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diff --git a/75439-h/75439-h.htm b/75439-h/75439-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..be471c5 --- /dev/null +++ b/75439-h/75439-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,22253 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + The King’s English | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> /* <![CDATA[ */ + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: 1em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} +.p4 {margin-top: 4em;} +.p5 {text-indent: 5em;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +ul.index { list-style-type: none; } +li.ifrst { + margin-top: 1.5em; + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 1em; +} +li.indx { + margin-top: .5em; + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 1em; +} +li.isub2 { + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 3em; +} +li.isub4 { + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 5em; +} + + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; width: 60%;} +table.autotable td, +table.autotable th { padding: 4px; } +.x-ebookmaker table {width: 95%;} + +.tdc {text-align: center; vertical-align: top;} +.tdr {text-align: right; vertical-align: top;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 5%; +} +.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} + +.right {text-align: right; text-indent: 0em;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: 1px dashed; margin-top: 1em;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ + +.poetry { + display: block; + text-align: left; + margin-left: 0 + } +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry in browsers */ +/* .poetry {display: inline-block;} */ +/* large inline blocks don't split well on paged devices */ +@media print { .poetry {display: block;} } + +.x-ebookmaker .poetry { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 5% + } +.poetry-container { + margin: 1.5em auto; + text-align: center; + font-size: 98%; + display: flex; + justify-content: center + } +.poetry .stanza { + padding: 0.5em 0; + page-break-inside: avoid + } +.poetry .verse { + text-indent: -3em; + padding-left: 3em + } + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:smaller; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; } + +.big {font-size: 1.3em;} +.small {font-size: 0.8em;} + +abbr[title] { + text-decoration: none; +} + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} +.poetry .indent12 {text-indent: 3em;} +.poetry .indent23 {text-indent: 8.5em;} +.poetry .indent8 {text-indent: 1em;} + + + /* ]]> */ </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75439 ***</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</span></p> + +<h1><span class="small">THE</span><br> +KING’S ENGLISH</h1> + +<p class="center p2"> +BY<br> +<br> +<span class="big">H. W. FOWLER & F. G. FOWLER</span><br> +<br><span class="small"> +COMPILERS OF THE +CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF CURRENT ENGLISH</span> +</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent23">No levell’d malice</div> + <div class="verse indent12">Infects one comma in the course I hold.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent23"><i>Timon of Athens</i>, I. i. 48.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="center p4"> +SECOND EDITION<br> +</p> + +<p class="center p4"> +OXFORD<br> +AT THE CLARENDON PRESS +<br><span class="small"> +LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK<br> +TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPE TOWN BOMBAY<br></span> +HUMPHREY MILFORD<br> +1924<br> +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center">PRINTED IN ENGLAND</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The compilers of this book would be wanting in courtesy if they +did not expressly say what might otherwise be safely left to the +reader’s discernment: the frequent appearance in it of any author’s or +newspaper’s name does not mean that that author or newspaper offends +more often than others against rules of grammar or style; it merely +shows that they have been among the necessarily limited number chosen +to collect instances from.</p> + +<p>The plan of the book was dictated by the following considerations. +It is notorious that English writers seldom look into a grammar or +composition book; the reading of grammars is repellent because, being +bound to be exhaustive on a greater or less scale, they must give much +space to the obvious or the unnecessary; and composition books are +often useless because they enforce their warnings only by fabricated +blunders against which every tiro feels himself quite safe. The +principle adopted here has therefore been (1) to pass by all rules, +of whatever absolute importance, that are shown by observation to be +seldom or never broken; and (2) to illustrate by living examples, with +the name of a reputable authority attached to each, all blunders that +observation shows to be common. The reader, however, who is thus led to +suspect that the only method followed has been the rejection of method +will find, it is hoped, a practical security against inconvenience in +the very full Index.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</span></p> + +<p>Further, since the positive literary virtues are not to be taught by +brief quotation, nor otherwise attained than by improving the gifts +of nature with wide or careful reading, whereas something may really +be done for the negative virtues by mere exhibition of what should be +avoided, the examples collected have had to be examples of the bad +and not of the good. To this it must be added that a considerable +proportion of the newspaper extracts are, as is sometimes apparent, +not from the editorial, but from the correspondence columns; the names +attached are merely an assurance that the passages have actually +appeared in print, and not been now invented to point a moral.</p> + +<p>The especial thanks of the compilers are offered to Dr. Bradley, joint +editor of the <i>Oxford English Dictionary</i>, who has been good +enough to inspect the proof sheets, and whose many valuable suggestions +have led to the removal of some too unqualified statements, some +confused exposition, and some positive mistakes. It is due to him, +however, to say that his warnings have now and then been disregarded, +when it seemed that brevity or some other advantage could be secured +without great risk of misunderstanding.</p> + +<p>The <i>Oxford English Dictionary</i> itself has been of much service. +On all questions of vocabulary, even if so slightly handled as in the +first chapter of this book, that great work is now indispensable.</p> + +<p class="right"> +H. W. F.<br> +F. G. F.<br> +</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION</h2> +</div> +<p>In this edition new examples have been added or substituted here and +there.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr><th></th><th class="tdr">PAGE</th></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">PART I +</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER I. VOCABULARY, pp.<a href="#Page_1">1</a>-<a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +General Principles </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a>-<a href="#Page_8">8</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Familiar and far-fetched words </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_4">4</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Concrete and abstract expression </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Circumlocution </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_6">6</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Short and long words </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_6">6</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Saxon and Romance words </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Requirements of different styles </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Malaprops </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Neologisms </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Americanisms </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Foreign words </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Formation </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Slang </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +<i>Individual</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +<i>Mutual</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +<i>Unique</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +<i>Aggravate</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2"> +CHAPTER II. SYNTAX, pp. <a href="#Page_60">60</a>-<a href="#Page_170">170</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Case </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Number </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Comparatives and superlatives </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Relatives </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_75">75</a>-<a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Defining and non-defining relative clauses </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +<i>That</i> and <i>who</i> or <i>which</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +<i>And who</i>, <i>and which</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Case of the relative </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Miscellaneous uses of the relative </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +<i>It ... that</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_104">104</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> +Participle and gerund </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Participles </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +The gerund </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_116">116</a>-<a href="#Page_133">133</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Distinguishing the gerund </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Omission of the gerund subject </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Choice between gerund and infinitive </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Shall and will </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_133">133</a>-<a href="#Page_154">154</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +The pure system </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +The coloured-future system </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +The plain-future system </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_138">138</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Second-person questions </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Examples of principal sentences </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Substantival clauses </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Conditional clauses </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Indefinite clauses </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Examples of subordinate clauses </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Perfect infinitive </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_154">154</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Conditionals </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +<i>Doubt that</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Prepositions </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2"> + +CHAPTER III. AIRS AND GRACES, pp. <a href="#Page_171">171</a>-<a href="#Page_218">218</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Certain types of humor </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Elegant variation </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Inversion </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_180">180</a>-<a href="#Page_193">193</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Exclamatory </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Balance </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_182">182</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +In syntactic clauses </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Negative, and false-emphasis </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Miscellaneous </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Archaism </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_193">193</a>-<a href="#Page_200">200</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Occasional </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Sustained </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Metaphor </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Repetition </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_209">209</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Miscellaneous </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_213">213</a>-<a href="#Page_218">218</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Trite phrases </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Irony </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Superlatives without <i>the</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_216">216</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Cheap originality </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2"> + +CHAPTER IV. PUNCTUATION, pp. <a href="#Page_219">219</a>-<a href="#Page_290">290</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +General difficulties </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +General principles </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_224">224</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +The spot plague </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Over-stopping </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Under-stopping </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Grammar and punctuation </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_235">235</a>-<a href="#Page_263">263</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Substantival clauses </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Subject, &c., and verb </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Adjectival clauses </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_242">242</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Adverbial clauses </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_244">244</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Parenthesis </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_247">247</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Misplaced commas </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_248">248</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Enumeration </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Comma between independent sentences </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Semicolon with subordinate members </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Exclamations and statements </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_258">258</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Exclamations and questions </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_259">259</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Internal question and exclamation marks </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_261">261</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Unaccountable commas </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +The colon </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_263">263</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Miscellaneous </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Dashes </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_266">266</a>-<a href="#Page_275">275</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +General abuse </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_266">266</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Legitimate uses </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Debatable questions </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Common misuses </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_274">274</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Hyphens </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +Quotation marks </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_280">280</a>-<a href="#Page_290">290</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Excessive use </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_280">280</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</span> + +Order with stops </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_282">282</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Single and double </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Misplaced </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_288">288</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="p5"> + +Half quotation </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_289">289</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2"> +PART II. p. <a href="#Page_291">291</a> +to the end</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2"> +<span class="smcap">Euphony</span>, §§ 1-10 +</td></tr><tr><td> +1. Jingles </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_291">291</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +2. Alliteration </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_292">292</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +3. Repeated prepositions </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +4. Sequence of relatives </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +5. Sequence of <i>that</i>, &c. </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_294">294</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +6. Metrical prose </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_295">295</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +7. Sentence accent </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_295">295</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +8. Causal <i>as</i> clauses </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_298">298</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +9. Wens and hypertrophied members </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_300">300</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +10. Careless repetition </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_303">303</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2"> +<span class="smcap">Quotation</span>, &c., §§ 11-19 +</td></tr> +<tr><td> +11. Common misquotations </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_305">305</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +12. Uncommon misquotations of well-known passages </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_305">305</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +13. Misquotation of less familiar passages </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_306">306</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +14. Misapplied and misunderstood quotations and phrases </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_306">306</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +15. Allusion </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_307">307</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +16. Incorrect allusion </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_308">308</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +17. Dovetailed and adapted quotations and phrases </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_308">308</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +18. Trite quotation </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_310">310</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +19. Latin abbreviations, &c. </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_311">311</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2"> +<span class="smcap">Grammar</span>, §§ 20-37 +</td></tr><tr><td> +20. Unequal yokefellows and defective double harness </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_311">311</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +21. Common parts </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_314">314</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +22. The wrong turning </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_316">316</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +23. Ellipse in subordinate clauses </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_317">317</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +24. Some illegitimate infinitives </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_317">317</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +25. Split infinitives </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +26. Compound passives </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +27. Confusion with negatives </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_321">321</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +28. Omission of <i>as</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_324">324</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +29. Other liberties taken with <i>as</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_324">324</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +30. Brachylogy </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_326">326</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +31. Between two stools </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_327">327</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +32. The impersonal <i>one</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_328">328</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +33. <i>Between ... or</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_328">328</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +34. <i>A</i> placed between the adjective and its noun </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_329">329</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +35. <i>Do</i> as substitute verb </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_330">330</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +36. Fresh starts </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_330">330</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +37. Vulgarisms and colloquialisms </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_331">331</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2"> +<span class="smcap">Meaning</span>, §§ 38-48 +</td></tr><tr><td> +38. Tautology </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_331">331</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +39. Redundancies </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_332">332</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +40. <i>As to whether</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_333">333</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +41. Superfluous <i>but</i> and <i>though</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_334">334</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +42. <i>If and when</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_334">334</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +43. Maltreated idioms </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_336">336</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +44. Truisms and contradictions in terms </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_339">339</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +45. Double emphasis </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_341">341</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +46. Split auxiliaries </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_342">342</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +47. Overloading </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_343">343</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +48. Demonstrative, noun, and participle or adjective </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_344">344</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2"> +<span class="smcap">Ambiguity</span>, §§ 49-52 +</td></tr><tr><td> +49. False scent </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_345">345</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +50. Misplacement of words </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_346">346</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +51. Ambiguous position </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_347">347</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +52. Ambiguous enumeration </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_348">348</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2"> + +<span class="smcap">Style</span>, § 53 to the end +</td></tr><tr><td> +53. Antics </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_348">348</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +54. Journalese </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_351">351</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +55. <i>Somewhat</i>, &c. </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_352">352</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +56. Clumsy patching </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_355">355</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +57. Omission of the conjunction <i>that</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_356">356</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +58. Meaningless <i>while</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_357">357</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +59. Commercialisms </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_358">358</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +60. Pet Phrases </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_359">359</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> + +61. <i>Also</i> as conjunction; and <i>&c.</i> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_359">359</a></td></tr> + +</table> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br><span class="small">VOCABULARY</span></h2></div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">General</span></h3> + +<p>Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he +allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, +simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.</p> + +<p>This general principle may be translated into practical rules in the +domain of vocabulary as follows:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Prefer the concrete word to the abstract.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Prefer the single word to the circumlocution.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Prefer the short word to the long.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>These rules are given roughly in order of merit; the last is also +the least. It is true that it is often given alone, as a sort of +compendium of all the others. In some sense it is that: the writer +whose percentage of Saxon words is high will generally be found to +have fewer words that are out of the way, long, or abstract, and fewer +periphrases, than another;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span> and conversely. But if, instead of his +Saxon percentage’s being the natural and undesigned consequence of +his brevity (and the rest), those other qualities have been attained +by his consciously restricting himself to Saxon, his pains will have +been worse than wasted; the taint of preciosity will be over all he +has written. Observing that <i>translate</i> is derived from Latin, +and learning that the Elizabethans had another word for it, he will +pull us up by <i>englishing</i> his quotations; he will puzzle the +general reader by introducing his book with a <i>foreword</i>. Such +freaks should be left to the Germans, who have by this time succeeded +in expelling as aliens a great many words that were good enough +for Goethe. And they, indeed, are very likely right, because their +language is a thoroughbred one; ours is not, and can now never be, +anything but a hybrid; <i>foreword</i> is (or may be) Saxon; we can +find out in the dictionary whether it is or not; but <i>preface</i> is +English, dictionary or no dictionary; and we want to write English, +not Saxon. Add to this that, even if the Saxon criterion were a safe +one, more knowledge than most of us have is needed to apply it. +Few who were not deep in philology would be prepared to state that +no word in the following list (extracted from the preface to the +<i>Oxford Dictionary</i>) is English:—<i>battle</i>, <i>beast</i>, +<i>beauty</i>, <i>beef</i>, <i>bill</i>, <i>blue</i>, <i>bonnet</i>, +<i>border</i>, <i>boss</i>, <i>bound</i>, <i>bowl</i>, <i>brace</i>, +<i>brave</i>, <i>bribe</i>, <i>bruise</i>, <i>brush</i>, <i>butt</i>, +<i>button</i>. Dr. Murray observes that these ‘are now no less +“native”, and no less important constituents of our vocabulary, than +the Teutonic words’.</p> + +<p>There are, moreover, innumerable pairs of synonyms about which the +Saxon principle gives us no help. The first to hand are <i>ere</i> +and <i>before</i> (both Saxon), <i>save</i> and <i>except</i> (both +Romance), <i>anent</i> and <i>about</i> (both Saxon again). Here, if +the ‘Saxon’ rule has nothing to say, the ‘familiar’ rule leaves no +doubt. The intelligent reader whom our writer has to consider will +possibly not know the linguistic facts; indeed he more likely than not +takes <i>save</i> for a Saxon word. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span> he does know the reflections +that the words, if he happens to be reading leisurely enough for +reflection, excite in him. As he comes to <i>save</i>, he wonders, Why +not <i>except</i>? At sight of <i>ere</i> he is irresistibly reminded +of that sad spectacle, a mechanic wearing his Sunday clothes on a +weekday. And <i>anent</i>, to continue the simile, is nothing less +than a masquerade costume. The <i>Oxford Dictionary</i> says drily of +the last word: ‘Common in Scotch law phraseology, and affected by many +English writers’; it might have gone further, and said ‘“affected” +in any English writer’; such things are antiquarian rubbish, +Wardour-Street English. Why not (as our imagined intelligent reader +asked)—why not <i>before</i>, <i>except</i>, and <i>about</i>? Bread +is the staff of life, and words like these, which are common and are +not vulgar, which are good enough for the highest and not too good for +the lowest, are the staple of literature. The first thing a writer must +learn is, that he is not to reject them unless he can show good cause. +<i>Before</i> and <i>except</i>, it must be clearly understood, have +such a prescriptive right that to use other words instead is not merely +not to choose these, it is to reject them. It may be done in poetry, +and in the sort of prose that is half poetry: to do it elsewhere is to +insult <i>before</i>, to injure <i>ere</i> (which is a delicate flower +that will lose its quality if much handled), and to make one’s sentence +both pretentious and frigid.</p> + +<p>It is now perhaps clear that the Saxon oracle is not infallible; it +will sometimes be dumb, and sometimes lie. Nevertheless, it is not +without its uses as a test. The words to be chosen are those that +the probable reader is sure to understand without waste of time and +thought; a good proportion of them will in fact be Saxon, but mainly +because it happens that most abstract words—which are by our second +rule to be avoided—are Romance. The truth is that all five rules would +be often found to give the same answer about the same word or set of +words. Scores of illustrations might be produced; let one suffice: +<i>In the contemplated eventuality</i><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span> (a phrase no worse than what +any one can pick for himself out of his paper’s leading article for +the day) is at once the far-fetched, the abstract, the periphrastic, +the long, and the Romance, for <i>if so</i>. It does not very greatly +matter by which of the five roads the natural is reached instead of the +monstrosity, so long as it <i>is</i> reached. The five are indicated +because (1) they differ in directness, and (2) in any given case only +one of them may be possible.</p> + +<p>We will now proceed to a few examples of how not to write, roughly +classified under the five headings, though, after what has been +said, it will cause no surprise that most of them might be placed +differently. Some sort of correction is suggested for each, but the +reader will indulgently remember that to correct a bad sentence +satisfactorily is not always possible; it should never have existed, +that is all that can be said. In particular, sentences overloaded +with abstract words are, in the nature of things, not curable simply +by substituting equivalent concrete words; there can be no such +equivalents; the structure has to be more or less changed.</p> + +<p>1. <b>Prefer the familiar word</b> to the far-fetched.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The old Imperial naval policy, which has failed conspicuously +because it <i>antagonized the unalterable supremacy of Colonial +nationalism</i>.—<i>Times.</i> (stood in the way of that national +ambition which must always be uppermost in the Colonial mind)</p> + +<p>Buttercups made a sunlight of their own, and in the shelter of +scattered coppices the pale <i>wind-flowers</i> still dreamed in +whiteness.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>We all know what an <i>anemone</i> is: whether we know what a +<i>wind-flower</i> is, unless we happen to be Greek scholars, is quite +doubtful.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The state of Poland, and the excesses committed by mobilized troops, +have been of a far more serious nature than has been allowed to +<i>transpire</i>.—<i>Times.</i> (come out)</p> + +<p>Reform converses with possibilities, <i>perchance</i> with +impossibilities; but here is sacred fact.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span> (perhaps)</p> + +<p>Tanners and users are strongly of opinion that there is no room +for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span> further enhancement, but on that point there is always room +for doubt especially when the <i>export phase</i> is taken into +consideration.—<i>Times.</i> (state of the export trade)</p> + +<p>Witchcraft has been put a stop to by Act of Parliament; but +the mysterious relations which it <i>emblemed</i> still +continue.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span> (symbolized)</p> + +<p>It will only have itself to thank if future disaster rewards +its <i>nescience</i> of the conditions of successful +warfare.—<i>Outlook.</i> (ignorance)</p> + +<p><i>Continual vigilance is imperative on the public</i> to +ensure....—<i>Times.</i> (We must be ever on the watch)</p> + +<p>These manoeuvres are by no means new, and <i>their recrudescence +is hardly calculated to influence the development of +events</i>.—<i>Times.</i> (the present use of them is not likely to +be effective)</p> + +<p>‘I have no particular business at L——’, said he; ‘I was merely going +<i>thither</i> to pass a day or two.’—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span> (there)</p> +</div> + +<p>2. <b>Prefer the concrete word</b> (or rather expression) to the +abstract. It may be here remarked that abstract expression and the +excessive use of nouns are almost the same thing. The cure consists +very much, therefore, in the clearing away of noun rubbish.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>The general poverty of explanation as to the diction of particular +phrases seemed to point in the same direction.</i>—<i>Cambridge +University Reporter.</i> (It was perhaps owing to this also that the +diction of particular phrases was often so badly explained)</p> + +<p><i>An elementary condition of a sound discussion is a frank +recognition of the gulf severing two sets of facts.</i>—<i>Times.</i> +(There can be no sound discussion where the gulf severing two sets of +facts is not frankly recognized)</p> + +<p><i>The signs of the times point to the necessity of the modification +of the system of administration.</i>—<i>Times.</i> (It is becoming +clear that the administrative system must be modified)</p> + +<p><i>No year passes now without evidence of the truth of the +statement that</i> the work of government is becoming increasingly +difficult.—<i>Spectator.</i> (Every year shows again how true it is +that....)</p> + +<p>The first private conference <i>relating to the question of the +convocation of representatives of the nation</i> took place +yesterday.—<i>Times.</i> (on national representation)</p> + +<p><i>There seems to have been an absence of attempt at conciliation +between rival sects.</i>—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i> (The sects seem +never even to have tried mutual conciliation)</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span></p> + +<p>Zeal, however, must not outrun discretion in changing abstract to +concrete. <i>Officer</i> is concrete, and <i>office</i> abstract; but +we do not <i>promote to officers</i>, as in the following quotation, +but to <i>offices</i>—or, with more exactness in this context, to +<i>commissions</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Over 1,150 cadets of the Military Colleges were <i>promoted to +officers</i> at the Palace of Tsarskoe Selo yesterday.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>3. <b>Prefer the single word</b> to the circumlocution. As the word +<i>case</i> seems to lend itself particularly to abuse, we start with +more than one specimen of it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Inaccuracies were <i>in many cases</i> due to cramped methods of +writing.—<i>Cambridge University Reporter.</i> (often)</p> + +<p>The handwriting was on the whole good, with a few examples of +remarkably fine penmanship <i>in the case both of</i> boys and +girls.—<i>Ibid.</i> (by both boys....)</p> + +<p>Few candidates showed a thorough knowledge of the text of 1 Kings, +and <i>in many cases the answers</i> lacked care.—<i>Ibid.</i> (many +answers)</p> + +<p>The matter will remain in abeyance until the Bishop has had time +to become more fully acquainted with the diocese, and to ascertain +which part of the city will be most desirable for <i>residential +purposes</i>.—<i>Times.</i> (his residence)</p> + +<p>M. Witte is <i>taking active measures for the prompt preparation +of material for the study of the question of the execution of the +Imperial Ukase dealing with reforms</i>.—<i>Times.</i> (actively +collecting all information that may be needed before the Tsar’s reform +Ukase can be executed)</p> + +<p>The Russian Government is at last face to face with the greatest +crisis of the war, <i>in the shape of the fact that</i> the Siberian +railway is no longer capable....—<i>Spectator.</i> (for) or (:)</p> + +<p>Mr. J—— O—— has <i>been made the recipient of</i> a silver +medal.—<i>Guernsey Advertiser.</i> (received)</p> +</div> + +<p>4. <b>Prefer the short word</b> to the long.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>One of the most important reforms mentioned in the rescript <i>is +the unification of the organization of the judicial institutions and +the guarantee for all the tribunals of the independence necessary +for securing to all classes of the community equality before the +law</i>.—<i>Times.</i> (is that of the Courts, which need a uniform +system, and the independence without which it is impossible for all +men to be equal before the law)</p> + +<p>I merely desired to point out <i>the principal reason which I +believe exists for the great exaggeration which is occasionally to +be observed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> in the estimate of the importance of the contradiction +between current Religion and current Science put forward by thinkers +of reputation</i>.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span> (why, in my opinion, some +well-known thinkers make out the contradiction between current +Religion and current Science to be so much more important than it is)</p> + +<p>Sir,—Will you permit me to <i>homologate</i> all you say to-day +regarding that selfish minority of motorists who....—<i>Times.</i> +(agree with)</p> + +<p>On the Berlin Bourse to-day the prospect of a general strike was +cheerfully <i>envisaged</i>.—<i>Times.</i> (faced)</p> +</div> + +<p>5. <b>Prefer the Saxon word</b> to the Romance.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Despite the unfavourable climatic conditions.</i>—<i>Guernsey +Advertiser.</i> (Bad as the weather has been)</p> +</div> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>By way of general rules for the choice of words, so much must suffice. +And these must be qualified by the remark that what is suitable for +one sort of composition may be unsuitable for another. The broadest +line of this kind is that between poetry and prose; but with that we +are not concerned, poetry being quite out of our subject. There are +other lines, however, between the scientific and the literary styles, +the dignified and the familiar. Our rendering of the passage quoted +from Mr. Balfour, for instance, may be considered to fall below the +dignity required of a philosophic essay. The same might, with less +reason, be said of our simplified newspaper extracts; a great journal +has a tone that must be kept up; if it had not been for that, we should +have dealt with them yet more drastically. But a more candid plea for +the journalist, and one not without weight, would be that he has not +time to reduce what he wishes to say into a simple and concrete form. +It is in fact as much easier for him to produce, as it is harder for +his reader to understand, the slipshod abstract stuff that he does +rest content with. But it may be suspected that he often thinks the +length of his words and his capacity for dealing in the abstract +to be signs of a superior mind. As long as that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> opinion prevails, +improvement is out of the question. But if it could once be established +that simplicity was the true ideal, many more writers would be found +capable of coming near it than ever make any effort that way now. The +fact remains, at any rate, that different kinds of composition require +different treatment; but any attempt to go into details on the question +would be too ambitious; the reader can only be warned that in this +fact may be found good reasons for sometimes disregarding any or all +of the preceding rules. Moreover, they must not be applied either so +unintelligently as to sacrifice any really important shade of meaning, +or so invariably as to leave an impression of monotonous and unrelieved +emphasis.</p> + +<p>The rest of this chapter will be devoted to more special and definite +points—malaprops, neologisms, Americanisms, foreign words, bad +formations, slang, and some particular words.</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Malaprops</span></h3> + +<p>Before classifying, we define a malaprop as a word used in the belief +that it has the meaning really belonging to another word that resembles +it in some particular.</p> + +<p>1. <b>Words containing the same stem, but necessarily, or at least +indisputably, distinguished by termination or prefix.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>‘She writes <i>comprehensively</i> enough when she writes to M. de +Bassompierre: he who runs may read.’ In fact, Ginevra’s epistles to +her wealthy kinsman were commonly business documents, unequivocal +applications for cash.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The context proves that <i>comprehensibly</i> is meant.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The working of the staff at the agent’s disposal was to a great +extent voluntary, and, therefore, required all the influence +of <i>judicial</i> management in order to avoid inevitable +difficulties.—<i>Times.</i> (judicious)</p> +</div> + +<p>A not uncommon blunder.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>By all means let us have bright, hearty, and very <i>reverend</i> +services.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i> (reverent)</p> +</div> + +<p>Not uncommon.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></p><div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He chuckled at his own <i>perspicuity</i>.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>If the writer had a little more <i>perspicuity</i> he would have known +that the Church Congress would do nothing of the kind.—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Perspicuity</i> is clearness or transparency: insight is +<i>perspicacity</i>. <i>-uity</i> of style, <i>-acity</i> of mind. Very +common.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Selected in the beginning, I know, for your great ability and +<i>trustfulness</i>.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span> (trustworthiness)</p> + +<p>Wise, firm, faithless; secret, crafty, passionless; watchful +and inscrutable; acute and <i>insensate</i>—withal perfectly +decorous—what more could be desired?—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Apparently for <i>insensible</i> in the meaning <i>hardhearted</i>. +Though modern usage fluctuates, it seems to tend towards the meaning, +<i>stupidly unmoved by prudence or by facts</i>; at any rate +<i>acute</i> and <i>insensate</i> are incompatible.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In the meantime the colossal advertisement in the German Press +of German aims, of German interests, and of German policy +<i>incontinently</i> proceeds.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The idiomatic sense of <i>incontinently</i> is <i>immediately</i>; it +seems here to be used for <i>continually</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I was <i>awaiting</i> with real curiosity to hear the way in which M. +Loubet would to-day acquit himself.—<i>Times.</i> (waiting)</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Awaiting</i> is always transitive.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But they too will feel the pain just where you feel it now, and +they will <i>bethink</i> themselves the only unhappy on the +earth.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>There is no sort of authority for <i>bethink</i>—like +<i>think</i>—with object and complement. <i>To bethink oneself</i> is +to remember, or to hit upon an idea.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And Pizarro ... established the city of Arequipa, since <i>arisen</i> +to such commercial celebrity.—<span class="smcap">Prescott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Arethusa arose; a difficulty arises; but to greatness we can only +rise—unless, indeed, we wake to find ourselves famous; then we do +arise to greatness.</p> + +<p>2. <b>Words like the previous set, except that the differentiation may +possibly be disputed.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The long drought left the torrent of which I am speaking, and such +others, in a state peculiarly favourable to <i>observance</i> +of their least action on the mountains from which they +descend.—<span class="smcap">Ruskin.</span> (observation)</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span></p> + +<p><i>Observance</i> is obedience, compliance, &c. The <i>Oxford +Dictionary</i> recognizes <i>observance</i> in the sense of watching, +but gives no authority for it later than 1732 except another passage +from Ruskin; the natural conclusion is that he accidentally failed to +recognize a valuable differentiation long arrived at.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is physical science, and experience, that man ought to consult in +religion, morals, <i>legislature</i>, as well as in knowledge and the +arts.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span> (legislation)</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Legislature</i> is the legislative body—in England, King, Lords, +and Commons. To call back the old confusion is an offence.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The apposite display of the diamonds usually stopped the tears that +began to flow hereabouts; and she would remain in a <i>complaisant</i> +state until....—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span> (complacent)</p> + +<p>Our Correspondent adds that he is fully persuaded that Rozhdestvensky +has nothing more to expect from the <i>complacency</i> of the French +authorities.—<i>Times.</i> (complaisance)</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Complaisant</i> is over polite, flattering, subservient, &c. +<i>Complacent</i> means contented, satisfied.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In the spring of that year the privilege was withdrawn from the +four associated booksellers, and the <i>continuance</i> of the work +strictly prohibited.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Continuation</i> is the noun of continue, go on with: +<i>continuance</i> of continue, remain. With <i>continuance</i> the +meaning would be that the already published volumes (of Diderot’s +<i>Encyclopaedia</i>) were to be destroyed; but the meaning intended is +that the promised volumes were not to be gone on with—which requires +<i>continuation</i>. Again, the next two extracts, from one page, show +Mr. Morley wrongly substituting <i>continuity</i>, which only means +continuousness, for <i>continuance</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Having arrived at a certain conclusion with regard +to the <i>continuance</i> ... of Mr. Parnell’s +leadership....—<span class="smcap">Gladstone.</span></p> + +<p>The most cynical ... could not fall a prey to such a hallucination as +to suppose ... that either of these communities could tolerate ... +so impenitent an affront as the unruffled <i>continuity</i> of the +stained leadership.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>The Rev. Dr. Usher said he believed the writer of the first letter to +be earnest in his inquiry, and agreed with him that the topic of it +was <i>transcendentally</i> important.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span></p> + +<p><i>Transcendently</i> means in a superlative degree: +<i>transcendentally</i> is a philosophic term for independently of +experience, &c.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Until at last, gathered <i>altogether</i> again, they find their way +down to the turf.—<span class="smcap">Ruskin.</span> (all together)</p> + +<p>At such times ... Jimmie’s better angel was always in the +ascendency.—<i>Windsor Magazine.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Was in the <i>ascendant</i>: had an <i>ascendency</i> over.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The inconsistency and <i>evasion</i> of the attitude of the +Government.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Evasiveness</i> the quality: <i>evasion</i> a particular act.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The <i>requisition</i> for a life of Christianity is ‘walk in +love’.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Requisite</i> or <i>requirement</i>, the thing required: +<i>requisition</i>, the act of requiring it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>We will here merely chronicle the <i>procession</i> of +events.—<i>Spectator.</i> (progress or succession)</p> + +<p>I was able to watch the Emperor during all these interviews, and +noticed the forcible manner in which he spoke, especially to the +Sultan’s uncle, who came from Fez <i>especially</i>.—<i>Times.</i> +(specially)</p> +</div> + +<p>As it stands, it implies that he came chiefly from Fez, but from other +places in a minor degree; it is meant to imply that he came for this +particular interview, and had no other motive. The differentiation +of <i>spec-</i> and <i>espec-</i> is by no means complete yet, but +some uses of each are already ludicrous. Roughly, <i>spec-</i> means +particular as opposed to general, <i>espec-</i> particular as opposed +to ordinary; but usage must be closely watched.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>That it occurs in <i>violence to</i> police regulations is daily +apparent.—<i>Guernsey Advertiser.</i> (violation of)</p> + +<p>In the field it aims at efforts of unexpected and extreme violence; +the <i>research</i> of hostile masses, their defeat by overwhelming +and relentless assault, and their wholesale destruction by rigorous +pursuit.—<i>Times.</i> (discovery)</p> +</div> + +<p>The object of research is laws, principles, facts, &c., not concrete +things or persons. Entomological research, for instance, does not look +for insects, but for facts about insects.</p> + +<p>3. <b>Give-and-take forms</b>, in which there are two words, with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> +different constructions, that might properly be used, and one is given +the construction of the other.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A few companies, <i>comprised</i> mainly <i>of</i> +militiamen.—<i>Times.</i> (composed of? comprising?)</p> + +<p>The <i>Novoe Vremya</i> thinks the Tsar’s words will undoubtedly +<i>instil</i> the Christians of Macedonia <i>with</i> +hope.—<i>Times.</i> (inspire them with hope? instil hope into them?)</p> + +<p>He appreciated the leisurely solidity, the leisurely beauty of the +place, so <i>innate with</i> the genius of the Anglo-Saxon.—<span class="smcap">E. +F. Benson.</span> (genius innate in the place? the place instinct with +genius?)</p> +</div> + +<p>4. <b>Words having properly no connexion</b> with each other at all, +but confused owing to superficial resemblance.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Mr. Barton walked forth in cape and boa, to read prayers +at the work-house, <i>euphuistically</i> called the +‘College’.—<span class="smcap">Eliot.</span> (euphemistically)</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Euphemism</i> is slurring over badness by giving it a good name: +<i>euphuism</i> is a literary style full of antithesis and simile. +A pair of extracts (<i>Friedrich</i>, vol. iv, pp. 5 and 36) will +convince readers that these words are dangerous:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Hence Bielfeld goes to Hanover, to grin-out <i>euphuisms</i>, +and make graceful court-bows to our sublime little Uncle +there.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> + +<p>Readers may remember, George II has been at Hanover for some weeks +past; Bielfeld diligently grinning <i>euphemisms</i> and courtly +graciosities to him.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> + +<p>Troops capable of <i>contesting</i> successfully against the forces of +other nations.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Though there is authority, chiefly old, for it, good general usage is +against <i>contest</i> without an object—contest the victory, &c. And +as there is no possible advantage in writing it, with <i>contend</i> +ready to hand, it is better avoided in the intransitive sense.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In the present <i>self-deprecatory</i> mood in which the English +people find themselves.—<i>Spectator.</i> (self-depreciatory)</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Depreciate</i>, undervalue: <i>deprecate</i>, pray against. A bad +but very common blunder.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>‘An irreparable colleague,’ Mr. Gladstone notes in his +diary.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span> (irreplaceable)</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span></p> + +<p>No dead colleague is reparable—though his loss may or may not be +so—this side the Day of Judgement.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Surely he was better employed in plying the trades of tinker and smith +than in having <i>resource</i> to vice, in running after milkmaids, +for example.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span> (recourse)</p> +</div> + +<p>You may indeed have recourse to a resource, but not vice versa. You may +also resort to, which makes the confusion easier.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>What she would say to him, how he would take it, even the +vaguest <i>predication</i> of their discourse, was beyond him to +guess.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span> (prediction)</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Predication</i> has nothing to do with the future; it is a synonym, +used especially in logic, for <i>statement</i>. The mistake is +generally whipped out of schoolboys in connexion with <i>praedĩcere</i> +and <i>praedĭcare</i>.</p> + +<p>5. <b>Words whose meaning is misapprehended without apparent cause.</b> +The hankering of ignorant writers after the unfamiliar or imposing +leads to much of this. We start with two uses of which correct and +incorrect examples are desirable: <i>provided</i>, where <i>if</i> is +required; and <i>to eke out</i> in wrong senses. <i>Provided</i> adorns +every other page of George Borrow; we should have left it alone as an +eccentricity of his, if we had not lately found the wrong use more than +once in <i>The Times</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Provided</i> is a small district in the kingdom of <i>if</i>; it can +never be wrong to write <i>if</i> instead of <i>provided</i>: to write +<i>provided</i> instead of <i>if</i> will generally be wrong, but now +and then an improvement in precision. So much is clear; to define the +boundaries of the district is another matter; we might be wiser merely +to appeal to our readers whether all the examples to be quoted, except +one, are not wrong. But that would be cowardly; we lay down, then, that +(<i>a</i>) the clause must be a stipulation, i. e., a demand yet to be +fulfilled, (<i>b</i>) there must be a stipulator, who (<i>c</i>) must +desire, or at least insist upon, the fulfilment of it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Ganganelli would never have been poisoned <i>provided</i> he had had +nephews about to take care of his life.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>There is no stipulator or stipulation. Grammar would have allowed +Providence to say to him ‘You shall not be poisoned, provided you +surround yourself with nephews’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The kicks and blows which my husband Launcelot was in the habit of +giving me every night, <i>provided</i> I came home with less than five +shillings.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Launcelot, the stipulator, does not desire the fulfilment. If +<i>kisses</i> are substituted for <i>kicks and blows</i>, and +<i>more</i> for <i>less</i>, the sentence will stand.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>She and I agreed to stand by each other, and be true to old Church of +England, and to give our governors warning, <i>provided</i> they tried +to make us renegades.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The stipulators, she and I, do not desire the fulfilment. <i>Not</i> to +give warning, provided they did <i>not</i> try, would be English. There +is similar confusion between the requirements of negative and positive +in the next:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A society has just been founded at Saratoff, the object being, +as the members declare in a manifesto to the Liberals, to use +violent methods and even bombs <i>provided</i> the latter do so +themselves.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>In these circumstances the chances are that the direction to proceed +to Vladivostok at all costs, <i>provided</i> such instruction +<i>were</i> ever given, may have been reconsidered.—<i>Times.</i> (if +indeed ... was)</p> +</div> + +<p>There is no stipulation; it is only a question of past fact.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>What will the War Council at the capital decide <i>provided</i> the +war is to continue?... The longer Linevitch can hold his position the +better, provided he does not risk a serious action.—<i>Times.</i> +(if, or assuming that)</p> +</div> + +<p>There is no stipulation, stipulator, or desire—only a question of +future fact. The second <i>provided</i> in this passage is quite +correct. The <i>Times</i> writer—or the Russian War Council, his +momentary client—insists that Linevitch shall not run risks, and +encourages him, if that stipulation is fulfilled, to hold on.</p> + +<p>To <i>eke out</i> means to increase, supplement, or add to. It may be +called a synonym for any of these verbs; but it must be remembered that +no synonyms are ever precise equivalents.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> The peculiarity of <i>eke +out</i> is that it implies difficulty; in technical language, agreeing +with <i>supplement</i> in its denotation, it has the extra connotation +of difficulty. But it does not mean to make, nor to endure. From its +nature, it will very seldom be used (correctly), though it conceivably +might, without the source of the addition’s being specified. In the +first of the quotations, it is rightly used; in the second it is given +the wrong meaning of <i>make</i>, and in the last the equally wrong one +of <i>endure</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A writer with a story to tell that is not very fresh usually +<i>ekes</i> it <i>out</i> by referring as much as possible to +surrounding objects.—<span class="smcap">H. James.</span></p> + +<p>She had contrived, taking one year with another, to <i>eke +out</i> a tolerably sufficient living since her husband’s +demise.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>Yes, we do believe, or would the clergy <i>eke out</i> an existence +which is not far removed from poverty?—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Next, some isolated illustrations of our present heading:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>‘There are many things in the commonwealth of Nowhere, which I rather +wish than hope to see adopted in our own.’ It was with these words of +characteristic <i>irony</i> that More closed the great work.—<span class="smcap">J. +R. Green.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The word <i>irony</i> is one of the worst abused in the language; but +it was surely never more gratuitously imported than in this passage. +There could be no more simple, direct, and literal expression of More’s +actual feeling than his words. Now any definition of irony—though +hundreds might be given, and very few of them would be accepted—must +include this, that the surface meaning and the underlying meaning of +what is said are not the same. The only way to make out that we have +irony here is to suppose that More assumed that the vulgar would think +that he was speaking ironically, whereas he was really serious—a +very topsy-turvy explanation. <i>Satire</i>, however, with which +<i>irony</i> is often confused, would have passed.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A literary tour de force, a <i>recrudescence</i>, two or three +generations later, of the very respectable William Lamb (afterwards +Lord Melbourne), his unhappy wife, Lady Caroline Lamb, and Lord +Byron.—<i>Times.</i> (reincarnation, avatar, resurrection?)</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Recrudescence</i> is becoming quite a fashionable journalistic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> +word. It properly means the renewed inflammation of a wound, and so +the breaking out again of an epidemic, &c. It may reasonably be used +of revolutionary or silly opinions: to use it of persons or their +histories is absurd.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A colonel on the General Staff, while arguing for a continuation of +the struggle on <i>metaphysical</i> grounds, admitted to me that +even if the Russians regained Manchuria they would never succeed +in colonizing it.... The <i>Bourse Gazette</i> goes still further. +It says that war for any definite purpose ceased with the fall +of Mukden, and that its <i>continuation is apparent</i> not from +any military or naval actions, but from the feeling of depression +which is weighing upon all Russians and the reports of the peace +overtures.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>We can suggest no substitute for <i>metaphysical</i>. Though we have +long known <i>metaphysics</i> for a blessed and mysterious word, +this is our first meeting with it in war or politics. The ‘apparent +continuation’, however, seems darkly to hint at the old question +between phenomena and real existence, so that perhaps we actually are +in metaphysics all the time.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In a word, M. Witte was always against all our aggressive measures +in the Far East.... M. Witte, who was always supported by Count +Lamsdorff, has no share in the responsibility of all that has +<i>transpired</i>.—<i>Times.</i> (happened)</p> +</div> + +<p>As a synonym for <i>become known</i>,<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> <i>transpire</i> is +journalistic and ugly, but may pass: as a synonym for <i>happen</i>, it +is a bad blunder, but not uncommon.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It was, of course, Mrs. Sedley’s opinion that her son +would <i>demean</i> himself by a marriage with an artist’s +daughter.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> + +<p>The actors who raddle their faces and <i>demean</i> themselves on the +stage.—<span class="smcap">Stevenson.</span> (lower, degrade)</p> +</div> + +<p>To <i>demean</i> oneself, with adverb of manner attached, is to +behave in that manner. The other use has probably arisen by a natural +confusion with the adjective <i>mean</i>; one suspects that it has +crept into literature by being used in intentional parody of vulgar +speech, till it was forgotten that it was parody. But perhaps when a +word has been given full citizen rights by Thackeray and Stevenson, it +is too late to expel it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>‘Oxoniensis’ approaches them with courage, his thoughts are expressed +in plain, unmistakable language, <i>howbeit</i> with the touch of a +master hand.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Albeit</i> means <i>though</i>: <i>howbeit</i> always +<i>nevertheless</i>, beginning not a subordinate clause, but a +principal sentence. A good example of the danger attending ignorant +archaism.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In a word, Count von Bülow, who took a very rosy view of the agreement +last year, now suddenly discovers that he was slighted, and is +indignant <i>in the paulo-post future tense</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>This jest would be pedantic in any case, since no one but schoolmasters +and schoolboys knows what the paulo-post-future tense is. Being the +one represented in English by <i>I shall have been killed</i>, it has, +further, no application here; <i>paulo-ante-past tense</i>, if there +were such a thing, might have meant something. As it is, pedantry is +combined with inaccuracy.</p> + +<p>6. <b>Words used in unaccustomed, though not impossible, senses or +applications.</b> This is due sometimes to that avoidance of the +obvious which spoils much modern writing, and sometimes to an ignorance +of English idiom excusable in a foreigner, but not in a native.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>No one can imagine non-intervention carried through so desperate and +so <i>consequential</i> a war as this.—<span class="smcap">Greenwood.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>If <i>important</i> or <i>fateful</i> will not do, it is better to +write <i>a war so desperate and so pregnant with consequences</i> than +to abuse a word whose idiomatic uses are particularly well marked. +A consequential person is one who likes to exhibit his consequence; +a consequential amendment is one that is a natural consequence or +corollary of another.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Half of Mr. Roosevelt’s speech deals with this double need of justice +and strength, the other half being a <i>skilled</i> application of +Washington’s maxims to present circumstances.—<i>Times.</i> (skilful)</p> +</div> + +<p>Idiom confines <i>skilled</i>, except in poetry, almost entirely to the +word <i>labour</i>, and to craftsmen—a skilled mason, for instance.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is to the Convention, therefore, that reference must be made for an +<i>intelligence</i> of the principles on which the Egyptian Government +has acted during the present war.—<i>Times.</i> (understanding)</p> +</div> + +<p>No one can say why <i>intelligence</i> should never be followed by an +objective genitive, as grammarians call this; but nearly every one +knows, apart from the technical term, that it never is. Idiom is an +autocrat, with whom it is always well to keep on good terms.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Easier to reproduce, in its <i>concision</i>, is the description of +the day.—<span class="smcap">H. James.</span> (conciseness)</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Concision</i> is a term in theology, to which it may well be left. +In criticism, though its use is increasing, it has still an exotic air.</p> + +<p>7. <b>Simple love of the long word.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The wide public importance of these proposals (customs regulations) +has now been conceived in no <i>desultory</i> manner.—<i>Guernsey +Advertiser.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>We have touched shortly upon some four dozen of what we call malaprops. +Now possible malaprops, in our extended sense, are to be reckoned not +by the dozen, but by the million. Moreover, out of our four dozen, not +more than some half a dozen are uses that it is worth any one’s while +to register individually in his mind for avoidance. The conclusion of +which is this: we have made no attempt at cataloguing the mistakes of +this sort that must not be committed; every one must construct his own +catalogue by care, observation, and the resolve to use no word whose +meaning he is not sure of—even though that resolve bring on him the +extreme humiliation of now and then opening the dictionary. Our aim has +been, not to make a list, but to inculcate a frame of mind.</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Neologisms</span></h3> + +<p>Most people of literary taste will say on this point ‘It must needs be +that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh’. +They are Liberal-Conservatives, their liberalism being general and +theoretic, their conservatism particular and practical. And indeed, if +no new words were to appear, it would be a sign that the language was +moribund;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> but it is well that each new word that does appear should be +severely scrutinized.</p> + +<p>The progress of arts and sciences gives occasion for the large majority +of new words; for a new thing we must have a new name; hence, for +instance, <i>motor</i>, <i>argon</i>, <i>appendicitis</i>. It is +interesting to see that the last word did not exist, or was at least +too obscure to be recorded, when the <i>Oxford Dictionary</i> began +to come out in 1888; we cannot do without it now. Nor is there in +the same volume any sign of <i>argon</i>, which now has three pages +of the <i>Encyclopaedia Britannica</i> to itself. The discoverers +of it are to be thanked for having also invented for it a name that +is short, intelligible to those at least who know Greek, free of +barbarism, and above all pronounceable. As to barbarism, it might +indeed be desired that the man of science should always call in the man +of Greek composition as godfather to his gas or his process; but it +is a point of less importance. Every one has been told at school how +<i>telegram</i> ought to be <i>telegrapheme</i>; but by this time we +have long ceased to mourn for the extra syllable, and begun seriously +to consider whether the further shortening into <i>wire</i> has not +been resisted as long as honour demands.</p> + +<p>Among other arts and sciences, that of lexicography happens to have +found convenient a neologism that may here be used to help in the +very slight classification required for the new words we are more +concerned with—that is, those whose object is literary or general, +and not scientific. A ‘nonce-word’ (and the use might be extended to +‘nonce-phrase’ and ‘nonce-sense’—the latter not necessarily, though it +may be sometimes, equivalent to nonsense) is one that is constructed +to serve a need of the moment. The writer is not seriously putting +forward his word as one that is for the future to have an independent +existence; he merely has a fancy to it for this once. The motive may be +laziness, avoidance of the obvious, love of precision, or desire for a +brevity or pregnancy that the language as at present constituted does +not seem to him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> to admit of. The first two are bad motives, the third +a good, and the last a mixed one. But in all cases it may be said that +a writer should not indulge in these unless he is quite sure he is a +good writer.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The couch-bunk under the window to conceal the <i>summerly +recliner</i>.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The adjective is a nonce-sense, <i>summerly</i> elsewhere meaning ‘such +as one expects in summer’; the noun is a nonce-word.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In Christian art we may clearly trace a parallel +<i>regenesis</i>.—<span class="smcap">Spencer.</span></p> + +<p>Opposition on the part of the <i>loquently</i> weaker of the +pair.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>Picturesquities.—<span class="smcap">Sladen.</span></p> + +<p>The <i>verberant</i> twang of a musical instrument.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>A Russian army is a solid machine, as many <i>war-famous</i> generals +have found to their cost.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Such compounds are of course much used; but they are ugly when they are +otiose; it might be worth while to talk of a war-famous brewer, or of +a peace-famous general, just as we often have occasion to speak of a +carpet-knight, but of a carpet-broom only if it is necessary to guard +against mistake.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Russia’s disposition is aggressive.... Japan may conquer, but she will +not aggress.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Though <i>aggress</i> is in the dictionary, every one will feel that it +is rare enough to be practically a neologism, and here a nonce-word. +The mere fact that it has never been brought into common use, though so +obvious a form, is sufficient condemnation.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>She did not answer at once, for, in her rather <i>super-sensitized</i> +mood, it seemed to her....—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The word is, we imagine, a loan from photography. Expressions so +redolent of the laboratory are as well left alone unless the metaphor +they suggest is really valuable. Perhaps, if <i>rather</i> and +<i>super-</i> were cancelled against each other, <i>sensitive</i> might +suffice.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Notoriously and unctuously <i>rectitudinous</i>.—<i>Westminster +Gazette.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Some readers will remember the origin of this in Cecil Rhodes’s famous +remark about the unctuous rectitude of British statesmen, and the +curious epidemic of words in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> <i>-ude</i> that prevailed for some +months in the newspapers, especially the <i>Westminster Gazette</i>. +<i>Correctitude</i>, a needless variant for <i>correctness</i>, has not +perished like the rest.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>We only refer to it again because Mr. Balfour clearly thinks it +necessary to vindicate his claims to correctitude. This desire for +correctitude is amusingly illustrated in the <i>Outlook</i> this week, +which....—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>All these formations, whether happy or the reverse, may be assumed to +be conscious ones: the few that now follow—we shall call them new even +if they have a place in dictionaries, since they are certainly not +current—are possibly unconscious:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The minutes to dinner-time were numbered, and they <i>briskened</i> +their steps back to the house.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span> (quickened)</p> + +<p>He was in some amazement at himself ... <i>remindful</i> of the +different nature....—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span> (mindful)</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Remindful</i> should surely mean ‘which reminds’, not ‘who +remembers’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Persistent <i>insuccess</i>, however, did not prevent a repetition of +the same question.—<i>Times.</i> (failure)</p> + +<p>The best safeguard against any <i>deplacement</i> of the centre of +gravity in the Dual Monarchy.—<i>Times.</i> (displacement)</p> + +<p>Which would condemn the East to a long period of +<i>unquiet</i>.—<i>Times.</i> (unrest)</p> +</div> + +<p>Mere slips, very likely. If it is supposed that therefore they are not +worth notice, the answer is that they are indeed quite unimportant in +a writer who allows himself only one such slip in fifty or a hundred +pages; but one who is unfortunate enough to make a second before the +first has faded from the memory becomes at once a suspect. We are +uneasily on the watch for his next lapse, wonder whether he is a +foreigner or an Englishman not at home in the literary language, and +fall into that critical temper which is the last he would choose to be +read in.</p> + +<p>The next two examples are quite distinct from these—words clearly +created, or exhumed, because the writer feels that his style requires +galvanizing into energy:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A man of a cold, <i>perseverant</i> character.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> + +<p>Robbed of the just fruits of her victory by the arbitrary and +<i>forceful</i> interference of outside Powers.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>All the specimens yet mentioned have been productions of individual +caprice: the writer for some reason or other took a liberty, or made a +mistake, with one expression; he might as well, or as ill, have done +it with another, enjoying his little effect, or taking his little nap, +at this moment or at that. But there are other neologisms of a very +different kind, which come into existence as the crystallization of +a political tendency or a movement in ideas. <i>Prime Minister</i>, +<i>Cabinet</i>, <i>His Majesty’s Opposition</i>, have been neologisms +of this kind in their day, all standing for particular developments of +the party system, and all of them, probably, in more or less general +use before they made their way into books. Such words in our day are +<i>racial</i>, and <i>intellectuals</i>. The former is an ugly word, +the strangeness of which is due to our instinctive feeling that the +termination <i>-al</i> has no business at the end of a word that is +not obviously Latin. Nevertheless the new importance that has been +attached for the last half century to the idea of common descent as +opposed to that of mere artificial nationality has made <i>a</i> +word necessary. Racial is not <i>the</i> word that might have been +ornamental as well as useful; but it is too well established to be +now uprooted. <i>Intellectuals</i> is still apologized for in 1905 +by <i>The Spectator</i> as ‘a convenient neologism’. It is already +familiar to all who give any time to observing continental politics, +though the Index to the <i>Encyclopaedia</i> (1903) knows it not. A +use has not yet been found for the word in home politics, as far as we +have observed; but the fact that intellect in any country is recognized +as a definite political factor is noteworthy; and we should hail +<i>intellectuals</i> as a good omen for the progress of the world.</p> + +<p>These, and the scientific, are the sort of neologism that may fairly be +welcomed. But there is this distinction. With<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span> the strictly scientific +words, writers have not the power to decide whether they shall accept +them or not; they must be content to take submissively what the men of +science choose to give them, they being as much within their rights in +naming what they have discovered or invented as an explorer in naming +a new mountain, or an American founder a new city. <i>Minneapolis</i>, +<i>Pikeville</i>, and <i>Pennsylvania</i>, may have a barbaric sound, +but there they are; so <i>telegram</i>, or <i>aestho-physiology</i>. +The proud father of the latter (Herbert Spencer) confesses to having +docked it of a syllable; and similarly Mr. Lecky writes of ‘a +eudaemometer measuring with accuracy the degrees of happiness realized +by men in different ages’; consequently there will be some who will +wish these long words longer, though more who will wish them shorter; +but grumble as we may, the <i>patria potestas</i> is indefeasible. On +the other hand, with such words as <i>racial</i>, <i>intellectuals</i>, +it is open to any writer, if he does not like the word that threatens +to occupy an obviously vacant place, to offer a substitute, or at least +to avoid giving currency to what he disapproves. It will be remembered +that when it was proposed to borrow from France what we now know as +the closure, it seemed certain for some time that with the thing we +should borrow the name, <i>clôture</i>; a press campaign resulted in +<i>closure</i>, for which we may be thankful. The same might have +been done for, or rather against, <i>racial</i>, if only some one had +thought of it in time.</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Americanisms</span></h3> + +<p>Though we take these separately from foreign words, which will follow +next, the distinction is purely <i>pro forma</i>; Americanisms +are foreign words, and should be so treated. To say this is not +to insult the American language. If any one were asked to give an +Americanism without a moment’s delay, he would be more likely than +not to mention <i>I guess</i>. Inquiry into it would at once bear out +the American contention<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span> that what we are often rude enough to call +their vulgarisms are in fact good old English. <i>I gesse</i> is a +favourite expression of Chaucer’s, and the sense he sometimes gives it +is very finely distinguished from the regular Yankee use. But though +it is good old English, it is not good new English. If we use the +phrase—parenthetically, that is, like Chaucer and the Yankees—, we +have it not from Chaucer, but from the Yankees, and with their, not +his, exact shade of meaning. It must be recognized that they and we, +in parting some hundreds of years ago, started on slightly divergent +roads in language long before we did so in politics. In the details of +divergence, they have sometimes had the better of us. <i>Fall</i> is +better on the merits than <i>autumn</i>, in every way: it is short, +Saxon (like the other three season names), picturesque; it reveals its +derivation to every one who uses it, not to the scholar only, like +<i>autumn</i>; and we once had as good a right to it as the Americans; +but we have chosen to let the right lapse, and to use the word now is +no better than larceny.</p> + +<p>The other side of this is that we are entitled to protest when any one +assumes that because a word of less desirable character is current +American, it is therefore to be current English. There are certain +American verbs that remind Englishmen of the barbaric taste illustrated +by such town names as Memphis and those mentioned in the last +section. A very firm stand ought to be made against <i>placate</i>, +<i>transpire</i><a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>, and <i>antagonize</i>, all of which have English +patrons.</p> + +<p>There is a real danger of our literature’s being americanized, and that +not merely in details of vocabulary—which are all that we are here +directly concerned with—but in its general tone. Mr. Rudyard Kipling +is a very great writer, and a patriotic; his influence is probably the +strongest that there is at present in the land; but he and his school +are americanizing us. His style exhibits a sort of remorseless and +scientific<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span> efficiency in the choice of epithets and other words that +suggests the application of coloured photography to description; the +camera is superseding the human hand. We quote two sentences from the +first page of a story, and remark that in pre-Kipling days none of the +words we italicize would have been likely; now, they may be matched on +nearly every page of an ‘up-to-date’ novelist:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Between the snow-white cutter and the flat-topped, +<i>honey-coloured</i><a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> rocks on the beach the green water +was troubled with <i>shrimp-pink</i> prisoners-of-war +bathing.—<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span></p> + +<p>Far out, a three-funnelled Atlantic transport with turtle bow and +stern <i>waddled</i> in from the deep sea.—<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The words are, as we said, extremely efficient; but the impulse that +selects them is in harmony with American, not with English, methods, +and we hope it may be developed in America rather than here. We cannot +go more fully into the point in a digression like this. But though +we have digressed, it has not been quite without purpose: any one +who agrees with us in this will see in it an additional reason for +jealously excluding American words and phrases. The English and the +American language and literature are both good things; but they are +better apart than mixed.</p> + +<p>Fix up (organize), back of (behind), anyway (at any rate), standpoint +(point of view), back-number (antiquated), right along (continuously), +some (to some extent), just (quite, or very—‘just lovely’), may +be added as typical Americanisms of a different kind from either +<i>fall</i> or <i>antagonize</i>; but it is not worth while to make a +large collection; every one knows an Americanism, at present, when he +sees it; how long that will be true is a more anxious question.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And, <i>back of</i> all that, a circumstance which gave great force to +all that either has ever said, the rank and file, the great mass of +the people on either side, were determined....—<span class="smcap">Choate.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span></span></p> + +<p>Hand-power, <i>back-number</i>, flint-and-steel reaping +machines.—<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span></p> + +<p>Some of them have in secret approximated their <i>standpoint</i> to +that laid down by Count Tisza in his programme speech.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>We close the section by putting <i>placate</i> and <i>antagonize</i> +in the pillory. It may be remarked that the latter fits in well enough +with Emerson’s curious bizarre style. Another use of <i>just</i> +is pilloried also, because it is now in full possession of our +advertisement columns, and may be expected to insinuate itself into the +inside sheets before long<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>When once <i>placated</i> the Senators will be reluctant to deprive +honest creditors of their rights.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It is true the subject is American politics; but even so, we should +have liked to see this stranger received ceremoniously as well as +politely, that is, with quotation marks; the italics are ours only.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The old Imperial naval policy, which has failed conspicuously +because it <i>antagonized</i> the unalterable supremacy of Colonial +nationalism.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>If Fate follows and limits power, power attends and <i>antagonizes</i> +Fate.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>Have you ever thought <i>just how much</i> it would mean to the home +if....—<i>Advertisements passim.</i></p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Foreign Words</span></h3> + +<p>The usual protest must be made, to be treated no doubt with the usual +disregard. The difficulty is that some French, Latin, and other words +are now also English, though the fiction that they are not is still +kept up by italics and (with French words) conscientious efforts at +pronunciation. Such are <i>tête-à-tête</i>, <i>ennui</i>, <i>status +quo</i>, <i>raison d’être</i>, <i>eirenicon</i>, <i>négligé</i>, and +perhaps hundreds more. The novice who is told to avoid foreign words, +and then observes that these English words are used freely, takes the +rule for a counsel of perfection—not accepted by good writers, and +certainly not to be accepted by him, who is sometimes hard put to it +for the ornament that he feels his matter deserves. Even with the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> +best will in the world, he finds that there are many words of which he +cannot say whether they are yet English or not, as <i>gaucherie</i>, +<i>bêtise</i>, <i>camaraderie</i>, <i>soupçon</i>, so that there is no +drawing the line. He can only be told that all words not English in +appearance are in English writing ugly and not pretty, and that they +are justified only (1) if they afford much the shortest or clearest, +if not the only way to the meaning (this is usually true of the words +we have called really English), or (2) if they have some special +appropriateness of association or allusion in the sentence they stand +in. This will be illustrated by some of the diplomatic words given +below, and by the quotation containing the word <i>chasseur</i>.</p> + +<p>Some little assistance may, however, be given on details.</p> + +<p>1. To say <i>distrait</i> instead of <i>absent</i> or +<i>absent-minded</i>, <i>bien entendu</i> for <i>of course</i>, +<i>sans</i> for <i>without</i> (it is, like <i>I guess</i>, good old +English but not good English), <i>quand même</i> for <i>anyhow</i>, +<i>penchant</i> for <i>liking</i> or <i>fancy</i>, <i>rédaction</i> +for <i>editing</i> or <i>edition</i>, <i>coûte que coûte</i> for <i>at +all costs</i>, <i>Schadenfreude</i> for <i>malicious pleasure</i>, +<i>œuvre</i> for <i>work</i>, <i>alma mater</i> (except with strong +extenuating circumstances) for <i>University</i>—is pretension and +nothing else. The substitutes we have offered are not insisted upon; +they may be wrong, or not the best; but English can be found for all +these. Moreover, what was said of special association or allusion may +apply; to call a luncheon <i>déjeuner</i>, however, as in the appended +extract, because it is to be eaten by Frenchmen, is hardly covered by +this, though it is a praise-worthy attempt at what the critics call +giving an atmosphere.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It was resolved that on the occasion of the visit of the French +Fleet in August the Corporation should offer the officers an +appropriate reception and invite them to a <i>déjeuner</i> at the +Guildhall.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>But speaking broadly, what a writer effects by using these ornaments is +to make us imagine him telling us he is a wise fellow and one that hath +everything handsome about him, including a gentlemanly acquaintance +with the French language. Some illustrations follow:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Motorists lose more than they know by <i>bêtises</i> of this +kind.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>His determination to conduct them to a successful issue <i>coûte que +coûte</i> might result in complications.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The gloom which the Russian troubles have caused at Belgrade has +to some extent been lightened by a certain <i>Schadenfreude</i> +over the difficulties with which the Hungarian crisis threatens the +neighbouring Monarchy.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>A recent reperusal ... left the impression which is so often produced +by the exhibition in bulk of the <i>œuvre</i> of a deceased Royal +Academician—it has emphasized Schiller’s deficiencies without laying +equal emphasis on his merits.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The following are instances of less familiar French or Latin words used +wantonly:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>So, one would have thought, the fever of New York was abated here, +even as the smoke of the city was but a gray <i>tache</i> on the +horizon.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Either we know that <i>tache</i> means stain, or we do not. If we do, +we cannot admire our novelist’s superior learning: if we do not, we +must be doubtful whether we grasp the whole of his possibly valuable +meaning. His calculation is perhaps that we shall know it, and shall +feel complimented by his just confidence in us.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>When the normal convention governing the relations between victors and +vanquished is duly re-established, it will be time to chronicle the +conjectures relating to peace in some other part of a journal than +that devoted to <i>faits divers</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It is true <i>The Times</i> does not condescend to an Odds-and-Ends, +or a Miscellaneous column; but many other English newspapers do, under +various titles; and the <i>Times</i> writer might have thrown the +handkerchief to one of them.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But times have changed, and this procedure enters into the category of +<i>vieille escrime</i> when not employed by a master hand and made to +correspond superficially with facts.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>In relation to military organization we are still in the flourishing +region of the <i>vieilles perruques</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The users of these two varieties, who, to judge from the title at the +head of their articles, are one and the same person must have something +newer than <i>vieux jeu</i>. Just as that has begun to be intelligible +to the rest of us, it becomes itself <i>vieux<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span> jeu</i> to them. It is +like the man of highest fashion changing his hat-brim because the man +of middling fashion has found the pattern of it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The familiar gentleman burglar, who, having played wolf to his fellows +<i>qua</i> financier, journalist, and barrister, undertakes to raise +burglary from being a trade at least to the lupine level of those +professions.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It is quite needless, and hardly correct, to use <i>qua</i> instead +of <i>as</i> except where a sharp distinction is being made between +two coexistent functions or points of view, as in the next quotation. +Uganda needs quite different treatment if it is regarded as a country +from what it needs as a campaigning ground:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>For this point must be borne constantly in mind—the money spent to +date was spent with a view only to strategy. The real development of +the country <i>qua</i> country must begin to-day.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The reader would not care to have my impressions thereanent; and, +indeed, it would not be worth while to record them, as they were the +impressions of an <i>ignorance crasse</i>.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The writer who allows Charlotte Brontë’s extraordinarily convincing +power of presentment to tempt him into imitating her many literary +peccadilloes will reap disaster. <i>Thereanent</i> is as annoying as +<i>ignorance crasse</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It was he who by doctoring the Ems dispatch in 1870 converted a +<i>chamade</i> into a <i>fanfaronnade</i> and thus rendered the +Franco-German war inevitable.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>We can all make a shrewd guess at the meaning of <i>fanfaronnade</i>: +how many average readers have the remotest idea of what a +<i>chamade</i><a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> is? and is the function of newspapers to force upon +us against our will the buying of French dictionaries?</p> + +<p>2. Among the diplomatic words, <i>entente</i> may pass as suggesting +something a little more definite and official than <i>good +understanding</i>; <i>démenti</i> because, though it denotes the same +as <i>denial</i> or <i>contradiction</i>, it connotes that no more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> +credence need be given to it than is usually given to the ‘honest men +sent to lie abroad for the good of their country’; as for <i>ballon +d’essai</i>, we see no advantage in it over <i>kite</i>, and <i>flying +a kite</i>, which are good English; it is, however, owing to foreign +correspondents’ perverted tastes, already more familiar. The words +italicized in the following quotations are still more questionable:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The two Special Correspondents in Berlin of the leading morning +newspapers, the <i>Matin</i> and the <i>Écho de Paris</i>, report a +marked <i>détente</i> in the situation.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Entente</i> is comprehensible to every one; but with <i>détente</i> +many of us are in the humiliating position of not knowing whether to be +glad or sorry.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>All the great newspapers have insisted upon the inopportuneness of the +<i>démarche</i> of William II.—<i>Times.</i> (proceeding)</p> + +<p>The <i>entourage</i> and counsellors of the Sultan continue to remain +sceptical.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Mere laziness, even if the word means anything different from +<i>counsellors</i>; but the writer has at least given us an indication +that it is only verbiage, by revealing his style in <i>continue to +remain</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In diplomatic circles the whole affair is looked upon as +an <i>acte de malveillance</i> towards the Anglo-French +<i>entente</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>You have been immensely amused, cyrenaically enjoying the moment +for the moment’s sake, but looking before and after (as you cannot +help looking in the theatre) you have been disconcerted and +<i>dérouté</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>In spite, however, of this denial and of other official +<i>démentis</i>, the Italian Press still seems +dissatisfied.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>In this there is clearly not the distinction that we suggested between +<i>denial</i> and <i>démenti</i>—the only thing that could excuse the +latter. We have here merely one of those elegant variations treated of +in the chapter ‘Airs and Graces’.</p> + +<p>3. It sometimes occurs to a writer that he would like to avail himself +of a foreign word or phrase, whether to make a genuine point or to show +that he has the gift of tongues,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span> and yet not keep his less favoured +readers in the dark; he accordingly uses a literal translation instead +of the actual words. It may fairly be doubted whether this is ever +worth while; but there is all the difference in the world, as we shall +presently exemplify in a pair of contrasted quotations, between the +genuine and the ostentatious use. The most familiar phrase thus treated +is <i>cela va sans dire</i>; we have of our own <i>I need hardly +say</i>, <i>needless to remark</i>, and many other varieties; and the +French phrase has no wit or point in it to make it worth aping; we +might just as well say, in similar German or French English (whichever +of the two languages we had it from), <i>that understands itself</i>; +each of them has to us the quaintness of being non-idiomatic, and +no other merit whatever. A single word that we have taken in the +same way is more defensible, because it did, when first introduced +here, possess a definite meaning that no existing English word had: +<i>epochmaking</i> is a literal translation, or transliteration +almost, from German. We may regret that we took it, now; for it will +always have an alien look about it; and, recent in English as it +is, it has already lost its meaning; it belongs, in fact, to one of +those word-series of which each member gets successively worn out. +<i>Epochmaking</i> is now no more than <i>remarkable</i>, as witness +this extract from a speech by the Lord Chancellor:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The banquet to M. Berryer and the banquet to Mr. Benjamin, +both of them very important, and to my mind <i>epochmaking</i> +occasions.—<span class="smcap">Lord Halsbury.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The verb <i>to orient</i> is a Gallicism of much the same sort, and +<i>the half-world</i> is perhaps worse:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In his quality of eligible bachelor he had no objections at any time +to conversing with a goodlooking girl. Only he wished very much that +he could <i>orient</i> this particular one.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>High society is represented by ... Lady Beauminster, the half-world +by Mrs. Montrose, loveliness and luckless innocence by her daughter +Helen.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The next extract is perhaps from the pen of a French-speaker<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> trying +to write English: but it is not worse than what the English writer who +comes below him does deliberately:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Our enveloping movement, which has been proceeding <i>since several +days</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Making every allowance for special circumstances, the manner in which +these amateur soldiers of seven weeks’ service acquitted themselves +compels one ‘furiously to think’.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>A warning may be given that it is dangerous to translate if you do not +know for certain what the original means. To ask what the devil some +one was doing in that <i>gallery</i> is tempting, and fatal.</p> + +<p>Appended are the passages illustrating the two different motives for +translation:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>If we could take this assurance at its face value and <i>to the foot +of the letter</i>, we should have to conclude....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It will be observed (<i>a</i>) that <i>literally</i> gives the +meaning perfectly; (<i>b</i>) that <i>to the foot of the letter</i> +is absolutely unintelligible to any one not previously acquainted +with <i>au pied de la lettre</i>; (<i>c</i>) that there is no wit or +other admirable quality in the French itself. The writer is meanly +admiring mean things; nothing could possibly be more fatuous than such +half-hearted gallicizing.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I thought afterwards, but it was <i>the spirit of the staircase</i>, +what a pity it was that I did not stand at the door with a hat, +saying, ‘Give an obol to Belisarius’.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The French have had the wit to pack into the words <i>esprit +d’escalier</i> the common experience that one’s happiest retorts +occur to one only when the chance of uttering them is gone, the door +is closed, and one’s feet are on the staircase. That is well worth +introducing to an English audience; the only question is whether it +is of any use to translate it without explanation. No one will know +what <i>spirit of the staircase</i> is who is not already familiar +with <i>esprit d’escalier</i>; and even he who is may not recognize +it in disguise, seeing that <i>esprit</i> does not mean spirit (which +suggests a goblin lurking in the hall clock), but wit.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span></p> + +<p>We cannot refrain from adding a variation that deprives <i>au pied de +la lettre</i> even of its quaintness:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The tone of Russian official statements on the subject is not +encouraging, but then, perhaps, they ought not to be taken at the +letter.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>4. Closely connected with this mistake of translating is the other +of taking liberties with foreign phrases in their original form, +dovetailing them into the construction of an English sentence when they +do not lend themselves to it. In Latin words and phrases, other cases +should always be changed to the nominative, whatever the government in +the English sentence, unless the Latin word that accounted for the case +is included in the quotation. It will be admitted that all the four +passages below are ugly:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The whole party were engaged <i>ohne Rast</i> with a prodigious +quantity of <i>Hast</i> in a continuous social effort.—<span class="smcap">E. F. +Benson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>German, in which so few Englishmen are at their ease, is the last among +the half-dozen best-known languages to play these tricks with. The +facetiousness here is indescribably heavy.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The clergy in rochet, alb, and other best +<i>pontificalibus</i>.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The intention is again facetious; but the incongruity between a +Latin inflected ablative and English uninflected objectives is a +kind of piping to which no man can dance; that the English <i>in</i> +and the Latin <i>in</i> happen to be spelt alike is no defence; it +is clear that <i>in</i> is here English, not Latin; either <i>in +pontificalibus</i>, or <i>in other pontificalia</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The feeling that one is an <i>antecedentem scelestum</i> after whom a +sure, though lame, Nemesis is hobbling....—<span class="smcap">Trollope.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Antecedens scelestus</i> is necessary.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>..., which were so evident in the days of the early Church, are now +<i>non est</i>.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>All things considered, I wonder they were not <i>non est</i> long +ago.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Such maltreatment of <i>non est inventus</i>, which seems to have +amused some past generations, is surely now as stale and unprofitable +as <i>individual</i> itself.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span></p> + +<p>5. A special caution may be given about some words and phrases that +either are shams, or are used in wrong senses. Of the first kind are +<i>nom de plume</i>, <i>morale</i>. The French for the name that an +author chooses to write under is <i>nom de guerre</i>. We, in the +pride of our knowledge that <i>guerre</i> means war, have forgotten +that there is such a thing as metaphor, assumed that another phrase is +required for literary campaigning, thereupon ascertained the French for +pen, and so evolved <i>nom de plume</i>. It is unfortunate; for we now +have to choose between a blunder and a pedantry; but writers who know +the facts are beginning to reconcile themselves to seeming pedantic for +a time, and reviving <i>nom de guerre</i>.</p> + +<p>The French for what we call <i>morale</i>, writing it in italics under +the impression that it is French, is actually <i>moral</i>. The other +is so familiar, however, that it is doubtful whether it would not be +better to drop the italics, keep the <i>-e</i>, and tell the French +that they can spell their word as they please, and we shall do the like +with ours. So Mr. Kipling:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The Gaul, ever an artist, breaks enclosure to study the +morale [<i>sic</i>], at the present day, of the British +sailorman.—<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In the second class, of phrases whose meaning is mistaken, +we choose <i>scandalum magnatum</i>, <i>arrière-pensée</i>, +<i>phantasmagoria</i>, and <i>cui bono?</i></p> + +<p><i>Scandalum magnatum</i> is a favourite with the lower-class novelist +who takes <i>magnatum</i> for a participle meaning <i>magnified</i>, +and finds the combination less homely than <i>a shocking affair</i>. +It is a genitive plural noun, and the amplified translation of the two +words, which we borrow from the <i>Encyclopaedia</i>, runs: ‘Slander of +great men, such as peers, judges, or great officers of state, whereby +discord may arise within the realm’.</p> + +<p><i>Arrière-pensée</i> we have seen used, with comic intent but sad +effect, for a bustle or dress-improver; and, with sad intent but comic +effect, for an afterthought; it is better confined to its real meaning +of an ulterior object, if indeed we cannot be content with our own +language and use those words instead.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span></p> + +<p><i>Phantasmagoria</i> is a singular noun; at least the corresponding +French monstrosity, <i>fantasmagorie</i>, is unmistakably singular; +and, if used at all in English, it should be so with us too. But the +final <i>-a</i> irresistibly suggests a plural to the valorous writers +who are impressed without being terrified by the unknown; so:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Not that such <i>phantasmagoria are</i> to be compared +for a moment with such desirable things as fashion, fine +clothes....—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Cui bono?</i> is a notorious trap for journalists. It is naturally +surprising to any one who has not pushed his classics far to be told +that the literal translation of it is not ‘To what good (end)?’ that is +‘What is the good of it?’ but ‘Who benefited?’. The former rendering is +not an absolutely impossible one on the principles of Latin grammar, +which adds to the confusion. But if that were its real meaning it would +be indeed astonishing that it should have become a famous phrase; +the use of it instead of ‘What is the good?’ would be as silly and +gratuitous as our above-mentioned <i>to the foot of the letter</i>. +Every scholar knows, however, that <i>cui bono?</i> does deserve to +be used, in its true sense. It is a shrewd and pregnant phrase like +<i>cherchez la femme</i> or <i>esprit d’escalier</i>. <i>Cherchez la +femme</i> wraps up in itself a perhaps incorrect but still interesting +theory of life—that whenever anything goes wrong there is a woman at +the bottom of it; find her, and all will be explained. <i>Cui bono?</i> +means, as we said, ‘Who benefited?’. It is a Roman lawyer’s maxim, who +held that when you were at a loss to tell where the responsibility for +a crime lay, your best chance was to inquire who had reaped the benefit +of it. It has been worth while to devote a few lines to this phrase, +because nothing could better show at once what is worth transplanting +into English, and what dangers await any one who uses Latin or French +merely because he has a taste for ornament. In the following quotation +the meaning, though most obscurely expressed, is probably correct; and +<i>cui bono?</i> stands for: ‘Where can the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> story have come from? +why, who will profit by a misunderstanding between Italy and France? +Germany, of course; so doubtless Germany invented the story’. <i>Cui +bono?</i> is quite capable of implying all that; but a merciful writer +will give his readers a little more help:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>(Berlin) The news which awakens the most hopeful interest is the +story of a concession to a Franco-Belgian syndicate in the harbour +of Tripoli. There is a manifest desire that the statement should be +confirmed and that it should have the effect of exciting the Italian +people and alienating them from France. <i>Cui bono?</i>—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>6. It now only remains to add that there are French words good in some +contexts, and not in others. <i>Régime</i> is good in the combination +<i>ancien régime</i>, because that is the briefest way of alluding to +the state of things in France before the Revolution. Further, its use +in the first of the appended passages is appropriate enough, because +there is an undoubted parallel between Russia now and France then. But +in the second, <i>administration</i> ought to be the word:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Throwing a flood of light upon the proceedings of the existing +<i>régime</i> in Russia.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>He said that the goodwill and friendship of the Milner +<i>régime</i> had resulted in the effective co-operation of the two +countries.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The word <i>employé</i> is often a long, ugly, and unnatural substitute +for <i>men</i>, <i>workmen</i>, or <i>hands</i>, one of which should +have been used in the first two of the passages below. But it has a +value where clerks or higher degrees are to be included, as in the +third passage. It should be used as seldom as possible, that is all:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The warehouses of the Russian Steamship Company here have been set on +fire by some dismissed <i>employés</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The <i>employés</i> of the Trans-Caucasian line to-day struck +work.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The new project, Article 17, ordains that all <i>employés</i> of the +railways, whatever their rank or the nature of their employment, are +to be considered as public officials.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Finally, even words that have not begun to be naturalized may be +used exceptionally when a real point can be gained by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> it. To say +<i>chasseur</i> instead of <i>sportsman</i>, <i>gun</i>, or other +English word, is generally ridiculous. But our English notion of the +French sportsman (right or wrong) is that he sports not because he +likes sport, but because he likes the picturesque costumes it gives an +excuse for. Consequently the word is quite appropriate in the following:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But the costume of the <i>chasseurs</i>—green velvet, very +Robin-Hoody—had been most tasteful.