength of sound When we discover a newword, it is important that we know exactlythe quality to give each of the vowels in it

For this purpose diacritical marks have

been invented They are illustrated in thefollowing list from Webster's

International Dictionary.

Transcriber's Note: Due to

the constraints of HTML, a

letter with a tack above such as

cannot be displayed For

this reason [+x] has been used

to denote a letter with a tack

above it.

ā as in āte, fāte, lāb´or

[+a] " " sen´[+a]te, del´ic[+a]te, [+a]e

´rial

â " " câre, shâre, pâr´ent

ă " " ăm, ădd, răn´dom

ä " " ärm, fär, fä´ther

" " sk, gr ss, p ss, d nce

a̠ " " fi´na̠l, in´fa̠nt, guid´ānce

a̤ " " a̤ll, a̤we, swa̤rm, ta̤lk

ē " " ēve, mēte, serēne´

[+e] " " [+e]vent´, d[+e]pend´, soci

´[+e]ty

ĕ " " ĕnd, mĕt, ĕxcuse´, ĕfface´