Steps to Writing Well page 551: exercises A and B

A.

1. In 1886, temperance leader Harvey Wilcox left Kansas, and he purchased 120 acres near Los Angeles to develop a new town.

2. Although there were no holly trees growing in that part of California, Mrs. Wilcox named the area Hollywood.

3. Mrs. Wilcox may have named the place after a home owned by a friend living in Illinois.

4. During the early years, settlers who shared the Wilcoxes' values moved to the area and banned the recreational drinking of alcoholic beverages, but some alcohol consumption was allowed for medicinal purposes.

5. Nevertheless by 1910, the first film studio opened its doors inside a tavern; within seven short years, the quiet community started by the Wilcoxes had vanished.

B.

1. Yes, Hortense, in the 1920s, young women did, indeed, cut their hair, raise their hemlines, dab perfume behind their knees, and dance the Charleston.

2. In 1873, Cornell University canceled the school's first intercollegiate football game with Michigan when the president announced, “I will not permit 30 men to travel 400 miles merely to agitate a bag of wind.”

3. Jane Marian, Donna Ann, and Cissy graduated from high school on June 5, 1964, in Texarkana, Texas, in the old Walnut Street Auditorium.

4. “I may be a man of few opinions,” said Henry, “but I insist that I am neither for nor against apathy.”

5. Did you know, for instance, that early American settlers once thought the tomato was so poisonous they used the plant only for decoration?