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">False, Ugly, or Needless Formations</span></h3> + +<p>1. As a natural link between this section and the last, the practice +of taking French words and spelling them as English may stand first. +With French words that fill a definite blank in English, the time +comes when that should be done if it can. With some words it cannot; +no one has yet seen his way to giving <i>ennui</i> an English look. +With <i>dishabille</i>, on the other hand, which appears in the +dictionary with spellings to suit all tastes<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>, many attempts have +been made. This word, however, well illustrates the importance of one +principle that should be observed in borrowing from French. Unless +the need is a very crying one, no word should be taken that offers +serious difficulties of pronunciation. In <i>déshabillé</i> are at +least two problems (<i>h</i>, and <i>ll</i>) of which an Englishman +fights shy. The consequence is that, though its English history dates +back some centuries, it is very seldom heard in conversation; no word +not used in conversation becomes a true native; and <i>dishabille</i> +is therefore being gradually ousted by <i>négligé</i>, which can be +pronounced without fear. As <i>dishabille</i> is really quite cut +off from <i>déshabillé</i>, it is a pity it was not further deprived +of its final <i>-e</i>; that would have encouraged us to call it +<i>dish-abil</i>, and it might have made good its footing.</p> + +<p><i>Naïveté</i> is another word for which there is a clear use; +and though the Englishman can pronounce it without difficulty if<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> +he chooses, he generally does prefer doing without it altogether +to attempting a precision that strikes him as either undignified +or pretentious. It is therefore to be wished that it might be +disencumbered of its diaeresis, its accent, and its italics. It is true +that the first sight of naivety is an unpleasant shock; but we ought to +be glad that the thing has begun to be done, and in speaking sacrifice +our pride of knowledge and call it <i>naivety</i>.</p> + +<p>The case of <i>banality</i> is very different. In one sense it has +a stronger claim than <i>naivety</i>, its adjective <i>banal</i> +being much older in English than <i>naïve</i>; but the old use of +<i>banal</i> is as a legal term connected with feudalism. That +use is dead, and its second life is an independent one; it is now +a mere borrowing from French. Whether we are to accept it or not +should be decided by whether we want it; and with <i>common</i>, +<i>commonplace</i>, <i>trite</i>, <i>trivial</i>, <i>mean</i>, +<i>vulgar</i>, all provided with nouns, which again can be eked +out with <i>truism</i> and <i>platitude</i>, a shift can surely +be made without it. It is one of those foreign feathers, like +<i>intimism</i>, <i>intimity</i>, <i>femininity</i>, <i>distinction</i> +and <i>distinguished</i> (the last pair now banalities if anything +was ever banal; so do extremes meet), in which writers of literary +criticism love to parade, and which ordinary persons should do their +best to pluck from them, protesting when there is a chance, and at all +times refusing the compliment of imitation. But perhaps the word that +the critics would most of all delight their readers by forgetting is +<i>meticulous</i>.</p> + +<p>Before adding an example or two, we draw attention to the danger +of accidentally assimilating a good English word to a French one. +<i>Amende</i> is good French; <i>amends</i> is good English; but +<i>amend</i> (noun) is neither:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Triviality and over-childishness and naivety.—<span class="smcap">H. Sweet.</span></p> + +<p>Agrippa himself was primarily a paradox-monger. Many of his successors +were in dead earnest, and their repetition of his ingenuities becomes +<i>banal</i> in the extreme. Bercher himself can by no means be +acquitted of this charge of <i>banality</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span></p> + +<p>It is significant that the only authorities for <i>banality</i> in the +<i>Oxford Dictionary</i> are Sala, Saintsbury, Dowden, and Browning; +but the volume is dated 1888; and though the word is still used in the +same overpowering proportion by literary critics as opposed to other +writers, its total use has multiplied a hundredfold since then. Our +hope is that the critics may before long feel that it is as banal to +talk about banality as it is now felt by most wellbred people to be +vulgar to talk about vulgarity.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>His style, which is pleasant and diffuse without being +<i>distinguished</i>, is more suited to the farm and the +simple country life than to the complexities of the human +character.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>His character and that of his wife are sketched with a certain +<i>distinction</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>And yet to look back over the whole is to feel that in one case only +has she really achieved that perfection of <i>intimism</i> which is +her proper goal.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The reference to the English nonconformists was a graceful +<i>amend</i> to them for being so passionate an Oxonian and +churchman.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>And in her presentation of the mode of life of the respectable middle +classes, the most <i>meticulous</i> critic will not easily catch her +tripping.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>2. <b>Formations involving grammatical blunders.</b> Of these the +possibilities are of course infinite; we must assume that our readers +know the ordinary rules of grammar, and merely, not to pass over the +point altogether, give one or two typical and not too trite instances:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>My landlady entered bearing what she called ‘her best lamp’ +<i>alit</i>.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This seems to be formed as a past participle from <i>to alight</i>, +in the sense of to kindle. It will surprise most people to learn that +there is, or was, such a verb; not only was there, but the form that +should have been used in our sentence, <i>alight</i>, is probably by +origin the participle of it. The <i>Oxford Dictionary</i>, however, +after saying this, observes that it has now been assimilated to words +like <i>afire</i>, formed from the preposition <i>a-</i> and a noun. +Whether those two facts are true of not, it is quite certain that there +is no such word as <i>alit</i> in the sense of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span> lighted or lit, and +that the use of it in our days is a grammatical blunder.<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But every year pleaded <i>stronger</i> and <i>stronger</i> for the +Earl’s conception.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Comparative adverbs of this type must be formed only from those +positive adverbs, which do not use <i>-ly</i>, as <i>hard</i>, +<i>fast</i>. We talk of <i>going strong</i>, and we may therefore +talk of <i>going stronger</i>; but outside slang we have to choose +between <i>stronglier</i>—poetical, exalted, or affected—and <i>more +strongly</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The silence that <i>underlaid</i> the even voice of the breakers along +the sea front.—<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Lie</i> and <i>lay</i> have cost us all some perplexity in +childhood. The distinction is more difficult in the compounds with +<i>over</i> and <i>under</i>, because in them <i>-lie</i> is transitive +as well as <i>-lay</i>, but in a different sense. Any one who is not +sure that he is sound on the point by instinct must take the trouble +to resolve them into <i>lie over</i> or <i>lay over</i>, &c., which at +once clears up the doubt. A mistake with the simple verb is surprising +when made, as in the following, by a writer on grammar:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I met a lad who took a paper from a package that he carried and thrust +it into my unwilling hand. I suspected him of having <i>laid</i> in +wait for the purpose.—<span class="smcap">R. G. White.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>A confusion, perhaps, between <i>lay wait</i> and <i>lie in wait</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I am not sure that <i>yours</i> and my efforts would suffice +separately; but yours and mine together cannot possibly fail.</p> +</div> + +<p>The first <i>yours</i> is quite wrong; it should be <i>your</i>. +This mistake is common. The absolute possessives, <i>ours</i> and +<i>yours</i>, <i>hers</i>, <i>mine</i> and <i>thine</i>, (with which +the poetic or euphonic use of the last two before vowels has nothing +to do) are to be used only as pronouns or as predicative adjectives, +not as attributes to an expressed and following noun. That they were +used by old writers as in our example is irrelevant. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span> correct +modern usage has now established itself. We add three sentences from +Burke. The relation between <i>no</i> and <i>none</i> is the same as +that between <i>your</i> and <i>yours</i>. In the first sentence, +modern usage would write (as the correct <i>no or but a few</i> is +uncomfortable) either <i>few or no</i>, or <i>few if any</i>, or <i>no +rays or but a few</i>. For the second we might possibly tolerate <i>to +their as well as to your own</i>; or we might write <i>to their crown +as well as to your own</i>. The third is quite tolerable as it is; but +any one who does not like the sound can write <i>and their ancestors +and ours</i>. It must always be remembered in this as in other +constructions, that the choice is not between a well-sounding blunder +and an ill-sounding correctness, but between an ill and a well sounding +correctness. The blunder should be ruled out, and if the first form +of the correct construction that presents itself does not sound well, +another way of putting it must be looked for; patience will always find +it. The flexibility gained by habitual selection of this kind, which a +little cultivation will make easy and instinctive, is one of the most +essential elements in a good style. For a more important illustration +of the same principle, the remarks on the gerund in the Syntax chapter +(p. 120) may be referred to.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Black bodies, reflecting <i>none</i> or but a few +rays.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> + +<p>You altered the succession to <i>theirs</i>, as well as to your own +crown.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> + +<p>They and we, and <i>their</i> and our ancestors, have been happy under +that system.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>3. <b>Formations violating analogy.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And then it is its panache, its careless <i>a-moral</i> Renaissance +romance.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>But she is perfectly natural, and while perfectly <i>amoral</i>, no +more immoral than a bird or a kitten.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>A-</i> (not) is Greek; <i>moral</i> is Latin. It is at least +desirable that in making new words the two languages should not be +mixed. The intricate needs of science may perhaps be allowed to +override a literary principle of this sort; and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span> accordingly the +<i>Oxford Dictionary</i> recognizes that <i>a-</i> is compounded with +Latin words in scientific and technical terms, as <i>a-sexual</i>; but +purely literary workers may be expected to abstain. The obvious excuse +for this formation is that the Latin negative prefix is already taken +up in <i>immoral</i>, which means contrary to morality, while a word is +wanted to mean unconcerned with morality. But with <i>non</i> freely +prefixed to adjectives in English (though not in Latin), there can be +no objection to <i>non-moral</i>. The second of our instances is a few +weeks later than the first, and the hyphen has disappeared; so quickly +has <i>The Times</i> convinced itself that <i>amoral</i> is a regular +English word.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There was no social or economic jealousy between them, no +<i>racial</i> aversion.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Concessions which, besides damaging Hungary by raising <i>racial</i> +and <i>language</i> questions of all kinds, would....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The action of foreign countries as to their <i>coastal</i> +trade.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Her riverine trade.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It has been already stated that <i>-al</i> is mainly confined to +unmistakable Latin stems. There is <i>whimsical</i>; and there may +be others that break the rule, though the <i>Oxford Dictionary</i> +(<i>-al suffix</i>, <i>-ical suffix</i>, <i>-ial suffix</i>) gives no +exceptions. The ugly words <i>racial</i> and <i>coastal</i> themselves +might well be avoided except in the rare cases where <i>race</i> and +<i>coast</i> used adjectivally will not do the work (they would in +the present instances); and they should not be made precedents for +new formations. If <i>language</i> is better than <i>linguistic</i>, +much more <i>race</i> than <i>racial</i>; similarly, <i>river</i> than +<i>riverine</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>What she was pleased to term their superior intelligence, and +more <i>real</i> and <i>reliable</i> probity.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë</span> +(<i>Villette</i>, 1853).</p> +</div> + +<p>It is absurd at this time of day to make a fuss about the word. It is +with us and will remain with us, whatever pedants and purists may say. +In such cases <i>obsta principiis</i> is the only hope; <i>reliable</i> +might once have been suppressed, perhaps; it cannot now. But it is +so fought over, even to-day, that a short discussion of it may be +looked for. The objection<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span> to it is obvious: you do not rely a thing; +therefore the thing cannot be reliable; it should be rely-on-able +(like <i>come-at-able</i>). Some of the analogies pleaded for it are +perhaps irrelevant—as <i>laughable</i>, <i>available</i>. For these +<i>may</i> be formed from the nouns <i>laugh</i>, <i>avail</i>, since +<i>-able</i> is not only gerundival (capable of being laughed at), but +also adjectival (connected with a laugh); this has certainly happened +with <i>seasonable</i>; but that will not help <i>reliable</i>, which +by analogy should be <i>relianceable</i>. It is more to the point to +remark that with <i>reliable</i> must go <i>dispensable</i> (with +<i>indispensable</i>) and <i>dependable</i>, both quite old words, and +<i>disposable</i> (in its commoner sense); no one, as far as we know, +objects to these and others like them; <i>reliable</i> is made into a +scapegoat. The word itself, moreover, besides its wide popularity, is +now of respectable antiquity, dating at least from Coleridge. It may be +added that it is probably to the campaign against it that we owe such +passive monstrosities as ‘ready to be availed of’ for <i>available</i>, +which is, as we said, possibly not open to the same objection as +<i>reliable</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I have heretofore designated the misuse of certain words as +<i>Briticisms</i>.—<span class="smcap">R. G. White.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Britannic, Britannicism; British, Britishism. Britic?</p> + +<p>4. <b>Needless, though correct formations.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The <i>sordor</i> and filths of nature, the sun shall dry +up.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>As <i>candeo candor</i>, <i>ardeo ardor</i>, so—we are to +understand—<i>sordeo sordor</i>. The Romans, however, never felt that +they needed the word; and it is a roundabout method first to present +them with a new word and then to borrow it from them; for it will be +observed that we have no living suffix <i>-or</i> in English, nor, if +we had, anything nearer than <i>sordid</i> to attach it to. Perhaps +Emerson thought <i>sordor</i> was a Latin word.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Merely nodding his head as an <i>enjoinder</i> to be +careful.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>As <i>rejoin rejoinder</i>, so <i>enjoin enjoinder</i>. The word is not +given in the <i>Oxford Dictionary</i>, from which it seems likely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> that +Dickens invented it, consciously or unconsciously. The only objection +to such a word is that its having had to wait so long, in spite of +its obviousness, before being made is a strong argument against the +necessity of it. We may regret that <i>injunction</i> holds the field, +having a much less English appearance; but it does; and in language the +old-established that can still do the work is not to be turned out for +the new-fangled that might do it a shade better, but must first get +itself known and accepted.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Oppositely</i>, the badness of a walk that is shuffling, and an +utterance that is indistinct is alleged.—<span class="smcap">Spencer.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This, on the other hand, is an archaism, now obsolete. Why it should +not have lived is a mystery; but it has not; and to write it is to give +one’s sentence the air of an old curiosity shop.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Again, as if to <i>intensate</i> the influences that are not of race, +what we think of when we talk of English traits really narrows itself +to a small district.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>A favourite with those allied experimenters in words, Emerson and +Carlyle. A word meaning <i>to make intense</i> is necessary; and there +are plenty of parallels for this particular form. But Coleridge had +already made <i>intensify</i>, introducing it with an elaborate apology +in which he confessed that it sounded uncouth. It is uncouth no longer; +if it had never existed, perhaps <i>intensate</i> would now have been +so no longer, uncouthness being, both etymologically and otherwise, +a matter of strangeness as against familiarity. It is better to form +words only where there is a clear demand for them.</p> + +<p>5. <b>Long and short rivals.</b> The following examples illustrate a +foolish tendency. From the adjective <i>perfect</i> we form the verb +<i>to perfect</i>, and from that again the noun <i>perfection</i>; +to take a further step forward to a verb <i>to perfection</i> +instead of returning to the verb <i>to perfect</i> is a superfluity +of naughtiness. From the noun <i>sense</i> we make the adjective +<i>sensible</i>; it is generally quite needless to go forward to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span> +<i>sensibleness</i> instead of back to our original noun <i>sense</i>. +To <i>quieten</i> is often used by hasty writers who have not time to +remember that <i>quiet</i> is a verb. With <i>ex tempore</i> ready to +serve either as adverb or as adjective, why make <i>extemporaneous</i> +or <i>extemporaneously</i>? As to <i>contumacity</i>, the writer was +probably unaware that <i>contumacy</i> existed. <i>Contumacity</i> +might be formed from <i>contumax</i>, like <i>audacity</i> from +<i>audax</i>. The Romans had only the short forms <i>audacia</i>, +<i>contumacia</i>, which should have given us <i>audacy</i> as well as +<i>contumacy</i>; but because our ancestors burdened themselves with an +extra syllable in one we need not therefore do so in the other.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The inner, religiously moral <i>perfectioning</i> of +individuals.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>She liked the quality of mind which may be broadly called +<i>sensibleness</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Broadly, or lengthily?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>M. Delcassé, speaking <i>extemporaneously</i> but with notes, +said....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>And now, Mdlle St. Pierre’s affected interference provoked +<i>contumacity</i>.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> + +<p>It is often a very easy thing to act <i>prudentially</i>, but alas! +too often only after we have toiled to our prudence through a forest +of delusions.—<span class="smcap">De Quincey.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Prudent</i> gives <i>prudence</i>, and <i>prudence</i> +<i>prudential</i>; the latter has its use: prudential considerations +are those in which prudence is allowed to outweigh other motives; +they may be prudent without being prudential, and vice versa. But +before using <i>prudentially</i> we should be quite sure that we mean +something different from <i>prudently</i>. So again <i>partially</i>, +which should be reserved as far as possible for the meaning <i>with +partiality</i>, is now commonly used for <i>partly</i>:<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The series of administrative reforms planned by the Convention had +been <i>partially</i> carried into effect before the meeting of +Parliament in 1654; but the work was pushed on.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span></p> + +<p>That the gravity of the situation is <i>partially</i> appreciated by +the bureaucracy may be inferred from....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Excepting</i>, instead of <i>except</i>, is to be condemned when +there is no need for it. We say <i>not excepting</i>, or <i>not even +excepting</i>, or <i>without excepting</i>; but where the exception is +allowed, not rejected, the short form is the right one, as a comparison +of the following examples will show:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Of all societies ... <i>not even excepting</i> the Roman Republic, +England has been the most emphatically ... political.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>The Minister was obliged to present the Budget before May each +year, <i>excepting</i> in the event of the Cortes having been +dissolved.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The sojourn of belligerent ships in French waters has never +been limited <i>excepting</i> by certain clearly defined +rules.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><i>Excepting</i> the English, French, and Austrian journalists +present, no one had been admitted.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Innumerable other needless lengthenings might be produced, from which +we choose only <i>preventative</i> for <i>preventive</i>, and <i>to +experimentalize</i> for <i>to experiment</i>.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, when usage has differentiated a long and a short +form either of which might originally have served, the distinction must +be kept. <i>Immovable</i> and <i>irremovable</i> judges are different +things; the shorter word has been wrongly chosen in:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>By suspending conscription and restoring the <i>immovability</i> of +the Judges.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>6. <b>Merely ugly formations.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Bureaucracy.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The termination <i>-cracy</i> is now so freely applied that it is +too late to complain of this except on the ground of ugliness. It +may be pointed out, however, that the very special ugliness of +<i>bureaucracy</i> is due to the way its mongrel origin is flaunted in +our faces by the telltale syllable <i>-eau-</i>; it is to be hoped that +formations similar in this respect may be avoided.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>An ordinary reader, if asked what was the main impression given by the +<i>Short History of the English People</i>, would answer that it was +the impression of picturesqueness and <i>vividity</i>.—<span class="smcap">Bryce.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In sound, there can be no question between <i>vividity</i> with its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span> +fourfold repetition of the same vowel sound, its two dentals to add to +the ugliness of its two <i>v</i>’s, and the comparatively inoffensive +<i>vividness</i>.</p> + +<p>We conclude with deprecating the addition of <i>-ly</i> to participles +in <i>-ed</i>. Some people are so alive to the evil sound of it +that they write <i>determinately</i> for <i>determinedly</i>; +that will not do either, because <i>determinate</i> does not mean +<i>determined</i> in the required sense. A periphrasis, or an adjective +or Latin participle with <i>-ly</i>, as <i>resolutely</i>, should +be used. <i>Implied</i> is as good a word as <i>implicit</i>, but +<i>impliedly</i> is by no means so good as <i>implicitly</i>. Several +instances are given, for cumulative effect. Miss Corelli makes a +mannerism of this.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Dr. John and his mother were in their finest mood, contending +<i>animatedly</i> with each other the whole way.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> + +<p>Where the gate opens, or the gateless path turns aside +<i>trustedly</i>.—<span class="smcap">Ruskin.</span></p> + +<p>‘That’s not a very kind speech,’ I said somewhat +<i>vexedly</i>.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>However, I <i>determinedly</i> smothered all +premonitions.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>I saw one or two passers-by looking at me so <i>surprisedly</i> that I +came to the conclusion....—<i>Corelli.</i></p> + +<p>I stared <i>bewilderedly</i> up at the stars.—<i>Corelli.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It should be added that to really established adverbs of this form, +as <i>advisedly</i>, <i>assuredly</i>, <i>hurriedly</i>, there is no +objection whatever; but new ones are ugly.</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Slang</span></h3> + +<p>The place of slang is in real life. There, an occasional indulgence in +it is an almost necessary concession to our gregarious humanity; he who +declines altogether to let his speech be influenced by his neighbours’ +tricks, and takes counsel only of pure reason, is setting up for more +than man. <i>Awfully nice</i> is an expression than which few could be +sillier; but to have succeeded in going through life without saying +it a certain number of times is as bad as to have no redeeming vice. +Further, the writer who deals in conversation may sometimes find it +necessary, by way of characterizing his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span> speakers, to put slang in +their mouths; if he is wise he will make the least possible use of this +resource; and to interlard the non-conversational parts of a book or +article with slang, quotation marks or no quotation marks, is as bad +as interlarding with French. Foreign words and slang are, as spurious +ornaments, on the same level. The italics, but not the quotation marks, +in these examples are ours:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>When the madness motif was being treated on the stage, Shakespeare +(as was the custom of his theatre) treated it ‘<i>for all it +was worth</i>’, careless of the boundaries between feigning and +reality.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>But even this situation ‘<i>peters out</i>’, the wife being sent +away with her fate undecided, and the husband, represented as a +‘forcible-feeble’ person by the dramatist and as a feeble person, tout +court, by the actor....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>M. Baron the younger is amusing as the ‘<i>bounder</i>’ +Olivier.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Asking ourselves this question about Mr. Thurston’s play, we find +that it has given us a ha’porth of pleasure to an intolerable deal of +boredom. With its primary postulate, ‘<i>steep</i>’ as it is, we will +not quarrel.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>They will find no subtlety in it, no literary art, no profundity of +feeling; but they will assuredly find breadth, colour, and strength. +It is a play that hits you, as the children say, ‘<i>bang in the +eye</i>’.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>They derive no advantage from schemes of land settlement from which +the man who has broken the land in <i>gets ‘the boot’</i>, the voter +gets the land, the Government gets the vote, and the London labour +market gets the risk.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The effect of using quotation marks with slang is merely to convert a +mental into a moral weakness. When they are not used, we may mercifully +assume that the writer does not know the difference between slang and +good English, and sins in ignorance: when they are, he is telling us, +I know it is naughty, but then it is nice. Most of us would rather be +taken for knaves than for fools; and so the quotation marks are usually +there.</p> + +<p>With this advice—never to use slang except in dialogue, and there +as little as may be—we might leave the subject, except that the +suggestion we have made about the unconscious use of slang seems to +require justifying. To justify it, we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span> must attempt some analysis, +however slight, of different sorts of slang.</p> + +<p>To the ordinary man, of average intelligence and middle-class +position, slang comes from every direction, from above, from below, +and from all sides, as well as from the centre. What comes from some +directions he will know for slang, what comes from others he may not. +He may be expected to recognize words from below. Some of these are +shortenings, by the lower classes, of words whose full form conveys +no clear meaning, and is therefore useless, to them. An antiquated +example is <i>mob</i>, for <i>mobile vulgus</i>. That was once slang, +and is now good English. A modern one is <i>bike</i>, which will +very likely be good English also in time. But though its brevity is +a strong recommendation, and its uncouthness probably no more than +subjective and transitory, it is as yet slang. Such words should not be +used in print till they have become so familiar that there is not the +slightest temptation to dress them up in quotation marks. Though they +are the most easily detected, they are also the best slang; when the +time comes, they take their place in the language as words that will +last, and not, like many of the more highly descended words, die away +uselessly after a brief popularity.</p> + +<p>Another set of words that may be said to come from below, since it +owes its existence to the vast number of people who are incapable of +appreciating fine shades of meaning, is exemplified by <i>nice</i>, +<i>awful</i>, <i>blooming</i>. Words of this class fortunately never +make their way, in their slang senses, into literature (except, of +course, dialogue). The abuse of <i>nice</i> has gone on at any rate for +over a century; the curious reader may find an interesting page upon +it in the fourteenth chapter of <i>Northanger Abbey</i> (1803). But +even now we do not talk in books of <i>a nice day</i>, only of <i>a +nice distinction</i>. On the other hand, the slang use makes us shy +in different degrees of writing the words in their legitimate sense: +<i>a nice distinction</i><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> we write almost without qualms; <i>an awful +storm</i> we think twice about; and as to <i>a blooming girl</i>, we +hardly venture it nowadays. The most recent sufferer of this sort is +perhaps <i>chronic</i>. It has been adopted by the masses, as far apart +at least as in Yorkshire and in London, for a mere intensive, in the +sense of <i>remarkable</i>. The next step is for it to be taken up in +parody by people who know better; after which it may be expected to +succeed <i>awful</i>.</p> + +<p>So much for the slang from below; the ordinary man can detect it. He +is not so infallible about what comes to him from above. We are by +no means sure that we shall be correct in our particular attribution +of the half-dozen words now to be mentioned; but it is safe to say +that they are all at present enjoying some vogue as slang, and +that they all come from regions that to most of us are overhead. +<i>Phenomenal</i>, soon, we hope, to perish unregretted, is (at least +indirectly, through the abuse of <i>phenomenon</i>) from Metaphysics; +<i>immanence</i>, a word often met in singular company, from +Comparative Theology; <i>epochmaking</i> perhaps from the Philosophic +Historian; <i>true inwardness</i> from Literary Criticism; <i>cad</i> +(which is, it appears, Etonian for <i>cadet</i>) from the Upper +Classes; <i>psychological moment</i> from Science; <i>thrasonical</i> +and <i>cryptic</i> from Academic Circles; <i>philistine</i> from the +region of culture. Among these the one that will be most generally +allowed to be slang—<i>cad</i>—is in fact the least so; it has by +this time, like <i>mob</i>, passed its probation and taken its place +as an orthodox word, so that all who do not find adequate expression +for their feelings in the orthodox have turned away to <i>bounder</i> +and other forms that still admit the emphasis of quotation marks. As +for the rest of them, they are being subjected to that use, at once +over-frequent and inaccurate, which produces one kind of slang. But the +average man, seeing from what exalted quarters they come, is dazzled +into admiration and hardly knows them for what they are.</p> + +<p>By the slang that comes from different sides or from the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> centre +we mean especially the many words taken originally from particular +professions, pursuits, or games, but extended beyond them. Among these +a man is naturally less critical of what comes from his own daily +concerns, that is, in his view, from the centre. <i>Frontispiece</i>, +for face, perhaps originated in the desire of prize-ring reporters +to vary the words in their descriptive flights. <i>Negotiate</i> +(a difficulty, &c.) possibly comes from the hunting-field; people +whose conversation runs much upon a limited subject feel the need +of new phrases for the too familiar things. And both these words, +as well as <i>individual</i>, which must be treated more at length +in the next section, are illustrations of a tendency that we have +called polysyllabic humour and discussed in the Chapter <i>Airs and +Graces</i>. We now add a short list of slang phrases or words that can +most of them be referred with more or less of certainty to particular +occupations. Whether they are recognized as slang will certainly +depend in part on whether the occupation is familiar, though sometimes +the familiarity will disguise, and sometimes it will bring out, the +slanginess.</p> + +<p><i>To hedge</i>, <i>the double event</i> (turf); <i>frontal +attack</i> (war); <i>play the game</i>, <i>stumped</i> (cricket); +<i>to run</i>—the show, &c.—(engine-driving); <i>knock out</i>, +<i>take it lying down</i> (prize-ring); <i>log-rolling</i>, +<i>slating</i>, <i>birrelling</i> (literature); <i>to tackle</i>—a +problem, &c.—(football); <i>to take a back seat</i> (coaching?); +<i>bedrock</i>, <i>to exploit</i>, <i>how it pans out</i> (mining); +<i>whole-hogging</i>, <i>world policy</i> (politics); <i>floored</i> +(1. prize ring; 2. school); <i>the under dog</i> (dog-fighting); <i>up +to date</i> (advertising); <i>record</i>—time, &c.—(athletics); +<i>euchred</i>, <i>going one better</i>, <i>going Nap.</i> (cards); +<i>to corner</i>—a thing—(commerce)—a person—(ratting); <i>chic</i> +(society journalism); <i>on your own</i>, <i>of sorts</i>, <i>climb +down</i>, <i>globetrotter</i>, <i>to laze</i> (perhaps not assignable).</p> + +<p>Good and sufficient occasions will arise—rarely—for using most of +these phrases and the rest of the slang vocabulary. To those, however, +who desire that what they write may endure it is suggested that, as +style is the great antiseptic, so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span> slang is the great corrupting +matter; it is perishable itself, and infects what is round it—the +catchwords that delight one generation stink in the nostrils of the +next; <i>individual</i>, which almost made the fortune of many a +Victorian humorist, is one of the modern editor’s shibboleths for +detecting the unfit. And even those who regard only the present will +do well to remember that in literature as elsewhere there are as many +conservatives as progressives, as many who expect their writers to +say things a little better than they could do themselves as who are +flattered by the proof that one man is no better than another.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>‘Skepsey did come back to London with rather a damaged +<i>frontispiece</i>’, Victor said.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>Henson, however, once <i>negotiated</i> a sprint down his wing, and +put in a fine dropping shot to Aubert, who saved.—<i>Guernsey Evening +Press.</i></p> + +<p>Passengers, the guild add, usually arrive at the last moment +before sailing, when the master must concentrate his mind upon +<i>negotiating</i> a safe passage.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>To deal with these extensive and purely local breeding grounds +in the manner suggested by Major Ross would be a very <i>tall +order</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>In about twenty minutes he returned, accompanied by a highly +intelligent-looking <i>individual</i>, dressed in blue and black, +with a particularly white cravat, and without a hat on his head; this +<i>individual</i>, whom I should have mistaken for a gentleman but +for the intelligence depicted in his face, he introduced to me as the +master of the inn.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>A Sèvres vase sold yesterday at Christie’s <i>realized</i> what is +believed to be the <i>record</i> price of 4,000 guineas.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>You could not, if you had tried, have made so perfect a place for two +girls to lounge in, to <i>laze</i> in, to read silly novels in, or to +go to sleep in on drowsy afternoons.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>Mr. Balfour’s somewhat <i>thrasonical</i> eulogies.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>A quarrelsome, somewhat <i>thrasonical</i> fighting +man.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>The <i>true inwardness</i> of this statement is....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>We do not know what <i>inwardness</i> there may be in the order of his +discourses, though each of them has some articulate link with that +which precedes.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Such a departure from etiquette at the <i>psychological moment</i> +shows tact and discretion.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>He asserts that about four years ago there was quite an Argentine +<i>boom</i> in New Zealand.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span></p> + +<p>No treatment of slang, however short, should omit the reminder that +slang and idiom are hard to distinguish, and yet, in literature, +slang is bad, and idiom good. We said that slang was perishable; the +fact is that most of it perishes; but some survives and is given the +idiomatic franchise; ‘when it doth prosper, none dare call it’ slang. +The idiomatic writer differs chiefly from the slangy in using what was +slang and is now idiom; of what is still slang he chooses only that +part which his insight assures him has the sort of merit that will +preserve it. In a small part of their vocabulary the idiomatic and the +slangy will coincide, and be therefore confused by the undiscerning. +The only advice that can be given to novices uncertain of their own +discrimination is to keep carefully off the debatable ground. Full +idiom and full slang are as far apart as virtue and vice; and yet</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">They oft so mix, the difference is too nice</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Where ends the virtue, or begins the vice.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Any one who can confidently assign each of the following phrases to its +own territory may feel that he is not in much danger:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Outrun the constable, the man in the street, kicking your heels, +between two stools, cutting a loss, riding for a fall, not seeing the +wood for the trees, minding your Ps and Qs, crossing the <i>t</i>s, +begging the question, special pleading, a bone to pick, half seas +over, tooth and nail, bluff, maffick, a tall order, it has come to +stay.</p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Particular Words</span></h3> + +<p>Individual, mutual, unique, aggravating.</p> + +<p>To use <i>individual</i> wrongly in the twentieth century stamps a +writer, more definitely than almost any other single solecism, not as +being generally ignorant or foolish, but as being without the literary +sense. For the word has been pilloried time after time; every one who +is interested in style at all—which includes every one who aspires to +be readable—must at least be aware that there is some mystery about +the word, even if he has not penetrated it. He has, therefore, two +courses<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span> open to him: he may leave the word alone; or he may find out +what it means; if he insists on using it without finding out, he will +commit himself. The adjectival use of it presents no difficulty; the +adjective, as well as the adverb <i>individually</i>, is always used +rightly if at all; it is the noun that goes wrong. An <i>individual</i> +is not simply a person; it is a single, separate, or private person, +a person as opposed to a combination of persons; this qualification, +this opposition, must be effectively present to the mind, or the word +is not in place. In the nineteenth, especially the early nineteenth +century, this distinction was neglected; mainly under the impulse of +‘polysyllabic humour’, the word, which does mean <i>person</i> in some +sort of way, was seized upon as a facetious substitute for it; not only +that; it spread even to good writers who had no facetious intention; it +became the kind of slang described in the last section, which is highly +popular until it suddenly turns disgusting. In reading many of these +writers we feel that we must make allowances for them on this point; +they only failed to be right when every one else was wrong. But we, if +we do it, sin against the light.</p> + +<p>To leave no possible doubt about the distinction, we shall give many +examples, divided into (1) right uses, (2) wrong uses, (3) sentences in +which, though the author has used the word rightly, a perverse reader +might take it wrongly. It will be observed that in (1) to substitute +<i>man</i> or <i>person</i> would distinctly weaken the sense; in +the sentence from Macaulay it would be practically impossible. The +words italicized are those that prove the contrast with bodies, or +organizations, to have been present to the writer’s mind, though it +may often happen that he does not actually show it by specific mention +of them. On the other hand, in (2) <i>person</i> or <i>man</i> or +<i>he</i> might always be substituted without harm to the sense, +though sometimes a more exact word (not <i>individual</i>) might be +preferable. In (3) little difference would be made by the substitution.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>(1) Many of the <i>constituent bodies</i> were under the absolute +control of individuals.—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> + +<p>Regarding the general effect of Lord Kitchener’s proclamation, +everything so far as is known here points to the conclusion that the +document has failed to secure the surrender of any <i>body of men</i>. +Merely a few individuals have yielded.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The wise Commons, considering that they are, if not a French <i>Third +Estate</i>, at least an aggregate of individuals pretending to some +title of that kind, determine....—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> + +<p>(2) That greenish-coloured individual is an advocate of Arras; his +name is Maximilien Robespierre.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span> (person)</p> + +<p>Surely my fate is somehow strangely interwoven with that of this +mysterious individual.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span> (person)</p> + +<p>And, as its weight is 15 lb., nobody save an individual in no +condition to distinguish a hawk from a handsaw could possibly mistake +it for a saluting charge.—<i>Times.</i> (person)</p> + +<p>The Secretary of State for War was sending the same man down to +see what he could do in the Isle of Wight. The individual duly +arrived.—<i>Times.</i> (he)</p> + +<p>My own shabby clothes and deplorable aspect, as compared with this +regal-looking individual.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span> (person)</p> + +<p>In the present case, however, the individual who had secured the cab +had a companion.—<span class="smcap">Beaconsfield.</span> (man)</p> + +<p>I give my idea of the method in which Mr. Spencer and a Metaphysician +would discuss the necessity and validity of the Universal Postulate. +We must suppose this imaginary individual to have so far forgotten +himself as to make some positive statement—<span class="smcap">A. J. Balfour.</span> +(person)</p> + +<p>But what made her marry that individual, who was at least as much like +an oil-barrel as a man?—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span> (monstrosity)</p> + +<p>He was a genteelly dressed individual; rather corpulent, with dark +features.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span> (man)</p> + +<p>During his absence two calls were made at the parsonage—one by a very +rough-looking individual who left a suspicious document in the hands +of the servant.—<span class="smcap">Trollope.</span> (man)</p> + +<p>(3) Almost all the recent Anarchist crimes were perpetrated by +<i>isolated</i> halfwitted individuals who aimed at universal +notoriety.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Which of these two individuals, in plain white cravat, that have +come up to regenerate France, might one guess would become their +king? For a king or leader they, as all <i>bodies of men</i>, must +have.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Some apology is due for so heaping up instances of the same thing; but +here, as with other common blunders to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span> treated of later, it has +seemed that an effect might be produced by mere iteration.</p> + +<p>The word <i>mutual</i> requires caution. As with <i>individual</i>, +any one who is not prepared to clear his ideas upon its meaning will +do well to avoid it; it is a very telltale word, readily convicting +the unwary, and on the other hand it may quite easily be done without. +Every one knows by now that <i>our mutual friend</i> is a solecism. +<i>Mutual</i> implies an action or relation between two or more persons +or things, A doing or standing to B as B does or stands to A. Let A +and B be the persons indicated by <i>our</i>, C the <i>friend</i>. No +such reciprocal relation is here implied between A and B (who for all +we know may be enemies), but only a separate, though similar relation +between each of them and C. There is no such thing as a mutual friend +in the singular; but the phrase <i>mutual friends</i> may without +nonsense be used to describe either A and C, B and C, or, if A and B +happen to be also friends, A and B and C. <i>Our mutual friend</i> is +nonsense; <i>mutual friends</i>, though not nonsense, is bad English, +because it is tautological. It takes two to make a friendship, as +to make a quarrel; and therefore all friends are mutual friends, +and <i>friends</i> alone means as much as <i>mutual friends</i>. +<i>Mutual wellwishers</i> on the other hand is good English as well +as good sense, because it is possible for me to be a man’s wellwisher +though he hates me. Mutual love, understanding, insurance, benefits, +dislike, mutual benefactors, backbiters, abettors, may all be correct, +though they are also sometimes used incorrectly, like <i>our mutual +friend</i>, where the right word would be <i>common</i>.</p> + +<p>Further, it is to be carefully observed that the word <i>mutual</i> +is an equivalent in meaning, and sometimes a convenient one for +grammatical reasons, of the pronoun <i>each other</i> with various +prepositions. To use it as well as <i>each other</i> is even +more clearly tautological than the already mentioned <i>mutual +friendship</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>If this be the case, much of the lost mutual understanding and unity +of feeling may be restored.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Correct, if <i>mutual</i> is confined to <i>understanding</i>: they no +longer understand <i>each other</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Once their differences removed, both felt that in presence of certain +incalculable factors in Europe it would be of mutual advantage to draw +closer together.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Slightly clumsy; but it means that they would get advantage <i>from +each other</i> by drawing together, and may stand.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>... conversing with his Andalusian lady-love in rosy whispers +about their mutual passion for Spanish chocolate all the +while.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>Surely you have heard Mrs. Toddles talking to Mrs. Doddles about their +mutual maids.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Indefensible.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There may be, moreover, while each has the key of the fellow breast, a +mutually sensitive nerve.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>A nerve cannot respond to each other; nerves can; <i>a common nerve</i> +would have done; or <i>mutually sensitive nerves</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is now definitely announced that King Edward will meet President +Loubet this afternoon near Paris. Our Paris Correspondent says the +meeting will take place by mutual desire.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Right or wrong according to what is meant by <i>desire</i>. (1) If it +means that King Edward and M. Loubet desired, that is, had a yearning +for, each other, it is correct; but the writer probably did not intend +so poetic a flight. (2) If it means that they merely desired a meeting, +it is wrong, exactly as <i>our mutual friend</i> is wrong. The relation +is not one between A and B; it is only that A and B hold separately the +same relation to C, the meeting. It should be <i>common desire</i>. +(3) If <i>desire</i> is here equivalent to <i>request</i>, and each +is represented as having requested the other to meet him, it is again +correct; but only politeness to the writer would induce any one to take +this alternative.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The carpenter holds the hammer in one hand, the nail in the other, and +they do their work equally well. So it is with every craftsman; the +hands are mutually busy.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span></p> + +<p>Wrong. The hands are not <i>busy</i> with or <i>upon each other</i>, +but with or upon the work. As <i>commonly</i> would be ambiguous here, +<i>equally</i> or <i>alike</i> should be used, or simply <i>both</i>. +<i>Mutually serviceable</i>, again, would have been right.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There were other means of communication between Claribel +and her new prophet. Books were mutually lent to each +other.—<span class="smcap">Beaconsfield.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This surprising sentence means that Vanity Fair was lent to Paradise +Lost, and Paradise Lost to Vanity Fair. If we further assume for +politeness’ sake that <i>mutually</i> is not mere tautology with <i>to +each other</i>, the only thing left for it to mean is <i>by each +other</i>. The doubt then remains whether (1) Paradise Lost was lent +to Vanity Fair by Paradise Lost, and Vanity Fair to Paradise Lost by +Vanity Fair, or (2) Paradise Lost was lent to Vanity Fair by Vanity +Fair, and Vanity Fair to Paradise Lost by Paradise Lost. This may be +considered captious; but we still wish the author had said either, They +lent each other books, or, Books were lent by them to each other.</p> + +<p>A thing is <i>unique</i>, or not unique; there are no degrees of +uniqueness; nothing is ever somewhat or rather unique, though many +things are almost or in some respects unique. The word is a member of +a depreciating series. <i>Singular</i> had once the strong meaning +that <i>unique</i> has still in accurate but not in other writers. In +consequence of slovenly use, <i>singular</i> no longer means singular, +but merely remarkable; it is worn out; before long <i>rather unique</i> +will be familiar; <i>unique</i>, that is, will be worn out in turn, +and we shall have to resort to <i>unexampled</i> and keep that clear +of qualifications as long as we can. Happily it is still admitted that +sentences like the three given below are solecisms; they contain a +self-contradiction. For the other regrettable use of <i>unique</i>, +as when the advertisement columns offer us what they call <i>unique +opportunities</i>, it may generally be assumed with safety that they +are lying; but lying is not in itself a literary offence, so that with +these we have nothing to do.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Thrills which gave him <i>rather</i> a <i>unique</i> +pleasure.—<span class="smcap">Hutton.</span></p> + +<p>A <i>very unique</i> child, thought I.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> + +<p>... is to be translated into Russian by M. Robert Böker, of St. +Petersburg. This is a <i>somewhat unique</i> thing to happen to an +English text-book.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>To <i>aggravate</i> is not to annoy or enrage (a person), but to make +worse (a condition or trouble). The active participle should very +rarely, and the rest of the active practically never, be used without +an expressed object, and that of the right kind. In the sentence, <i>An +aggravating circumstance was that the snow was dirty</i>, the meaning +is not that the dirt was annoying, but that it added to some other +misery previously expressed or implied. But, as the dirt happens to +be annoying also, this use is easily misunderstood, and is probably +the origin of the notorious vulgarism; since it almost inevitably +lays a writer open to suspicion, it is best avoided. Of the following +quotations, the first is quite correct, the other five as clearly +wrong; in the fifth, <i>aggrieved</i> would be the right word.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A premature initiative would be useless and even dangerous, +being calculated rather to aggravate than to simplify the +situation.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Perhaps the most trying and aggravating period of the whole six months +during which the siege has lasted was this period of enforced idleness +waiting for the day of entry.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>There is a cold formality about the average Englishman; a lack of +effusive disposition to ingratiate himself, and an almost aggravating +indifference to alien customs or conventions.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Mrs. Craigie may possibly be regarding him with an irony too fine for +us to detect; but to the ordinary mind he appears to be conceived in +the spirit of romance, and a very stupid, tiresome, aggravating man he +is.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>‘Well, I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you, Misses Brown,’ said the +unfortunate youth, greatly aggravated.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>Nevertheless, it is an aggravating book, though we are bound to admit +that we have been greatly interested.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> +</div> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> The Romance languages are those whose grammatical +structure, as well as part at least of their vocabulary, is directly +descended from Latin—as Italian, French, Spanish. Under Romance words +we include all that English has borrowed from Latin either directly or +through the Romance languages. And words borrowed from Greek in general +use, ranging from <i>alms</i> to <i>metempsychosis</i>, may for the +purposes of this chapter be considered as Romance. The vast number of +purely scientific Greek words, as <i>oxygen</i>, <i>meningitis</i>, are +on a different footing, since they are usually the only words for what +they denote.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> As in the second quotation from <i>The Times</i> on <a href="#Page_4">p. 4</a>.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> Even in the legitimate sense (see <a href="#Page_16">p. 16</a>), originally a +happy metaphor for mysterious leaking out, but now vulgarized and +‘dead’.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> Not that this word calls for censure in itself; but when +packed into a sentence with <i>snow-white</i>, <i>green</i>, and +<i>shrimp-pink</i>, it contributes noticeably to that effect of brief +and startling exhaustiveness which is one variety of what we have +stigmatized as efficiency.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> It has. ‘It would be difficult to say just how many +weddings of famous people have been celebrated at St. George’s Church, +Hanover Square.’—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> Readers of history are of course likely to be familiar +with it; it occurs, for instance, scores of times in Carlyle’s +<i>Friedrich</i>. In such work it is legitimate, being sure, between +context and repetition, to be comprehensible; but this does not apply +to newspaper writing.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> The <i>Oxford Dictionary</i> has fourteen varieties.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> <i>Alit</i> is due, no doubt, to mere inadvertence or +ignorance: the form <i>litten</i> (‘red-litten windows’, &c.), for +which the <i>Oxford Dictionary</i> quotes Poe, Lytton, W. Morris, and +Crockett, but no old writer, is sham archaism.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> The use deprecated has perhaps crept in from such phrases +as <i>the sun was partially eclipsed</i>, an adaptation of <i>a partial +eclipse</i>; and to such phrases it should be restricted. ‘The case +was partially heard on Oct. 17’ is ambiguous; and the second example +in the text is almost so, nearly enough to show that the limitation is +desirable. The rule should be never to write <i>partially</i> without +first considering the claims of <i>partly</i>.</p> + +</div> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br><span class="small">SYNTAX</span></h2></div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Case</span></h3> + +<p>There is not much opportunity in English for going wrong here, +because we have shed most of our cases. The personal pronouns, and +<i>who</i> and its compounds, are the only words that visibly retain +three—called subjective, objective, possessive. In nouns the first two +are indistinguishable, and are called the common case. One result of +this simplicity is that, the sense of case being almost lost, the few +mistakes that can be made are made often—some of them so often that +they are now almost right by prescription.</p> + +<p>1. In apposition.</p> + +<p>A pronoun appended to a noun, and in the same relation to the rest of +the sentence, should be in the same case. Disregard of this is a bad +blunder.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But to behold her mother—<i>she</i> to whom she owed her +being!—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>2. The complement with <i>am</i>, <i>are</i>, <i>is</i>, &c., should be +subjective.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I am she, she <i>me</i>, till death and beyond it.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p><i>Whom</i> would you rather be?</p> + +<p>To how many maimed and mourning millions is the first and sole angel +visitant, <i>him</i> Easterns call Azrael.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> + +<p>That’s <i>him</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p>In the last but one, <i>him</i> would no doubt have been defended +by the writer, since the full form would be <i>he whom</i>, as an +attraction to the vanished <i>whom</i>. But such attraction is not +right; if <i>he</i> alone is felt to be uncomfortable, <i>whom</i> +should not be omitted; or, in this exalted context, it might be <i>he +that</i>.</p> + +<p>On <i>that’s him</i>, see 4, below.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span></p> + +<p>3. When a verb or preposition governs two pronouns united by +<i>and</i>, &c., the second is apt to go wrong—a bad blunder. +<i>Between you and I</i> is often heard in talk; and, in literature:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And now, my dear, let you and <i>I</i> say a few words about this +unfortunate affair.—<span class="smcap">Trollope.</span></p> + +<p>It is kept locked up in a marble casket, quite out of reach of you or +<i>I</i>.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span></p> + +<p>She found everyone’s attention directed to Mary, and <i>she</i> +herself entirely overlooked.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>4. The interrogative <i>who</i> is often used for <i>whom</i>, as, +<i>Who</i> did you see? A distinction should here be made between +conversation, written or spoken, and formal writing. Many educated +people feel that in saying <i>It is I, Whom do you mean?</i> instead of +<i>It’s me, Who do you mean?</i> they will be talking like a book, and +they justifiably prefer geniality to grammar. But in print, unless it +is dialogue, the correct forms are advisable.</p> + +<p>5. Even with words that have no visible distinction between subjective +and objective case, it is possible to go wrong; for the case can always +be inferred, though not seen. Consequently a word should never be so +placed that it must be taken twice, once as subject and once as object. +This is so common a blunder that it will be well to give a good number +of examples. It occurs especially with the relative, from its early +position in the sentence; but, as the first two examples show, it may +result from the exceptional placing of other words also. The mere +repetition of the relative, or insertion of <i>it</i> or other pronoun, +generally mends the sentence; in the first example, change <i>should +only be</i> to <i>only to be</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>The occupation of the mouths of the Yalu</i>, however, his Majesty +considered undesirable, and should only be carried out in the last +resort.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><i>This</i> the strong sense of Lady Maclaughlan had long perceived, +and was the principal reason of her selecting so weak a woman as her +companion.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span></span></p> + +<p>Qualities <i>which</i> it would cost me a great deal to acquire, and +would lead to nothing.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>A recorded saying of our Lord <i>which</i> some higher critics of the +New Testament regard as of doubtful authenticity, and is certainly of +doubtful interpretation.</p> + +<p>A weakness <i>which</i> some would miscall gratitude, and is +oftentimes the corrupter of a heart not ignoble.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Analogous to these are the next three examples, which will require +separate comment:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Knowledge <i>to</i> the certainty of which no authority could add, or +take away, one jot or tittle.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>To</i> is applicable to <i>add</i>, not to <i>take away</i>. +The full form is given by substituting for <i>or</i> ‘and from the +certainty of which no authority could’. This is clearly too cumbrous. +Inserting <i>or from</i> after <i>to</i> is the simplest correction; +but the result is rather formal. Better, perhaps, ‘the certainty of +which could not be increased or diminished one jot by any authority’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>From his conversation I should have pronounced him to be fitted to +excel <i>in</i> whatever walk of ambition he had chosen to exert his +abilities.</p> +</div> + +<p>A second <i>in</i> is required. This common slovenliness results from +the modern superstition against putting a preposition at the end. The +particular sentence may, however, be mended otherwise than by inserting +<i>in</i>, if <i>excel</i> is made absolute by a comma placed after +it. Even then, the <i>in</i> would perhaps be better at the end of the +clause than at the beginning.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Lastly may be mentioned a principle <i>upon which</i> Clausewitz +insisted with all his strength, and could never sufficiently impress +upon his Royal scholar.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The italicized <i>upon</i> (we have nothing to do with the other +<i>upon</i>) is right with <i>insist</i>, but wrong, though it must +necessarily be supplied again, with <i>impress</i>. It is the result +of the same superstition. Mend either by writing <i>upon</i> after +<i>insisted</i> instead of before <i>which</i>, or by inserting +<i>which he</i> after <i>and</i>.</p> + +<p>6. After <i>as</i> and <i>than</i>.</p> + +<p>These are properly conjunctions and ‘take the same case<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span> after them +as before’. But those words must be rightly understood. (a), <i>I +love you more than him</i>, means something different from (b), <i>I +love you more than he</i>. It must be borne in mind that the ‘case +before’ is that of the word that is compared with the ‘case after’, +and not necessarily that of the word actually next before in position. +In (a) <i>you</i> is compared with <i>him</i>: in (b) <i>I</i> (not +<i>you</i>) is compared with <i>he</i>. The correct usage is therefore +important, and the tendency illustrated in the following examples to +make <i>than</i> and <i>as</i> prepositions should be resisted—though +no ambiguity can actually result here.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>When such as <i>her</i> die.—<span class="smcap">Swift.</span></p> + +<p>But there, I think, Lindore would be more eloquent than +<i>me</i>.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>It must further be noticed that both <i>as</i> and <i>than</i> are +conjunctions of the sort that can either, like <i>and</i>, &c., merely +join coordinates, or, like <i>when</i>, &c., attach a subordinate +clause to what it depends on. This double power sometimes affects case.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is to him and such men as <i>he</i> that we owe the +change.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This example is defensible, <i>as</i> being here a subordinating +conjunction, and <i>as he</i> being equivalent to <i>as he is</i>. But +it is distinctly felt to need defence, which <i>as him</i> would not; +<i>as</i> would be a coordinating conjunction, and simply join the +pronoun <i>him</i> to the noun <i>men</i>. So, with <i>than</i>:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Such as have bound me, as well as others much better than +<i>me</i>, by an inviolable attachment to him from that time +forward.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>On the other hand, we could not say indifferently, <i>I am as good as +he</i>, and <i>I am as good as him</i>; the latter would imply that +<i>as</i> was a preposition, which it is not. And it is not always +possible to choose between the coordinating and the subordinating +use. In the next example only the coordinating will do, no verb being +capable of standing after <i>he</i>; but the author has not observed +this.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I beheld a man in the dress of a postillion, whom I +instantly recognized as <i>he</i> to whom I had rendered +assistance.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span></p> + +<p>A difficult question, however, arises with relatives after <i>than</i>. +In the next two examples <i>whom</i> is as manifestly wrong as +<i>who</i> is manifestly intolerable:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Dr. Dillon, than <i>whom</i> no Englishman has a profounder +acquaintance with....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It was a pleasure to hear Canon Liddon, than <i>whom</i>, in his day, +there was no finer preacher.</p> +</div> + +<p>The only correct solution is to recast the sentences. For instance, +<i>... whose acquaintance with ... is unrivalled among Englishmen</i>; +and <i>... unsurpassed in his day as a preacher</i>. But perhaps the +convenience of <i>than whom</i> is so great that to rule it out amounts +to saying that man is made for grammar and not grammar for man.</p> + +<p>7. Compound possessives.</p> + +<p>This is strictly the proper place for drawing attention to a question +that has some importance because it bears on the very common +construction discussed at some length in the gerund section. This is +the question whether, and to what extent, compound possessives may be +recognized. Some people say <i>some one else’s</i>, others say <i>some +one’s else</i>. Our own opinion is that the latter is uncalled for and +pedantic. Of the three alternatives, <i>Smith the baker’s wife</i>, +<i>Smith’s wife the baker</i>, <i>the wife of Smith the baker</i>, the +last is unmitigated Ollendorff, the second thrusts its ambiguity upon +us and provokes an involuntary smile, and the first alone is felt to be +natural. It must be confessed, however, that it is generally avoided +in print, while the form that we have ventured to call pedantic is +not uncommon. In the first of the examples that follow, we should be +inclined to change to <i>Nanny the maid-of-all-work’s</i>, and in the +second to <i>the day of Frea, goddess of</i>, &c.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Another mind that was being wrought up to a climax was Nanny’s, the +maid-of-all-work, who had a warm heart.—<span class="smcap">Eliot.</span></p> + +<p>Friday is Frea’s-day, the goddess of peace and joy and +fruitfulness.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span></p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Number</span></h3> + +<p>Very little comment will be needed; we have only to convince readers +that mistakes are common, and caution therefore necessary.</p> + +<p>1. The copula should always agree with the subject, not with the +complement. These are wrong:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The <i>pages</i> which describe how the 34th Osaka Regiment wiped out +the tradition that had survived since the Saigo rebellion <i>is</i> a +typical <i>piece</i> of description.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>A <i>boy</i> dressed up as a girl <i>and a girl</i> dressed +up as a girl <i>is</i>, to the eye at least, the same +<i>thing</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>People do not believe now as they did, but the moral +<i>inconsistencies</i> of our contemporaries <i>is</i> no <i>proof</i> +thereof.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It must be remembered that in questions the subject often comes after +the verb and the complement before it; but the same rule must be kept. +E. g., if the last example were put as a question instead of as a +negative statement, ‘What proof <i>is</i> the inconsistencies?’ would +be wrong, and ‘What proof <i>are</i> &c.?’ right.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Some sentences in which the subject contains <i>only</i>, a +superlative, &c., have the peculiarity that subject and complement may +almost be considered to have changed places; and this defence would +probably be put in for the next three examples; but, whether actually +wrong or not, they are unpleasant. The noun that stands before the verb +should be regarded as the subject, and the verb be adapted to it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The only <i>thing</i> Siamese about the Consul, except the hatchment +and the flag, <i>were</i> his <i>servants</i>.—<span class="smcap">Sladen.</span></p> + +<p>The only <i>difficulty</i> in Finnish <i>are</i> the <i>changes</i> +undergone by the stem.—<span class="smcap">Sweet.</span></p> + +<p>The most pompous <i>monument</i> of Egyptian greatness, and +<i>one</i> of the most bulky works of manual industry, <i>are</i> the +pyramids.—<span class="smcap">Johnson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The next example is a curious problem; the subject to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span> <i>were</i> is +in sense plural, but in grammar singular (<i>finding</i>, verbal noun):</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Finding</i> Miss Vernon in a place so solitary, engaged in a +journey so dangerous, and under the protection of one gentleman +only, <i>were circumstances</i> to excite every feeling of +jealousy.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>2. Mistakes in the number of verbs are extremely common when a singular +noun intervenes between a plural subject (or a plural noun between +a singular subject) and its verb. It is worth while to illustrate +the point abundantly; for it appears that real doubt can exist on +the subject:—‘“No one but schoolmasters and schoolboys knows” is +exceedingly poor English, <i>if it is not absolutely bad grammar</i>’ +(from a review of this book, 1st ed.).</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And do we wonder, when the <i>foundation</i> of <i>politics</i> +<i>are</i> in the letter only, that many evils should +arise?—<span class="smcap">Jowett.</span></p> + +<p>There is <i>much</i> in these ceremonial <i>accretions and +teachings</i> of the Church which <i>tend</i> to confuse and distract, +and which hinder us....—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>This sentence, strictly taken as it stands, would mean something that +the writer by no means intends it to, viz., ‘Though the ceremonies are +confusing, there is a great deal in them’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>An immense <i>amount</i> of <i>confusion and indifference</i> +<i>prevail</i> in these days.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>They produced various <i>medicaments</i>, the lethal <i>power</i> of +<i>which</i> <i>were</i> extolled at large.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The <i>partition</i> which the two ministers made of the <i>powers</i> +of government <i>were</i> singularly happy.—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> + +<p><i>One</i> at least of the <i>qualities</i> which fit it for +training ordinary men <i>unfit</i> it for training an extraordinary +man.—<span class="smcap">Bagehot.</span></p> + +<p>I failed to pass in the small <i>amount</i> of <i>classics</i> which +<i>are</i> still held to be necessary.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The Tibetans have engaged to exclude from their country those +dangerous <i>influences</i> <i>whose appearance</i> <i>were</i> the +chief cause of our action.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Sundry other reputable <i>persons</i>, I know not whom, +<i>whose</i> joint <i>virtue</i> still <i>keep</i> the law in good +odour.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>The practical <i>results</i> of the recognition of this <i>truth</i> +<i>is</i> as follows.—<span class="smcap">W. H. Mallock.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span></span></p> + +<p>The Ordination <i>services</i> of the English <i>Church</i> +<i>states</i> this to be a truth.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>All special <i>rights</i> of <i>voting</i> in the election of members +<i>was</i> abolished.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> + +<p>The separate <i>powers</i> of this great <i>officer</i> of State, who +had originally acted only as President of the Council when discharging +its judicial functions, <i>seems</i> to have been thoroughly +established under Edward I.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>3. <i>They</i>, <i>them</i>, <i>their</i>, <i>theirs</i>, are often +used in referring back to singular pronominals (as <i>each</i>, +<i>one</i>, <i>anybody</i>, <i>everybody</i>), or to singular nouns +or phrases (as <i>a parent</i>, <i>neither Jack nor Jill</i>), +of which the doubtful or double gender causes awkwardness. It is +a real deficiency in English that we have no pronoun, like the +French <i>soi</i>, <i>son</i>, to stand for <i>him-or-her</i>, +<i>his-or-her</i> (for <i>he-or-she</i> French is no better off than +English). Our view, though we admit it to be disputable, is clear—that +<i>they</i>, <i>their</i>, &c., should never be resorted to, as in the +examples presently to be given they are. With a view to avoiding them, +it should be observed that (<i>a</i>) the possessive of <i>one</i> +(indefinite pronoun) is <i>one’s</i>, and that of <i>one</i> (numeral +pronoun) is either <i>his</i>, or <i>her</i>, or <i>its</i> (One does +not forget <i>one’s</i> own name: I saw one of them drop <i>his</i> +cigar, <i>her</i> muff, or <i>its</i> leaves); (<i>b</i>) <i>he</i>, +<i>his</i>, <i>him</i>, may generally be allowed to stand for the +common gender; the particular aversion shown to them by Miss Ferrier +in the examples may be referred to her sex; and, ungallant as it may +seem, we shall probably persist in refusing women their due here +as stubbornly as Englishmen continue to offend the Scots by saying +<i>England</i> instead of <i>Britain</i>. (<i>c</i>) Sentences may +however easily be constructed (Neither John nor Mary knew <i>his</i> +own mind) in which <i>his</i> is undeniably awkward. The solution is +then what we so often recommend, to do a little exercise in paraphrase +(<i>John and Mary were alike irresolute</i>, for instance). (<i>d</i>) +Where legal precision is really necessary, <i>he or she</i> may be +written in full. Corrections according to these rules will be appended +in brackets to the examples.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Anybody</i> else who <i>have</i> only <i>themselves</i> in +view.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span> (has ... himself)</p> + +<p>Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte, in novel-writing as in carrying +<i>one’s</i> head in <i>their</i> hand.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span> (one’s +... one’s)</p> + +<p>The feelings of the <i>parent</i> upon committing the cherished +object of <i>their</i> cares and affections to the stormy sea of +life.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span> (his)</p> + +<p>But he never allowed <i>one</i> to feel <i>their</i> own deficiencies, +for he never appeared to be aware of them himself.—<span class="smcap">S. +Ferrier.</span> (one’s)</p> + +<p>A difference of opinion which leaves <i>each</i> free to act according +to <i>their</i> own feelings.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span> (his)</p> + +<p>Suppose <i>each</i> of us <i>try our hands</i> at it.—<span class="smcap">S. +Ferrier.</span> (tries his hand; <i>or, if all of us are women</i>, +tries her hand)</p> + +<p><i>Everybody</i> is discontented with <i>their</i> lot in +life.—<span class="smcap">Beaconsfield.</span> (his)</p> +</div> + +<p>4. Other mistakes involving number made with such pronominals, or with +nouns collective, personified, or abstract.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>No man can read Scott without being more of a public man, whereas +the ordinary novel tends to make its <i>readers</i> rather less of +<i>one</i> than before.—<span class="smcap">Hutton.</span></p> + +<p>And so <i>each</i> of his portraits <i>are</i> not only a ‘piece of +history’, but....—<span class="smcap">Stevenson.</span></p> + +<p>Le Roman d’un Spahi, Azidayé and Rarahu <i>each</i> contains the +history of a love affair.—<span class="smcap">H. James.</span></p> + +<p>He manages to interest us in the men, who <i>each</i> in turn wishes +to engineer Richard Baldock’s future.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>When <i>each</i> is appended in apposition to a plural subject, it +should stand after the verb, or auxiliary, which should be plural; read +here, <i>contain each</i>, <i>wish each in turn</i> (or, <i>each of +whom wishes in turn</i>).</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>As the leading maritime <i>nation</i> in the world and dependent +wholly on the supremacy of our fleet to maintain this position, +<i>everyone</i> is virtually bound to accord some measure of aid to +an association whose time and talents are devoted to ensuring this +important object.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Every one is indeed a host in himself, if he is the leading maritime +nation.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is not in <i>Japan’s</i> interests to allow negotiations to +drag on once <i>their</i> armies are ready to deliver the final +blow.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The personification of Japan must be kept up by <i>her</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Many</i> of my notes, I am greatly afraid, will be thought <i>a +superfluity</i>.—<span class="smcap">E. V. Lucas</span> (quoted in <i>Times</i> review).</p> +</div> + +<p>My notes may be a superfluity; many of my notes may be superfluous, or +superfluities; or many a note of mine may be a superfluity; but it will +hardly pass as it is.</p> + +<p>5. Though nouns of multitude may be freely used with either a singular +or a plural verb, or be referred to by pronouns of singular or plural +meaning, they should not have both (except for special reasons and upon +deliberation) in the same sentence; and words that will rank in one +context as nouns of multitude may be very awkward if so used in another.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>The public</i> <i>is</i> naturally much impressed by this +evidence, and in considering it <i>do</i> not make the necessary +allowances.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The <i>Times</i> Brussels correspondent ... tells us that +the <i>committee</i> <i>adds</i> these words to <i>their</i> +report.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>The Grand Opera Syndicate <i>has</i> also made an important addition +to <i>their</i> German tenors.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>The only political <i>party</i> <i>who</i> could take office +was <i>that</i> which ... had consistently opposed the American +war.—<span class="smcap">Bagehot.</span></p> + +<p>As <i>the race</i> of man, after centuries of civilization, +still <i>keeps</i> some traits of <i>their</i> barbarian +fathers.—<span class="smcap">Stevenson.</span></p> + +<p>The battleship Kniaz Potemkin, of which the <i>crew</i> <i>is</i> said +to have mutinied and murdered <i>their</i> officers.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>6. <i>Neither</i>, <i>either</i>, as pronouns, should always take a +singular verb—a much neglected rule. So also <i>every</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The conception is faulty for two reasons, neither of which <i>are</i> +noticed by Plato.—<span class="smcap">Jowett.</span></p> + +<p>... neither of which <i>are</i> very amiable motives for religious +gratitude.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> + +<p>He asked the gardener whether either of the ladies <i>were</i> at +home.—<span class="smcap">Trollope.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Were</i>, however, may be meant for the subjunctive, when it would +be a fault of style, not of grammar.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I think almost <i>every one</i> of the Judges of the High Court +<i>are</i> represented here.—<span class="smcap">Lord Halsbury.</span></p> + +<p><i>Every</i> Warwick institution, from the corporation to the +schools and the almshouses, <i>have</i> joined hands in patriotic +fellow-working.—<i>Speaker.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span></p> + +<p>7. For rhetorical reasons, a verb often precedes its subject; but +enthusiasm, even if appropriate, should not be allowed to override the +concords.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And of this emotion <i>was</i> born all the <i>gods</i> of +antiquity.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>But unfortunately there <i>seems</i> to be spread abroad certain +<i>misconceptions</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>But with these suggestions <i>are</i> joined some very good +<i>exposition</i> of principles which should underlie education +generally.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman has received a resolution, to which +<i>is</i> appended the <i>names</i> of eight Liberal members and +candidates for East London....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Comparatives and Superlatives</span></h3> + +<p>The chief point that requires mention is ill treatment of <i>the +more</i>. In this phrase <i>the</i> is not the article, but an adverb, +either relative or demonstrative. In <i>the more the merrier</i> it +is first relative and then demonstrative: by-how-much we are more, +by-so-much we shall be merrier. When the relative <i>the</i> is used, +it should always be answered regularly by, or itself answer, the +demonstrative <i>the</i>. Attempts to vary the formula are generally +unhappy; for instance,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He was leaving his English business in the hands of Bilton, who seemed +to him, the more he knew him, extraordinarily efficient.—<span class="smcap">E. F. +Benson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This should run, perhaps: <i>whose efficiency impressed him the more, +the more he knew him</i>—though it must be confessed that the double +form is nearly always uncomfortable if it has not the elbowroom of +a whole sentence to itself. That, however, is rather a question of +style than of syntax; and other examples will accordingly be found +in the section of the Chapter <i>Airs and Graces</i> concerned with +originality.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The farther we advance into it, we see confusion more and more unfold +itself into order.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Most readers will feel that this is an uncomfortable compromise between +<i>The farther we advance the more do we see</i> and <i>As<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span> we advance +we see confusion more and more unfold itself</i>. Similarly,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>She had reflection enough to foresee, that the longer she countenanced +his passion, her own heart would be more and more irretrievably +engaged.—<span class="smcap">Smollett.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>But it is when the demonstrative is used alone with no corresponding +relative clause—a use in itself quite legitimate—that real blunders +occur. It seems sometimes to be thought that <i>the more</i> is merely +a more imposing form of <i>more</i>, and is therefore better suited +for a dignified or ambitious style; but it has in fact a perfectly +definite meaning, or rather two; and there need never be any doubt +whether <i>more</i> or <i>the more</i> is right. One of the meanings is +a slight extension of the other. (1) The correlative meaning <i>by so +much</i> may be kept, though the relative clause, instead of formally +corresponding and containing <i>the</i> (meaning <i>by how much</i>) +and a comparative, takes some possibly quite different shape. But it +must still be clear from the context what the relative clause might be. +Thus, ‘We shall be a huge crowd’.—‘Well, we shall be the merrier’. Or, +‘If he raises his demands, I grant them the more willingly’, i. e., The +more he asks, the more willingly I give. This instance leads to the +other possible meaning, which is wider. (2) The original meaning of the +demonstrative <i>the</i> is simply <i>by that</i>; this in the complete +double form, and often elsewhere, has the interpretation, limited to +quantity, of <i>by so much</i>, or <i>in that proportion</i>; but it +may also mean <i>on that account</i>, when the relative clause is not +present. Again, however, the context must answer plainly in some form +the question <i>On what account?</i> Thus, He has done me many good +turns; but I do not like him any the better; i. e., any better on that +account; i. e., on account of the good turns.</p> + +<p>The function of <i>the</i>, then, is to tell us that there is, just +before or after, an answer to one of the questions, <i>More by what +amount?</i> <i>More on what account?</i> If there is no such<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span> answer, +we may be sure that the comparative has no right to its <i>the</i>. We +start with a sentence that is entitled to its <i>the</i>, but otherwise +unidiomatic.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>We are not a whit <i>the less</i> depressed in spirits at the sight of +all this unrelieved misery on the stage <i>by the reminder</i> that +Euripides was moved to depict it by certain occurrences in his own +contemporary Athens.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>The less</i> is <i>less on that account</i>, viz., that we are +reminded. But the preposition required when the cause is given in +this construction by a noun is <i>for</i>, not <i>by</i>. Read <i>for +the reminder</i>. The type is shown in <i>None the better for seeing +you</i>. Our sentence is in fact a mixture between <i>Our depression +is not lessened</i> by <i>the reminder</i>, and <i>We are not the less +depressed for the reminder</i>; and the confusion is the worse that +<i>depressed by</i> happens to be a common phrase.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The suggestion, as regarded Mr. Sowerby, was certainly true, +and was not the less so as regarded some of Mr. Sowerby’s +friends.—<span class="smcap">Trollope.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>The</i> tells us that we can by looking about us find an answer +either to <i>Not less true by what amount?</i> or to <i>Not less true +on what account?</i> There is no answer to the first except <i>Not +less true about the friends in proportion as it was truer about Mr. +Sowerby</i>; and none to the second except <i>Not less true about +the friends because it was true about Mr. Sowerby</i>. Both are +meaningless, and <i>the</i> the is superfluous and wrong.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Yet as his criticism is more valuable than that of other men, so it is +the more rarely met with.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>This is such an odd tangle of the two formulae <i>as ... so</i>, +<i>the more ... the more</i>, that the reader is tempted to cut the +knot and imagine what is hardly possible, that <i>the</i> is meant +for the ordinary article, agreeing with <i>kind of criticism</i> +understood between <i>the</i> and <i>more</i>. Otherwise it must be +cured either by omitting <i>the</i>, or by writing <i>The more valuable +his criticism, the more rarely is it met with</i>. If the latter is +done, <i>than that of other men</i> will have to go. Which suggests +the further observation that <i>the</i> with a comparative is almost +always wrong<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span> when a <i>than</i>-clause is appended. This is because +in the full double clause there is necessarily not a fixed standard of +comparison, but a sliding scale. The following example, not complicated +by any <i>the</i>, will make the point clear:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>My eyes are more and more averse to light than ever.—<span class="smcap">S. +Ferrier.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>You can be more averse than ever, or more and more averse, but not more +and more averse than ever. <i>Ever</i> can only mean the single point +of time in the past, whichever it was, at which you were most averse. +But to be more and more averse is to be more averse at each stage +than at each previous stage. Just such a sliding scale is essential +with <i>the more ... the more</i>. And perhaps it becomes so closely +associated with the phrase that the expression of a fixed standard of +comparison, such as is inevitably set up by a <i>than</i>-clause, is +felt to be impossible even when the demonstrative <i>the</i> stands +alone. In the next two examples, answers to the question <i>More on +what account?</i> can be found, though they are so far disguised +that the sentences would be uncomfortable, even if what makes them +impossible were absent. That is the addition of the <i>than</i>-clause +in each.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But neither is that way open; nor is it any the more open in the case +of Canada than Australia.—<span class="smcap">F. Greenwood.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The <i>the</i> might pass if <i>than Australia</i> were omitted, and +there would be no objection to it if we read further (for <i>in the +case</i>) <i>if we take the case</i>, and better still, placed that +clause first in the sentence: Nor, if we take the case of Canada, +is the way any the more open. <i>The</i> then means <i>on that +account</i>, viz., because we have substituted Canada.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I would humbly protest against setting up any standard of Christianity +by the regularity of people’s attendance at church or chapel. I am +certain personally that I have a far greater realization of the +goodness of God to all creation; I am certain that I can <i>the +more</i> acknowledge His unbounded love for all He has made, and our +entire dependence on Him, <i>than I could</i> twenty years ago, when I +attended church ten times where I now go once.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span></p> + +<p>In this, the answer to <i>More on what account?</i> is possibly implied +in the last clause; it would perhaps be, if clearly put, Because I +go to church seldomer. The right form would be, <i>I can the more +acknowledge ... for going</i> (or <i>that I go</i>) <i>to church +only once where twenty years ago I went ten times</i>. Unless the +<i>than</i>-clause is got rid of, we ought to have <i>more</i> without +<i>the</i>.</p> + +<p>This question of <i>the</i> is important for lucidity, is rather +difficult, and has therefore had to be treated at length. The other +points that call for mention are quite simple; they are illogicalities +licensed by custom, but perhaps better avoided. Avoidance, however, +that proclaims itself is not desirable; to set readers asking ‘Who are +you, pray, that the things everybody says are not good enough for you?’ +is bad policy; ‘in vitium ducit culpae fuga si caret arte.’ But if a +way round presents itself that does not at once suggest an assumption +of superiority, so much the better.</p> + +<p>1. <i>More than I can help.</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Without thinking of the corresponding phrase in his native language +more than he can help.—<span class="smcap">H. Sweet.</span></p> + +<p>We don’t haul guns through traffic more than we can +help.—<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>These really mean, of course, more than he (we) can<i>not</i> help. To +say that, however, is by this time impossible. More than he need, if +(when) he can help it, too much, unnecessarily, and other substitutes, +will sometimes do.</p> + +<p>2. <i>Most of any</i> (singular).</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A political despotism, the most unbounded, both in power and +principle, of any tyranny that ever existed so long.—<span class="smcap">Galt.</span></p> + +<p>She has the most comfortable repository of stupid friends to have +recourse to of anybody I ever knew.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span></p> + +<p>And they had the readiest ear for a bold, honourable sentiment, of any +class of men the world ever produced.—<span class="smcap">Stevenson.</span></p> + +<p>Latin at any rate should be an essential ingredient in culture as the +best instrument of any language for clear and accurate expression of +thought.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The first chapter, which from the lessons it enforces is perhaps +the most valuable of any in the present volume....—<span class="smcap">Sir G. T. +Goldie.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span></span></p> + +<p>Disraeli said that he had ‘the largest parliamentary knowledge of any +man he had met’.—<span class="smcap">Bryce.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Though this is extremely common, as the examples are enough to show, +there is seldom any objection to saying either <i>most of all</i> or +<i>more than any</i>.</p> + +<p>3. <i>Most</i> with words that do not admit of degrees.</p> + +<p><i>Unique</i> has been separately dealt with in the chapter on +<i>Vocabulary</i>. <i>Ideal</i> is another word of the same sort; <i>an +ideal solution</i> is one that could not possibly be improved upon, +and <i>most</i> is nonsense with it; <i>an ideal and most obvious</i> +should be read in the example:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>That the transformation of the Regular Army into the general service +Army and of the Militia into the home service Army is a most ideal and +obvious solution admits, I think, of no contradiction.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Relatives</span></h3> + +<p><b>a. Defining and non-defining relative clauses.</b></p> + +<p>For the purposes of b. and c. below, all relative clauses are divided +into defining and non-defining. The exact sense in which we use these +terms is illustrated by the following groups, of which (i) contains +defining clauses, (ii) non-defining.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>(i) The man who called yesterday left no address.</p> + +<p>Mr. Lovelace has seen divers apartments at Windsor: but not one, he +says, that he thought fit for me.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> + +<p>He secured ... her sincere regard, by the feelings which he +manifested.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> + +<p>The Jones who dines with us to-night is not the Jones who was at +school with you.</p> + +<p>The best novel that Trollope ever wrote was....</p> + +<p>Any man that knows three words of Greek could settle that point.</p> + +<p>(ii) At the first meeting, which was held yesterday, the chair....</p> + +<p>Deputies must be elected by the Zemstvos, which must be extended and +popularized, but not on the basis of....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The Emperor William, who was present ..., listened to a loyal +address.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The statue of the Emperor Frederick, which is the work of the sculptor +Professor Uphnes, represents the Monarch on horseback.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Jones, who should know something of the matter, thinks differently.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span></p> + +<p>The function of a defining relative clause is to limit the application +of the antecedent; where that is already precise, a defining clause +is not wanted. The limitation can be effected in more than one way, +according to the nature of the antecedent. As a rule, the antecedent +gives us a class to select from, the defining clause enables us to make +the selection. Thus in our first example the antecedent leaves us to +select from the general class of ‘men’, the defining clause fixes the +particular man (presumably the only man, or the only man that would +occur in the connexion) ‘who called yesterday’. Sometimes, however, the +functions of the two are reversed. When we have an antecedent with a +superlative, or other word of exclusive or comprehensive meaning, such +as ‘all’, ‘only’, ‘any’, we know already how to make our selection, +and only wait for the relative clause to tell us from what class to +make it. We know that we are to choose ‘the best novel’: the relative +clause limits us to the works of Trollope. We are to choose ‘any man’ +we like, provided (says our relative clause) that he ‘knows three +words of Greek’. In either case, the work of definition is done by the +exclusion (implied in the relative clause) of persons or things that +the antecedent by itself might be taken to include.</p> + +<p>The point to notice is that, whichever way the defining clause does its +work, it is essential to and inseparable from its antecedent. If for +any reason we wish to get rid of it, we can only do so by embodying its +contents in the antecedent: ‘The man in Paris with whom I correspond’ +must become ‘My Paris correspondent’. To remove the clause altogether +is to leave the antecedent with either no meaning or a wrong one. Even +in such extreme cases as ‘the wisest man that ever lived’, ‘the meanest +flower that blows’, where the defining clause may seem otiose and +therefore detachable, we might claim that future wise men, and past and +future flowers, are excluded; but we shall better realize the writer’s +intention if we admit that these clauses are only a pretence of +limitation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span> designed to exclude the reality; it is as if the writers, +invited to set limits to their statements, had referred us respectively +to Time and Space.</p> + +<p>This fact, that the removal of a defining clause destroys the meaning +of the antecedent, supplies an infallible test for distinguishing +between the defining and the non-defining clause: the latter can +always, the former never, be detached without disturbing the truth of +the main predication. A non-defining clause gives independent comment, +description, explanation, anything but limitation of the antecedent; +it can always be rewritten either as a parenthesis or as a separate +sentence, and this is true, however essential the clause may be to the +point of the main statement. ‘Jones’, in our last example above, is +quoted chiefly as one ‘who should know something of the matter’; but +this need not prevent us from writing: ‘Jones thinks differently; and +he should know something of the matter’.</p> + +<p>To find, then, whether a clause defines or does not define, remove it, +and see whether the statement of which it formed a part is unaltered: +if not, the clause defines. This test can be applied without difficulty +to all the examples given above. It is true that we sometimes get +ambiguous cases: after removing the relative clause, we cannot always +say whether the sense has been altered or not. That means, however, +not that our test has failed, but that the clause is actually capable +of performing either function, and that the main sentence can bear +two distinct meanings, between which even context may not enable us +to decide. The point is illustrated, in different degrees, by the +following examples:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Mr. H. Lewis then brought forward an amendment, which had been put +down by Mr. Trevelyan and which provided for an extension of the +process of income-tax graduation.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>This was held to portend developments that somehow or other have not +followed.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The former of these is quite ambiguous. The bringing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span> forward of an +amendment (no matter what or whose) may be all that the writer meant +to tell us of in the first instance; the relative clauses are then +non-defining clauses of description. On the other hand, both clauses +may quite well be meant to define; and it is even possible that the +second is meant to define, and the first not, though the coordination +is then of a kind that we shall show under c. to be improper. +Similarly, in the second sentence, ‘to portend developments’ may +possibly be complete in itself; the whole might then be paraphrased +thus: ‘It was thought that the matter would not stop there: but it +has’. More probably the clause is meant to define: ‘It was held to +portend what have since proved to be unrealized developments’. This +view is confirmed, as we shall see, both by the use of ‘that’ (not +‘which’) and by the absence of a comma before it.</p> + +<p>Punctuation is a test that would not always be applicable even if all +writers could be assumed to punctuate correctly; but it is often a +guide to the writer’s intention. For (1) a non-defining clause should +always be separated from the antecedent by a stop; (2) a defining +clause should never be so separated unless it is either preceded by a +parenthesis indicated by stops, or coordinated with a former defining +clause or with adjectives belonging to the antecedent; as in the +following examples:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The only circumstance, in fact, that could justify such a course....</p> + +<p>It is he only who does this, who follows them into all their +force and matchless grace, that does or can feel their full +value.—<span class="smcap">Hazlitt.</span></p> + +<p>Perfect types, that satisfy all these requirements, are not to be +looked for.</p> +</div> + +<p>It will occur to the reader that our last two examples are strictly +speaking exceptions to the rule of defining clauses, since they tell us +only what is already implied, and could therefore be removed without +impairing the sense. That is true to some extent of many parallel +defining clauses: they are admissible, however, if, without actually +giving any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span> limitation themselves, they make more clear a limitation +already given or implied; if, in fact, they are offered as alternative +versions or as reminders. Our next example is of a defining clause of +the same kind:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>This estimate which he gives, is the great groundwork of his plan for +the national redemption.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The limitation given by ‘this’ is repeated in another form by the +relative clause. ‘This estimate, the one he gives, is....’</p> + +<p>The reader should bear in mind that the distinction between the two +kinds of relative is based entirely on the closeness of their relation +to the antecedent. The information given by a defining clause must be +taken at once, with the antecedent, or both are useless: that given by +a non-defining clause will keep indefinitely, the clause being complete +in sense without the antecedent, and the antecedent without the clause. +This is the only safe test. To ask, for instance, whether the clause +conveys comment, explanation, or the like, is not a sufficient test +unless the question is rightly understood; for, although we have said +that a non-defining clause conveys comment and the like, as opposed to +definition of the antecedent, it does not follow that a defining clause +may not (while defining its own antecedent) <i>contribute</i> towards +comment; on the contrary, it is often open to a writer to throw his +comment into such a form as will include a defining clause. It may even +appear from a comparison of the two sentences below that this is the +origin of the non-defining clause, (2) being an abbreviation of (1):</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>1. Lewis, a man to whom hard work never came amiss, sifted the +question thoroughly.</p> + +<p>2. Lewis, to whom hard work never came amiss, sifted the question....</p> +</div> + +<p>In (1), a comment is introduced by ‘a man’ in apposition with Lewis; ‘a +man’ is antecedent to a defining relative clause; separate them, and +the antecedent is meaningless. But next remove the connecting words ‘a +man’, and the relative changes at once its antecedent and its nature: +the antecedent is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span> ‘Lewis’; the relative is non-defining; and the +clause <i>is</i> a comment, and does not merely contribute to one.</p> + +<p><b>b. ‘That’ and ‘who’ or ‘which’.</b></p> + +<p>‘That’ is evidently regarded by many writers as nothing more than +an ornamental variation for ‘who’ and ‘which’, to be used, not +indeed immoderately, but quite without discrimination. The opinion +is excusable; it is not easy to draw any distinction that is at all +consistently supported by usage. There was formerly a tendency to use +‘that’ for everything: the tendency now is to use ‘who’ and ‘which’ +for everything. ‘That’, from disuse, has begun to acquire an archaic +flavour, which with some authors is a recommendation. De Quincey, for +one, must certainly have held that in exalted prose ‘that’, in all +connexions, was the more dignified relative; his higher flights abound +in curious uses of the word, some instances of which are quoted below.</p> + +<p>This confusion is to be regretted; for although no distinction can +be authoritatively drawn between the two relatives, an obvious one +presents itself. The few limitations on ‘that’ and ‘who’ about which +every one is agreed all point to ‘that’ as the defining relative, +‘who’ or ‘which’ as the non-defining. We cannot say ‘My father, that +left Berlin last night, will shortly arrive’, and an examination of +instances would show that we can never use ‘that’ where the clause is +unmistakably non-defining. On the other hand, we cannot say ‘All which +I can do is useless’; this time, it is true, the generalization will +not hold; ‘which’ can, and sometimes must, be used, and ‘who’ commonly +is used, in defining clauses. But that is explained partly by the +obvious inconvenience sometimes attending the use of ‘that’, and partly +by the general tendency to exclude it from regular use, which has +already resulted in making it seem archaic when used of persons, except +in certain formulae.</p> + +<p>The rules given below are a modification of this principle, that +‘that’ is the defining, ‘who’ or ‘which’ the non-defining<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span> relative; +the reason for each modification is given in its place. We must here +remind the reader of the distinction drawn in a. between defining and +non-defining clauses: a defining clause limits the application of the +antecedent, enabling us to select from the whole class to which the +antecedent is applicable the particular individual or individuals meant.</p> + +<p>1. ‘That’ should never be used to introduce a non-defining clause; it +is therefore improperly used in all the following examples:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But by her side was kneeling her better angel, that hid his face with +wings: that wept and pleaded for her: that prayed when she could +not: that fought with Heaven by tears for her deliverance.—<span class="smcap">De +Quincey.</span></p> + +<p>Rendering thanks to God in the highest—that, having hid his face +through one generation behind thick clouds of war, once again was +ascending.—<span class="smcap">De Quincey.</span></p> + +<p>And with my own little stock of money besides, that Mrs. Hoggarty’s +card-parties had lessened by a good five-and-twenty shillings, I +calculated....—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> + +<p>How to keep the proper balance between these two testy old +wranglers, that rarely pull the right way together, is as +much....—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>Nataly promised amendment, with a steely smile, that his lips mimicked +fondly.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>It is opposed to our Constitution, that only allows the Crown to +remove a Norwegian Civil servant.—<span class="smcap">Nansen.</span></p> + +<p>I cannot but feel that in my person and over my head you desire to pay +an unexampled honour to the great country that I represent, to its +Bench and Bar, that daily share your labours and keep step with your +progress.—<span class="smcap">Choate.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>‘That I represent’ is right: ‘that daily share’ is wrong.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>As to dictionaries of the present day, that swell every few years +by the thousand items, the presence of a word in one of them shows +merely....—<span class="smcap">R. G. White.</span></p> + +<p>The sandy strip along the coast is fed only by a few scanty streams, +that furnish a remarkable contrast to the vast volumes of water which +roll down the Eastern sides.—<span class="smcap">Prescott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>‘That’ and ‘which’ should change places.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The social and economic sciences, that now specially interest me, have +no considerable place in such a reform.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>If this is a defining clause, excluding ‘the social and economic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> +sciences that’ do <i>not</i> interest the writer, the comma after +‘sciences’ should be removed.</p> + +<p>2. ‘Who’ or ‘which’ should not be used in defining clauses except when +custom, euphony, or convenience is decidedly against the use of ‘that’. +The principal exceptions will be noted below; but we shall first give +instances in which ‘that’ is rightly used, and others in which it might +have been used with advantage.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In those highly impressionable years that lie between six and +ten....—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>The obstacles that hedge in children from Nature....—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>The whole producing an effect that is not without a certain +poetry.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>He will do anything that he deems convenient.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>The well-staffed and well-equipped ‘High Schools’ that are now at work +... had not yet sprung into being.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Then, Sir, you keep up revenue laws which are mischievous, in order to +preserve trade laws that are useless.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>‘That’ should have been used in both clauses.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The struggle that lay before him.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> + +<p>There goes another sort of animal that is differentiating from my +species....—<span class="smcap">H. G. Wells.</span></p> + +<p>There are other powers, too, that could perform this grateful but +onerous duty.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>In the following examples, ‘that’ is to be preferred to ‘which’; +especially with antecedent ‘it’, and after a superlative or other word +of exclusive or comprehensive meaning, such as ‘all’, ‘only’, ‘any’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The opportunities which London has given them.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The principles which underlay the agreement.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>One cause which surely contributes to this effect has its root in +early childhood.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>A meeting which was held yesterday, which consisted in the main of a +bitter personal attack.—<span class="smcap">Rosebery.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>‘Which consisted’ is right: but we should have ‘that was held’; the +clause defines.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The first thing which the person who desires to be amiable must +determine to do is....—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span></p> + +<p>The most abominable din and confusion which it is possible for a +reasonable person to conceive.—<span class="smcap">Poe.</span></p> + +<p>Reverential objections, composed of all which his unstained family +could protest.