Plain English Part 35

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 s.p.a.ce 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. ...... Compet.i.tion 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 att.i.tude of the workers toward war?

8. ...... "For man must work and woman must weep, For there is little to do and many to keep."

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

DO AND DID

+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 s.p.a.ce 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 ma.s.ses do not have the opportunity to attend school.

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

6. ...... "We did not dare to breathe a prayer, Or give our anguish scope."

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.