Page 47 - New Grammar with a Smile 7

9. Proper Adjectives modify nouns and pronouns and are formed from proper
nouns. Proper adjectives are always capitalised. For example,

y I like Chinese food.
y This is a German car.

A. Identify the adjectives used in the poem and replace each with a similar kind
of adjective.

‘You are old, Father William,’ the young man said,

‘And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
Do you think, at your age, it is right?’

‘In my youth,’ Father William replied to his son,

‘I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.’

‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door—
Pray, what is the reason of that?’

‘In my youth,’ said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
‘I kept all my limbs very supple

By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—
Allow me to sell you a couple?’

‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;

Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—
Pray, how did you manage to do it?’

‘In my youth,’ said his father, ‘I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.’

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