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>He required all the solace which he could derive from literary +success.—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> + +<p>All the evidence which we have ever seen tends to +prove....—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> + +<p>A battle more bloody than any which Europe saw in the long interval +between Malplaquet and Eylau.—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> + +<p>The only other biography which counts for much is....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The French Government are anxious to avoid anything which might be +regarded as a breach of neutrality.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It was the ecclesiastical synods which by their example led the way to +our national parliaments.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> + +<p>It is the little threads of which the inner substance of the nerves is +composed which subserve sensation.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>‘Of which’ in a defining clause is one of the recognized exceptions; +but we ought to have ‘that subserve’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is not wages and costs of handling which fall, but profits and +rents.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It has been French ports which have been chosen for the beginning and +for the end of his cruise.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Who is it who talks about moral geography?—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>3. We come now to the exceptions. The reader will have noticed that of +all the instances given in (2) there is only one—the last—in which we +recommend the substitution of ‘that’ for ‘who’; in all the others, it +is a question between ‘that’ and ‘which’. ‘That’, used of persons, has +in fact come to look archaic: the only cases in which it is now to be +preferred to ‘who’ are those mentioned above as particularly requiring +‘that’ instead of ‘which’; those, namely, in which the antecedent is +‘it’, or has attached to it a superlative or other word of exclusive +meaning. We should not, therefore, in the <i>Spectator</i> instance +above, substitute ‘the person that desires’ for ‘who desires’; but we +should say</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The most impartial critic that could be found.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The only man that I know of.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Any one that knows anything knows this.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">It was you that said so.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who is it that talks about moral geography?</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Outside these special types, ‘that’ used of persons is apt to sound +archaic.</p> + +<p>4. It will also have been noticed that all the relatives in (2) +were either in the subjective case, or in the objective without +a preposition. ‘That’ has no possessive case, and cannot take a +preposition before it. Accordingly ‘the man that I found the hat of’ +will of course give place to ‘the man whose hat I found’; and ‘the +house in which this happened’ will generally be preferred to ‘the +house that this happened in’. The latter tendency is modified in the +spoken language by the convenient omission of ‘that’; for always in +a defining clause, though never in a non-defining, a relative in the +objective case, with or without a preposition, can be dropped. But few +writers like, as a general rule, either to drop their relatives or to +put prepositions at the end. ‘The friends I was travelling with’, ‘the +book I got it from’, ‘the place I found it in’, will therefore usually +appear as</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The friends with whom I was travelling.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The book from which I got it.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The place in which I found it.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>5. Euphony demands that ‘that that’ should become ‘that which’, even +when the words are separated; and many writers, from a feeling that +‘which’ is the natural correlative of the demonstrative ‘that’, prefer +the plural ‘those which’; but the first example quoted in (2) seems to +show that ‘those ... that’ can be quite unobjectionable.</p> + +<p>6. A certain awkwardness seems to attend the use of ‘that’ when the +relative is widely separated from its antecedent. When, for instance, +two relative clauses are coordinate, some writers use ‘that’ in the +first, ‘which’ in the second clause, though both define. This point +will be illustrated in c., where we shall notice that inconsistency in +this respect sometimes obscures the sense.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span></p> + +<p>It may seem to the reader that a rule with so many exceptions to it +is not worth observing. We would remind him (i) that it is based upon +those palpable misuses of the relatives about which every one is +agreed; (ii) that of the exceptions the first and last result from, +and might disappear with, the encroachment of ‘who’ and the general +vagueness about the relatives; while the other two, being obvious and +clearly defined, do not interfere with the remaining uses of ‘that’; +(iii) that if we are to be at the expense of maintaining two different +relatives, we may as well give each of them definite work to do.</p> + +<p>In the following subsections we shall not often allude to the +distinction here laid down. The reader will find that our rules are +quite as often violated as observed; and may perhaps conclude that if +the vital difference between a defining and a non-defining clause were +consistently marked, wherever it is possible, by a discriminating use +of ‘that’ and ‘which’, false coordination and other mishandlings of the +relatives would be less common than they are.</p> + +<p><b>c. ‘And who’; ‘and which’.</b></p> + +<p>The various possibilities of relative coordination, right and wrong, +may be thus stated: (i) a relative clause may be rightly or wrongly +coordinated with another relative clause; this we shall call ‘open’ +coordination; (ii) it may be rightly or wrongly coordinated with words +that are equivalent to a relative clause, and for which a relative +clause can be substituted; ‘latent’ coordination; (iii) a clause that +has obviously no coordinate, open or latent, may yet be introduced by +‘and’ or other word implying coordination; for such offenders, which +cannot be coordinate and will not be subordinate, ‘insubordination’ is +not too harsh a term.</p> + +<p>The following are ordinary types of the three classes:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>(i) Men who are ambitious, and whose ambition has never been thwarted, +....</p> + +<p>Pitt, who was ambitious, but whose ambition was qualified by....</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span></p> + +<p>(ii) Ambitious men, and whose ambition has never been thwarted, ....</p> + +<p>An evil now, alas! beyond our power to remedy, and for which we have +to thank the folly of our predecessors.</p> + +<p>(iii) Being thus pressed, he grudgingly consented at last to a +redistribution, and which, I need not say, it was his duty to have +offered in the first instance.</p> +</div> + +<p>A coordination in which ‘and’ is the natural conjunction may also be +indicated simply by a comma; there is safety in this course, since the +clause following the comma may be either coordinate or subordinate. But +we have to deal only with clauses that are committed to coordination.</p> + +<p>‘Insubordination’ will not detain us long; it is always due either to +negligence or to gross ignorance; we shall illustrate it in its place +with a few examples, but shall not discuss it. With regard, however, +to open and latent coordination opinions differ; there is an optimist +view of open coordination, and a pessimist view of latent, both of +which seem to us incorrect. It is held by some that open coordination +(provided that the relatives have the same antecedent) is never wrong, +and by some—not necessarily others—that latent coordination is never +right: we shall endeavour to show that the former is often wrong, and +the latter, however ungainly, often right.</p> + +<p>The essential to coordination is that the coordinates should be +performing the same function in the sentence. It is not necessary, nor +is it enough, that they should be in the same grammatical form: things +of the same form may have different functions, and things of different +forms may have the same function. If we say ‘Unambitious men, and who +have no experience’, ‘unambitious’ and ‘who have no experience’ are not +in the same form, but they have the same function—that of specifying +the class of men referred to. Their grammatical forms (vocabulary +permitting) are interchangeable: a defining adjective can always take +the form of a relative clause, and a defining relative clause can often +take the form of an adjective: ‘inexperienced men, and who have no +ambition’. ‘Unambitious’ is therefore the true grammatical<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span> equivalent +of ‘who have no ambition’, and latent coordination between it and a +relative clause is admissible.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, among things that have the same grammatical form, +but different functions, are the defining and the non-defining relative +clause. A non-defining clause, we know, can be removed without +disturbing the truth of the predication; it has therefore no essential +function; it cannot therefore have the same function as a defining +clause, whose function we know to be essential. It follows that open +coordination is not admissible between a defining and a non-defining +clause; and, generally, coordination, whether open or latent, is +admissible between two defining or two non-defining coordinates, but +not between a defining and a non-defining.</p> + +<p>Our object, however, in pointing out what seems to be the true +principle of relative coordination is not by any means to encourage the +latent variety. It has seldom any advantage over full coordination; +it is perhaps more apt to lead to actual blunders; it is usually +awkward; and it does violence—needless violence, as often as not—to +a very widespread and not unreasonable prejudice. Many writers may +be suspected of using it, against their better judgement, merely for +the purpose of asserting a right; it is their natural protest against +the wholesale condemnation of ignorant critics, who do not see that +latent coordination may be nothing worse than clumsy, and that open +coordination may be a gross blunder. For the benefit of such critics it +seems worth while to examine the correctness of various examples, both +open and latent; on the other merits and demerits of the latent variety +the reader will form his own judgement.</p> + +<p>(i) <b>Open coordination.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A few minutes brought us to a large and busy bazaar, with the +localities of which the stranger appeared well acquainted, and where +his original demeanour again became apparent.—<span class="smcap">Poe.</span></p> + +<p>Mr. Lovelace has seen divers apartments at Windsor; but not one, +he says, that he thought fit for me, and which, at the same time, +answered my description.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span></span></p> + +<p>All the toys that infatuate men, and which they play for, are the +self-same thing.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>All these are correct: in the first both clauses are non-defining, in +the others both define.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The hills were so broken and precipitous as to afford no passage +except just upon the narrow line of the track which we occupied, and +which was overhung with rocks, from which we might have been destroyed +merely by rolling down stones.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Wrong: the first clause defines, the second not.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>From doing this they were prevented by the disgraceful scene which +took place, and which the leader of the Opposition took no steps to +avert.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Wrong. The first clause defines, the second is obviously one of +comment: the ‘scene’ is not distinguished from those that the leader +<i>did</i> take steps to avert.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>They propose that the buildings shall belong ... to the communes +in which they stand, and which, it is hoped, will not permit their +desecration.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Wrong. The communes that ‘will not permit’ are not meant to be +distinguished from those that will. The second clause is comment, the +first defines.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The way in which she jockeyed Jos, and which she +described with infinite fun, carried up his delight to a +pitch....—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> + +<p>In the best French which he could muster, and which in sooth was of a +very ungrammatical sort....—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> + +<p>Peggy ... would have liked to have shown her turban and bird of +paradise at the ball, but for the information which her husband had +given her, and which made her very grave.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>All these are wrong. Thackeray would probably have been saved from +these false coordinations if he had observed the distinction between +‘that’ and ‘which’: ‘In the best French (that) he could muster, which +in sooth was...’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There goes another sort of animal that is differentiating from my +species, and which I would gladly see exterminated.—<span class="smcap">H. G. +Wells.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Probably the second clause, like the first, is meant to define: if so, +the coordination is right; if not, it is wrong. We have alluded to the +tendency to avoid ‘that’ when the relative is widely separated from its +antecedent; here, the result is ambiguity.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And here he said in German what he wished to say, and which +was of no great importance, and which I translated into +English.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Wrong: ‘what (that which)’ defines, the ‘and which’ clauses do not.</p> + +<p>(ii) <b>Latent coordination</b>, between relative clause and +equivalent, is seldom correct when the relative clause is non-defining; +for the equivalent, with few and undesirable exceptions, is always +a defining adjective or phrase, and can be coordinate only with a +defining clause. The equivalent must of course be a true one; capable, +that is, of being converted into a relative clause without altering +the effect of the sentence. Neglect of this restriction often results +in false coordination, especially in one particular type of sentence. +Suppose that a historian, after describing some national calamity, +proceeds: ‘In these distressing circumstances....’ Here we might seem +to have two possible equivalents, ‘these’ and ‘distressing’. First +let us expand ‘these’ into a relative clause: ‘In the distressing +circumstances that I have described’. This, in the context, is a fair +equivalent, and as often as not would actually appear instead of +‘these’. But next expand ‘distressing’: ‘In these circumstances, which +were distressing’, a non-defining clause. To this expansion no writer +would consent; it defeats the object for which ‘distressing’ was placed +before the antecedent. That object was to record his own sensibility +without disparaging the reader’s by telling him in so many words (as +our relative clause does) that the circumstances were distressing; and +it is secured by treating ‘distressing’ not as a separate predication +but as an inseparable part of the antecedent. ‘Distressing’, it will +be observed, cannot give us a defining clause; it is obviously meant +to be co-extensive with ‘these’; we are not to select from ‘these’ +circumstances those only that are ‘distressing’. Moreover, as ‘these’, +although capable of appearing as a relative clause, can scarcely +require another relative clause to complete the limitation of the +antecedent, it follows that in sentences of this form coordination will +generally be wrong. We have examples in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span> Cowper quotation below, +and in the anonymous one that precedes it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Juices ready prepared, and which can be absorbed +immediately.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p>A deliberate attempt to frame and to verify general rules as to +phenomena of all kinds, and which can, therefore, be propagated by +argument or persuasion....—<span class="smcap">L. Stephen.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>‘Rules that shall be general, and that can....’</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A painful, comprehensive survey of a very complicated matter, +and which requires a great variety of considerations, is to be +made.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> + +<p>The goldsmith to the royal household, and who, if fame spoke true, +oftentimes acted as their banker, ... was a person of too much +importance to...—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>‘The man who was goldsmith to ... and who’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is a compliment due, and which I willingly pay, to those who +administer our affairs.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>All these are correct, with defining coordinates throughout.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>‘A junior subaltern, with pronounced military and political views, +with no false modesty in expressing them, and who (sic) possesses the +ear of the public, ....’—(Quoted by the <i>Times</i>.)</p> +</div> + +<p>‘Who has ... views, and who....’ ‘Sic’ is the comment of the +<i>Times</i> writer. The coordination is correct.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>While there, she had ample opportunity afforded her of studying +fashionable life in all its varied and capricious moods, and which +have been preserved to posterity in her admirable delineations of +character.</p> + +<p>I am sensible that you cannot in my uncle’s present infirm state, and +of which it is not possible to expect any considerable amendment, +indulge us with a visit.—<span class="smcap">Cowper.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>These are the instances of false expansion alluded to above. The former +is based on the non-defining expansion ‘in all its moods, which are +varied and capricious’; the true expansion being ‘in all the varied and +capricious moods in which it reveals itself’, a defining clause, which +will not do with the ‘and which’. Similarly, the second is based on the +non-defining expansion ‘in my uncle’s present state, which is an infirm +one’; the true expansion is ‘in the infirm state in which my uncle now +is’. In both, a non-defining clause is coordinated with words that can +only yield a defining clause.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Previous to the innovations introduced by the Tudors, and which had +been taken away by the bill against pressing soldiers, the King in +himself had no power of calling on his subjects generally to bear +arms.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>If the writer means us to distinguish, among the innovations introduced +by the Tudors, those that had also been taken away, the ‘and which’ +clause defines, and the coordination is right. But more probably the +clause conveys independent information; the coordination is then wrong.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>[The various arrangements of <i>pueri puellam amabant</i>] all have +the same meaning—the boys loved the girl. For <i>puellam</i> shows by +its form that it must be the object of the action; <i>amabant</i> must +have for its subject a plural substantive, and which must therefore +be, not <i>puellam</i>, but <i>pueri</i>.—<span class="smcap">R. G. White.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Wrong. ‘A plural substantive’ can yield only the defining clause ‘a +substantive that is plural’. Now these words contain an inference +from a general grammatical principle (that a plural verb must have a +plural subject); and any supplementary defining clause must also be +general, not (like the ‘and which’ clause) particular. We might have, +for instance, ‘Amabant, being plural, and finite, must have for its +subject a plural substantive, and which is in the nominative case’. But +the ‘and which’ clause is evidently non-defining; the inference ends at +‘substantive’; then comes the application of it to the particular case.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He refused to adopt the Restrictive Theory, and impose a numerical +limit on the Bank’s issues, and which he again protested against in +1833.—<span class="smcap">H. D. Macleod.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Wrong. The ‘and which’ clause is non-defining; none of the three +possible antecedents (‘Theory’, ‘limit’, ‘imposition’) will give a +non-defining clause.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The great obstacle ... is the religion of Europe, and +which has unhappily been colonially introduced into +America.—<span class="smcap">Beaconsfield.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This illustrates an important point. ‘Of Europe’ gives the defining +clause ‘that prevails in Europe’; the coordination therefore requires +that the ‘and which’ clause should define. Now a defining clause must +contain no word that is not meant<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span> to contribute to definition; if, +then, the ‘and which’ clause defines, the writer wishes to distinguish +the religion in question, not only from those European religions that +have not been colonially introduced into America, but also from those +European religions that have been introduced, but whose introduction +is not a matter for regret; that is the only defining meaning that +‘unhappily’ can bear, and unless we accept this interpretation the +clause is non-defining.—We shall allude to this sentence again in +d., where the possibilities of parenthesis in a defining clause are +discussed.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It may seem strange that this important place should not have been +conferred on Vaca de Castro, already on the spot, and who had shown +himself so well qualified to fill it.—<span class="smcap">Prescott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>One of our ‘few and undesirable exceptions’, in which the +clause-equivalent is non-defining (‘who was already on the spot’); for +a person’s name can only require a defining clause to distinguish him +from others of the same name. The sentence is an ugly one, even if we +remove the ‘and who’ clause; but the coordination is right.</p> + +<p>(iii) <b>Insubordination.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The struggler, the poor clerk, mechanic, poorer musician, artist, or +actor, feels no right to intrude, and who quickly falls from a first +transient resentment....—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Such a person may reside there with absolute safety, unless +it becomes the object of the government to secure his person; +and which purpose, even then, might be disappointed by early +intelligence.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> + +<p>All this when Madame saw, and of which when she took note, her sole +observation was:—...—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>To these we may add examples in which the coordinated relatives +have different antecedents. In practice, nothing can justify such +coordination: in theory, it is admissible when the antecedents are +coordinate, as in the following sentence:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>We therefore delivered the supplies to those individuals, and at those +places, to whom the special grants had been made, and for which they +were originally designed.</p> +</div> + +<p>But in the following instances, one antecedent is subordinate to +another in the same clause, or is in a clause subordinate to that of +the other.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>They marched into the apartment where the banquet was served; and +which, as I have promised the reader he shall enjoy it, he shall have +the liberty of ordering himself.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> + +<p>A large mineral-water firm in London, whose ordinary shares are a +million in value, and which shares always paid a dividend before +the imposition of the sugar-tax, have not paid any dividend +since.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>He very much doubted whether I could find it on his mine, which was +located some five miles from St. Austell, Cornwall, and upon whose +property I had never been.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>But I have besought my mother, who is apprehensive of Mr. Lovelace’s +visits, and for fear of whom my uncles never stir out without arms, +...—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>It was of Mr. Lovelace that the uncles were afraid.</p> + +<p><b>d. Case of the relative.</b></p> + +<p>Special attention was not drawn, in the section on Case, to the gross +error committed in the following examples:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Instinctively apprehensive of her father, whom she supposed it was, +she stopped in the dark.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>That peculiar air of contempt commonly displayed by insolent menials +to those whom they imagine are poor.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>It is only those converted by the Gospel whom we pretend are +influenced by it.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>We found those whom we feared might be interested to withhold the +settlement alert and prompt to assist us.—<span class="smcap">Galt.</span></p> + +<p>Mr. Dombey, whom he now began to perceive was as far beyond human +recall.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>Those whom it was originally pronounced would be allowed to +go.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>But this looks as if he has included the original 30,000 men whom he +desires ‘should be in the country now’.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>We feed children whom we think are hungry.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The only gentlemen holding this office in the island, whom, he felt +sure, would work for the spiritual good of the parish.—<i>Guernsey +Advertiser.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>These writers evidently think that in ‘whom we think are hungry’ ‘whom’ +is the object of ‘we think’. The relative is in fact the subject of +‘are’; and the object of ‘we know’ is the clause ‘who are hungry’; the +order of the words is a necessary result of the fact that a relative +subject must stand at the beginning of its clause.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span></p> + +<p>(The same awkward necessity confronts us in clauses with ‘when’, +‘though’, &c., in which the subject is a relative. Such clauses are +practically recognized as impossible, though Otway, in a courageous +moment, wrote:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Unblemished honour, and a spotless love;</div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Which tho’</i> perhaps now <i>know</i> another flame,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Yet I have love and passion for their name.)</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Some writers, with a consistency worthy of a better cause, carry the +blunder into the passive, renouncing the advantages of an ambiguous +‘which’ in the active; for in the active ‘which’ of course tells no +tales.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>As to all this, the trend of events has been the reverse of +that which was anticipated would be the result of democratic +institutions.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>‘Which <i>it</i> was anticipated would be’. Similarly, the passive +of ‘men whom we-know-are-honest’ is the impossible ‘men who +are-known-are-honest’: ‘men who we know are honest’ gives the correct +passive ‘men who it is known are honest’.</p> + +<p>Nor must it be supposed that ‘we know’ is parenthetic. In non-defining +clauses (Jones, who we know is honest), we can regard the words as +parenthetic if we choose, except when the phrase is negative (Jones, +who I cannot think is honest); but in a defining clause they are +anything but parenthetic. When we say ‘Choose men who you know are +honest’, the words ‘you know’ add a new circumstance of limitation: +it is not enough that the men should in fact be honest; you must know +them to be honest; honest men of whose honesty you are not certain +are excluded by the words ‘you know’. Similarly, in the <i>Guernsey +Advertiser</i> quotation above, the writer does not go the length of +saying that these are the only gentlemen who would work: he says that +they are the only ones of whom he feels sure. The commas of parenthesis +ought therefore to go, as well as the comma at ‘island’, which is +improper before a defining clause.</p> + +<p>The circumstances under which a parenthesis is admissible in a defining +clause may here be noticed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span></p> + +<p>(i) When the clause is too strict in its limitation, it may be modified +by a parenthesis:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Choose men who, during their time of office, have never been suspected.</p> +</div> + +<p>A whole class, excluded by the defining clause, is made eligible by the +parenthesis.</p> + +<p>(ii) Similarly, a parenthesis may be added to tell us that within the +limits of the defining clause we have perfect freedom of choice:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Choose men who, at one time or another, have held office.</p> +</div> + +<p>They must have held office, that is all; it does not matter when.</p> + +<p>(iii) Words of comment, indicating the writer’s authority for his +limitation, his recognition of the sentiments that it may arouse, and +the like, properly stand outside the defining clause: when they are +placed within it, they ought to be marked as parenthetic.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There are men who, so I am told, prefer a lie to truth on its own +merits.</p> + +<p>The religion that obtains in Europe, and that, unhappily, has been +introduced into America.</p> +</div> + +<p>The latter sentence is an adaptation of one considered above on +p. 91. ‘Unhappily’ there appeared not as a parenthesis but as +an inseparable part of the relative clause, which was therefore +defining or non-defining, according as ‘unhappily’ could or could +not be considered as adding to the limitation. But with the altered +punctuation ‘unhappily’ is separable from the relative clause, which +may now define: ‘that obtains in Europe and (I am sorry to have to add) +in America.’</p> + +<p>In sentences of this last type, the parenthesis is inserted in +the defining clause only for convenience: in the others, it is an +essential, though a negative, part of the definition. But all three +types of parenthesis agree in this, that they do not limit the +antecedent; they differ completely from the phrases considered above, +which do limit the antecedent, and are not parenthetic.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span></p> + +<p><b>e. Miscellaneous uses and abuses of the relative.</b></p> + +<p>(i) A relative clause is sometimes coordinated with an independent +sentence; such coordination is perhaps always awkward, but is not +always incorrect. The question arises chiefly when the two have a +common subject expressed only in the relative clause; for when the +subject is expressed in both, the independent sentence may be taken to +be coordinate, not with the relative clause, but with the main sentence +to which the relative clause is attached, as in the following instance:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>To begin with, he had left no message, which in itself I felt to be a +suspicious circumstance, and (I) was at my wits’ end how to account +plausibly for his departure.</p> +</div> + +<p>Retain ‘I’, and ‘I was’ may be coordinate with ‘he had left’: remove +it, and the coordination is necessarily between ‘I was’ and ‘I felt’. +In our next examples the writers are committed:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>These beatitudes are just laws which we have been neglecting, and have +been receiving in ourselves the consequences that were meet.—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>The idea which mankind most commonly conceive of proportion, is the +suitableness of means to certain ends, and, where this is not the +question, very seldom trouble themselves about the effect of different +measures of things.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> + +<p>Fictitious capital, a name of extreme inaccuracy, which too many +persons are in the habit of using, from the hasty assumption that +what is not real must necessarily be fictitious, and are more led +away by a jingling antithesis of words than an accurate perception of +ideas.—<span class="smcap">H. D. Macleod.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The first two of these are wrongly coordinated: the third, a curiosity +in other respects, is in this respect right. The reason is that in the +first two we have a defining, in the third a non-defining relative +clause. A defining clause is grammatically equivalent to an adjective +(‘violated laws’, ‘the popular idea’), and can be coordinated only with +another word or phrase performing the same function; now the phrase ‘we +have been receiving’, not being attached to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span> antecedent by means of +a relative, expressed or understood, is not equivalent to an adjective. +We could have had ‘and (which we) have been properly punished <i>for +neglecting</i>’, or we could have had the ‘and’ sentence in an +adverbial form, ‘with the fitting result’; but coordination between the +two as they stand is impossible.</p> + +<p>The Burke sentence is a worse offender. Coordination of this kind +is not often attempted when the antecedent of the relative is +<i>subject</i> of the main sentence; and when it is attempted, the two +coordinates must of course not be separated by the predicate. If we +had had ‘the idea which mankind most commonly conceive of proportion, +and very seldom trouble themselves about anything further’, the +coordination would have been similar to the other, and could have +been rectified in the same way (‘and beyond which they very seldom +...’, or ‘to the exclusion of any other considerations’). But this +alteration we cannot make; for there is a further and an essential +difference. The <i>Daily Telegraph</i> writer evidently <i>meant</i> +his second coordinate to do the work of a defining clause; he has +merely failed to make the necessary connexion, which we supply, as +above, either by turning the words into a second defining clause, or +by embodying them, adverbially, in the first. Burke’s intention is +different, and would not be represented by our proposed alteration in +the order. All that a defining clause can do in his sentence is to tell +us <i>what</i> idea is going to be the subject. If we were to give a +brief paraphrase of the whole, italicizing the words that represent +the second coordinate, it would be, not ‘mankind’s <i>sole</i> idea of +proportion is the suitableness ...’, but ‘mankind’s idea of proportion +is the suitableness ..., <i>and very little else</i>’; for the question +answered is, not ‘what is mankind’s sole idea?’ but ‘what is mankind’s +idea?’ In other words, the second coordinate belongs in intention not, +like the relative clause, to the subject, but to the predicate; to +rectify it, we must either make it part of the predicate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span> (‘and is not +concerned with ...’), or, by inserting ‘they’, coordinate it with the +main sentence. Obvious as the latter correction is, the sentence repays +close examination, as illustrating the incoherence of thought that may +underlie what seems a very trifling grammatical slip.</p> + +<p>But in our third example, the relative clause is non-defining; it is +grammatically equivalent to, and could be replaced by, an independent +sentence: ‘Many persons are in the habit of using it’. There is nothing +grammatically wrong in this type of coordination; it is objectionable +only because it seems to promise what it does not fulfil. When the +common subject of two coordinates is expressed only with the first, it +is natural to assume that all words preceding it are also to be applied +to both coordinates; and the violation of this principle, though not +of course ungrammatical, is often felt to be undesirable in other than +relative clauses.</p> + +<p>(ii) In the sentences considered above, the antecedent of the relative +did not belong to the second coordinate, and could not have been +represented in it without the material alterations there proposed. But +it may also happen that the antecedent, as in the following examples, +belongs equally to both coordinates, being represented in the first by +a relative, in the second by some other pronoun.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There were two or three <i>whose</i> accuracy was more +scrupulous, <i>their</i> judgement more uniformly sober and +cautious.—<span class="smcap">Bryce.</span></p> + +<p>He renewed the old proposal, <i>which</i> Pizarro treated as a piece +of contemptible shuffling, and curtly rejected <i>it</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Which</i> she has it in her option either to do or to let <i>it</i> +alone.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In the pair of parallel coordinates from Mr. Bryce, insert the +suppressed ‘was’, and it becomes clear that ‘whose’, not ‘their’, is +the right pronoun.</p> + +<p>In the ‘Pizarro’ sentence, ‘it’ is not only superfluous, but disturbing +to the reader, who assumes that ‘which’ is common to both clauses, and +on reaching ‘it’ has to glance back and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span> check the sentence. Here, +as often, the pronoun seems to be added to restore an ill-balanced +sentence; but that can be done in several other ways. In the Richardson +sentence also the ‘it’ should go.</p> + +<p>More commonly, the repetition of the antecedent in another form results +from the superstitious avoidance of a preposition at the end:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A demand by Norway for political separation, to which Sweden will not +assent, but will not go to war to prevent it.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>‘To (which)’ is not common to both coordinates: accordingly the writer +finds it necessary to give ‘it’ in the second. But, even if we respect +our superstition, and exclude ‘which Sweden will not assent to, but +will not go to war to prevent’, we have still the two possibilities +of (1) complete relative coordination, ‘to ..., but which ...’; (2) +subordination, ‘though she will not go to war to prevent it’.</p> + +<p>In our next example, Lord Rosebery, again for fear of a preposition +at the end, falls into the trap clumsily avoided by the <i>Times</i> +writer:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>That promised land for which he was to prepare, but scarcely to enter.</p> +</div> + +<p>So perhaps Bagehot, though his verb may be <i>conceive of</i>:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>English trade is carried on upon borrowed capital to an extent of +which few foreigners have an idea, and none of our ancestors could +have conceived.</p> +</div> + +<p>(iii) When the relative is the subject of both coordinates, or the +object of both, its repetition in the second is a matter of choice. But +to omit the relative when it is in a different case from the first is a +gross, though not uncommon, blunder. The following are instances:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A league which their posterity for many ages kept so inviolably, +and proved so advantageous for both the kingdoms of France and +Scotland.—<span class="smcap">Lockhart.</span></p> + +<p>Questions which we either do not put to ourselves, or are turned aside +with traditional replies.—<span class="smcap">Mark Rutherford.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>It is just conceivable that in the last of these the subject of ‘are’ +is ‘we’: if so, the sentence is to be referred to (i) above<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span> (wrong +coordination of an independent sentence with a defining relative +clause).</p> + +<p>It is not easy to see why the relative more than other words should be +mishandled in this way; few would write (but see p. 61, s. f.) ‘This +league we kept and has proved advantageous’.</p> + +<p>The condensed antecedent-relative ‘what’ is only an apparent exception +to this universal rule. In the sentence ‘What I hold is mine’, ‘what’ +is only object to ‘hold’, not subject to ‘is’; the subject to ‘is’ is +the whole noun-clause ‘what I hold’. Sentences of this type, so far +from being exceptions, often give a double illustration of the rule, +and leave a double possibility of error. For just as a single ‘what’ +cannot stand in different relations to two coordinate verbs in its +clause, so a single noun-clause cannot stand in different relations to +two coordinate main verbs. We can say ‘What I have and hold’, where +‘what’ is object to both verbs, and ‘what is mine and has been fairly +earned by me’, where it is subject to both; but we cannot say ‘what I +have and has been fairly earned by me’. Similarly, we can say ‘What +I have is mine and shall remain mine’, where the noun-clause ‘what I +have’ is subject to both verbs, and ‘What I have I mean to keep, and +will surrender to no man’, where it is object to both; but not ‘What I +have is mine, and I will surrender to no man’. Of the various ways of +avoiding this error (subordination, adaptation of verbs, insertion of +a pronoun, relative or otherwise), that chosen by Miss Brontë below is +perhaps the least convenient. Her sentence is, however, correct; that +from the <i>Spectator</i> is not.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Not mere empty ideas, but what were once realities, and that I long +have thought decayed.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> + +<p>Whatever we possessed in 1867 the British Empire possesses now, and is +part of the Dominion of Canada.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>‘Things that were once realities, and that I long have thought +decayed’; a pair of defining clauses.</p> + +<p>The condensed ‘what’ must of course be distinguished from the ‘what’ +of indirect questions, which is not relative<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span> but interrogative. In +the following example, confusion of the two leads to an improper +coordination.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>What sums he made can only be conjectured, but must have been +enormous.—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In the first sentence, ‘what’ is an interrogative, in the second, a +condensed antecedent-relative, standing for ‘the sums that’. It is the +sums that were enormous: it is the answer to the question ‘What sums +did he make?’ that can only be conjectured. The mistake is possible +only because ‘can’ and ‘must’ do not reveal their number: ‘can’ is +singular, ‘must’ plural.</p> + +<p>The differentiation between the two <i>what</i>s and their equivalents +is not, indeed, complete: just as the condensed antecedent-relative +resembles in form, though not in treatment, the unresolved +interrogative, so the interrogative, by resolution into ‘the ... that +(which)’, not only resembles, but is grammatically identified with, +the uncondensed relative and antecedent. The resolution is, no doubt, +convenient: it should be noticed, however, that the verbs with which +alone it can be employed (verbs that may denote either perception of +a fact or other kinds of perception) are precisely those with which +ambiguity may result. ‘I know the house (that) you mean’: it may +(antecedent and relative) or may not (resolved interrogative) follow +that I have ever seen it. ‘We must first discover the scoundrel who +did it’; antecedent and relative? then we must secure the scoundrel’s +person; resolved interrogative? then only information is needed. +‘I can give a good guess at the problem that is puzzling you’: and +the solution?—I know nothing of the solution; I was resolving an +interrogative.</p> + +<p>This, however, does not affect sentences like the Macaulay one above: +for although the resolved or uncondensed forms (‘the ... which’) are +grammatically identified, the condensed or unresolved forms (‘what’) +are not.</p> + +<p>(iv) The omission of the relative in isolated clauses (as opposed to +coordinates) is a question not of correctness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span> but of taste, so far +as there is any question at all. A non-defining relative can never be +omitted. The omission of a defining relative subject is often effective +in verse, but in prose is either an archaism or a provincialism. It +may, moreover, result in obscurity, as in the second of our examples, +which may possibly puzzle the reader for a moment:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Now it would be some fresh insect won its way to a temporary fatal new +development—<span class="smcap">H. G. Wells.</span></p> + +<p>No one finds himself planted at last in so terribly foul a morass, as +he would fain stand still for ever on dry ground.—<span class="smcap">Trollope.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>But when the defining relative is object, or has a preposition, there +is no limit to the omission, unless euphony is allowed to be one. We +give three instances in which the reader may or may not agree that the +relative might have been retained with advantage:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>We do that in our zeal our calmer moments would be afraid to +answer.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> + +<p>But did you ever see anything there you had never seen +before?—<span class="smcap">Bagehot.</span></p> + +<p>These ethical judgements we pass on self-regarding acts are ordinarily +little emphasized.—<span class="smcap">Spencer.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>(v) When a defining relative has the same preposition as its +antecedent, it is not uncommon, in the written as well as in the +spoken language, to omit the preposition in the relative clause. There +is something to be said for a licence that rids us of such cumbrous +formulae as ‘in the way in which’, ‘to the extent to which’, and the +like; in writing, however, it should be used with caution if at all.</p> + +<p>In the first place, if the preposition is to go, the relative should +go too, or if retained should certainly be ‘that’, not ‘which’; and if +the verb of the relative clause is the same as in the main sentence, +it should be represented by ‘do’, or (in a compound tense) by its +auxiliary component.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Because they found that it touched them in a way which no book in the +world could touch them.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>The man who cleaned the slate in the manner which Sir E. Satow has +done both in Morocco and Japan might surely rank as a reflective +diplomatist.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span></p> + +<p>‘In a way no other book in the world could’: ‘in the way (that) Sir E. +Satow has done’.</p> + +<p>A further limitation is suggested by our next example:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The Great Powers, after producing this absolutely +certain result, are ending with what they ought to have +begun,—coercion.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Here, of course, the relative cannot be omitted, since relative and +antecedent are one. But that is not the principal fault, as will appear +from a resolution of the antecedent-relative: ‘they are ending with +the very thing (that) they ought to have begun ...’. We are now at +liberty to omit our relative or retain it, as we please; in either +case, the omission of ‘with’ is unbearable. The reason is that ‘with’ +does not, like the ‘in’ of our former examples, introduce a purely +adverbial phrase: it is an inseparable component of the compound verbs +‘end-with’ and ‘begin-with’, of which the antecedent and relative are +respectively the objects. Similarly, we cannot say ‘He has come to the +precise conclusion (that) I thought he would come’, because we should +be mutilating the verb to ‘come-to’; we can, however, say ‘to the +conclusion (that) I thought he would’, ‘come-to’ being then represented +by ‘would’.</p> + +<p>Finally, the omission is justifiable only when antecedent and relative +have the same preposition. Sentences like the next may pass in +conversation, but (except with the one noun <i>way</i>) are intolerable +in writing:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>One of the greatest dangers in London is the pace that the corners in +the main streets are turned.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>(vi) The use of ‘such ... who (which)’, ‘such ... that (defining +relative)’, for ‘such ... as’ is sometimes an archaism, sometimes a +vulgarism.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Till such time when we shall throw aside our earthly +garment.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Only such supplies were to be made which it would be inhuman to refuse +to ships in distress.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The censorship of literature extends to such absurd prohibitions +which it did not reach even during the worst period of the +forties.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>A God in such an abstract sense that, as I have pointed out before, +does not signify.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span></p> + +<p>They would find such faith, such belief, that would be a revelation to +them.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Swift’s plan was to offer to fulfil it on conditions so insulting that +no one with a grain of self-respect could accept.—<span class="smcap">L. Stephen.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><b>f. ‘It ... that.’</b></p> + +<p>Two constructions, closely allied, but grammatically distinct, are +often confused: (i) Antecedent ‘<b>it</b>’ followed by a defining +relative clause with ‘that’ (who, which); (ii) ‘<b>it</b>’ followed +by a clause in apposition, introduced by the conjunction ‘that’. The +various correct possibilities are represented in the set of examples +given below. Relative clauses are marked R, conjunction clauses C. One +impossible example is added in brackets, to mark the transition from +relative to conjunction.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>(1) It is money that I want. R.</p> + +<p>(2) It was you that told me. R.</p> + +<p>(3) It was you that I gave it to (or, to whom I gave it). R.</p> + +<p>(4) It was to you that I gave it. C.</p> + +<p>(5) It was the Romans that built this wall. R.</p> + +<p>(6) It is the Romans that we are indebted to for this. R.</p> + +<p>(7) It is to the Romans that we are indebted for this. C.</p> + +<p>(8) It was Jones whose hat I borrowed. R.</p> + +<p>(9) It was Jones’s hat that I borrowed. R.</p> + +<p>(10) It was a knife that I cut it with. R.</p> + +<p>(11) It was with a knife that I cut it. C.</p> + +<p>(12) It was with difficulty that I cut it. C.</p> + +<p>(13) (It was difficulty that I cut it with.) R.</p> + +<p>(14) It was provisionally that I made the offer. C.</p> + +<p>(15) It was in this spring, too, that the plague broke out. C.</p> + +<p>(16) Accordingly, it was with much concern that I presently received a +note informing me of his departure. C.</p> +</div> + +<p>In the relative construction, the antecedent ‘it’ is invariable, +whatever the number and gender of the relative. The main verb is also +invariable in number, but in tense is usually adapted to past, though +not (for euphony’s sake) to future circumstances: ‘it was you that +looked foolish’, but ‘it is you that will look foolish’.</p> + +<p>In both constructions, the ‘that’ clause, supplemented or introduced by +‘it’, gives us the subject of a predication, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span> relative clause (with +<i>it</i>) being equivalent to a pure noun, the conjunction clause to +a verbal noun in apposition, partly retaining its verbal character. In +both, also, the predication answers an imaginary question, recorded +distinctly in the relative, less distinctly in the conjunction clause. +‘What do you want?’ ‘It (the thing) that I want is money.’ ‘To whom did +you give it?’ ‘It (the persons) that I gave it to was your friends.’ +‘As to your cutting it: give particulars.’ ‘It—that I cut it (my +cutting it)—was with a knife.’</p> + +<p>From the above examples it will be seen that the two constructions +largely overlap. When (as in 1, 2, 5, 8) the relative is subject or +direct object of the clause-verb, or is in the possessive case, it +cannot be replaced by the conjunction; but when its relation to the +clause-verb is marked by a preposition, the conjunction always may take +its place, and sometimes must, as in 12 and 13. For the relative clause +can only be used when the question reflected in it is calculated to +secure the right kind of answer. Now the natural answer to the question +‘What did you cut it with?’ is not ‘difficulty’ but ‘a knife’. The +misleading ‘with’ is therefore removed from the relative clause in +13, and placed within the predicate, the definite question ‘What did +you cut it with?’ giving place to the vague demand for particulars. +‘With’ being removed, the relative clause falls to pieces, for want +of a word to govern the relative, and the conjunction clause takes +its place. In the same way, ‘it was <i>a cab</i> (but not <i>high +indignation</i>) that he drove away in’; ‘it was <i>a concert</i> +(but not <i>curiosity</i>) that I was returning from’; ‘it was a +<i>beech-tree</i> (but not <i>unpleasant circumstances</i>) that I +found him under’. And, generally, it will be found that a preposition +is admissible in the relative clause only when used in the literal or +the most obvious sense.</p> + +<p>The conjunction clause is, as we have said, a verbal noun; so far a +noun that things can be predicated of it, and so far a verb that the +things predicated of it are verbal relations and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span> verbal circumstances, +indirect object, agent, instrument, means, manner, cause, attendant +circumstances; anything but subject and direct object. ‘My giving was +to you’; ‘my offering was provisionally’; ‘my concealing it was because +I was ashamed’.</p> + +<p>The mistakes that constantly occur in careless writers result from +hesitation between the two forms where both are possible. The +confusion, however, ought not to arise; for always with a relative +clause, and never with a conjunction, the complement of the main +predicate (the answer to the suppressed question) is a noun or the +grammatical equivalent of a noun. ‘A knife’, ‘Jones’, ‘you’, ‘my friend +in Chicago’, ‘the man who lives next door’, are the answers that +accompany the relative clause: ‘with a knife’, ‘with difficulty’, ‘to +you’, ‘occasionally’, ‘because I was ashamed’, are those that accompany +the conjunction.</p> + +<p>Examples 15 and 16, though quite recognized types, are really +artificial perversions. In 15 the true question and answer in the +circumstances would be, not, as the sentence falsely implies, ‘When did +the plague break out?’ ‘That too happened in this same spring’, but +‘Were there any other notable events in this spring?’ ‘Yes: the plague +broke out’. Impressiveness is given to the announcement by the fiction +that the reader is wondering when the plague broke out; in fact, he is +merely waiting for whatever may turn up in the history of this spring. +In 16 we go still further: the implied question, ‘What were your +feelings on receiving a (not <i>the</i>) note ...?’ could not possibly +be asked; the information that alone could prompt it is only given in +the ‘that’ clause.</p> + +<p>It has been pointed out in b. that a relative clause with antecedent +‘it’ particularly calls for the relative ‘that’, in preference +to ‘which’, and even to ‘who’. Even when the relative is in the +possessive case, ‘that’, which has no possessive, is often retained +by transferring to the main predicate the noun on which it depends; 8 +thus gives place to 9, even at the risk<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span> of ambiguity; for the relative +clause now supplies us with the question (not ‘whose hat ...?’ but) +but ‘what did you borrow?’ leaving us theoretically in doubt whether +Jones’s hat is distinguished from his other property, from other +people’s hats, or from things in general.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the two blunders that are most frequently made +almost invariably have the relative ‘who’ or ‘which’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And it is to me, the original promoter of the whole scheme, to whom +they would deny my fair share in the profits!</p> +</div> + +<p>‘To me’ implies a conjunction clause: ‘to whom ...’ is a relative +clause. ‘It is to me that...’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It was <i>to Mrs.</i> Brent, the beetle-browed wife of Mr. Commissary +Brent, <i>to whom</i> the General transferred his attentions +now.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> + +<p>It is to you whom I address a history which may perhaps fall into very +different hands.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>‘To you that’, or ‘you to whom’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is not taste that is plentiful, but courage that is +rare.—<span class="smcap">Stevenson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Again a common blunder; not, however, a confusion between the two +constructions above, but between one of them (the relative) and a +third. The sentence explains why every one seems to prefer Shakespeare +to Ouida (they are afraid to say that they like Ouida best). ‘What is +the explanation of this?’ ‘It is not the plentifulness of taste, but +the rarity of courage, that explains it.’ Or, less clumsily, using the +construction that Stevenson doubtless intended: ‘It (the inference to +be drawn) is not that taste is plentiful, but that courage is rare.’</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Participle and Gerund</span></h3> + +<p>It is advisable to make a few remarks on the participle and gerund +together before taking them separately. As the word <i>gerund</i> +is variously used, we first define it. A gerund is the verbal noun +identical in form with any participle, simple or compound, that +contains the termination <i>-ing</i>. Thus the verb <i>write</i> has +the active participles <i>writing</i>, <i>having written</i>, <i>being +about to write</i>, <i>about to write</i>, and the passive participles +<i>written</i>, <i>having been written</i>, <i>being written</i>, +<i>about to be written</i>, <i>being about to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span> be written</i>. Any +of these except <i>written</i>, <i>about to write</i>, <i>about to +be written</i>, may be a gerund also; but while the participle is +an adjective, the gerund is a noun, differing from other nouns in +retaining its power (if the active gerund of a transitive verb) of +directly governing another noun.</p> + +<p>Both these are of great importance for our purpose. The participle +itself, even when confusion with the other cannot occur, is much +abused; and the slovenly uses of it that were good enough in Burke’s +time are now recognized solecisms. Again, the identity between the two +forms leads to loose and unaccountable gerund constructions that will +probably be swept away, as so many other laxities have been, with the +advance of grammatical consciousness. We shall have to deal with both +these points at some length.</p> + +<p>It is indeed no wonder that the forms in <i>-ing</i> should require +close attention. Exactly how many old English terminations <i>-ing</i> +is heir to is a question debated by historical grammarians, which we +are not competent to answer. But we may point out that <i>writing</i> +may now be (1) participle—I was writing; I saw him writing; writing +piously, he acts profanely—, (2) gerund or full verbal noun—I object +to your writing that—, (3) hybrid between gerund and participle—I +do not mind you writing it—, (4) detached verbal noun—Writing is an +acquired art—, (5) concrete noun—This writing is illegible. Moreover, +the verbal noun <i>writing</i> has the synonym <i>to write</i>, +obligatory instead of it in some connexions, better in some, worse +in some, and impossible in others; compare, for instance: I do not +like the trouble of writing; I shall not take the trouble to write; +the trouble of writing is too much for him; it is a trouble to write; +writing is a trouble. The grammatical difficulties, that is, are +complicated by considerations of idiom.</p> + +<p>In these preliminary remarks, however, it is only with the distinction +or want of distinction between participle and gerund that we are +concerned. The participle is an adjective, and should be in agreement +with a noun or pronoun; the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span> gerund is a noun, of which it should be +possible to say clearly whether, and why, it is in the subjective, +objective, or possessive case, as we can of other nouns. That the +distinction is often obscured, partly in consequence of the history of +the language, will be clear from one or two facts and examples.</p> + +<p>1. <i>The man is building</i> contains what we should all now +call, whether it is so or not historically, a participle or verbal +adjective: <i>the house is building</i> (older but still living and +correct English for <i>the house is being built</i>) contains, as its +remarkable difference of meaning prepares us to believe, a gerund or +verbal noun, once governed by a now lost preposition.</p> + +<p>2. In <i>He stopped, laughing</i> we have a participle; in <i>He +stopped laughing</i>, a verbal noun governed directly by the verb; in +<i>He burst out laughing</i>, a verbal noun governed by a vanished +preposition.</p> + +<p>3. Present usage does not bear out the definite modern ideas of the +distinction between participle and gerund as respectively adjective +and noun. So long as that usage continues, there are various degrees +of ambiguity, illustrated by the three following examples. It would +be impossible to say, whatever the context, whether the writer of the +first intended a gerund or a participle. In the second, a previous +sentence would probably have decided the question. In the third, though +grammar (again as modified by present usage) leaves the question open, +the meaning of the sentence is practically decisive by itself.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Can he conceive <i>Matthew Arnold permitting</i> such a book to be +written and published about himself?—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>And no doubt that end will be secured by <i>the Commission sitting</i> +in Paris.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Those who know least of them [the virtues] know very well +how much they are concerned in <i>other people having</i> +them.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In the second of these, if <i>sitting</i> is a participle, the +meaning is that the end will be secured by the Commission, which is +described by way of identification as the one sitting in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span> Paris. If +<i>sitting</i> is gerund, the end will be secured by the wise choice +of Paris and not another place for its scene. If <i>Commission’s</i> +were written, there could be no doubt the latter was the meaning. With +<i>Commission</i>, there is, by present usage, absolutely no means of +deciding between the two meanings apart from possible light in the +context. In the third, common sense is able to tell us, though grammar +gives the question up, that what is interesting is not the other people +who have them, but the question whether other people have them.</p> + +<p>We shall, in the section on the gerund, take up the decided position +that all gerunds ought to be made distinguishable from participles. We +are quite aware, however, that in the first place a language does not +remodel itself to suit the grammarian’s fancy for neat classification; +that secondly the confusion is not merely wanton or ignorant, but the +result of natural development; that thirdly the change involves some +inconveniences, especially to hurried and careless writers. On the +other hand it is certain that the permanent tendency in language is +towards the correct and logical, not from it; it is merely hoped that +the considerable number of instances here collected may attract the +attention of some writers who have not been aware of the question, +and perhaps convince them that the distinction is a useful one, +that a writer ought to know and let us know whether he is using a +participle or a gerund, and that to abandon the gerund when it cannot +be distinguished without clumsiness need cause no difficulty to any but +the very unskilful in handling words.</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Participles</span></h3> + +<p>The unattached or wrongly attached participle is one of the blunders +most common with illiterate or careless writers. But there are degrees +of heinousness in the offence; our examples are arranged from 1. to 8. +in these degrees, starting with perfect innocence.</p> + +<p>1. Participles that have passed into prepositions, conjunctions, or +members of adverbial phrases.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Considering</i> the circumstances, <i>you</i> may go.</p> + +<p><i>Seeing</i> that it was involuntary, <i>he</i> can hardly be blamed.</p> + +<p>Roughly <i>speaking</i>, all <i>men</i> are liars.</p> + +<p><i>Looking</i> at it in a shortened perspective of time, those +<i>years</i> of transition have the quality of a single consecutive +occurrence.—<span class="smcap">H. G. Wells.</span></p> + +<p>The <i>Bill</i> ... will bring about, <i>assuming</i> that it meets +with good fortune in the remaining stages of its passage through +Parliament, a very useful reform.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Regarded as participles, these are incorrect. It is not <i>you</i> +that consider, but I; not <i>he</i> that sees, but we; not <i>men</i> +that roughly speak, but the moralist; not <i>years</i> that look, but +philosophic historians; not <i>the Bill</i> that assumes, but the +newspaper prophet. The development into prepositions, &c., is a natural +one, however; the only question about any particular word of the kind +is whether the vox populi has yet declared for it; when it has, there +is no more to be said; but when it has not, the process should be +resisted as long as possible, writers acting as a suspensive House of +Lords; an instance will be found in 4.</p> + +<p>Three quotations from Burke will show that he, like others of his time, +felt himself more at liberty than most good writers would now feel +themselves.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Founding</i> the appeal on this basis, <i>it was judged</i> proper +to lay before Parliament....—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> + +<p><i>Flattering</i> themselves that their power is become necessary to +the support of all order and government, <i>everything</i> which tends +to the support of that power <i>is sanctified</i>.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> + +<p><i>Having considered</i> terror as producing an unnatural tension +and certain violent emotions of the nerves; <i>it</i> easily +<i>follows</i>.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Similar constructions may be found on almost every page of Smollett.</p> + +<p>2. Participles half justified by attachment to a pronoun implied in +<i>my</i>, <i>your</i>, <i>his</i>, <i>their</i>. These are perhaps +better avoided.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Having</i> thus <i>run</i> through the causes of the sublime with +reference to all the senses, <i>my</i> first observation will be found +very nearly true.—<span class="smcap">Burke.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span></span></p> + +<p><i>Being</i> much <i>interested</i> in the correspondence bearing +on the question ‘Do we believe?’, the first difficulty arising in +<i>my</i> mind is....—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p><i>My</i> farm consisted of about twenty acres of excellent land, +<i>having given</i> a hundred pounds for my predecessor’s good +will.—<span class="smcap">Goldsmith.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>3. Mere unattached participles for which nothing can be said, except +that they are sometimes inoffensive if the word to be supplied is very +vague.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Doubling</i> the point, and <i>running</i> along the southern shore +of the little peninsula, the scene changes.—<span class="smcap">F. M. Crawford.</span></p> + +<p>The most trying ... period was this one of enforced idleness +<i>waiting</i> for the day of entry.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><i>Having acquired</i> so many tropical colonies there is the +undoubted duty attached to such possession of....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>4. Participles that may some day become prepositions, &c.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Sir—<i>Referring</i> to your correspondent’s (the Bishop of +Croydon’s) letter in to-day’s issue, <i>he</i> quotes at the close of +it the following passage.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>He</i> must be the Bishop; for the immediately preceding <i>Sir</i>, +marking the beginning of the letter, shows that no one else has been +mentioned; but if we had given the sentence without this indication, no +one could possibly have believed that this was so; <i>referring</i> is +not yet unparticipled.</p> + +<p>5. An unwary writer sometimes attaches a participle to the subject of +a previous sentence, assuming that it will be the subject of the new +sentence also, and then finds (or rather is not awake enough to find) +himself mistaken. This is a trap into which good writers sometimes +fall, and so dangerous to bad writers that we shall give many examples. +It is important for the tiro to realize that he has not satisfied the +elementary requirements of grammar until he has attached the participle +to a noun in the same sentence as itself, not in another. He must also +remember that, for instance, <i>I went and he came</i>, though often +spoken of loosely as a sentence, is in fact as fully two sentences as +if each half of it were ten lines long, and the two were parted by a +full stop and not connected by a conjunction.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>They</i> had now reached the airy dwelling where Mrs. Macshake +resided, and <i>having rung, the door</i> was at length most +deliberately opened.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span></p> + +<p><i>The lovers</i> sought a shelter, and, mutually <i>charmed</i> with +each other, <i>time</i> flew for a while on downy pinions.—<span class="smcap">S. +Ferrier.</span></p> + +<p>A molecular <i>change</i> is propagated to the muscles by which the +body is retracted, and <i>causing</i> them to contract, <i>the act</i> +of retraction is brought about.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p><i>Joseph</i>, as they supposed, by tampering with Will, got all my +secrets, and was acquainted with all my motions—; and <i>having</i> +also <i>undertaken</i> to watch all those of his young lady, the wise +<i>family</i> were secure.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> + +<p><i>Miss Pinkerton</i> ... in vain ... tried to overawe her. +<i>Attempting</i> once to scold her in public, <i>Rebecca</i> hit upon +the ... plan of answering her in French, which quite routed the old +woman.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> + +<p>But <i>he</i> thought it derogatory to a brave knight passively to +await the assault, and <i>ordering</i> his own men to charge, the +hostile <i>squadrons</i>, rapidly advancing against each other, met +midway on the plain.—<span class="smcap">Prescott.</span></p> + +<p>Alvarado, roused by the noise of the attack on this quarter, hastened +to the support of his officer, when <i>Almagro</i>, seizing the +occasion, pushed across the bridge, dispersed the small body left to +defend it, and, <i>falling</i> on Alvarado’s rear, <i>that general</i> +saw himself hemmed in on all sides.—<span class="smcap">Prescott.</span></p> + +<p><i>Murtagh</i>, without a word of reply, went to the door, and +<i>shouting</i> into the passage something in Irish, <i>the room</i> +was instantly filled with bog-trotters.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>But, as before, <i>Anne</i> once more made me smart, and <i>having +equipped</i> herself in a gown and bonnet of mine—not of the +newest—off <i>we</i> set.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>At this I was silent for a little, and then <i>I</i> resolved to speak +plainly to Anne. But not <i>being</i> ready with my words, <i>she</i> +got in first.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>For many years <i>I</i> had to contend with much opposition in the +nature of scepticism; but <i>having had</i> hundreds of successful +cases and proofs <i>it</i> has become such an established fact in the +eastern counties that many landowners, &c., would not think of sinking +a well without first seeking the aid of a water diviner.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>6. A more obvious trap, and consequently less fatal, is a change from +the active construction that may have been intended to a passive, +without corresponding alterations. If the writers of the next two had +used <i>we must admit</i> instead of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span> <i>it must be admitted</i>, +<i>a policy that they put forward</i>, instead of <i>a policy put +forward</i>, the participles <i>hesitating</i> and <i>believing</i> +would have had owners.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>While <i>hesitating</i> to accept this terrible indictment of French +infancy, <i>it must be admitted</i> that French literature in all its +strength and wealth is a grown-up literature.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>He and those with whom he acted were responsible for the policy +promulgated—<i>a policy</i> put forward in all seriousness and +honesty <i>believing</i> it to be essential to the obtaining of the +better government of Ireland.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>7. Participles that seem to belong to a noun, but do not.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Letters on the constant stopping of omnibuses, thus <i>causing</i> +considerable suffering to the horses.</p> +</div> + +<p>Does <i>causing</i> agree with <i>letters</i>? Then the letters annoy +the horses. With <i>stopping</i>? Then stopping causes suffering by +stopping (<i>thus</i>). With <i>omnibuses</i>? The horses possibly +blame those innocents, but we can hardly suppose a human being, even +the writer of the sentence, so illogical. The word <i>thus</i>, +however, is often considered to have a kind of dispensing power, +freeing its participle from all obligations; so:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The Prince was, by the special command of his Majesty the +Emperor, made the guardian of H.I.H. the Crown Prince, <i>thus +necessitating</i> the Prince’s constant presence in the capital of +Japan.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>A very wealthy man can never be sure even of friendship,—while the +highest, strongest and noblest kind of love is nearly always denied to +him, in this way <i>carrying out</i> the fulfilment of those strange +but true words:—‘How hardly shall he that is a rich man enter the +Kingdom of Heaven!’—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>It is not <i>love</i> that carries out, but the power that denies love, +which is not mentioned.</p> + +<p>8. Really bad unattached or wrongly attached participles. The reader +will generally find no difficulty in seeing what has led to the +blunder, and if he will take the trouble to do this, will be less +likely to make similar blunders himself.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And then <i>stooping</i> to take up the key to let <i>myself</i> into +the garden, <i>he</i> started and looked as if he heard somebody near +the door.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span></span></p> + +<p>Sir—With reference to this question ‘Do we believe?’, while +<i>recognizing</i> the vastness of the subject, its modern aspect has +some definite features.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p><i>Taken</i> in conjunction with the splendid white and brown +trout-fishing of the Rosses lakes and rivers, anglers have now the +opportunity of fishing one of the best, if not the best, fishery to be +obtained in Ireland.—<span class="smcap">Advt.</span></p> + +<p>Sir—<i>Having read</i> with much interest the letters re ‘Believe +only’ now appearing in the <i>Daily Telegraph</i>, perhaps some of +your readers might be interested to know the following texts which +have led some great men to ‘believe only’.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p><i>Being pushed</i> unceremoniously to one side—which was precisely +what I wished—he usurped my place.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> + +<p>The higher forms of speech acquire a secondary strength from +association. <i>Having</i>, in actual life, habitually <i>heard</i> +them in connexion with mental impressions, and <i>having been +accustomed</i> to meet with them in the most powerful writing, they +come to have in themselves a species of force.—<span class="smcap">Spencer.</span></p> + +<p><i>Standing</i> over one of the sluices of the Aswan dam last January, +not only was the vibration evident to the senses....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The following passage may be commended for use in examination papers. +‘Always <i>beloved</i> by the Imperial couple who are to-day the +Sovereign lord and lady of Great Britain, their Majesties have, on +many occasions since the Devonshire houses rejoiced in a mistress once +more, honoured them by visits extending over some days.’—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The last, as the <i>Times</i> reviewer has noticed, will repay analysis +in several ways.</p> + +<p><b>9. The absolute construction</b> is not much to be recommended, +having generally an alien air in English; but it is sometimes useful. +It must be observed, first, that the case used should now invariably be +the subjective, though it was otherwise in old English. Secondly, it +is very seldom advisable to make an absolute construction and insert a +pronoun for the purpose when the participle might simply be attached +in ordinary agreement to a noun already to hand. Thirdly, it is very +bad to use the construction, but omit to give the participle a noun +or pronoun to itself. These three transgressions will be illustrated, +in the same order, by the next three examples. But many of the wrong +sentences in 5<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span> above may be regarded as absolute constructions with +the subject omitted.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I, with whom that Impulse was the most intractable, the most +capricious, the most maddening of masters (<i>him</i> before me always +excepted)....—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> + +<p>‘Special’ is a much overworked word, <i>it</i> being loosely used to +mean great in degree, also peculiar in kind.—<span class="smcap">R. G. White.</span></p> + +<p>This is said now because, <i>having been said</i> before, I have been +judged as if I had made the pretensions which were then and which are +now again disclaimed.—<span class="smcap">R. G. White.</span></p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Gerund</span></h3> + +<p>There are three questions to be considered: whether a writer ought to +let us know that he is using a gerund and not a participle; when a +gerund may be used without its subject’s being expressed; when a gerund +with preposition is to be preferred to the infinitive.</p> + +<p><b>1. Is the gerund to be made recognizable?</b> And, in the +circumstances that make it possible, that is, when its subject is +expressed, is this to be done sometimes, or always?</p> + +<p>It is done by putting what we call for shortness’ sake the subject of +the gerund (i. e., the word <i>me</i> or <i>my</i> in <i>me doing</i> +or <i>my doing</i>) in the possessive instead of in the objective or +subjective case.</p> + +<p>Take the typical sentence: I dislike my best friend(’s) violating +my privacy. It cannot be a true account of the matter to say +that <i>friend</i> is the object of <i>I dislike</i>, and has +a participle <i>violating</i> attached to it. For (a) we can +substitute <i>resent</i>, which never takes a personal object, for +<i>dislike</i>, without changing the sense. (b) If we substitute a +passive construction, also without changing the sense, we find that +<i>dislike</i> has quite a different object—<i>privacy</i>.—I dislike +my privacy being violated by my friend. (c) Many of us would be willing +to adopt the sentiment conveyed who yet would not admit for a moment +that they disliked their best friend even when he intruded; they +condemn the sin, but not the sinner.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span></p> + +<p><i>Violating</i> then is not an ordinary participle. It does not +follow yet that it is a gerund. It may be an extraordinary participle, +fused into one notion with the noun, so that <i>a friend violating</i> +means <i>the-violation-by-a-friend</i>. The Latin scholar here at once +puts in the idiom of <i>occisus Caesar</i>, which does not generally +mean <i>Caesar after he was killed</i>, as it naturally should, but +the killing of Caesar, or the fact that Caesar had been killed. The +parallel is close (though the use is practically confined to the +passive in Latin), and familiar to all who know any Latin at all. +But it shows not so much what the English construction is as how +educated people have been able to reconcile themselves to an ambiguous +and not very reasonable idiom—not very reasonable, that is, after +language has thrown off its early limitations, and got over the first +difficulty of accomplishing abstract expression of any kind. The sort +of fusion assumed is further illustrated for the Latinist, though not +so closely, by the Latin accusative and infinitive. This theory then +takes <i>violating</i> for a participle fused into one notion with +<i>friend</i>. There are two difficulties.</p> + +<p>I. The construction in English is, though in the nature of things not +as common, yet as easy in the passive as in the active. Now the passive +of <i>violating</i> is either <i>violated</i> or <i>being violated</i>. +It is quite natural to say, Privacy violated once is no longer +inviolable. Why then should it be most unnatural to say, The worst of +privacy violated once is that it is no longer inviolable? No one, not +purposely seeking the unusual for some reason or other, would omit +<i>being</i> before <i>violated</i> in the second. Yet as participles +<i>violated</i> and <i>being violated</i> are equally good—not indeed +always, but in this context, as the simpler Privacy sentence shows. The +only difference between the two participles (except that in brevity, +which tells against <i>being violated</i>) is that the longer form +can also be the gerund, and the shorter cannot. The almost invariable +choice of it is due to the instinctive feeling that what we are using +is or ought to be the gerund. A more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span> convincing instance than this +mere adaptation of our original example may be added:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Many years ago I became impressed with the necessity for <i>our +infantry being taught and practised</i> in the skilful use of their +rifle.—<span class="smcap">Lord Roberts.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>The necessity for our infantry taught and practised</i> is +absolutely impossible. But why, <i>if being</i> taught is participle, +and not gerund?</p> + +<p>II. Assuming that the fused-participle theory is satisfactory and +recognized, whence comes the general, though not universal impression +among those who, without being well versed in grammar, are habitually +careful how they speak and write, that constructions like the following +are ignorant vulgarisms?—It is no use he (his) doing it; it is no use +him (his) doing it; that need not prevent us (our) believing; excuse +me (my) interrupting you; a thing (thing’s) existing does not prove +that it ought to exist; I was annoyed by Tom (Tom’s) hesitating; the +Tsar (Tsar’s) leaving Russia is significant; it failed through the King +(King’s) refusing his signature; without us (our) hearing the man, the +facts cannot be got at; without the man (man’s) telling us himself, we +can never know. With a single exception for one (not both) of the first +two, none of these ought to cause a moment’s uneasiness to any one who +was consciously or unconsciously in the fused-participle frame of mind; +and if they do cause uneasiness it shows that that frame of mind is not +effectively present.</p> + +<p>The Fused-Participle Theory, having no sufficient answer to these +objections, but seeing that the gerund’s case is also weak, naturally +tries a counter-attack:—If on the other hand the gerund theory is +satisfactory and recognized, how is it conceivable that people should +leave out the possessive <i>’s</i> in the reckless way they do? To +which, however, the Gerund makes reply:—I regret that they do leave +it out, but at least we can see how they come to; it is the combined +result of a mistake and an inconvenience. The mistake is caused by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span> +certain types of sentence in which a real, not a fused participle is +so used that the noun and its (unfused) participle give a sense hardly +distinguishable from a possessive noun and a gerund. Examples are:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>This plan has now been abandoned owing to <i>circumstances +requiring</i> the convocation of representatives of the people at the +earliest possible moment.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>... by imposing as great difficulty as possible on <i>parents and +publicans using</i> child messengers.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Of course no obstacles should be put in the way of <i>charitable +people providing</i> free or other meals if they think +fit.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The notion of <i>the Czar being addressed</i> in such terms by the +nobility of his capital would have been regarded as an absolute +impossibility.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>There is of course a difference. For instance, in the example about +the Czar, as in a previous one about <i>conceiving Matthew Arnold +permitting</i>, the participle has a pictorial effect; it invites +us to imagine the physical appearance of these two great men under +indignity instead of merely thinking of the abstract indignity, as +we should have done if <i>Czar’s</i> and <i>Arnold’s</i> had shown +that we had a gerund; but the difference is very fine; the possessive +sign might be inserted without practical effect in all these four, +and in hundreds like them. And unlearned people may be excused for +deducing that the subject of the gerund can be used at pleasure without +the possessive sign, while the learned comfort themselves with the +fused-participle theory. That is the mistake. The inconvenience is +this: it is easy enough to use the possessive adjectives (<i>my</i>, +&c.), and to add the possessive sign to most names and many single +nouns; but the subject of a gerund is often a long phrase, after which +the sign is intolerable. So the mistake (that the gerund may have a +subject not marked by the possessive) is eagerly applied to obviating +the inconvenience (that long gerund subjects must be avoided). And that +is why people drop their possessive <i>’s</i>, and why you, the Fused +Participle, flourish, defrauding both me, the Gerund,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span> and the honest +participle. Thus answered, the Fused Participle does not continue the +argument, but pleads only that there is room for all three forms.</p> + +<p>Before giving some examples to help in the decision, we shall summarize +our own opinion. (1) It is not a matter to be decided by appeal +to historical grammar. All three constructions may have separate +legitimate descents, and yet in the interests of clear thought and +expression it may be better for one of them to be abandoned. (2) There +are two opposite tendencies at present: among careful writers, to +avoid the fused participle (this, being negative, can naturally not +be illustrated) and to put possessive signs in slightly uncomfortable +places by way of compensation; among slovenly writers, to throw off +all limits of length for the subject of the fused participle. (3) Long +fused-participle phrases are a variety of abstract expression, and +as such to be deprecated. Among the resources of civilization is the +power of choosing between different ways of saying the same thing; and +literary skill is very much a matter of exercising that power; a writer +should recognize that if he cannot get round an ugly fused participle +there is still much for him to learn. (4) Opportunities for ambiguity +are so abundant in English, owing to the number of words whose parsing +depends on context, that all aids to precision are valuable; and it +is not too much to expect a writer to know and let us know whether he +means a participle or a gerund.</p> + +<p><i>a.</i> That the possessive of all pronouns that have the form should +be used instead of the objective or subjective is hardly disputed. +Correct accordingly:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>You may rely upon <i>me</i> doing all in my power.—<span class="smcap">Sir W. +Harcourt.</span></p> + +<p>The confounded fetterlock clapped on my movements by old Griffiths +prevents <i>me</i> repairing to England in person.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> + +<p>But when it comes to <i>us</i> following his life and +example....—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Nothing can prevent <i>it</i> being the main issue at the General +Election.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span></p> + +<p>One of them, if you will pardon <i>me</i> reminding you, is that no +discussion is to pass between us.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> + +<p>Frederick had already accepted the crown, lest James should object to +<i>him</i> doing so.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>... notwithstanding the fact that their suspicions of ease-loving, +ear-tickling parsons prevent <i>them</i> supporting the commercial +churches of our time.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>b.</i> Examples in which the possessive of nouns might be written +without a qualm.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Nearly a week passed over without <i>Mr. Fairford</i> hearing a word +directly from his son.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Downe Wright had not forgiven the indignity of <i>her son</i> +having been refused by Mary.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span></p> + +<p>In no other religion is there a thought of <i>man</i> being saved by +grace and not by merit.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>And it is said that, on <i>a visitor</i> once asking to see his +library, Descartes led him....—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p>It is true that one of our objects was to prevent<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> <i>children</i> +‘sipping’ the liquor they were sent for.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Orders were sometimes issued to prohibit[1a] <i>soldiers</i> buying +and eating cucumbers.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Renewed efforts at a settlement in 1891 failed through the +<i>Swedish Government</i> leading off with a flippant and offensive +suggestion.—<span class="smcap">Nansen.</span></p> + +<p>Hurried reading results in <i>the learner</i> forgetting half of what +he reads, or in <i>his</i> forming vague conceptions.—<span class="smcap">Sweet.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>c.</i> All the last set involved what were either actual or virtual +names of persons; there is more difficulty with abstract nouns, +compound subjects, and words of which the possessive is ugly. Those +that may perhaps bear the possessive mark will be put first, and +alterations suggested for the others.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>We look forward to <i>much attention</i> being given.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>He affirmed that such increases were the rule in that city on <i>the +change</i> being made.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I live in hopes of <i>this discussion</i> resulting in some +modification in our form of belief.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i> (that +this discussion may result)</p> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span></p> +<p>The real objection to the possessive here is merely the addition to the +crowd of sibilants.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In the event of <i>the passage</i> being found, he will esteem it a +favour ... (if the passage is found)</p> + +<p>Conceive my vexation at being told by Papa this morning that he had +not the least objection to <i>Edward and me</i> marrying whenever we +pleased.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span> (our)</p> +</div> + +<p>Or, if the names are essential, <i>did not in the least mind how soon +Edward and I married</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It has been replied to the absurd taunt about <i>the French</i> +inventing nothing, that at least Descartes invented German +philosophy.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span> (Frenchmen’s)</p> +</div> + +<p><i>d.</i> A modern construction called the compound possessive was +mentioned at the end of the section on Cases. It is sometimes ugly, +sometimes inoffensive; that is a matter of degree and of knowing where +to draw the line; there is no objection to it in principle. And the +application of it will sometimes help out a gerund. The first quotation +gives a compound possessive simply; the second, a gerund construction +to which it ought to be applicable; the third and fourth, two to which +it can be applied; and the last, one to which it cannot.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A protestation, read at Edinburgh, was followed, on <i>Archibald +Johnston of Warriston’s</i> suggestion, by....—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> + +<p>The retirement of Judge Stonor was made the subject of special +reference yesterday on the occasion of <i>Sir W. L. Selfe, +his successor</i>, taking his seat in Marylebone County +Court.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The mere fact of <i>such a premier</i> being endured +shows....—<span class="smcap">Bagehot.</span></p> + +<p>There is no possibility of <i>the dissolution of the legislative +union</i> becoming a vital question.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>If some means could be devised for ... insisting upon <i>many +English guardians of the poor</i> making themselves more +acquainted....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The only objection to a possessive mark after <i>successor</i> is +that the two commas cannot be dispensed with; we must say <i>when +... took</i> for <i>on the occasion of ... taking</i>. <i>Such a +premier’s</i> will certainly pass. In the <i>Spectator</i> sentence, +we should ourselves allow <i>union’s</i>; opinions will differ. But +to put the <i>’s</i> after <i>poor</i> in the last sentence would +be ridiculous; that sentence must be rewritten—insisting that many +English<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span> guardians of the poor should make—or else <i>poor-law +Guardians’</i> must be used.</p> + +<p><i>e.</i> Sometimes we can get over the difficulty without abandoning +the gerund, by some slight change of order.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>This incentive can only be supplied by <i>the nation itself</i> taking +the matter up seriously.—<span class="smcap">Lord Roberts.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>If <i>itself’s</i> is objected to, omit <i>itself</i> (or shift it to +the end), and write <i>nation’s</i>.</p> + +<p><i>f.</i> But many types of sentence remain that will have to be +completely changed if the gerund is to be recognizable. It will +be admitted about most of our examples that the change is not to +be regretted. The subject of the gerund is italicized in each, to +emphasize its length.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>We have to account for <i>the collision of two great fleets, so equal +in material strength that the issue was thought doubtful by many +careful statisticians</i>, ending in the total destruction of one of +them and in the immunity of the other from damage greater than might +well be incurred in a mere skirmish.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>For <i>account for ... ending</i> write <i>ascertain why ... ended</i>. +The sentence is radically bad, because the essential construction seems +complete at <i>collision</i>—a false scent. That, which is one of the +worst literary sins, is the frequent result of long fused participles. +It is quite practically possible here for readers to have supposed that +they were going to be told why the fleets met, and not why the meeting +ended as it did. In the remaining sentences, we shall say when there is +false scent, but leave the reader to examine it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The success of the negotiations depends on <i>the Russian Minister at +Tokio</i> being allowed to convince Japan that....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The compound possessive—Tokio’s—is tempting, but perhaps overbold. +Insert <i>whether</i> after <i>depends on</i>, and write <i>is</i> for +<i>being</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>So far from <i>this</i> being the case, the policy ... was actually +decided upon before ... the question ... was raised.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Omit <i>being the case</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>We are not without tokens of <i>an openness for this higher truth +also, of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span> a keen though uncultivated sense for it</i>, having existed +in Burns.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>For the first <i>of</i> write <i>that</i>, omit the second <i>of</i>, +and omit <i>having</i>. False scent.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There is no apparent evidence of <i>an early peace</i> being +necessitated by the pecuniary exigencies of the Russian +Government.—<span class="smcap">Sir Howard Vincent.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>For <i>of ... being</i> write <i>that ... will be</i>, if +<i>peace’s</i> cannot be endured.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The general effect of his words was to show the absurdity +of <i>the Secretary of State for War, and our military +authorities generally</i>, denouncing the Militia as useless or +redundant.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>For <i>the absurdity of ... denouncing</i> write <i>how absurd it was +for ... to denounce</i>. False scent, though less deceptive.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Apparently his mission was decided upon without <i>that of the +British and Spanish Ministers</i> having been taken into account, +or, at all events, without their having been sufficiently reckoned +with.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Without regard (at all events without sufficient regard) to that of....</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>... capital seeking employment in foreign protected countries, in +consequence of <i>manufacturing business in many branches in which +it might be employed at home</i> being rendered unprofitable by our +system of free trade.—<span class="smcap">Lord Goschen.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>For <i>in consequence of ... being</i> write <i>because ... has +been</i>. Bad false scent again.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>So far from <i>the relief given to agriculture by the State paying +one-half of the rates</i> being inequitable, it is but a bare act of +justice.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Observe the fused participle within fused participle here; and read +thus: So far from its being inequitable that the state should relieve, +&c.</p> + +<p>After these specimens, chosen not as exceptional ones, but merely as +not admitting of simple correction by insertion of the possessive mark, +the reader will perhaps agree that the long gerund subject—or rather +noun phrase of the fused participle—is a monstrosity, the abolition of +which would be a relief to him, and good discipline for the writer.</p> + +<p>Two sentences are added to show the chaotic state of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span> present practice. +Noticing the bold use of the strict gerund in the first, we conclude +that the author is a sound gerundite, faithful in spite of all +temptations; but a few pages later comes the needless relapse into +fused participle.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I remember old <i>Colney’s</i> once, in old days, <i>calling</i> that +kind of marriage a sarcophagus.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>She had thought in her heart that <i>Mr. Barmby espousing</i> the girl +would smoothe a troubled prospect.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The following looks like a deliberate avoidance of both constructions +by a writer who is undecided between the two. <i>Its being</i> is what +should have been written.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I do not say that the advice is not sound, or complain that it is +given. I do deprecate <i>that it should be</i> taken.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>And perhaps a shyness of <i>something’s being shown</i> accounts for +the next odd arrangement; it is true that entire recasting is what is +called for.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>There being shown to be something</i> radically defective in +the management of the Bank <i>led</i> to the appointment of a +Committee.—<span class="smcap">H. D. Macleod.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><b>2. When must the subject of the gerund (or infinitive) be expressed, +and when omitted?</b></p> + +<p>This is not a controversial matter like the last; the principles are +quite simple, and will be accepted; but it is necessary to state and +illustrate them because they are often forgotten. As the same mistakes +are sometimes made with the infinitive, that is to be considered as +included.</p> + +<p>Roughly, the subject of the gerund (or infinitive) should be expressed +if it is different from, and omitted if it is the same as, the subject +of the sentence. To omit it when different is positively wrong, and may +produce actual ambiguity or worse, though sometimes there is only a +slipshod effect; to insert it when the same is generally clumsy.</p> + +<p>No one would say ‘I succeeded to his property upon dying’, because, +<i>I</i> being the subject of the sentence, <i>my</i> is naturally +suggested instead of the necessary <i>his</i> as subject of the gerund; +the <i>his</i> must be inserted before <i>dying</i>, even though<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span> the +nature of the case obviates ambiguity. To take an instance that will +show both sides, the following is correct:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I shut the door and stood with my back to it. Then, instead of <i>his +philandering</i> with Bess, I, Clementina MacTaggart, had some plain +speech with John Barnaby.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Subject of the sentence, I; subject of the gerund, he; they are +different; therefore the <i>he</i> must be expressed, in the shape of +<i>his</i>. Now rewrite the main sentence as—John Barnaby heard some +plain speech from me, Clementina MacTaggart. The sense is the same; but +the <i>his</i> before <i>philandering</i> at once becomes superfluous; +it is not yet seriously in the way, because we do not know what is the +subject of <i>philandering</i>, the name only coming later. Now rewrite +it again as—Then John Barnaby heard some plain speech from ... instead +of ... The <i>his</i> is now so clumsy as to be almost impossible.</p> + +<p>The insertion of superfluous subjects is much less common than the +omission of necessary ones; but three examples follow. The first is a +rare and precious variety; the second has no apparent justification; +for the third it may be said that the unusual <i>his</i> has the same +effect as the insertion of the parenthetic words <i>as he actually +does</i> after <i>limiting</i> would have had.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>You took food to him, but instead of <i>he reaching</i> out his hand +and taking it, he kept asking for food.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Harsh facts: sure as she was of <i>her</i> never <i>losing</i> her +filial hold of the beloved.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>I have said that Mr. Chamberlain has no warrant for <i>his +limiting</i> the phrase ... to the competitive manufacture of +goods.—<span class="smcap">Lord Goschen.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In giving the rule summarily, we used the phrase <i>subject of the +sentence</i>. That phrase is not to be confined to the subject of the +main sentence, but to be referred instead, when necessary, to the +subject of the subordinate clause in which the gerund may stand. For +instance:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The good, the illuminated, sit apart from the rest, censuring their +dullness and vices, as if they thought that, <i>by sitting</i> +very grand in their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span> chairs, the very brokers, attorneys, and +congressmen would see the error of their ways, and flock to +them.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Here <i>by sitting</i> breaks the rule, though the subject of +<i>sitting</i> is the same as that of the main verb <i>sit</i>, because +the subject of the clause in which <i>sitting</i> comes is not <i>the +good</i>, but <i>brokers, &c.</i> The right way to mend this is not to +insert <i>their</i> before <i>sitting</i>—which after all is clumsy, +though correct—but to make <i>the good</i> the subject of the clause +also, by writing <i>as if they thought that by sitting ... they would +make the brokers ... see the error</i>.</p> + +<p>And sometimes <i>subject of the sentence</i> is to be interpreted still +more freely as the word grammatically dominant in the part of the +sentence that contains the gerund. For instance:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>From the Bible alone was she taught the duties of morality, but +familiarized to her taste <i>by hearing</i> its stories and precepts +from the lips she best loved.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Here the dominant word is <i>Bible</i>, to which <i>familiarized</i> +belongs. So, though <i>she</i> does happen to be the main subject, +<i>her</i> must be inserted because the <i>familiarized</i> phrase +removes the gerund from the reach of the main subject.</p> + +<p>After these explanations we add miscellaneous instances. It will be +seen that transgression of the rule, though it seldom makes a sentence +ambiguous enough to deceive, easily makes it ambiguous enough to amuse +the reader at wrong moments, or gives an impression of amateurish work. +Mistakes are mended, sometimes by inserting the subject of the gerund +(or infinitive), sometimes by changing the main subject to make it the +same as that of the gerund, sometimes by other recasting.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>... an excellent arrangement for a breeching, which, when +released, remains with the carriage, so that lead or centre horses +can be put in the wheel <i>without having</i> to affix a new +breeching.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Lucky, reflects the reader, since horses are not good at affixing +breechings. Write <i>the drivers can put ... horses ... without having +to affix</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I cultivated a passionless and cold exterior, for I discovered that +<i>by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> assuming</i> such a character, certain otherwise crafty persons +would talk more readily before me.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Write <i>if I assumed</i>; or else <i>I should induce certain ... +persons to talk</i>. It will be noticed that the mistake here, and +often, is analogous to the most frequent form of wrongly attached +participle (participle, 5); the writer does not observe that he has +practically passed from the sphere of the sentence whose subject was +the word that he still allows to operate.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>After following</i> a country Church of England clergyman for a +period of half a century, a newly-appointed, youthful vicar, totally +unacquainted with rural life, comes into the parish, and at once +commences to alter the services of the Church, believed in by the +parishioners for generations.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Grammar gives <i>his</i>, i. e., the new vicar’s, as subject +of <i>following</i>; it is really either <i>my</i> or <i>the +parishioners’</i>. Insert <i>my</i> or <i>our</i>, or write <i>After we +(I) have followed</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I am sensible that <i>by conniving</i> at it it will take too deep +root ever to be eradicated.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Insert <i>our</i>, or write <i>if connived at</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>This was experienced by certain sensitive temperaments, either by +sensations which produced shivering, or <i>by seeing</i> at night a +peculiar light in the air.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Who or what sees? Certainly not <i>this</i>, the main subject. Not even +<i>temperaments</i>, which have no eyes. Write <i>Persons of sensitive +temperament experienced this, &c.</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But the commercial interests of both Great Britain and the United +States were too closely affected by the terms of the Russo-Chinese +agreement <i>to let</i> it pass unnoticed.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It is not the interests that cannot let it pass, but the countries. +Insert <i>for those countries</i> before <i>to let</i>; or write +<i>Both Great Britain and the United States were too closely affected +in their interests to let....</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And it would be well for all concerned, for motor drivers and the +public alike, if this were made law, instead of <i>fixing</i> a +maximum speed.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Write <i>if the law required this....</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And <i>in order to bring</i> her to a right understanding, she +underwent a system of persecution.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Write <i>they subjected her to</i> for <i>she underwent</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Her friendship is too precious to me, not <i>to doubt</i> my own +merits on the one hand, and not to be anxious for the preservation of +it on the other.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Write <i>I value her friendship too highly not to....</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>One cannot do good to a man whose mouth has been gagged <i>in order +not to hear</i> what he desires for his welfare.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Grammar suggests that his mouth—or, if indulgent, that he—is not to +hear; but the person meant is <i>one</i>. Write <i>one has gagged</i> +for <i>has been gagged</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Germany has, alas! victories enough <i>not to add</i> one of +the kind which would have been implied in the retirement of M. +Delcassé.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It is France, not Germany, that should not add. Write <i>without +France’s adding</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>In order to obtain</i> peace, ordinary battles followed by +ordinary victories and ordinary results will only lead to a useless +prolongation of the struggle.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>This is a triumph of inconsequence. Write <i>If peace is the object, it +should be remembered that ordinary....</i></p> + +<p>It will have occurred to the reader that, while most of the sentences +quoted are to be condemned, objection to a few of them might be called +pedantic. The fact is that every writer probably breaks the rule +often, and escapes notice, other people’s, his own, or both. Different +readers, however, will be critical in different degrees; and whoever +breaks the rule does so at his own risk; if his offence is noticed, +that is hanging evidence against him by itself; if it is not noticed, +it is not an offence. Of saying on page 127 <i>Mistakes are mended +sometimes by inserting the subject</i>, we plead Guilty if we were +caught in the act, but otherwise Not Guilty.</p> + +<p><b>3. Choice between the gerund with preposition and the infinitive.</b></p> + +<p>It was said in the preliminary section on the Participle and +Gerund that <i>writing</i>—the verbal noun or gerund—and <i>to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span> +write</i>—the infinitive—are in some sense synonyms; but phrases +were given showing that it is by no means always indifferent which of +the two is used. It is a matter of idiom rather than of grammar; but +this seems the most convenient place for drawing attention to it. To +give satisfactory rules would require many more examples and much more +space than can be afforded. But something will be gained if students +are convinced (1) that many of the mistakes made give sentences the +appearance of having been written by a foreigner or one who is not +at home with the literary language; (2) that the mistakes are nearly +always on one side, the infinitive being the form that should only be +used with caution; (3) that a slight change in arrangement may require +a change from infinitive to gerund or vice versa.