In the following sentences, the simple subjects and the simple
predicates of the principal clauses are printed in italics. Locate all
the modifiers of the subjects and predicates, and determine the part of
speech of each word in the sentence.
Sentences Nos. 1, 5, 6, 14, 15, 16, 18, 30, 31, 32 and 37 are simple
sentences.
Sentences Nos. 2, 4, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 22, 26, 28, 33, 34 and 36 are
complex.
Sentences Nos. 3, 10, 12, 21, 23, 24, 25, 29 and 35 are compound.
No. 8 is incomplete, having neither subject nor predicate.
No. 9 is incomplete, there being no predicate in the principal clause.
No. 20 is a simple sentence, with a complex sentence in parenthesis.
No. 27 consists of two dependent clauses.
In the complex sentences, draw a line under the dependent clauses.
"Br--r--r--r--r--r--r--r--r--."
1. What _are_ the _machines saying_, a hundred of them in one long
room?
2. _They must be talking_ to themselves, for I see no one else for
them to talk to.
3. But yes, there _is_ a boy's red _head_ bending over one of them,
and beyond _I see_ a pale face fringed with brown curly locks.
4. There _are_ only five _boys_ in all, on the floor, half-hidden by
the clattering machines, for one bright lad can manage twenty-five
of them.
5. Each _machine makes_ one cheap, stout sock in five minutes,
without seam, complete from toe to ankle, cutting the thread at the
end and beginning another of its own accord.
6. The _boys have_ nothing to do but to clean and burnish and oil the
steel rods and replace the spools of yarn.
7. But how rapidly and nervously _they do_ it--the slower hands
straining to accomplish as much as the fastest!
8. Working at high tension for ten hours a day in the close, greasy
air and endless whirr----
9. _Boys_ who ought to be out playing ball in the fields or taking a
swim in the river this fine summer afternoon.
10. And in these good times, the _machines go_ all night, and other
_shifts_ of boys _are kept_ from their beds to watch them.
11. The young _girls_ in the mending and finishing rooms downstairs
_are_ not so strong as the boys.
12. _They have_ an unaccountable way of fainting and collapsing in
the noise and smell, and then _they are_ of no use for the rest of
the day.
13. The kind _stockholders have had_ to provide a room for collapsed
girls and to employ a doctor, who finds it expedient not to
understand this strange new disease.
14. Perhaps their _children will be_ more stalwart in the next
generation.
15. Yet this _factory is_ one of the triumphs of our civilization.
16. With only twenty boys at a time at the machines in all the rooms,
_it produces_ five thousand dozen pairs of socks in twenty-four
hours for the toilers of the land.
17. _It would take_ an army of fifty thousand hand-knitters to do what
these small boys perform.
"Br--r--r--r--r--r--r--r--r--."
18. What _are_ the _machines saying_?
19. _They are saying_, "We are hungry."
20. "_We have eaten_ up the men and women. (There is no longer a
market for men and women, they come too high)--
21. _We have eaten_ up the men and women, and now _we are devouring_
the boys and girls.
22. How good _they taste_ as we suck the blood from their rounded
cheeks and forms, and cast them aside sallow and thin and
careworn, and then call for more.
23. Br--r--r--r--r--r--r--r! how good _they taste_; but _they give_
us so few boys and girls to eat nowadays, although there are so
many outside begging to come in--.
24. Only one _boy_ to twenty of us, and _we are_ nearly _famished_!
25. _We eat_ those they give us and _those_ outside _will starve_, and
soon _we shall be left_ almost alone in the world with the
stockholders.
26. Br--r--r--r--r--r--r--r! What shall we do then for our food?" the
_machines chatter_ on.
27. "When we are piling up millions of socks a day for the toilers
and then there are no toilers left to buy them and wear them.
28. Then perhaps we shall have to turn upon the kind stockholders and
feast on them (how fat and tender and toothsome they will be!)
until at last we alone remain, clattering and chattering in a
desolate land," _growled the machines_.
29. While the _boys went_ on anxiously, hurriedly rubbing and
polishing, and the _girls_ downstairs _went_ on collapsing.
30. "Br--r--r--r--r--r--r--r!" _growled_ the _machines_.
31. The _devil has_ somehow _got_ into the machines.
32. _They came_ like the good gnomes and fairies of old, to be our
willing slaves and make our lives easy.
33. Now that, by their help, one man can do the work of a score, why
_have we_ not plenty for all, with only enough work to keep us
happy?
34. _Who could have foreseen_ all the ills of our factory workers and
of those who are displaced and cast aside by factory work?
35. The good wood and iron _elves came_ to bless us all, but _some_ of
us _have succeeded_ in bewitching them to our own ends and turning
them against the rest of mankind.
36. _We must break_ the sinister charm and _win_ over the docile,
tireless machines until they refuse to shut out a single human
being from their benefits.
37. _We must cast_ the devil out of the machines.
--_Ernest Crosby_.