</p> + +<p><i>a.</i> When the infinitive or gerund is attached to a noun, defining +or answering the question <i>what</i> (hope, &c.) about it, it is +almost always better to use the gerund with of; not quite always, +however; for instance, <i>an intention to return</i>, usually, and <i>a +tendency to think</i> always.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The vain <i>hope to be understood</i> by everybody possessed of a +ballot makes us in the United States perhaps guiltier than public +men in Great Britain in the use of that monstrous muddled dichotomy +‘capital and labour’.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>What hope?—That of being understood. Write it so, and treat all the +following similarly:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The habitual <i>necessity to amass</i> [of amassing] matter for the +weekly sermon, set him noting...—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>We wish to be among the first to felicitate Mr. Whitelaw Reid upon his +<i>opportunity to exercise</i> [of exercising] again the distinguished +talents which...—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Men lie twenty times in as many hours in the <i>hope to propitiate</i> +[of propitiating] you.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>We left the mound in the twilight, with the <i>design to return</i> +[of returning] the next morning.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>The main duties of government were omitted—the <i>duty to +instruct</i> [of instructing] the ignorant, <i>to supply</i> [of +supplying] the poor with work and good guidance.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Hay’s <i>purpose to preserve or restore</i> [of preserving or +restoring] the integrity of the administrative entity of China has +never been abandoned.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>My <i>custom to be dressed</i> [of being dressed] for the day, +as soon as breakfast is over, ... will make such a step less +suspected.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> + +<p>He points out that if Russia accepted the agreement, she would not +attain her <i>object to clear</i> [of clearing] the situation, +inasmuch as....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>What accounts for these mistakes is the analogy of forms like: Our +design was to return; it is a duty to instruct; man has power to +interpret (but <i>the</i> power of interpreting); it is my custom to be +dressed.</p> + +<p>When, however, the noun thus defined is more or less closely fused into +a single idea with the verb that governs it, the infinitive becomes +legitimate, though seldom necessary.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The menace to have secreted Solmes, and that other, that I <i>had +thoughts to run away</i> with her foolish brother, ... so much +terrified the dear creature....—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> + +<p>I passed my childhood here, and <i>had a weakness here to close</i> my +life.—<span class="smcap">Beaconsfield.</span></p> + +<p>Before ten o’clock in the evening, Gasca <i>had the satisfaction to +see</i> the bridge so well secured that....—<span class="smcap">Prescott.</span></p> + +<p>Almagro’s followers <i>made as little scruple to appropriate</i> +to their own use such horses and arms as they could +find.—<span class="smcap">Prescott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Had thoughts</i> means <i>was planning</i>; <i>had a weakness</i> +means <i>desired</i>; <i>had the satisfaction</i>, <i>was pleased</i>; +<i>made as little scruple</i>, <i>scrupled as little</i>.</p> + +<p>Again, an interval between the noun defined and the infinitive or +gerund makes the former more tolerable.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>The necessity</i> which has confronted the Tokio War Office, +<i>to enlarge</i> their views of the requirements of the +situation.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Or the infinitive is used to avoid a multiplication of <i>of</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He had as much as any man ever had that <i>gift</i> of a great +preacher <i>to make</i> the oratorical fervour which persuades +himself while it lasts into the abiding conviction of his +hearers.—<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></p> + +<p>The pastures of Tartary were still remembered by the tenacious +<i>practice</i> of the Norsemen <i>to eat</i> horseflesh at religious +feasts.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>If the noun has the indefinite article the infinitive is better +sometimes.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But our recognition of it implies a corresponding <i>duty to make</i> +the most of such advantages.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>A</i> duty to make: <i>the</i> duty of making. Compare <i>power</i> +and <i>the power</i> above.</p> + +<p>The following is probably an adaptation (not to be commended) of <i>it +is necessary for Russia to secure</i>—<i>for Russia to secure</i> +being regarded as a fused infinitive like the Latin accusative and +infinitive.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>His views on the <i>necessity</i> for Russia <i>to secure</i> the +command of the sea....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>b.</i> Though the gerund with <i>of</i> is the usual construction +after nouns, they sometimes prefer the gerund with other prepositions +also to the infinitive. The gerund with <i>in</i> should be used, for +instance, in the following. But euphony operates again in the first.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>... the extraordinary <i>remissness</i> of the English commanders +<i>to utilize</i> their preponderating strength against the +Boers.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Lord Kenyon reminded the House of the resistance met with to +vaccination, to [of?] the possible <i>effect</i> of the proposal <i>to +increase</i> that resistance....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I think sculpture and painting have an <i>effect to teach</i> us +manners and abolish hurry.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>Such a capitulation would be inconsistent with the position of any +Great Power, independently of the <i>humiliation</i> there would be +for England and France <i>to submit</i> their agreement for approval +and perhaps modification to Germany.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The humiliation there would be in submitting; or the humiliation it +would be to submit.</p> + +<p><i>c.</i> After verbs and adjectives the infinitive is much more +common; but no one will use a gerund where an infinitive is required, +while many will do the reverse.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But history <i>accords</i> with the Japanese practice <i>to show</i> +[in showing] that....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>We must necessarily appeal to the intuition, and <i>aim</i> much more +<i>to suggest</i> than <i>to describe</i> [at suggesting than at +describing].—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>But they can only highly serve us, when they <i>aim</i> not +<i>to drill</i>, but <i>to create</i> [at drilling, but at +creating].—<span class="smcap">Emerson.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span></span></p> + +<p>So far from <i>aiming to be</i> mistress of Europe, she was rapidly +sinking into the almost helpless prey of France.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This is to avoid <i>aiming at be</i>ing; compare the avoidance of +double <i>of</i> above.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Lose no time</i>, I pray you, <i>to +advise</i>.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>In advising</i> may have been avoided as ambiguous.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Egotism has its root in the cardinal necessity by which +each individual <i>persists to be</i> [in being] what he +is.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>I do not <i>despair to see</i> [of seeing] a motor public +service.—<i>Guernsey Advertiser.</i></p> + +<p>Their journeymen are far too declamatory, and too much <i>addicted +to substitute</i> [substituting] vague and puerile dissertations for +solid instruction.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In the common phrase <i>addicted to drink</i>, drink is a noun, not a +verb.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>His blackguard countrymen, always <i>averse</i>, as their descendants +are, <i>to give</i> [giving] credit to anybody, for any valuable +quality.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>Is he <i>to be blamed</i>, if he thinks a person would make a wife +worth having, <i>to endeavour</i> [for endeavouring] to obtain +her?—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>d.</i> If a deferred subject, anticipated by <i>it</i>, is to be +verbal, it must of course be either the infinitive or a gerund without +preposition.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Fortune, who has generally been ready to gratify my +inclinations, provided <i>it</i> cost her very little <i>by so +doing</i>....—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Shall and Will</span></h3> + +<p>It is unfortunate that the idiomatic use, while it comes by nature to +southern Englishmen (who will find most of this section superfluous), +is so complicated that those who are not to the manner born can hardly +acquire it; and for them the section is in danger of being useless. In +apology for the length of these remarks it must be said that the short +and simple directions often given are worse than useless. The observant +reader soon loses faith in them from their constant failure to take him +right; and the unobservant is the victim of false security.</p> + +<p>Roughly speaking, <i>should</i> follows the same rules as +<i>shall</i>,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span> and <i>would</i> as <i>will</i>; in what follows, Sh. +may be taken as an abbreviation for <i>shall</i>, <i>should</i>, and +<i>should have</i>, and W. for <i>will</i>, <i>would</i>, and <i>would +have</i>.</p> + +<p>In our usage of the Sh. and W. forms, as seen in principal sentences, +there are elements belonging to three systems. The first of these, +in which each form retains its full original meaning, and the two +are not used to give different persons of the same tense, we shall +call the pure system: the other two, both hybrids, will be called, +one the coloured-future, the other the plain-future system. In Old +English there was no separate future; present and future were one. +<i>Shall</i> and <i>will</i> were the presents of two verbs, to which +belong also the pasts <i>should</i> and <i>would</i>, the conditionals +<i>should</i> and <i>would</i>, and the past conditionals <i>should +have</i> and <i>would have</i>. <i>Shall</i> had the meaning of command +or obligation, and <i>will</i> of wish. But as commands and wishes are +concerned mainly with the future, it was natural that a future tense +auxiliary should be developed out of these two verbs. The coloured +future results from the application to future time of those forms that +were practically useful in the pure system; they consequently retain +in the coloured future, with some modifications, the ideas of command +and wish proper to the original verbs. The plain future results from +the taking of those forms that were practically out of work in the pure +system to make what had not before existed, a simple future tense; +these have accordingly not retained the ideas of command and wish. +Which were the practically useful and which the superfluous forms in +the pure system must now be explained.</p> + +<p><i>Thou shall not steal</i> is the type of <i>shall</i> in the pure +system. We do not ordinarily issue commands to ourselves; consequently +<i>I shall</i> is hardly required; but we often ask for orders, and +therefore <i>shall I?</i> is required. The form of the <i>shall</i> +present in the pure system is accordingly:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Shall I? You shall. He shall. Shall we? They shall.</p> +</div> + +<p>As to the past tense, orders cannot be given, but may be asked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span> about, +so that, for instance, <i>What should I do?</i> (i. e., What was I to +do?) can be done all through interrogatively.</p> + +<p>In the conditionals, both statement and question can be done all +through. I can give orders to my imaginary, though not to my actual +self. I cannot say (as a command) <i>I shall do it</i>; but I can say, +as a conditional command, <i>I should do it</i>.</p> + +<p><i>I shall</i> and <i>we shall</i> are accordingly the superfluous +forms of the present <i>shall</i> in the pure system.</p> + +<p>Again, with <i>will</i>, <i>I will</i> meaning <i>it is my will</i>, it +is obvious that we can generally state this only of ourselves; we do +not know the inside of other people’s minds, but we can ask about it. +The present runs, then,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I will. Will you? Will he? We will. Will they?</p> +</div> + +<p>The past tense can here be done all through, both positively and +interrogatively. For though we cannot tell other people’s present will, +we can often infer their past will from their actions. So (I was asked, +but) <i>I would not</i>, and <i>Why would I do it?</i> all through. And +similarly in the conditionals, <i>I would not</i> (if I could), &c.</p> + +<p>The spare forms supplied by the present <i>will</i>, then, are <i>you +will</i>, <i>he will</i>, <i>they will</i>; and these, with <i>I +shall</i>, <i>we shall</i>, are ready, when the simple future is +required, to construct it out of. We can now give</p> + + +<p>Rule 1. The Pure System</p> + +<p>When Sh. and W. retain the full original meanings of command and wish, +each of them is used in all three persons, so far as it is required.</p> + +<p>The following examples show most of what we inherit directly from the +pure system.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Thou shalt not steal. Not required in first person.</p> + +<p>Shall I open the door? Not required in second.</p> + +<p>You should not say such things. In all persons.</p> + +<p>And shall Trelawny die? Hardly required in second.</p> + +<p>Whom should he meet but Jones? (... was it his fate....) In all.</p> + +<p>Why should you suspect me? In all.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span></p> + +<p>It should seem so. (It would apparently be incumbent on us to believe) +Isolated idiom with third.</p> + +<p>I will have my way. Not required in second and third; but see below.</p> + +<p>I (he) asked him (me) to do it, but he (I) would not. In all.</p> + +<p>I would not have done it for the world. In all.</p> + +<p>I would be told to wait a while (Habitual). In all.</p> + +<p>Will you come with me? Not required in first.</p> + +<p>I would I were dead. Not required in second and third.</p> + +<p>He will bite his nails, whatever I say. In all.</p> + +<p>He will often stand on his head. In all.</p> + +<p>You will still be talking (i. e., you always are). Not required in +first.</p> + +<p>A coat will last two years with care.</p> +</div> + +<p>It will be noticed that the last four forms are among those that were +omitted as not required by the pure system. <i>Will</i> would rarely +be required in second and third person statements, but would of course +be possible in favourable circumstances, as in describing habitual +action, where the will of another may be inferred from past experience. +The last of all is a natural extension of the idiom even to things +that have no will. All these ‘habitual’ uses are quite different from +<i>I will have my way</i>; and though <i>you will have your way</i> is +possible, it always has the ‘habitual’ meaning, which <i>I will have my +way</i> is usually without.</p> + +<p>All the forms in the above list, and others like them, have three +peculiarities—that they are not practically futures as distinguished +from presents; that they use Sh. for all persons, or W. for all +persons, if the idea is appropriate to all persons; and that the +ideas are simply, or with very little extension, those of command or +obligation and wish.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The coloured-future system is so called because, while the future sense +is more distinct, it is still coloured with the speaker’s mood; command +and wish receive extensions and include promise, permission, menace, +consent, assurance, intention, refusal, offer, &c.; and the forms +used are invariably those—from both Sh. and W.—that we called the +practically useful ones in the pure system. That is, we have always</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I will, shall I? You shall, will you? He shall, will he? We will, +shall we? They shall, will they?</p> +</div> + +<p>And the conditionals, <i>should</i> and <i>would</i>, <i>should +have</i> and <i>would have</i>, are used with exactly the same +variations. It will be borne in mind, however, that no clear line of +division can be drawn between the pure system and the coloured-future +system, since the latter is developed naturally (whereas the +plain-future system is rather developed artificially) out of the +former. And especially the questions of the coloured future are simply +those of the pure system without any sort of modification.</p> + + +<p>Rule 2. The Coloured-Future System</p> + +<p>In future and conditional statements that include (without the use of +special words for the purpose) an expression of the speaker’s (not +necessarily of the subject’s) wish, intention, menace, assurance, +consent, refusal, promise, offer, permission, command, &c.—in such +sentences the first person has W., the second and third persons Sh.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I will tell you presently. My promise.</p> + +<p>You shall repent it before long. My menace.</p> + +<p>He shall not have any. My refusal.</p> + +<p>We would go if we could. Our conditional intention.</p> + +<p>You should do it if we could make you. Our conditional command.</p> + +<p>They should have had it if they had asked. My conditional consent.</p> +</div> + +<p>The only questions possible here are the asking for orders and the +requests already disposed of under Rule 1.</p> + +<p>Observe that <i>I would like</i> (which is not English) is not +justified by this rule, because the speaker’s mood is expressed by +<i>like</i>, and does not need double expression; it ought to be <i>I +should like</i>, under Rule 3.</p> + +<p>Observe also that <i>I sha’n’t</i>, <i>You will go to your room and +stay there</i>, are only apparent exceptions, which will be explained +under Rule 3.</p> + +<p>The archaic literary forms <i>You shall find</i>, <i>A rogue shall +often pass for an honest man</i>, though now affected and pretentious,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span> +are grammatically defensible. The speaker asks us to take the fact on +his personal assurance.</p> + +<p>The forms little required in the pure system, and therefore ready to +hand for making the new plain future, were <i>I</i>, and <i>we</i>, +<i>shall</i>; <i>you</i>, <i>he</i>, and <i>they</i>, <i>will</i>. +These accordingly constitute the plain future, and the corresponding +forms of the plain conditional are used analogously. Questions follow +the same rule, with one very important exception, which will be given a +separate rule (4). We now give</p> + + +<p>Rule 3. The Plain-Future System</p> + +<p>In plain statements about the future, and in the principal clause, +result, or apodosis, of plain conditional sentences (whether the +subordinate clause, condition, or <i>if</i>-clause, is expressed +or not), the first person has Sh., the second and third persons W. +Questions conform, except those of the second person, for which see +Rule 4.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">I shall, you will, die some day.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Shall I, will they, be here to-morrow?</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">We should, he would, have consented if you had asked.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Should we, would he, have missed you if you had been there?</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">I should, you would, like a bathe.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Should I, would he, like it myself, himself?</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Some apparent exceptions, already anticipated, must here be explained. +It may be said that <i>I shall execute your orders</i> being the +speaker’s promise, <i>You will go to your room</i> being the speaker’s +command, and <i>Sha’n’t</i> (the nursery abbreviation for <i>I shall +not do it</i>) being the speaker’s refusal, these are all coloured +futures, so that Sh. and W. should be reversed in each. They are such +in effect, but they are not in form. In each, the other form would be +possible and correct. The first is a promise only so far as the hearer +chooses to take as a promise the plain future or impersonal prophecy; +but the speaker emphasizes his obedience by implying that of course, +since the order has been given, it will be executed; the matter is +settled without his unimportant consent. The other two gain force by +the opposite assumption that the speaker’s will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span> and the future are +absolutely identical, so that what he intends may be confidently stated +as a future fact. In the first example the desired submissiveness, in +the other two the desired imperiousness, supercilious or passionate, +are attained by the same impersonality.</p> + +<p>Before giving the rule for second-person questions, we observe that +questions generally follow the rule of the class of statement they +correspond to. This was shown in the pure system (Rule 1). There are +no questions (apart from those already accounted for by the pure +system) belonging to the coloured future (Rule 2). In the plain future +(Rule 3), first and third person questions are like the plain-future +statements. But second-person questions under the plain future +invariably use Sh. or W. according as the answer for which the speaker +is prepared has Sh. or W. Care is necessary, however, in deciding +what that answer is. In <i>Should (would) you like a bathe?</i> +<i>should</i> is almost always right, because the answer expected is +almost always either <i>Yes, I should</i>, or <i>No, I should not</i>, +the question being asked for real information. It is true that <i>Would +you like?</i> is very commonly used, like the equally wrong <i>I would +like</i>; but it is only correct when the answer is intended to be +given by the asker:—<i>No, of course you would not.</i> A clearer +illustration of this is the following sentence, which requires Sh. or +W. according to circumstances: <i>Will (shall) you, now so fresh and +fair, be in a hundred years nothing but mouldering dust?</i>. This +might possibly be asked in expectation of an answer from the person +apostrophized—<i>Yes, I shall.</i> Much more probably it would be +asked in expectation of the answer from the speaker himself to his own +question—<i>Alas! yes, you will.</i> And <i>shall</i> ought to be used +for the question only in the first case, <i>will</i> in the second +case. Similarly, <i>Ah, yes, that is all very well; but will (shall) +you be able to do it?</i> Use <i>will</i> if the answer is meant to be +<i>No, of course you will not</i>; <i>shall</i>, if the answer expected +is <i>Yes, I shall</i>, or <i>No, I shall not</i>.</p> + +<p>In practice, Sh. is more commonly required, because<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span> questions asked +for information are commoner than rhetorical ones. But observe the +common <i>Would you believe it?</i>, Answer, <i>No, of course you +would not.</i> <i>Should you believe it?</i>, also possible, would +indicate real curiosity about the other person’s state of mind, which +is hardly ever felt. <i>Would you believe it?</i>, however, might also +be accounted for on the ground that the answer would be <i>No, I would +not</i>, which would be a coloured-future form, meaning <i>I should +never consent to believe</i>.</p> + + +<p>Rule 4. Second-person Questions</p> + +<p>Second-person questions invariably have Sh. or W. by assimilation to +the answer expected.</p> + +<p>It may be added, since it makes the application of the rule easier, +that the second-person questions belonging not to the plain future +but to the pure system are also, though not because of assimilation, +the same in regard to Sh. and W. as their answers. Thus <i>Will you +come?</i> <i>Yes, I will</i> (each on its merits), as well as <i>Shall +you be there?</i> <i>Yes, I shall</i> (assimilation). <i>Should you not +have known?</i> <i>Yes, I should</i> (each on its merits; <i>should</i> +means <i>ought</i>), as well as <i>What should you think?</i> <i>I +should think you were right</i> (assimilation). The true form for all +second-person questions, then, can be ascertained by deciding what the +expected answer is.</p> + +<p>This completes what need be said about principal sentences, with the +exception of one important usage that might cause perplexity. If +some one says to me ‘You would think so yourself if you were in my +position’, I may either answer ‘No, I should not’ regularly, or may +catch up his word, and retain the W., though the alteration of person +requires Sh. Thus—‘Would I, though? No, I wouldn’t’. Accordingly,</p> + + +<p>Rule 5. Echoes</p> + +<p>A speaker repeating and adapting another’s words may neglect to make +the alteration from Sh. to W., or from W. to Sh., that an alteration of +the person strictly requires.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span></p> + +<p>We have now all the necessary rules for principal sentences, and can +put down a few examples of the right usage, noteworthy for various +reasons, and some blunders, the latter being illustrated in proportion +to their commonness. The number of the rule observed or broken will be +added in brackets for reference. The passage from Johnson with which +the correct examples begin is instructive.</p> + + +<p><i>Right.</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I would (2) injure no man, and should (3) provoke no resentment; +I would (2) relieve every distress, and should (3) enjoy the +benedictions of gratitude. I would (2) choose my friends among the +wise, and my wife among the virtuous; and therefore should (3) be in +no danger from treachery or unkindness. My children should (2) by my +care be learned and pious, and would (3) repay to my age what their +childhood had received.—<span class="smcap">Johnson.</span></p> + +<p>Chatham, it should (1) seem, ought to have taken the same +side.—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> + +<p>For instance, when we allege, that it is against reason to tax a +people under so many restraints in trade as the Americans, the noble +lord in the blue riband shall (2) tell you....—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> + +<p>The ‘critic fly’, if it do but alight on any plinth or single +cornice of a brave stately building, shall (2) be able to declare, +with its half-inch vision, that here is a speck, and there an +inequality.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> + +<p>John, why should you waste yourself (1) upon those ugly giggling +girls?—<span class="smcap">R. G. White.</span></p> + +<p>It wouldn’t be quite proper to take her alone, would it? What should +(4) you say?—<span class="smcap">R. G. White.</span></p> + +<p>Whether I have attained this, the future shall decide (2. I consent to +accept the verdict of the future).—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p><i>Wrong.</i></p> + +<p>We give first many examples of the mistake that is out of all +proportion the commonest—using the coloured future when the speaker’s +mood is sufficiently given by a separate word. In the second example, +for instance, <i>I would ask the favour</i> would be quite right, +and would mean <i>I should like to ask</i>. As it stands, it means +<i>I should like to like to ask</i>. The same applies to the other +instances, which are only multiplied to show how dangerous this +particular form is.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Among these ... I would be inclined to place (3) those who acquiesce +in the phenomenalism of Mr. Herbert Spencer.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>As one of the founders of the Navy League, I would like (3) to ask the +favour of your well-known courtesy....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I would be glad (3) to have some account of his +behaviour.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> + +<p>I would like (3) also to talk with you about the thing which has come +to pass.—<span class="smcap">Jowett.</span></p> + +<p>But give your definition of romance. I would like to hear it +(3).—<span class="smcap">F. M. Crawford.</span></p> + +<p>These are typical of thousands of paragraphs in the newspaper.... We +would (3) wish for brighter news.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>I have already had some offers of assistance, and I would be glad (3) +to receive any amount towards the object.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Some examples follow that have not this excuse; and the first two +deserve comment—the first because it results in serious ambiguity, the +second because it is possibly not wrong.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The two fleets present seven Russian battleships against four +Japanese—less than two to one; two Russian armoured cruisers against +eight, and seven Russian torpedo-boat destroyers against an indefinite +number of the enemy. Here we will (3) not exaggerate in attributing to +the Japanese three or four to one.—<span class="smcap">Mahan.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>With <i>will</i>, the meaning must be: We won’t call them three or +four to one, because that would be exaggeration. But the meaning is +intended to be: We will call them that, and it will be no exaggeration. +<i>Shall</i> is absolutely necessary, however, to make it bear that +interpretation.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>This character who delights us may commit murder like Macbeth, or fly +the battle for his sweetheart as did Antony, or betray his country +like Coriolanus, and yet we will rejoice (3) in every happiness that +comes to him.—<span class="smcap">W. B. Yeats.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>It is possible that this is the use of <i>will</i> described as the +‘habitual’ use—he will often stand on his head—under Rule 1. But this +is very rare, though admissible, in the first person of the present. +<i>We shall rejoice</i>, or simply <i>we rejoice</i>, would be the +plain way of saying it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>If this passion was simply painful, we would (3) shun with the +greatest care all persons and places that could excite such a +passion.—<span class="smcap">Burke.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span></span></p> + +<p>What would (3) we be without our appetites?—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span></p> + +<p>If I was ever to be detected, I would (3) have nothing for it but to +drown myself.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span></p> + +<p>I will (3) never forget, in the year 1858, one notorious +revivalist.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>As long as I am free from all resentment, hardness, and scorn, I would +(3) be able to face the life with much more calm and confidence than I +would....—<span class="smcap">Wilde.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In the next two, if ‘I think’, and the <i>if</i>-clause, were removed, +the <i>shall</i> and <i>will</i> would stand, expressing resolve +according to Rule 2. But with those additions it is clear that prophecy +or pure future is meant; and <i>shall</i> and <i>will</i> should be +<i>will</i> and <i>shall</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Nothing, I think, shall ever make me (3) forgive +him.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> + +<p>We were victorious in 1812, and we will (3) be victorious now at any +cost, if we are strong in an alliance between the governing class and +the governed.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><b>We now proceed to Subordinate Clauses, and first to the +Substantival.</b> The word ‘reported’ will mean ‘made indirect’ or +‘subordinated substantivally’, not always actually reported.</p> + +<p><b>Reported statement</b> is quite simple when it is of the pure +system or the coloured future; the Sh. or W. of the original statement +is retained in the reported form, unaffected by any change of person +that the reporting involves. Thus: (Pure system) <i>He forgave me</i> +(<i>you</i>, or <i>her</i>), <i>though he said I</i> (<i>you</i>, or +<i>she</i>) <i>should not have left him in the lurch like that.</i> +(Coloured future) <i>You said I</i> (or <i>he</i>) <i>should repent +it</i>; either of these is a report of either <i>You shall repent +it</i> or <i>He shall repent it</i>. (Coloured future) <i>You said +you</i> (or <i>I said I</i>) <i>would apologize</i>; both are reports +of <i>I will apologize</i>.</p> + +<p>But with the plain-future system there is difficulty and some +inconsistency. The change of person sometimes required by reported +speech has almost always the effect here of introducing Sh. if <i>I</i> +or <i>we</i> appears in the words as reported, and usually the effect +of introducing W. if <i>you</i>, <i>he</i>, or <i>they</i>, appears. +The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span> following are all the types in which doubt can arise, except that +each of these may occur in either number, and in past or present. The +form that would be required by analogy (keeping the original Sh. or +W.) is given first, and the one generally used instead is added in +brackets. Reporting <i>I shall never succeed</i>, we get</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>You said you should (would) never succeed.</p> + +<p>He says he shall (will) never succeed.</p> +</div> + +<p>Reporting <i>you will</i> (or <i>he will</i>) <i>never succeed</i>, we +get</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>You say I will (shall) never succeed.</p> + +<p>He said I would (should) never succeed.</p> +</div> + +<p>Even those persons who have generally a just confidence in their own +correctness about Sh. and W. will allow that they have some doubt about +the first pair; and nearly every one will find W. in the second pair, +however reasonable and consistent, intolerable.</p> + +<p>If the reader will now go through the four sentences again, and +substitute for <i>succeed</i> the phrase <i>do it</i> (which may or may +not mean <i>succeed</i>), he will see that the orthodox <i>should</i> +and <i>shall</i> of the first pair become actually more natural than +the commoner <i>would</i> and <i>will</i>; and that even in the second +pair <i>will</i> and <i>would</i> are now tolerable. The reason is that +with <i>do it</i> there is risk of confusion with the reported forms +of <i>I will never do it</i> and <i>you shall never do it</i>, which +are not plain futures, but coloured futures meaning something quite +different.</p> + +<p><b>Reported questions</b> present the same difficulties. Again those +only are doubtful that belong to the plain future. There, for instance, +reporting <i>Shall you do it?</i> we can say by the correct analogy +<i>I asked him whether he should</i>; and we generally do so if the +verb, as here, lends itself to ambiguity: <i>I asked him whether he +would do it</i> is liable to be mistaken for the report of <i>Will you +do it?</i>—a request. If on the other hand (as in reporting <i>Shall +you be there?</i>) there is little risk of misunderstanding, <i>I asked +him whether he would</i> is commoner. And again it is only in extreme +cases,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span> if even then, that the original W. can be kept when the report +introduces <i>I</i> in place of the original question’s <i>you</i> or +<i>he</i>. For instance, the original question being <i>How will he be +treated?</i>, it may be just possible to say <i>You had made up your +mind how I would be treated</i>, because <i>You had made up your mind +how I should be treated</i> almost inevitably suggests (assisted by +the ambiguity of <i>making up your mind</i>, which may imply either +resolve or inference) that the original question was <i>How shall he be +treated?</i></p> + +<p>It would be well, perhaps, if writers who take their responsibilities +seriously would stretch a point sometimes to keep the more consistent +and less ambiguous usage alive; but for practical purposes the rule +must run:</p> + + +<p>Rule 6. Substantival Clauses.</p> + +<p>In these (whether ‘reported’ strictly or otherwise subordinated) +pure-system or coloured-future forms invariably keep the Sh. or W. of +the original statement or question, unaffected by any change of person. +Reports of plain-future forms do this also, if there would be serious +danger of ambiguity, but almost always have Sh. in the first person, +and usually W. in the second and third persons.</p> + +<p>As the division of substantival clauses into indirect (or reported or +subordinate or oblique) statements, questions, <i>and commands</i>, +is familiar, it may be well to explain that in English the reported +command strictly so called hardly exists. In what has the force of +a reported command it is in fact a statement that is reported. For +instance, <i>He said I was to go</i>, though used as the indirect form +of <i>Go</i>, is really the indirect of the statement <i>You are to +go</i>. <i>He ordered that they should be released</i> (though the +actual words were <i>Be they</i>, or <i>Let them be, released</i>) is +formed on the coloured-future statement, <i>They shall be released</i>. +It is therefore unnecessary to give special rules for reported command. +But there are one or two types of apparent indirect command about +which, though there is no danger of error, the reader may feel curious.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span></p> + +<p>a. <i>I stipulate that I shall, you shall, he shall, do it.</i> Why +<i>shall</i> in all persons? because the original form is: <i>I</i> +(<i>you</i>, <i>he</i>) <i>shall do it</i>, <i>I stipulate that</i>, +where <i>shall</i> means <i>am to</i>, <i>are to</i>, <i>is to</i>; +that is, it is a pure-system form.</p> + +<p>b. <i>I beg that you</i> (or <i>he</i>) <i>will do it.</i> <i>He begs +that I will do it.</i> Again the original is pure-system: <i>You</i> +(or <i>he</i>) <i>will</i> (i. e., you consent to) <i>do it: that is +what I beg.</i> <i>I will</i> (i. e., I consent to) <i>do it: that is +what he begs.</i></p> + +<p>c. <i>I beg that I</i> (or <i>he</i>) <i>shall not suffer for it.</i> +<i>You begged that I should not suffer for it.</i> Observe that b. has +<i>will</i> and a. and c. <i>shall</i>, because it is only in b. that +the volition of the subject of <i>shall</i> or <i>will</i> is concerned.</p> + +<p>d. <i>I wish you would not sneeze.</i> Before subordination this +is: <i>You will not sneeze: that is what I wish.</i> W. remains, +but <i>will</i> becomes <i>would</i> to give the remoteness always +connected with wish, which is seen also, for instance, in <i>I wish I +were</i> instead of <i>I wish I be</i>.</p> + +<p>Before going on to examples of substantival clauses, we also register, +again rather for the curious than for the practical reader, the +peculiar but common use of <i>should</i> contained in the following:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is not strange that his admiration for those writers should have +been unbounded.—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In this use <i>should</i> goes through all persons and is equivalent +to a gerund with possessive: <i>that a man should be</i> is the same +as <i>a man’s being</i>. We can only guess at its origin; our guess +is that (1) <i>should</i> is the remote form for <i>shall</i>, as +<i>would</i> for <i>will</i> in d. above, substituted in order to give +an effect of generality; and (2) the use of <i>shall</i> is the archaic +one seen in <i>You shall find</i>, &c. So: a man shall be afraid of his +shadow; that a man should be afraid (as a generally observed fact) is +strange.</p> + +<p>After each of the substantival clauses, of which examples now follow, +we shall say whether it is a reported (subordinated) statement, or +question, and give what we take to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span> the original form of the +essential words, even when further comment is unnecessary.</p> + + +<p>Examples of Sh. and W. in Substantival clauses.</p> + + +<p><i>Right.</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>You, my dear, believe you shall be unhappy, if you have Mr. Solmes: +your parents think the contrary; and that you will be undoubtedly so, +were you to have Mr. Lovelace.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Statement. The original of the first is <i>I shall be</i>; of the +second, <i>she will be</i>. In this and the next three the strictly +analogical form that we recommended is kept.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I have heard the Princess declare that she should not willingly die in +a crowd.—<span class="smcap">Johnson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Statement. I should not.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>People imagine they should be happy in circumstances which they would +find insupportably burthensome in less than a week.—<span class="smcap">Cowper.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Statement. We should. <i>They would</i> is not ‘reported’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Do you really fancy you should be more beholden to your +correspondent, if he had been damning you all the time for your +importunity?—<span class="smcap">Stevenson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Statement. I should be.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The nation had settled the question that it would not have +conscription.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Statement. We will not. The blundering insertion of <i>the +question</i>—perhaps due to some hazy notion of ‘putting the +question’—may be disregarded.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>When the war will end still depends on Japan.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Question. When will it end?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Shaftesbury’s anger vented itself in threats that the advisers of this +dissolution should pay for it with their heads.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Statement. You shall pay.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He [i. e., James II] regarded his ecclesiastical supremacy as a +weapon.... Under Henry and Elizabeth it had been used to turn the +Church of England from Catholic to Protestant. Under James it should +be used to turn it back again.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Statement. Under me it shall be. The reporting word not expressed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>She could not bear the sight of all these things that reminded her of +Anthony and of her sin. Perhaps she should die soon; she felt very +feeble.—<span class="smcap">Eliot.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Statement. I shall. Again the reporting word absent.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There will never perhaps be a time when every question between London +and Washington shall be laid at rest.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>This is not properly speaking reported speech. But the <i>shall</i> +is accounted for by a sort of allusion to a supposed prophecy—every +<i>question shall one day be laid at rest</i>. In that prophecy, +<i>shall</i> would convey that the prophet gave his personal guarantee +for it, and would come under Rule 2. This is not to be confused with +the use of <i>shall</i> in indefinite clauses that will be noticed +later.</p> + + +<p><i>Wrong.</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The four began their descent, not knowing at what step they should +meet death nor which of them should reach the shore alive.—<span class="smcap">F. M. +Crawford.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Questions. At what step shall we meet? Which of us will reach? The +first is accordingly right, the second wrong. The modern writer—who +has been at the pains to use the strictly correct <i>should</i> in the +first place rather than the now common <i>would</i>—has not seen, as +Richardson did in the first of the right examples, that his two clauses +are dissimilar.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I hope that our sympathy shall survive these little revolutions +undiminished.—<span class="smcap">Stevenson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Statement. Will survive. It is possible, however, that the original +was thought of, or rather felt, as Our sympathy shall survive. But as +the effect of that is to give the speaker’s personal guarantee for +the truth of the thing, it is clearly not a proper statement to make +dependent on the doubtful word <i>hope</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>After mentioning the advance made in reforms of the military force of +the country he [Lord Lansdowne] announced that the Government should +not oppose the motion, readily availing themselves of Lord Wemyss’s +suggestion that....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Statement. We shall not, or the Government will not. Probably Lord +Lansdowne said <i>we</i>, and that accounts for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span> <i>should</i>. +But if <i>The Times</i> chooses to represent <i>we</i> by <i>the +Government</i>, it must also represent <i>shall</i> by <i>would</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It came with a strange stunning effect upon us all—the consciousness +that never again would we hear the grind of those positive boot-heels +on the gravel.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Statement. We shall never.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I think that if the matter were handed over to the parish councils ... +we would within a twelvemonth have exactly such a network of rifle +clubs as is needed.—<span class="smcap">Conan Doyle.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Statement. We should. Of these two instances it may be thought that +the writers would have made the mistake in the original unsubordinated +sentence, instead of its arising in the process of subordination; +our experience is, however, that many people do in fact go wrong in +subordinate clauses who are alive to the danger in simple sentences.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The Prime Minister ... would at once have asked the Opposition if +they could suggest any further means for making the inquiry more +drastic and complete, with the assurance that if they could suggest +any such means, they would at once be incorporated in the Government +scheme.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Statement. They shall be incorporated. We have classed this as wrong on +the assumption, supported by the word <i>assurance</i>, that the Prime +Minister gave a promise, and therefore used the coloured future, and +did not state a fact and use the plain future.</p> + +<p>Another type of subordinate clause important for Sh. and W. is <b>the +conditional protasis or if-clause</b>. It is not necessary, nor with +modern writers usual, to mark the future or conditional force of +this separately, since it is sufficiently indicated by the apodosis. +For instance, <i>If you come I shall be glad</i>; <i>if you came I +should be glad</i>; <i>if you had come I should have been glad</i>. +But in formal style or with a slight difference of meaning, it is +often superfluously done in the protasis too. Sh. is then used for +all persons, as, <i>If he should come, you would learn how the matter +stands</i>. So:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Japan will adhere to her pledge of neutrality unless Russia shall +first violate hers.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span></p> + +<p>But to the rule that the protasis takes <i>shall</i> there are +three exceptions, real or apparent; W. is found under the following +circumstances:</p> + +<p>(1.) An original pure-system or coloured-future W. is not changed to +Sh. by being used in subordination to <i>if</i> (or <i>unless</i>). +It is retained with its full original force instead of some verb like +<i>wish</i> or <i>choose</i>. In <i>If we would believe we might move +mountains</i>, the meaning is <i>If we chose to believe</i>, different +from that of <i>If we believed</i> or <i>should believe</i>. So</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It would be much better if you would not be so hypocritical, Captain +Wybrow.—<span class="smcap">Eliot.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>If you consented not to be, or did not insist on being.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It would be valuable if he would somewhat expand his ideas regarding +local defence by Volunteers.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>If he consented to.</p> + +<p>(2.) When the <i>if</i>-clause (though a genuine condition) is +incorrectly expressed for the sake of brevity and compresses two verbs +into one, the W. proper to the retained verb is sometimes necessarily +used instead of the Sh. proper to the verb that, though it contains +in strict logic the essential protasis, has been crushed out. Thus: +<i>If it will be useless I shall prefer not to do it.</i> It is not +the uselessness that is the condition of the preference; for the use +or uselessness is subsequent to the decision; it is my conviction of +the uselessness; so that the full form would be <i>If I shall be</i> +(or <i>am</i> in ordinary speech) <i>convinced that it will be useless, +I shall prefer</i>, &c. The following example can be defended on this +ground, <i>if never again will he</i> standing for <i>if he shall +realize that he will never</i>; the feebleness that decides his not +wishing is subsequent to it, and can only condition it if taken in the +sense of his anticipation of feebleness.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And if there is to be no recovery, <i>if never again will he</i> be +young and strong and passionate, if the actual present shall be to him +always like a thing read in a book or remembered out of the far-away +past; he will not greatly wish for the continuance of a twilight +that....—<span class="smcap">Stevenson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span></p> + +<p>The next is more difficult only because, besides the compression, the +<i>if</i>-clause is protasis not to the expressed main sentence, but to +another that is suppressed.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I shall wait for fine weather, if that will ever come.—<span class="smcap">R. G. +White.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Given fully, this would run: I shall wait for fine weather; (at least I +should say so) if (I were sure that) that will ever come.</p> + +<p>(3.) When an <i>if</i>-clause is not a condition at all, as for +instance where it expresses contrast, and is almost equivalent to +<i>although</i>, the ordinary plain-future use prevails. Thus: <i>If +annihilation will end our joys it will also end our griefs.</i> +Contrast with this the real condition, in: <i>If annihilation shall +end</i> (or <i>ends</i>) <i>our joys, we shall never regret the loss of +them.</i></p> + +<p><b>Indefinite clauses, relative or other</b>, bearing the same +relation to a conditional or future principal sentence that a +conditional protasis bears to its apodosis follow the same rules. Thus +<i>Whoever compares the two will find</i> is equivalent to <i>If any +one compares</i>; <i>When we have won the battle we can decide that +question</i> is equivalent to <i>If ever we have won</i>. Accordingly +we can if we choose write <i>Whoever shall compare</i>, and <i>When we +shall have won</i>; but we cannot write <i>When we will have won</i>, +and must only write <i>Whoever will compare</i> if we distinctly mean +<i>Whoever chooses to compare</i>. As there is sometimes difficulty in +analysing indefinite clauses of this sort, one or two instances had +better be considered.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The candidate who should have distinguished himself most was to be +chosen.</p> +</div> + +<p>This is clear enough; it is equivalent to <i>if any one should have ... +he was....</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>We must ask ourselves what victory will cost the Russian people when +at length it will become possible to conclude the peace so ardently +desired.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Equivalent to <i>If ever it at length becomes</i>. <i>Will</i> is +therefore wrong; either <i>becomes</i>, or <i>shall become</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Nothing can now prevent it from continuing to distil upwards +until there shall be no member of the legislature who shall not +know....—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span></p> + +<p>This is a complicated example. The <i>shalls</i> will be right if it +appears that each <i>shall</i>-clause is equivalent to a conditional +protasis. We may show it by starting at the end as with the house that +Jack built and constructing the sentence backwards, subordinating by +stages, and changing <i>will</i> to <i>shall</i> as the protases come +in; it will be allowed that <i>until</i> means <i>to the time when</i>, +and that <i>when</i> may be resolved into <i>if ever</i>. Thus we +get: <i>a.</i> One will know. <i>b.</i> None will be a member of the +legislature unless one shall know. <i>c.</i> It will distil to the time +if ever none shall be a member unless one shall know.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Think what I will about them, I must take them for politeness’ +sake.—<span class="smcap">R. G. White.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Although <i>think what I will</i> is an indefinite relative clause, +meaning practically <i>whatever I think</i>, <i>will</i> here is right, +the strict sense being <i>whatever I choose to think</i>. Indeed the +time of <i>think</i> is probably not, at any rate need not be, future +at all; compare <i>Think what I will, I do not tell my thoughts.</i></p> + +<p>We now give</p> + +<p><b>Rule 7. Conditional protasis and Indefinite Clauses</b></p> + +<p>In the protasis or <i>if</i>-clause of conditional sentences Sh. may +be used with all persons. Generally neither Sh. nor W. is used. W. is +only used (1) when the full meaning of <i>wish</i> is intended; it may +then be used with all persons; (2) when the protasis is elliptically +expressed; W. may then be necessary with the second and third persons; +(3) when the <i>if</i>-clause is not a real conditional protasis; there +is then no reason for Sh. with second and third persons. Indefinite +classes of similar character follow the same rules.</p> + +<p>A few right but exceptional, and some wrong subordinate clauses may now +be added.</p> + + +<p>Examples of Sh. and W. in Subordinate Clauses.</p> + + +<p><i>Right.</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>As an opiate, or spirituous liquors, shall suspend the operation of +grief....—<span class="smcap">Burke.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span></span></p> + +<p>We may conceive Mr. Worldly Wiseman accosting such an one, and the +conversation that should thereupon ensue.—<span class="smcap">Stevenson.</span></p> + +<p>She is such a spare, straight, dry old lady—such a pew of a +woman—that you should find as many individual sympathies in a +chip.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In these three we have the archaic <i>shall</i> of personal assurance +that comes under Rule 2, and its corresponding conditional, appearing +in subordinate clauses. There is no objection to it except that, in +modern writers, its context must be such as to exonerate it from the +charge of affectation.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The longing of the army for a fresh struggle which should restore its +glory.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This use of Sh. after final relatives is seen, if the compound sentence +is resolved, to point to an original coloured future: We long for a +fresh struggle; a fresh struggle shall restore (that is, we intend it +to restore) our glory.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He was tormented by that restless jealousy which should seem to belong +only to minds burning with the desire of fame.—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This is the <i>should seem</i> explained under Rule 1 appearing also as +subordinate.</p> + + +<p><i>Wrong.</i></p> + +<p>It should never be, but often is, forgotten that when the apodosis +of a conditional sentence (with or without expressed protasis) is +subordinate it is nevertheless still an apodosis, and has still Sh. in +the first, W. in the second and third persons.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In ‘he struck him a blow’, we do not feel the first object to be +datival, as we would in ‘he gave him a blow’.—<span class="smcap">H. Sweet.</span></p> + +<p>I cannot let the moment pass at which I would have been enjoying +a visit to you after your severe illness without one word of +sympathy.—<span class="smcap">Gladstone.</span></p> + +<p>It would mean that I would always be haunted by an intolerable sense +of disgrace.—<span class="smcap">Wilde.</span></p> + +<p>But though I would not willingly part with such scraps of science, I +do not set the same store by them.—<span class="smcap">Stevenson.</span></p> + +<p>We must reconcile what we would like to do with what we can +do.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>All these are wrong; in the last two the mistake is perhaps accounted +for by the presence of <i>willingly</i> and <i>like</i>. <i>I would not +willingly</i> can indeed be defended at the cost of admitting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span> that +<i>willingly</i> is mere tautology, and saying that <i>I would not</i> +means <i>I should not consent to</i>, according to Rule 2.</p> + +<p>It may be worth while to add that the subordinate apodosis still +follows the rule even if it is subordinated to <i>if</i>, so that it is +part of the protasis of another conditional sentence. The following, +which is of course quite correct, seems, but only seems, to break the +rules both for protasis and apodosis: If you would be patient for +yourself, you should be patient for me. But we have W. with second +person in the protasis because <i>would be patient</i> is also apodosis +to the implied protasis <i>if occasion should arise</i>; and the +<i>should</i> with second person in the apodosis is not a conditional +<i>should</i> at all, but a pure-system <i>should</i>, which would be +the same with any person; it means simply <i>you ought</i>, or <i>it +would be your duty</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The result in part of a genuine anxiety lest the Chinese would +gradually grow until they monopolized the country.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>We have purposely refrained until now from invoking the subjunctive, +because the word is almost meaningless to Englishmen, the thing having +so nearly perished. But on this instance it must be remarked that when +conjunctions like <i>lest</i>, which could once or still can take a +subjunctive (as <i>lest he die</i>), use a compound form instead, they +use the Sh. forms for all persons. It is a matter of little importance, +since hardly any one would go wrong in such a sentence.</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Perfect Infinitive</span></h3> + +<p>This has its right and its wrong uses. The right are obvious, and can +be left alone. Even of the wrong some are serviceable, if not strictly +logical. <i>I hoped to have succeeded</i>, for instance, means <i>I +hoped to succeed, but I did not succeed</i>, and has the advantage of +it in brevity; it is an idiom that it would be a pity to sacrifice on +the altar of Reason. So:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Philosophy began to congratulate herself upon such a proselyte from +the world of business, and hoped to have extended her power under the +auspices of such a leader.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> + +<p>And here he cannot forbear observing, that it was the duty of +that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span> publisher to have rebutted a statement which he knew to be a +calumny.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>I was going to have asked, when....—<span class="smcap">Sladen.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>But other perfects, while they are still more illogical than these, +differ as little in meaning from the present as the <i>deposuisse</i>, +dear to the hearts of elegiac writers ancient and modern, differs from +<i>deponere</i>. And whereas there is at least metre, and very useful +metre, in <i>deposuisse</i>, there is in our corresponding perfect +infinitive neither rhyme nor reason. Thus,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>With whom on those golden summer evenings I should have liked to have +taken a stroll in the hayfield.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>To have taken</i> means simply to take; the implication of +non-fulfilment that justified the perfects above is here needless, +being already given in <i>I should have liked</i>; and the doubled +<i>have</i> is ugly in sound. Similar are</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>If my point had not been this, I should not have endeavoured to have +shown the connexion.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The author can only wish it had been her province to have raised +plants of nobler growth.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span></p> + +<p>Had you given your advice in any determined or positive manner, I had +been ready to have been concluded by it.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> + +<p>Jim Scudamore would have been the first man to have acknowledged the +anomaly.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>Though certainly before she commenced her mystic charms she would have +liked to have known who he was.—<span class="smcap">Beaconsfield.</span></p> + +<p>Peggy would have liked to have shown her turban and bird of paradise +at the ball.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> + +<p>It might have been thought to be a question of bare alternatives, and +to have been susceptible of no compromise.—<span class="smcap">Bagehot.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The less excusable that Bagehot has started with the correct <i>to +be</i>.</p> + +<p>Another very common form, still worse, occurs especially after +<i>seem</i> and <i>appear</i>, and results from the writer’s being too +lazy to decide whether he means <i>He seems to have been</i>, or <i>He +seemed to be</i>. The mistake may be in either verb or both.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>[Repudiating the report of an interview] I warned him when he spoke to +me that I could not speak to him at all if I was to be quoted as an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span> +authority. <i>He seemed to have taken</i> this as applying only to the +first question he asked me.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i> (seems)</p> + +<p>They, as it has been said of Sterne, seemed to have wished, every +now and then, to have thrown their wigs into the faces of their +auditors.—<span class="smcap">I. Disraeli.</span> (seem to have wished ... to throw)</p> + +<p>Lady Austen’s fashionable friends occasioned no embarrassment; +they <i>seemed to have preferred</i> some more fashionable +place for summering in, for they <i>are</i> not again spoken +of.—<span class="smcap">Southey.</span> (seem)</p> +</div> + +<p>Sometimes <i>have</i> is even transferred from the verb with which it +would make sense to the other with which it makes nonsense.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>On the point of church James was obdurate.... He would like to have +insisted on the other grudging items.—<span class="smcap">Sladen.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In the next, the perfect is wanted; for a child that has been flogged +cannot be left unflogged—not, that is, in the past; and the future is +not meant.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A child flogged left-handedly had better be left +unflogged.—<span class="smcap">Poe.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>We add, for the reader’s refreshment rather than for practical +purposes, an illustration of where careless treatment of <i>have</i> +may end:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Oh, Burgo, hadst thou not have been a very child, thou shouldst +have known that now, at this time of day—after all that thy +gallant steed had done for thee—it was impossible for thee or +him.—<span class="smcap">Trollope.</span></p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Conditionals</span></h3> + +<p>These, which cost the schoolboy at his Latin and Greek some weary +hours, need not detain us long. The reader passes lightly and +unconsciously in his own language over mixtures that might have caused +him searchings of heart in a dead one.</p> + +<p>But there is one corrupt and meaningless form, apparently gaining +ground, that calls for protest. When a clause begins with <i>as if</i>, +it must be remembered that there is an ellipse. <i>I treat her as +tenderly as if she were my daughter</i> would be in full <i>I treat +her as tenderly as I should if she were</i>, &c. If this is forgotten, +there is danger in some sentences, though not in this one, of using a +present indicative in the place where the verb <i>were</i> stands. So:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>We will not appear like fools in this matter, and as if we <i>have</i> +no authority over our own daughter.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This may be accounted for, but not justified, as an attempt to express +what should be merely implied, our actual possession of authority.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>As if the fruit or the flower not only <i>depends</i> on a root as +one of the conditions among others of its development, but <i>is</i> +itself actually the root.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This is absolutely indefensible so far as <i>is</i> is concerned; +<i>depends</i> has the same motive as <i>have</i> in the Richardson.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But this looks as if he <i>has</i> included the original 30,000 +men.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>There have been rumours lately, as if the present state of the nation +<i>may</i> seem to this species of agitators a favourable period for +recommencing their intrigues.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This is a place where <i>as if</i> should not have been used at all. +If it is used, the verb should be <i>seemed</i>, not <i>may seem</i>, +the full form being <i>as there would be</i> (<i>rumours</i>). Read +<i>suggesting that</i> for <i>as if</i>, and <i>seems</i> for <i>may +seem</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>General Linevitch reports that the army is concentrating as if it +<i>intends</i> to make a stand.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>A mixture between <i>it apparently intends</i> and <i>as if it +intended</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>As if the same end <i>may</i> not, and must not, be compassed, +according to its circumstances, by a great diversity of +ways.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>May</i> should be <i>might</i>. <i>As if it may not</i> is made to +do the work of <i>as if it might not, as of course it may</i>.</p> + +<p>The same rule applies to <i>as though</i>.</p> + +<p>The use of true subjunctive forms (if he be, though it happen) in +conditional sentences is for various reasons not recommended. These +forms, with the single exception of <i>were</i>, are perishing so +rapidly that an experienced word-actuary<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> puts their expectation +of life at one generation. As a matter of style, they should be +avoided, being certain to give a pretentious air when handled by any +one except the skilful and practised writers who need no advice from +us. And as a matter of grammar, the instinct for using subjunctives<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span> +rightly is dying with the subjunctive, so that even the still surviving +<i>were</i> is often used where it is completely wrong. So</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It would be advisable to wait for fuller details before making any +attempt to appraise the significance of the raid from the military +point of view, if, indeed, the whole expedition <i>were</i> not +planned with an eye to effect.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Here the last clause means <i>though perhaps it was only planned +with an eye to effect</i> (<i>and therefore has no military +significance</i>). But <i>if</i> followed by <i>were not</i> +necessarily means that it certainly is. The mistake here results in +making the clause look as if it were the protasis to <i>It would be +advisable</i>, with which it has in fact nothing whatever to do; it is +a note on the words <i>military significance</i>. Write <i>was</i> for +<i>were</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>... and who, taking my offered hand, bade me ‘Good morning’—nightfall +though it <i>were</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The sentence describes a meeting with a person who knew hardly any +English; he said good morning, though it <i>was</i> nightfall. A single +example may be added of the intrusion of <i>were</i> for <i>was</i> in +a sentence that is not conditional.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Dr. Chalmers was a believer in an Establishment as he conceived an +Establishment should be. Whether such an Establishment <i>were</i> +possible or not it is not for me now to discuss.—<span class="smcap">Lord +Rosebery.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Were</i>, however, is often right and almost necessary: other +subjunctives are never necessary, often dangerous, and in most writers +unpleasantly formal. The tiro had much better eschew them.</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">‘Doubt that’ and ‘doubt whether’</span></h3> + +<p>Instances will be found in Part II of verbs constructed with wrong +prepositions or conjunctions. Most mistakes of this kind are +self-evident; but the verb ‘doubt’, which is constructed with ‘that’ +or ‘whether’ according to the circumstances under which the doubt is +expressed, requires special notice. The broad distinction is between +the positive, ‘I doubt whether (that)’ and the negative, ‘I do not +doubt that (whether)’;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span> and the rule, in order to include implied as +well as expressed negatives, questions as well as statements, will run +thus:</p> + +<p>The word used depends upon the writer’s or speaker’s opinion as to the +reasonableness of the doubt, no matter in whose mind it is said to +exist or not to exist.</p> + +<p>1. If there is nothing to show that the writer considers the doubt an +unreasonable one, the word is always ‘whether’, which reminds us that +there is a suppressed alternative:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I doubt whether this is true (or not).</p> + +<p>Every one is at liberty to doubt whether ... (or not).</p> +</div> + +<p>To this part of the rule there is no exception.</p> + +<p>2. If it is evident that the writer disapproves of the doubt, the words +introducing it amount to an affirmation on his part that the thing +doubted is undoubtedly true; the alternative is no longer offered; +‘that’ is therefore the word:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I do not doubt that (i. e., I am sure that)....</p> + +<p>Who can doubt that...?</p> +</div> + +<p>This, however, is modified by 3.</p> + +<p>3. The ‘vivid’ use of ‘whether’. When the writer’s point is rather +the extravagance of the doubt than the truth of the thing doubted, +‘whether’ is often retained:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is as if a man should doubt whether he has a head on his shoulders.</p> + +<p>Can we imagine any man seriously doubting whether...?</p> +</div> + +<p>Here, according to 2., we ought to have ‘that’, since the writer +evidently regards the doubt as absurd. But in the first sentence it +is necessary for the force of the illustration that the deplorable +condition of the doubter’s mind should be vividly portrayed: +accordingly, he is represented to us as actually handling the two +alternatives. Similarly, in the second, we are invited to picture +to ourselves, if we can, a hesitation so ludicrous in the writer’s +opinion. We shall illustrate this point further by a couple of +sentences in which again the state of mind of the doubter, not the +truth of the thing doubted, is clearly the point, but in which ‘that’ +has been improperly substituted for the vivid ‘whether’:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>She found herself wondering at the breath she drew, doubting that +another would follow.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>I am afraid that you will become so afraid of men’s motives as to +doubt that any one can be honest.—<span class="smcap">Trollope.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The mistake commonly made is to use ‘that’ for ‘whether’ in violation +of 1. ‘Whether’ is seldom used in place of ‘that’, and apparent +violations of 2. often prove to be legitimate exceptions of the ‘vivid’ +kind. Some of our examples may suggest that when the dependent clause +is placed before the verb, ‘that’ appears because the writer had not +decided what verb of doubt or denial to use. This is probably the true +explanation of many incorrect <i>thats</i>, but is not a sufficient +defence. It supplies, on the contrary, an additional reason for +adhering to ‘whether’: the reader is either actually misled or at any +rate kept in needless suspense as to what is going to be said, because +the writer did not make up his mind at the right time how to say it. +‘Whether’ at the beginning at once proclaims an open question: after +‘that’ we expect (or ought to expect) ‘I have <i>no</i> reason to +doubt’.</p> + +<p>In all the following, ‘whether’ should have been used.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There is nothing for it but to doubt such diseases exist.—<span class="smcap">H. G. +Wells.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>‘Whether’ is never suppressed.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I do not think it would have pleased Mr. Thackeray; and to doubt that +he would have wished to see it carried out determines my view of the +matter.—<span class="smcap">Greenwood.</span></p> + +<p>That the movement is as purely industrial as the leaders of the strike +claim may be doubted.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>And I must be allowed to doubt that there is any class who +deliberately omit....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>He may doubt that his policy will be any more popular in England a +year or two hence than it is now.—<span class="smcap">Greenwood.</span></p> + +<p>I doubt the correctness of the assertion.... I doubt, I +say, that Becky would have selected either of these young +men.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> + +<p>But that his army, if it retreats, will carry with it all its guns ... +we are inclined to doubt.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It was generally doubted that France would permit the use of her +port.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span></p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Prepositions</span></h3> + +<p>In an uninflected language like ours these are ubiquitous, and it is +quite impossible to write tolerably without a full knowledge, conscious +or unconscious, of their uses. Misuse of them, however, does not +often result in what may be called in the fullest sense blunders of +syntax, but mostly in offences against idiom. It is often impossible +to convince a writer that the preposition he has used is a wrong one, +because there is no reason in the nature of things, in logic, or in +the principles of universal grammar (whichever way it may be put), why +that preposition should not give the desired meaning as clearly as the +one that we tell him he should have used. Idioms are special forms of +speech that for some reason, often inscrutable, have proved congenial +to the instinct of a particular language. To neglect them shows a +writer, however good a logician he may be, to be no linguist—condemns +him, from that point of view, more clearly than grammatical blunders +themselves. But though the subject of prepositions is thus very +important, the idioms in which they appear are so multitudinous that it +is hopeless to attempt giving more than the scantiest selection; this +may at least put writers on their guard. Usages of this sort cannot be +acquired from dictionaries and grammars, still less from a treatise +like the present, not pretending to be exhaustive; good reading with +the idiomatic eye open is essential. We give a few examples of what to +avoid.</p> + +<p>1. After adjectives and adverbs.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Another stroke of palsy soon rendered Sir Sampson <i>unconscious</i> +even <i>to</i> the charms of Grizzy’s conversation.—<span class="smcap">S. +Ferrier.</span></p> + +<p>Being <i>oblivious to</i> the ill feeling it would be certain to +engender.—<i>Cheltenham Examiner.</i></p> + +<p>To me it is incredible that the British people, who own one-half of +the world’s sea-going ships, should be so <i>oblivious to</i> the +manner in which....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Insensible to, but unconscious of; indifferent to, but oblivious of</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span></p> + +<p>The adjectives <i>different</i> and <i>averse</i>, with their adverbs +or nouns, <i>differently</i>, <i>difference</i>, <i>aversion</i>, +<i>averseness</i>, call for a few words of comment. There is no +essential reason whatever why either set should not be as well followed +by <i>to</i> as by <i>from</i>. But <i>different to</i> is regarded +by many newspaper editors and others in authority as a solecism, and +is therefore better avoided by those to whom the approval of such +authorities is important. It is undoubtedly gaining ground, and will +probably displace <i>different from</i> in no long time; perhaps, +however, the conservatism that still prefers <i>from</i> is not yet +to be named pedantry. It is at any rate defensive, and not offensive +pedantry, <i>different to</i> (though ‘found in writers of all +ages’—<i>Oxford Dictionary</i>) being on the whole the aggressor. With +<i>averse</i>, on the other hand, though the <i>Oxford Dictionary</i> +gives a long roll of good names on each side, the use of <i>from</i> +may perhaps be said to strike most readers as a distinct protest +against the more natural <i>to</i>, so that <i>from</i> is here the +aggressor, and the pedantry, if it is pedantry, is offensive. Our +advice is to write <i>different from</i> and <i>averse to</i>. We +shall give a few examples, and add to them two sentences in which the +incorrect use of <i>from</i> with other words looks like the result +of insisting on the slightly artificial use of it after different and +averse.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>My experience caused me to make quite <i>different</i> conclusions +<i>to</i> those of the Coroner for Westminster.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It will be noticed that <i>to</i> is more than usually uncomfortable +when it does not come next to <i>different</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>We must feel charitably towards those who think <i>differently to</i> +ourselves.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Why should these profits be employed <i>differently to</i> the profits +made by capitalists at home?—<span class="smcap">Lord Goschen.</span></p> + +<p>Ah, how <i>different</i> were my feelings as I sat proudly there +on the box <i>to</i> those I had the last time I mounted that +coach!—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> + +<p>What is the great <i>difference</i> of the one <i>to</i> the +other?—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>From</i> would in this last be clearly better than <i>to</i>; but +<i>between the two</i> would be better than either.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The Queen and the cabinet, however, were entirely <i>averse to</i> +meddling with the council.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>Perhaps he is not <i>averse from</i> seeing democrats on this, as on +railway rates, range themselves with him.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>In all democratic circles <i>aversion from</i> the Empire of the Tsar +may be intensified by the events of the last few days.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><i>To</i> no kind of begging are people so <i>averse</i> as <i>to</i> +begging pardon.—<i>Guesses at Truth.</i></p> + +<p>This <i>averseness</i> in the dissenting churches <i>from</i> all that +looks like absolute government.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> + +<p>I deeply regret the <i>aversion to</i> ‘conscience +clauses’.—<span class="smcap">Gladstone.</span></p> + +<p>But she had no sort of <i>aversion for</i> either Puritan or +Papist.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Disagree from</i> (for <i>with</i>), and <i>adverse from</i> (for +<i>to</i>), seem to have resulted from the superstition against +<i>averse</i> and <i>different to</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A general proposition, which applies just as much to those who +<i>disagree from</i> me as to those who agree with me.—<span class="smcap">Lord +Rosebery.</span></p> + +<p>There were politicians in this country who had been very <i>adverse +from</i> the Suez Canal scheme altogether.—<span class="smcap">F. Greenwood.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>2. After verbs.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I <i>derive</i> an unholy pleasure <i>in</i> noting.—<i>Guernsey +Evening Press.</i></p> + +<p>We must <i>content ourselves</i> for the moment <i>by</i> observing +that from the juridical standpoint the question is a doubtful +one.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The petition which now reaches us from Bloemfontein ... <i>contents +itself by</i> begging that the isolation laws may be carried out +nearer to the homes of the patients.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>I content you <i>by</i> submitting: I content myself <i>with</i> saying.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>‘Doing one’s duty’ generally <i>consists of</i> being moral, kind and +charitable.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>The external world which is dealt with by natural science +<i>consisted</i>, according to Berkeley, <i>in</i> ideas. According to +Mr. Mill it <i>consists of</i> sensations and permanent possibilities +of sensation.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The moon consists <i>of</i> green cheese: virtue consists <i>in</i> +being good. <i>Consist of</i> gives a material, <i>consist in</i> +a definition. Mr. Balfour’s ‘elegant variation’ (see <i>Airs and +Graces</i>) is certainly wrong, though nominalists and realists will +perhaps differ about which should have been used in both sentences,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span> +and no one below the degree of a metaphysician can pretend to decide +between them.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A scholar <i>endowed by</i> [with] an ample knowledge and persuasive +eloquence to cite and instance.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>I say to you plainly there is no end <i>to</i> [at] which your +practical faculty can <i>aim</i>....—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>He urged that it was an undesirable thing to be always <i>tinkering +with</i> this particular trade.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>We tamper <i>with</i>, but tinker <i>at</i>, the thing that is to be +operated on.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>You may hunt the alien from his overcrowded tenement, you may +<i>forbid</i> him, if you like, <i>from toiling</i> ten hours a day +for a wage of a few shillings.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>His toiling</i>, or <i>him to toil</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>His readiness, not only at catching a point, but at making the most of +it <i>on a moment’s notice</i>, was amazing.—<span class="smcap">Bryce.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>On</i> the spur of the moment, but <i>at</i> a moment’s notice. The +motive was, no doubt, to avoid repeating <i>at</i>; but such devices +are sins if they are detected.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Nataly had her sense of safety in <i>acquiescing to</i> such a +voice.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>We acquiesce <i>in</i>, not <i>to</i>, though either phrase is awkward +enough with <i>a voice</i>; <i>to</i> is probably accounted for again +by the desire to avoid repeating <i>in</i>.</p> + +<p>3. After nouns.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There can be no <i>fault found to</i> her manners or +sentiments.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>I find fault <i>with</i>: I find a fault <i>in</i>. Write <i>in</i> or +<i>with</i>, as one or the other phrase is meant.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The Diet should leave to the Tsar <i>the initiative of</i> taking such +measures as may be necessary.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>M. Delcassé took <i>the initiative of</i> turning the conversation to +Moroccan affairs.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>We assume the <i>right of</i> turning, we take the <i>initiative in</i> +turning.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Those, who are urging with most ardour what are called the greatest +<i>benefits</i> of mankind.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Benefits <i>of</i> the benefactor, but <i>to</i> the beneficiary.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A power to marshal and adjust particulars, which can only come from an +<i>insight of</i> [into] their whole connection.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>From its driving energy, its personal weight, its invincible +<i>oblivion to</i> [of] certain things, there sprang up in Redwood’s +mind the most grotesque and strange of images.—<span class="smcap">H. G. Wells.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>4. Superfluous prepositions, whether due to ignorance of idiom, +negligence, or mistaken zeal for accuracy.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>As to</i> Mr. Lovelace’s approbation of your assumption-scheme, I +wonder not <i>at</i>.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> + +<p>A something <i>of</i> which the sense can in no way assist the mind to +form a conception <i>of</i>.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>The Congress could occupy itself with no more important question than +<i>with</i> this.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This is due to confusion with ‘could occupy itself with no question +more profitably than with this’.</p> + +<p>5. Necessary prepositions omitted.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The Lady Henrietta ... <i>wrote him</i> regularly through his bankers, +and once in a while he <i>wrote her</i>.—<span class="smcap">Baroness von Hutten.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Write</i> without <i>to</i> will now pass in commercial letters +only; elsewhere, we can say ‘I write you a report, a letter’, but +neither ‘I will write you’ simply, nor ‘I wrote you that there was +danger’. That is, we must only omit the <i>to</i> when <i>you</i> not +only is the indirect object, but is unmistakably so at first sight. +It may be said that <i>I write you</i> is good old English. So is +<i>he was a-doing of it</i>; <i>I guess</i> is good Chaucerian. But in +neither case can the appeal to a dead usage—dead in polite society, or +in England—justify what is a modern vulgarism.</p> + +<p>6. Compound prepositions and conjunctions.</p> + +<p>The increasing use of these is much to be regretted. They, and the +love for abstract expression with which they are closely allied, are +responsible for much of what is flaccid, diffuse, and nerveless, in +modern writing. They are generally,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span> no doubt, invented by persons who +want to express a more precise shade of meaning than they can find in +anything already existing; but they are soon caught up by others who +not only do not need the new delicate instrument, but do not understand +it. <i>Inasmuch</i> as, for instance, originally expressed that the +truth of its clause gave the exact measure of the truth that belonged +to the main sentence. So (from the <i>Oxford Dictionary</i>):</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>God is only God inasmuch as he is the Moral Governor of the +world.—<span class="smcap">Sir W. Hamilton.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>But long before Hamilton’s day the word passed, very naturally, +into the meaning, for which it need never have been invented, of +<i>since</i> or <i>because</i>. Consequently most people who need +the original idea have not the courage to use <i>inasmuch as</i> +for it, like Sir W. Hamilton, but resort to new combinations with +<i>far</i>. Those new combinations, however, as will be shown, +fluctuate and are confused with one another. The best thing we can +now do with <i>inasmuch</i> as is to get it decently buried; when it +means <i>since</i>, <i>since</i> is better; when it means what it +once meant, no one understands it. The moral we wish to draw is that +these compounds should be left altogether alone except in passages +where great precision is wanted. Just as a word like <i>save</i> +(except) is ruined for the poet by being used on every page of ordinary +prose (which it disfigures in revenge for its own degradation), so +<i>inasmuch</i> as is spoilt for the logician.</p> + +<p>We shall first illustrate the absurd prevailing abuse of the compound +preposition <i>as to</i>. In each of the following sentences, if <i>as +to</i> is simply left out, no difference whatever is made in the +meaning. It is only familiarity with unnecessary circumlocution that +makes such a state of things tolerable to any one with a glimmering +of literary discernment. <i>As to</i> flows from the pen now at every +possible opportunity, till many writers seem quite unaware that such +words as <i>question</i> or <i>doubt</i> can bear the weight of a +<i>whether</i>-clause without help from this offensive parasite.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>With the idea of endeavouring to ascertain as to this, I +invited....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Confronted with the simple question as to in what way other people’s +sisters, wives and daughters differ from theirs....—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>It is not quite clear as to what happened.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>Doubt is expressed as to whether the fall of Port Arthur will +materially affect the situation.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I feel tempted to narrate one that occurred to me, leaving it +to your judgment as to whether it is worthy of notice in your +paper.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>I was entirely indifferent as to the results of the game, +caring nothing at all <i>as to</i> whether I had losses or +gains.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The first <i>as to</i> in this may pass, though plain <i>to</i> is +better.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>German anticipations with regard to the future are apparently based +upon the question as to how far the Sultan will....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>But you are dying to know what brings me here, and even if you +find nothing new in it you will perhaps think <i>it</i> makes some +difference <i>as to</i> who says a thing.—<span class="smcap">Greenwood.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This is the worst of all. The subject of <i>makes</i> (anticipated in +the ordinary way by <i>it</i>) is <i>who says a thing</i>; but the +construction is obscured by the insertion of <i>as to</i>. We are +forced to suppose, wrongly, that <i>it</i> means <i>what brings me +here</i>. Worse than the worst, however, at least more aggressively +wrong, is an instance that we find while correcting this sheet for the +press:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>... Although it is open to doubt as to what extent individual saving +through more than one provident institution prevails.—<i>Westminster +Gazette.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Another objection to the compound prepositions and conjunctions is +that they are frequently confused with one another or miswritten. We +illustrate from two sets. (<i>a</i>) The word <i>view</i> is common +in the forms <i>in view of</i>, <i>with a view to</i>, <i>with the +view of</i>. The first expresses external circumstances, existing or +likely to occur, that must be taken into account; as, <i>In view of +these doubts about the next dividend, we do not recommend</i>.... The +other two both express the object aimed at, but must not have the +correspondence, <i>a</i> view <i>to</i>, <i>the</i> view <i>of</i>, +upset.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A Resolution was moved and carried <i>in favour of</i> giving +facilities to the public vaccination officers of the Metropolis to +enter the schools<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span> of the Board <i>for the purpose of</i> examining +the arms of the children <i>with a view to</i> advising the parents to +allow their children to be vaccinated.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>The Sultan ... will seek to obtain money by contracting loans with +private firms <i>in view of</i> beginning for himself the preliminary +reforms.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>If Germany has anything to propose <i>in view of</i> the safeguarding +of her own interests, it will certainly meet with that courteous +consideration which is traditional in French diplomacy.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Its execution is being carefully prepared <i>with a view of</i> +avoiding any collision with the natives.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>My company has been approached by several firms <i>with a view of</i> +overcoming the difficulty.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Of these the first is correct; but the sentence it comes in is so +typical of the compound-prepositional style that no one who reads it +will be surprised that its patrons should sometimes get mixed; how +should people who write like that keep their ideas clear? The second +should have <i>with a view to</i>. Still more should the third, which +is ambiguous as well as unidiomatic; the words used ought to mean +<i>seeing that her interests are safeguarded already</i>. The fourth +and fifth should again have <i>with a view to</i> (or <i>with the view +of</i>).</p> + +<p>(<i>b</i>) The combinations with <i>far</i>—<i>as far as</i>, <i>so +far as</i>, <i>so far that</i>, <i>in so far as</i>, <i>in so far +that</i>, of which the last is certainly, and the last but one probably +needless—have some distinctions and limitations often neglected. For +instance, <i>as far as</i> must not be followed by a mere noun except +in the literal sense, <i>as far as London</i>. <i>So far as</i> and +<i>so far that</i> are distinguished by good writers in being applied, +the first to clauses that contain a doubtful or varying fact, the other +to clauses containing an ascertained or positive fact. <i>So far as</i> +(and <i>in so far as</i>), that is, means <i>to whatever extent</i>, +and <i>so far that</i> means <i>to this extent, namely that</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The question of the Capitulations and of the Mixed Tribunals is not in +any way essentially British, save <i>in so far as</i> the position of +Great Britain in Egypt makes her primarily responsible.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Correct; but <i>except that</i> would be much better than <i>save in so +far as</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Previous to 1895, when a separate constitution existed for the Bombay +and Madras armies, possibly a military department and a military +member were necessary in order to focus at the seat of government +the general military situation in India, but in the judgment of many +officers well qualified to form an opinion, no such department under +present conditions is really requisite, <i>in so far as</i> the action +of the Commander-in-Chief is thwarted in cases where he should be the +best judge of what is necessary.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Entirely wrong. It is confused with <i>inasmuch as</i>, and +<i>since</i> should be written.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The officials have done their utmost to enforce neutrality, and have +<i>in so far</i> succeeded <i>as</i> the Baltic fleet keeps outside +the three-mile limit.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Should be <i>so far succeeded that</i>; we are meant to understand that +the fleet does keep outside, though it does not go right away as might +be wished.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The previous appeal made by M. Delcassé was <i>so far</i> +successful <i>as</i> the Tsar himself sent orders to Admiral +Rozhdestvensky to comply with the injunctions of the French colonial +authorities.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>As</i> should be <i>that</i>. It is not doubtful to what extent or +whether the Tsar sent. He did send; that is the only point.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>They are exceptional in character, <i>in so far as</i> they do not +appear to be modifications of the epidermis.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Should probably be <i>so far exceptional that</i>. The point is that +there <i>is</i> this amount of the exceptional in them, not that +their irregularity depends on the doubtful fact of their not being +modifications; the word <i>appear</i> ought otherwise to have been +parenthetically arranged.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>This influence was <i>so far</i> indirect <i>in that</i> it was +greatly furthered by Le Sage, who borrowed the form of his Spanish +contemporaries.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>A mixture of <i>was so far indirect that</i> and <i>was indirect in +that</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He seemed quickly to give up first-hand observation and to be content +to reproduce and re-reproduce his early impressions, always trusting +to his own invention, and the reading public’s inveterate preference +for symmetry and satisfaction, to pull him through. They have pulled +him through <i>in so far as</i> they have made his name popular; +but an artist and a realist—possibly even a humourist—have been +lost.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span></p> + +<p><i>In so far as</i> leaves the popularity and the pulling through +doubtful, which they are clearly not meant to be. It should be <i>so +far that</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A man can get help from above to do what <i>as far as</i> human +possibility has proved out of his power.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>This is a whole sentence, not a fragment, as might be supposed. But +<i>as far as</i> (except in the local sense) must have a verb, finite +or infinite. Supply <i>goes</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The large majority would reply in the affirmative, <i>in so far as</i> +to admit that there is a God.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>So far as to admit</i>, or <i>in so far as they would admit</i>; not +the mixture. And this distinction is perhaps the only justification for +the existence of <i>in so far as</i> by the side of <i>so far as</i>; +the first is only conjunction, the second can be preposition as well.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> The reason why many who as a rule use the possessive are +willing to do without it after verbs like <i>prevent</i> is perhaps +this: in <i>I prevented him going</i> they consciously or unconsciously +regard both <i>him</i> and <i>going</i> as nouns, one the indirect, one +the direct object, as in <i>I refused him leave</i>.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> Dr. Henry Bradley, <i>The Making of English</i>, p. 53.</p> + +</div> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br><span class="small">AIRS AND GRACES</span></h2></div> + +<p class="blockquot">Certain types of humour—Elegant +variation—Inversion—Archaism—Metaphor—Repetition—Miscellaneous.</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Certain Types of Humour</span></h3> + +<p>Some of the more obvious devices of humorous writers, being fatally +easy to imitate, tend to outlive their natural term, and to become +a part of the injudicious novice’s stock-in-trade. <i>Olfactory +organ</i>, once no doubt an agreeable substitute for ‘nose’, has ceased +to be legal tender in literature, and is felt to mark a low level in +conversation. No amount of classical authority can redeem a phrase that +has once reached this stage. The warmest of George Eliot’s admirers, +called upon to swallow some tough morsel of polysyllabic humour in a +twentieth-century novel, will refuse to be comforted with parallel +passages from <i>Adam Bede</i>. Loyalty may smother the ejaculation +that ‘George Eliot knew no better’: it is none the less clear to him +that we know better now. A few well-worn types are illustrated below.</p> + +<p>a. Polysyllabic humour.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He was a boy whom Mrs. Hackit had pronounced stocky (a word that +etymologically, in all probability, conveys some allusion to an +instrument of punishment for the refractory).—<span class="smcap">Eliot.</span></p> + +<p>Tommy was a saucy boy, impervious to all impressions of reverence, +and excessively addicted to humming-tops and marbles, with which +recreative resources he was in the habit of immoderately distending +the pockets of his corduroys.—<span class="smcap">Eliot.</span></p> + +<p>No one save an individual not in a condition to distinguish a hawk +from a handsaw....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>And an observer of Miss Tox’s proceedings might have inferred so much +without declaratory confirmation.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>But it had its little inconveniences at other times, among which +may be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span> enumerated the occasional appearance of the river in the +drawing-room, and the contemporaneous disappearance of the lawn and +shrubbery.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>They might be better employed in composing their quarrels and +preparing a policy than in following the rather lugubrious occupations +indicated by Mr. Asquith.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Or perhaps, from a presentiment of calves’ brains, you refrain +from any lacteal addition, and rasp your tongue with unmitigated +bohea.—<span class="smcap">Eliot.</span></p> + +<p>The rooks were cawing with many-voiced monotony, apparently—by +a remarkable approximation to human intelligence—finding great +conversational resources in the change of weather.—<span class="smcap">Eliot.</span></p> + +<p>I had been terribly shaken by my fall, and had subsequently, owing to +the incision of the surgeon’s lancet, been deprived of much of the +vital fluid.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>An elderly man stood near me, and a still more elderly female +was holding a phial of very pungent salts to my olfactory +organ.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>The minister, honest man, was getting on his boots in the kitchen to +see us home.... Well, this preparation ministerial being finished, we +stepped briskly out.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>We have ourselves been reminded of the deficiencies of our femoral +habiliments, and exhorted upon that score to fit ourselves more +beseemingly.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>b. Playful repetition.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>When she had banged out the tune slowly, she began a different manner +of ‘Gettin’ up Stairs’, and did so with a fury and swiftness quite +incredible. She spun up stairs; she whirled up stairs; she galloped up +stairs; she rattled up stairs.... Then Miss Wirt played the ‘Gettin’ +up Stairs’ with the most pathetic and ravishing solemnity.... Miss +Wirt’s hands seemed to faint and wail and die in variations: again, +and she went up with a savage clang and rush of trumpets, as if Miss +Wirt was storming a breach.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> + +<p>My mind was, to a certain extent, occupied with the marks on the +teapot; it is true that the mournful idea strove hard with the marks +on the teapot for the mastery in my mind, and at last the painful idea +drove the marks of the teapot out.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>The pastrycook is hard at work in the funereal room in Brook Street, +and the very tall young men are busy looking on. One of the very tall +young men already smells of sherry, and his eyes have a tendency to +become fixed in his head, and to stare at objects without seeing them. +The very tall young man is conscious of this failing in himself; and +informs his comrade that it’s his ‘exciseman’. The very tall young man +would say excitement, but his speech is hazy.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span></span></p> + +<p>Busy is Mrs. Miff this morning at the church-door, beating and dusting +the altar-cloth, the carpet and the cushions; and much has Mrs. Miff +to say about the wedding they are going to have. Mrs. Miff is told +that the new furniture and alterations in the house cost full five +thousand pound, if they cost a penny; and Mrs. Miff has heard, upon +the best authority, that the lady hasn’t got a sixpence wherewithal to +bless herself. Mrs. Miff remembers, likewise, as if it had happened +yesterday, the first wife’s funeral, and then the christening, and +then the other funeral; and Mrs. Miff says, By-the-bye, she’ll +soap-and-water that ’ere tablet presently, against the company +arrive.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>Mr. Dombey was a grave sight, behind the decanters, in a state of +dignity; and the East India Director was a forlorn sight, near the +unoccupied end of the table, in a state of solitude; and the major +was a military sight, relating stories of the Duke of York to six of +the seven mild men (the ambitious one was utterly quenched); and the +Bank Director was a lowly sight, making a plan of his little attempt +at a pinery, with dessert knives, for a group of admirers; and Cousin +Feenix was a thoughtful sight, as he smoothed his long wristbands and +stealthily adjusted his wig.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The author is very much at his ease in the last example; the novice +who should yawn in our faces with such engaging candour would render +himself liable to misinterpretation.</p> + +<p>c. The well-worn ‘flood-of-tears-and-sedan-chair’ pleasantry.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Phib Cook left her evening wash-tub and appeared at her door in +soap-suds, a bonnet-poke, and general dampness.—<span class="smcap">Eliot.</span></p> + +<p>Sir Charles, of course, rescues her from the clutches of the Italian, +and they return together in triumph and a motor-car.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Miss Nipper ... shook her head and a tin-canister, and began unasked +to make the tea.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>And for the rest it is not hard to be a stoic in eight-syllable metre +and a travelling-carriage.—<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></p> + +<p>But what the bare-legged men were doing baffled conjecture and the +best glasses.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>d. Other worn-out phrases of humorous tendency.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>For, tell it not in Gath, the Bishop had arrived on a bicycle.—<span class="smcap">D. +Sladen.</span></p> + +<p>Tell it not in Smith-st., but....—<i>Guernsey Evening Press.</i></p> + +<p>Sleeping the sleep of the just.</p> + +<p>The gallant sons of Mars.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Mr. Mackenzie, with a white hat ... and long brown leather gaiters +buttoned upon his nether anatomy.—<span class="smcap">Lockhart.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span></span></p> + +<p>Looking for all the world like....—<span class="smcap">D. Sladen.</span></p> + +<p>Too funny for words.</p> +</div> + +<p>These two phrases are commonly employed to carry off a humorous +description of which the success is doubted. They are equivalents, +in light literature, of the encouragement sometimes offered by the +story-teller whose joke from <i>Punch</i> has fallen flat: ‘You should +have seen the illustration’. <i>Worthy</i> and <i>gallant</i> are +similarly used:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>To hear the worthy and gallant Major resume his favourite topic is +like law-business, or a person who has a suit in Chancery going +on.—<span class="smcap">Hazlitt.</span></p> + +<p><i>Home.</i>—I would implore God to survey with an eye of mercy their +unoffending bairns. <i>Hume.</i>—And would not you be disposed to +behold them with an eye <i>of the same materials</i>?—<span class="smcap">Landor.</span></p> + +<p>Two or three haggard, ragged drawers ran to and fro.... Guided by one +of these blinking <i>Ganymedes</i>, they entered....—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> + +<p>The ancient <i>Hebe</i> who acted as Lord Glenvarloch’s cup-bearer +took his part against the intrusion of the still more antiquated +<i>Ganymede</i>, and insisted on old Trapbois leaving the room +instantly.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>It may be doubted whether any resemblance or contrast, however +striking, can make it worth a modern writer’s while to call waiters +Ganymedes, waitresses Hebes, postmen Mercuries, cabmen Automedons or +Jehus. In Scott’s time, possibly, these phrases had still an agreeable +novelty: they are now so hackneyed as to have fallen into the hands of +writers who are not quite certain who Ganymede and Hebe were. Thus, +there are persons who evidently think that it is rather complimentary +to one’s host than otherwise to call him an Amphitryon; and others who +are fond of using the phrase ‘l’Amphitryon où l’on dîne’ altogether +without point, apparently under the impression that ‘où l’on dîne’ is +an alternative version for the use of the uninitiated (‘Amphitryon’, +that is to say, ‘one’s host’).</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Japan, says M. Balet, can always borrow money so long as she can +provide two things—guarantees and victories. She has guarantees +enough and victories <i>galore</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span></p> + +<p>The English people has insisted on its preference for a married +clergy, and Dr. Ingram’s successor may have ‘arrows in the hand of a +giant’.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The inverted commas seem to implore the reader’s acceptance of this +very battered ornament. One could forgive it more easily, if there were +the slightest occasion for its appearance here.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The only change ever known in his outward man +was....—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>Rob the Grinder, thus transformed as to his outer +man....—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>One hundred parishioners and friends partaking of tea.—<i>Guernsey +Advertiser.</i></p> + +<p>But that’s another story.—<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span></p> + +<p>But that is ‘another story’.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It was all that Anne could do to keep from braining him with the poker +for daring to call her ‘Little One’,—and Anne’s arm is no joke when +she hits to hurt. Once John Barnaby—but the tale of John Barnaby can +wait.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>Nevertheless, some folk like it so, and even now the Captain, when his +pipe draws well and his grog is to his liking, says—But there is no +use in bringing the Captain into the story.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The notion that Mr. Kipling, left to himself, is not competent to bring +out all the latent possibilities of this phrase is a mistaken one, and +argues an imperfect acquaintance with his works.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Many heads in England, I find, are shaken doubtfully over the +politics, or what are thought to be the politics, of Australia. +They—the politics, not the heads—are tangled, they are +unsatisfactory in a high degree.—<span class="smcap">W. H. Fitchett.</span></p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Elegant Variation</span></h3> + +<p>We include under this head all substitutions of one word for another +for the sake of variety, and some miscellaneous examples will be found +at the end of the section. But we are chiefly concerned with what may +be called pronominal variation, in which the word avoided is either a +noun or its obvious pronoun substitute. The use of pronouns is itself +a form of variation, designed to avoid ungainly repetition; and we +are only going one step further when, instead of either the original +noun or the pronoun, we use some new equivalent.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span> ‘Mr. Gladstone’, +for instance, having already become ‘he,’ presently appears as ‘that +statesman’. Variation of this kind is often necessary in practice; so +often, that it should never be admitted except when it is necessary. +Many writers of the present day abound in types of variation that are +not justified by expediency, and have consequently the air of cheap +ornament. It is impossible to lay down hard and fast rules, but two +general principles may be suggested: (1) Variation should take place +only when there is some awkwardness, such as ambiguity or noticeable +monotony, in the word avoided. (2) The substitute should be of a purely +pronominal character, a substitute and nothing more; there should be no +killing of two birds with one stone. Even when these two requirements +are satisfied, the variation is often worse, because more noticeable, +than the monotony it is designed to avoid.</p> + +<p>The examples in our first group do not offend against (2): how far +they offend against (1), and how far they are objectionable on other +grounds, we shall consider in detail.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Mr. Wolff, the well-known mining engineer, yesterday paid a visit to +the scene of the disaster. <i>The expert</i> gave it as his opinion +that no blame attached....</p> +</div> + +<p><i>The expert</i> is gratuitous: <i>He</i> would have done quite well.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>None the less Mrs. Scott [Sir Walter’s mother] was a motherly +comfortable woman, with much tenderness of heart, and a well stored, +vivid memory. Sir Walter, writing of her, after <i>his mother’s</i> +death, to Lady Louisa Stewart, says....—<span class="smcap">Hutton.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>His mother’s</i> is not only unnecessary, but misleading: there is +a difficulty in realizing that <i>her</i> and <i>his mother</i>, so +placed, can be meant to refer to the same person.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Mr. J. Hays Hammond, a friend of President Roosevelt, lecturing before +the American Political Science Association, quoted a recent utterance +of the President of the Japanese House of Peers. <i>That dignitary</i> +said: ....—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>That dignitary said</i> might have been omitted, with the full stop +before it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Mr. Sidney Lee’s study of the Elizabethan Sonnets, the late Mr. +Charles Elton’s book on Shakespeare’s Family and Friends, and +Professor Bradley’s on Shakespearean Tragedy—a work which may +be instructively read with Professor Campbell’s ‘Tragic Drama +in Aeschylus, Sophocles and Shakespeare’—remind us that <i>the +dramatist</i> still holds his own with the publishers. The last two or +three weeks have seen two new editions of him.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The writer has thoroughly puzzled himself. He cannot call Shakespeare +Shakespeare, because there is a Shakespeare just before: he cannot call +him <i>he</i>, because six other persons in the sentence have claims +upon <i>he</i>: and he ought not to call him <i>the dramatist</i>, +because Aeschylus and Sophocles were dramatists too. We know, of +course, which dramatist is meant, just as we should have known which +<i>he</i> was meant; but the appropriation is awkward in either +case. <i>The dramatist</i> is no doubt the best thing under the +circumstances; but when matters are brought to such a pass that we can +neither call a man by his own name, nor use a pronoun, nor identify him +by means of his profession, it is time to remodel the sentence.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>If Mr. Chamberlain has been injured by the fact that till now Mr. +Balfour has clung to him, Mr. Balfour has been equally injured by the +fact that Mr. Chamberlain has persistently locked his arm in <i>that +of the Prime Minister</i>.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Elegant variation is the last thing we should expect here. For what +is the writer’s principal object? Clearly, to emphasize the idea of +reciprocity by the repetition of names, and by their arrangement. Mr. +Chamberlain, Mr. Balfour: Mr. Balfour, Mr. Chamberlain. It is easy +enough, so far: ‘If Mr. Chamberlain has been injured by the persistent +attachment of Mr. Balfour, Mr. Balfour has been equally injured by +that of Mr. Chamberlain’. But that is not all that is required: there +is to be the graphic touch; arm is to be locked in arm. Now comes the +difficulty: in whose arm are we to lock Mr. Chamberlain’s? in ‘his’? in +‘<i>his</i>’? in ‘his own’? in ‘Mr. Balfour’s’? in ‘that of the Prime<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span> +Minister’? As the locking of arms is perhaps after all only an elegant +variation for clinging, remodelling seems again to be the best way out +of the difficulty. Perhaps our simplified form above might serve.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>On Thursday evening last, as a horse and cart were standing at Mr. +Brown’s shop, the animal bolted.</p> +</div> + +<p>‘The horse’.—An unconscious satirist, of tender years but ripe +discernment, parsed ‘animal’ in this sentence as a personal pronoun; +‘it replaced the subject of the sentence’. Journalists (it was +explained to her) are equipped with many more personal pronouns than +ever get into the grammars.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>The King</i> yesterday morning made a close inspection of the +Cruiser Drake at Portsmouth, and afterwards made a tour of the harbour +on board the Admiral’s launch. <i>His Majesty</i> then landed and +drove to Southsea, where he inspected the Royal Garrison Artillery at +Clarence Barracks. <i>The King</i> returned to London in the course of +the afternoon.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>This is, no doubt, a difficult case. The royal pronoun (His Majesty) +does not lend itself to repetition: on the other hand, it is felt that +<i>he</i>s, if indulged in at all, must be kept a respectful distance +apart; hence <i>The King</i> in the third sentence. We can get rid of +it by reading ‘... at Clarence Barracks; returning ...’. But of course +that solution would not always be possible.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>The Emperor</i> received yesterday and to-day General Baron von +Beck.... It may therefore be assumed with some confidence that the +terms of a feasible solution are maturing themselves in <i>His +Majesty’s</i> mind and may form the basis of further negotiations +with Hungarian party leaders when <i>the Monarch</i> goes again to +Budapest.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>If <i>the Emperor of Austria</i> should disappear from the scene, +war, according to this authority, is to be feared, as <i>the Emperor +Francis Joseph</i> alone controls....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>There is no excuse either for <i>the Monarch</i> or for the <i>Emperor +Francis Joseph</i>. ‘He’ could scarcely have been misinterpreted even +in the latter sentence.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Sir Charles Edward Bernard</i> had a long and distinguished career +in the Indian Civil Service.... Five years later <i>Sir Charles +Bernard</i> was appointed Commissioner of Nagpur.... In 1876 <i>Sir +Edward Bernard</i> returned to Nagpur.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span></p> + +<p>It is natural that <i>Sir Charles Edward Bernard</i> should be +introduced to us under his full name; natural, also, that an +abbreviation should be chosen for working purposes. But why two +abbreviations? If <i>Sir Charles</i> and <i>he</i> are judiciously +employed, they will last out to the end of the longest article, without +any assistance from <i>Sir Edward</i>.</p> + +<p>Among the instances here given, there is scarcely one in which +variation might not have been avoided with a little trouble. There are +some, indeed, in which it is not gratuitous; and if in these the effect +upon the reader were as negative as the writer’s intention, there would +be nothing to complain of. But it is not; the artistic concealment +of art is invariably wanting. These elephantine shifts distract our +attention from the matter in hand; we cannot follow His Majesty’s +movements, for wondering what the King will be called next time; will +it be plain Edward VII? or will something be done, perhaps, with ‘the +Emperor of India’? When the choice lies between monotonous repetition +on the one hand and clumsy variation on the other, it may fairly be +laid down that of two undesirable alternatives the natural is to be +preferred to the artificial.</p> + +<p>But variation of this kind is, at the worst, less offensive than +that which, in violation of our second principle above, is employed +as a medium for the conveyance of sprightly allusion, mild humour or +(commonest of all) parenthetic information.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>When people looked at his head, they felt he ought to have +been a giant, but he was far from <i>rivalling the children of +Anak</i>.—<span class="smcap">H. Caine.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>‘Far from it’, in fact.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He never fuddled himself with rum-and-water in his son’s presence, and +only talked to his servants in a very reserved and polite manner; and +<i>those persons</i> remarked....—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> + +<p>‘What made ye sae late?’ said Mr. Jarvie, as I entered the +dining-parlour of <i>that honest gentleman</i>.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The parlour was Mr. Jarvie’s.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>At the sixth round, there were almost as many <i>fellows shouting +out</i> ‘Go it, Figs’, as there were <i>youths exclaiming</i> ‘Go it, +Cuff’.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span></span></p> + +<p>Great advances in the education of women ... are likely, perhaps, to +find more congenial soil in Universities less bound by time-honoured +traditions and by social conventions than Oxford or Cambridge. +Whatever may be the case <i>by Isis or Cam</i>, ....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Our representative yesterday ran down to Brighton to interview the +Cambridge Captain. <i>The weight-putter and high-jumper</i> received +him with his usual cordiality.</p> +</div> + +<p>This is a favourite newspaper type.</p> + +<p>The miscellaneous examples given below (except ‘the former of the last +two’) are connected with pronominal variation only so far as they +illustrate the same principle of false elegance.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>... hardly calculated to impress <i>at this juncture</i> more than +<i>upon any former occasion</i> the audience....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>His mother <i>possessed</i> a good development of benevolence, but he +<i>owned</i> a better and larger.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> + +<p>In the subjoined official record of ‘business done’, transactions +<i>marked</i> thus * relate to small bonds, those <i>signalized</i> +thus † to small bonds free of stamp and fee, and those +<i>distinguished</i> thus + to an exceptional amount at special rates. +Stocks and shares marked thus †† have paid no dividend for the last +two half-years and upwards.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The return to <i>marked</i> is humiliating; we would respectfully +suggest <i>characterized</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>One might be more intelligible in such moods if one wrote in +<i>waving lines</i>, and accordingly the question ‘Why do you not +ask Alfred Tennyson to your home?’ is written in <i>undulating +script</i>.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>Eighty-three volumes are <i>required for</i> letter “M,” seventy-seven +are <i>demanded by</i> “L,” and seventy-six are perforce <i>conceded +to</i> “B”; but <i>the former of the last two</i>....—<i>Westminster +Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>I must <i>ask</i> the reader to <i>use</i> the same twofold +procedure that I before <i>requested</i> him to <i>employ</i> in +considering....—<span class="smcap">H. Sidgwick.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>We have not room to record at length, from the <i>Westminster +Gazette</i>, the elegant variety of fortune that attended certain +pictures, which (within twenty lines) made, fetched, changed hands for, +went for, produced, elicited, drew, fell at, accounted for, realized, +and were knocked down for, various sums.</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Inversion</span></h3> + +<p>Of all the types of inversion used by modern writers, there is perhaps +not one that could not be shown to exist in older<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span> English. Ordinary +modern usage, however, has retained those forms only in which ancient +authority combines with practical convenience; and not all of those. +To set aside the verdict of time in this respect is to be archaic. +Before using inversion, therefore, the novice should ask himself two +questions: is there any solid, practical reason (ornamental reasons +will not do) for tampering with the normal order of subject and verb? +and does the inversion sound natural?</p> + +<p>Throughout this section it must be borne in mind that in all questions +of right and wrong inversion the final appeal is not to history, but +to the reader’s perception: what sounds right to most modern ears is +right for modern purposes. When, under balance inversion, we speak of +a true and a false principle, we do not mean to imply that the ‘true’ +principle was, historically, the origin of this kind of inversion, or +that the ‘false’ is a mistaken analogy from it: all that is meant is +that if we examine a collection of instances, those that sound natural +will prove to be based upon the ‘true’ principle, and those that do not +on the ‘false’.</p> + +<p><b>a. Exclamatory inversion.</b></p> + +<p>This may be regarded as an abbreviated form of exclamation, as if +the word ‘How’ had dropped out at the beginning, and a note of +exclamation at the end. The inverted order, which is normal in the +complete exclamation, sounds natural also in the abbreviated form. The +requirements for this kind of inversion are these: (1) The intention +must be genuinely exclamatory, so that the full form of exclamation +could be substituted without extravagance. (2) The word placed first +must be that which would bear the chief emphasis in the uninverted +form. It should be observed that this is the only kind of inversion in +which the emphatic word, as such, stands at the beginning.</p> + +<p>Our first three examples satisfy these conditions, and are +unobjectionable. The fourth does not: we could not substitute ‘With +what difficulty...!’; nor are the first words<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span> emphatic; the emphasis +is on ‘conceive’. Yet the inversion is inoffensive, being in fact not +exclamatory at all, but a licensed extension of negative inversion, +which is treated below.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Bitterly did I regret the perverse, superstitious folly that had +induced me to neglect so obvious a precaution.</p> + +<p>But in these later times, with so many disillusions, with fresh +problems confronting science as it advances, rare must be the spirit +of faith with which Haeckel regards his work.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Gladly would he now have consented to the terms....</p> + +<p>With difficulty can I conceive of a mental condition in which....</p> +</div> + +<p>Exclamatory inversion, like everything else that is exclamatory, should +of course be used sparingly.</p> + +<p><b>b. Balance inversion.</b></p> + +<p>The following are familiar and legitimate types:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>First on our list stands the question of local option.</p> + +<p>On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.</p> + +<p>To this cause may be attributed....</p> + +<p>Among the guests were A, B, C, ... Z.</p> +</div> + +<p>We give the name of ‘balance’ to this kind of inversion because, +although the writer, in inverting the sentence, may not be distinctly +conscious of rectifying its balance, the fact that it was ill-balanced +before is the true cause of inversion. It is a mistake to say that the +words placed first in the above examples are so placed for the sake +of emphasis; that is a very common impression, and is responsible for +many unlawful inversions. It is not emphasis that is given to these +words, it is protection; they are placed there to protect them from +being virtually annihilated, as they would have been if left at the +end. Look at the last of our examples: how can we call the words ‘Among +the guests were’ emphatic, or say that they were placed there for +emphasis? They are essential words, they show the connexion, nor could +the sentence be a sentence without them; but they are as unemphatic as +words could well be.—Why, then (it may be asked), are they put at the +beginning? is not this an emphatic position? and does not any unusual +position give emphasis?—No: it gives not emphasis but prominence, +which is another thing.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span></p> + +<p>Put the sentence back into its original form, and we shall see why +inversion was desirable. ‘A, B, C, D, E, F ... Z were among the +guests.’ Observe how miserably the sentence tails off; it has no +balance. By inverting it, we introduce several improvements. First, we +give prominence to the unemphatic predicate, and enable it to discharge +its humble office, that of a sign-post, indicating the connexion with +what has gone before. Secondly, by giving prominence to the predicate, +we give balance to the sentence, which before was top-heavy. Thirdly, +we give prominence to the subject, by placing it in an unusual position.</p> + +<p>Next take the ‘local option’ sentence. Are the words ‘First on our +list’ emphatic? Not if the inverter knows his business. How did it run +originally? ‘The question of local option stands first on our list.’ +These words might be meant to tell us either of two things: what stood +first on the list, or where local option stood. If the inversion is +right, they are meant to tell us what stood first. If the other had +been meant, then ‘First on the list’ would have been emphatic, and the +writer would have left it in its place; but as it is not emphatic, and +the other words are, the sentence is top-heavy; he therefore inverts +it, thus balancing the sentence, and placing the unemphatic words in +a prominent position, where they continue to be unemphatic, but are +sure to be noticed. In spoken language, the relative importance of the +different parts of a sentence can be indicated merely by the inflexion +of the voice; but the balance of the sentence is best maintained, even +then, by means of inversion.</p> + +<p>It is the same with the other examples. If we restore the St. Matthew +quotation to the uninverted form, again we have an answer to either of +two questions: What is the basis of the law? and What is the importance +of these two commandments? Obviously it is meant as an answer to +the latter, and therefore the words that convey that answer are the +emphatic words; the others are not emphatic, but merely essential to +the connexion; the general importance of the ‘two commandments’,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span> +as forming the subject-matter of the whole context, does not in the +slightest degree affect their relation to the other words in this +particular sentence.</p> + +<p>It follows from what has been said that true balance inversion is +employed not for the sake of impressiveness, but with the purely +negative object of avoiding a bad balance. The data required for its +justification are (i) An emphatic subject, carrying in itself the point +of the sentence, (ii) Unemphatic ‘sign-post’ words, essential to the +connexion, standing originally at the end of the sentence, and there +felt to be inadequately placed. The results of the inversion must be +(iii) That the sign-post stands at the beginning, (iv) That the subject +stands absolutely at the end.</p> + +<p>When these four conditions are fulfilled, the inversion, far from being +objectionable, may tend greatly to vigour and lucidity. It is liable, +of course, to be overdone, but there are several ways of avoiding +that: sometimes it is possible to place the sign-post at the beginning +without inversion; or the uninverted sentence may be reconstructed, so +that the subject no longer carries the emphasis; and, as often as not, +a sentence of which the accentuation is theoretically doubtful may in +practice be left to the reader’s discernment.</p> + +<p>One occasional limitation remains to be mentioned, before we proceed +to instances. It applies to those sentences only that have a compound +verb: if the compound verb cannot be represented simply by its +auxiliary component, the inversion may have to be abandoned, on account +of the clumsiness of compound verbs in the middle of an inverted +sentence, for to carry the other component to the end would be to +violate our fourth rule. Take the type sentence ‘To these causes may +be attributed ...’, and first let the subject be ‘our disasters’. The +clumsiness of the verb is then distinctly felt; and ‘To these causes +may our disasters be attributed’ is ugly enough to show the importance +of the rule it violates. But next let the subject be ‘every one of +the disasters that have come upon us’. This time the inversion is +satisfactory; whence we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span> conclude that if the verb is compound, the +subject must be long as well as emphatic, or the inversion will not do.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>On the answer to this question depends entirely every decision +concerning the goodness or badness of conduct.—<span class="smcap">Spencer.</span></p> + +<p>Just as, after contact, some molecules of a mass of food are absorbed +by the part touched, and excite the act of prehension, so are absorbed +such of its molecules as, spreading through the water, reach the +organism.—<span class="smcap">Spencer.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>These are both formed on the right principle, but the second suffers +from the awkwardness of the auxiliary.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Still more when considered in the concrete than when considered in +the abstract do the views of Hobbes and his disciples prove to be +inconsistent.—<span class="smcap">Spencer.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Here we have neither the data that justify balance inversion, nor the +results that should follow from it. It is due to the false principle +of ‘emphasis’ dealt with below in d. and reads as awkwardly as such +inversions usually read. The sentence is, no doubt, cumbrous in the +uninverted form; but it wants reconstruction, not inversion.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Much deeper down than the history of the human race must we go to find +the beginnings of these connections.—<span class="smcap">Spencer.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Wrong again, for the same reasons, but not with the same excuse; for +the original form is unobjectionable. The emphasis is not on the +problem (<i>to find</i> ...), but on the clue to it (<i>much deeper +down</i>), which, being emphatic, can maintain its position at the end +of the sentence. The compound verb is only a secondary objection: we do +not mend matters much by substituting <i>lie</i> for <i>must we go to +find</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>You say he is selfish. Well, so is every one.</p> + +<p>You say he is selfish. Well, so is every one selfish.</p> +</div> + +<p><i>So is every one</i> is a correct inversion: <i>so</i> is too weak to +stand at the end, and at the beginning it is a good enough sign-post to +tell us that selfishness is going to be defended. But <i>so is every +one selfish</i> is wrong: for if <i>selfish</i> is repeated at all, it +is repeated with rhetorical effect, and is strong enough to take care +of itself. Our second rule is thus violated; and so is our fourth—the +subject does not come at the end.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>All three methods had their charm. So may have Mr. Yeats’s notion +of....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>This time, the compound verb is fatal. ‘So, perhaps, has ...’ would do.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The arrival of the Hartmanns created no little excitement in the +Falconet family, both among the sons and the daughters. Especially was +there no lack of speculation as to the character and appearance of +Miss Hartmann.—<span class="smcap">Beaconsfield.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Right or wrong in principle, this does not read comfortably; but that +may seem to be due to the cumbrous phrase ‘was there no lack of’, which +for practical purposes is a compound verb. That difficulty we can +remove without disturbing the accentuation of the sentence: ‘Especially +numerous were the speculations as to the character of Miss Hartmann’. +This resembles in form our old type ‘Among the guests were ...’, but +with the important difference that ‘especially numerous’ is emphatic, +and can therefore stand at the end. The inversion is rather explained +than justified by the still stronger emphasis on ‘Miss Hartmann’. +Sentences in which both subject and predicate are independently +emphatic should be avoided, quite apart from the question of inversion: +italics are more or less necessary to secure the inferior emphasis, and +italics are a confession of weakness.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Somewhat lightened was the <i>provincial</i> panic by this proof that +the murderer had not condescended to sneak into the country, or to +abandon for a moment, under any motion of caution or fear, the great +metropolitan <i>castra stativa</i> of gigantic crime seated for ever +on the Thames.—<span class="smcap">De Quincey</span> (the italics are his).</p> +</div> + +<p>Not a happy attempt. We notice, for one thing, that the subject does +not come at the end; the inversion is not complete. Let us complete it. +To do so, we must convey our huge sign-post to the beginning: ‘By this +proof ... Thames, was somewhat lightened the <i>provincial</i> panic.’ +Worse than ever; is the compound verb to blame? Remove it, and see: +‘In consequence of this proof ... Thames, subsided in some degree the +<i>provincial</i> panic’. This is not much better. There is another +and a worse flaw: condition number one is not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span> satisfied; we want ‘an +emphatic subject that carries in itself the point of the sentence’. Now +we must not assume that because ‘provincial’ is italicized, therefore +the subject (however emphatic) carries in itself the point of the +sentence. What is that point? what imaginary question does the sentence +answer? Can it be meant to answer the question ‘What limitations were +there upon the comfort derived from the intelligence that the murderer +was still in London?’? No; that question could not be asked; we have +not yet been told that any comfort at all was derived. The question +it answers is ‘What effect did this intelligence produce upon the +general panic?’. This question can be asked; for the reader evidently +knows that a panic had prevailed, and that the intelligence had come. +If, then, we are to use balance inversion, we must so reconstruct +the sentence that the words containing the essential answer to this +question become the subject; we must change ‘somewhat lightened’ +into ‘some alleviation’. ‘From this proof ... Thames, resulted some +alleviation of the <i>provincial</i> panic.’ That is the best that +inversion will do for us; it is not quite satisfactory, and the reason +is that the sentence is made to do too much. When the essential point +is subject to an emphatic limitation (an unemphatic one like ‘somewhat’ +does not matter), the limitation ought to be conveyed in a separate +sentence; otherwise the sentence is overworked, and either shirks its +work, with the result of obscurity, or protests by means of italics. +We ought therefore to have: ‘From ... resulted some alleviation of the +general panic; this, however, was confined to the provinces’. But, +except for this incidental fault, the sentence can be mended without +inversion: ‘By this proof ... Thames, the <i>provincial</i> panic was +somewhat lightened’.</p> + +<p><b>c. Inversion in syntactic clauses.</b></p> + +<p>In clauses introduced by <i>as</i>, <i>than</i>, or a relative (pronoun +or adverb), we have only a special case of balance inversion. They +differ from the instances considered above in this important respect, +that their relation to the preceding words is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span> no longer paratactic, +but syntactic, with the result that the sign-post indicating this +relation is necessarily placed at the beginning. This will be seen from +a comparison of the paratactic and syntactic forms in the following +pairs of examples:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">He was quick-tempered: so are most Irishmen. (Paratactic.)</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">He was quick-tempered, as are most Irishmen. (Syntactic.)</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Several difficulties now arose: among them was....</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Several difficulties now arose, among which was....</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Now in each of these sentences there are the same inducements to +inversion in the syntactic form as in the paratactic; and added to +these is the necessity for placing the sign-post at the beginning. We +might expect, therefore, that inversion of syntactic clauses would be +particularly common. But (i) We have already seen that inversion does +not necessarily follow from the fact that the sign-post is placed at +the beginning. And (ii) The verb in <i>as</i> and <i>than</i> clauses +will probably, from the nature of the case, be the same as in the +preceding clause. If it is in the same mood and tense, it can usually +be omitted, unless effective repetition is required, in which case it +will go to the end: a change of mood or tense, on the other hand, will +often be marked by an auxiliary (itself perhaps compound), which again +will usually preclude inversion.</p> + +<p>The result is this:</p> + +<p>i. Relative clauses, uninfluenced by the position of the sign-post, +remain subject to precisely the same conditions as the corresponding +paratactic sentences. Thus ‘Among whom were....’ is right, just +as ‘Among the guests were....’ was right; ‘Among which would I +mention....’ is of course impossible, because the subject does not +carry the point; and ‘To which may be attributed....’ is right or +wrong, according as the subject is or is not long enough to balance the +compound verb.</p> + +<p>ii. Inversion of an <i>as</i> or <i>than</i> clause, having become +unusual for the reason mentioned above, is almost certain to look +either archaic or clumsy; clumsy when the reason for it is apparent, +archaic when it is not. The practical rule is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span> this: if you cannot omit +the verb, put it at the end; and if you can neither omit it nor put it +at the end, reconstruct the sentence.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The German government was as anxious to upset M. Delcassé as have been +his bitterest opponents in France.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The verb is preserved to avoid ambiguity. But it should go to the end, +especially as it is compound.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Relishing humour more than does any other people, the Americans could +not be seriously angry.—<span class="smcap">Bryce.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Ambiguity cannot fairly be pleaded here; the verb should be omitted.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>If France remains as firm as did England at that time, she will +probably have as much reason as had England to congratulate +herself.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Either ‘as England did’, or, since the parallel is significant, ‘as +England then remained’. Also, ‘as England had’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>St. Paul’s writings are as full of apparent paradoxes as sometimes +seems the Sermon on the Mount.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The verb must be retained, for the sake of <i>sometimes</i>; but it +should go to the end.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But he has performed as have few, if any, in offices similar to his +the larger, benigner functions of an Ambassador.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>‘As few ... have performed them.’</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Her impropriety was no more improper than is the natural instinct of a +bird or animal improper.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This is like the case considered in b. ‘so is every one selfish’. If +<i>improper</i> is repeated with rhetorical effect, there is no need of +inversion: if not, it should be left out.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There had been from time to time a good deal of interest over Mrs. +Emsworth’s career, the sort of interest which does more for a time in +filling a theatre than would acting of a finer quality than hers have +done.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Either ‘would have done’ at the end, or (perhaps better) no verb at all.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>All must join with me in the hope you express—that ... as also must +all hope that some good will come of....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Like the indiscriminate use of <i>while</i>, this ungainly <i>as</i> +connexion is popular with slovenly writers, and is always aggravated by +inversion. ‘All, too, must hope....’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span></p> + +<p><b>d. Negative inversion, and false ‘emphasis’ inversion.</b></p> + +<p>The connexion here suggested between certain forms of inversion must +be taken to represent, not by any means the historical order of +development, with which we are not directly concerned, but the order +in which a modern writer may be supposed, more or less unconsciously, +to adopt them. Starting from an isolated case of necessary inversion, +we proceed to extensions of it that seem natural and are sanctioned +by modern usage; and from these to other extensions, based probably +on a misunderstanding, and producing in modern writers the effect of +archaism.</p> + +<p><i>Nor</i>, except when used in conjunction with <i>neither</i>, always +stands first; and if the subject appears at all, the sentence is always +inverted. This requires no illustration.</p> + +<p>On the analogy of <i>nor</i>, many other negative words and phrases are +thrown to the beginning of the sentence, and again inversion is the +result.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Never had the Cardinal’s policy been more triumphantly vindicated.</p> + +<p>Nowhere is this so noticeable as in the South of France.</p> + +<p>In no case can such a course be justified merely by success.</p> + +<p>Systems, neither of which can be regarded as philosophically +established, but neither of which can we consent to +surrender.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> + +<p>Two sorts of judgments, neither of which can be deduced +from the other, and of neither of which can any proof be +given.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>It is at this stage that misconception creeps in. Most of these +negative phrases are in themselves emphatic; and from their being +placed first (really on the analogy of <i>nor</i>) comes the mistaken +idea that they derive emphasis from their position. This paves the way +for wholesale inversion: any words, other than the subject, are placed +at the beginning; and this not always in order to emphasize the words +so placed, but merely to give an impressive effect to the whole. The +various steps are marked by the instances that follow. In the first +two, inversion may be on the analogy of negatives, or may be designed +for emphasis; in the third, emphasis is clearly the motive; and in the +rest we have mere impressiveness—not to say mere mannerism.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>With difficulty could he be persuaded....</p> + +<p>Disputes were rife in both cases, but in both cases have the disputes +been arranged.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Almost unanimously do Americans assume that....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>They hardly resembled real ships, so twisted and burnt were the +funnels and superstructure; rather did they resemble the ghosts of a +long departed squadron....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>His love of romantic literature was as far as possible from that of a +mind which only feeds on romantic excitements. Rather was it that of +one who was so moulded....—<span class="smcap">Hutton.</span></p> + +<p>There is nothing to show that the Asclepiads took any prominent +share in the work of founding anatomy, physiology, zoology, +and botany. Rather do these seem to have sprung from the early +philosophers.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p>His works were ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. Yet was the +multitude still true to him.—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> + +<p>Henry Fox, or nobody, could weather the storm which was about to +burst. Yet was he a person to whom the court, even in that extremity, +was unwilling to have recourse.—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> + +<p>A book of ‘levities and gravities’, it would seem from the author’s +dedication, is this set of twelve essays, named after the twelve +months.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>The set epistolary pieces, one might say, were discharged before the +day of Elia. Yet is there certainly no general diminution of sparkle +or interest....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Futile were the endeavor to trace back to Pheidias’ varied originals, +as we are tempted to do, many of the later statues....—<span class="smcap">L. M. +Mitchell.</span></p> + +<p>Inevitably critical was the attitude that he adopted towards +religion.... Odious to him were, on the one hand, ....—<i>Journal of +Education.</i></p> + +<p>Finely conceived is this poem, and not less admirable in +execution.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>‘The Rainbow and the Rose’, by E. Nisbet, is a little book +that will not disappoint those who know the writer’s ‘Lays and +Legends’. Facile and musical, sincere and spontaneous, are these +lyrics.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>Then to the resident Medical Officer at the Brompton Hospital for +Consumption for an authoritative opinion on the subject went the +enquirer.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>In view of the rapidly increasing tendency to causeless inversion of +all kinds, it is far from certain that this last is intentional satire.</p> + +<p><b>e. Miscellaneous.</b></p> + +<p>(i) In narrated dialogue, the demand for variations of ‘he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span> said’, &c., +excuse considerable freedom in the matter of inversion. One or two +points, however, may be noticed.</p> + +<p>When the subject is a personal pronoun, <i>say</i> is perhaps the +only verb with which inversion is advisable. ‘Said I, he, they’, and +‘retorted Jones’: but not ‘enquired I’, ‘rejoined he’, ‘suggested they’.</p> + +<p>Compound verbs, as usual, do not lend themselves to inversion:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>‘I won’t plot anything extra against Tom,’ had said Isaac.—<span class="smcap">M. +Maartens.</span></p> + +<p>‘At any rate, then,’ may rejoin our critic, ‘it is clearly +useless....’—<span class="smcap">Spencer.</span></p> + +<p>‘I am the lover of a queen,’ had often sung the steward in his pantry +below.—<span class="smcap">R. Elliot.</span></p> + +<p>‘The cook and the steward are always quarrelling, it is quite +unbearable,’ had explained Mrs. Tuggy to the chief mate.—<span class="smcap">R. +Elliot.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Inverted <i>said</i> at the beginning is one of the first pitfalls +that await the novice who affects sprightliness. It is tolerable, if +anywhere, only in light playful verse.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Said a friend to me the other day, ‘I should like to be able to run +well across country, but have never taken part in a paper-chase, for +I have always been beaten so easily when trying a hundred yards or so +against my acquaintances....’—<span class="smcap">S. Thomas.</span></p> + +<p>Mr. Takahira and Count Cassini continue to exchange repartees through +friends or through the public press. Said the Japanese Minister +yesterday evening:—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It is inferred here officially and unofficially that neutral rights +are unlikely to suffer from any derangement in Morocco to which +England is a consenting party. Said a Minister:—‘American interests +are not large enough in Morocco to induce us to....’—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>With verbs other than <i>said</i>, this form of inversion is still more +decidedly a thing to be left to the poets. ‘Appears Verona’; ‘Rose a +nurse of ninety years’; but not</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Comes a new translation ... in four neat olive-green +volumes.—<i>Journal of Education.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>(ii) The inverted conditionals <i>should</i>, <i>had</i>, <i>could</i>, +<i>would</i>, <i>were</i>, <i>did</i>, being recommended by brevity +and a certain neatness, are all more or less licensed by modern usage. +It is worth while, however, to name them in what seems to be their +order<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span> of merit. <i>Should I</i>, from its frequency, is without taint +of archaism; but <i>could</i> and <i>would</i>, and, in a less degree, +<i>had</i>, are apt to betray their archaic character by the addition +of <i>but</i> (‘would he but consent’); and <i>were</i> and <i>did</i> +are felt to be slightly out of date, even without this hint.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I should be, therefore, worse than a fool, did I +object.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> + +<p>Did space allow, I could give you startling proof of +this.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>(iii) Always, after performing inversion of any kind, the novice +should go his rounds, and see that all is shipshape. For want of this +precaution, a writer who was no novice, particularly in the matter of +inversion, produces such curiosities as these:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Be this a difference of inertia, of bulk or of form, matters not to +the argument.—<span class="smcap">Spencer.</span></p> + +<p>It is true that, disagreeing with M. Comte, though I do, in all those +fundamental views that are peculiar to him, I agree with him in sundry +minor views.—<span class="smcap">Spencer.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>We shall venture on removing the comma before ‘though’; but must leave +it to connoisseurs in inversion to decide between the rival attractions +of ‘disagree with M. Comte though I do’ and ‘disagreeing ... though I +am’. ‘Though I do’, in spite of the commas, can scarcely be meant to be +parenthetic; that would give (by resolution of the participle) ‘though +I disagree with M. Comte, though I do, ....’</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Archaism</span></h3> + +<p><b>a. Occasional.</b></p> + +<p>We have implied in former sections, and shall here take it for granted, +that occasional archaism is always a fault, conscious or unconscious. +There are, indeed, a few writers—Lamb is one of them—whose +uncompromising terms, ‘Love me, love my archaisms’, are generally +accepted; but they are taking risks that a novice will do well not to +take.</p> + +<p>As to unconscious archaism, it might be thought that such a thing could +scarcely exist: to employ unconsciously a word that has been familiar, +and is so no longer, can happen to few.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span> Yet charitable readers will +believe that in the following sentence <i>demiss</i> has slipped +unconsciously from a learned pen:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He perceived that the Liberal ministry had offended certain +influential sections by appearing too demiss or too unenterprising in +foreign affairs.—<span class="smcap">Bryce.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The guilt of such peccadilloes as this may be said to vary inversely +as the writer’s erudition; for in this matter the learned may plead +ignorance, where the novice knows too well what he is doing. It is +conscious archaism that offends, above all the conscious archaisms +of the illiterate: the historian’s <i>It should seem</i>, even +the essayist’s <i>You shall find</i>, is less odious, though not +less deliberate, than the <i>ere</i>, <i>oft</i>, <i>aught</i>, +<i>thereanent</i>, <i>I wot</i>, <i>I trow</i>, and similar ornaments, +with which amateurs are fond of tricking out their sentences. This is +only natural. An educated writer’s choice falls upon archaisms less +hackneyed than the amateur’s; he uses them, too, with more discretion, +limiting his favourites to a strict allowance, say, of once in three +essays. The amateur indulges us with his whole repertoire in a single +newspaper letter of twenty or thirty lines, and—what is worse—cannot +live up to the splendours of which he is so lavish: charmed with the +discovery of some antique order of words, he selects a modern slang +phrase to operate upon; he begins a sentence with <i>ofttimes</i>, +and ends it with a grammatical blunder; aspires to <i>albeit</i>, and +achieves <i>howbeit</i>. Our list begins with the educated specimens, +but lower down the reader will find several instances of this fatal +incongruity of style; fatal, because the culprit proves himself +unworthy of what is worthless. For the vilest of trite archaisms has +this latent virtue, that it might be worse; to use it, and by using it +to make it worse, is to court derision.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A coiner or a smuggler <i>shall</i> get off tolerably +well.—<span class="smcap">Lamb.</span></p> + +<p>The same circumstance may make one person laugh, which <i>shall</i> +render another very serious.—<span class="smcap">Lamb.</span></p> + +<p>You <i>shall</i> hear the same persons say that George Barnwell is +very natural, and Othello is very natural.—<span class="smcap">Lamb.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span></span></p> + +<p>Don Quixote <i>shall</i> last you a month for breakfast +reading.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>Take them as they come, you <i>shall</i> find in the common people a +surly indifference.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The worst of making a mannerism of this <i>shall</i> is that, after the +first two or three times, the reader is certain to see it coming; for +its function is nearly always the same—to bring in illustrations of a +point already laid down.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Some of us, like Mr. Andrew Lang for instance, <i>cannot away with</i> +a person who does not care for Scott or Dickens.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>One <i>needs</i> not praise their courage.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>What turn things are likely to take if this version <i>be</i> +persisted in is a matter for speculation.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>If Mr. Hobhouse’s analysis of the vices of popular government +<i>be</i> correct, much more would seem to be needed.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Mr. Bowen has been, not recalled, but ordered to Washington, and will +be expected to produce proof, if any he <i>have</i>, of his charges +against Mr. Loomis.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It <i>were</i> futile to attempt to deprive it of its real +meaning.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It <i>were</i> idle to deny that the revolutionary movement in +Russia is nowhere followed with keener interest than in this +country.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It <i>were</i> idle to deny that coming immediately after the +Tangier demonstration it assumes special and unmistakable +significance.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>He is putting poetic ‘frills’, if the phrase <i>be</i> not too +mean, on what is better stated in the prose summary of the +argument.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Regarded as a counter-irritant to slang, archaism is a failure. +<i>Frills</i> is ten times more noticeable for the prim and pompous +<i>be</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Under them the land is being rapidly frivolled away, and, unless +immediate action <i>be</i> taken, the country will be so tied +that....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>That will depend a good deal on whether he <i>be</i> shocked +by the cynicism of the most veracious of all possible +representations....—<span class="smcap">H. James.</span></p> + +<p>We <i>may</i> not quote the lengthy passage here: it is probably +familiar to many readers.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>‘We must not’. Similarly, the modern prose English for <i>if I be, it +were</i>, is <i>if I am, it would be</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>‘I have no particular business at L.,’ said he; ‘I was merely going +<i>thither</i> to pass a day or two.’—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>I am afraid you will hardly be able to ride your horse <i>thither</i> +in time to dispose of him.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span></span></p> + +<p>It will necessitate my recurring <i>thereto</i> in the House of +Commons.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>The Scottish Free Church had <i>theretofore</i> prided itself upon the +rigidity of its orthodoxy.—<span class="smcap">Bryce.</span></p> + +<p>The special interests of France in Morocco, <i>whereof</i> the +recognition by Great Britain and Spain forms the basis of the +international agreements concluded last year by the French +Government.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>To what extent has any philosophy or any revelation assured us +<i>hereof</i> till now?—<span class="smcap">F. W. H. Myers.</span></p> + +<p>On the concert I need not dwell; the reader would not care to have my +impressions <i>thereanent</i>.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>There</i>, not <i>thither</i>, is the modern form; <i>to it</i>, not +<i>thereto</i>; <i>of which</i>, <i>of this</i>, not <i>whereof</i>, +<i>hereof</i>; <i>till then</i>, or <i>up to that time</i>, not +<i>theretofore</i>. So, in the following examples, <i>except</i>, +<i>perhaps</i>, <i>before</i>, <i>though</i>; not <i>save</i>, +<i>perchance</i>, <i>ere</i>, <i>albeit</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Nobody <i>save</i> an individual in no condition to distinguish a hawk +from a handsaw....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>My ignorance as to ‘figure of merit’ is of no moment <i>save</i> to +myself.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>This we obtain by allowing imports to go untaxed <i>save</i> only for +revenue purposes.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>Who now reads Barry Cornwall or Talfourd <i>save</i> only in connexion +with their memorials of the rusty little man in black?—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>In my opinion the movements may be attributed to unconscious +cerebration, <i>save</i> in those cases in which it is provoked +wilfully.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>When Mr. Roosevelt was but barely elected Governor of New York, +when Mr. Bryan was once and again by mounting majorities excused +from service at the White House, <i>perchance</i> neither correctly +forecasted the actual result.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Dr. Bretton was a cicerone after my own heart; he would take me +betimes <i>ere</i> the galleries were filled.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> + +<p>He is certainly not cruising on a trade route, or his presence would +long <i>ere</i> this have been reported.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Mr. Shaynor unlocked a drawer, and <i>ere</i> he began to write, took +out a meagre bundle of letters.—<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span></p> + +<p>Fortifications are fixed, immobile defences, and, in time of war, must +await the coming of an enemy <i>ere</i> they can exercise their powers +of offence.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>‘It is something in this fashion’, she cried out <i>ere</i> long; ‘the +man is too romantic and devoted.’—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> + +<p><i>Ere</i> departing, however, I determined to stroll about and +examine the town.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span></p> + +<p>The use of <i>ere</i> with a gerund is particularly to be avoided.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And that she should force me, by the magic of her pen to +mentally acknowledge, <i>albeit</i> with wrath and shame, my own +inferiority!—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>Such things as our modern newspapers chronicle, <i>albeit</i> in +different form.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>It is thought by experts that there could be no better use of the +money, <i>albeit</i> the best American colleges, with perhaps one +exception, have very strong staffs of professors at incredibly low +salaries.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>‘Oxoniensis’ approaches them with courage, his thoughts are expressed +in plain, unmistakable language, <i>howbeit</i> with the touch of a +master hand.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The writer means <i>albeit</i>; he would have been safer with +<i>though</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Living in a coterie, he seems to have read the laudations and not to +have noticed <i>aught</i> else.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Hence, if higher criticism, or <i>aught</i> besides, compels any man +to question, say, the historic accuracy of the fall....—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Many a true believer <i>owned not up</i> to his faith.—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>The controversy now going on in your columns <i>anent</i> ‘Do we +believe?’ throws a somewhat strange light upon the religion of +to-day.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>It is because the world has not accepted the religion of Jesus +Christ our Lord, that the world is <i>in the parlous state we see it +still</i>.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>A discussion in which <i>well nigh</i> every trade, profession and +calling have been represented.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Why not? Because we have <i>well-nigh bordering on</i> 300 different +interpretations of the message Christ bequeathed us.—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>It is quite a common thing to see ladies with their hymn-books in +their hands, <i>ere</i> returning home from church enter shops and +make purchases which might <i>every whit</i> as well have been +effected on the Saturday.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>How <i>oft</i> do those who train young minds need to urge the +necessity of being in earnest....—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>I <i>trow</i> not.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>The clerk, as I conjectured him to be from his appearance, was also +commoved; for, sitting opposite to Mr. Morris, that honest gentleman’s +terror communicated itself to him, though he <i>wotted</i> not +why.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> + +<p>I should be <i>right</i> glad if the substance could be made known to +clergy and ministers of all denominations.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>So sordid are the lives of such natures, who are not only not heroic +to their valets and waiting-women, but have neither valets nor +waiting-women to be heroic to <i>withal</i>.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span></p> + +<p><b>b. Sustained archaism in narrative and dialogue.</b></p> + +<p>A novelist who places his story in some former age may do so for +the sake of a purely superficial variety, without any intention of +troubling himself or his readers with temporal colour more than is +necessary to avoid glaring absurdities; he is then not concerned with +archaism at all. More commonly, however, it is part of his plan to +present a living picture of the time of which he writes. When this +is the case, he naturally feels bound to shun anachronism not only +in externals, but in thought and the expression of thought. Now with +regard to the language of his characters, it would be absurd for him +to pretend to anything like consistent realism: he probably has no +accurate knowledge of the language as his characters would speak it; +and if he had this knowledge, and used it, he would be unintelligible +to most of his readers, and burdensome to the rest. Accordingly, if he +is wise, he will content himself with keeping clear of such modes of +expression as are essentially modern and have only modern associations, +such as would jar upon the reader’s sense of fitness and destroy the +time illusion. He will aim, that is to say, at a certain archaic +directness and simplicity; but with the archaic vocabulary, which +instead of preserving the illusion only reminds us that there is an +illusion to be preserved, he will have little to do. This we may call +negative archaism. <i>Esmond</i> is an admirable example of it, and +the ‘Dame Gossip’ part of Mr. Meredith’s <i>Amazing Marriage</i> is +another. It hardly occurs to us in these books that the language is +archaic; it is appropriate, that is all. The same may be said, on the +whole, of <i>Treasure Island</i>, and of one or two novels of Besant’s.</p> + +<p>Only the novelist who is not wise indulges in positive archaism. He +is actuated by the determination to have everything in character at +all costs. He does not know very much about old English of any period; +very few people do, and those who know most of it would be the last to +attempt<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span> to write a narrative in it. He gives us, however, all that +he knows, without much reference to particular periods; it may not be +good ancient English, but, come what may, it shall not be good modern. +This, it need scarcely be said, is not fair play: the recreation is +all on the writer’s side. Archaism is, no doubt, very seductive to the +archaist. Well done (that is, negatively done), it looks easy; and to +do it badly is perhaps even easier than it looks. No very considerable +stock-in-trade is required; the following will do quite well: +Prithee—quotha—perchance—peradventure—i’ faith—sirrah—beshrew +me—look ye—sith that—look to it—leave prating—it shall go hard +but—I tell you, but—the more part—fair cold water—to me-ward—I +am shrewdly afeared—it is like to go stiff with me—y’ are—y’ +have—it irks me sorely—benison—staunch—gyves—yarely—this same +villain—drink me this—you were better go; to these may be added +the indiscriminate use of ‘Nay’ and ‘Now (by the rood, &c.)’; free +inversion; and verb terminations in <i>-st</i> and <i>-th</i>. Our list +is largely drawn from Stevenson, who, having tried negative archaism +with success in <i>Treasure Island</i>, chose to give us a positive +specimen in <i>The Black Arrow</i>. How vexatious these reach-me-down +archaisms can become, even in the hands of an able writer, will be seen +from the following examples of a single trick, all taken from <i>The +Black Arrow</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>An I had not been a thief, I could not have painted <i>me</i> your +face.</p> + +<p>Put <i>me</i> your hand into the corner, and see what ye find there.</p> + +<p>Bring <i>me</i> him down like a ripe apple. And keep ever forward, +Master Shelton; turn <i>me</i> not back again, an ye love your life.</p> + +<p>Selden, take <i>me</i> this old shrew softly to the nearest elm, and +hang <i>me</i> him tenderly by the neck, where I may see him at my +riding.</p> + +<p>Mark <i>me</i> this old villain on the piebald.</p> + +<p>‘Sirrah, no more words,’ said Dick. ‘Bend <i>me</i> your back.’</p> + +<p>‘Here is a piece of forest that I know not’, Dick remarked. ‘Where +goeth <i>me</i> this track?’</p> + +<p>‘I slew him fair. I ran <i>me</i> in upon his bow,’ he cried.</p> + +<p>‘Swallow <i>me</i> a good draught of this,’ said the knight.</p> +</div> + +<p>It is like a child with a new toy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span></p> + +<p>But there is the opposite fault. The judicious archaist, as we +have said, will abstain from palpable modernisms, especially from +modern slang. The following extracts are taken from an old woman’s +reminiscences of days in which a ‘faultless attire’ included ‘half high +boots, knee-breeches very tight above the calf (as the fashion was +then), a long-tailed cutaway coat, ...’:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But the Captain, who, of course, lacks bowels of mercy for this kind +of thing, says that if he had been Caesar, ‘Caius would have <i>got +the great chuck</i>. Yes, madam, I would have broke Mister Caius on +the spot’.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>But if you once go in for <i>having a good time</i> (as Miss +Anne in her innocence used to remark) you must be prepared +to....—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>... as all girls love to do when they are content with the way they +have <i>put in their time</i>.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Metaphor</span></h3> + +<p>Strictly speaking, metaphor occurs as often as we take a word out of +its original sphere and apply it to new circumstances. In this sense +almost all words can be shown to be metaphorical when they do not bear +a physical meaning; for the original meaning of almost all words can +be traced back to something physical; in our first sentence above, for +instance, there are eight different metaphors. Words had to be found +to express mental perceptions, abstract ideas, and complex relations, +for which a primitive vocabulary did not provide; and the obvious +course was to convey the new idea by means of the nearest physical +parallel. The commonest Latin verb for <i>think</i> is a metaphor from +vine-pruning; ‘seeing’ of the mind is borrowed from literal sight; +‘pondering’ is metaphorical ‘weighing’. Evidently these metaphors +differ in intention and effect from such a phrase as ‘smouldering’ +discontent; the former we may call, for want of a better word, +‘natural’ metaphor, as opposed to the latter, which is artificial. The +word metaphor as ordinarily used suggests only the artificial kind: but +in deciding on the merits or demerits of a metaphorical phrase we are +concerned as much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span> with the one class as the other; for in all doubtful +cases our first questions will be, what was the writer’s intention in +using the metaphor? is it his own, or is it common property? if the +latter, did he use it consciously or unconsciously?</p> + +<p>This distinction, however, is useful only as leading up to another. +We cannot use it directly as a practical test: artificial metaphors, +as well as natural ones, often end by becoming a part of ordinary +language; when this has happened, there is no telling to which class +they belong, and in English the question is complicated by the fact +that our metaphorical vocabulary is largely borrowed from Latin in the +metaphorical state. Take such a word as <i>explain</i>: its literal +meaning is ‘spread out flat’: how are we to say now whether necessity +or picturesqueness first prompted its metaphorical use? And the same +doubt might arise centuries hence as to the origin of a phrase so +obviously artificial to us as ‘glaring inconsistency’.</p> + +<p>Our practical distinction will therefore be between conscious or +‘living’ and unconscious or ‘dead’ metaphor, whether natural or +artificial in origin: and again, among living metaphors, we shall +distinguish between the intentional, which are designed for effect, +and the unintentional, which, though still felt to be metaphors, are +used merely as a part of the ordinary vocabulary. It may seem at +first sight that this classification leaves us where we were: how can +we know whether a writer uses a particular metaphor consciously or +unconsciously? We cannot know for certain: it is enough if we think +that he used it consciously, and know that we should have used it +consciously ourselves; experience will tell us how far our perceptions +in this respect differ from other people’s. Most readers, we think, +will agree in the main with our classification of the following +instances; they are taken at random from a couple of pages of the +<i>Spectator</i>.</p> + +<p>These we should call dead: ‘his <i>views</i> were personal’; ‘<i>carry +out</i> his policy’; ‘not <i>acceptable</i> to his <i>colleagues</i>’;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span> +‘the Chancellor <i>proposed</i>’; ‘some <i>grounds</i> for +<i>complaint</i>’; ‘<i>refrain</i> from talking about them’; ‘the +<i>remission</i> of the Tea-duty’; ‘<i>sound</i> policy’; ‘a speech +almost entirely <i>composed</i> of <i>extracts</i>’; ‘<i>reduction</i> +of taxation’; ‘<i>discussion</i>’; ‘the <i>low</i> price of Consols’; +‘<i>falls</i> due’; ‘<i>succeeded</i>’; ‘will <i>approach</i> their +task’; ‘<i>delivered</i> a speech’; ‘<i>postponing</i> to a future +year’. The next are living, but not intentional metaphor; the writer +is aware that his phrase is still picturesque in effect, but has +not chosen it for that reason: ‘a Protestant <i>atmosphere</i>’; +‘this would leave a <i>margin</i> of £122,000’; ‘the loss of +<i>elasticity</i>’ in the Fund; ‘<i>recasting</i> our whole +Fiscal system’; ‘to <i>uphold</i> the unity of the Empire’; ‘to +<i>strengthen</i> the Exchequer balances’; ‘all <i>dwelt</i> on the +grave injury’; ‘his somewhat <i>shattered</i> authority’; ‘the policy +of evasion now <i>pursued</i>’; ‘<i>throws</i> new <i>light</i> on +the situation’; ‘a <i>gap</i> in our fiscal system’. Intentional +metaphors are of course less plentiful: ‘the home-rule motion designed +to “<i>draw</i>” Sir Henry’; ‘a <i>dissolving view</i> of General +Elections’; ‘this reassuring declaration <i>knocks the bottom out +of</i> the plea of urgency’; ‘the <i>scattered remnants</i> of that +party might <i>rally after the disastrous defeat</i>’.</p> + +<p>One or two general remarks may be made before we proceed to instances. +It is scarcely necessary to warn any one against over-indulgence in +intentional metaphor; its effects are too apparent. The danger lies +rather in the use of live metaphor that is not intentional. The many +words and phrases that fall under this class are all convenient; as +often as not they are the first that occur, and it is laborious, +sometimes impossible, to hit upon an equivalent; the novice will find +it worth while, however, to get one whenever he can. We may read a +newspaper through without coming upon a single metaphor of this kind +that is at all offensive in itself; it is in the aggregate that they +offend. ‘Cries aloud for’, ‘drop the curtain on’, ‘goes hand in hand +with’, ‘a note of warning’, leaves its impress’, ‘paves the way for’, +‘heralds the advent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span> of’, ‘opens the door to’, are not themselves +particularly noisy phrases; but writers who indulge in them generally +end by being noisy.</p> + +<p>Unintentional metaphor is the source, too, of most actual blunders. +Every one is on his guard when his metaphor is intentional; the +nonsense that is talked about mixed metaphor, and the celebrity of one +or two genuine instances of it that come down to us from the eighteenth +century, have had that good effect. There are few obvious faults a +novice is more afraid of committing than this of mixed metaphor. His +fears are often groundless; many a sentence that might have stood has +been altered from a misconception of what mixed metaphor really is. The +following points should be observed.</p> + +<p>1. If only one of the metaphors is a live one, the confusion is not a +confusion for practical purposes.</p> + +<p>2. Confusion can only exist between metaphors that are grammatically +inseparable; parallel metaphors between which there is no grammatical +dependence cannot result in confusion. The novice must beware, however, +of being misled either by punctuation or by a parallelism that does not +secure grammatical independence. Thus, no amount of punctuation can +save the time-honoured example ‘I smell a rat: I see him hovering in +the air: ... I will nip him in the bud’. <i>Him</i> is inseparable from +the later metaphors, and refers to the rat. But there is no confusion +in the following passage; any one of the metaphors can be removed +without affecting the grammar:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This fortress built by Nature for herself ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This happy breed of men, this little world,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This precious stone set in the silver sea, ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, ...</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>3. Metaphor within metaphor is dangerous. Here there is a grammatical +dependence between the metaphors, and if the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span> combination is unsuitable +confusion will result. But combination is one thing, and confusion +is another: if the internal metaphor is not inconsistent with the +external, there is no confusion, though there may be ugliness. To adapt +one of our examples below, ‘The Empire’s butcher (i. e. New Zealand) +has not all his eggs in one basket’ is not a confusion, because a +metaphorical butcher can have his eggs in one basket as well as any one +else. What does lead to confusion is the choice of an internal metaphor +applicable not to the words of the external metaphor, but to the +literal words for which it is substituted. In the following example, +the confusion is doubtless intended.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">This pillar of the state</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hath swallowed hook and bait.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>The swallowing is applicable only to the person metaphorically called a +pillar.</p> + +<p>4. Confusion of metaphor is sometimes alleged against sentences that +contain only one metaphor—a manifest absurdity. These are really +cases of a clash between the metaphorical and the non-metaphorical. +A striking or original metaphor is apt to appear violent, and a +commonplace one impertinent, if not adequately borne out by the rest of +the sentence. This we may label ‘unsustained metaphor’. It sometimes +produces much the same effect as mixed metaphor; but the remedy for +it, as well as the cause, is different. Mixed metaphor is the result +of negligence, and can generally be put right by a simple adaptation +of the language to whichever metaphor is to be retained. Unsustained +metaphor is rather an error of judgement: it is unsustained either +because it was difficult to sustain, or because it was not worth +sustaining; in either case abandonment is the simplest course.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>This diverting incident contributed in a high degree to the general +merriment.</p> +</div> + +<p>Here we have four different metaphors; but as they are all dead, there +is no real confusion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>This, as you know, was a burning question; and its unseasonable +introduction threw a chill on the spirits of all our party.</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Burning</i> and <i>chill</i> are both live metaphors, they are +grammatically connected by <i>its</i>, and they are inconsistent; there +is therefore confusion.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The uncertainty which hangs over every battle extends in a special +degree to battles at sea.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Extends</i> is usually dead; and if in this case it is living, it is +also suitable.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A centre and nucleus round which the scattered remnants of that party +might rally after the disastrous defeat.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The main or external metaphor is that of an army. Now any metaphor that +is applicable to a literal army is also applicable to a metaphorical +one: but ‘rally round a nucleus’ is a confusion of metaphor, to +whichever it is applied; it requires us to conceive of the army at the +same time as animal and vegetable, <i>nucleus</i> being literally the +kernel of a nut, and metaphorically a centre about which growth takes +place. An army can have a nucleus, but cannot rally round it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Sir W. Laurier had claimed for Canada that she would be the granary +and baker of the Empire, and Sir Edmund Barton had claimed for +Australia that she would be the Empire’s butcher; but in New Zealand +they had not all their eggs in one basket, and they could claim a +combination of the three.</p> +</div> + +<p>This is quoted in a newspaper as an example of mixed metaphor. It is +nothing of the kind: <i>they</i> in New Zealand are detached from the +metaphor.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>We move slowly and cautiously from old moorings in our English life, +that is our laudable constitutional habit; but my belief is that the +great majority of moderate churchmen, to whatever political party they +may belong, desirous as they are to lift this question of popular +education out of the party rut, ....</p> +</div> + +<p>‘A rut’, says the same newspaper, ‘is about the very last thing we +should expect to find at sea, despite the fact that it is ploughed’. +There is no mention of ruts at sea; the two metaphors are independent. +If the speaker had said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span> ‘Moderate churchmen, moving at length from +their old moorings, are beginning to lift this question out of the +party rut’, we should have had a genuine confusion, the <i>moorings</i> +and the <i>rut</i> being then inseparable. Both this sentence and the +preceding one, the reader may think, would have been better without +the second metaphor; we agree, but it is a question of taste, not of +correctness.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>... the keenest incentive man can feel to remedy ignorance and +abolish guilt. It is under the impelling force of this incentive that +civilization progresses.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>This illustrates the danger of deciding hastily on the deadness of a +metaphor, however common it may be. Probably any one would have said +that the musical idea in <i>incentive</i> had entirely vanished: but +the successive attributes <i>keenness</i> and <i>impelling force</i> +are too severe a test; the dead metaphor is resuscitated, and a +perceptible confusion results.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Her forehand drive—her most trenchant asset.—<i>Daily Mail.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Another case of resuscitation. <i>Trenchant</i> turns in its grave; +and <i>asset</i>, ready to succumb under the violence of athletic +reporters, has yet life enough to resent the imputation of a keen edge. +As the critic of ‘ruts at sea’ might have observed, the more blunt, the +better the assets.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And the very fact that the past is beyond recall imposes upon the +present generation a continual stimulus to strive for the prevention +of such woes.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>We <i>impose</i> a burden, we apply a <i>stimulus</i>. It looks as if +the writer had meant by a short cut to give us both ideas; if so, his +guilt is clear; and if we call <i>impose</i> a mere slip in idiom, the +confusion is none the less apparent.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Sword of the devil, running with the blood of saints, poisoned adder, +thy work is done.</p> +</div> + +<p>These are independent metaphors; and, as <i>thy work is done</i> is +applicable to each of them, there is no confusion.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In the hope that something might be done, even at the eleventh hour, +to stave off the brand of failure from the hide of our military +administration.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>To <i>stave off a brand</i> is not, perhaps, impossible; but we +suspect<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span> that it would be a waste of energy. The idea of bulk is +inseparable from the process of staving off. The metaphor is usually +applied to literal abstract nouns, not to metaphorical concretes: +ruin and disaster one can suppose to be of a tolerable size; but a +metaphorical brand does not present itself to the imagination as +any larger than a literal one. We assume that by <i>brand</i> the +instrument is meant: the eleventh hour is all too early to set about +staving off the mark.</p> + +<p>This is a good example of mixed metaphor of the more pronounced type; +it differs only in degree from some of those considered above. We +suggested that <i>impose a stimulus</i> was perhaps a short cut to +the expression of two different metaphors, and the same might be said +of <i>staving off the brand</i>. But we shall get a clearer idea of +the nature of mixed metaphor if we regard all these as violations +of the following simple rule: When a live metaphor (intentional or +unintentional) has once been chosen, the words grammatically connected +with it must be either (a) recognizable parts of the same metaphorical +idea, or one consistent with it, or (b) unmetaphorical, or dead +metaphor; literal abstract nouns, for instance, instead of metaphorical +concretes. Thus, we shall impose not the stimulus, but either (a) the +burden of resistance, or (b) the duty of resistance; and we shall stave +off not the ‘brand’ but the ‘ignominy of failure from our military +administration’.</p> + +<p>But from our remarks in 4 above, it will be clear that (b), though it +cannot result in confusion of metaphor, may often leave the metaphor +unsustained. Our examples illustrate several common types.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Is it not a little difficult to ask for Liberal votes for Unionist +Free-traders, if we put party interests in the front of the +consideration?—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>May I be allowed to add a mite of experience of an original Volunteer +in a good City regiment?—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>But also in Italy many ancient edifices have been recently coated with +stucco and masked by superfluous repairs.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span></p> + +<p>The elementary schools are hardly to be blamed for this failure. Their +aim and their achievement have to content themselves chiefly with +moral rather than with mental success.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>The scourge of tyranny had breathed his last.</p> + +<p>The means of education at the disposal of the Protestants +and Presbyterians of the North were stunted and +sterilized.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> + +<p>I once heard a Spaniard shake his head over the present Queen of +Spain.—(Quoted by <i>Spectator</i>.)</p> + +<p>But, apart from all that, we see two pinching dilemmas even in this +opium case—dilemmas that screw like a vice—which tell powerfully in +favour of our Tory views.—<span class="smcap">De Quincey.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The reader who is uncharitable enough to insist upon the natural +history of dilemmas will call this not unsustained metaphor, but a +gross confusion; horns cannot be said to <i>screw</i>. We prefer to +believe that De Quincey was not thinking of the horns at all; they +are a gratuitous metaphorical ornament; <i>dilemma</i>, in English +at any rate, is a literal word, and means an argument that presents +two undesirable alternatives. The circumstances of a dilemma are, +indeed, such as to prompt metaphorical language, but the word itself is +incorrigibly literal; we confess as much by clapping horns on its head +and making them do the metaphorical work.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>These remarks have been dictated in order that the importance +of recognizing the difference and the value of soils may be +understood.—<span class="smcap">J. Long.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This metaphor always requires that the dictator—usually a personified +abstract—should be mentioned. ‘Dictated by the importance’.</p> + +<p>The opposite fault of over-conscientiousness must also be noticed. +Elaborate poetical metaphor has perhaps gone out of fashion; but +technical metaphor is apt to be overdone, and something of the same +tendency appears in the inexorable working-out of popular catchword +metaphors:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Tost to and fro by the high winds of passionate control, I behold the +desired port, the single state, into which I would fain steer; but am +kept off by the foaming billows of a brother’s and sister’s envy, and +by the raging winds of a supposed invaded authority; while I see in +Lovelace, the rocks on the one hand, and in Solmes, the sands on the +other; and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span> tremble, lest I should split upon the former or strike +upon the latter. But you, my better pilot,...—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> + +<p>Such phases of it as we did succeed in mentally kodaking are hardly to +be ‘developed’ in cold print.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>We are not photographers enough to hazard a comment on <i>cold</i> +print.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The leading planks of the Opposition policy are declared to be the +proper audit of public accounts,...—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Repetition</span></h3> + +<p>‘Rhetorical’ or—to use at once a wider and a more intelligible +term—‘significant’ repetition is a valuable element in modern style; +used with judgement, it is as truly a good thing as clumsy repetition, +the result of negligence, is bad. But there are some writers who, from +the fact that all good repetition is intentional, rashly infer that +all intentional repetition is good; and others who may be suspected of +making repetitions from negligence, and retaining them from a misty +idea that to be aware of a thing is to have intended it. Even when +the repetition is a part of the writer’s original plan, consideration +is necessary before it can be allowed to pass: it is implied in the +terms ‘rhetorical’ or significant repetition that the words repeated +would ordinarily be either varied or left out; the repetition, that +is to say, is more or less abnormal, and whatever is abnormal may be +objectionable in a single instance, and is likely to become so if it +occurs frequently.</p> + +<p>The writers who have most need of repetition, and are most justified +in using it, are those whose chief business it is to appeal not to +the reader’s emotions, but to his understanding; for, in spite of +the term ‘rhetorical’, the object ordinarily is not impressiveness +for impressiveness’ sake, but emphasis for the sake of clearness. It +may seem, indeed, that a broad distinction ought to be drawn between +the rhetorical and the non-rhetorical: they differ in origin and in +aim, one being an ancient rhetorical device to secure impressiveness, +the other a modern development, called forth by the requirements of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span> +popular writers on subjects that demand lucidity; and there is the +further difference, that rhetorical repetition often dictates the whole +structure of the sentence, whereas the non-rhetorical, in its commonest +form, is merely the completion of a sentence that need not have been +completed. But in practice the two things become inseparable, and we +shall treat them together; only pointing out to the novice that of the +two motives, impressiveness and lucidity, the latter is far the more +likely to seem justifiable in the reader’s eyes.</p> + +<p>We shall illustrate both the good and bad points of repetition almost +exclusively from a few pages of Bagehot, one of its most successful +exponents, in whom nevertheless it degenerates into mannerism. To a +writer who has so much to say that is worth hearing, almost anything +can be forgiven that makes for clearness; and in him clearness, vigour, +and a certain pleasant rapidity, all result from the free use of +repetition. It will be seen that his repetitions are not of the kind +properly called rhetorical; it is the spontaneous fullness of a writer +who, having a clear point to make, is determined to make it clearly, +elegance or no elegance. Yet the growth of mannerism is easily seen in +him; the justifiable repetitions are too frequent, and he has some that +do not seem justifiable.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He analysed not a particular government, but what is common to +all governments; not one law, but what is common to all laws; not +political communities in their features of diversity, but political +communities in their features of necessary resemblance. He gave +politics not an interesting aspect, but a new aspect: for by giving +men a steady view of what political communities must be, he nipped in +the bud many questions as to what they ought to be. As a gymnastic of +the intellect, and as a purifier, Mr. Austin’s philosophy is to this +day admirable—even in its imperfect remains; a young man who will +study it will find that he has gained something which he wanted, but +something which he did not know that he wanted: he has clarified a +part of his mind which he did not know needed clarifying.</p> + +<p>All these powers were states of some magnitude, and some were states +of great magnitude. They would be able to go on as they had always +gone on—to shift for themselves as they had always shifted.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span></p> + +<p>Without Spanish and without French, Walpole would have made a good +peace; Bolingbroke could not do so with both.</p> + +<p>Cold men may be wild in life and not wild in mind. But warm and eager +men, fit to be the favourites of society, and fit to be great orators, +will be erratic not only in conduct but in judgement.</p> + +<p>A man like Walpole, or a man like Louis Napoleon, is protected by an +unsensitive nature from intellectual destruction.</p> + +<p>After a war which everyone was proud of, we concluded a peace which +nobody was proud of, in a manner that everyone was ashamed of.</p> + +<p>He hated the City because they were Whigs, and he hated the Dutch +because he had deserted them.</p> + +<p>But he professed to know nothing of commerce, and did know nothing.</p> + +<p>The fierce warlike disposition of the English people would not have +endured such dishonour. We may doubt if it would have endured any +peace. It certainly would not have endured the best peace, unless it +were made with dignity and with honesty.</p> + +<p>Using the press without reluctance and without cessation.</p> + +<p>He ought to have been able to bear anything, yet he could bear +nothing. He prosecuted many more persons than it was usual to +prosecute then, and far more than have been prosecuted since.... He +thought that everything should be said for him, and that nothing +should be said against him.</p> + +<p>Between these fluctuated the great mass of the Tory party, who did not +like the House of Hanover because it had no hereditary right, who did +not like the Pretender because he was a Roman Catholic.</p> + +<p>He had no popularity; little wish for popularity; little respect for +popular judgement.</p> +</div> + +<p>Here is a writer who, at any rate, has not the vice of ‘elegant +variation’. Most of the possibilities of repetition, for good and +for evil, are here represented. As Bagehot himself might have said, +‘we have instances of repetition that are good in themselves; we +have instances of repetition that are bad in themselves; and we +have instances of repetition that are neither particularly good nor +particularly bad in themselves, but that offend simply by recurrence’. +The ludicrous appearance presented by our collection as a whole +necessarily obscures the merit of individual cases; but if the reader +will consider each sentence by itself, he will see that repetition +is often a distinct improvement. The point best illustrated here, no +doubt, is that it impossible to have too much of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span> a good thing; but it +is a good thing for all that. As instances of unjustifiable mannerism, +we may select ‘fit to be the favourites ..., and fit to be great +orators’; ‘not political communities ..., but political communities +...’; ‘something which he wanted, but something which he did not know +that he wanted’; ‘a man like Walpole, or a man like Louis Napoleon’; +‘without reluctance and without cessation’; ‘who did not like ..., +who did not like ...’; and ‘without Spanish and without French’. We +have mentioned clearness as the ultimate motive for repetition of this +kind: in this last sentence, we get not clearness, but obscurity. +Any one would suppose that there was some point in the distinction +between Spanish and French: there is none; the point is, simply, that +languages do not make a statesman. Again, there is sometimes virtue in +half-measures: from ‘something which he did not know that he wanted’ +remove the first three words, and there remains quite repetition +enough. ‘Wild in life and not wild in mind’ is a repetition that is +clearly called for; but it is followed by the wholly gratuitous ‘fit +... and fit ...’, and the result is disastrous. Finally, in ‘who did +not like ..., who did not like ...’, mannerism gets the upper hand +altogether: instead of the appearance of natural vigour that ordinarily +characterizes the writer, we have stiff, lumbering artificiality.</p> + +<p>Writers like Bagehot do not tend at all to impressive repetition: +their motive is always the business-like one of lucidity, though it is +sometimes lucidity run mad. Repetition of this kind, not being designed +to draw the reader’s attention to itself, wears much better in practice +than the more pronounced types of rhetorical repetition. The latter +should be used very sparingly. As the spontaneous expression of strong +feeling in the writer, it is sometimes justified by circumstances: +employed as a deliberate artifice to impress the reader, it is likely +to be frigid, and to fail in its object; and the term ‘rhetorical’ +should remind us in either case<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span> that what may be spoken effectively +will not always bear the test of writing.</p> + +<p>Rhetorical repetition, when it is clearly distinguishable from the +non-rhetorical, is too obvious to require much illustration. Of the +three instances given, the last is an excellent test case for the +principle that ‘whatever is intentional is good’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I have summoned you here to witness your own work. I have summoned +you here to witness it, because I know it will be gall and wormwood +to you. I have summoned you here to witness it, because I know +the sight of everybody here must be a dagger in your mean false +heart!—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>As the lark rose higher, he sank deeper into thought. As the lark +poured out her melody clearer and stronger, he fell into a graver and +profounder silence. At length, when the lark came headlong down ... he +sprang up from his reverie.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>Russia may split into fragments, or Russia may become a +volcano.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Miscellaneous</span></h3> + +<p>a. Some more trite phrases.</p> + +<p>The worn-out phrases considered in a former section were of a humorous +tendency: we may add here some expressions of another kind, all of +them calculated in one way or another to save the writer trouble; the +trouble of description, or of producing statistics, or of thinking what +he means. Such phrases naturally die hard; even ‘more easily imagined +than described’ still survives the rough handling it has met with, and +flourishes in writers of a certain class. ‘Depend upon it’, ‘you may +take my word for it’, ‘in a vast majority of cases’, ‘no thinking man +will believe’, ‘all candid judges must surely agree’, ‘it would be a +slaying of the slain’, ‘I am old-fashioned enough to think’, are all +apt to damage the cause they advocate.</p> + +<p>The shrill formula ‘It stands to reason’ is one of the worst offenders. +Originally harmless, and still no doubt often used in quite rational +contexts, the phrase has somehow got a bad<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span> name for prefacing +fallacies and for begging questions; it lacks the delicious candour of +its feminine equivalent—‘Kindly allow me to know best’—, but appeals +perhaps not less irresistibly to the generosity of an opponent. Apart +from this, there is a correct and an incorrect use of the words. It is +of course the conclusion drawn from certain premisses that stands to +reason; the premisses do not stand to reason; they are assumed to be +a matter of common knowledge, and ought to be distinguished from the +conclusion by <i>if</i> or a causal participle, not co-ordinated with +it by <i>and</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>My dear fellow, it stands to reason that if the square of <i>a</i> +is <i>a</i> squared, and the square of <i>b</i> is <i>b</i> squared, +then the square of <i>a</i> minus <i>b</i> is <i>a</i> squared minus +<i>b</i> squared. You may argue till we are both tired, you will never +alter that.</p> + +<p>It stands to reason that a thick tumbler, having a larger body of cold +matter for the heat to distribute itself over, is less liable to crack +when boiling water is poured into it than a thin one would be.</p> + +<p>It stands to reason that my men have their own work to attend to, +and cannot be running about London all day rectifying other people’s +mistakes.</p> + +<p>It stands to reason that Russia, though vast, is a poor country, +that the war must cost immense sums, and that there must come a +time....—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Just as ‘stands to reason’ is not an argument, but an invitation to +believe, ‘the worthy Major’ not amusing, but an invitation to smile, +so the sentimental or sensational novelist has his special vocabulary +of the impressive, the tender, the tragic, and the horrible. One or +two of the more obvious catch-phrases may be quoted. In the ‘strong +man’ of fiction the reader may have observed a growing tendency to ‘sob +like a child’; the right-minded hero to whom temptation comes decides, +with archaic rectitude, that he ‘will not do <i>this thing</i>’; the +villain, taught by incessant ridicule to abstain from ‘muffled curses’, +finds a vent in ‘discordant laughs, that somehow jarred unpleasantly +upon my nerves’; this laugh, <i>mutatis mutandis</i> (‘cruel little +laugh, that somehow ...’), he shares with the heroine, who for her +exclusive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span> perquisite has ‘this man who had somehow come into her +life’. <i>Somehow</i> and <i>half-dazed</i> are invaluable for throwing +a mysterious glamour over situations and characters that shun the broad +daylight of common sense.</p> + +<p>b. Elementary irony.</p> + +<p>A well-known novelist speaks of the resentment that children feel +against those elders who insist upon addressing them in a jocular tone, +as if serious conversation between the two were out of the question. +Irony is largely open to the same objection: the writer who uses it +is taking our intellectual measure; he forgets our <i>ex officio</i> +perfection in wisdom. Theoretically, indeed, the reader is admitted to +the author’s confidence; <i>he</i> is not the <i>corpus vile</i> on +which experiment is made: that, however, is scarcely more convincing +than the two-edged formula ‘present company excepted’. For minute, +detailed illustration of truths that have had the misfortune to become +commonplaces without making their due impression, sustained irony has +its legitimate use: tired of being told, and shown by direct methods, +that only the virtuous man is admirable, we are glad enough to go off +with Fielding on a brisk <i>reductio ad absurdum</i>: ‘for if not, +let some other kind of man be admirable; as Jonathan Wild’. But the +<i>reductio</i> process should be kept for emergencies, as Euclid kept +it, with whom it is a confession that direct methods are not available. +The isolated snatches of irony quoted below have no such justification: +they are for ornament, not for utility; and it is a kind of ornament +that is peculiarly un-English—a way of shrugging one’s shoulders in +print.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He had also the comfortable reflection that, by the violent quarrel +with Lord Dalgarno, he must now forfeit the friendship and good +offices of that nobleman’s father and sister.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> + +<p>Naturally that reference was received with laughter by the Opposition, +who are, or profess to be, convinced that our countrymen in the +Transvaal do not intend to keep faith with us. They are very welcome +to the monopoly of that unworthy estimate, which must greatly endear +them to all our kindred beyond seas.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span></p> + +<p>The whole of these proceedings were so agreeable to Mr. Pecksniff, +that he stood with his eyes fixed upon the floor ..., as if a host of +penal sentences were being passed upon him.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>The time comes when the banker thinks it prudent to contract some +of his accounts, and this may be one which he thinks it expedient +to reduce: and then perhaps he makes the pleasant discovery, that +there are no such persons at all as the acceptors, and that the funds +for meeting all these bills have been got from himself!—<span class="smcap">H. D. +Macleod.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Pleasant</i> is put for <i>unpleasant</i> because the latter seemed +dull and unnecessary; the writer should have taken the hint, and put +nothing at all.</p> + +<p>The climax is reached by those pessimists who, regarding the reader’s +case as desperate, assist him with punctuation, italics, and the like:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And this honourable (?) proposal was actually made in the presence of +two at least of the parties to the former transaction!</p> + +<p>These so-called <i>gentlemen</i> seem to forget....</p> + +<p>I was content to be snubbed and harassed and worried a hundred times a +day by one or other of the ‘great’ personages who wandered at will all +over my house and grounds, and accepted my lavish hospitality. Many +people imagine that it must be an ‘honour’ to entertain a select party +of aristocrats, but I....—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>The much-prated-of ‘kindness of heart’ and ‘generosity’ +possessed by millionaires, generally amounts to this kind of +thing.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>Was I about to discover that the supposed ‘woman-hater’ had been tamed +and caught at last?—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>That should undoubtedly have been your ‘great’ career—you were born +for it—made for it! You would have been as brute-souled as you are +now....—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>c. Superlatives without <i>the</i>.</p> + +<p>The omission of <i>the</i> with superlatives is limited by ordinary +prose usage to (1) Superlatives after a possessive: ‘Your best plan’. +(2) Superlatives with <i>most</i>: ‘in most distressing circumstances’, +but not ‘in saddest circumstances’. (3) Superlatives in apposition, +followed by <i>of</i>: ‘I took refuge with X., kindliest of hosts’; +‘We are now at Weymouth, dingiest of decayed watering-places’. Many +writers of the present day affect the omission of <i>the</i> in all +cases where<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span> the superlative only means <i>very</i>. No harm will be +done if they eventually have their way: in the meantime, the omission +of <i>the</i> with inflected superlatives has the appearance of gross +mannerism.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Our enveloping movements since some days proved successful, and +fiercest battle is now proceeding.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>In which, too, so many noblest men have ... both made and been what +will be venerated to all time.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> + +<p>Struggling with objects which, though it cannot master them, are +essentially of richest significance.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> + +<p>The request was urged with every kind suggestion, and every assurance +of aid and comfort, by friendliest parties in Manchester, who, in the +sequel, amply redeemed their word.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>In Darkest Africa.—<span class="smcap">Stanley.</span></p> + +<p>Delos furnishes, not only quaintest tripods, crude bronze oxen and +horses like those found at Olympia, but....—<span class="smcap">L. M. Mitchell.</span></p> + +<p>The scene represents in crudest forms the combat of gods and giants, +a subject which should attain long afterwards fullest expression +in the powerful frieze of the Great Altar at Pergamon.—<span class="smcap">L. M. +Mitchell.</span></p> + +<p>A world of highest and noblest thought in dramas of perfect +form.—<span class="smcap">L. M. Mitchell.</span></p> + +<p>From earliest times such competitive games had been +celebrated.—<span class="smcap">L. M. Mitchell.</span></p> + +<p>When fullest, freest forms had not yet been developed.—<span class="smcap">L. M. +Mitchell.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>d. Cheap originality.</p> + +<p>Just as ‘elegant variation’ is generally a worse fault than monotony, +so the avoidance of trite phrases is sometimes worse than triteness +itself. Children have been known to satisfy an early thirst for +notoriety by merely turning their coats inside out; and ‘distinction’ +of style has been secured by some writers on the still easier terms +of writing a common expression backwards. By this simplest of all +possible expedients, ‘wear and tear’ ceases to be English, and becomes +Carlylese, and Emerson acquires an exclusive property (so at least +one hopes) in ‘nothing or little’. The novice need scarcely be warned +against infringing these writers’ patents; it would be as unpardonable +as stealing the idea of a machine for converting clean knives into +dirty ones. Hackneyed phrases<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span> become hackneyed because they are +useful, in the first instance; but they derive a new efficiency from +the very fact that they are hackneyed. Their precise form grows to +be an essential part of the idea they convey, and all that a writer +effects by turning such a phrase backwards, or otherwise tampering +with it, is to give us our triteness at secondhand; we are put to the +trouble of translating ‘tear and wear’, only to arrive at our old +friend ‘wear and tear’, hackneyed as ever.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>How beautiful is noble-sentiment; like gossamer-gauze beautiful and +cheap, which will stand no <i>tear and wear</i>.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> + +<p>Bloated promises, which end in <i>nothing or +little</i>.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>The universities also are <i>parcel</i> of the ecclesiastical +system.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>Fox, Burke, Pitt, Erskine, Wilberforce, Sheridan, Romilly, +or <i>whatever national man</i>, were by this means sent to +Parliament.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>And the stronger these are, the individual is so much +weaker.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>The faster the ball falls to the sun, the force to fly off is by so +much augmented.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>The friction in nature is so enormous that we cannot spare any power. +<i>It is not question</i> to express our thought, to elect our way, +but to overcome resistances.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br><span class="small">PUNCTUATION</span></h2></div> + + +<p>In this chapter we shall adhere generally to our plan of not giving +systematic positive directions, or attempting to cover all ground +familiar and unfamiliar, important or not, but drawing attention only +to the most prevalent mistakes. On so technical a subject, however, a +few preliminary remarks may be made; and to those readers who would +prefer a systematic treatise Beadnell’s <i>Spelling and Punctuation</i> +(Wyman’s Technical Series, Menken, 2/6) may be recommended. We shall +refer to it occasionally in what follows; and the examples to which +—B. is attached instead of an author’s name are taken from it; these +are all given in Beadnell (unless the contrary is stated) as examples +of correct punctuation. It should be added that the book is written +rather from the compositor’s than from the author’s point of view, and +illustrates the compositor’s natural weaknesses; it is more important +to him, for instance, that a page should not be unsightly (the +unsightliness being quite imaginary, and the result of professional +conservatism) than that quotation marks and stops, or dashes and stops, +should be arranged in their true significant order; but, as the right +and unsightly is candidly given as well as the wrong and beautiful, +this does not matter; the student can take his choice.</p> + +<p>We shall begin by explaining how it is that punctuation is a difficult +matter, and worth a writer’s serious attention. There are only six +stops, comma, semicolon, colon, full stop, question mark, exclamation +mark; or, with the dash, seven. The work of three of them, full stop, +question, exclamation, is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span> so clear that mistakes about their use can +hardly occur without gross carelessness; and it might be thought that +with the four thus left it ought to be a very simple matter to exhaust +all possibilities in a brief code of rules. It is not so, however. +Apart from temporary disturbing causes—of which two now operative are +(1) the gradual disappearance of the colon in its old use with the +decay of formal periodic arrangement, and (2) the encroachments of the +dash as a saver of trouble and an exponent of emotion—there are also +permanent difficulties.</p> + +<p>Before mentioning these we observe that the four stops in the strictest +acceptation of the word (,) (;) (:) (.)—for (!) and (?) are tones +rather than stops—form a series (it might be expressed also by 1, 2, +3, 4), each member of which directs us to pause for so many units of +time before proceeding. There is essentially nothing but a quantitative +time relation between them.</p> + +<p>The first difficulty is that this single distinction has to convey to +the reader differences of more than one kind, and not commensurable; it +has to do both logical and rhetorical work. Its logical work is helping +to make clear the grammatical relations between parts of a sentence +or paragraph and the whole or other parts: its rhetorical work is +contributing to emphasis, heightening effect, and regulating pace. It +is in vain that Beadnell lays it down: ‘The variation of pause between +the words of the same thought is a matter of rhetoric and feeling, but +punctuation depends entirely upon the variation of relations—upon +logical and grammatical principles’. The difference between these two:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The master beat the scholar with a strap.—B.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The master beat the scholar, with a strap.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>is in logic nothing; but in rhetoric it is the difference between +matter-of-fact statement and indignant statement: a strap, we are to +understand from the comma, is a barbarous instrument.</p> + +<p>Again, in the two following examples, so far as logic goes, commas +would be used in both, or semicolons in both. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span> the writer of the +second desires to be slow, staccato, and impressive: the writer of the +first desires to be rapid and flowing, or rather, perhaps, does not +desire to be anything other than natural.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Mathematicians have sought knowledge in figures, philosophers in +systems, logicians in subtilties, and metaphysicians in sounds.—B.</p> + +<p>In the eclogue there must be nothing rude or vulgar; nothing fanciful +or affected; nothing subtle or abstruse.—B.</p> +</div> + +<p>The difference is rhetorical, not logical. It is true, however, that +modern printers make an effort to be guided by logic or grammar alone; +it is impossible for them to succeed entirely; but any one who will +look at an Elizabethan book with the original stopping will see how far +they have moved: the old stopping was frankly to guide the voice in +reading aloud, while the modern is mainly to guide the mind in seeing +through the grammatical construction.</p> + +<p>A perfect system of punctuation, then, that should be exact and +uniform, would require separate rhetorical and logical notations in +the first place. Such a system is not to be desired; the point is only +that, without it, usage must fluctuate according as one element is +allowed to interfere with the other. But a second difficulty remains, +even if we assume that rhetoric could be eliminated altogether. Our +stop series, as explained above, provides us with four degrees; but the +degrees of closeness and remoteness between the members of sentence +or paragraph are at the least ten times as many. It is easy to show +that the comma, even in its purely logical function, has not one, but +many tasks to do, which differ greatly in importance. Take the three +examples:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>His method of handling the subject was ornate, learned, and +perspicuous.—B.</p> +</div> + +<p>The removal of the comma after <i>learned</i> makes so little +difference that it is an open question among compositors whether it +should be used or not.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The criminal, who had betrayed his associates, was a prey to remorse.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span></p> + +<p>With the commas, the criminal is necessarily a certain person already +known to us: without them, we can only suppose a past state of society +to be described, in which all traitors were ashamed of themselves—a +difference of some importance.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Colonel Hutchinson, the Governor whom the King had now appointed, +having hardened his heart, resolved on sterner measures.</p> +</div> + +<p>Omission of the comma after <i>appointed</i> gives us two persons +instead of one, and entirely changes the meaning, making the central +words into, what they could not possibly be with the comma, an absolute +construction.</p> + +<p>These commas, that is, have very different values; many intermediate +degrees might be added. Similarly the semicolon often separates +grammatically complete sentences, but often also the mere items of a +list, and between these extremes it marks other degrees of separation. +A perfect system for the merely logical part of punctuation, then, +would require some scores of stops instead of four. This again is not +a thing to be desired; how little, is clear from the fact that one of +our scanty supply, the colon, is now practically disused as a member +of the series, and turned on to useful work at certain odd jobs that +will be mentioned later. A series of stops that should really represent +all gradations might perhaps be worked by here and there a writer +consistently with himself; but to persuade all writers to observe the +same distinctions would be hopeless.</p> + +<p>A third difficulty is this: not only must many tasks be performed by +one stop; the same task is necessarily performed by different stops +according to circumstances; as if polygamy were not bad enough, it +is complicated by an admixture of polyandry. We have already given +two sentences of nearly similar pattern, one of which had its parts +separated by commas, the other by semicolons, and we remarked that +the difference was there accounted for by the intrusion of rhetoric. +But the same thing occurs even when logic or grammar (it should be +explained that grammar is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span> sometimes defined as logic applied to +speech, so that for our purposes the two are synonymous) is free from +the disturbing influence; or when that influence acts directly, not on +the stop itself that is in question, but only on one of its neighbours. +To illustrate the first case, when the stops are not affected by +rhetoric, but depend on grammar alone, we may take a short sentence +as a nucleus, elaborate it by successive additions, and observe how a +particular stop has to go on increasing its power, though it continues +to serve only the same purpose, because it must keep its predominance.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>When ambition asserts the monstrous doctrine of millions made for +individuals, is not the good man indignant?</p> +</div> + +<p>The function of the comma is to mark the division between the +subordinate and the main clauses.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>When ambition asserts the monstrous doctrine of millions made for +individuals, their playthings, to be demolished at their caprice; is +not the good man indignant?</p> +</div> + +<p>The semicolon is doing now exactly what the comma did before; but, as +commas have intruded into the clause to do the humble yet necessary +work of marking two appositions, the original comma has to dignify its +relatively more important office by converting itself into a semicolon.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>When ambition asserts the monstrous doctrine of millions made for +individuals, their playthings, to be demolished at their caprice; +sporting wantonly with the rights, the peace, the comforts, the +existence, of nations, as if their intoxicated pride would, if +possible, make God’s earth their football: is not the good man +indignant?—B.</p> +</div> + +<p>The new insertion is also an apposition, like the former ones; but, +as it contains commas within itself, it must be raised above their +level by being allowed a semicolon to part it from them. The previous +semicolon, still having the same supreme task to do, and challenged +by an upstart rival, has nothing for it but to change the regal for +the imperial crown, and become a colon. A careful observer will now +object that, on these principles, our new insertion ought to have +had an internal semicolon, to differentiate the subordinate clause, +<i>as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span> if</i>, &c., from the mere enumeration commas that precede: in +which case the semi-colon after <i>caprice</i> should be raised to a +colon; and then what is the newly created emperor to do? There is no +papal tiara for him to assume, the full stop being confined to the +independent sentence. The objection is quite just, and shows how soon +the powers of the four stops are exhausted if relentlessly worked. +But we are concerned only to notice that the effect of stops, even +logically considered, is relative, not absolute. It is also true that +many modern writers, if they put down a sentence like this, would be +satisfied with using commas throughout; the old-fashioned air of the +colon will hardly escape notice. But the whole arrangement is according +to the compositor’s art in its severer form.</p> + +<p>A specimen of the merely indirect action of rhetoric may be more +shortly disposed of. In a sentence already quoted—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Mathematicians have sought knowledge in figures, philosophers in +systems, logicians in subtilties, and metaphysicians in sounds—</p> +</div> + +<p>suppose the writer to have preferred for impressive effect, as we said +he might have, to use semicolons instead of commas. The immediate +result of that would be that what before could be left to the reader +to do for himself (i. e., the supplying of the words <i>have sought +knowledge</i> in each member) will in presence of the semicolon require +to be done to the eye by commas, and the sentence will run:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Mathematicians have sought knowledge in figures; philosophers, in +systems; logicians, in subtilties; and metaphysicians, in sounds.</p> +</div> + +<p>But, lest we should be thought too faithful followers of the logicians, +we will now assume that our point has been sufficiently proved: the +difficulties of punctuation, owing to the interaction of different +purposes, and the inadequacy of the instruments, are formidable enough +to be worth grappling with.</p> + +<p>We shall now only make three general remarks before proceeding to +details. The first is implied in what has been already said: the work +of punctuation is mainly to show, or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span> hint at, the grammatical relation +between words, phrases, clauses, and sentences; but it must not be +forgotten that stops also serve to regulate pace, to throw emphasis +on particular words and give them significance, and to indicate tone. +These effects are subordinate, and must not be allowed to conflict with +the main object; but as the grammatical relation may often be shown in +more than one way, that way can be chosen which serves another purpose +best.</p> + +<p>Secondly, it is a sound principle that as few stops should be used as +will do the work. There is a theory that scientific or philosophic +matter should be punctuated very fully and exactly, whereas mere +literary work can do with a much looser system. This is a mistake, +except so far as scientific and philosophic writers may desire to give +an impressive effect by retarding the pace; that is legitimate; but +otherwise, all that is printed should have as many stops as help the +reader, and not more. A resolution to put in all the stops that can be +correctly used is very apt to result in the appearance of some that can +only be used incorrectly; some of our quotations from Huxley and Mr. +Balfour may be thought to illustrate this. And whereas slight stopping +may venture on small irregularities, full stopping that is incorrect +is also unpardonable. The objection to full stopping that is correct +is the discomfort inflicted upon readers, who are perpetually being +checked like a horse with a fidgety driver.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, every one should make up his mind not to depend on his stops. +They are to be regarded as devices, not for saving him the trouble of +putting his words into the order that naturally gives the required +meaning, but for saving his reader the moment or two that would +sometimes, without them, be necessarily spent on reading the sentence +twice over, once to catch the general arrangement, and again for the +details. It may almost be said that what reads wrongly if the stops are +removed is radically bad; stops are not to alter meaning, but merely +to show it up. Those who are learning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span> to write should make a practice +of putting down all they want to say without stops first. What then, +on reading over, naturally arranges itself contrary to the intention +should be not punctuated, but altered; and the stops should be as few +as possible, consistently with the recognized rules. At this point +those rules should follow; but adequately explained and illustrated, +they would require a volume; and we can only speak of common abuses and +transgressions of them.</p> + +<p>First comes what may be called for short the spot-plague—the tendency +to make full-stops do all the work. The comma, most important, if +slightest, of all stops, cannot indeed be got rid of, though even for +that the full-stop is substituted when possible; but the semicolon +is now as much avoided by many writers as the colon (in its old use) +by most. With the semicolon go most of the conjunctions. Now there +is something to be said for the change, or the two changes: the +old-fashioned period, or long complex sentence, carefully worked out +with a view to symmetry, balance, and degrees of subordination, though +it has a dignity of its own, is formal, stiff, and sometimes frigid; +the modern newspaper vice of long sentences either rambling or involved +(far commoner in newspapers than the spot-plague) is inexpressibly +wearisome and exasperating. Simplification is therefore desirable. But +journalists now and then, and writers with more literary ambition than +ability generally, overdo the thing till it becomes an affectation; +it is then little different from Victor Hugo’s device of making every +sentence a paragraph, and our last state is worse than our first. +Patronizing archness, sham ingenuousness, spasmodic interruption, +scrappy argument, dry monotony, are some of the resulting impressions. +We shall have to trouble the reader with at least one rather long +specimen; the spot-plague in its less virulent form, that is, when it +is caused not by pretentiousness or bad taste, but merely by desire +to escape from the period, does not declare itself very rapidly. What +follows is a third or so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span> of a literary review, of which the whole is +in exactly the same style, and which might have been quoted entire +for the same purpose. It will be seen that it shows twenty full-stops +to one semicolon and no colons. Further, between no two of the twenty +sentences is there a conjunction.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The life of Lord Chatham, which has just appeared in three volumes, +by Dr. Albert v. Ruville of the University of Halle deserves special +notice. It is much the most complete life which has yet appeared of +one of the most commanding figures in English history. It exhibits +that thoroughness of method which characterized German historical +writings of other days, and which has not lately been conspicuous. +It is learned without being dull, and is free from that uncritical +spirit of hostility to England which impairs the value of so many +recent German histories. That portion which deals with the closing +years of George II and with events following the accession of George +III is exceptionally interesting. One of the greatest misfortunes that +ever happened to England was the resignation of Pitt in 1761. It was +caused, as we all know, by difference of opinion with his colleagues +on the Spanish question. Ferdinand VI of Spain died in 1759, and was +succeeded by King Charles III, one of the most remarkable princes of +the House of Bourbon. This sovereign was an enthusiastic adherent of +the policy which found expression in the celebrated family compact. +On August 15, 1761, a secret convention was concluded between +France and Spain, under which Spain engaged to declare war against +England in May, 1762. Pitt quite understood the situation. He saw +that instant steps should be taken to meet the danger, and proposed +at a Cabinet held on October 2 that war should be declared against +Spain. Newcastle, Hardwicke, Anson, Bute, and Mansfield combated this +proposal, which was rejected, and two days afterwards Pitt resigned. +His scheme was neither immature nor ill-considered. He had made his +preparations to strike a heavy blow at the enemy, to seize the Isthmus +of Panama, thereby securing a port in the Pacific, and separating the +Spanish provinces of Mexico and Peru. He had planned an expedition +against Havana and the Philippine Islands, where no adequate +resistance could have been made; and, had he remained in office, there +is but little doubt that the most precious possessions of Spain in the +New World would have been incorporated in the British Empire. When he +left the Cabinet all virility seems to have gone out of it with him. +As he had foreseen, Spain declared war on England at a suitable moment +for herself, and the unfortunate negotiations were opened leading to +the Peace of Paris in 1763, which was pregnant with many disastrous +results for England. The circumstances which led to the resignation +of Pitt are dealt with by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span> Dr. v. Ruville much more lucidly than by +most historians. This portion of his work is the more interesting +because of the pains he takes to clear George III from the charge of +conspiring against his great Minister.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The reader’s experience has probably been that the constant fresh +starts are at first inspiriting, that about half-way he has had +quite enough of the novelty, and that he is intensely grateful, when +the solitary semicolon comes into sight, for a momentary lapse into +ordinary gentle progress. Writers like this may almost be suspected of +taking literally a summary piece of advice that we have lately seen in +a book on English composition: <i>Never use a semicolon when you can +employ a full-stop.</i> Beadnell lays down a law that at first sight +seems to amount to the same thing: <i>The notion of parting short +independent sentences otherwise than by a full-stop, rests upon no +rational foundation, and leads to endless perplexities.</i> But his +practice clears him of the imputation: he is saved by the ambiguity +of the word <i>independent</i>. There are grammatical dependence, and +dependence of thought. Of all those ‘little hard round unconnected +things’, in the <i>Times</i> review, that ‘seem to come upon one as +shot would descend from a shot-making tower’ (Sir Arthur Helps), hardly +one is not dependent on its neighbours in the more liberal sense, +though each is a complete sentence and independent in grammar. Now one +important use of stops is to express the degrees of thought dependence. +A style that groups several complete sentences together, by the use +of semicolons, because they are more closely connected in thought, is +far more restful and easy—for the reader, that is—than the style +that leaves him to do the grouping for himself; and yet it is free +from the formality of the period, which consists, not of grammatically +independent sentences, but of a main sentence with many subordinate +clauses. We have not space for a long example of the group system +rightly applied; most good modern writers free from the craving to be +up to date will supply<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span> them on every page; but a very short quotation +may serve to emphasize the difference between group and spot-plague +principles. The essence of the latter is that almost the only stops +used are full-stops and commas, that conjunctions are rare, and that +when a conjunction does occur the comma is generally used, not the +full-stop. What naturally follows is an arrangement of this kind:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The sheil of Ravensnuik was, for the present at least, at his +disposal. The foreman or ‘grieve’ at the Home Farm was anxious to be +friendly, but even if he lost that place, Dan Weir knew that there was +plenty of others.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>(To save trouble, let it be stated that the sheil is a dependency +of the Home Farm, and not contrasted with or opposed to it.) Here +there are three grammatically independent sentences, between the two +latter of which the conjunction <i>but</i> is inserted. It follows +from spot-plague principles that there will be a full-stop at the end +of the first, and a comma at the end of the second. With the group +system it is not so simple a matter; before we can place the stops, +we have to inquire how the three sentences are connected in thought. +It then appears that the friendliness of the grieve is mentioned to +account for the sheil’s being at disposal; that is, there is a close +connexion, though no conjunction, between the first and the second +sentences. Further, the birds in the bush of the third sentence are +contrasted, not with the second sentence’s friendliness, but with the +first sentence’s bird in the hand (which, however, is accounted for by +the second sentence’s friendliness). To group rightly, then, we must +take care, quite reversing the author’s punctuation, that the first and +second are separated by a stop of less power than that which separates +the third from them. Comma, semicolon, would do it, if the former were +sufficient between two grammatically independent sentences not joined +by a conjunction; it obviously is not sufficient here (though in some +such pairs it might be); so, instead of comma, semicolon, we must use +semicolon, full-stop;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span> and the sentence will run, with its true meaning +much more clearly given:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The sheil of Ravensnuik was, for the present at least, at his +disposal; the foreman or ‘grieve’ at the Home Farm was anxious to be +friendly. But even if he lost that place, Dan Weir knew that there was +plenty of others.</p> +</div> + +<p>The group system gives more trouble to the writer or compositor, and +less to the reader; the compositor cannot be expected to like it, if +the burden falls on him; inferior writers cannot be expected to choose +it either, perhaps; but the good writers who do choose it no doubt find +that after a short time the work comes to do itself by instinct.</p> + +<p>We need now only add two or three short specimens, worse, though from +their shortness less remarkable, than the <i>Times</i> extract. They +are not specially selected as bad; but it may be hoped that by their +juxtaposition they may have some deterrent effect.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>So Dan opened the door a little and the dog came out as if nothing had +happened. It was now clear. The light was that of late evening. The +air hardly more than cool. A gentle fanning breeze came from the North +and....—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>Allies must have common sentiments, a common policy, common interests. +Russia’s disposition is aggressive. Her policy is the closed door. +Her interests lie in monopoly. With our country it is precisely the +opposite. Japan may conquer, but she will not aggress. Russia may be +defeated, but she will not abandon her aggression. With such a country +an alliance is beyond the conception even of a dream.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Upon a hillside, a great swelling hillside, high up near the clouds, +lay a herd lad. Little more than a boy he was. He did not know much, +but he wanted to know more. He was not very good, but he wanted to be +better. He was lonely, but of that he was not aware. On the whole he +was content up there on his great hillside.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>To be popular you have to be interested, or appear to be +interested, in other people. And there are so many in this world +in whom it is impossible to be interested. So many for whom the +most skilful hypocrisy cannot help us to maintain a semblance of +interest.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Of course a girl so pretty as my Miss Anne could not escape having +many suitors, especially as all over the countryside Sir Tempest had +the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span> name of being something of a skinflint. And skinflints are always +rich, as is well known.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The last sentence here is a mere comment on what is itself only an +appendage, the clause introduced by <i>especially</i>; it has therefore +no right to the dignity of a separate sentence. But it can hardly be +mended without some alteration of words as well as stops; for instance, +put a semicolon after suitors, write <i>moreover</i> for <i>especially +as</i>, and put only a comma after <i>skinflint</i>; the right +proportion would then be secured.</p> + +<p>The spot-plague, as we have shown, sometimes results in illogicality; +it need not do so, however; when it does, the fault lies with the +person who, accepting its principles, does not arrange his sentences +to suit them. It is a new-fashioned and, in our opinion, unpleasant +system, but quite compatible with correctness.</p> + +<p>Over-stopping, to which we now proceed, is on the contrary +old-fashioned; but it is equally compatible with correctness. Though +old-fashioned, it still lingers obstinately enough to make some slight +protest desirable; the superstition that every possible stop should be +inserted in scientific and other such writing misleads compositors, +and their example affects literary authors who have not much ear. Any +one who finds himself putting down several commas close to one another +should reflect that he is making himself disagreeable, and question his +conscience, as severely as we ought to do about disagreeable conduct in +real life, whether it is necessary. He will find that the parenthetic +or emphatic effect given to an adverbial phrase by putting a comma +at each end of it is often of no value whatever to his meaning; in +other words, that he can make himself agreeable by merely putting off +a certain pompous solemnity; erasing a pair of commas may make the +difference in writing that is made in conversation by a change of tone +from the didactic to the courteous. Sometimes the abundance of commas +is not so easily reduced; a change in the order of words, the omission +of a needless<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span> adverb or conjunction, even the recasting of a sentence, +may be necessary. But it is a safe statement that a gathering of commas +(except on certain lawful occasions, as in a list) is a suspicious +circumstance. The sentence should at least be read aloud, and if it +halts or jolts some change or other should be made.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The smallest portion possible of curious interest had been +awakened within me, and, at last, I asked myself, within my own +mind....—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>None of the last three commas is wanted; those round <i>at last</i> are +very unpleasant, and they at least should be omitted.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In questions of trade and finance, questions which, owing, perhaps, to +their increasing intricacy, seem....—<span class="smcap">Bryce.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Perhaps</i> can do very well without commas.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is, however, already plain enough that, unless, indeed, some great +catastrophe should upset all their calculations, the authorities have +very little intention....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Indeed</i> can do without commas, if it cannot itself be done +without.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Jeannie, too, is, just occasionally, like a good girl out of a book by +a sentimental lady-novelist.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>If <i>just</i> is omitted, there need be no commas round +<i>occasionally</i>. There may be a value in <i>just</i>; but hardly +enough to compensate for the cruel jerking at the bit to which the poor +reader is subjected by a remorseless driver.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Thus, their work, however imperfect and faulty, judged by +modern lights, it may have been, brought them face to face +with....—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The comma after <i>thus</i> is nothing if not pompous. And another can +be got rid of by putting <i>it may have been</i> before <i>judged by +modern lights</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Lilias suggested the advice which, of all others, seemed most suited +to the occasion, that, yielding, namely, to the circumstances of their +situation, they should watch....—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Omit <i>namely</i> and its commas.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Shakespeare, it is true, had, as I have said, as respects England, the +privilege which only first-comers enjoy.—<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span></p> + +<p>A good example of the warning value of commas. None of these can +be dispensed with, since there are no less than three parenthetic +qualifications to the sentence. But the crowd of commas ought to have +told the writer how bad his sentence was; it is like an obstacle race. +It should begin, It is true that ..., which disposes of one obstacle. +<i>As I have said</i> can be given a separate sentence afterwards—So +much has been said before.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Private banks and capitalists constitute the main bulk of the +subscribers, and, apparently, they are prepared to go on subscribing +indefinitely.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Putting commas round <i>apparently</i> amounts to the insertion of a +further clause, such as, Though you would not think they could be such +fools. But what the precise contents of the further clause may be is +problematic. At any rate, a writer should not invite us to read between +the lines unless he is sure of two things: what he wants to be read +there; and that we are likely to be willing and able readers of it. The +same is true of many words that are half adverbs and half conjunctions, +like <i>therefore</i>. We have the right to comma them off if we like; +but, unless it is done with a definite purpose, it produces perplexity +as well as heaviness. In the first of the next two examples, there is +no need whatever for the commas. In the second, the motive is clear: +having the choice between commas and no commas, the reporter uses them +because he so secures a pause after <i>he</i>, and gives the word that +emphasis which in the speech as delivered doubtless made the <i>I</i> +that it represents equivalent to <i>I for my part</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Both Tom and John knew this; and, therefore, John—the soft-hearted +one—kept out of the way.—<span class="smcap">Trollope.</span></p> + +<p>It would not be possible to sanction an absolutely unlimited +expenditure on the Volunteers; the burden on the tax-payers would be +too great. He, therefore, wished that those who knew most about the +Volunteers would make up their minds as to the direction in which +there should be development.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>After <i>for</i> and <i>and</i> beginning a sentence commas are often<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span> +used that are hardly even correct. It may be suspected that writers +allow themselves to be deceived by the false analogy of sentences +in which the <i>and</i> or <i>for</i> is immediately followed by a +subordinate clause or phrase that has a right to its two commas. When +there is no such interruption, the only possible plea for the comma is +that it is not logical but rhetorical, and conveys some archness or +other special significance such as is hardly to be found in our two +examples:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The lawn, the soft, smooth slope, the ... bespeak an amount of elegant +comfort within, that would serve for a palace. This indication is +not without warrant; for, within it is a house of refinement and +luxury.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>And, it is true that these were the days of mental and moral +fermentation.—<span class="smcap">Hutton.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>We shall class here also, assuming for the present that the rhetorical +plea may be allowed even when there is no logical justification for a +stop, two sentences in which the copula <i>is</i>, standing between +subject and complement, has commas on each side of it. Impressiveness +is what is aimed at; it seems to us a tawdry device for giving one’s +sentence an <i>ex cathedra</i> air:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The reason why the world lacks unity, is, because man is disunited +with himself.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>The charm in Nelson’s history, is, the unselfish +greatness.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Many other kinds of over-stopping might be illustrated; but we have +intentionally confined ourselves here to specimens in which grammatical +considerations do not arise, and the sentence is equally correct +whether the stops are inserted or not. Sentences in which over-stopping +outrages grammar more or less decidedly will be incidentally treated +later on. Meanwhile we make the general remark that ungrammatical +insertion of stops is a high crime and misdemeanour, whereas +ungrammatical omission of them is often venial, and in some cases +even desirable. Nevertheless the over-stopping that offends against +nothing but taste has its counterpart in under-stopping of the same +sort. And it must be added that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span> nothing so easily exposes a writer +to the suspicion of being uneducated as omission of commas against +nearly universal custom. In the examples that follow, every one will +see at the first glance where commas are wanting. When it is remembered +that, as we have implied, an author has the right to select the degree +of intensity, or scale, of his punctuation, it can hardly be said +that grammar actually demands any stops in these sentences taken by +themselves. Yet the effect, unless we choose to assume misprints, as we +naturally do in isolated cases, is horrible.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It may be asked can further depreciation be afforded.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I believe you used to live in Warwickshire at Willowsmere Court did +you not?—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>The hills slope gently to the cliffs which overhang the bay of Naples +and they seem to bear on their outstretched arms a rich offering of +Nature’s fairest gifts for the queen city of the south.—<span class="smcap">F. M. +Crawford.</span></p> + +<p>‘You made a veritable sensation Lucio!’ ‘Did I?’ He laughed. ‘You +flatter me Geoffrey.’—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>I like your swiftness of action Geoffrey.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>Good heavens man, there are no end of lords and ladies who +will....—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Although we are, when we turn from taste to grammar, on slightly firmer +ground, it will be seen that there are many debatable questions; and +we shall have to use some technical terms. As usual, only those points +will be attended to which our observation has shown to be important.</p> + +<p>1. The substantival clause.</p> + +<p>Subordinate clauses are sentences containing a subject and predicate, +but serving the purpose in the main sentence (to which they are +sometimes joined by a subordinating conjunction or relative pronoun, +but sometimes without any separate and visible link) of single words, +namely, of noun, adjective, or adverb; they are called respectively +substantival, adjectival, or adverbial clauses. Examples:</p> + +<p>Substantival. He asked <i>what I should do</i>. (<i>my plan</i>, noun)</p> + +<p>Adjectival. The man <i>who acts honestly</i> is respected. +(<i>honest</i>, adjective)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span></p> + +<p>Adverbial. I shall see you <i>when the sun next rises</i>. +(<i>to-morrow</i>, adverb)</p> + +<p>Now there is no rule that subordinate clauses must be separated from +the main sentence by a stop; that depends on whether they are essential +parts of the proposition (when stops are generally wrong), or more or +less separable accidents (when commas are more or less required). But +what we wish to draw attention to is a distinction in this respect, +very generally disregarded, between the substantival clause and the +two other kinds. When the others are omitted, though the desired +meaning may be spoilt, the grammar generally remains uninjured; a +complete, though not perhaps valuable sentence is left. <i>The man is +respected</i>, <i>I shall see you</i>, are as much sentences alone as +they were with the adjectival and adverbial clauses. With substantival +clauses this is seldom true; they are usually the subjects, objects, +or complements, of the verbs, that is, are grammatically essential. +<i>He asked</i> is meaningless by itself. (Even if the point is that he +asked and did not answer, <i>things</i>, or <i>something</i>, has to be +supplied in thought.) Now it is a principle, not without exceptions, +but generally sound, that the subject, object, or complement, is not +to be separated from its verb even by a comma (though <i>two</i> +commas belonging to an inserted parenthetic clause or phrase or word +may intervene). It follows that there is no logical or grammatical +justification, though there may be a rhetorical one, for the comma so +frequently placed before the <i>that</i> of an indirect statement. +Our own opinion (which is, however, contrary to the practice of +most compositors) is that this should always be omitted except when +the writer has a very distinct reason for producing rhetorical +impressiveness by an unusual pause. Some very ugly overstopping would +thus be avoided.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Yet there, too, we find, that character has its problems to +solve.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>We know, that, in the individual man, consciousness +grows.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p>And it is said, that, on a visitor once asking to see his library, +Descartes led him....—<span class="smcap">Huxley.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span></span></p> + +<p>The general opinion however was, that, if Bute had been early +practised in debate, he might have become an impressive +speaker.—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The comma before <i>whether</i> in the next is actually misleading; we +are tempted to take as adverbial what is really a substantival clause, +object to the verbal noun <i>indifference</i>:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The book ... had merits due to the author’s indifference, whether he +showed bad taste or not, provided he got nearer to the impression he +wished to convey.—<i>Speaker.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Grammar, however, would afford some justification for distinguishing +between the substantival clause as subject, object, or complement, and +the substantival clause in apposition with one of these. Though there +should decidedly be no comma in <i>He said that ...</i>, it is strictly +defensible in <i>It is said, that....</i> The <i>that</i>-clause in +the latter is explanatory of, and in apposition with, <i>it</i>; and +the ordinary sign of apposition is a comma. Similarly, <i>My opinion +is that</i>: <i>It is my opinion, that</i>. But as there seems to be +no value whatever in the distinction, our advice is to do without the +comma in all ordinary cases of either kind. A useful and reasonable +exception is made in some manuals; for instance, in Bigelow’s <i>Manual +of Punctuation</i> we read: ‘Clauses like “It is said”, introducing +several propositions or quotations, each preceded by the word +<i>that</i>, should have a comma before the first <i>that</i>. But if a +single proposition or quotation only is given, no comma is necessary. +Example:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Philosophers assert, that Nature is unlimited in her operations, that +she has inexhaustible treasures in reserve, that....’</p> +</div> + +<p>Anything that shows the reader what he is to expect, and so saves +him the trouble of coming back to revise his first impressions, is +desirable if there is no strong reason against it.</p> + +<p>A more important distinction is this: <i>He said</i>, &c., may have +for its object, and <i>It is said</i>, &c., for its (virtual) subject, +either the actual words said, or a slight rearrangement of them (not +necessarily to the eye, but at least to the mind), which makes them +more clearly part of the grammatical construction, and turns them into +true subordinate clauses.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span> Thus <i>He told her, You are in danger</i> +may be kept, but is usually altered to <i>He told her that she was in +danger</i>, or to <i>He told her she was in danger</i>. In the first, +<i>You are in danger</i> is not properly a subordinate clause, but a +sentence, which may be said to be in apposition with <i>these words</i> +understood. In the second and third alike, the altered words are a +subordinate substantival clause, the object to <i>told</i>. It follows +that when the actual words are given as such (this is sometimes only +to be known by the tone: compare <i>I tell you, I will come</i>, and +<i>I tell you I will come</i>), a comma should be inserted; whereas, +when they are meant as mere reported or indirect speech, it should be +omitted. Actual words given as such should also be begun with a capital +letter; and if they consist of a compound sentence, or of several +sentences, a comma will not suffice for their introduction; a colon, +a colon and dash, or a full stop, with quotation marks always in the +last case, and usually in the others, will be necessary; but these are +distinctions that need not be considered here in detail.</p> + +<p>Further, it must be remembered that substantival clauses include +indirect questions as well as indirect statements, and that the same +rules will apply to them. The two following examples are very badly +stopped:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>(<i>a</i>) Add to all this that he died in his thirty-seventh +year: and then ask, If it be strange that his poems are +imperfect?—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Accommodation of the stops to the words would give:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>and then ask if it be strange that his poems are imperfect.</p> +</div> + +<p>And accommodation of the words to the stops would give:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>and then ask, Is it strange that his poems are imperfect?</p> + +<p>(<i>b</i>) It may be asked can further depreciation be +afforded.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The two correct alternatives here are similarly:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It may be asked, Can further depreciation be afforded?</p> + +<p>It may be asked whether further depreciation can be afforded.</p> +</div> + +<p>As the sentences stood originally, we get in the Carlyle a most +theatrical, and in the <i>Times</i> a most slovenly effect.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span></p> + +<p>2. The verb and its subject, object, or complement.</p> + +<p>Our argument against the common practice of placing a comma before +substantival <i>that</i>-clauses and others like them was, in brief: +This sort of <i>that</i>-clause is simply equivalent to a noun; that +noun is, with few exceptions, the subject, object, or complement, to a +verb; and between things so closely and essentially connected as the +verb and any of these no stop should intervene (unless for very strong +and special rhetorical reasons). This last principle, that the verb and +its essential belongings must not be parted, was merely assumed. We +think it will be granted by any one who reads the next two examples. +It is felt at once that a writer who will break the principle with so +little excuse as here will shrink from nothing.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>So poor Byron was dethroned, as I had prophesied he would be, +though I had little idea that his humiliation, would be brought +about by one, whose sole strength consists in setting people to +sleep.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>He was, moreover, not an unkind man; but the crew of the +<i>Bounty</i>, mutinied against him, and set him half naked in an open +boat.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Very little better than these, but each with some perceptible motive, +are the next six:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Depreciation of him, fetched up at a stroke the glittering armies of +her enthusiasm.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>Opposition to him, was comparable to the stand of blocks of timber +before a flame.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In each of these the comma acts as an accent upon <i>him</i>, and is +purely rhetorical and illogical.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Such women as you, are seldom troubled with remorse.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Here the comma guards us from taking <i>you are</i> together. We have +already said that this device is illegitimate. Such sentences should be +recast; for instance, Women like you are seldom, &c.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The thick foliage of the branching oaks and elms in my grounds +afforded grateful shade and repose to the tired body, while the +tranquil loveliness of the woodland and meadow scenery, comforted and +soothed the equally tired mind.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>With them came young boys and little children, while on either side,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span> +maidens white-veiled and rose-wreathed, paced demurely, swinging +silver censers to and fro.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>Swift’s view of human nature, is too black to admit of any hopes of +their millennium.—<span class="smcap">L. Stephen.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Loveliness</i>, <i>maidens</i>, <i>view</i>, the strict subjects, +have adjectival phrases attached after them. The temptation to insert +the comma is comprehensible, but slight, and should have been resisted.</p> + +<p>In the three that come next, the considerable length of the subject, +it must be admitted, makes a comma comforting; it gives us a sort of +assurance that we have kept our hold on the sentence. It is illogical, +however, and, owing to the importance of not dividing subject from +verb, unpleasantly illogical. In each case the comfort would be +equally effective if it were legitimized by the insertion of a comma +before as well as after the clause or phrase at the end of which the +present comma stands. The extra commas would be after <i>earth</i>, +<i>victims</i>, <i>Schleiden</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>To see so many thousand wretches burdening the earth when such +as her die, makes me think God did never intend life for a +blessing.—<span class="smcap">Swift.</span></p> + +<p>An order of the day expressing sympathy with the families of the +victims and confidence in the Government, was adopted.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The famous researches of Schwann and Schleiden in 1837 +and the following years, founded the modern science of +histology.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>It may be said that it is ‘fudging’ to find an excuse, as we have +proposed to do, for a stop that we mean really to do something +different from its ostensible work. But the answer is that with few +tools and many tasks to do much fudging is in fact necessary.</p> + +<p>A special form of this, in protest against which we shall give five +examples, each from a different well-known author, is when the subject +includes and ends with a defining relative clause, after which an +illogical comma is placed. As the relative clause is of the defining +kind (a phrase that has been explained<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>), it is practically +impossible to fudge in these<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span> sentences by putting a comma before the +relative pronoun. Even in the first sentence the length of the relative +clause is no sufficient excuse; and in all the others we should abolish +the comma without hesitation.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The same quickness of sympathy which had served him well in his work +among the East End poor, enabled him to pour feeling into the figures +of a bygone age.—<span class="smcap">Bryce.</span></p> + +<p>One of its agents is our will, but that which expresses itself in our +will, is stronger than our will.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>The very interesting class of objects to which these belong, do not +differ from the rest of the material universe.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> + +<p>And thus, the great men who were identified with the war, began slowly +to edge over to the party....—<span class="smcap">L. Stephen.</span></p> + +<p>In becoming a merchant-gild the body of citizens who formed the +‘town’, enlarged their powers of civic legislation.—<span class="smcap">J. R. +Green.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In the two sentences that now follow from Mr. Morley, the offending +comma of the first parts <i>centre</i>, which is what grammarians call +the oblique complement, from its verb <i>made</i>; the offending comma +of the second parts the direct object <i>groups</i> from its verb +<i>drew</i>. Every one will allow that the sentences are clumsy; most +people will allow that the commas are illogical. As for us, we do not +say that, if the words are to be kept as they are, the commas should +be omitted; but we do say that a good writer, when he found himself +reduced to illogical commas, should have taken the trouble to rearrange +his words.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>De Maistre was never more clear-sighted than when he made a vigorous +and deliberate onslaught upon Bacon, the centre of his movement +against revolutionary principles.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>In saying that the Encyclopaedists began a political work, what +is meant is that they drew into the light of new ideas, groups of +institutions, usages, and arrangements which affected the well-being +of France, as closely as nutrition affected the health and strength of +an individual Frenchman.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>It may be added, by way of concluding this section, that the insertion +of a comma in the middle of an absolute construction, which is capable, +as was shown in the sentence about Colonel Hutchinson and the governor, +of having very bad<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span> results indeed, is only a particular instance and +<i>reductio ad absurdum</i> of inserting a comma between subject and +verb. The comma in the absolute construction is so recognized a trap +that it might have been thought needless to mention it; the following +instances, however, will show that a warning is even now necessary.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Sir E. Seymour, having replied for the Navy, the Duke of Connaught, in +replying for the Army, said....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Thus <i>got</i>, having been by custom poorly substituted for +<i>gat</i>, so that we say He got away, instead of He gat away, many +persons abbreviate <i>gotten</i> into <i>got</i>, saying He had got, +for He had gotten.—<span class="smcap">R. G. White.</span></p> + +<p>The garrison, having been driven from the outer line of defences +on July 30, Admiral Witoft considered it high time to make a +sortie.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>But that didn’t last long; for Dr. Blimber, happening to change the +position of his tight plump legs, as if he were going to get up, Toots +swiftly vanished.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>3. The adjectival clause.</p> + +<p>This, strictly speaking, does the work of an adjective in the +sentence. It usually begins with a relative pronoun, but sometimes +with a relative adverb. The man <i>who does not breathe</i> dies, is +equivalent to The <i>unbreathing</i> man dies. The place <i>where we +stand</i> is holy ground, is equivalent to <i>This</i> place is holy +ground. But we shall include under the phrase all clauses that begin +with a relative, though some relative clauses are not adjectival, +because a division of all into defining clauses on the one hand, and +non-defining or commenting on the other, is more easily intelligible +than the division into adjectival and non-adjectival. This distinction +is more fully gone into in the chapter on Syntax, where it is suggested +that <i>that</i>, when possible, is the appropriate relative for +defining, and <i>which</i> for non-defining clauses. That, however, is +a debatable point, and quite apart from the question of stopping that +arises here. Examples of the two types are:</p> + +<p>(Defining) The river that (which) runs through London is turbid.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span></p> + +<p>(Commenting) The Thames, which runs through London, is turbid.</p> + +<p>It will be seen that in the first the relative clause is an answer to +the imaginary question, ‘Which river?’; that is, it defines the noun +to which it belongs. In the second, such a question as ‘Which Thames?’ +is hardly conceivable; the relative clause gives us a piece of extra +and non-essential information, an independent comment. The two types +are not always so easily distinguished as in these examples constructed +for the purpose. What we wish here to say is that it would contribute +much to clearness of style if writers would always make up their minds +whether they intend a definition or a comment, and would invariably use +no commas with a defining clause, and two commas with a non-defining. +All the examples that follow are in our opinion wrong. The first three +are of defining relative clauses wrongly preceded by commas; the +second three of commenting relative clauses wrongly not preceded by +commas. The last of all there may be a doubt about. If the long clause +beginning with <i>which</i> is intended merely to show how great the +weariness is, and <i>which</i> is practically equivalent to <i>so great +that</i>, it may be called a defining clause, and the omission of the +comma is right. But if the <i>which</i> really acts as a mere connexion +to introduce a new fact that the correspondent wishes to record, the +clause is non-defining, and the comma ought according to our rule to be +inserted before it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The man, <i>who</i> thinketh in his heart and hath the power +straightway (very straightway) to go and do it, is not so common in +any country.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>Now everyone must do after his kind, be he asp or angel, and these +must. The question, <i>which</i> a wise man and a student of modern +history will ask, is, what that kind is.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>Those, <i>who</i> are urging with most ardour what are called the +greatest benefits of mankind, are narrow, self-pleasing, conceited +men.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>A reminder is being sent to all absent members of the Nationalist +party that their attendance at Westminster is urgently required next +week <i>when</i> the Budget will be taken on Monday.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span></p> + +<p>The Marshall Islands will pass from the control of the Jaluit +Company under that of the German colonial authorities <i>who</i> +will bear the cost of administration and will therefore collect all +taxes.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The causes of this popularity are, no doubt, in part, the extreme +simplicity of the reasoning on which the theory rests, in part its +extreme plausibility, in part, perhaps, the nature of the result +<i>which</i> is commonly thought to be speculatively interesting +without being practically inconvenient.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> + +<p>Naval critics ... are showing signs of weariness <i>which</i> even the +reported appearance of Admiral Nebogatoff in the Malacca Strait is +unable to remove.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>4. The adverb, adverbial phrase, and adverbial clause.</p> + +<p>In writing of substantival and adjectival clauses, our appeal was for +more logical precision than is usual. We said that the comma habitual +before substantival clauses was in most cases unjustifiable, and should +be omitted even at the cost of occasional slight discomfort. We said +that with one division of adjectival, or rather relative clauses, +commas should always be used, and with another they should always be +omitted. With the adverbial clauses, phrases, and words, on the other +hand, our appeal is on the whole for less precision; we recommend that +less precision should be aimed at, at least, though more attained, than +at present. Certain kinds of laxity here are not merely venial, but +laudable: certain other kinds are damning evidence of carelessness or +bad taste or bad education. It is not here a mere matter of choosing +between one right and one wrong way; there are many degrees.</p> + +<p><i>Now</i> is an adverb; <i>in the house</i> is usually an adverbial +phrase; <i>if I know it</i> is an adverbial clause. Logic and grammar +never prohibit the separating of any such expressions from the rest of +their sentence—by two commas if they stand in the middle of it, by +one if they begin or end it. But use of the commas tends, especially +with a single word, but also with a phrase or clause, though in inverse +proportion to its length, to modify the meaning. <i>I cannot do it +now</i> means no more than it says: <i>I cannot do it, now</i> conveys +a further assurance that the speaker would have been delighted to do<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span> +it yesterday or will be quite willing tomorrow. This distinction, +generally recognized with the single word, applies also to clauses; and +writers of judgement should take the fullest freedom in such matters, +allowing no superstition about ‘subordinate clauses’ to force upon them +commas that they feel to be needless, but inclining always when in +doubt to spare readers the jerkiness of overstopping. It is a question +for rhetoric alone, not for logic, so long as the proper allowance +of commas, if any, is given; what the proper allowance is, has been +explained a few lines back. We need not waste time on exemplifying this +simple principle; there is so far no real laxity; the writer is simply +free.</p> + +<p>Laxity comes in when we choose, guided by nothing more authoritative +than euphony, to stop an adverbial phrase or adverbial clause, but +not to stop it at both ends, though it stands in the middle of its +sentence. This is an unmistakable offence against logic, and lays one +open to the condemnation of examiners and precisians. But the point we +wish to make is that in a very large class of sentences the injury to +meaning is so infinitesimal, and the benefit to sound so considerable, +that we do well to offend. The class is so large that only one example +need be given:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But with their triumph over the revolt, Cranmer and his colleagues +advanced yet more boldly.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The adverbial phrase is <i>with their triumph over the revolt</i>. +<i>But</i> does not belong to it, but to the whole sentence. The writer +has no defence whatever as against the logician; nevertheless, his +reader will be grateful to him. The familiar intrusion of a comma after +initial <i>And</i> and <i>For</i> where there is no intervening clause +to justify it, of which we gave examples when we spoke of overstopping, +comes probably by false analogy from the unpleasant pause that rigid +punctuation has made common in sentences of this type.</p> + +<p>Laxity once introduced, however, has to be carefully kept within +bounds. It may be first laid down absolutely that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span> when an adverbial +clause is to be stopped, but incompletely stopped, the omitted stop +must always be the one at the beginning, and never the one at the end. +Transgression of this is quite intolerable; we shall give several +instances at the end of the section to impress the fact. But it is also +true that even the omission of the beginning comma looks more and more +slovenly the further we get from the type of our above cited sentence. +The quotations immediately following are arranged from the less to the +more slovenly.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>His health gave way, and <i>at the age of fifty-six</i>, he died +prematurely in harness at Quetta.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>If mankind was in the condition of believing nothing, and <i>without +a bias in any particular direction</i>, was merely on the +look-out for some legitimate creed, it would not, I conceive, be +possible....—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> + +<p>The party <i>then</i>, consisted of a man and his wife, of his +mother-in-law and his sister.—<span class="smcap">F. M. Crawford.</span></p> + +<p>These men <i>in their honorary capacity</i>, already have sufficient +work to perform.—<i>Guernsey Evening Press.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It will be observed that in the sentence from Mr. Balfour the chief +objection to omitting the comma between <i>and</i> and <i>without</i> +is that we are taken off on a false scent, it being natural at first to +suppose that we are to supply <i>was</i> again; this can only happen +when we are in the middle of a sentence, and not at the beginning as in +the pattern Cranmer sentence.</p> + +<p>The gross negligence or ignorance betrayed by giving the first and +omitting the second comma will be convincingly shown by this array of +sentences from authors of all degrees.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is not strange that the sentiment of loyalty should, <i>from the +day of his accession</i> have begun to revive.—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> + +<p>Was it possible that having loved she should not so rejoice, +or that, <i>rejoicing</i> she should not be proud of her +love?—<span class="smcap">Trollope.</span></p> + +<p>I venture to suggest that, <i>had Lord Hugh himself been better +informed in the matter</i> he would scarcely have placed +himself....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The necessary consequence being that the law, <i>to uphold the +restraints of which such unusual devices are employed</i> is in +practice destitute of the customary sanctions.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The view held ... is that, <i>owing to the constant absence of the +Commander-in-Chief on tour</i> it is necessary that....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span></p> + +<p>The master of the house, to whom, <i>as in duty bound</i> I +communicated my intention....—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>After this victory, Hunyadi, <i>with his army</i> entered Belgrade, to +the great joy of the Magyars.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>M. Kossuth declares that, <i>until the King calls on the +majority to take office with its own programme</i> chaos will +prevail.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>A love-affair, <i>to be conducted with spirit and +enterprise</i> should always bristle with opposition and +difficulty.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>And that she should force me, <i>by the magic of her pen</i> to +mentally acknowledge ..., albeit with wrath and shame, my own +inferiority!—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>She is a hard-working woman dependant on her literary success for a +livelihood, and you, <i>rolling in wealth</i> do your best to deprive +her of the means of existence.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>Although three trainings of the local militia have been conducted +under the new regime, Alderney, <i>despite the fact that it is +a portion of the same military command</i> has not as yet been +affected.—<i>Guernsey Evening Press.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>5. Parenthesis.</p> + +<p>In one sense, everything that is adverbial is parenthetic: it can be +inserted or removed, that is, without damaging the grammar, though not +always without damaging the meaning, of the sentence. But the adverbial +parenthesis, when once inserted, forms a part of the sentence; we have +sufficiently dealt with the stops it requires in the last section; the +use of commas emphasizes its parenthetic character, and is therefore +sometimes desirable, sometimes not; no more need be said about it.</p> + +<p>Another kind of parenthesis is that whose meaning practically governs +the sentence in the middle of which it is nevertheless inserted as an +alien element that does not coalesce in grammar with the rest. The +type is—But, you will say, Caesar is not an aristocrat. This kind is +important for our purpose because of the muddles often made, chiefly by +careless punctuation, between the real parenthesis and words that give +the same meaning, but are not, like it, grammatically separable. We +shall start with an indisputable example of this muddle:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Where, do you imagine, she would lay it?—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span></p> + +<p>These commas cannot possibly indicate anything but parenthesis; but, if +the comma’d words were really a parenthesis, we ought to have <i>would +she</i> instead of <i>she would</i>. The four sentences that now follow +are all of one pattern. The bad stopping is probably due to this same +confusion between the parenthetic and the non-parenthetic. But it +is possible that in each the two commas are independent, the first +being one of those that are half rhetorical and half caused by false +analogy, which have been mentioned as common after initial <i>And</i> +and <i>For</i>; and the second being the comma wrongly used, as we have +maintained, before substantival <i>that</i>-clauses.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Whence, it would appear, that he considers that all deliverances of +consciousness are original judgments.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> + +<p>Hence, he reflected, that if he could but use his literary +instinct to feed some commercial undertaking, he might gain a +considerable....—<span class="smcap">Hutton.</span></p> + +<p>But, depend upon it, that no Eastern difficulty needs our intervention +so seriously as....—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p>And yet, it has been often said, that the party issues were hopelessly +confused.—<span class="smcap">L. Stephen.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>A less familiar form of this mistake, and one not likely to occur +except in good writers, since inferior ones seldom attempt the +construction that leads to it, is sometimes found when a subordinating +conjunction is placed late in its clause, after the object or +other member. In the Thackeray sentence, it will be observed that +the first comma would be right (1) if <i>them</i> had stood after +<i>discovered</i> instead of where it does, (2) if <i>them</i> had been +omitted, and <i>any</i> had served as the common object to both verbs.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And to things of great dimensions, if we annex an adventitious idea of +terror, they become without comparison greater.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> + +<p>Any of which peccadilloes, if Miss Sharp discovered, she did not tell +them to Lady Crawley.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>6. The misplaced comma.</p> + +<p>Some authors would seem to have an occasional feeling that here or +hereabouts is the place for a comma, just as in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span> handwriting some +persons are well content if they get a dot in somewhere within +measurable distance of its <i>i</i>. The dot is generally over the +right word at any rate, and the comma is seldom more than one word off +its true place.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>All true science begins with empiricism—though all true science is +such exactly, in so far as it strives to pass out of the empirical +stage.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Exactly</i> qualifies and belongs to <i>in so far</i>, &c., not +<i>such</i>. The comma should be before it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>This, they for the most part, throw away as +worthless.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>For the most part</i>, alone, is the adverbial parenthesis.</p> + +<p>But this fault occurs, perhaps nine times out of ten, in combination +with the <i>that</i>-clause comma so often mentioned. It may be said, +when our instances have been looked into, that in each of them, +apart from the <i>that</i>-clause comma, which is recognized by many +authorities, there is merely the licence that we have ourselves +allowed, omission of the first, without omission of the last, comma of +an adverbial parenthesis. But we must point out that Huxley, Green, and +Mr. Balfour, man of science, historian, and philosopher, all belong +to that dignified class of writers which is supposed to, and in most +respects does, insist on full logical stopping; they, in view of their +general practice, are not entitled to our slovenly and merely literary +licences.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And the second is, that for the purpose of attaining culture, +an exclusively scientific education is at least as effectual +as....—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p>But the full discussion which followed over the various claims showed, +that while exacting to the full what he believed to be his right, +Edward desired to do justice to the country.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> + +<p>The one difference between these gilds in country and town was, that +in the latter case, from their close local neighbourhood, they tended +to coalesce.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> + +<p>It follows directly from this definition, that however restricted the +range of possible knowledge may be, philosophy can never be excluded +from it.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> + +<p>But the difficulty here, as it seems to me, is, that if you start from +your idea of evolution, these assumptions are....—<span class="smcap">Balfour.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span></span></p> + +<p>He begged me to give over all unlawful pursuits, saying, +that if persisted in, they were sure of bringing a person to +destruction.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>7. Enumeration.</p> + +<p>This name, liberally interpreted, is meant to include several more +or less distinct questions. They are difficult, and much debated by +authorities on punctuation, but are of no great importance. We shall +take the liberty of partly leaving them undecided, and partly giving +arbitrary opinions; to argue them out would take more space than it is +worth while to give. But it <i>is</i> worth while to draw attention to +them, so that each writer may be aware that they exist, and at least be +consistent with himself. Typical sentences (from Beadnell) are:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>a.</i> Industry, honesty, and temperance, are essential to +happiness.—B.</p> + +<p><i>b.</i> Let us freely drink in the soul of love and beauty and +wisdom, from all nature and art and history.—B.</p> + +<p><i>c.</i> Plain honest truth wants no colouring.—B.</p> + +<p><i>d.</i> Many states are in alliance with, and under the protection +of France.—B.</p> +</div> + +<p>Common variants for (<i>a</i>) are (1) Industry, honesty and temperance +are essential ... (2) Industry, honesty and temperance, are essential +... (3) Industry, honesty, and temperance are essential.... We +unhesitatingly recommend the original and fully stopped form, which +should be used irrespective of style, and not be interfered with by +rhetorical considerations; it is the only one to which there is never +any objection. Of the examples that follow, the first conforms to the +correct type, but no serious harm would be done if it did not. The +second also conforms; and, if this had followed variant (1) or (2), +here indistinguishable, we should have been in danger of supposing that +Education and Police were one department instead of two. The third, +having no comma after <i>interests</i>, follows variant (3), and, as +it happens, with no bad effect on the meaning. All three variants, +however, may under different conditions produce ambiguity or worse.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But those that remain, the women, the youths, the children, and the +elders, work all the harder.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Japanese advisers are now attached to the departments of the +Household, War, Finance, Education, and Police.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>An American, whose patience, tact, and ability in +reconciling conflicting interests have won the praise of all +nationalities.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Sometimes enumerations are arranged in pairs; it is then most +unpleasant to have the comma after the last pair omitted, as in:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The orange and the lemon, the olive and the walnut elbow each other +for a footing in the fat dark earth.—<span class="smcap">F. M. Crawford.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>There is a bastard form of enumeration against which warning is +seriously needed. It is viewed as, but is not really, a legitimate case +of type (<i>a</i>); and a quite unnecessary objection to the repetition +of <i>and</i> no doubt supplies the motive. Examples are:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He kept manœuvring upon Neipperg, who counter-manœuvred +with vigilance, good judgment, and would not come to +action.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> + +<p>Moltke had recruited, trained, and knew by heart all the men under +him.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Hence loss of time, of money, and sore trial of patience.—<span class="smcap">R. G. +White.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The principle is this: in an enumeration given by means of a comma +or commas, the last comma being replaced by or combined with +<i>and</i>—our type (<i>a</i>), that is—, there must not be anything +that is common to two members (as here, <i>counter-manœuvred with</i>, +<i>had</i>, <i>loss</i>) without being common to all. We may say, +Moltke had recruited and trained and knew, Moltke had recruited, had +trained, and knew, or, Moltke had recruited, trained, and known; but we +must not say what the <i>Times</i> says. The third sentence may run, +Loss of time and money, and sore trial, or, Loss of time, of money, and +of patience; but not as it does.</p> + +<p>So much for type (<i>a</i>). Type (<i>b</i>) can be very shortly +disposed of. It differs in that the conjunction (<i>and</i>, +<i>or</i>, <i>nor</i>, &c.) is expressed every time, instead of being +represented except in the last place by a comma. It is logically +quite<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span> unnecessary, but rhetorically quite allowable, to use commas +as well as conjunctions. The only caution needed is that, if commas +are used at all, and if the enumeration does not end the sentence, and +is not concluded by a stronger stop, a comma must be inserted after +the last member as well as after the others. In the type sentence, +which contains two enumerations, it would be legitimate to use commas +as well as <i>and</i>s with one set and not with the other, if it +were desired either to avoid monotony or to give one list special +emphasis. The three examples now to be added transgress the rule about +the final comma. We arrange them from bad to worse; in the last of +them, the apparently needless though not necessarily wrong comma after +<i>fall</i> suggests that the writer has really felt a comma to be +wanting to the enumeration, but has taken a bad shot with it, as in the +examples of section 6 on the misplaced comma.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Neither the Court, nor society, nor Parliament, nor the older +men in the Army have yet recognized the fundamental truth +that....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>A subordinate whose past conduct in the post he fills, and whose known +political sympathies make him wholly unfitted, however loyal his +intentions may be, to give that....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>But there are uninstructed ears on whom the constant abuse, and +imputation of low motives may fall, with a mischievous and misleading +effect.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Of type (<i>c</i>) the characteristic is that we have two or more +adjectives attached to a following noun; are there to be commas between +the adjectives, or not? The rule usually given is that there should be, +unless the last adjective is more intimately connected with the noun, +so that the earlier one qualifies, not the noun, but the last adjective +and the noun together; it will be noticed that we strictly have no +enumeration then at all. This is sometimes useful; and so is the more +practical and less theoretic direction to ask whether <i>and</i> +could be inserted, and if so use the comma, but not otherwise. These +both sound sufficient in the abstract. But that there are doubts left +in practice is shown by the type sentence,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span> which Beadnell gives +as correct, though either test would rather require the comma. He +gives also as correct, Can flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of +death?—which is not very clearly distinguishable from the other. Our +advice is to use these tests when in doubt, but with a leaning to the +omission of the comma. If it happens that a comma of this particular +class is the only stop in a sentence, it has a false appearance of +dividing the sentence into two parts that is very unpleasant, and may +make the reader go through it twice to make sure that all is right—an +inconvenience that should by all means be spared him.</p> + +<p>Type (<i>d</i>) is one in which the final word or phrase of a sentence +has two previous expressions standing in the same grammatical relation +to it, but their ending with different prepositions, or the fact +that one is to be substituted for the other, or the length of the +expressions, or some other cause, obscures this identity of relation. +Add to the type sentence the following:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>His eloquence was the main, one might almost say the sole, source of +his influence.—<span class="smcap">Bryce.</span></p> + +<p>To dazzle people more, he learned or pretended to learn, the Spanish +language.—<span class="smcap">Bagehot.</span></p> + +<p>... apart from philosophical and sometimes from theological, +theories.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The rules we lay down are: (1) If possible use no stops at all. (2) +Never use the second comma and omit the first. (3) Even when the first +is necessary, the second may often be dispensed with. (4) Both commas +may be necessary if the phrases are long.</p> + +<p>We should correct all the examples, including the type: the type under +rule (1); the Bryce (which is strictly correct) under rule (3); the +Bagehot under rules (2) and (1); and the Balfour under rules (2) and +(3); the list two are clearly wrong. The four would then stand as +follows:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span></p><div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Many states are in alliance with and under the protection of France.</p> + +<p>His eloquence was the main, one might almost say the sole source of +his influence.</p> + +<p>To dazzle people more, he learned or pretended to learn the Spanish +language.</p> + +<p>... apart from philosophical, and sometimes from theological theories.</p> +</div> + +<p>Learners will be inclined to say: all this is very indefinite; do +give us a clear rule that will apply to all cases. Such was the view +with which, on a matter of even greater importance than punctuation, +Procrustes identified himself; but it brought him to a bad end. The +clear rule, Use all logical commas, would give us:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He was born, in, or near, London, on December 24th, 1900.</p> +</div> + +<p>No one would write this who was not suffering from bad hypertrophy of +the grammatical conscience. The clear rule, Use no commas in this sort +of enumeration, would give:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>If I have the queer ways you accuse me of, that is because but I +should have thought a man of your perspicacity might have been +expected to see that it was also why I live in a hermitage all by +myself.</p> +</div> + +<p>No one would write this without both commas (after <i>because</i> and +<i>why</i>) who was not deeply committed to an anti-comma crusade. +Between the two extremes lie cases calling for various treatment; the +ruling principle should be freedom within certain limits.</p> + +<p>8. The comma between independent sentences.</p> + +<p>Among the signs that more particularly betray the uneducated writer is +inability to see when a comma is not a sufficient stop. Unfortunately +little more can be done than to warn beginners that any serious slip +here is much worse than they will probably suppose, and recommend them +to observe the practice of good writers.</p> + +<p>It is roughly true that grammatically independent sentences should be +parted by at least a semicolon; but in the first place there are very +large exceptions to this; and secondly, the writer who really knows a +grammatically independent sentence when he sees it is hardly in need of +instruction;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span> this must be our excuse for entering here into what may +be thought too elementary an explanation. Let us take the second point +first; it may be of some assistance to remark that a sentence joined +to the previous one by a coordinating conjunction is grammatically +independent, as well as one not joined to it at all. But the difference +between a coordinating and a subordinating conjunction is itself in +English rather fine. Every one can see that ‘I will not try; it is +dangerous’ is two independent sentences—independent in grammar, +though not in thought. But it is a harder saying that ‘I will not try, +for it is dangerous’ is also two sentences, while ‘I will not try, +because it is dangerous’ is one only. The reason is that <i>for</i> +coordinates, and <i>because</i> subordinates; instead of giving lists, +which would probably be incomplete, of the two kinds of conjunction, +we mention that a subordinating conjunction may be known from the +other kind by its being possible to place it and its clause before +the previous sentence instead of after, without destroying the sense: +we can say ‘Because it is dangerous, I will not try’, but not ‘For it +is dangerous, I will not try’. This test cannot always be applied in +complicated sentences; simple ones must be constructed for testing the +conjunction in question.</p> + +<p>Assuming that it is now understood (1) what a subordinating and what +a coordinating conjunction is, (2) that a member joined on by no +more than a coordinating conjunction is a grammatically independent +sentence, or simply a sentence in the proper meaning of the word, +and not a subordinate clause, we return to the first point. This was +that, though independent sentences are regularly parted by at least +a semicolon, there are large exceptions to the rule. These we shall +only be able to indicate very loosely. There are three conditions +that may favour the reduction of the semicolon to a comma: (1) Those +coordinating conjunctions which are most common tend in the order of +their commonness to be humble, and to recognize a comma as sufficient +for their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span> dignity. The order may perhaps be given as: <i>and</i>, +<i>or</i>, <i>but</i>, <i>so</i>, <i>nor</i>, <i>for</i>; conjunctions +less common than these should scarcely ever be used with less than +a semicolon; and many good writers would refuse to put a mere comma +before <i>for</i>. (2) Shortness and lightness of the sentence joined +on helps to lessen the need for a heavy stop. (3) Intimate connexion +in thought with the preceding sentence has the same effect. Before +giving our examples, which are all of undesirable commas, we point +out that in the first two there are independent signs of the writers’ +being uneducated; and such signs will often be discoverable. It will +be clear from what we have said why the others are bad—except perhaps +the third; it is particularly disagreeable to have two successive +independent sentences tagged on with commas, as those beginning with +<i>nor</i> and <i>for</i> are in that example.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>No peace at night he enjoys, <i>for</i> he lays awake.—<i>Guernsey +Advertiser.</i></p> + +<p>Now accepted, nominal Christendom believes this, and strives to +attain unto it, <i>then</i> why the inconsistency of creed and +deed?—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>But who is responsible to Government for the efficiency of the +Army? The Commander-in-Chief and no one else, <i>nor</i> has anyone +questioned the fact, <i>for</i> it is patent.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>But even on this theory the formula above stated holds good, +<i>for</i> such systems, so far from being self-contained +(as it were) and sufficient evidence for themselves, are +really....—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> + +<p>Some banks on the Nevsky Prospect are having iron shutters fitted, +<i>otherwise</i> there is nothing apparently to justify General +Trepoff’s proclamation.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Everybody knows where his own shoe pinches, and, if people find +drawbacks in the places they inhabit, they must also find advantages, +<i>otherwise</i> they would not be there.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>We have suffered many things at the hands of the Russian Navy during +the war, <i>nevertheless</i> the news that Admiral Rozhdestvensky ... +will send a thrill of admiration....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I think that on the whole we may be thankful for the architectural +merits of the Gaiety block, it has breadth and dignity of design and +groups well on the angular site.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It will not be irrelevant to add here, though the point has been +touched upon in Understopping, that though a light<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span> <i>and</i>-clause +may be introduced by no more than a comma, it does not follow that it +need not be separated by any stop at all, as in:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>When the Motor Cars Act was before the House it was suggested that +these authorities should be given the right to make recommendations to +the central authorities and that right was conceded.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>9. The semicolon between subordinate members.</p> + +<p>Just as the tiro will be safer if he avoids commas before independent +sentences, so he will generally be wise not to use a semicolon before +a mere subordinate member. We have explained, indeed, that it is +sometimes quite legitimate for rhetorical reasons, and is under certain +circumstances almost required by proportion. This is when the sentence +contains commas doing less important work than the one about which the +question arises. But the tiro’s true way out of the difficulty is to +simplify his sentences so that they do not need such differentiation. +Even skilful writers, as the following two quotations will show, +sometimes come to grief over this.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>One view called me to another; one hill to its fellow, half across +the county, and since I could answer at no more trouble than +the snapping forward of a lever, I let the county flow under my +wheels.—<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span></p> + +<p>Nay, do not the elements of all human virtues and all human vices; +the passions at once of a Borgia and of a Luther, lie written, in +stronger or fainter lines, in the consciousness of every individual +bosom?—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In the first of these the second comma and the semicolon clearly ought +to change places. In the second it looks as if Carlyle had thought +it dull to have so many commas about; but the remedy was much worse +than dullness. Avoidance of what a correspondent supposes to be dull, +but what would in fact be natural and right, accounts also for the +following piece of vicarious rhetoric; the writer is not nearly so +excited, it may be suspected, as his semicolons would make him out. +The ordinary sensible man would have (1) used commas, and (2) either +omitted the third and fourth <i>denies</i> (reminding us<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span> of Zola’s +famous <i>j’accuse</i>, not vicarious, and on an adequate occasion), or +else inserted an <i>and</i> before the last repetition.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Mr. Loomis denies all three categorically. He denies that the +Asphalt Company paid him £2,000 or any other sum; denies that he +purchased a claim against the Venezuelan Government and then used his +influence when Minister at Caracas to collect the claim; denies that +he agreed with Mr. Meyers or anybody else to use his influence for +money.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>10. The exclamation mark when there is no exclamation.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>My friend! this conduct amazes me!—B.</p> +</div> + +<p>We must differ altogether from Beadnell’s rule that ‘This point is +used to denote any sudden emotion of the mind, whether of joy, grief, +surprise, fear, or any other sensation’—at least as it is exemplified +in his first instance, given above. The exclamation mark after +<i>friend</i> is justifiable, not the other. The stop should be used, +with one exception, only after real exclamations. Real exclamations +include (1) the words recognized as interjections, as <i>alas</i>, +(2) fragmentary expressions that are not complete sentences, as <i>My +friend</i> in the example, and (3) complete statements that contain an +exclamatory word, as:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>What a piece of work is man!—B.</p> +</div> + +<p>The exception mentioned above is this: when the writer wishes to +express his own incredulity or other feeling about what is not his own +statement, but practically a quotation from some one else, he is at +liberty to do it with a mark of exclamation; in the following example, +the epitaph-writer expresses either his wonder or his incredulity about +what Fame says.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Entomb’d within this vault a lawyer lies</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who, Fame assureth us, was just and wise!—B.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>The exclamation mark is a neat and concise sneer at the legal +profession.</p> + +<p>Outside these narrow limits the exclamation mark must not be used. We +shall quote a very instructive saying of Landor’s: ‘I read warily; +and whenever I find the writings<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span> of a lady, the first thing I do +is to cast my eye along her pages, to see whether I am likely to be +annoyed by the traps and spring-guns of interjections; and if I happen +to espy them I do not leap the paling’. To this we add that when the +exclamation mark is used after mere statements it deserves the name, +by which it is sometimes called, mark of admiration; we feel that the +writer is indeed lost in admiration of his own wit or impressiveness. +But this use is mainly confined to lower-class authors; when a grave +historian stoops to it, he gives us quite a different sort of shock +from what he designed.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The unfortunate commander was in the situation of some bold, +high-mettled cavalier, rushing to battle on a warhorse whose tottering +joints threaten to give way at every step, and leave his rider to the +mercy of his enemies!—<span class="smcap">Prescott.</span></p> + +<p>The road now struck into the heart of a mountain region, where +woods, precipices, and ravines were mingled together in a sort of +chaotic confusion, with here and there a green and sheltered valley, +glittering like an island of verdure amidst the wild breakers of a +troubled ocean!—<span class="smcap">Prescott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>11. Confusion between question and exclamation.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Fortunate man!—who would not envy you! Love!—who would, who could +exist without it—save me!—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>What wonder that the most docile of Russians should be crying out ‘how +long’!—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>We have started with three indisputable instances of the exclamation +mark used for the question mark. It is worth notice that the correct +stopping for the end of the second quotation (though such accuracy +is seldom attempted) would be:—long?’? To have fused two questions +into an exclamation is an achievement. But these are mere indefensible +blunders, not needing to be thought twice about, such as author and +compositor incline to put off each on the other’s shoulders.</p> + +<p>The case is not always so clear. In the six sentences lettered for +reference, <i>a</i>-<i>d</i> have the wrong stop; in <i>e</i> the +stop implied by <i>he exclaims</i> is also wrong; in <i>f</i>, though +the stop is right assuming that the form of the sentence is what was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span> +really meant, we venture to question this point, as we do also in +some of the earlier sentences. Any one who agrees with the details of +this summary can save himself the trouble of reading the subsequent +discussion.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>a.</i> In that interval what had I not lost!—<span class="smcap">Lamb.</span></p> + +<p><i>b.</i> And what will not the discontinuance cost +me!—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> + +<p><i>c.</i> A streak of blue below the hanging alders is certainly a +characteristic introduction to the kingfisher. How many people first +see him so?—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><i>d.</i> Does the reading of history make us fatalists? What courage +does not the opposite opinion show!—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p><i>e.</i> What economy of life and money, he exclaims, would not have +been spared the empire of the Tsars had it not rendered war certain by +devoting itself so largely to the works of peace.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><i>f.</i> How many, who think no otherwise than the +young painter, have we not heard disbursing secondhand +hyperboles?—<span class="smcap">Stevenson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>It will be noticed that in all these sentences except <i>c</i> there is +a negative, which puts them, except <i>f</i>, wrong; while in <i>c</i> +it is the absence of the negative that makes the question wrong. It +will be simplest to start with <i>c</i>. The writer clearly means to +let us know that many people see the kingfisher first as a blue streak. +He might give this simply so, as a statement. He might (artificially) +give it as an exclamation—<i>How many first see him so!</i> Or he +might (very artificially) give it as a question—<i>How many do not +first see him so?</i>—a ‘rhetorical question’ in which <i>How many</i> +interrogative is understood to be equivalent to <i>Few</i> positive. He +has rejected the simple statement; vaulting ambition has o’erleapt, and +he has ended in a confusion between the two artificial ways of saying +the thing, taking the words of the possible exclamation and the stop of +the possible question. In <i>a</i>, <i>b</i>, <i>d</i>, and implicitly +in <i>e</i>, we have the converse arrangement, or derangement. But as +a little more clear thinking is required for them, we point out that +the origin of the confusion (though the careless printing of fifty +or a hundred years ago no doubt helped to establish it) lies in the +identity between the words used for questions and for exclamations. It +will be enough to suggest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span> the process that accounts for <i>a</i>; the +ambiguity is easily got rid of by inserting a noun with <i>what</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Question</i>: What amount had I lost?</p> + +<p><i>Exclamation</i>: What an amount I had lost!</p> +</div> + +<p>That is the first stage; the resemblance is next increased by inverting +subject and verb in the exclamation, which is both natural enough +in that kind of sentence, and particularly easy after <i>In that +interval</i>. So we get</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Question</i>: In that interval, what (amount) had I lost?</p> + +<p><i>Exclamation</i>: In that interval, what (an amount) had I lost!</p> +</div> + +<p>The words, when the bracketed part of each sentence is left out, are +now the same; but the question is of course incapable of giving the +required meaning. The writer, seeing this, but deceived by the order +of words into thinking the exclamation a question, tries to mend it by +inserting <i>not</i>; <i>what ... not</i>, in rhetorical questions, +being equivalent to <i>everything</i>. At this stage some writers +stick, as Stevenson in <i>f</i>. Others try to make a right out of two +wrongs by restoring to the quondam exclamation, which has been wrongly +converted with the help of <i>not</i> into a question, the exclamation +mark to which it has after conversion no right. Such is the genesis +of <i>a</i>, <i>b</i>, <i>d</i>. The proper method, when the simple +statement is rejected, as it often reasonably may be, is to use the +exclamation, not the Stevensonian question<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a>, to give the exclamation +its right mark, and not to insert the illogical negative.</p> + +<p>12. Internal question and exclamation marks.</p> + +<p>By this name we do not mean that insertion of a bracketed stop of which +we shall nevertheless give one example. That is indeed a confession of +weakness and infallible sign of the prentice hand, and further examples +will be found in <i>Airs and Graces</i>, <i>miscellaneous</i>; but it +is outside grammar, with which these sections are concerned.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Under these circumstances, it would be interesting to ascertain +the exact position of landlords whose tenants decline to pay rent, +and whose only asset (!) from their property is the income-tax now +claimed.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>What is meant is the ugly stop in the middle of a sentence, unbracketed +and undefended by quotation marks, of which examples follow. To +novelists, as in the first example, it may be necessary for the purpose +of avoiding the nuisance of perpetual quotation marks. But elsewhere +it should be got rid of by use of the indirect question or otherwise. +Excessive indulgence in direct questions or exclamations where there +is no need for them whatever is one of the sensational tendencies of +modern newspapers.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Why be scheming? Victor asked.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>What will Japan do? is thought the most pressing question of +all.—<i>Times.</i> (What Japan will do is thought, &c.)</p> + +<p>What next? is the next question which the American Press +discusses.—<i>Times.</i> (‘What next?’ is, &c. Or, What will come +next is, &c.)</p> +</div> + +<p>Amusing efforts are shown below at escaping the ugliness of the +internal question mark. Observe that the third quotation has a worse +blunder, since we have here two independent sentences.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Can it be that the Government will still persist in continuing the now +hopeless struggle is the question on every lip?—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Men are disenchanted. They have got what they wanted in the days of +their youth, yet what of it, they ask?—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>Yet we remember seeing l’Abbé Constantin some sixteen years ago or +more at the Royalty, with that fine old actor Lafontaine in the +principal part, and seeing it with lively interest. Was it distinctly +‘dates’, for nothing wears so badly as the namby-pamby?—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>13. The unaccountable comma.</p> + +<p>We shall now conclude these grammatical sections with a single example +of those commas about which it is only possible to say that they are +repugnant to grammar. It is as difficult to decide what principle they +offend against as what impulse can possibly have dictated them. They +are commonest in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span> the least educated writers of all; and, next to +these, in the men of science whose overpowering conscientiousness has +made the mechanical putting in of commas so habitual that it perhaps +becomes with them a sort of reflex action, and does itself at wrong +moments without their volition.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The Rector, lineal representative of the ancient monarchs of the +University, though now, little more than a ‘king of shreds and +patches.’—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Colon</span></h3> + +<p>It was said in the general remarks at the beginning of this chapter +that the systematic use of the colon as one of the series (,), (;), +(:), (.), had died out with the decay of formal periods. Many people +continue to use it, but few, if we can trust our observation, with any +nice regard to its value. Some think it a prettier or more impressive +stop than the semicolon, and use it instead of that; some like variety, +and use the two indifferently, or resort to one when they are tired +of the other. As the abandonment of periodic arrangement really makes +the colon useless, it would be well (though of course any one who +still writes in formal periods should retain his rights over it) if +ordinary writers would give it up altogether except in the special +uses, independent of its quantitative value, to which it is being more +and more applied by common consent. These are (1) between two sentences +that are in clear antithesis, but not connected by an adversative +conjunction; (2) introducing a short quotation; (3) introducing a +list; (4) introducing a sentence that comes as fulfilment of a promise +expressed or implied in the previous sentence; (5) introducing an +explanation or proof that is not connected with the previous sentence +by <i>for</i> or the like. Examples are:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>(1) Man proposes: God disposes.</p> + +<p>(2) Always remember the ancient maxim: Know thyself.—B.</p> + +<p>(3) Chief rivers: Thames, Severn, Humber....</p> + +<p>(4) Some things we can, and others we cannot do: we can walk, but we +cannot fly.—<span class="smcap">Bigelow.</span></p> + +<p>(5) Rebuke thy son in private: public rebuke hardens the heart.—B.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span></p> + +<p>In the following clear case of antithesis a colon would have been more +according to modern usage than the semicolon.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>As apart from our requirements Mr. Arnold-Forster’s schemes have many +merits; in relation to them they have very few.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It now only remains, before leaving actual stops for the dash, hyphen, +quotation mark, and bracket, to comment on a few stray cases of +ambiguity, false scent, and ill-judged stopping. We have not hunted +up, and shall not manufacture, any of the patent absurdities that +are amusing but unprofitable. The sort of ambiguity that most needs +guarding against is that which allows a sleepy reader to take the words +wrong when the omission or insertion of a stop would have saved him.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The chief agitators of the League, who have—not unnaturally +considering the favours showered upon them in the past—a high sense +of their own importance....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>With no comma after <i>unnaturally</i> the first thought is that the +agitators not unnaturally consider; second thoughts put it right; but +second thoughts should never be expected from a reader.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Simultaneously extensive reclamation of land and harbour improvements +are in progress at Chemulpo and Fusan.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>With no comma after the first word, the sleepy reader is set wondering +what <i>simultaneously extensive</i> means, and whether it is +journalese for <i>equally extensive</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But Anne and I did, for we had played there all our lives—at +least, all the years we had spent together and the rest do not +count in the story. When Anne and I came together we began to +live.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>A comma after <i>together</i> would save us from adding the two sets +of years to each other. In the next piece, on the other hand, the +uncomfortable comma after <i>gold</i> is apparently meant to warn us +quite unnecessarily that <i>here and there</i> belongs to the verb.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Flecks of straw-coloured gold, here and there lay upon it, where the +sunshine touched the bent of last year.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span></span></p> + +<p>After that, having once fallen off from their course, they at length +succeeded in crossing the Aegean, and beating up in the teeth of the +Etesian winds, only yesterday, seventy days out from Egypt, put in at +the Piraeus.—<span class="smcap">S. T. Irwin.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The omission of the comma between <i>and</i> and <i>beating</i> would +ordinarily be quite legitimate. Here, it puts us off on a false scent, +because it allows <i>beating</i> to seem parallel with <i>crossing</i> +and object to <i>succeeded in</i>; we have to go back again when we get +to the end, and work it out.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The French demurring to the conditions which the English commander +offered, again commenced the action.—B.</p> +</div> + +<p>The want of a comma between <i>French</i> and <i>demurring</i> makes us +assume an absolute construction and expect another subject, of which we +are disappointed.</p> + +<p>The next two pairs of examples illustrate the effect of mere accidental +position on stopping. This is one of the numberless small disturbing +elements that make cast-iron rules impossible in punctuation.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I must leave you to discover what the answer is.</p> + +<p>What the answer is, I must leave you to discover.</p> +</div> + +<p>That is, a substantival clause out of its place is generally allowed +the comma that all but the straitest sect of punctuators would refuse +it in its place.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In the present dispute, therefore, the local politicians have had to +choose between defence of the principle of authority and espousing the +cause of the local police.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Of its forty-four commissioners however few actually took any part +in its proceedings; and the powers of the Commission....—<span class="smcap">J. R. +Green.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The half adverbs half conjunctions of which <i>therefore</i> and +<i>however</i> are instances occupy usually the second place in the +sentence. When there, it is of little importance whether they are +stopped or not, though we have indicated our preference for no stops. +But when it happens that they come later (or earlier), the commas are +generally wanted. <i>Therefore</i> in the first of these sentences +would be as uncomfortable if stripped as <i>however</i> actually is in +the second.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span></p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Dashes</span></h3> + +<p>Moved beyond his wont by our English ill-treatment of the dash, +Beadnell permits himself a wail as just as it is pathetic.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>‘The dash is frequently employed in a very capricious and arbitrary +manner, as a substitute for all sorts of points, by writers whose +thoughts, although, it may be, sometimes striking and profound, are +thrown together without order or dependence; also by some others, who +think that they thereby give prominence and emphasis to expressions +which in themselves are very commonplace, and would, without this +fictitious assistance, escape the observation of the reader, or be +deemed by him hardly worthy of notice.’</p> +</div> + +<p>It is all only too true; these are the realms of Chaos, and the lord +of them is Sterne, from whom modern writers of the purely literary +kind have so many of their characteristics. Wishing for an example, we +merely opened the first volume of <i>Tristram Shandy</i> at a venture, +and ‘thus the Anarch old With faltering speech and visage incomposed +Answered’:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>—Observe, I determine nothing upon this.—My way is ever to point +out to the curious, different tracts of investigation, to come at the +first springs of the events I tell;—not with a pedantic fescue,—or +in the decisive manner of Tacitus, who outwits himself and his +reader;—but with the officious humility of a heart devoted to the +assistance merely of the inquisitive;—to them I write,—and by them I +shall be read,—if any such reading as this could be supposed to hold +out so long,—to the very end of the world.—<span class="smcap">Sterne.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The modern newspaper writer who overdoes the use of dashes is seldom as +incorrect as Sterne, but is perhaps more irritating:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There are also a great number of people—many of them not in the +least tainted by militarism—who go further and who feel that a man +in order to be a complete man—that is, one capable of protecting +his life, his country, and his civil and political rights—should +acquire as a boy and youth the elements of military training,—that +is, should be given a physical training of a military character, +including....—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It must be added, however, that Beadnell himself helps to make things +worse, by countenancing the strange printer’s superstition that (,—) +is beautiful to look upon, and (—,) ugly.</p> + +<p>Under these circumstances we shall have to abandon our usual practice +of attending only to common mistakes, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span> deal with the matter a +little more systematically. We shall first catalogue, with examples, +the chief uses of the dash; next state the debatable questions that +arise; and end with the more definite misuses. It will be convenient +to number all examples for reference; and, as many or most of the +quotations contain some minor violation of what we consider the true +principles, these will be corrected in brackets.</p> + +<p>1. Chief common uses.</p> + +<p><i>a.</i> Adding to a phrase already used an explanation, example, or +preferable substitute.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>1. Nicholas Copernicus was instructed in that seminary where it is +always happy when any one can be well taught,—the family circle.—B. +(Omit the comma)</p> + +<p>2. Anybody might be an accuser,—a personal enemy, an infamous person, +a child, parent, brother, or sister.—<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span> (Omit the comma)</p> + +<p>3. That the girls were really possessed seemed to Stoughton and his +colleagues the most rational theory,—a theory in harmony with the +rest of their creed.—<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span> (Omit the comma)</p> +</div> + +<p><i>b.</i> Inviting the reader to pause and collect his forces against +the shock of an unexpected word that is to close the sentence. It is +generally, but not always, better to abstain from this device; the +unexpected, if not drawn attention to, is often more effective because +less theatrical.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>4. To write imaginatively a man should +have—imagination.—<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>c.</i> Assuring the reader that what is coming, even if not +unexpected, is witty. Writers should be exceedingly sparing of this +use; good wine needs no bush.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>5. Misfortune in various forms had overtaken the county families, +from high farming to a taste for the junior stage, and—the +proprietors lived anywhere else except on their own proper +estates.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>d.</i> Marking arrival at the principal sentence or the predicate +after a subordinate clause or a subject that is long or compound.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>6. As soon as the queen shall come to London, and the houses of +Parliament shall be opened, and the speech from the throne be +delivered,—then will begin the great struggle of the contending +factions.—B.</p> +</div> + +<p><i>e.</i> Resuming after a parenthesis or long phrase, generally<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span> with +repetition of some previous words in danger of being forgotten.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>7. It is now idle to attempt to hide the fact that never was the +Russian lack of science, of the modern spirit, or, to speak frankly, +of intelligence—never was the absence of training or of enthusiasm +which retards the efforts of the whole Empire displayed in a more +melancholy fashion than in the Sea of Japan.—<i>Times.</i> (Add a +comma after <i>intelligence</i>)</p> +</div> + +<p><i>f.</i> Giving the air of an afterthought to a final comment that +would spoil the balance of the sentence if preceded only by an ordinary +stop. Justifiable when really wanted, that is, when it is important to +keep the comment till the end; otherwise it is slightly insulting to +the reader, implying that he was not worth working out the sentence for +before it was put down.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>8. As they parted, she insisted on his giving the most solemn +promises that he would not expose himself to danger—which was quite +unnecessary.</p> +</div> + +<p><i>g.</i> Marking a change of speakers when quotation marks and ‘he +said’, &c., are not used; or, in a single speech, a change of subject +or person addressed.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>9. Who created you?—God.—B.</p> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">10. ... And lose the name of action.—Soft you now!</div> + <div class="verse indent8">The fair Ophelia!</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p><i>h.</i> With colon or other stop before a quotation.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>11. Hear Milton:—How charming is divine Philosophy!</p> + +<p>12. What says Bacon?—Revenge is a kind of wild justice.</p> +</div> + +<p><i>i.</i> Introducing a list.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>13. The four greatest names in English literature are almost the first +we come to,—Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton.—B. (Omit the +comma before the dash)</p> +</div> + +<p><i>k.</i> Confessing an anacoluthon, or substitution of a new +construction for the one started with.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>14. Then the eye of a child,—who can look unmoved into +that well undefiled, in which heaven itself seems to be +reflected?—<span class="smcap">Bigelow.</span> (Omit the comma)</p> +</div> + +<p><i>l.</i> Breaking off a sentence altogether.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>15. Oh, how I wish—! But what is the use of wishing?</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span></p> + +<p><i>m.</i> Doubled to serve the purpose of brackets. It gives a medium +between the light comma parenthesis and the heavy bracket parenthesis. +It also has the advantage over brackets that when the parenthesis +ends only with the sentence the second dash need not be given; this +advantage, however, may involve ambiguity, as will be shown.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>16. In every well regulated community—such as that of England,—the +laws own no superior.—B. (The comma should either be omitted or +placed after instead of before the second dash).</p> +</div> + +<p>These are a dozen distinct uses of more or less value or importance, +to which others might no doubt be added; but they will suffice both to +show that the dash is a hard-worked symbol, and to base our remarks +upon.</p> + +<p>2. Debatable questions.</p> + +<p>There are several questions that must be answered before we can use +the dash with confidence. First, is the dash to supersede stops at the +place where it is inserted, or to be added to them? Secondly, what is +its relation to the stops in the part of the sentence (or group of +sentences) that follows it? Does its authority, that is, extend to the +end of the sentence or group, or where does it cease? Thirdly, assuming +that it is or can be combined with stops, what is the right order as +between the two?</p> + +<p>Beadnell’s answer to the first question is: <i>The dash does not +dispense with the use of the ordinary points at the same time, when +the grammatical construction of the sentence requires them.</i> But +inasmuch as a dash implies some sort of break, irregular pause, or +change of intention, it seems quite needless to insert the stop that +would have been used if it had not been decided that a stop was +inadequate. The dash is a confession that the stop will not do; then +let the stop go. The reader, who is the person to be considered, +generally neither knows nor cares to know how the sentence might, +with inferior effect, have been written; he only feels that the stop +is otiose, and that his author had better have been off with the old +love<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span> before he was on with the new. There are exceptions to this: +obviously in examples 9, 10, 11, 12, and 15, where the dash is at the +end or beginning of a sentence; and perhaps also in sentences of which +the reader can clearly foresee the grammatical development. In example +7, for instance, it is clear that a participle (<i>displayed</i> +or another) is due after <i>never was</i> &c.; a comma after +<i>intelligence</i> is therefore definitely expected. So in example +6 we are expecting either another continuation of <i>as soon as</i>, +or the principal sentence, before either of which a comma is looked +for. In examples 2 and 3, on the other hand, the sentence may for all +we know be complete at the place where the dash stands, so that no +expectation is disappointed by omitting the comma. The rule, then, +should be that a dash is a substitute for any internal stop, and not +an addition to it, except when, from the reader’s point of view, a +particular stop seemed inevitable.</p> + +<p>It must be admitted that that conclusion is not very certain, and also +that the matter is of no great importance, provided that the stops, +if inserted, are the right ones. More certainty is possible about +the combination of stops with the double dash, which we have not yet +considered. The probable origin of the double dash will be touched +upon when we come to the second question; but whatever its origin, +it is now simply equivalent to a pair of brackets, except that it is +slightly less conspicuous, and sometimes preferred on that account. +Consequently, the same rule about stops will apply to both, and as +there is no occasion to treat of brackets separately, it may here be +stated for both. The use of a parenthesis being to insert, without +damage to the rest of the sentence, something that is of theoretically +minor importance, it is necessary that we should be able simply to +remove the two dashes or brackets with everything enclosed by them, and +after their removal find the sentence complete and rightly punctuated. +Further, there is no reason for using inside the parenthesis any stop +that has not an internal value; that is, no stop can possibly be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span> +needed just before the second dash except an exclamation or question +mark, and none at all just after the first; but stops may be necessary +to divide up the parenthesis itself if it is compound. Three examples +follow, with the proper corrections in brackets:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>17. Garinet cites the case of a girl near Amiens possessed by three +demons,—Mimi, Zozo, and Crapoulet,—in 1816.—<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span> (Omit +both commas; the first is indeed just possible, though not required, +in the principal sentence; the last is absolutely meaningless in the +parenthesis)</p> + +<p>18. Its visions and its delights are too penetrating,—too +living,—for any white-washed object or shallow fountain long to +endure or to supply.—<span class="smcap">Ruskin.</span> (Omit both commas; this time +the first is as impossible in the principal sentence as the second is +meaningless in the parenthesis)</p> + +<p>19. The second carries us on from 1625 to 1714—less than a +century—yet the walls of the big hall in the Examination Schools are +not only well covered....—<i>Times.</i> (Insert a comma, as necessary +to the principal sentence, outside the dashes; whether before the +first or after the last will be explained in our answer to the third +question)</p> +</div> + +<p>The second question is, how far the authority of the dash extends. +There is no reason, in the nature of things, why we should not on +the one hand be relieved of it by the next stop, or on the other be +subject to it till the paragraph ends. The three following examples, +which we shall correct in brackets by anticipation, but which we shall +also assume not to be mere careless blunders, seem to go on the first +hypothesis.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>20. The Moral Nature, that Law of laws, whose revelations +introduce greatness—yea, God himself, into the open soul, is not +explored.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span> (Substitute a dash for the comma after +<i>himself</i>. Here, however, Emerson expects us to terminate the +authority at the right comma rather than at the first that comes, +making things worse)</p> + +<p>21. I ... there complained of the common notions of the special +virtues—justice, &c., as too vague to furnish exact determinations of +the actions enjoined under them.—<span class="smcap">H. Sidgwick.</span> (Substitute a +dash for the comma after <i>&c.</i>)</p> + +<p>22. There are vicars and vicars, and of all sorts I love an +innovating vicar—a piebald progressive professional reactionary, the +least.—<span class="smcap">H. G. Wells.</span> (Substitute a dash for the comma after +<i>reactionary</i>)</p> +</div> + +<p>It needs no further demonstration, however, that commas<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span> are frequently +used after a dash without putting an end to its influence; and if they +are to be sometimes taken, nevertheless, as doing so, confusion is sure +to result. Unless the author of the next example is blind to the danger +that two neighbouring but independent dashes may be mistaken for a +parenthetic pair, he must have assumed that the authority of a dash is +terminated at any rate by a semicolon; that, if true, would obviate the +danger.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>23. It is a forlorn hope, however excellent the translation—and Mr. +Hankin’s could not be bettered; or however careful the playing—and +the playing at the Stage Society performance was meticulously +careful.—<i>Times.</i> (Insert a dash between <i>bettered</i> and the +semicolon, which then need not be more than a comma)</p> +</div> + +<p>But that it is not true will probably be admitted on the strength of +sentences like:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>24. There may be differences of opinion on the degrees—no one takes +white for black: most people sometimes take blackish for black—, but +that is not fatal to my argument.</p> +</div> + +<p>On the other hand, we doubt whether a full stop is ever allowed to +stand in the middle of a dash parenthesis, as it of course may in a +bracket parenthesis. The reason for the distinction is clear. When we +have had a left-hand bracket we know for certain that a right-hand +one is due, full stops or no full stops; but when we have had a dash, +we very seldom know for certain that it is one of a pair; and the +appearance of a full stop would be too severe a trial of our faith. +It seems natural to suppose that the double-dash parenthesis is thus +accounted for: the construction started with a single dash; but as it +was often necessary to revert to the main construction, the second +dash was resorted to as a declaration that the close time, or state of +siege, was over. The rule we deduce is: All that follows a dash is to +be taken as under its influence until either a second dash terminates +it, or a full stop is reached.</p> + +<p>Our answer to the third question has already been given by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span> +implication; but it may be better to give it again explicitly. We first +refer to examples 1, 2, 3, 6, 13, 14, 24, in all of which the stop, if +one is to be used, though our view is that in most of these sentences +it should not, is in the right place; and to example 16, in which it is +in the wrong place. We next add two new examples of wrong order, with +corrections as usual; the rules for stops with brackets are the same as +with double dashes.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>25. Throughout the parts which they are intended to make most +personally their own, (the Psalms,) it is always the Law which is +spoken of with chief joy.—<span class="smcap">Ruskin.</span> (Remove both commas, and +use according to taste either none at all, or one after the second +bracket)</p> + +<p>26. What is the difference, whether land and sea interact, and worlds +revolve and intermingle without number or end,—deep yawning under +deep, and galaxy balancing galaxy, throughout absolute space,—or, +whether....—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span> (Remove both commas, and place one +after the second dash)</p> +</div> + +<p>A protest must next be made against the compositor’s superstition +embodied in Beadnell’s words: <i>As the dash in this case supplies the +place of the parenthesis, strictly speaking, the grammatical point +should follow the last dash; but as this would have an unsightly +appearance, it is always placed before it.</i> This unsightliness is +either imaginary or at most purely conventional, and should be entirely +disregarded. The rules will be (1) For the single dash: Since the dash +is on any view either a correction of or an addition to the stop that +would have been used if dashes had not existed, the dash will always +stand after the stop. (2) For the double dash or brackets: There will +be one stop or none according to the requirements of the principal +sentence only; there will never be two stops (apart, of course, from +internal ones); if there is one, it will stand before the first or +after the last dash or bracket according as the parenthesis belongs to +the following or the preceding part of the principal sentence. It may +be added that it is extremely rare for the parenthesis to belong to +the last part, and therefore for the stop to be rightly placed before +it. In<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span> the following example constructed for the occasion it does so +belong; but for practical purposes the rule might be that if a stop is +required it stands after the second dash or bracket.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>27. When I last saw him, (a singular fact) his nose was pea-green.</p> +</div> + +<p>3. Common misuses.</p> + +<p><i>a.</i> If two single independent dashes are placed near each other, +still more if they are in the same sentence, the reader naturally takes +them for a pair constituting a parenthesis, and has to reconsider the +sentence when he finds that his first reading gives nonsense. We refer +back to example 23. But this indiscretion is so common that it is well +to add some more. The sentences should be read over without the two +dashes and what they enclose.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Then there is also Miss Euphemia, long deposed from her office +of governess, but pensioned and so driven to good works and the +manufacture of the most wonderful crazy quilts—for which, to her +credit be it said, she shows a remarkable aptitude—as I should have +supposed.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>The English came mainly from the Germans, whom Rome found hard to +conquer in 210 years—say, impossible to conquer—when one remembers +the long sequel.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>As for Anne—well, Anne was Anne—never more calm than when others +were tempestuous.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>b.</i> The first dash is inserted and the second forgotten. It will +suffice to refer back to examples 20, 21, 22.</p> + +<p><i>c.</i> Brackets and dashes are combined. It is a pity from the +collector’s point of view that Carlyle, being in the mood, did not +realize the full possibilities, and add a pair of commas, closing up +the parenthesis in <i>robur et aes triplex</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>How much would I give to have my mother—(though both my wife +and I have of late times lived wholly for her, and had much to +endure on her account)—how much would I give to have her back to +me.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>d.</i> Like the comma, the dash is sometimes misplaced by a word or +two. In the first example, the first dash should be one place later; +and in the second, unless we misread the sentence and this is another +case of two single dashes, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span> second dash should be two places +earlier, and itself be replaced by a comma.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Here she is perhaps at her best—and in the best sense—her most +feminine, as a woman sympathizing with the sorrows peculiar to +women.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The girl he had dreamed about—the girl with the smile was there—near +him, in his hut.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>e.</i> Dashes are sometimes used when an ordinary stop would serve +quite well. In the Lowell sentences, the reason why a comma is not +used is that the members are themselves broken up by commas, and +therefore demand a heavier stop to divide them from each other; this, +as explained in the early part of the chapter, is the place for a +semicolon. In the Corelli sentence, it is a question between comma and +semicolon, either of which would do quite well.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Shakespeare found a language already to a certain extent established, +but not yet fetlocked by dictionary and grammar mongers,—a +versification harmonized, but which had not yet....—<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></p> + +<p>While I believe that our language had two periods of culmination +in poetic beauty,—one of nature, simplicity, and truth, in the +ballads, which deal only with narrative and feeling,—another of +Art....—<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></p> + +<p>We were shown in,—and Mavis, who had expected our visit did not keep +us waiting long.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Hyphens</span></h3> + +<p>We return here to our usual practice of disregarding everything +not necessary for dealing with common mistakes. But some general +principles, most of which will probably find acceptance, will be useful +to start from.</p> + +<p>1. Hyphens are regrettable necessities, and to be done without when +they reasonably may.</p> + +<p>2. There are three degrees of intimacy between words, of which the +first and loosest is expressed by their mere juxtaposition as separate +words, the second by their being hyphened, and the third or closest +by their being written continuously as one word. Thus, hand workers, +hand-workers, handworkers.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span></p> + +<p>3. It is good English usage to place a noun or other non-adjectival +part of speech before a noun, printing it as a separate word, and to +regard it as serving the purpose of an adjective in virtue of its +position; for instance, <i>war expenditure</i>; but there are sometimes +special objections to its being done. Thus, words in <i>-ing</i> may +be actual adjectives (participles), or nouns (gerunds), used in virtue +of their position as adjectives; and a visible distinction is needed. +A <i>walking stick</i> is a stick that walks, and the phrase might +occur as a metaphorical description of a stiffly behaved person: a +<i>walking-stick</i> or <i>walkingstick</i> is a stick for walking; the +difference may sometimes be important, and consistency may be held to +require that all compounds with gerunds should be hyphened or made into +single words.</p> + +<p>4. Not only can a single word in ordinary circumstances be thus treated +as an adjective, but the same is true of a phrase; the words of the +phrase, however, must then be hyphened, or ambiguity may result. Thus: +Covent Garden; Covent-Garden Market; Covent-Garden-Market salesmen.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The prevailing method of giving railway and street names, besides its +ungainliness, is often misleading and contrary to common sense. For +one difficulty we suggest recurrence to the old-fashioned formula with +commas, and <i>and</i>, as in <i>The London, Chatham, and Dover</i>. +On another, it is to be observed that <i>New York-street</i> should +mean the new part of York Street, but <i>New-York Street</i> the street +named after New York. The set of examples includes some analogous +cases, besides the railway and street names.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is stated that the train service on the +Hsin-min-tun-Kau-pan-tse-Yingkau section of the Imperial Chinese +Railway will be restored within a few days.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Hsinmintun, Kaupantse, and Yingkau. These places can surely do without +their internal hyphens in an English newspaper; and one almost +suspects, from the absence of a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span> hyphen between <i>Ying</i> and +<i>kau</i>, that the <i>Times’s</i> stock must have run short.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Even third-class carriages are scarce on the Dalny-Port Arthur +line.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The Dalny and Port-Arthur line. By general principle 4, though <i>Port +Arthur</i> needs no hyphen by itself, it does as soon as it stands +for an adjective with <i>line</i>: the Port-Arthur line. Also, by 2, +the <i>Times</i> version implies that <i>Dalny</i> is more closely +connected with <i>Port</i> than <i>Port</i> with <i>Arthur</i>. We +do indeed most of us know at present that there is no Dalny Port so +called, and that there is a Port Arthur. But in the next example, who +would know that there was a Brest Litovski, but for the sentence that +follows?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A general strike has been declared on the Warsaw-Brest Litovski +railway. The telegraph stations at Praga, Warsaw, and Brest Litovski +have been damaged.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The Warsaw and Brest-Litovski railway. By 4, the hyphen between +<i>Brest</i> and <i>Litovski</i> is necessary. If we write +<i>Warsaw-Brest-Litovski</i>, it is natural to suppose that three +places are meant; the <i>and</i> solution is accordingly the best.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>At Bow-street, Robert Marsh, greengrocer, of Great Western-road, +Harrow-road, was charged....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Great-Western Road, Harrow Road. Bow-street, as <i>at</i> (not +<i>in</i>) shows, is a compound epithet for <i>police-court</i> +understood, and has a right to its hyphen. By 3, there is no need +for a hyphen after <i>Harrow</i>, and by 1, if unnecessary, it is +undesirable. As to the other road, there are three possibilities. The +<i>Times</i> is right if there is a <i>Western Road</i> of which one +section is called <i>Great</i>, and the other <i>Little</i>. If the +name means literally the great road that runs west, there should be no +hyphen at all. If the road is named from the Great Western Railway, or +from the Great-Western Hotel, our version is right.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Cochin China waters.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>By 4, <i>Cochin China</i> gives <i>Cochin-China</i> waters.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Within the last ten days two Anglo-South Americans have been in my +office arranging for passages to New Zealand.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Anglo-South-Americans</i> is the best that can be done. What is +really wanted is <i>Anglo-SouthAmericans</i>, to show that <i>South</i> +goes more closely with <i>America</i>. But it is too hopelessly +contrary to usage at present.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The proceeds of the recent London-New York loan.—<i>Times.</i> +(London and New-York loan.)</p> + +<p>A good, generous, King Mark-like sort of man.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>King-Mark-like</i>, in default of <i>KingMark-like</i>. But the +addition of <i>-like</i> to compound names should be avoided.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The Fugitive Slave-law in America before the rebellion.—-<span class="smcap">H. +Sidgwick.</span> (Fugitive-Slave law.)</p> + +<p>The steam-cars will have 16-horse power engines.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Steam cars</i> is better, by 3, and 1. And 16-horsepower engines. We +can do this time what the capitals of <i>American</i> and <i>Mark</i> +prevented in the previous compounds.</p> + +<p>Entirely gratuitous hyphens.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>One had a male-partner, who hopped his loutish +burlesque.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>Gluttony is the least-generous of the vices.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>A little china-box, bearing the motto ‘Though lost to sight, to memory +dear,’ which Dorcas sent her as a remembrance.—<span class="smcap">Eliot.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This evidently means a box made of china. A box to hold china would +have the hyphen properly, and there are many differentiations of this +kind, of which <i>black bird</i>, as opposed to <i>black-bird</i> or +<i>blackbird</i>, is the type.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Bertie took up a quantity of waste-papers, and thrust them down into +the basket.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This is probably formed by a mistaken step backwards from +<i>waste-paper basket</i>, where the hyphen is correct, as explained in +3.</p> + +<p>In phrases like <i>wet and dry fly fishing</i>, compounded of +<i>wet-fly fishing</i> and <i>dry-fly fishing</i>, methods vary. For +instance:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A low door, leading through a moss and ivy-covered +wall.—<span class="smcap">Scott.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span></span></p> + +<p>A language ... not yet fetlocked by dictionary and grammar +mongers.—<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></p> + +<p>Those who take human or womankind for their study.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The single phrases would have the hyphen for different reasons +(<i>moss-covered</i>, &c.), all but <i>human kind</i>. The only quite +satisfactory plan is the Germans’, who would write <i>moss-</i> and +<i>ivy-covered</i>. This is imitated in English, as:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In old woods and on fern-and gorse-covered hilltops they do no harm +whatever.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>Refreshment-, boarding-, and lodging-house keepers have suffered +severely too.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>But imitations of foreign methods are not much to be recommended; +failing that, Lowell’s method seems the best—to use no hyphens, and +keep the second compound separate.</p> + +<p>Adverbs that practically form compounds with verbs, but stand after, +and not necessarily next after them, need not be hyphened unless +they would be ambiguous in the particular sentence if they were +not hyphened. This may often happen, since most of them are also +prepositions; but even then, it is better to rearrange the sentence +than to hyphen.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He gratefully hands-over the establishment to his +country.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>Thoughtful persons, unpledged to shore-up tottering +dogmas.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>It is a much commoner fault to over-hyphen than to under-hyphen. But +in the next example <i>malaria-infected</i> must be written, by 3. And +in the next again, one of the differentiations we have spoken of is +disregarded; <i>the fifty first</i> means the fifty that come first: +<i>the fifty-first</i> is the one after fifty. The ambiguity in the +third example is obvious.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The demonstration that a malaria infected mosquito, transported a +great distance to a non-malarial country, can....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>‘Nothing serious, I hope? How do cars break down?’ ‘In fifty different +ways. Only mine has chosen the fifty first.’—<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span></p> + +<p>The Cockney knew what the Lord of Session knew not, that the British +public is gentility crazy.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>There comes a time when compound words that have long had a hyphen +should drop it; this is when they have become<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span> quite familiar. It +seems absurd to keep any longer the division in <i>to-day</i> and +<i>to-morrow</i>; there are no words in the language that are more +definitely single and not double words; so much so that the ordinary +man can give no explanation of the <i>to</i>. On the other hand, the +word italicized in the next example may well puzzle a good many readers +without its hyphen; it has quite lately come into use in this country +(‘Chiefly U.S.’ says the <i>Oxford Dictionary</i>, which prints the +hyphen, whereas Webster does not), and is in danger of being taken at +first sight for a foreign word and pronounced in strange ways.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The soldiers ... have been building <i>dugouts</i> throughout +April.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>There is a tendency to write certain familiar combinations +irrationally, which may be mentioned here, though it does not +necessarily involve the hyphen. With <i>in no wise</i> and <i>at +any rate</i>, the only rational possibilities are to treat them +like <i>nevertheless</i> as one word, or like <i>none the less</i> +as three words (the right way, by usage), or give them two hyphens. +<i>Nowise</i> and <i>anyrate</i> are not nouns that can be governed by +<i>in</i> and <i>at</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Don McTaggart was the only man on his estate whom Sir Tempest could in +nowise make afraid.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>French rules of neutrality are in nowise infringed by the +squadron.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>At anyrate.—<span class="smcap">Corelli</span>, <i>passim</i>.</p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Quotation Marks</span></h3> + +<p>Quotation marks, like hyphens, should be used only when necessary. +The degree of necessity will vary slightly with the mental state of +the audience for whom a book is intended. To an educated man it is +an annoyance to find his author warning him that something written +long ago, and quoted every day almost ever since, is not an original +remark now first struck out. On the other hand, writers who address +the uneducated may find their account in using all the quotation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span> +marks they can; their readers may be gratified by seeing how well read +the author is, or may think quotation marks decorative. The following +examples start with the least justifiable uses, and stop at the point +where quotation marks become more or less necessary.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>John Smith, Esq., ‘Chatsworth’, Melton Road, Leamington.</p> +</div> + +<p>The implication seems to be: living in the house that sensible people +call 164 Melton Road, but one fool likes to call Chatsworth.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>How is it that during the year in which that scheme has been, so to +speak, ‘in the pillory’, no alternative has, at any rate, been made +public?—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Every metaphor ought to be treated as a quotation, if <i>in the +pillory</i> is to be. Here, moreover, quotation marks are a practical +tautology, after <i>so to speak</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Robert Brown and William Marshall, convicted of robbery with +violence, were sentenced respectively to five years’ penal servitude +and eighteen strokes with the ‘cat’, and seven years’ penal +servitude.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>There is by this time no danger whatever of confusion with the cat of +one tail.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>... not forgetful of how soon ‘things Japanese’ would be things of the +past for her.—<span class="smcap">Sladen.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This may be called the propitiatory use, analogous in print to the +tentative air with which, in conversation, the Englishman not sure of +his pronunciation offers a French word. So trifling a phrase is not +worth using at the cost of quotation marks. If it could pass without, +well and good.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>So that the prince and I were able to avoid that ‘familiarity +that breeds contempt’ by keeping up our own separate +establishments.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>... the Rector, lineal representative of the ancient monarchs of +the University, though now, little more than a ‘king of shreds and +patches’.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p>We agree pretty well in our tastes and habits—yet so, as ‘with a +difference’.—<span class="smcap">Lamb.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span></p> + +<p><i>With a difference</i> (<i>Ophelia</i>: O, you must wear your rue +with a difference) might escape notice as a quotation if attention +were not drawn to it. A reader fit to appreciate Lamb, however, +could scarcely fail to be sufficiently warned by the odd turn of the +preceding words.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>A question of some importance to writers who trouble themselves about +accuracy, though no doubt the average reader is profoundly indifferent, +is that of the right order as between quotation marks and stops. +Besides the conflict in which we shall again find ourselves with the +aesthetic compositor, it is really difficult to arrive at a completely +logical system. Before laying down what seems the best attainable, we +must warn the reader that it is not the system now in fashion; but +there are signs that printers are feeling their way towards better +things, and this is an attempt to anticipate what they will ultimately +come to. We shall make one or two postulates, deduce rules, and give +examples. After the examples (in order that readers who are content +either to go on with the present compromise or to accept our rules +may be able to skip the discussion), we shall consider some possible +objections.</p> + +<p>No stop is ever required at the end of a quotation to separate the +quotation, as such, from what follows; that is sufficiently done by the +quotation mark.</p> + +<p>A stop is required to separate the containing sentence, which may go +on beyond the quotation’s end, but more commonly does not, from what +follows.</p> + +<p>An exclamation or question mark—which are not true stops, but tone +symbols—may be an essential part of the quotation.</p> + +<p>When a quotation is broken by such insertions as <i>he said</i>, any +stop or tone symbol may be an essential part of the first fragment of +quotation.</p> + +<p>No stop is needed at either end of such insertions as <i>he said</i><span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span> +to part them from the quotation, that being sufficiently done by the +quotation marks.</p> + +<p>From these considerations we deduce the following rules:</p> + +<p>1. The true stops should never stand before the second quotation mark +except</p> + +<p>(<i>a</i>) when, as in dialogue given without framework, complete +sentences entirely isolated and independent in grammar are printed as +quotations. Even in these, it must be mentioned that the true stops are +strictly unnecessary; but if the full stop (which alone can here be in +question) is used in deference to universal custom, it should be before +the quotation mark.</p> + +<p>(<i>b</i>) when a stop is necessary to divide the first fragment of an +interrupted quotation from the second.</p> + +<p>2. Words that interrupt quotations should never be allowed stops to +part them from the quotation.</p> + +<p>3. The tone symbols should be placed before or after the second +quotation mark according as they belong to the quotation or to the +containing sentence. If both quotation and containing sentence need a +tone symbol, both should be used, with the quotation mark between them.</p> + +<p>The bracketed numbers before the examples repeat the numbers of the +rules.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>(1) Views advocated by Dr. Whately in his well-known ‘Essays’;</p> + +<p>It is enough for us to reflect that ‘Such shortlived wits do wither as +they grow’.</p> + +<p>We hear that ‘whom the gods love die young’, and thenceforth we +collect the cases that illustrate it.</p> + +<p>(1 <i>a</i>) ‘You are breaking the rules.’ ‘Well, the rules are silly.’</p> + +<p>(1 <i>b</i>) ‘Certainly not;’ he exclaimed ‘I would have died rather’.</p> + +<p>(2) ‘I cannot guess’ he retorted ‘what you mean’.</p> + +<p>(3) But ‘why drag in Velasquez?’</p> + +<p>But what is the use of saying ‘Call no man happy till he dies’?</p> + +<p>Is the question ‘Where was he?’ or ‘What was he doing?’?</p> + +<p>How absurd to ask ‘Can a thing both be and not be?’!</p> +</div> + +<p>If indignation is excited by the last two monstrosities, we can only +say what has been implied many other times in this book, that the +right substitute for correct ugliness is not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span> incorrect prettiness, +but correct prettiness. There is never any difficulty in rewriting +sentences like these. (Is the question where he was, &c.?) (‘Can a +thing both be and not be?’ The question is absurd.) But it should be +recognized that, if such sentences are to be written, there is only one +way to punctuate them.</p> + +<p>It may be of interest to show how these sentences stand in the books. +1st sentence (‘Essays;’); 2nd (grow.’); 3rd (young,’); 4th, as here; +5th (not,’ he exclaimed;) (rather.’); 6th (guess,’ he retorted,) +(mean.’); 7th (Velasquez’?); 8th (saying,) (dies?’). The last two are +fabricated.</p> + +<p>The objections may now be considered.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>‘The passing crowd’ is a phrase coined in the spirit of indifference. +Yet, to a man of what Plato calls ‘universal sympathies,’ and even +to the plain, ordinary denizens of this world, what can be more +interesting than ‘the passing crowd’?—B.</p> +</div> + +<p>After giving this example, Beadnell says:—‘The reason is clear: +the words quoted are those of another, but the <i>question</i> +is the writer’s own. Nevertheless, for the sake of neatness, the +ordinary points, such as the comma, semicolon, colon, and full stop, +<i>precede</i> the quotation marks in instances analogous to the one +quoted; but the exclamation follows the same rule as the interrogation’.</p> + +<p>Singularly enough, the stops that are according to this always to +precede the quotation mark (for the ‘analogous cases’ are the only +cases in which the outside position would be so much as considered) are +just the ones that by our rules ought hardly ever to do so, whereas the +two that are sometimes allowed the outside position are the two that we +admit to be as often necessary inside as outside. Neatness is the sole +consideration; just as the ears may be regarded as not hearing organs, +but ‘handsome volutes of the human capital’, so quotation marks may be +welcomed as giving a good picturesque finish to a sentence; those who +are of this way of thinking must feel that, if they allowed outside +them anything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span> short of fine handsome stops like the exclamation and +question marks, they would be countenancing an anticlimax. But they +are really mere conservatives, masquerading only as aesthetes; and +their conservatism will soon have to yield. Argument on the subject is +impossible; it is only a question whether the printer’s love for the +old ways that seem to him so neat, or the writer’s and reader’s desire +to be understood and to understand fully, is to prevail.</p> + +<p>Another objector takes a stronger position. He admits that logic, and +not beauty, must decide: ‘but before we give up the old, let us be +sure we are giving it up for a new that is logical’. He invites our +attention to the recent paragraph containing Beadnell’s views. ‘Why, +in the last sentence of that paragraph, is the full stop outside? +“But the exclamation follows the same rule as the interrogation” is a +complete sentence, quoted; why should its full stop be separated from +it?’ The answer is that the full stop is not <i>its</i> full stop; +<i>it</i> needs no stop, having its communications forward absolutely +cut off by the quotation mark. It is a delusion to suppose that any +sentence has proprietary rights in a stop, though it may have in a +tone symbol; a stop is placed after it merely to separate it from +what follows, if necessary.—‘And the full stop after every last +sentence (not a question or exclamation) of a paragraph, chapter, +or book?’—Is illogical, and only to be allowed, like those in the +isolated quotations mentioned in rule (1 <i>a</i>), in deference to +universal custom. Our full stop belongs, not to the last sentence +of the quotation, but to the paragraph, which is all one sentence, +the whole quotation simply playing the part, helped by the quotation +marks, of object to <i>says</i>.—‘But <i>says</i> is followed by a +colon, and a colon between verb and object breaks your own rules.’—No; +(:—) is something different from a stop; it is an extra quotation +mark, as much a conventional symbol as the full stop in M.A. and +other abbreviations.—‘Well, then, instead of <i>says</i>, read +<i>continues</i>, to which the quotation clearly cannot be object; will +that affect<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span> our full stop?’—No; the quotation will still be part of +the sentence; not indeed a noun, as before, and object to the verb; but +an adverb, simply equivalent to <i>thus</i>, attached to the verb.</p> + +<p>Satisfied on that point, the objector takes up our statement that +the quotation mark cuts communications; a similar statement was made +in the <i>Dashes</i> section about brackets and double dashes. He +submits a quotation:—Some people ‘grunt and sweat under’ very easy +burdens indeed; and a pair of brackets:—It is (not a little learning, +but) much conceit that is a dangerous thing. ‘It is surely not true +that either quotation mark or bracket cuts the communications there; +<i>under</i> in the quotation, <i>but</i> in the brackets, are in +very active communication with <i>burdens</i> and <i>conceit</i>, +outside.’ The answer is that these are merely convenient misuses of +quotation marks and brackets. A quotation and a parenthesis should be +complete in themselves, and instances that are not so may be neglected +in arguing out principles. Special rules might indeed be required in +consequence for the abnormal cases; but in practice this is not so with +quotations.—‘A last point. To adapt one of your instances, here are +two sets of sentences, stopped as I gather you would stop them:—(1) He +asked me “Can a thing both be and not be?” The question is absurd. (2) +He said “A thing cannot both be and not be”. I at once agreed. Now, if +the full stop is required after the quotation mark in the second, it +must be required after that in the first, in each case to part, not the +quotation, but the containing sentence, from the next sentence. What +right have you to omit the full stop in the first?’—None whatever; it +will not be omitted.—‘So we have an addition of some importance to the +monstrosities you said we should have to avoid.’—Well, sentences of +this type are not common except in a style of affected simplicity.—‘Or +real simplicity. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of +Jonas, lovest thou me? And is there any particular simplicity, real or +affected,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span> about this:—(Richmond looked at him with an odd smile for a +moment or two before asking, as if it were the most natural question in +the world, “But is it true?”.)?’—In the Bible quotation there is, as +you say, real simplicity—or rather there was. That sort of simplicity +now would not be real, but artificial. Any one who has good reason to +imitate primitive style may imitate primitive punctuation too. But one +step forward in precision we have definitely taken from the biblical +typography: we should insist on quotation marks in such a sentence. +They do not seem pedantic or needless now; nor will a further step in +precision seem so when once it has been taken. And as to your Richmond +sentence, and ‘monstrosities’ in general, it may be confessed here, +as we are out of hearing in this discussion of all but those who are +really interested, that the word was used for the benefit only of those +who are indifferent. A sentence with two stops is not a monstrosity, if +it wants them; and that will be realized, if once sensible punctuation +gets the upper hand of neatness.</p> + +<p>These are the most plausible objections on principle to a system of +using quotation marks with stops that would be in the main logical. +It may be thought, however, that it was our business to be practical +and opportunist, and suggest nothing that could not be acted on at +once. But general usage, besides being illogical, is so inconsistent, +different writers improving upon it in special details that appeal to +them, that it seemed simpler to give our idea of what would be the best +attainable, and trust to the tiro’s adopting any parts of it that may +not frighten him by their unaccustomed look.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>There are single and double quotation marks, and, apart from minor +peculiarities, two ways of utilizing the variety. The prevailing one is +to use double marks for most purposes, and single ones for quotations +within quotations, as:—“Well, so he said to me ‘What do you mean by +it?’ and I said ‘I didn’t mean anything’”. Some of those who follow +this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span> system also use the single marks for isolated words, short +phrases, and anything that can hardly be called a formal quotation; +this avoids giving much emphasis to such expressions, which is an +advantage. The more logical method is that adopted, for instance, by +the Oxford University Press, of reserving the double marks exclusively +for quotations within quotations. Besides the loss of the useful +degrees in emphasis (sure, however, to be inconsistently utilized), +there is a certain lack of full-dress effect about important quotations +when given this way; but that is probably a mere matter of habituation. +It should be mentioned that most of the quoted quotations in this +section had originally the double marks, but have been altered to +suit the more logical method; and the unpleasantness of the needless +quotation marks with which we started has so been slightly toned down.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>A common mistake, of no great importance, but resulting in more or less +discomfort or perplexity to the reader, is the placing of the first +quotation mark earlier than the place where quotation really begins. +The commonest form of it is the including of the quoter’s introductory +<i>that</i>, which it is often obvious that the original did not +contain. Generally speaking, if <i>that</i> is used the quotation +marks may be dispensed with; not, however, if the exact phraseology is +important; but at least the mark should be in the right place.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I remember an old scholastic aphorism, which says, ‘that the man +who lives wholly detached from others, must be either an angel or a +devil.’—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>As the aphorism descends through Latin from Aristotle (ἢ θηρίον +ἢ θεός), the precise English Words are of no importance, and the +quotation marks might as well be away; at least the first should be +after <i>that</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Then, with ‘a sarvant, sir’ to me, he took himself into the +kitchen.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Clearly <i>a</i> is not included in the quotation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>They make it perfectly clear and plain, he informed the House, that +‘Sir Antony MacDonnell was invited by him, rather as a colleague than +as a mere Under-Secretary, to register my will.’—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The change from <i>him</i> to <i>my</i> would be quite legitimate if +the first quotation mark stood before <i>rather</i> instead of where it +does; as it stands, it is absurd.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is long since he partook of the Holy Communion, though there was an +Easterday, of which he writes, when ‘he might have remained quietly in +(his) corner during the office, if...’.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The (<i>his</i>) is evidently bracketed to show that it is substituted +for the original writer’s <i>my</i>. This is very conscientious; but it +follows that either the same should have been done for <i>he</i>, or +the quotation mark should be after <i>he</i>.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>We began this section by saying that quotation marks should be used +only when necessary. A question that affects the decision to some +extent is the difference between direct, indirect, and half-and-half +quotation. We can say (1) He said ‘I will go’. (2) He said he would go. +(3) He said ‘he would go’. The first variety is often necessary for the +sake of vividness. The third is occasionally justified when, though +there is no occasion for vividness, there is some turn of phrase that +it is important for the reader to recognize as actually originating, +not with the writer, but with the person quoted; otherwise, that +variety is to be carefully avoided; how disagreeable it is will appear +in the example below. For ordinary purposes the second variety, which +involves no quotation marks, is the best.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He then followed my example, declared he never felt more refreshed in +his life, and, giving a bound, said, ‘he would go and look after his +horses.’—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Further, there may be quotation, not of other people’s words, but of +one’s own thoughts. In this case the method prevailing at present +is that exemplified in the <i>Times</i> extract below. Taken by +itself, there is no objection to it. We point out, however, that it +is irreconcilable with the principles<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span> explained in this section, +which demand the addition of a full stop (derived?.). That would be a +worse monstrosity than the one in the first of the three legitimate +alternatives that we add. We recommend that the <i>Times</i> method +should be abandoned, and the first or second of the others used +according to circumstances.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The next question is, Whence is this income derived?—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The next question is ‘Whence is this income derived?’. (Full direct +quotation. Observe the ‘monstrosity’ stop)</p> + +<p>The next question is whence this income is derived. (Indirect +quotation)</p> + +<p>The next question is ‘Whence this income is derived’. (Indirect +quotation with quotation marks, or half-and-half quotation, like the +Borrow sentence)</p> +</div> + +<p>In concluding the chapter on Punctuation we may make the general remark +that the effect of our recommendations, whether advocating as in the +last section more strictness, or as in other parts more liberty, would +be, certainly, a considerable reduction in the number of diacritical +marks cutting up and disfiguring the text; and, as we think, a practice +in most respects more logical and comprehensible.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> See <a href="#Page_60">chapter <i>Syntax</i></a>, section <i>Relatives</i>.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> Of course, however, the rhetorical question is often +not, as here, the result of a confusion, nor to be described as ‘very +artificial’. E. g., <i>What would I not give to be there?</i> <i>To +what subterfuge has he not resorted?</i></p> + +</div> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_II">PART II</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Some less important chapters had been designed on Euphony, Ambiguity, +Negligence, and other points. But as the book would with them have run +to too great length, some of the examples have been simply grouped here +in independent sections, with what seemed the minimum of comment.</p> + + +<p>1. <span class="smcap">Jingles</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>To read his tales is a bapt<i>ism</i> of +optim<i>ism</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Sensation is the dir<i>ect</i> eff<i>ect</i> of the <i>mo</i>de of +<i>mo</i>tion of the sensorium.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p>There have been no periodi<i>cal</i> gener<i>al</i> physi<i>cal</i> +catastrophes.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p>It is con<i>tended</i>, indeed, that these preparations are +in<i>tended</i> only....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It is in<i>tend</i>ed to ex<i>tend</i> the system to this +country.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>M. Sphakianakis con<i>ducted</i> pro<i>tracted</i> +negotiations.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Those inalienable rights of life, liber<i>ty</i> and +proper<i>ty</i> upon which the safe<i>ty</i> of socie<i>ty</i> +depends.—<span class="smcap">Choate.</span></p> + +<p>He served his apprenticeship to statesmanship.—<span class="smcap">Bryce.</span></p> + +<p>Ap<i>par</i>ently pre<i>par</i>ed to hold its ground.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I awaited a belated train.—<span class="smcap">R. G. White.</span></p> + +<p>Hand them on silver salvers to the server.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> + +<p>... adjourned the discus<i>sion</i> of the ques<i>tion</i> of +dela<i>tion</i> until to-day.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>In this house of pover<i>ty</i> and digni<i>ty</i>, of past grandeur +and present simplici<i>ty</i>, the brothers lived together in +uni<i>ty</i>.—<span class="smcap">H. Caine.</span></p> + +<p>Their invalidi<i>ty</i> was caused by a +technicali<i>ty</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>... had for consola<i>tion</i> the expan<i>sion</i> of its +domin<i>ion</i>.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>The essential founda<i>tion</i> of all the organiza<i>tion</i> needed +for the promo<i>tion</i> of educa<i>tion</i>.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p>The projects of M. Witte <i>re</i>lative to the +<i>re</i>gul<i>ation</i> of the <i>re</i>l<i>ations</i> between +capital and labour.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The remaining instances are of consecutive adverbs in <i>-ly</i>. +Parallel adverbs, qualifying the same word simultaneously, do<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span> not +result in a jingle; but in all our instances the two adverbs either +qualify different words, or qualify the same word at different times. +Thus, in the Huxley sentence, <i>unquestionably</i> either qualifies +<i>is</i>, or qualifies <i>true</i> only after <i>largely</i> has +qualified it: it is not the (universal) truth, but the partial truth, +of the proposition that is unquestionable.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>When the traffic in our streets becomes entirely mechanically +propelled.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>He lived practically exclusively on milk.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> + +<p>Critics would probably decidedly disagree.—<span class="smcap">Hutton.</span></p> + +<p>The children are functionally mentally defective.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>What is practically wholly and entirely the British commerce and +trade.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>... who answered, usually monosyllabically, ....—<span class="smcap">E. F. +Benson.</span></p> + +<p>The policy of England towards Afghanistan is, as formerly, entirely +friendly.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Money spent possibly unwisely, probably illegally, and certainly +hastily.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The deer are necessarily closely confined to definite +areas.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>We find Hobbes’s view ... tolerably effectively +combated.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>Great mental endowments do not, unhappily, necessarily involve a +passion for obscurity.—<span class="smcap">H. G. Wells.</span></p> + +<p>The proposition of Descartes is unquestionably largely +true.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> +</div> + + +<p>2. <span class="smcap">Alliteration</span></p> + +<p>Alliteration is not much affected by modern prose writers of any +experience; it is a novice’s toy. The antithetic variety has probably +seen its best days, and the other instances quoted are doubtless to be +attributed to negligence.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I must needs trudge at every old <i>beldam’s bidding</i> and every +young <i>minx’s maggot</i>.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> + +<p>Onward <i>gl</i>ided Dame Ursula, now in <i>gl</i>immer and now in +<i>gl</i>oom.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> + +<p>I have seen her in the same day as changeful as a <i>m</i>armozet, and +as stubborn as a <i>m</i>ule.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> + +<p>Thus, in <i>con</i>sequence of the <i>con</i>tinuance of that +grievance, the means of education at the disposal of the +<i>Pr</i>otestants and <i>Pr</i>esbyterians were <i>st</i>unted and +<i>st</i>erilized.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> + +<p>A gaunt well with a shattered pent-house <i>dw</i>arfed the +<i>dw</i>elling.—<span class="smcap">H. G. Wells.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span></span></p> + +<p>It shall be lawful to <i>p</i>icket <i>p</i>remises for the +<i>p</i>urpose of <i>p</i>eacefully <i>p</i>ersuading any +<i>p</i>erson to....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>3. <span class="smcap">Repeated Prepositions</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The founders <i>of</i> the study <i>of</i> the origin <i>of</i> human +culture.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>After the manner <i>of</i> the author <i>of</i> the immortal speeches +<i>of</i> Pericles.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>Togo’s announcement <i>of</i> the destruction <i>of</i> the fighting +power <i>of</i> Russia’s Pacific squadron.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The necessity <i>of</i> the modification <i>of</i> the system +<i>of</i> administration.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>An exaggeration <i>of</i> the excesses <i>of</i> the epoch <i>of</i> +sentimentalism.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>Hostile to the justice <i>of</i> the principle <i>of</i> the taxing +<i>of</i> those values which....—<span class="smcap">Lord Rosebery.</span></p> + +<p>The observation <i>of</i> the facts <i>of</i> the geological +succession <i>of</i> the forms <i>of</i> life.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p>Devoid <i>of</i> any accurate knowledge <i>of</i> the mode +<i>of</i> development <i>of</i> many groups <i>of</i> plants and +animals.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p>One uniform note <i>of</i> cordial recognition <i>of</i> the complete +success <i>of</i> the experiment.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The first fasciculus <i>of</i> the second volume <i>of</i> the Bishop +<i>of</i> Salisbury’s critical edition <i>of</i> St. Jerome’s Revision +<i>of</i> the Latin New Testament.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The appreciation <i>of</i> the House <i>of</i> the benefits derived +<i>by</i> the encouragement afforded <i>by</i> the Government to the +operations <i>of</i>....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The study <i>of</i> the perfectly human theme <i>of</i> the affection +<i>of</i> a man <i>of</i> middle age.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>His conviction <i>of</i> the impossibility <i>of</i> the proposal +either <i>of</i> the creation <i>of</i> elective financial +boards....—<i>Daily Express.</i></p> + +<p>Representative <i>of</i> the mind <i>of</i> the age <i>of</i> +literature.—<span class="smcap">Ruskin.</span></p> + +<p>Indignation <i>against</i> the worst offenders +<i>against</i>....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>A belief <i>in</i> language <i>in</i> harmony with....—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>The opposition ... <i>to</i> the submission <i>to</i> the +claims.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Taken up <i>with</i> warfare <i>with</i> an +enemy....—<span class="smcap">Freeman.</span></p> + +<p>Palmerston wasted the strength derived <i>by</i> England <i>by</i> the +great war <i>by</i> his brag.—<span class="smcap">Granville.</span></p> + +<p>Unpropitious <i>for</i> any project <i>for</i> the +reduction....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Called <i>upon</i> to decide <i>upon</i> the +reduction....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>4. <span class="smcap">Sequence of Relatives</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A garret, in <i>which</i> were two small beds, in one of <i>which</i> +she gave me to understand another gentleman slept.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span></span></p> + +<p>Still no word of enlightenment had come <i>which</i> should pierce the +thick clouds of doubt <i>which</i> hid the face of the future.—<span class="smcap">E. +F. Benson.</span></p> + +<p>The ideal of a general alphabet ... is one <i>which</i> gives a basis +<i>which</i> is generally acceptable.—<span class="smcap">H. Sweet.</span></p> + +<p>He enjoyed a lucrative practice, <i>which</i> enabled him to maintain +and educate a family with all the advantages <i>which</i> money can +give in this country.—<span class="smcap">Trollope.</span></p> + +<p>The clown <i>who</i> views the pandemonium of red brick +<i>which</i> he has built on the estate <i>which</i> he has +purchased.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>The main thread of the book, <i>which</i> is a daring assault +upon that serious kind of pedantry <i>which</i> utters itself +in....—<span class="smcap">L. Stephen.</span></p> + +<p>Practical reasons <i>which</i> combine to commend this +architectural solution of a problem <i>which</i> so many of us +dread....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The teachers, <i>who</i> took care that the weaker, <i>who</i> +might otherwise be driven to the wall, had ... their fair +share.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Let the heads and rulers of free peoples tell this truth to a Tsar +<i>who</i> seeks to dominate a people <i>who</i> will not and +cannot....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>He made a speech ... <i>which</i> contained a passage on the +conditions of modern diplomacy <i>which</i> attracted some +attention.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>There is of course no objection to the recurrence when the relatives +are parallel.</p> + + +<p>5. <span class="smcap">Sequence of ‘that’ or other Conjunctions</span></p> + +<p>Here, as with relatives, the recurrence is objectionable only when one +of the clauses is subordinate to the other.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I do not forget <i>that</i> some writers have held <i>that</i> a +system is to be inferred.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> + +<p>I say <i>that</i> there is a real danger <i>that</i> we may run to the +other extreme.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p>It is clear ... <i>that</i> the opinion was <i>that</i> it is not +incompatible.—<span class="smcap">Nansen.</span></p> + +<p>I find <i>that</i> the view <i>that</i> Japan has now a splendid +opportunity ... is heartily endorsed.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I must point out <i>that</i> it is a blot on our national education +<i>that</i> we have serving....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The Chairman replied to the allegation made by the Radical press +to the effect <i>that</i> the statement <i>that</i> the British +workman will not work as an unskilled labourer in the mines is +inaccurate.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>An official telegram states <i>that</i> General Nogi reports +<i>that</i>....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The conviction <i>that</i> the Tsar must realize <i>that</i> the +prestige of Russia is at stake.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span></p> + +<p>He was so carried away by his discovery <i>that</i> he ventured on the +assertion <i>that</i> the similarity between the two languages was so +great <i>that</i> an educated German could understand whole strophes +of Persian poetry.—<span class="smcap">H. Sweet.</span></p> + +<p>I may fairly claim to have no personal interest in defending the +council, <i>although</i> I believe, <i>though</i> I am not certain, +that....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>6. <span class="smcap">Metrical Prose</span></p> + +<p>The novice who is conscious of a weakness for the high-flown and the +inflated should watch narrowly for metrical snatches in his prose; they +are a sure sign that the fit is on him.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Oh, moralists, who treat of happiness / and self-respect, innate in +every sphere / of life, and shedding light on every grain / of dust +in God’s highway, so smooth below / your carriage-wheels, so rough +beneath the tread / of naked feet, bethink yourselves / in looking on +the swift descent / of men who <i>have</i> lived in their own esteem, +/ that there are scores of thousands breathing now, / and breathing +thick with painful toil, who in / that high respect have never lived +at all, / nor had a chance of life! Go ye, who rest / so placidly upon +the sacred Bard / who had been young, and when he strung his harp / +was old, ... / go, Teachers of content and honest pride, / into the +mine, the mill, the forge, / the squalid depths of deepest ignorance, +/ and uttermost abyss of man’s neglect, / and say can any hopeful +plant spring up / in air so foul that it extinguishes / the soul’s +bright torch as fast as it is kindled! /—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>But now,—now I have resolved to stand alone,—/ fighting my battle +as a man should fight, / seeking for neither help nor sympathy, / and +trusting not in self....—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>And the gathering orange stain / upon the edge of yonder western peak, +/ reflects the sunsets of a thousand years.—<span class="smcap">Ruskin.</span></p> + +<p>His veins were opened; but he talked on still / while life was +slowly ebbing, and was calm / through all the agony of lingering +death.—<span class="smcap">W. W. Capes.</span></p> + +<p>Can I then trust the evidence of sense? / And art thou really to my +wish restored? / Never, oh never, did thy beauty shine / with such +bewitching grace, as that which now / confounds and captivates my +view! / ... Where hast thou lived? where borrowed this perfection? / +... Oh! I am all amazement, joy and fear! / Thou wilt not leave me! +No! we must not part / again. By this warm kiss! a thousand times +/ more sweet than all the fragrance of the East! / we never more +will part. O! this is rapture! / ecstasy! and what no language will +explain—<span class="smcap">Smollett.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span></p> + + +<p>7. <span class="smcap">Sentence Accent</span></p> + +<p>It is only necessary to read aloud any one of the sentences quoted +below, to perceive at once that there is something wrong with its +accentuation. To lay down rules on this point would be superfluous, +even if it were practicable; for in all doubtful cases the ear can +and should decide. A writer who cannot trust himself to balance his +sentences properly should read aloud all that he writes. It is useless +for him to argue that readers will not read his work aloud, and that +therefore the fault of which we are speaking will escape notice. For, +although the fault may appear to be exclusively one of sound, it +is always in fact a fault of sense: unnatural accentuation is only +the outward sign of an unnatural combination of thought. Thus, nine +readers out of ten would detect in a moment, without reading aloud, +the ill-judged structure in our first example: the writer has tried +to do two incompatible things at the same time, to describe in some +detail the appearance of his characters, and to begin a conversation; +the result is that any one reading the sentence aloud is compelled to +maintain, through several lines of new and essential information, the +tone that is appropriate only to what is treated as a matter of course. +The interrogative tone protests more loudly than any other against this +kind of mismanagement; but our examples will show that other tones are +liable to the same abuse.</p> + +<p>The accentuation of each clause or principal member of a sentence +is primarily fixed by its relation to the other members: when the +internal claims of its own component parts clash with this fixed +accentuation—when, for instance, what should be read with a uniformly +declining accentuation requires for its own internal purposes a marked +rise and fall of accent—reconstruction is necessary to avoid a badly +balanced sentence. The passage from Peacock will illustrate this: +after <i>pupils</i>, and still more after <i>counterpoint</i>, the +accentuation should steadily decline to the end of the passage; but, +conflicting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span> with this requirement, we have the exorbitant claims of +a complete anecdote, containing within itself an elaborately accented +speech. To represent the anecdote as an insignificant appendage to +<i>pupils</i> was a fault of sense; it is revealed to the few who would +not have perceived it by the impossibility of reading the passage +naturally.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>‘Are Japanese Aprils always as lovely as this?’ asked the man in the +light tweed suit of two others in immaculate flannels with crimson +sashes round their waists and puggarees folded in cunning plaits round +their broad Terai hats.—<span class="smcap">D. Sladen.</span></p> + +<p>‘Here we are’, he said presently, after they had turned off the main +road for a while and rattled along a lane between high banks topped +with English shrubs, and looking for all the world like an outskirt of +Tunbridge Wells.—<span class="smcap">D. Sladen.</span></p> + +<p>I doubt if Haydn would have passed as a composer before a committee of +lords like one of his own pupils, who insisted on demonstrating to him +that he was continually sinning against the rules of counterpoint; on +which Haydn said to him, ‘I thought I was to teach you, but it seems +you are to teach me, and I do not want a preceptor’, and thereon he +wished his lordship a good morning.—<span class="smcap">Peacock.</span></p> + +<p>She wondered at having drifted into the neighbourhood of a +person resembling in her repellent formal chill virtuousness +a windy belfry tower, down among those districts of suburban +London or appalling provincial towns passed now and then with a +shudder, where the funereal square bricks-up the church, that +Arctic hen-mother sits on the square, and the moving dead are +summoned to their round of penitential exercise by a monosyllabic +tribulation-bell.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The verb <i>wonder</i> presupposes the reader’s familiarity with the +circumstance wondered at; it will not do the double work of announcing +both the wonder and the thing wondered at. ‘I wondered at Smith’s being +there’ implies that my hearer knew that Smith was there; if he did +not, I should say ‘I was surprised to find...’. Accordingly, in this +very artificial sentence, the writer presupposes the inconceivable +question: ‘What were her feelings on finding that she had drifted +... tribulation-bell?’. To read a sentence of minute and striking +description with the declining accentuation that necessarily follows +the verb <i>wondered</i> is of course impossible.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>How doth the earth terrifie and oppress us with terrible earthquakes, +which are most frequent in China, Japan, and those eastern climes, +swallowing up sometimes six cities at once!—<span class="smcap">Burton.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Of the many possible violations of sentence accent, one—common in +inferior writers—is illustrated in the next section.</p> + + +<p>8. <span class="smcap">Causal ‘as’ Clauses</span></p> + +<p>There are two admissible kinds of causal ‘as’ clauses—the pure and the +mixed. The pure clause assigns as a cause some fact that is already +known to the reader and is sure to occur to him in the connexion: the +mixed assigns as a cause what is not necessarily known to the reader +or present in his mind; it has the double function of conveying a new +fact, and indicating its relation to the main sentence. Context will +usually decide whether an <i>as</i> clause is pure or mixed; in the +following examples, it is clear from the nature of the two clauses that +the first is pure, the second mixed:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I have an edition with German notes; but that is of no use, as you do +not read German.</p> + +<p>I caught the train, but afterwards wished I had not, as I presently +discovered that my luggage was left behind.</p> +</div> + +<p>The second of these, it will be noticed, is unreadable, unless we slur +the <i>as</i> to such an extent as practically to acknowledge that it +ought not to be there. The reason is that, although a pure clause may +stand at any point in the sentence, a mixed one must always precede the +main statement. The pure clause, having only the subordinate function +normally indicated by <i>as</i>, is subordinate in sense as well as in +grammar; and the declining accentuation with which it is accordingly +pronounced will not be interfered with wherever we may place it. But +the mixed clause has another function, that of conveying a new fact, +for which <i>as</i> does not prepare us, and which entitles it to an +accentuation as full and as varied as that of the main statement. To +neutralize the subordinating effect of <i>as</i>, and secure the proper +accentuation, we must place the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span> clause at the beginning; where this is +not practicable, <i>as</i> should be removed, and a colon or semi-colon +used instead of a comma. Persistent usage tends of course to remove +this objection by weakening the subordinating power of conjunctions: +<i>because</i>, <i>while</i>, <i>whereas</i>, <i>since</i>, can be used +where <i>as</i> still betrays a careless or illiterate writer. There is +the same false ring in all the following sentences:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I myself saw in the estate office of a large landed proprietor a +procession of peasant women begging for assistance, as owing to +the departure of the bread-winners the families were literally +starving.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Remove <i>as</i>, and use a heavier stop.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Very true, Jasper; but you really ought to learn to read, as, by so +doing, you might learn your duty towards yourselves.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>To read; by so doing, ....</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There was a barber and hairdresser, who had been at Paris, and talked +French with a cockney accent, the French sounding all the better, as +no accent is so melodious as the Cockney.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Use a semicolon and ‘for’; the assertion requires all the support that +vigorous accentuation can lend.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>One of the very few institutions for which the Popish Church +entertains any fear, and consequently respect, as it respects nothing +which it does not fear.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>For</i> instead of <i>as</i> will best suit this illogical and +falsely coordinated sentence.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Everybody likes to know that his advantages cannot be attributed +to air, soil, sea, or to local wealth, as mines and quarries, ... +but to superior brain, as it makes the praise more personal to +him.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Again the clause is a mixed one. The point of view it suggests is, +indeed, sufficiently obvious; but (unlike our typical pure clause +above—‘you do not know German’) it depends for its existence upon the +circumstances of the main sentence, which may or may not have occurred +to the reader before. The full accentuation with which the clause +must inevitably be read condemns it at once; use a colon, and remove +<i>as</i>.</p> + +<p>Pure clauses, being from their nature more or less otiose,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span> belong +rather to the spoken than to the written language. It follows that a +good writer will seldom have a causal <i>as</i> clause of any kind at +the end of a sentence. Two further limitations remain to be noticed:</p> + +<p>i. When the cause, not the effect, is obviously the whole point of the +sentence, <i>because</i>, not <i>as</i>, should be used; the following +is quite impossible English:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I make these remarks as quick shooting at short ranges has lately been +so strongly recommended.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>ii. <i>As</i> should be used only to give the cause of the thing +asserted, not the cause of the assertion, nor an illustration of its +truth, as in the following instances:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>You refer me to the Encyclopaedia: you are mistaken, as I find the +Encyclopaedia exactly confirms my view.</p> + +<p>The Oxford Coxswain did not steer a very good course here, as he kept +too close in to the Middlesex shore to obtain full advantage of the +tide; it made little difference, however, as his crew continued to +gain.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>My finding the Encyclopaedia’s confirmation was not the cause of +mistake, nor the keeping too close the cause of bad steering.</p> + + +<p>9. <span class="smcap">Wens and Hypertrophied Members</span></p> + +<p>No sentence is to be condemned for mere length; a really skilful writer +can fill a page with one and not tire his reader, though a succession +of long sentences without the relief of short ones interspersed is +almost sure to be forbidding. But the tiro, and even the good writer +who is not prepared to take the trouble of reading aloud what he has +written, should confine himself to the easily manageable. The tendency +is to allow some part of a sentence to develop unnatural proportions, +or a half parenthetic insertion to separate too widely the essential +parts. The cure, indispensable for every one who aims at a passable +style, and infallible for any one who has a good ear, is reading aloud +after writing.</p> + +<p>1. Disproportionate insertions.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Some simple eloquence distinctly heard, though only uttered in her +eyes, unconscious that he read them, as, ‘By the death-beds I have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span> +tended, by the childhood I have suffered, by our meeting in this +dreary house at midnight, by the cry wrung from me in the anguish of +my heart, O father, turn to me and seek a refuge in my love before it +is too late!’ may have arrested them.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>Captain Cuttle, though no sluggard, did not turn so early on the +morning after he had seen Sol Gills, through the shopwindow, writing +in the parlour, with the Midshipman upon the counter, and Rob the +Grinder making up his bed below it, but that the clocks struck six +as he raised himself on his elbow, and took a survey of his little +chamber.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>A perpetual consequent warfare of her spirit and the nature subject +to the thousand sensational hypocrisies invoked for concealment of +its reviled brutish baseness, held the woman suspended from her +emotions.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>Yesterday, before Dudley Sowerby’s visit, Nataly would have been +stirred where the tears which we shed for happiness or repress +at a flattery dwell when seeing her friend Mrs. John Cormyn +enter....—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>‘It takes’, it is said that Sir Robert Peel observed, ‘three +generations to make a gentleman’.—<span class="smcap">Bagehot.</span></p> + +<p>Behind, round the windows of the lower story, clusters of clematis, +like large purple sponges, blossomed, miraculously fed through their +thin, dry stalks.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> + +<p>It is a striking exhibition of the power which the groups, hostile +in different degrees to a democratic republic, have of Parliamentary +combination.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>Sir,—With reference to the custom among some auctioneers and +surveyors of receiving secret commissions, which was recently brought +to light in a case before the Lord Chief Justice and Justices Kennedy +and Ridley (King’s Bench Division), when the L. C. J. in giving +judgment for the defendants said:—Unfortunately in commercial +circles, in which prominent men played a part, extraordinary mistakes +occurred. But a principal who employed an agent to do work for him +employed him upon terms that the agent was not liable to get secret +commissions. The sooner secret commissions were not approved by an +honourable profession, the better it would be for commerce in all its +branches. I desire to take this opportunity....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>In the course of a conversation with a representative of the +<i>Gaulois</i>, Captain Klado, after repeating his views on the +necessity for Russia to secure the command of the sea which have +already appeared in the <i>Times</i>, replied as follows to a question +as to whether, after the new squadron in the course of formation at +Libau has reinforced Admiral Rozhdestvensky’s fleet, the Russian +and Japanese naval forces will be evenly balanced: [here follows +reply]—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span></p> + +<p>2. Sentences of which the end is allowed to trail on to unexpected +length.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But though she could trust his word, the heart of the word went out +of it when she heard herself thanked by Lady Blachington (who could +so well excuse her at such a time for not returning her call, that +she called in a friendly way a second time, warmly to thank her) +for throwing open the Concert Room at Lakelands in August, to an +entertainment in assistance of the funds for the purpose of erecting +an East London Clubhouse, where the children of the poor by day could +play, and their parents pass a disengaged evening.—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>How to commence the ceremony might have been a difficulty, but for the +zeal of the American Minister, who, regardless of the fact that he +was the representative of a sister Power, did not see any question of +delicacy arise in his taking a prominent part in proceedings regarded +as entirely irregular by the representatives of the Power to which the +parties concerned belonged.—<span class="smcap">D. Sladen.</span></p> + +<p>The style holds the attention, but perhaps the most subtle charm of +the work lies in the inextricable manner in which fact is interwoven +with something else that is not exactly fiction, but rather fancy bred +of the artist’s talent in projecting upon his canvas his own view +of things seen and felt and lived through by those whose thoughts, +motives, and actions, he depicts.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The cock-bustard that, having preened himself, paces before the hen +birds on the plains that he can scour when his wings, which are slow +in the air, join with his strong legs to make nothing of grassy +leagues on leagues.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I don’t so much wonder at his going away, because, leaving out of +consideration that spice of the marvellous which was always in his +character, and his great affection for me, before which every other +consideration of his life became nothing, as no one ought to know +so well as I who had the best of fathers in him—leaving that out +of consideration, I say, I have often read and heard of people who, +having some near and dear relative, who was supposed to be shipwrecked +at sea, have gone down to live on that part of the seashore where any +tidings of the missing ship might be expected to arrive, though only +an hour or two sooner than elsewhere, or have even gone upon her track +to the place whither she was bound, as if their going would create +intelligence.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>What he had to communicate was the contents of despatches from Tokio +containing information received by the Japanese Government respecting +infringements of neutrality by the Baltic Fleet in Indo-Chinese waters +outside what are, strictly speaking, the territorial limits, and +principally by obtaining provisions from the shore.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span></p> + +<p>3. Decapitable sentences.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most exasperating form is that of the sentence that keeps +on prolonging itself by additional phrases, each joint of which gives +the reader hopes of a full stop.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It was only after the weight of evidence against the economic +success of the endeavour became overwhelming that our firm withdrew +its support /, and in conjunction with almost the entire British +population of the country concentrated its efforts on endeavouring to +obtain permission to increase the coloured unskilled labour supply +of the mines / so as to be in a position to extend mining operations +/, and thus assist towards re-establishing the prosperity of the +country /, while at the same time attracting a number of skilled +British artisans / who would receive not merely the bare living wage +of the white unskilled labourer, but a wage sufficient to enable these +artisans to bring their families to the country / and to make their +permanent home there.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>Here may still be seen by the watchful eye the Louisiana heron and +smaller egret, all that rapacious plume-hunters have left of their +race, tripping like timid fairies in and out the leafy screen / that +hides the rank jungle of sawgrass and the grisly swamp where dwells +the alligator /, which lies basking, its nostrils just level with the +dirty water of its bath, or burrows swiftly in the soft earth to evade +the pursuit of those who seek to dislodge it with rope and axe / that +they may sell its hide to make souvenirs for the tourists / who, at +the approach of summer, hie them north or east with grateful memories +of that fruitful land.—<span class="smcap">F. G. Aflalo.</span></p> + +<p>Running after milkmaids is by no means an ungenteel rural diversion; +but let any one ask some respectable casuist (the Bishop of London, +for instance), whether Lavengro was not far better employed, when in +the country, at tinkering and smithery than he would have been in +running after all the milkmaids in Cheshire /, though tinkering is in +general considered a very ungenteel employment /, and smithery little +better /, notwithstanding that an Orcadian poet, who wrote in Norse +about 800 years ago, reckons the latter among nine noble arts which he +possessed /, naming it along with playing at chess, on the harp, and +ravelling runes /, or as the original has it, ‘treading runes’ /—that +is, compressing them into small compass by mingling one letter with +another /, even as the Turkish caligraphists ravel the Arabic letters +/, more especially those who write talismans.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + + +<p>10. <span class="smcap">Careless Repetition</span></p> + +<p>Conscious repetition of a word or phrase has been discussed in Part +I (Airs and Graces): in the following examples the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span> repetition is +unconscious, and proves only that the writer did not read over what he +had written.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>... a man ... who directly <i>impresses</i> one with the +<i>impression</i>....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>For most <i>of them</i> get rid <i>of them</i> more or less +completely.—<span class="smcap">H. Sweet.</span></p> + +<p>The most important distinction between dialogue on the one hand and +<i>purely</i> descriptive and narrative pieces on the other hand is a +<i>purely</i> grammatical one.—<span class="smcap">H. Sweet.</span></p> + +<p>And it <i>may</i> be that from a growing familiarity with Canadian +winter amusements <i>may</i> in time spring an even warmer +regard....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It <i>may</i> well induce the uncomfortable reflection that these +historical words <i>may</i> prove....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The inclusion of <i>adherents</i> would be <i>adhered</i> +to.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The <i>remainder remaining</i> loyal, fierce fighting +commenced.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>Every subordinate shortcoming, every incidental defect, will be +<i>pardoned</i>. ‘Save us’ is the cry of the moment; and, in the +confident hope of safety, any deficiency will be overlooked, and any +frailty <i>pardoned</i>.—<span class="smcap">Bagehot.</span></p> + +<p>They were <i>followed</i> by jinrikshas <i>containing</i> young girls +with very carefully-dressed hair, <i>carrying</i> large bunches of +real flowers on their laps, <i>followed</i> in turn by two more +coolies <i>carrying</i> square white wooden jars, <i>containing</i> +huge silver tinsel flowers.—<span class="smcap">D. Sladen.</span></p> + +<p>It can do so, in all reasonable probability, <i>provided</i> +its militia character is maintained. But in any case it will +<i>provide</i> us at home with the second line army of our +needs.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><i>Dressed</i> in a subtly ill-<i>dressed</i>, expensive mode.—<span class="smcap">E. +F. Benson.</span></p> + +<p>Toodle being the <i>family</i> name of the apple-faced +<i>family</i>.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>Artillery firing <i>extends</i> along the whole front, +<i>extending</i> for eighty miles.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I regard the action and conduct of the Ministry <i>as</i> a whole +<i>as</i> of far greater importance.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The fleet passed the port <i>on its way</i> through the Straits <i>on +the way</i> to the China Sea.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Much of his popularity he owed, we believe, to <i>that</i> very +timidity <i>which</i> his friends lamented. <i>That</i> timidity often +prevented him from exhibiting his talents to the best advantage. But +it propitiated Nemesis. It averted <i>that</i> envy <i>which</i> would +otherwise have been excited....—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> + +<p>I will lay down <i>a pen</i> I am so little able to govern.—And +I will try to subdue <i>an impatience which</i> ... may otherwise +lead me into still more punishable errors.—I will return +to <i>a subject which</i> I cannot fly from for ten minutes +together.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> + +<p>At the same time it was largely <i>owing to</i> his careful +training that so many great Etonian cricketers <i>owed</i> their +success.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span></p> + + +<p>11. <span class="smcap">Common Misquotations</span></p> + +<p>These are excusable in talk, but not in print. A few pieces are given +correctly, with the usual wrong words in brackets.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>An <i>ill-favoured</i> thing, sir, but mine own. (poor)</p> + +<p><i>Fine</i> by degrees and beautifully less. (small)</p> + +<p><i>That</i> last infirmity of noble <i>mind</i>. (the: minds)</p> + +<p>Make assurance <i>double</i> sure. (doubly)</p> + +<p>To-morrow to fresh <i>woods</i> and pastures new. (fields)</p> + +<p>The devil can <i>cite</i> Scripture for his purpose. (quote)</p> + +<p>Chewing the <i>food</i> of sweet and bitter fancy. (cud)</p> + +<p>When <i>Greeks joined Greeks</i>, then <i>was</i> the tug of war. +(Greek meets Greek: comes)</p> + +<p>A goodly apple rotten at the <i>heart</i>. (core)</p> +</div> + + +<p>12. <span class="smcap">Uncommon Misquotations of Well-known Passages or Phrases</span></p> + +<p>It is still worse to misquote what is usually given right, however +informal the quotation. The true reading is here added in brackets.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Now for the trappings and the <i>weeds</i> of woe.—<i>S. Ferrier.</i> +(suits)</p> + +<p>She had an instinctive knowledge that she knew her, and she felt her +genius <i>repressed</i> by her, as <i>Julius Caesar’s</i> was by +<i>Cassius</i>.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span> (My genius is <i>rebuked</i> as, +it is said, <i>Mark Antony’s</i> was by <i>Caesar</i>)</p> + +<p>The new drama represented the very age and body of the time, his form +and <i>feature</i>.—<i>J. R. Green.</i> (pressure)</p> + +<p>He lifts the veil from the sanguinary affair at Kinchau, and we are +allowed glimpses of blockade-running, train-wrecking and cavalry +reconnaissance, and of many other moving <i>incidents</i> by flood and +field.—<i>Times.</i> (accidents)</p> + +<p>To him this <i>rough</i> world was but too literally a +rack.—<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span> (who would, upon the rack of this <i>tough</i> +world, stretch him out longer)</p> + +<p>Having once begun, they found returning more tedious than +<i>giving</i> o’er.—<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span> (returning were as tedious as +<i>go</i> o’er)</p> + +<p><i>Posthaec</i> [<i>sic</i>] meminisse juvabit.—<span class="smcap">Hazlitt.</span> (et +haec olim)</p> + +<p><i>Quid</i> vult valde vult. What they do, they do with a +will.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span> (quod) Quid is not translatable.</p> + +<p>Then that wonderful esprit <i>du</i> corps, by which we adopt into our +self-love everything we touch.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span> (de)</p> + +<p>Let not him that <i>putteth</i> on his <i>armour boast</i> as +<i>him</i> that <i>taketh</i> it off.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i> +(girdeth, harness, boast himself, he, putteth)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span></p> + +<p>Elizabeth herself, says Spenser, ‘to mine <i>open</i> pipe inclined +her ear’.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span> (oaten)</p> + +<p>He could join the crew of Mirth, and look pleasantly on at a village +fair, ‘where the <i>jolly</i> rebecks sound to many a youth and many a +maid, dancing in the chequered shade’.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span> (jocund)</p> + +<p>Heathen Kaffirs, et hoc genero, &c.: ....—<i>Daily Mail.</i> (genus +omne)</p> + +<p>If she takes her husband <i>au pied de lettre</i>.—<i>Westm. Gaz.</i> +(de la lettre)</p> +</div> + + +<p>13. Misquotation of Less Familiar Passages</p> + +<p>But the greatest wrong is done to readers when a passage that may not +improbably be unknown to them is altered.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It was at Dublin or in his castle of Kilcolman, two miles from +Doneraile, ‘under the <i>fall</i> of Mole, that mountain hoar’, that +he spent the memorable years in which....—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span> (foot)</p> + +<p><i>Petty</i> spites of the village <i>squire</i>.—<i>Spectator.</i> +(pigmy: spire)</p> +</div> + + +<p>14. Misapplied and Misunderstood Quotations and Phrases</p> + +<p>Before <i>leading question or the exception proves the rule</i> is +written, a lawyer should be consulted; before <i>cui bono</i>, Cicero; +before <i>more honoured in the breach than the observance</i>, Hamlet. +A leading question is one that unfairly helps a witness to the desired +answer; cui bono has been explained on p. 35; <i>the exception</i>, +&c., is not an absurdity when understood, but it is as generally used; +<i>more honoured</i>, &c., means not that the rule is generally broken, +but that it is better broken. A familiar line of Shakespeare, on the +other hand, gains by being misunderstood: ‘One touch of nature makes +the whole world kin’ merely means ‘In one respect, all men are alike’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But <i>cui bono</i> all this detail of our debt? Has the author +given a single light towards any material reduction of it? Not a +glimmering.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> + +<p>A rule dated March 3, 1801, which has never been abrogated, lays it +down that, to obtain formal leave of absence, a member must show some +sufficient cause, such as ... but this rule is more honoured in the +breach than in the observance.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Every one knows that the Governor-General in Council is invested +by statute with the supreme command of the Army and that it would +be disastrous to subvert that power. But ‘why drag in Velasquez’? +If any one wishes us to infer that Lord Kitchener has, directly or +indirectly,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span> proposed to subvert this unquestioned and unquestionable +authority, they are very much mistaken.—<i>Times.</i> (Why indeed? no +worse literary treason than to spoil other people’s wit by dragging it +in where it is entirely pointless. Velasquez here outrages those who +know the story, and perplexes those who do not)</p> + +<p>The Nationalist, M. Archdeacon, and M. Meslier put to the Prime +Minister several <i>leading questions</i>, such as, ‘Why were you so +willing promptly to part with M. Delcassé, and why, by going to the +conference, did you agree to revive the debate as to the unmistakable +rights...?’ To these pertinent inquiries M. Rouvier did not +reply.—<i>Times.</i> (Leading questions are necessarily not hostile, +as these clearly were)</p> + +<p>The happy phrase that an Ambassador is an honest man sent abroad +to lie for his country.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i> (Happier when +correctly quoted: sent to lie abroad for the good of)</p> +</div> + + +<p>15. <span class="smcap">Allusion</span></p> + +<p>A writer who abounds in literary allusions necessarily appeals to a +small audience, to those acquainted with about the same set of books +as himself; they like his allusions, others dislike them. Writers +should decide whether it is not wise to make their allusions explain +themselves. In the first two instances quoted, though the reader who +knows the original context has a slight additional pleasure, any one +can see what the point is. In the last two, those who have not the +honour of the wetnurse’s and Rosamund’s acquaintance feel that the +author and the other readers with whom he is talking aside are guilty +of bad manners.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The select academy, into whose sacred precincts the audacious Becky +Sharp flung back her leaving present of the ‘Dixonary’, survives here +and there, but with a different curriculum and a much higher standard +of efficiency.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Why can’t they stay quietly at home till they marry, instead of +trying to earn their living by unfeminine occupations? So croaks Mrs. +Partington, twirling her mop; but the tide comes on.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Sir,—Were it not for M. Kokovtsoff’s tetchiness in the matter of +metaphors, I should feel inclined to see in his protest against +my estimates of the decline in the Russian gold reserve and of +the increase of the note issue a variant of the classic excuse of +Mrs. Easy’s wetnurse for the unlawfulness of her baby.—<span class="smcap">Lucien +Wolf.</span></p> + +<p>Three superb glass jars—red, green, and blue—of the sort that led +Rosamund to parting with her shoes—blazed in the broad plate-glass +windows.—<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span></p> + + +<p>16. <span class="smcap">Incorrect Allusion</span></p> + +<p>Every one who detects a writer pretending to more knowledge than he +has jumps to the conclusion that the detected must know less than the +detective, and cannot be worth his reading. Incorrect allusion of this +kind is therefore fatal.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Homer would have seemed arrogantly superior to his audience if he had +not called Hebe ‘white-armed’ or ‘ox-eyed’.—<i>Times.</i> (He seldom +mentions her, and calls her neither)</p> + +<p>My access to fortune had not, so far, brought me either much joy or +distinction,—but it was not too late for me yet to pluck the golden +apples of Hesperides.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span> (It is hardly possible for +any one who knows what the Hesperides were to omit <i>the</i>)</p> + +<p>My publisher, John Morgeson ... was not like Shakespeare’s Cassio +strictly ‘an honourable man’.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span> (Cassio was an +honourable man, but was never called so. Even Cassius has only his +share in <i>So are they all, all honourable men.</i> Brutus, perhaps?)</p> + +<p>A sturdy Benedict to propose a tax on bachelors.—<i>Westminster +Gazette.</i> (Benedick. In spite of the <i>Oxford Dictionary</i>, +the differentiation between the saint, Benedict, and the converted +bachelor, Benedick, is surely not now to be given up)</p> + +<p>But impound the car for a longer or shorter period according to +the offence, and that, as the French say, ‘will give them reason +to think’.—<i>Times.</i> (The French do not say <i>give reason to +think</i>; and if they did the phrase would hardly be worth treating +as not English; they say <i>give to think</i>, which is often quoted +because it is unlike English)</p> +</div> + + +<p>17. <span class="smcap">Dovetailed and Adapted Quotations and Phrases</span></p> + +<p>The fitting into a sentence of refractory quotations, the making of +facetious additions to them, and the constructing of Latin cases with +English governing words, have often intolerably ponderous effects.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Though his denial of any steps in that direction may be true in his +official capacity, <i>there is probably some smoke in the fire of +comment</i> to which his personal relations with German statesmen have +given rise.—<i>Times.</i> (The reversal of smoke and fire may be a +slip of the pen or a joke; but the correction of it mends matters +little)</p> + +<p>It remains to be seen whether ... the pied à terre which Germany +hopes she has won by her preliminary action in the Morocco question +will form the starting-point for further achievements or will merely +represent,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span> like so many other German enterprises, <i>the end of the +beginning</i>.—<i>Times.</i> (The reversal this time is clearly +facetious)</p> + +<p>But they had gone on adding misdeed to misdeed, they had <i>blundered +after blunder</i>.—<span class="smcap">L. Courtney.</span></p> + +<p>Germany has, it would appear, yet another card in her hand, +a card <i>of the kind which is useful to players when in +doubt</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>But the problem of inducing <i>a refractory camel</i> to squeeze +himself through the eye of <i>an inconvenient needle</i> is and +remains insoluble.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>But these unsoldierlike recriminations among the Russian officers as +well as their luxurious lives and their complete insouciance in the +presence of their country’s misfortunes, seems to have <i>set back the +hand on the dial of Japanese rapprochement</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Is there no spiritual purge to make the eye of the camel easier for a +South-African millionaire?—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>And so it has come to pass that, not only <i>where invalids do +congregate</i>, but in places hitherto reserved for the summer +recreation of the tourist or the mountaineer there is a growing influx +of winter pleasure-seekers.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Salmasius alone was not <i>unworthy sublimi +flagello</i>.—<span class="smcap">Landor.</span></p> + +<p>Even if a change were desirable <i>with Kitchener duce et +auspice</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Charged with carrying out the Military Member’s orders, but having, +<i>pace Sir Edwin Collen</i>, no authority of his own.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It is not in the interests of the Japanese to close the book of the +war, until they have placed themselves in the position of beati +possidentes.—<i>Times.</i> (<i>Beati possidentes</i> is a sentence, +meaning <i>Blessed are those who are in possession</i>; to fit it into +another sentence is most awkward)</p> + +<p>Resignation became a virtue of necessity for Sweden in hopes that +a better understanding might in time grow out of the new order of +things.—<i>Times.</i> (In the original phrase, <i>of necessity</i> +does not depend on <i>virtue</i>, but on <i>make</i>; and it is +intolerable without the word that gives it its meaning)</p> + +<p>Many of the celebrities who in that most frivolous of watering-places +do congregate.—<span class="smcap">Baroness von Hutten.</span></p> + +<p>If misbehaviour be not checked in an effectual manner before long, +there is every prospect that the whips of the existing Motor Act +will be transformed into the scorpions of the Motor Act of the +future.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>A special protest should be made against the practice of introducing a +quotation in two or three instalments of a word or two, each with its +separate suit of quotation marks. The only quotations that should be +cut up are those that are familiar enough to need no quotation marks, +so that the effect is not so jerky.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The ‘pigmy body’ seemed ‘fretted to decay’ by the ‘fiery soul’ within +it.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span> (The original is:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A fiery soul which, working out its way,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fretted the pygmy-body to decay.—<span class="smcap">Dryden.</span>)</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> +</div> + + +<p>18. Trite Quotation</p> + +<p>Quotation may be material or formal. With the first, the writer quotes +to support himself by the authority (or to impugn the authority) of the +person quoted; this does not concern us. With the second, he quotes +to add some charm of striking expression or of association to his own +writing. To the reader, those quotations are agreeable that neither +strike him as hackneyed, nor rebuke his ignorance by their complete +novelty, but rouse dormant memories. Quotation, then, should be adapted +to the probable reader’s cultivation. To deal in trite quotations and +phrases therefore amounts to a confession that the writer either is +uncultivated himself, or is addressing the uncultivated. All who would +not make this confession are recommended to avoid (unless in some +really new or perverted application—notum si callida verbum reddiderit +junctura novum) such things as:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Chartered libertine; balm in Gilead; my prophetic soul; harmless +necessary; e pur si muove; there’s the rub; the curate’s egg; hinc +illae lacrimae; fit audience though few; a consummation devoutly to +be wished; more in sorrow than in anger; metal more attractive; heir +of all the ages; curses not loud but deep; more sinned against than +sinning; the irony of fate; the psychological moment; the man in the +street; the sleep of the just; a work of supererogation; the pity of +it; the scenes he loved so well; in her great sorrow; all that was +mortal of—; few equals and no superior; leave severely alone; suffer +a sea-change.</p> + +<p>The plan partook of the nature of that of those ingenious islanders +who lived entirely by taking in each other’s washing.—<span class="smcap">E. F. +Benson.</span></p> + +<p>For he was but moderately given to ‘the cups that cheer but not +inebriate’, and had already finished his tea.—<span class="smcap">Eliot.</span></p> + +<p>Austria forbids children to smoke in public places; and in German +schools and military colleges there are laws upon the subject; France, +Spain, Greece, and Portugal <i>leave</i> the matter <i>severely +alone</i>.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i> (<i>Severely</i> is much worse +than pointless here)</p> + +<p>They carried compulsory subdivision and restriction of all kinds of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span> +skilled labour down to a degree <i>that would have been laughable +enough, if it had only been less destructive</i>.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>If Diderot had visited ... Rome, even the mighty painter of the Last +Judgment ... would have found an interpreter worthy of him. <i>But it +was not to be.</i>—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>Mr. de Sélincourt has, of course, <i>the defects of his +qualities</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The beloved <i>lustige Wien</i> [Vienna, that is] of his youth had +<i>suffered a sea-change</i>. The green glacis down which Sobieski +drove the defeated besieging army of Kara Mustafa was blocked by +ranges of grand new buildings.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>19. <span class="smcap">Latin Abbreviations</span>, &c.</p> + +<p>No one should use these who is not sure that he will not expose his +ignorance by making mistakes with them. Confusion is very common, for +instance, between <i>i. e.</i> and <i>e g.</i> Again, <i>sic</i> should +never be used except when a reader might really suppose that there was +a misprint or garbling; to insert it simply by way of drawing attention +and conveying a sneer is a very heavy assumption of superiority. +<i>Vide</i> is only in place when a book or dictionary article is being +referred to.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Shaliapine, first bass at the same opera, has handed in his +resignation in consequence of this affair, and also because of affairs +in general, vide imprisonment of his great friend Gorki.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The industrialist organ is inclined to regret that the league did not +fix some definite date such as the year 1910 (sic) or the year 1912, +for the completion of this programme.—<i>Times.</i> (This is the +true use of <i>sic</i>; as the years mentioned are not consecutive, a +reader might suppose that something was wrong; sic tells him that it +is not so)</p> + +<p>The <i>Boersen Courier</i> ... maintains that ‘nothing remains +for M. Delcassé but to cry Pater peccavi to Germany and +to retrieve as quickly as possible his diplomatic mistake +(<i>sic</i>)’.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Let your principal stops be the full stop and comma, with a judicious +use of the semicolon and of the other stops where they are absolutely +necessary (<i>i. e.</i> you could not dispense with the note of +interrogation in asking questions).—<span class="smcap">Bygott & Jones.</span> (<i>e. +g.</i> is wanted, not <i>i. e.</i>)</p> +</div> + + +<p>20. <span class="smcap">Unequal Yokefellows and Defective Double Harness</span></p> + +<p>When a word admits of two constructions, to use both may not be +positively incorrect, but is generally as ugly as to drive a horse and +a mule in double harness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>They did not <i>linger in</i> the long scarlet colonnades of +the temple itself, nor gazing at the dancing for which it is +famous.—<span class="smcap">Sladen.</span></p> + +<p>This undoubtedly caused prices to rise; but did it not also +<i>cause</i> all <i>Lancashire to work</i> short time, many <i>mills +to close</i>, and a great <i>restriction</i> in the purchases of all +our customers for cotton goods?—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>... <i>set herself</i> quietly down <i>to the care</i> of her own +household, and <i>to assist</i> Benjamin in the concerns of his +trade.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> + +<p>This correspondent says that not only did the French Government +<i>know that Germany recognized</i> the privileges resulting for +France from her position in Algeria, but also her general <i>views</i> +on the work of reform which it would be the task of the conference to +examine.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><i>Teach</i> them the ‘<i>character</i> of God’ through the ‘Son’s +Life of Love’, <i>that conscience</i> must not be outraged, not +because they would be punished if they did, or because they would be +handsomely rewarded if they didn’t, but simply because they know a +thing is right or wrong....—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>And any one who permits himself this incongruity is likely to be +betrayed into actual blunders.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The popularity of the parlements was surely due to the detestation +felt for the absolute Monarchy, and because they seemed to +half-informed men to be the champions of....—<i>Times.</i> (Here +<i>because they seemed</i> does not really fit <i>the popularity ... +was</i>, but <i>parlements were popular</i>)</p> + +<p>A difference, this, which was not much considered where and when the +end of the war was thought to be two or three years off, and that the +last blow would be Russia’s.—<span class="smcap">F. Greenwood.</span> (The last clause +does not fit <i>the end of the war was thought</i>, but <i>it was +thought</i>)</p> + +<p>Attila and his armies, he said, came and disappeared in a very +mysterious manner, and <i>that</i> nothing could be said with +positiveness about them.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>Save him accordingly she did: but no sooner <i>is he dismissed</i>, +and <i>Faust has made</i> a remark on the multitude of +arrows which she is darting forth on all sides, than Lynceus +returns.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> + +<p>The short drives at the beginning of the course of instruction were +intended gradually <i>to accustom</i> the novice to the speed, and +<i>of giving</i> him in the pauses an opportunity to fix well in his +mind the principles of the automobile.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The predecessors of Sir Antony MacDonnell ... were, to use the words +of the Prime Minister, ‘the aiders, advisers, and suggesters of their +official chiefs’.—<i>Times.</i> (Though a chief can have a suggester +as well as an adviser, <i>adviser</i> is naturally followed by an +objective genitive, but <i>suggester</i> can only be followed by a +possessive genitive—except of the suggestion made)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</span></p> + +<p>My assiduities expose me rather to her scorn ... than to the treatment +due to a man.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> + +<p>One worthy gentleman, who is, perhaps, <i>better known than +popular</i> in City restaurants, is never known to have lavished even +the humblest copper coin on a waiter.—<i>Titbits.</i></p> + +<p>Its hands require strengthening and its resources +increased.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Analogous, but always incorrect, though excusable in various degrees, +is the equipping of pairs that should obviously be in double harness +with conjunctions or prepositions that do not match—following +<i>neither</i> by <i>or</i>, <i>both</i> by <i>as well as</i>, and the +like.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Diderot presented a bouquet which was <i>neither</i> well <i>or</i> +ill received.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>Like the Persian noble of old, I ask, ‘that I may <i>neither</i> +command <i>or</i> obey’.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> + +<p>She would hear <i>nothing</i> of a declaration of war, <i>or</i> give +any judgment on....—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> + +<p>It appears, then, that <i>neither</i> the mixed and incomplete +empiricism considered in the third chapter, <i>still less</i> +the pure empiricism considered in the second chapter, affords +us....—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> + +<p><i>Scarcely</i> was the nice new drain finished <i>than</i> several of +the children sickened with diphtheria.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>Which differs from that and who in being used <i>both</i> as an +adjective <i>as well as</i> a noun.—<span class="smcap">H. Sweet.</span></p> + +<p>M. Shipoff <i>in one and the same breath</i> denounces innovations, +<i>yet</i> bases the whole electoral system on the greatest innovation +in Russian history.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It would be <i>equally</i> absurd to attend to all the other parts +of an engine and to neglect the principal source of its energy—the +firebox—<i>as</i> it is ridiculous to pay particular attention +to the cleanliness of the body and to neglect the mouth and +teeth.—<i>Advertisement.</i></p> + +<p>The conception of God in their minds was not <i>that of</i> a Father, +but <i>as</i> a dealer out of rewards and punishments.—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Dr. Dillon, than whom no Englishman has a profounder and more accurate +acquaintance <i>with</i> the seamy side—as, indeed, <i>of</i> all +aspects of Russian life—assumes....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Sir,—<i>In view of</i> the controversy which has arisen concerning +the 12 in. Mark VIII guns in the Navy, and especially <i>to</i> the +suggestion which might give rise to some doubt as to the efficiency of +the wire system of construction....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>We add three sentences, in the first of which double harness should not +have been used because it is too cumbrous, in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</span> second of which it +is not correctly possible, and in the third of which the failure to use +it is very slovenly.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The odd part of it is that this childish confusion does not only not +take from our pleasure, but does not even take from our sense of +the author’s talent.—<span class="smcap">H. James.</span> (far from diminishing our +pleasure, does not....)</p> + +<p>As to the duration of the Austro-Russian mandate, there +seems <i>little disposition</i> here to treat the question +in a hard-and-fast spirit, <i>but rather</i> to regard it +as....—<i>Times.</i> (... spirit; it is rather regarded as....)</p> + +<p>To the student of the history of religious opinions in England <i>few +contrasts are more striking when he compares</i> the assurance +and complacency with which men made profession of their beliefs +at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the diffidence and +hesitation with which the same are recited at the beginning of the +twentieth.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i> (more striking than that between +the assurance....)</p> +</div> + + +<p>21. <span class="smcap">Common Parts</span></p> + +<p>When two sentences coupled by a conjunction (whether coordinating or +subordinating) have one or more parts in common, there are two ways +of avoiding the full repetition of the common parts. (<i>a</i>) ‘I +see through your villany and I detest your villany’ can become ‘I see +through and detest your villany’; ‘I have at least tried to bring +about a reconciliation, though I may have failed to bring about a +reconciliation’ can become ‘I have at least tried, though I may have +failed, to bring about, &c.’ (<i>b</i>) By substitution or ellipse, +the sentences become ‘I see through your villany, and detest it’ and +‘I have at least tried to bring about a reconciliation, though I may +have failed (to do so)’. Of these, the (<i>a</i>) form requires careful +handling: a word that is not common to both sentences must not be +treated as common; and one that is common, and whose position declares +that it is meant to do double duty, must not be repeated. Violations +of these rules are always more or less unsightly, and are excusable +only when the precise (<i>a</i>) form is intolerably stiff and the +(<i>b</i>) form not available. In our examples below, the words placed +in brackets are the two variants, each of which, when the other is +omitted, should, with the common or unbracketed parts,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</span> form a complete +sentence; the conjunctions being of course ignored for this purpose.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>What other power (could) or (ever has) produced such +changes?—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Things temporal (had) and (would) alter.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>(It had), as (all houses should), been in tune with the pleasant, +mediocre charm of the island.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This type will almost always admit of the emphatic repetition of the +verb: ‘could produce or ever has produced’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Those of us who still believe in Greek as (one of the finest), if not +(the finest) instruments....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>(One of the noblest), if not (the noblest), feelings an Englishman +could possess.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Use (<i>b</i>): ‘One of the finest instruments, if not the finest’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The games were looked upon as being (quite as important) or (perhaps +more important) than drill.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The railway has done (all) and (more) than was expected of +it.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Use (<i>b</i>): ‘as important as drill, if not more so’; ‘all that was +expected of it, and more’.</p> + +<p>All words that precede the first of two correlatives, such as ‘not ... +but’, ‘both ... and’, ‘neither ... nor’, are declared by their position +to be common; we bracket accordingly in the next examples:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The pamphlet forms (not only a valuable addition to our works on +scientific subjects), but (is also of deep interest to German +readers).—<i>Times.</i> (not only forms ..., but is ...)</p> + +<p>Forty-five per cent of the old Rossallians ... received (either +decorations) (or were mentioned in despatches).—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i> (Either received ... or were)</p> + +<p>The Senate, however, has (either passed) (or will pass) amendments to +every clause.—<i>Spectator.</i> (either has passed or will pass)</p> + +<p>Cloth of gold (neither seems to elate) (nor cloth of frieze to +depress) him.—<span class="smcap">Lamb.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>A curious extension, not to be mended in the active; for <i>neither</i> +cannot well precede the first of two subjects when they have different +verbs.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</span></p> + +<p>On the other hand, words placed between the two correlatives are +declared by their position not to be common:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Which neither (suits one purpose) (nor the other).—<i>Times.</i> +(suits neither ... nor)</p> + +<p>Not only (against my judgment), (but my +inclination).—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> + +<p>Not only (in the matter of malaria), (but also +beriberi).—<i>Times.</i> (In the matter not of malaria only, but of +...)</p> +</div> + + +<p>22. <span class="smcap">The Wrong Turning</span></p> + +<p>It is not very uncommon, on regaining the high road after a divergent +clause or phrase, to get confused between the two, and continue quite +wrongly the subordinate construction instead of that actually required.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I feel, however, that there never was a time when the people of +this country were more ready to believe than they are today, and +would openly believe if Christianity, with ‘doctrine’ subordinated, +were presented to them in the most convincing of all forms, +viz....—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i> (<i>Would believe</i> is made +parallel to <i>they are today</i>; it is really parallel to <i>there +never was a time</i>; and we should read <i>and that they would openly +believe</i>)</p> + +<p>In the face of this statement either proofs should be adduced to show +that Coroner Troutbeck has stated facts ‘soberly judged’, and that +they contain ‘warrant for the accusation of wholesale’ ignorance on +the part of a trusted and eminently useful class of the community, +or failing this, that the offensive and unjust charge should be +withdrawn.—<i>Times.</i> (<i>The charge should be withdrawn</i> is +made parallel to <i>Coroner Troutbeck has stated</i> and <i>they +contain</i>; it is really parallel to <i>proofs should be adduced</i>; +and we should omit <i>that</i>, and read <i>or failing this, the +offensive</i>....)</p> + +<p>We cannot part from Prof. Bury’s work without expressing our unfeigned +admiration for his complete control of the original authorities on +which his narrative is based, and of the sound critical judgment +he exhibits....—<i>Spectator.</i> (The judgment is admired, not +controlled)</p> +</div> + +<p>Sometimes the confusion is not merely of the pen, but is in the +writer’s thought; and it is then almost incurable.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>... the privilege by which the mind, like the lamps of a mailcoach, +moving rapidly through the midnight woods, illuminate, for one +instant, the foliage or sleeping umbrage of the thickets, and, in the +next instant, have quitted them, to carry their radiance forward upon +endless successions of objects.—<span class="smcap">De Quincey.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</span></p> + + +<p>23. <span class="smcap">Ellipse in Subordinate Clauses</span></p> + +<p>The missing subject and (with one exception) the missing verb of a +subordinate clause can be supplied only from the sentence to which it +is subordinate. The exception is the verb ‘to be’. We can say ‘The +balls, when wet, do not bounce’, ‘When in doubt, play trumps’, because +the verb to be supplied is <i>are</i>, and the subject is that of +the principal sentence. Other violations of the rule occur, but are +scarcely tolerable even in the spoken language. The following are +undesirable instances:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>For, though summer, I knew ... Mr. Rochester would like to see a +cheerful hearth.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>We can supply <i>was</i>, but not <i>it</i>; the natural subject is +<i>I</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I have now seen him, and though not for long, he is a man who speaks +with Bismarckian frankness.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>‘Though I did not see him for long’, we are meant to understand. But +the <i>though</i> clause is not subordinate to the sentence containing +that subject and verb: <i>and</i> always joins coordinates and +announces the transition from one coordinate to another. Consequently, +the <i>though</i> clause must be a part (a subordinate part) of the +second coordinate, and must draw from that its subject and verb: +‘though he is not a man of Bismarckian frankness for long, ...’. Even +if we could supply <i>I saw</i> with the clause in its present place, +we should still have the absurd implication that the man’s habitual +frankness (not the writer’s perception of it) depended on the duration +of the interview. We offer three conjectural emendations: ‘I have now +seen him, though not for long; and he is a man who ...’; ‘I have now +seen him, and though I did not see him for long, I perceived that he +was a man who ...’; ‘I have now seen him, and though I did not see him +for long, I found out what he thought; for he is a man who...’.</p> + + +<p>24. <span class="smcap">Some Illegitimate Infinitives</span></p> + +<p><i>Claim</i> is not followed by an infinitive except when the subject +of <i>claim</i> is also that of the infinitive. Thus, <i>I claim to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</span> +be honest</i>, but not <i>I claim this to be honest</i>. The <i>Oxford +Dictionary</i> (1893) does not mention the latter use even to condemn +it, but it is now becoming very common, and calls for strong protest. +The corresponding passive use is equally wrong. The same applies to +<i>pretend</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>‘This entirely new experiment’ which you claim to have ‘solved the +problem of combining....’—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Usage, therefore, is not, as it is often claimed to be, the absolute +law of language.—<span class="smcap">R. G. White.</span></p> + +<p>The gun which made its first public appearance on Saturday is +claimed to be the most serviceable weapon of its kind in use in any +army.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The constant failure to live up to what we claim to be our most +serious convictions proves that we do not hold them at all.—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>The anonymous and masked delators whose creation the +Opposition pretends to be an abuse of power on the part of M. +Combes.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Possible</i> and <i>probable</i> are not to be completed by an +infinitive. For <i>are possible to</i> read <i>can</i>; and for +<i>probable</i> read <i>likely</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But no such questions are possible, as it seems to me, to arise +between your nation and ours.—<span class="smcap">Choate.</span></p> + +<p>Should Germany meditate anything of the kind it would look uncommonly +like a deliberate provocation of France, and for that reason it seems +scarcely probable to be borne out by events.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Prefer</i> has two constructions: I prefer this (living) <i>to</i> +that (dying), and I prefer to do this <i>rather than</i> that. The +infinitive construction must not be used without <i>rather</i> (unless, +of course, the second alternative is suppressed altogether).</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Other things being equal, I should prefer to marry a rich man than a +poor one.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The following infinitives are perhaps by false analogy from those that +might follow <i>forbade</i>, <i>seen</i>, <i>ask</i>. It may be noticed +generally that slovenly and hurried writers find the infinitive a great +resource.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Marshal Oyama strictly <i>prohibited</i> his troops <i>to take</i> +quarter within the walls.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The Chinese held a chou-chou, during which the devil was exorcised and +duly <i>witnessed</i> by several believers <i>to take</i> his flight +in divers guises.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Third, they might <i>demand</i> from Germany, all flushed +as she was with military pride, <i>to tell</i> us plainly +whether....—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</span></p> + + +<p>25. <span class="smcap">‘Split’ Infinitives</span></p> + +<p>The ‘split’ infinitive has taken such hold upon the consciences of +journalists that, instead of warning the novice against splitting his +infinitives, we must warn him against the curious superstition that the +splitting or not splitting makes the difference between a good and a +bad writer. The split infinitive is an ugly thing, as will be seen from +our examples below; but it is one among several hundred ugly things, +and the novice should not allow it to occupy his mind exclusively. Even +that mysterious quality, ‘distinction’ of style, may in modest measure +be attained by a splitter of infinitives: ‘The book is written with a +distinction (save in the matter of split infinitives) unusual in such +works.’—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The time has come to once again voice the general +discontent.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It should be authorized to immediately put in hand such +work.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Important negotiations are even now proceeding to further cement trade +relations.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>We were not as yet strong enough in numbers to seriously influence the +poll.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Keep competition with you unless you wish to once more see +a similar state of things to those prevalent prior to the +inauguration....—<i>Guernsey Evening Press.</i></p> + +<p>And that she should force me, by the magic of her pen to +mentally acknowledge, albeit with wrath and shame, my own +inferiority.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>The oil lamp my landlady was good enough to still allow me the use +of.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>The ‘persistent agitation’ ... is to so arouse public opinion on the +subject as to....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>In order to slightly extend that duration in the case of a +few.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>To thus prevent a constant accretion to the Jewish population of +Russia from this country would be nobler work....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>26. <span class="smcap">Compound Passives</span></p> + +<p>Corresponding to the active construction ‘... have attempted to justify +this step’, we get two passive constructions: (1) ‘This step has been +attempted to be justified’, (2) ‘It has been attempted to justify this +step’. Of these (1), although licensed by usage, is an incorrect and +slovenly makeshift:<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</span> ‘this step’ is not the object of ‘have attempted’, +and cannot be the subject of the corresponding passive. The true object +of ‘have attempted’ is the whole phrase ‘to justify this step’, which +in (2) rightly appears as the subject, in apposition to an introductory +‘it’.—In point of clumsiness, there is perhaps not much to choose +between the two passive constructions, neither of which should be used +when it can be avoided. When the subject of the active verb ‘have +attempted’ is definite, and can conveniently be stated, the active +form should always be retained; to write ‘it had been attempted by the +founders of the study to supply’ instead of ‘the founders had attempted +to supply’ is mere perversity. When, as in some of our examples below, +the subject of the active verb ‘have attempted’ is indefinite, the +passive turn is sometimes difficult to avoid; but unless the object +of ‘justify’ is a relative, and therefore necessarily placed at the +beginning, ‘an attempt has been made’ can often be substituted for ‘it +has been attempted’, and is less stiff and ugly.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The cutting down of ‘saying lessons’, by which it had been attempted +by the founders of the study to supply the place of speech in the +learning of Greek.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>But when it was attempted to give practical effect to the popular +exasperation, serious obstacles arose.—<i>Times.</i> (When an attempt +was made to....)</p> + +<p>He and his friends would make the government of Ireland a sheer +impossibility, and it would be the duty of the Irish party to make it +so if it was attempted to be run on the lines of....—<i>Times.</i> +(if an attempt was made to run it on the....)</p> + +<p>It is not however attempted to be denied.—<span class="smcap">Hazlitt.</span> (No one +attempts to deny)</p> + +<p>As to the audience, we imagine that a large part of it, +certainly all that part of it whose sympathies it was desired to +enlist,...—<i>Times.</i> (whose sympathies were to be enlisted)</p> + +<p>He will see the alterations that were proposed to be made, but +rejected.—<i>Times.</i> (proposed, but rejected)</p> + +<p>The argument by which this difficulty is sought to be +evaded.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This and the following instances are not easily mended,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</span> unless we may +supply the subject of ‘seek’, &c. (‘some writers’).</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The arguments by which the abolition was attempted to be supported +were founded on the rights of man.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Some mystery in regard to her birth, which, she was well informed, was +assiduously, though vainly, endeavoured to be discovered.—<span class="smcap">Fanny +Burney.</span></p> + +<p>The close darkness of the shut-up house (forgotten to be +opened, though it was long since day) yielded to the unexpected +glare.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>Those whose hours of employment are proposed to be +limited.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The insignificant duties proposed to be placed on food.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The anti-liberal principles which it was long ago attempted to embody +in the Holy Alliance.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Considerable support was managed to be raised for +Waldemar.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>We may notice here a curious blunder that is sometimes made with the +reflexive verb ‘I avail myself of’. The passive of this is never used, +because there is no occasion for it: ‘I was availed of this by myself’ +would mean exactly the same as the active, and would be intolerably +clumsy. The impossible passives quoted below imply that <i>it</i> and +<i>staff</i> would be the direct objects of the active verb.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Watt and Fulton bethought themselves that, where was power was not +devil, but was God; that it must be availed of and not by any means +let off and wasted.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Used</i> or <i>employed</i>, and so in the next:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>No salvage appliances or staff could have been availed of in time to +save the lives of the men.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>27. <span class="smcap">Confusion with Negatives</span></p> + +<p>This is extraordinarily common. The instances are arranged in order of +obviousness.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Yezd is not only the refuge of the most ancient of Persian religions, +but it is one of the headquarters of the modern Babi propaganda, +the far-reaching effects of which it is probably difficult to +underestimate.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>Not a whit undeterred by the disaster which overtook them at +Cavendish-square last week ... the suffragettes again made themselves +prominent.—<i>Daily Mail.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</span></p> + +<p>So far as medicine is concerned, I am not sure that physiology, +such as it was down to the time of Harvey, might as well not have +existed.—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p>The generality of his countrymen are far more careful not to +transgress the customs of what they call gentility, than to violate +the laws of honour or morality.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>France and Russia are allies, as are England and Japan. Is it +impossible to imagine that, in consequence of the growing friendship +between the two great peoples on both sides of the Channel, +an agreement might not one day be realized between the four +Powers?—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I do not of course deny that in this, as in all moral principles, +there may not be found, here and there, exceptional cases which may +amuse a casuist.—<span class="smcap">L. Stephen.</span></p> + +<p>In view of the doubts among professed theologians regarding the +genuineness and authenticity of the Gospels in whole or in part, he is +unable to say how much of the portraiture of Christ may not be due to +the idealization of His life and character.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Is it quite inconceivable that if the smitten had always turned the +other cheek the smiters would not long since have become so ashamed +that their practice would have ceased?—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>I do not think it is possible that the traditions and doctrines of +these two institutions should not fail to create rival, and perhaps +warring, schools.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Any man—runs this terrible statute—denying the doctrine of the +Trinity or of the Divinity of Christ, or that the books of Scripture +are not the ‘Word of God’, or ..., ‘shall suffer the pain of +death’.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> + +<p>But it would not be at all surprising if, by attempting too +much, and, it must be added, by indulging too much in a style +the strained preciosity of which occasionally verges on rant and +even hysteria, Mr. Sichel has not to some extent defeated his own +object.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>No one scarcely really believes.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Let them agree to differ; for who knows but what agreeing to +differ may not be a form of agreement rather than a form of +difference?—<span class="smcap">Stevenson.</span></p> + +<p>Lastly, how can Mr. Balfour tell but that two years hence he may not +be too tired of official life to begin any new conflict?—<span class="smcap">F. +Greenwood.</span></p> + +<p>What sort of impression would it be likely to make upon the Boers? +They could hardly fail to regard it as anything but an expression of +want of confidence in our whole South-African policy.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>My friend Mr. Bounderby could never see any difference between leaving +the Coketown ‘hands’ exactly as they were and requiring them to be fed +with turtle soup and venison out of gold spoons.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</span></span></p> + +<p>But it is one thing to establish these conditions [the Chinese +Ordinance], and another to remove them suddenly.—<i>Westminster +Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>What economy of life and money would not have been spared the +empire of the Tsars had it not rendered war certain.—<i>Times.</i> +(<i>It</i> is the empire. The instance is not quoted for <i>not</i>, +though that too is wrong, but for the confusion between loss and +economy)</p> + +<p>The question of ‘raids’ is one which necessarily comes home to every +human being living within at least thirty miles of our enormously +long coast line.—<span class="smcap">Lonsdale Hale.</span> (An odd puzzle. <i>Within +thirty</i> means less than thirty; <i>at least thirty</i> means not +less than thirty. The meaning is clear enough, however, and perhaps +the expression is defensible; but it would have been better to say: +within a strip at least thirty miles broad along our enormous coast +line)</p> +</div> + +<p>The fact that a negative idea can often be either included in a word +or kept separate from it leads to a special form of confusion, the +construction proper to the resolved form being used with the compound +and <i>vice versa</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>My feelings, Sir, are moderately unspeakable, and that is a +fact.—American. (not moderately speakable: <i>moderately</i> belongs +only to half of <i>unspeakable</i>)</p> + +<p>... who did not aim, like the Presbyterians, at a change in Church +government, but rejected the notion of a national Church at +all.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span> (<i>Reject</i> is equivalent to <i>will +not have</i>. I reject altogether: I will not have at all)</p> + +<p>And your correspondent does not seem to know, or not to realize, the +conditions of the problem.—<i>Times.</i> (<i>Seems</i>, not <i>does +not seem</i>, has to be supplied in the second clause)</p> + +<p>I confess myself altogether unable to formulate such a principle, +much less to prove it.—<i>Balfour.</i> (<i>Less</i> does not suit +<i>unable</i>, but <i>able</i>; but the usage of <i>much less</i> and +<i>much more</i> is hopelessly chaotic)</p> + +<p>War between these two great nations would be an inexplicable +impossibility.—<span class="smcap">Choate.</span> (<i>Inexplicable</i> does not +qualify the whole of <i>impossibility</i>; to make sense we must +divide <i>impossibility</i> into <i>impossible event</i>, and take +<i>inexplicable</i> only with <i>event</i>)</p> + +<p>And the cry has this justification,—that no age can see itself in a +proper perspective, and is therefore incapable of giving its virtues +and vices their relative places.—<i>Spectator.</i> (<i>No age</i> +is equivalent to <i>not any age</i>, and out of this we have to take +<i>any age</i> as subject to the last sentence; this is a common, but +untidy and blameworthy device)</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</span></p> + + +<p>28. <span class="smcap">Omission of ‘as’</span></p> + +<p>This is very common, but quite contrary to good modern usage, after the +verb <i>regard</i>, and others like it. In the first three instances +the motive of the omission is obvious, but does not justify it; all +that was necessary was to choose another verb, as <i>consider</i>, that +does not require <i>as</i>. In the later instances the omission is +gratuitous.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I regard it as important as anything.</p> + +<p>Lord Bombie had run away with Lady Bombie ‘in her sark’. This I +could not help regarding both a most improper as well as a most +uncomfortable proceeding.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>So vital is this suggestion regarded.</p> + +<p>Rare early editions of Shakespeare’s plays and poems—editions which +had long been regarded among the national heirlooms.—<span class="smcap">S. Lee.</span></p> + +<p>The latter may now be expected to regard himself absolved from such +obligation as he previously felt.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>A memoir which was justly regarded of so much merit and importance +that....—<span class="smcap">Huxley.</span></p> + +<p>... what might be classed a ‘horizontal’ European +triplice.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>You would look upon yourself amply revenged if you knew what they have +cost me.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> + +<p>He also alluded to the bayonet, and observed that its main use +was no longer a defence against cavalry, but it was for the final +charge.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>... I was rewarded with such a conception of the God-like majesty +and infinite divinity which everywhere loomed up behind and shone +through the humanity of the Son of Man that no false teaching or any +power on earth or in hell itself will ever shake my firm faith in the +combined divinity and humanity in the person of the Son of God, and +<i>as sure am I</i> that I eat and drink and live to-day, so certain +am I that this mysterious Divine Redeemer is in living....—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The last example is of a different kind. Read <i>as sure as I am</i> +for <i>as sure am I</i> as the least possible correction. Unpractised +writers should beware of correlative clauses except in their very +simplest forms.</p> + + +<p>29. <span class="smcap">Other Liberties taken with ‘as’</span></p> + +<p><i>As</i> must not be expected to do by itself the work of <i>such +as</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There were not two dragon sentries keeping ward before the gate of +this abode, <i>as</i> in magic legend are usually found on duty over +the wronged innocence imprisoned.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>The specialist is naturally best for his particular job; but if the +particular specialist required is not on the spot, as must often be +the case, the best substitute for him is not another specialist but +the man trained to act for himself in all circumstances, <i>as</i> +it has been the glory of our nation to produce both in the Army and +elsewhere.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>We question if throughout the French Revolution there was a single +case of six or seven thousand insurgents blasted away by cannon shot, +<i>as</i> is believed to have happened in Odessa.—<i>Spectator.</i> +(This is much more defensible than the previous two; but when a +definite noun—as here <i>case</i>—can be naturally supplied for the +verb introduced by <i>as</i>, <i>such as</i> is better).</p> + +<p>The decision of the French Government to send a special mission to +represent France at the marriage of the German Crown Prince is not +intended as anything more than a mere act of international courtesy, +<i>as</i> is customary on such occasions.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Neither <i>as</i> nor <i>such as</i> should be made to do the work of +the relative pronoun where there would be no awkwardness in using the +pronoun itself.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>With a speed of eight knots, <i>as</i> [which] has been found +practicable in the case of the Suez Canal, the passage would occupy +five days.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The West Indian atmosphere is not of the limpid brightness and +transparent purity <i>such as</i> [that] are found in the sketch +entitled ‘A Street in Kingston’.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The ideal statues and groups in this room and the next are scarcely so +interesting as we have sometimes seen.—<i>Times.</i> (<i>As</i> is +clearly here a relative adverb, answering to <i>so</i>; nevertheless +the construction can be theoretically justified, the full form being +<i>as we have sometimes seen groups interesting</i>. But it is very +ugly; why not say instead <i>as some that we have seen</i>?)</p> +</div> + +<p>The idiom <i>as who should say</i> must not be used unless the sentence +to which it is appended has for subject a person to whom the person +implied in <i>who</i> is compared. This seems reasonable, and is borne +out, for instance, by all the Shakespeare passages—a dozen—that we +have looked at. The type is: The cloudy messenger turns me his back, +and hums, as who should say:—&c.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>To think of the campaign without the scene is as who should +read a play by candle-light among the ghosts of an empty +theatre.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> +</div> + + +<p>30. <span class="smcap">Brachylogy</span></p> + +<p>1. Omission of a dependent noun in the second of two parallel series: +‘The brim of my hat is wider than yours’. For this there is some +justification: an ugly string of words is avoided, and the missing word +is easily supplied from the first series; it has usually the effect, +however, of attaching a preposition to the wrong noun:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I should be proud to lay an obligation upon my charmer to the amount +of half, nay, to the whole of my estate.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> + +<p>There is as much of the pure gospel in their teachings as in any other +community of Christians in our land.</p> + +<p>There cannot be the same reason for a prohibition of correspondence +with me, as there was of mine with Mr. Lovelace.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Here the right preposition is retained.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A man holding such a responsible position as Minister of the United +States.—<span class="smcap">D. Sladen.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>2. A preposition is sometimes left out, quite unwarrantably, from a +mistaken idea of euphony:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Without troubling myself as to what such self-absorption might lead in +the future.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span> (lead to)</p> + +<p>He chose to fancy that she was not suspicious of what +all his acquaintance were perfectly aware—namely, +that....—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span> (aware of)</p> +</div> + +<p>3. Impossible compromises between two possible alternatives.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>To be a Christian means to us one who has been regenerated.—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i> (‘A Christian means one who has’: ‘to be a Christian +means to have been’)</p> + +<p>To do what as far as human possibility has proved out of his +power.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i> (‘As a matter of human possibility’: +‘as far as human possibility goes’)</p> +</div> + +<p>One compromise of this kind has come to be generally recognized:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>So far from being annoyed, he agreed at once. (‘So far was he from +being annoyed that ...’: ‘far from being annoyed, he agreed’)</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</span></p> + + +<p>31. <span class="smcap">Between two Stools</span></p> + +<p>The commonest form of indecision is that between statement and +question. But the examples of this are followed by a few miscellaneous +ones.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>May I ask <i>that</i> if care should be taken of remains of buildings +a thousand years old, <i>ought not</i> care to be taken of ancient +British earth-works several thousand years old?—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Can I not make you understand that you are ruining yourself and me, +and <i>that</i> if you don’t get reconciled to your father <i>what +is</i> to become of you?—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span></p> + +<p>We will only say <i>that</i> if it was undesirable for a private +member to induce the Commons to pass a vote against Colonial +Preference, <i>why was it</i> not undesirable for a private +member....—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p><i>Surely</i>, then, if I am not claiming too much for our efforts at +that time to maintain the Union, <i>am I</i> exaggerating our present +ability to render him effectual aid in the contest that will be fought +at the next election if I say that prudence alone should dictate to +him the necessity for doing everything in his power to revive the +spirit which the policy of Sir Antony MacDonnell, Lord Dudley, and Mr. +Wyndham has done so much to weaken?—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I then further observed <i>that</i> China having observed the laws +of neutrality, <i>how could he</i> believe in the possibility of an +alliance with Russia?—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The next two use both the relative and the participle construction, +instead of choosing between them.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Thus it befell that our high and low labour vote, <i>which</i> (if one +might say so in the hearing of M. Jaurès and Herr Bebel) <i>being</i> +vertical rather than horizontal, and quite unhindered in the United +States, of course by an overwhelming majority elected President +Roosevelt.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>He replied to Mr. Chamberlain’s Limehouse speech, the only part +of <i>which</i> that he could endorse <i>being</i>, he said, the +suggestion that the electorate should go to the root of the question +at the next general election.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Who, in Europe, at least, would <i>forego</i> the delights of +kissing,—(which the Japanese by-the-by consider a disgusting +habit),—<i>without</i> embraces,—and all those other +endearments which are supposed to dignify the progress of true +love!—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>Poor, bamboozled, patient public!—no wonder it is beginning to think +<i>that</i> a halfpenny spent on a newspaper which is purchased to be +thrown away, <i>enough</i> and more than enough.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>But hurriedly dismissing <i>whatever</i> shadow of earnestness, or +faint<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</span> confession of a purpose, laudable or wicked, <i>that</i> +her face, or voice, or manner, had, for the moment betrayed, she +lounged....—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p><i>At</i> the Épée Team Competition for Dr. Savage’s Challenge Cup, +held on the 25th and 27th February last, <i>was won</i> by the Inns of +Court team, consisting of....—<i>14th Middlesex Battalion Orders.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>32. <span class="smcap">The Impersonal ‘One’</span></p> + +<p>This should never be mixed up with other pronouns. Its possessive is +<i>one’s</i>, not <i>his</i>, and <i>one</i> should be repeated, if +necessary, not be replaced by <i>him</i>, &c. Those who doubt their +ability to handle it skilfully under these restrictions should only use +it where no repetition or substitute is needed. The older experimental +usage, which has now been practically decided against, is shown in the +Lowell examples.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>That inequality and incongruousness in his writing which +makes <i>one</i> revise <i>his</i> judgment at every tenth +page.—<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></p> + +<p>As one grows older, <i>one</i> loses many idols, perhaps comes at last +to have none at all, although <i>he</i> may honestly enough uncover in +deference to the worshippers at any shrine.—<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></p> + +<p>There are many passages which <i>one</i> is rather inclined to like +than sure <i>he</i> would be right in liking.—<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></p> + +<p>He is a man who speaks with Bismarckian frankness, and who directly +impresses <i>one</i> with the impression that <i>you</i> are speaking +to a man and not to an incarnate bluebook.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The merit of the book, and it is not a small one, is that it discusses +every problem with fairness, with no perilous hankering after +originality, and with a disposition to avail <i>oneself</i> of what +has been done by <i>his</i> predecessors.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>If <i>one</i> has an opinion on any subject, it is of little +use to read books or papers which tell <i>you</i> what you know +already.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>... are all creations which make <i>one</i> laugh inwardly as +<i>we</i> read.—<span class="smcap">Hutton.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>One’s</i>, on the other hand, is not the right possessive for the +generic <i>man</i>; <i>man’s</i> or <i>his</i> is required according to +circumstances; <i>his</i> in the following example:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There is a natural desire in the mind of <i>man</i> to sit for +<i>one’s</i> picture.—<span class="smcap">Hazlitt.</span></p> +</div> + + +<p>33. <span class="smcap">Between ... or</span></p> + +<p>This is a confusion between two ways of giving alternatives—<i>between +... and</i>, and <i>either ... or</i>. It is always wrong.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The choice Russia has is between payment for damages in money +<i>or</i> in kind.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Forced to choose between the sacrifice of important interests +on the one hand <i>or</i> the expansion of the Estimates on the +other.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>We have in that substance the link between organic <i>or</i> inorganic +matter which abolishes the distinction between living <i>and</i> dead +matter.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i> (Observe the ‘elegant variation’)</p> + +<p>The question lies between a God and a creed, <i>or</i> a God in such +an abstract sense that does not signify.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The author of the last has been perplexed by the <i>and</i> in one of +his alternatives. <i>He</i> should have used <i>on the one hand</i>, &c.</p> + + +<p>34. <span class="smcap">‘A’ placed between the Adjective and its Noun</span></p> + +<p>This is ugly when not necessary. Types of phrase in which it is +necessary are: Many a youth; What a lie! How dreadful <i>a</i> fate! So +lame an excuse. But there is no difficulty in placing a before ordinary +qualifications of the adjective like <i>quite</i>, <i>more</i>, <i>much +less</i>. In the following, read <i>quite a sufficient</i>, <i>a more +valuable</i>, <i>a more glorious</i>, <i>a more serviceable</i>, <i>no +different position</i>, <i>a</i> greater <i>or less degree</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>... adding that there was no suggestion of another raid against the +Japanese flank, which was <i>quite sufficient an indication</i> +of coming events for those capable of reading between the +lines.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Can any one choose <i>more glorious an exit</i> than to die fighting +for one’s own country?—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Of sympathy, of ... Mr. Baring has a full measure, which, in his +case, is <i>more valuable an asset</i> than familiarity with military +textbooks.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>No great additional expenditure is required in order to make +Oxford <i>more serviceable a part</i> of our educational +system.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>And young undergraduates are in this respect in no different a +position from that of any other Civil Servant.—<i>Westminster +Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>The thousand and one adjuncts to devotion finding place <i>in more or +less a degree</i> in all churches, are all....—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The odd arrangement in the following will not do; we should have +<i>a</i> either before <i>so</i> or before <i>degree</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</span></p><div class="blockquot"> + +<p>But what I do venture to protest against is the sacrificing of the +interests of the country districts in <i>so ridiculously an unfair +degree</i> to those of a small borough.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>35. <span class="smcap"><i>DO</i> as Substitute Verb</span></p> + +<p><i>Do</i> cannot represent (1) <i>be</i>, (2) an active verb supplied +from a passive, (3) an active verb in a compound tense, gerund, or +infinitive; You made the very mistake that I <i>did</i>, but <i>have +made</i>, <i>was afraid of making</i>, <i>expected to make</i>, +<i>shall</i> (<i>make</i>).</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It ... ought to have been satisfying to the young man. And so, in a +manner of speaking, it did.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>It may justly be said, as Mr. Paul does, that....—<i>Westminster +Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>To inflict upon themselves a disability which one day they will find +the mistake and folly of doing.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>We can of course say He lost his train, which I had warned him not to +<i>do</i>; because <i>lose</i> is then represented not by <i>do</i>, +but by <i>which</i> (thing).</p> + + +<p>36. <span class="smcap">Fresh Starts</span></p> + +<p>The trick of taking breath in the middle of a sentence by means of a +resumptive <i>that</i> or the like should be avoided; especially when +it is a confession rather of the writer’s short-windedness than of the +unwieldy length of his sentence.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It does not follow (as I pointed out by implication above) that +if, according to the account of their origin given by the system, +those fundamental beliefs are true, that therefore they are +true.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> + +<p>Sir—Might I suggest that while this interesting question is being +discussed that the hymn ‘Rock of Ages’ be sung in every church and +chapel...?—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>A very short-winded correspondent.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It seems to be a fair deduction that when the Japanese gained their +flank position immediately West of Mukden, and when, further, they +took no immediate advantage of the fact, but, on the contrary, began +to hold the villages in the plain as defensive positions, that a much +more ambitious plan was in operation.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>If the writer means what he says, and the grounds of the deduction +are not included in the sentence, reconstruction is not obvious, and +<i>that</i> is perhaps wanted to pick up the thread; but if, as may +be suspected, the <i>when</i> clauses contain the grounds of the +deduction, we may reconstruct as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</span> follows: ‘When the Japanese ..., and +when ..., it was natural to infer that ...’.</p> + + +<p>37. <span class="smcap">Vulgarisms and Colloquialisms</span></p> + +<p><i>Like</i> for <i>as</i>:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Sins that were degrading me, like they have many others.—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>They should not make a mad, reckless, frontal attack like General +Buller made at the battle of Colenso.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Coming to God the loving Father for pardon, like the poor prodigal +did.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>There is no moral force in existence ... which enlarges our outlook +like suffering does.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>What ever ...?</i> is a colloquialism; <i>whatever ...?</i> a +vulgarism:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Whatever reason have we to suppose, as the vast majority of professing +Christians appear to do, that the public worship of Almighty God +...?—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Whatever is the good in wrangling about bones when one is hungry and +has nutritious food at hand?—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>‘Those sort’:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I know many of those sort of girls whom you call +conjurors.—<span class="smcap">Trollope.</span></p> + +<p>Those sort of writers would merely take it as a first-class +advertisement.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> +</div> + + +<p>38. <span class="smcap">Tautology</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Lord Rosebery has not budged from his position—splendid, no doubt—of +(lonely) isolation.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Counsel admitted that that was a grave suggestion to make, +but he submitted that it was borne out by the (surrounding) +circumstances.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>One can feel first the characteristics which men have in common +and only afterward those which distinguish them (apart) from one +another.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>A final friendly agreement with Japan, which would be very welcome +to Russia, is only possible if Japan (again) regains her liberty of +action.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Miss Tox was (often) in the habit of assuring Mrs. Chick that +...—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>He had come up one morning, as was now (frequently) his +wont.—<span class="smcap">Trollope.</span></p> + +<p>The counsellors of the Sultan (continue to) remain +sceptical.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</span></p> + +<p>The Peresviet lost both her fighting-tops and (in appearance) looked +the most damaged of all the ships.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>They would, however, strengthen their position if they returned +the (temporary) loan of Sir A. MacDonnell to his owners with +thanks.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The score was taken to 136 when Mr. MacLaren, who had (evidently) +seemed bent on hitting Mr. Armstrong off, was bowled.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>... cannot prevent the diplomacy of the two countries from lending +each other (mutual) support.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>However, I judged that they would soon (mutually) find each other +out.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>Notwithstanding which, (however,) poor Polly embraced them all +round.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span></p> + +<p>If any real remedy is to be found, we must first diagnose the true +nature of the disease; (but) that, however, is not hard.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>M. Delcassé contemplated an identical answer for France, Great +Britain, and Spain, refusing, of course, the proposed conference, but +his colleagues of the Cabinet were (, however,) opposed to identical +replies.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The strong currents frequently shifted the mines, to the equal danger +(both) of friend and foe.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>And persecution on the part of the Bishops and the Presbyterians, to +(both of) whom their opinions were equally hateful, drove flocks of +refugees over sea.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> + +<p>But to the ordinary English Protestant (both) Latitudinarian and High +Churchmen were equally hateful.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> + +<p>Seriously, (and apart from jesting,) this is no light +matter.—<span class="smcap">Bagehot.</span></p> + +<p>To go back to your own country ... with (the consciousness that you go +back with) the sense of duty done.—<span class="smcap">Lord Halsbury.</span></p> + +<p>No doubt my efforts were clumsy enough, but Togo had a capacity for +taking pains, by which (said) quality genius is apt to triumph over +early obstacles.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>... as having created a (joint) partnership between the two Powers in +the Morocco question.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Sir—As a working man it appears to me that to the question ‘Do we +believe?’ the only sensible position (there seems to be) is to frankly +acknowledge our ignorance of what lies beyond.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>39. <span class="smcap">Redundancies</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Dr. Redmond told his constituents that <i>by</i> reducing the National +vote in the House of Commons they would not <i>thereby</i> get rid of +obstruction.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It is not a thousand years <i>ago since</i> municipalities in Scotland +were by no means free from the suspicion of corruption.—<span class="smcap">Lord +Rosebery.</span></p> + +<p>Some substance equally <i>as</i> yielding.—<i>Daily Mail.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</span></p> + +<p>Had another expedition reached the Solomon Islands, who +knows <i>but</i> that the Spaniards might <i>not</i> have +gone on to colonize Australia and so turned the current of +history?—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>As one <i>being</i> able to give full consent ... I am yours +faithfully....—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>But <i>to</i> where shall I look for some small ray of light that will +illumine the darkness surrounding the mystery of my being?—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>It is quite <i>possible</i> that if they do that it <i>may</i> be +<i>possible</i> to amend it in certain particulars.—<i>Westminster +Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>Men and women who <i>professed to call</i> themselves +Christians.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i> (An echo, no doubt, of ‘profess +and call themselves Christians’)</p> + +<p>The correspondence that you have published <i>abundantly</i> throws +out into <i>bold</i> relief the false position assumed....—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>In the course of the <i>day</i>, <i>yesterday</i>, M. Rouvier was able +to assure M. Delcassé....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><i>Moreover</i>, <i>too</i>, do we not all feel...?—<span class="smcap">J. C. +Collins.</span></p> + +<p>The doing nothing for a length of days after the first shock he +sustained was <i>the reason of how it came that</i> Nesta knitted +closer her acquaintance....—<span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></p> + +<p>When the public adopt new inventions wholesale, ... <i>some obligation +is due</i> to lessen, so far as is possible, the hardships in +which....—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>40. ‘<span class="smcap">As to whether</span>’</p> + +<p>This is a form that is seldom necessary, and should be reserved for +sentences in which it is really difficult to find a substitute. +Abstract nouns that cannot be followed immediately by <i>whether</i> +should if possible be replaced by the corresponding verbs. Many writers +seem to delight in this hideous combination, and employ it not only +with abstracts that can be followed by <i>whether</i>, but even with +verbs.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The Court declined to express any opinion <i>as to</i> whether the +Russian Ambassador was justified in giving the assurances in question +and <i>as to</i> whether the offences with which the accused were +charged were punishable by German law.—<i>Times.</i> (Perhaps +‘declined to say whether in their opinion’; but this is less easily +mended than most)</p> + +<p>The difficulties of this task were so great that I was in doubt <i>as +to</i> whether it was possible.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>His whole interest is concentrated on the question <i>as to</i> how +his mission will affect his own fortunes.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>A final decision has not yet been arrived at <i>as to</i> whether or +not the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</span> proceedings shall be public.—<i>Times.</i> (It has not yet +been finally decided whether)</p> + +<p>You raise the question <i>as to</i> whether Admiral Rozhdestvensky +will not return.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I have much pleasure in informing Rear Admiral Mather Byles <i>as +to</i> where he could inspect a rifle of the type referred to.</p> + +<p>The interesting question which such experiments tend to suggest is as +to how far science may....—<i>Outlook.</i></p> + +<p>When we come to consider the question <i>as to</i> whether, upon +the dissolution of the body, the spirit flies to some far-distant +celestial realm....—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>He never told us to judge by the lives of professing Christians <i>as +to</i> whether Christianity is true.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>M. Delcassé did not allude to the debated question <i>as to</i> +whether any official communication ... was made by the French +Government to Germany. It is also pointed out that he did not let fall +the slightest intimation <i>as to</i> whether the French Government +expected....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>41. <span class="smcap">Superfluous ‘but’ and ‘though’</span></p> + +<p>Where there is a natural opposition between two sentences, adversative +conjunctions may yet be made impossible by something in one of +the sentences that does the work unaided. Thus if <i>in vain</i>, +<i>only</i>, and <i>reserves</i> and <i>sole</i>, had not been used in +the following sentences, <i>but</i> and <i>though</i> would have been +right; as it is, they are wrong.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>(The author dreams that he is a horse being ridden) <i>In vain</i> +did I rear and kick, attempting to get rid of my foe; <i>but</i> the +surgeon remained as saddle-fast as ever.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>But the substance of the story is probably true, <i>though</i> +Voltaire has <i>only</i> made a slip in a name.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>Germany, it appears, <i>reserves</i> for herself the <i>sole</i> +privilege of creating triple alliances and ‘purely defensive’ +combinations of that character, <i>but</i> when the interests of other +Powers bring them together their action is reprobated as aggressive +and menacing.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Such mistakes probably result from altering the plan of a sentence in +writing; and the cure is simply to read over every sentence after it is +written.</p> + +<p>42. ‘<span class="smcap">If and when</span>’</p> + +<p>This formula has enjoyed more popularity than it deserves; either +‘when’ or ‘if’ by itself would almost always give the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</span> meaning. Even +where ‘if’ seems required to qualify ‘when’ (which by itself might +be taken to exclude the possibility of the event’s never happening +at all), ‘if’ and ‘when’ are clearly not coordinate, though both are +subordinate to the main sentence: ‘if and when he comes, I will write’ +means ‘if he comes, I will write when he comes’, or ‘when he comes +(if he comes at all), I will write’, and the ‘if’ clause, whether +parenthetic or not, is subordinate to the whole sentence ‘I will write +when he comes’. Our Gladstone instance below differs from the rest: +‘when’ with a past tense, unqualified by ‘if’, would make an admission +that the writer does not choose to make; on the other hand, the time +reference given by ‘when’ is essential; ‘on the occasion on which it +was done (if it really was done) it was done judicially’. The faulty +coordination may be overlooked where there is real occasion for its +use; but many writers seem to have persuaded themselves that neither +‘if’ nor ‘when’ is any longer capable of facing its responsibilities +without the other word to keep it in countenance.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>No doubt it will accept the experimental proof here alleged, if and +when it is repeated under conditions....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The latter will include twelve army corps, six rifle brigades, and +nine divisions or brigades of mounted troops, units which, if and when +complete, will more than provide....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Unless and until we pound hardest we shall never beat the +Boers.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>It is only if, and when, our respective possessions become +conterminous with those of great military states on land that we +each....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>If and when it was done, it was done so to speak +judicially.—<span class="smcap">Gladstone.</span></p> + +<p>No prudent seaman would undertake an invasion unless or until +he had first disposed of the force preparing ... to impeach +him.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Its leaders decline to take office unless and until the 90 or 100 +German words of command used ... are replaced....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>If and when employment is abundant....—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>It means nothing less, if Mr. Chamberlain has his way, than the final +committal of one of the two great parties to a return to Protection, +if and when it has the opportunity.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>It is clear, however, that the work will gain much if and when she +plays faster.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</span></p> + + +<p>43. <span class="smcap">Maltreated Idioms</span></p> + +<p>1. Two existing idioms are fused into a non-existent one.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It did not take him much trouble.—<span class="smcap">Sladen.</span> (I take: it costs +me)</p> + +<p>An opportunity should be afforded the enemy of retiring northwards, +more or less <i>of</i> their own <i>account</i>.—<i>Times.</i> (of my +own accord: on my own account)</p> + +<p>Dr. Kuyper admitted that his opinion had been +consulted.—<i>Times.</i> (I consult you: take your opinion)</p> + +<p>But it was in vain with the majority to attempt it.—<span class="smcap">Bagehot.</span> +(I attempt in vain: it is vain to attempt)</p> + +<p>The captain got out the shutter of the door, shut it up, made it all +fast, and locked the door itself.—<span class="smcap">Dickens.</span> (make it fast: +make all fast)</p> + +<p>The provisioning of the Russian Army would practically have to be +drawn exclusively from the mother country.—<i>Times.</i> (draw +provisions: do provisioning)</p> + +<p>It gives me the greatest pleasure in adding my testimony.—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i> (I have pleasure in adding: it gives me pleasure to add)</p> + +<p>And if we rejected a similar proposition made to us, was it +not too much to expect that Canada might not turn in another +direction?—<span class="smcap">Chamberlain</span> (reported). (Might not Canada +turn?... to expect that Canada would not turn)</p> + +<p>I can speak from experience that ... ‘conversion’ ... was a very real +and powerful thing.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i> (speak to conversion’s +being: say that conversion was)</p> + +<p>He certainly possessed, though in no great degree, the means of +affording them more relief than he practised.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span> +(preached more than he practised: had means of affording more than he +did afford)</p> + +<p>My position is one of a clerk, thirty-eight years of age, and +married.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i> (one that no one would envy: that of +a clerk)</p> + +<p>Abbot, indeed, had put the finishing stroke on all attempts at a +higher ceremonial. Neither he nor his household would bow at the name +of Christ.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span> (put the finishing touches on: given +the finishing stroke to)</p> + +<p>In this chapter some of these words will be considered, and also some +others against which purism has raised objections which do not seem +to be well taken.—<span class="smcap">R. G. White.</span> (exceptions well taken: +objections rightly made. <i>To take an objection well</i> can only +mean to keep your temper when it is raised)</p> + +<p>A woman would instinctively draw her cloak or dress closer to her, and +a man leave by far an unnecessary amount of room for fear of coming +into contact with those to whom....—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i> (by far +too great: quite an unnecessary)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</span></p> + +<p>The fines inflicted for excess of the legal speed.—<i>Times.</i> +(excess of speed: exceeding the legal speed)</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding the no inconsiderable distance by sea.—<i>Guernsey +Advertiser.</i> (it is no inconsiderable distance: the—or a—not +inconsiderable distance)</p> + +<p>His whim had been gratified at a trifling cost of ten thousand +pounds.—<span class="smcap">Crawford.</span> (a trifling cost—unspecified: a trifle of +ten thousand <i>or so</i>: the trifling cost of ten thousand. So in +the next)</p> + +<p>Dying at a ripe old age of eighty-three.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>That question is the present solvency or insolvency of the Russian +State. The answer to it depends not upon the fact whether Russia has +or has not....—<i>Times.</i> (the fact that: the question whether. +But <i>depends not upon whether</i> would be best here)</p> + +<p>To all those who had thus so self-sacrificingly and energetically +promoted the organization of this fund he desired to accord in +the name of the diocese their deep obligation.—<i>Guernsey +Advertiser.</i> (accord thanks: acknowledge obligation)</p> + +<p>The allies frittered away in sieges the force which was ready for an +advance into the heart of France until the revolt of the West and +South was alike drowned in blood.—<i>Times.</i> (the revolts were +alike drowned: the revolt was drowned)</p> +</div> + +<p>2. Of two distinct idioms the wrong is chosen.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>When, too, it was my pleasure to address a public meeting of more than +2,000 at the Royal Theatre the organized opposition numbered less than +seven score.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It is our pleasure to present to you the enclosed notification of the +proportion of profits which has been placed to the credit of your +account.—Company circular. (I had, we have, the pleasure of—. The +form chosen is proper to royal personages expressing their gracious +will)</p> + +<p>In the face of it the rule appears a most advisable one.—<i>Guernsey +Advertiser.</i> (<i>On the face of it</i> means prima facie: the other +means in spite of)</p> +</div> + +<p>3. The form of an idiom is distorted, without confusion with another.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>However, towards evening the wind and the waves subsided and the night +became quiet and starlight.—<i>Times.</i> (<i>Starlight</i> is a +noun, which can be used as an adjective immediately before another +noun only; a starlight night)</p> + +<p>Russia is now bitterly expiating her share in the infamy then visited +upon Japan.—<i>Times.</i> (We visit upon a person his sins, or +something for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</span> which he is responsible, and not we; or again, we may +visit our indignation upon him)</p> + +<p>He anticipated much towards Mary’s recovery in her return to +Japan.—<span class="smcap">Sladen.</span> (anticipate ... from)</p> + +<p>But both Governments have now requested Washington to be chosen as the +place of meeting.—<i>Times.</i> (requested that Washington should)</p> + +<p>For as its author in later years told the writer of this article, +he had studied war for nine years before he put the pen to the +paper.—<i>Times.</i> (Put pen to paper. This looks like imitation +French; it is certainly not English)</p> +</div> + +<p>4. The meaning of an idiom is mistaken without confusion with another.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>For days and days, in such moods, he would stay within his cottage, +never darkening the door or seeing other face than his own +inmates.—<span class="smcap">Trollope.</span> (To darken the door is always to enter as +a visitor, never to go out)</p> +</div> + +<p>5. Some miscellaneous and unclassified violations are added, mostly +without further comment than italics, to remind sanguine learners that +there are small pitfalls in every direction.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>If I <i>did not have</i> the most thorough dependence on your +good sense and high principles, I should not speak to you in this +way.—<span class="smcap">Trollope.</span></p> + +<p>Japan, while desiring the massacre of her own and Russia’s subjects +to be brought to an end, <i>has</i> nevertheless <i>every interest +that</i> the war should go on.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The unpublished state, of which only <i>an extremely few</i> examples +are in existence.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Once I <i>jested her</i> about it.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>It is <i>significant to add</i> that when Mrs. Chesnut died in 1886 +her servants were with her.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Herring boats, the drapery of whose black suspended nets +<i>contrasted</i> with picturesque effect <i>the white sails</i> of +the larger vessels.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span></p> + +<p>It is at least incumbent to be scrupulously accurate.—<i>Times.</i> +(The metaphor in <i>incumbent</i> is so much alive that +<i>upon</i>—is never dispensed with)</p> + +<p>A measure <i>according Roman Catholic clergymen</i> who have +passed through the local seminaries but have not yet passed +the prescribed Russian language test <i>to hold</i> clerical +appointments.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>There will be established in this free England a commercial tyranny +<i>the like of which</i> will not be inferior to the tyrannical +Inquisition of the Dark Ages.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</span></p> + + +<p>44. <span class="smcap">Truisms and Contradictions in Terms</span></p> + +<p>A contradiction in terms is often little more than a truism turned +inside out; we shall therefore group the two together, and with them +certain other illogical expressions, due to a similar confusion of +thought.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Praise which perhaps was scarcely meant to be taken <i>too</i> +literally.—<span class="smcap">Bagehot.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Where no standard of literalness is mentioned, <i>too literally</i> +is ‘more literally than was meant’. We may safely affirm, without the +cautious reservations <i>perhaps</i> and <i>scarcely</i>, that the +praise was not meant to be taken more literally than it was meant to be +taken. Omit <i>too</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He found what was <i>almost quite</i> as interesting.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>If it was almost as interesting, we do not want <i>quite</i>: if quite, +we do not want <i>almost</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Splendid and elegant, but <i>somewhat bordering on</i> the antique +fashion.—<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Bordering on</i> means not ‘like’ but ‘very like’; ‘somewhat very +like’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A <i>very unique</i> child, thought I.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> + +<p>A <i>somewhat unique</i> gathering of our great +profession.—<span class="smcap">Halsbury.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>There are no degrees in uniqueness.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Steady, respectable labouring men—<i>one and all, with rare +exceptions</i>, married.—<i>Times.</i> (all without exception, with +rare exceptions)</p> + +<p>To <i>name</i> only a <i>few</i>, <i>take</i> Lord Rosebery, Lord +Rendel, Lord ..., ..., ..., and <i>many</i> others.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>Take</i> in this context means ‘consider as instances’; we cannot +consider them as instances unless we have their names; <i>take</i> must +therefore mean ‘let me name for your consideration’. Thus we get: ‘To +<i>name</i> only a <i>few</i>, let me <i>name</i> ... and <i>many</i> +others (whom I do <i>not</i> name)’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>More <i>led away</i> by a jingling antithesis of words than <i>an +accurate perception</i> of ideas.—<span class="smcap">H. D. Macleod.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>‘Guided by an accurate perception’ is what is meant. To be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</span> ‘led +away by accurate perception’ is a misfortune that could happen only +in a special sense, the sense in which it has happened, possibly, to +the writer, whom sheer force of accurate perception may have hurried +into inaccurate expression; but more probably he too is the victim of +‘jingling antithesis’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Long before</i> the appointed hour for the commencement of +the recital, standing room only fell to the lot of those who +arrived <i>just previous</i> to Mr. K.’s appearance on the +platform.—<i>Guernsey Advertiser.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The necessary inference—that Mr. K., the reciter, appeared on the +platform long before the appointed hour—is probably not in accordance +with the facts.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The weather this week has for the most part been of that quality +which the month of March so <i>strikingly</i> characterizes in the +<i>ordinary</i> course of events.—<i>Guernsey Advertiser.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>What happens in the ordinary course of events can scarcely continue +to be striking. Whether the month characterizes the weather, or the +weather the month, we need not consider here.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He <i>forgot</i> that it was possible, that from a brief period of +tumultuous disorder, there might issue a military despotism more +compact, more disciplined, and more overpowering than any which had +preceded it, or any which <i>has</i> followed it.—<span class="smcap">Bagehot.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><i>He</i> could not forget, because he could not know, anything +about the despotisms which <i>have</i> in fact followed. He might +know and forget something about all the despotisms that had preceded +or <i>should</i> follow (in direct speech, ‘that have preceded or +shall follow’): ‘this may result in the most compact despotism in all +history, past and future’. But probably Bagehot does not even mean +this: the last clause seems to contain a reflection of his own, falsely +presented as a part of what <i>he</i> ought to have reflected.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Some people would say that my present manner of travelling is much +the <i>most preferable</i>, riding as I do now, instead of leading my +horse.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Only two modes of travelling are compared: <i>the most preferable</i><span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</span> +implies four, three of them preferable in different degrees to the +fourth. A not uncommon vulgarism.</p> + + +<p>45. <span class="smcap">Double Emphasis</span></p> + +<p>Attempts at packing double emphasis into a single sentence are apt to +result in real weakening.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>No government ever plunged <i>more</i> rapidly into a <i>deeper</i> +quagmire.—<i>Outlook.</i> (From the writer’s evident wish to state +the matter strongly, we infer that several Governments have plunged +more rapidly into as deep quagmires, and as rapidly into deeper ones)</p> + +<p>Mr. Justice Neville ... will now have the very rare experience of +joining on the Bench a colleague whom he defeated on the polls +<i>just fourteen years ago</i>.—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i> (The +<i>experience</i>, with exact time-interval, is probably unique, like +any individual thumb-print; that does not make the <i>coincidence</i> +more remarkable; and it is the coincidence that we are to admire)</p> + +<p>Nothing has brought out more strongly than motor-driving the +over-bearing, selfish nature of too many motor-drivers and their utter +want of consideration for their fellow men.—<span class="smcap">Lord Wemyss.</span> +(The attempt to kill drivers and driving with one stone leaves both +very slightly wounded. For what should show up the drivers more +than the driving? and whom should the driving show up more than the +drivers?)</p> +</div> + +<p>The commonest form of this is due to conscientious but mistaken zeal +for correctness, which prefers, for instance, <i>without oppressing or +without plundering</i> to <i>without oppressing or plundering</i>. The +first form excludes only one of the offences, and is therefore, though +probably meant to be twice as emphatic, actually much weaker than the +second, which excludes both. With <i>and</i> instead of <i>or</i>, it +is another matter.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Actual experience has shown that a gun constructed on the wire +system can still be utilized effectively without the destruction of +the weapon or without dangerous effects, even with its inner tube +split.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The Union must be maintained without pandering to such prejudices on +the one hand, <i>or without</i> giving way on the other to the ... +schemes of the Nationalists.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>He inhibited him, on pain of excommunication, from seeking a +divorce in his own English Courts, <i>or from</i> contracting a new +marriage.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span> (Half excused by the negative sense +of <i>inhibit</i>)</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</span></p> + + +<p>46. <span class="smcap">‘Split’ Auxiliaries.</span></p> + +<p>Some writers, holding that there is the same objection to split +compound verbs as to split infinitives, prefer to place any adverb or +qualifying phrase not between the auxiliary and the other component, +but before both. Provided that the adverb is then separated from the +auxiliary, no harm is done: ‘Evidently he was mistaken’ is often as +good as ‘He was evidently mistaken’, and suits all requirements of +accentuation. But the placing of the adverb immediately before or +after the auxiliary depends, according to established usage, upon +the relative importance of the two components. When the main accent +is to fall upon the second component, the normal place of the adverb +is between the two; it is only when the same verb is repeated with a +change in the tense or mood of the auxiliary, that the adverb should +come first. ‘He evidently was deceived’ implies, or should imply, that +the verb <i>deceived</i> has been used before, and that the point of +the sentence depends upon the emphatic auxiliary; accordingly we should +write ‘The possibility of his being deceived had never occurred to +me; but he evidently was deceived’, but ‘I relied implicitly on his +knowledge of the facts; but he was evidently deceived’. In our first +two examples below the adverb is rightly placed first to secure the +emphasis on the auxiliary: in all the others the above principle of +accentuation is violated. The same order of words is required by the +copula with whatever kind of complement.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I recognize this truth, and always have recognized it.</p> + +<p>Refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion, and ever will be +so, as long as the world endures.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> + +<p>They never are suffered to succeed in their +opposition.—<span class="smcap">Burke.</span></p> + +<p>She had received the homage of ... and occasionally had deigned to +breathe forth....—<span class="smcap">Beaconsfield.</span></p> + +<p>He ordered breakfast as calmly as if he never had left his +home.—<span class="smcap">Beaconsfield.</span></p> + +<p>Miss Becky, whose sympathetic powers never had been called into action +before.—<span class="smcap">Ferrier.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</span></span></p> + +<p>They now were bent on taking the work into their own +hands.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span></p> + +<p>There may have been a time when a king was a god, but he now is pretty +much on a level with his subjects.—<span class="smcap">Jowett.</span></p> + +<p>They both are contradicted by all positive evidence.—<span class="smcap">W. H. +Mallock.</span></p> + +<p>Religious art at once complete and sincere never yet has +existed.—<span class="smcap">Ruskin.</span></p> + +<p>Not mere empty ideas, but what were once realities, and that I long +have thought decayed.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> + +<p>So that he might assist at a Bible class, from which he never had been +absent.—<span class="smcap">Beaconsfield.</span></p> + +<p>If we would write an essay, we necessarily must have something to +say.—<span class="smcap">Bygott & Jones.</span></p> + +<p>The protectionists lately have been affirming that the autumn session +will be devoted to railway questions.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Visitors no longer can drive in open carriages along the +littoral.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It still is the fact that his mind ... was essentially the mind of a +poet.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>To whom in any case its style would have not appealed.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>To go wrong with <i>not</i> is an achievement possible only with +triple compounds, where the principal division is of course between +the finite (<i>would</i>) and the infinitive with participle (<i>have +appealed</i>). ‘Would not have appealed’ must be written, though at an +enormous sacrifice of ‘distinction’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>This enhanced value of old English silver may be due partly to the +increase in the number of collectors; but it also has been largely +influenced by the publication....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Mr. Fry showed to a very great extent his power of defence.... To-day, +if runs are to be of importance, he very likely will show his powers +of hitting.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>47. <span class="smcap">Overloading</span></p> + +<p>A single sentence is sometimes made to carry a double burden:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>So unique a man as Sir George Lewis has, in truth, rarely been lost to +this country.—<span class="smcap">Bagehot.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The meaning is not ‘Men like Sir G. Lewis have seldom been lost’, but +‘Men like the late Sir G. Lewis have seldom been found’. But instead +of <i>the late</i> a word was required that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</span> should express proper +concern; <i>lost</i> is a short cut to ‘men so unique as he whose loss +we now deplore’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There are but few men whose lives abound in such wild and +romantic adventure, and, for the most part, crowned with +success.—<span class="smcap">Prescott.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The writer does not mean ‘adventures so wild, so romantic, and so +successful in the main’; that is shown by the qualifying parenthesis, +which is obviously one of comment on the individual case. What he does +mean ought to have been given in two sentences: ‘There are but few ... +adventure;—’s, moreover, was for the most part crowned with success’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The Sultan regrets that the distance and the short notice alone +prevent him from coming in person.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>This is as much as to say that the Sultan wishes there were more +obstacles. Read: ‘The Sultan regrets that he cannot come in person; +nothing but the distance and the short notice could prevent him’.</p> + + +<p>48. <span class="smcap">Demonstrative, Noun, and Participle or Adjective</span></p> + +<p>Of the forms, <i>persons interested</i>, <i>the persons interested</i>, +<i>those interested</i>, <i>those who are interested</i>, one or +another may better suit a particular phrase or context. <i>Those +interested</i> is the least to be recommended, especially with +an active participle or adjective. The form <i>those persons +interested</i> is a hybrid, and is very seldom used by any good writer; +but it is becoming so common in inferior work that it is thought +necessary to give many examples. The first two, of the form <i>those +interested</i>, will pass, though <i>those who were concerned</i>, +<i>all who drive</i>, would be better. In the others <i>that</i> and +<i>those</i> should be either replaced by <i>the</i> or (sometimes) +simply omitted.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The idea of a shortage had hardly entered the heads even of +<i>those</i> most immediately <i>concerned</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>They are the terror of all <i>those driving</i> or riding spirited +horses.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</span></p> + +<p>At every time and in every place throughout <i>that</i> very +limited <i>portion</i> of time and space <i>open</i> to human +observation.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> + +<p><i>That part</i> of the regular army <i>quartered</i> at home should +be grouped by divisions.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Here they beheld acres of <i>that</i> stupendous <i>growth seen</i> +only in the equinoctial regions.—<span class="smcap">Prescott.</span></p> + +<p>It is not likely that General Kuropatkine has amassed <i>those +reserves</i> of military stores and supplies plainly <i>required</i> +by the circumstances of his situation.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The insurrection had been general throughout the country, +at least <i>that portion</i> of it <i>occupied</i> by the +Spaniards.—<span class="smcap">Prescott.</span></p> + +<p>My amendment would be that <i>that part</i> of the report +<i>dealing</i> with the dividend on the ‘A’ shares ... be not +adopted.—Company report.</p> + +<p>We shall fail to secure <i>that unanimity</i> of thought and doctrine +so <i>indispensable</i> both for....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>... in order to minimize the effect produced by <i>that portion</i> of +the Admirals’ report <i>favourable</i> to England.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>A struggle ... which our nation must be prepared to face in the last +resort, or else give way to <i>those countries</i> not <i>afraid</i> +to accept the responsibilities and sacrifices inseparable from +Empire.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Civil servants will not, nay, cannot, work with <i>that freedom</i> of +action so <i>essential</i> to good work in the case of such persons, +so long as....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>To <i>those Colonies unable</i> to concur with these suggestions a +warning should be addressed.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>49. <span class="smcap">False Scent</span></p> + +<p>It is most annoying to a reader to be misled about the construction, +and therefore most foolish in a writer to mislead him. In the sentences +that follow, <i>facilities</i> and <i>excesses</i> are naturally taken +as in the same construction, and similarly <i>influences</i> and +<i>nature</i>, until the ends of the sentences show us that we have +gone wrong. These are very bad cases; but minor offences of the kind +are very common, and should be carefully guarded against.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He gloats over the facilities the excesses and the blunders of the +authorities have given his comrades for revolutionary action among the +masses.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The influences of that age, his open, kind, susceptible nature, +to say<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</span> nothing of his highly untoward situation, made it +more than usually difficult for him to cast aside or rightly +subordinate.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>That there is no comma between <i>facilities</i> and <i>the +excesses</i> is no defence, seeing how often commas go wrong; indeed +the comma after <i>age</i> in the second piece, which is strictly +wrong, is a proof how little reliance is to be placed on such signs.</p> + + +<p>50. <span class="smcap">Misplacement of Words</span></p> + +<p>Generous interpretation will generally get at a writer’s meaning; but +for him to rely on that is to appeal <i>ad misericordiam</i>. Appended +to the sentences, when necessary, is the result of supposing them to +mean what they say.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is with grief and pain, that, <i>as admirers of the British +aristocracy</i>, we find ourselves obliged to admit the +existence of so many ill qualities in a person whose name is in +Debrett.—<span class="smcap">Thackeray.</span> (implies that admirers must admit this +more than other people)</p> + +<p>It is from this fate that the son of a commanding prime minister +is <i>at any rate</i> preserved.—<span class="smcap">Bagehot.</span> (implies that +<i>preserved</i> is a weak word used instead of a stronger)</p> + +<p>And even if we could suppose it to be our duty, it is not one which, +<i>as was shown in the last chapter</i>, we are practically competent +to perform.—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> + +<p>The chairman said there was no sadder sight in the world than to see +women drunk, because they seemed to lose <i>complete</i> control of +themselves. (implies that losing complete control leaves you with less +than if you lost incomplete control)</p> + +<p>The soldiers are deeply chagrined at having had to give up positions, +<i>in obedience to orders</i>, which the Japanese could not +take.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Great and heroic men have existed, who had almost no other information +than by the printed page. I <i>only</i> would say, that it needs a +strong head to bear that diet.—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span> (implies that no one +else would say it)</p> + +<p>Yes, the laziest of human beings, through the providence of God, <i>a +being, too, of rather inferior capacity</i>, acquires the written part +of a language so difficult that....—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>Right or wrong as his hypothesis may be, no one that knows him will +suspect that he himself had not seen it, and seen over it.... Neither, +<i>as we often hear</i>, is there any superhuman faculty required to +follow him.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span> (implies that we often hear there is +not)</p> + +<p>This, we say to ourselves, may be all very true (for have +we, <i>too</i>, not browsed in the Dictionary of National +Biography?); but why does Tanner<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</span> say it all, just at that moment, +to....—<i>Times.</i> (implies that others have refrained from +browsing)</p> + +<p>But in 1798 the Irish rising was crushed in a defeat of the insurgents +at Vinegar Hill; and Tippoo’s death in the storm of his own capital, +Seringapatam, <i>only</i> saved him from witnessing the English +conquest of Mysore.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span> (implies that that was all +it saved him from)</p> +</div> + + +<p>51. <span class="smcap">Ambiguous Position</span></p> + +<p>In this matter judgement is required. A captious critic might find +examples on almost every page of almost any writer; but most of +them, though they may strictly be called ambiguous, would be quite +justifiable. On the other hand a careless writer can nearly always +plead, even for a bad offence, that an attentive reader would take +the thing the right way. That is no defence; a rather inattentive and +sleepy reader is the true test; if the run of the sentence is such that +he at first sight refers whatever phrase is in question to the wrong +government, then the ambiguity is to be condemned.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Louis XVIII, dying in 1824, was succeeded, as Charles X, by his +brother the Count d’Artois.—<span class="smcap">E. Sanderson.</span> (The sleepy +reader, assisted by memories of James the First and Sixth, concludes, +though not without surprise, which perhaps finally puts him on the +right track, that Louis XVIII of France was also Charles X of some +other country)</p> + +<p>In 1830 Paris overthrew monarchy by divine right.—<span class="smcap">Morley.</span> +(<i>By divine right</i> looks so much more like an adverbial +than an adjectival phrase that the sleepy reader takes it with +<i>overthrew</i>)</p> + +<p>(From review of a book on ambidexterity) Two kinds of emphatic +type are used, and both are liberally sprinkled about the pages +on some principle which is not at all obvious. The practice may +have its merits, like ambidexterity, but it is generally eschewed +by good writers who know their business, although they are not +ambidextrous.—<i>Times.</i> (The balance of the sentence is extremely +bad if the <i>although</i> clause is subordinated to <i>who</i>; and +the sleepy reader accordingly does not take it so, but with <i>is +eschewed</i>, and so makes nonsense)</p> + +<p>It was a temper not only legal, but pedantic in its legality, +intolerant from its very sense of a moral order and law <i>of</i> the +lawlessness and disorder of a personal tyranny.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span></p> + +<p>The library over the porch of the church, which is large and handsome, +contains one thousand printed books.—<span class="smcap">R. Curzon.</span> (A large and +handsome library, or porch, or church?)</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</span></p> + +<p>Both these last are very unkind to the poor sleepy reader; it is true +that in one of them he is inexcusable if he goes wrong, but we should +for our own sakes give him as few chances of going wrong as possible.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Luck and dexterity always give more pleasure than intellect and +knowledge; because they fill up what they fall <i>on to</i> the +brim at once, and people run to them with acclamation at the +splash.—<span class="smcap">Landor.</span> (<i>On</i> and <i>to</i> so regularly +belong together now, though they did not in Landor’s time, that it is +disconcerting to be asked to pause between them)</p> +</div> + + +<p>52. <span class="smcap">Ambiguous Enumeration</span></p> + +<p>In comma’d enumerations, care should be taken not to insert appositions +that may be taken, even if only at first sight, for separate members.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Some high officials of the Headquarter Staff, including the officer +who is primus inter pares, the Director of Military Operations, and +the Director of Staff duties....—<i>Times.</i> (Two, or three, +persons? Probably two; but those who can be sure of this do not need +the descriptive clause, and those who need it cannot be sure)</p> + +<p>Lord Curzon, Sir Edmond Elles, the present Military Member, and +the Civilian Members of Council traverse the most material of Lord +Kitchener’s statements of fact.—<i>Times.</i> (Is Sir E. Elles the +Military Member? No need to tell any one who knows; and any one who +does not know is not told)</p> + +<p>I here wish to remark that Lord Dufferin first formed the Mobilization +Committee, of which the Commander-in-Chief is President, and the +Military Member, Secretary, Military Department, and the heads of +departments both at Army Headquarters and under the Government of +India, are members with the express intention of....—<i>Times.</i> +(Is the Military Member Secretary of the Mobilization Committee? Well, +he may be, but a certain amount of patience shows us that the sentence +we are reading does not tell us so)</p> +</div> + + +<p>53. <span class="smcap">Antics</span></p> + +<p>A small selection must suffice. Straining after the dignified, the +unusual, the poignant, the high-flown, the picturesque, the striking, +often turns out badly. It is not worth while to attain any of these +aims at the cost of being unnatural.</p> + +<p>1. Use of stiff, full-dress, literary, or out-of-the-way words.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And in no direction was the slightest concern +<i>evinced</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The majority display <i>scant</i> anxiety for news.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>... treating his characters on broader lines, occupying himself with +more elemental emotions and types, and forsaking altogether his almost +<i>meticulous</i> analysis of motive and temperament.—<i>Westminster +Gazette.</i> (We recommend to this reviewer a more meticulous use of +the dictionary)</p> + +<p>And most probably he is voted a fool for not doing as many men in +similar positions are doing—viz., making up for a lack of principle +by an abundance of <i>bawbees</i> easily extracted from a large class +of contractors who are only too willing....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It is Victor Hugo’s people, the motives on which they act, the means +they take to carry out their objects, their relations to one another, +that strike us as so <i>monumentally</i> droll.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Nothing definite has been decided upon as to the exact date of the +visits, the <i>venue</i> of the visits, the....—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>2. Pretentious circumlocution.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>That life was brought to a close in November 1567, at an age, +probably, not far from <i>the one fixed by the sacred writer as the +term of human existence</i>.—<span class="smcap">Prescott.</span></p> + +<p>She skated extremely badly, but with an enjoyment that was almost +pathetic, <i>in consideration of the persistence of ‘frequent +fall’</i>.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> + +<p>The question of an extension of the Zemstvos to the southwest +provinces is believed to be under consideration. It is understood that +the visit of General Kleigels to St. Petersburg is <i>not unconnected +therewith</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>3. Poetic phraseology, especially the Carlylese superlative. Almost any +page of Milton’s prose will show whence Carlyle had this; but it is +most offensive in ordinary modern writing.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A period when, as she puts it, men and women of fashion ‘tried not to +be themselves, yet never so successfully displayed <i>the naked hearts +of them</i>’.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The last week in February was harnessing her seven bright steeds in +shining tandem in the silent courtyard of the time to be.—<i>The +Lamp.</i></p> + +<p>Our enveloping movements since some days prove successful, and +fiercest battle is now proceeding.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The unhappy man persuades himself that he has in truth become a new +creature, of the wonderfullest symmetry.—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>4. Patronizing superiority expressed by describing simple things in +long words.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</span></p><div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The skating-rink, where happy folk all day slide with set purpose on +the elusive material, and with great content perform mystic evolutions +of the most complicated order.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>5. The determined picturesque.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Across the street blank shutters flung back the gaslight in cold +smears.—<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span></p> + +<p>The outflung white water at the foot of a homeward-bound Chinaman +not a hundred yards away, and her shadow-slashed rope-purfled sails +bulging sideways like insolent cheeks.—<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span></p> + +<p>An under-carry of grey woolly spindrift of a slaty colour flung +itself noiselessly in the opposite direction, a little above the tree +tops.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span></p> + +<p>Then for a space the ground was more clayey, and a carpet of green +water-weeds were combed and waved by the woven ropes of water.—<span class="smcap">E. +F. Benson.</span></p> + +<p>At some distance off, in Winchester probably, which pricked the +blue haze of heat with dim spires, a church bell came muffled and +languid.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> + +<p>A carriage drive lay in long curves like a flicked whip lash, +surmounting terrace after terrace set with nugatory nudities.—<span class="smcap">E. +F. Benson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>6. Recherché epithets.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Perhaps both Milton and Beethoven would live in our memories as +writers of idylls, had not a <i>brusque</i> infirmity dreadfully shut +them off from their fellow men.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The high <i>canorous</i> note of the north-easter.—<span class="smcap">Stevenson.</span></p> + +<p>By specious and <i>clamant</i> exceptions.—<span class="smcap">Stevenson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>7. Formal antithesis or parallel. This particular form of artificiality +is perhaps too much out of fashion to be dangerous at present. The +great storehouse of it is in Macaulay.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He had neither the qualities which make dulness respectable, nor the +qualities which make libertinism attractive.—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> + +<p>The first two kings of the House of Hanover had neither those +hereditary rights which have often supplied the place of merit, nor +those personal qualities which have often supplied the defect of +title.—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> + +<p>But he was indolent and dissolute, and had early impaired a +fine estate with the dice-box, and a fine constitution with the +bottle.—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p> + +<p>The disclosure of the stores of Greek literature had wrought the +revolution of the Renascence. The disclosure of the older mass of +Hebrew literature wrought the revolution of the Reformation.—<span class="smcap">J. +R. Green.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</span></p> + +<p>8. Author’s self-consciousness.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>‘You mean it is,’ she said—‘about Bertie’. Charlie made the noise +usually written ‘Pshaw’.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>9. Intrusive smartness—another form of self-consciousness.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Round her lay piles of press notices, which stripped the American +variety of the English language bare of epithets.—<span class="smcap">E. F. +Benson.</span></p> + +<p>Income-tax payers are always treated to the fine words which butter +no parsnips, and are always assured that it is really a danger to the +State to go on skinning them in time of peace to such an extent as to +leave little integument to remove in time of war.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Yet in the relentless city, where no one may pause for a moment unless +he wishes to be left behind in the great universal race for gold which +begins as soon as a child can walk, and ceases not until he is long +past walking, the climbing of the thermometer into the nineties <i>is +an acrobatic feat which concerns the thermometer only</i>, and at the +junction of Sixth Avenue and Broadway there was no slackening in the +tides of the affairs of men.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span></p> +</div> + + +<p>54. <span class="smcap">Miscellaneous Types of Journalese</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Mr. Lionel Phillips maintained that it was impossible to introduce +white unskilled <i>labour</i> on a large scale <i>as a payable +proposition</i> without lowering the position of the white +man.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>How <i>labour</i> can be a <i>proposition</i>, and how a +<i>proposition</i> can be <i>payable</i> it is not easy to say. The +sentence seems to mean: ‘to introduce ... labour on a large scale and +make it pay’. This is what comes of a fondness for abstracts.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>They have not hitherto discovered the formula for the intelligent +use of our unrivalled resources for the <i>satisfaction of our +security</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>This perhaps means: ‘They have not yet discovered how our unrivalled +resources may be made to ensure our safety’.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>An attempt to efface the ill-effects of the Czar’s refusal to see +the workmen has been made <i>by</i> the grant <i>of</i> an interview +<i>by</i> the Czar <i>at</i> Tsarkoe Selo <i>to</i> a body <i>of</i> +workmen officially selected to represent the masses.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>The powerful and convincing article on the question of War Office +administration as it affects the Volunteers to be found in this +month’s National.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>The Russian Government is at last face to face with the greatest +crisis of the war, <i>in the shape of the fact that</i> the Siberian +railway....—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</span></p> + +<p>No year passes now without evidence of the truth of the +statement that the work of government is becoming increasingly +difficult.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>It has taken a leading part in protesting against the Congo State’s +treatment of natives controlled by it, and in procuring the pressure +which the House of Commons has put upon our Government with a view to +international insistence on fulfilment of the obligations entered upon +by the Congo Government as regards native rights.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The outcome of a desire to convince the Government of the expediency +of granting the return recently ordered by the House with regard to +the names, ....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>In default of information of the result of the deliberations which +it has been stated the Imperial Defence Committee have been engaged +in....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The volunteer does not volunteer to be compelled to suffer long, +filthy, and neglected illnesses and too often death, yet such was +South Africa on a vast scale, and is inevitable in war under the +present official indifference.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>55. <span class="smcap">Somewhat</span>, &c.</p> + +<p>Indulgence in qualifying adverbs, as <i>perhaps</i>, <i>possibly</i>, +<i>probably</i>, <i>rather</i>, <i>a little</i>, <i>somewhat</i>, +amounts with English journalists to a disease; the intemperate orgy +of moderation is renewed every morning. As <i>somewhat</i> is rapidly +swallowing up the rest, we shall almost confine our attention to it; +and it is useless to deprecate the use without copious illustration. +Examples will be classified under headings, though these are not quite +mutually exclusive.</p> + +<p>1. <i>Somewhat</i> clearly illogical.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A number of questions to the Prime Minister have been put upon the +paper with the object of eliciting information as to the personnel of +the proposed Royal Commission and the scope of their inquiry. These +are now <i>somewhat belated</i> in view of the official announcement +made this morning.—<i>Times.</i> (The announcement contained both the +list of members and the full reference)</p> + +<p>Thrills which gave him <i>rather a unique</i> +pleasure.—<span class="smcap">Hutton.</span></p> + +<p>Russian despatches are <i>somewhat inconsistent</i>, one of them +stating that there is no change in the position of the armies, while +another says that the Japanese advance continues.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Being faint with hunger I was <i>somewhat in a listless condition</i> +bordering on stupor.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</span></p> + +<p>In the light of these, it would be hard to say what full belatedness, +inconsistency, and listlessness may be.</p> + +<p>2. <i>Somewhat</i> with essentially emphatic words.</p> + +<p>We may call a thing dirty, or filthy; if we choose the latter, we mean +to be emphatic; it is absurd to use the emphatic word and take away its +emphasis with <i>somewhat</i>, when we might use the gentler word by +itself.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>A member of the Legislative Council is allowed now to speak in +Dutch if he cannot express himself clearly in English; under the +proposed arrangement he will be able to decide for himself in which +medium he can express himself the more clearly. Surely a <i>somewhat +infinitesimal</i> point.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Thirdly, it is <i>rather agonizing</i> at times to the +philologist.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The distances at which the movements are being conducted receive +a <i>somewhat startling</i> illustration from the statement +that....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Under these circumstances it is <i>somewhat extraordinary</i> to +endeavour to save the Government from blame.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>In various evidently ‘well-informed’ journals the <i>somewhat +amazing</i> proposition is set up that....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>But unfortunately the word ‘duties’ got accidentally substituted +for ‘bounties’ in two places, and made the utterance <i>somewhat +unintelligible</i> to the general reader.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The songs are sung by students to the accompaniment of a <i>somewhat +agonizing</i> band.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>There is a mysterious man-killing orchid, a great Eastern +jewel of State, and many other properties, some of them <i>a +little well worn</i>, suitable for the staging of a tale of +mystery.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Some of the instances in these two classes would be defended as +humorous under-statement. But if this hackneyed trick is an example of +the national humour, we had better cease making reflections on German +want of humour.</p> + +<p>3. <i>Somewhat</i> shyly announcing an epigrammatic or well-chosen +phrase.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There is a very pretty problem awaiting the decision of Prince Bülow, +and one which is entirely worthy of his <i>somewhat acrobatic</i> +diplomacy.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Gaston engaged in a controversy on the origin of evil, which +terminated by his <i>somewhat abruptly quitting his Alma +Mater</i>.—<span class="smcap">Beaconsfield.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</span></span></p> + +<p>Why even Tennyson became an amateur milkman to <i>somewhat +conceal and excuse the shame and degradation of writing +verse</i>.—<span class="smcap">Corelli.</span></p> + +<p>The virtuous but <i>somewhat unpleasing</i> type of the Roman +nation.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The sight of these soldiers and sailors sitting round camp-fires in +the midst of the snow in fashionable thoroughfares, transforming the +city into an armed camp, is <i>somewhat weird</i>.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>While Mary was trying to decipher these <i>somewhat mystic</i> +lines.—<span class="smcap">S. Ferrier.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>4. <i>Somewhat</i> conveying a sneer.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is somewhat strange that any one connected with this institution +should be so unfamiliar with its regulations.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>... that the conclusion arrived at by the shortest route is +to be accepted—a somewhat extravagant doctrine, according to +which....—<span class="smcap">Balfour.</span></p> + +<p>But very few points of general interest have been elicited in any +quarter by these somewhat academic reflections.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>This somewhat glowing advertisement of the new loan.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>5. The genuine <i>somewhat</i>, merely tame, timid, undecided, +conciliatory, or polite.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>It is somewhat pitiful to see the efforts of a foreign State directed, +not to the pursuit of its own aims by legitimate means, but to the +gratification of personal hostility to a great public servant of +France.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I am certain that the clergy themselves only too gladly acquiesce in +this somewhat illogical division of labour.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>This, no doubt, is what Professor Ray Lankester is driving at in his +somewhat intemperate onslaught.—Times.</p> + +<p>The <i>rather mysterious</i> visit of S. Tittoni, the Italian Foreign +Minister, to Germany.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>These are of <i>rather remarkable</i> promise; the head shows +an unusual power of realizing character under a purely ideal +conception.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The <i>rather finely</i> conceived statuette called ‘The Human Task’ +by Mr. Oliver Wheatley.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It is somewhat the fashion to say that in these days....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>A letter from one whose learning and experience entitle him to be +heard, conceived, as I think, in a spirit of somewhat exaggerated +pessimism.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>The statement made by the writer is somewhat open to +doubt.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I have read with much interest the letters on the subject of +hush-money, especially as they account to me somewhat for the +difficulties I have experienced.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It would be valuable if he would somewhat expand his ideas regarding +local defence by Volunteers.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</span></p> + +<p>Sir,—I have been somewhat interested in the recent correspondence in +your columns.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>So many persons of undoubted integrity believe in ‘dowsing’ that he is +a somewhat rash man who summarily dismisses the matter.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Sir Francis Bertie, whose dislike of unnecessary publicity is somewhat +pronounced.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It is not too much to say that any one who hopes to write well had +better begin by abjuring <i>somewhat</i> altogether.</p> + +<p>We cannot tell whether this long list will have a dissuasive effect, or +will be referred to foolish individual prejudice against an unoffending +word. But on the first assumption we should like to add that a not +less dissuasive collection might easily be made of the intensifier +<i>distinctly</i> than of the qualifier <i>somewhat</i>. The use meant +is that seen in:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The effect as the procession careers through the streets of Berlin is +described as distinctly interesting.</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Distinctly</i> gives the patronizing interest, as <i>somewhat</i> +gives the contemptuous indifference, with which a superior person is +to be conceived surveying life; and context too often reveals that the +superiority is imaginary.</p> + + +<p>56. <span class="smcap">Clumsy Patching</span></p> + +<p>When a writer detects a fault in what he has written or thought of +writing, his best course is to recast the whole sentence. The next best +is to leave it alone. The worst is to patch it in such a way that the +reader has his attention drawn, works out the original version, and +condemns his author for carelessness aggravated by too low an estimate +of his own intelligence.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Numerous allegations, too, were made of prejudiced +treatment <i>measured out against</i> motorists by rural +magistrates.—<i>Times.</i> (avoidance of the jingle in <i>meted</i> +out to <i>motor</i>ists)</p> + +<p>No crew proved to be of the very highest class; but this, +perhaps, <i>led the racing to be</i> on the whole close and +exciting.—<i>Times.</i> (avoidance of the jingle in led to the +rac<i>ing</i> be<i>ing</i>)</p> + +<p>The Lord Mayor last night entertained the Judges <i>to</i> a banquet +at the Mansion House.—<i>Times.</i> (avoidance of double <i>at</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</span></p> + +<p>The occupants talked, inspected the cars <i>of one another</i>, +interchanged tales of....—<i>Times.</i> (avoidance, in grammatical +pusillanimity, of <i>one another’s cars</i>)</p> + +<p>... who have only themselves in view <i>by</i> breaking through +it.—<span class="smcap">Richardson.</span> (avoidance of double <i>in</i>)</p> + +<p>He nodded, <i>as one who would say</i>, ‘I have already thought of +that’.—<span class="smcap">Crockett.</span> (avoidance of the archaism, which however +is the only natural form, <i>as who should say</i>)</p> + +<p>It is now practically certain that the crews of Nebogatoff’s squadron +were in a state of mutiny, and that this is the explanation <i>for</i> +the surrender <i>of</i> these vessels.—<i>Times.</i> (avoidance of +double <i>of</i>)</p> + +<p>And <i>for</i> the first time <i>after</i> twenty years the Whigs saw +themselves again in power.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span> (Avoidance of double +<i>for</i>; if <i>after</i> had been originally intended, we should +have had <i>at last</i> instead of <i>for the first time</i>)</p> + +<p>And oppressive laws forced even these <i>few</i> with <i>scant</i> +exceptions to profess Protestantism.—<span class="smcap">J. R. Green.</span> (To avoid +the repetition of <i>few</i> the affected word <i>scant</i> has been +admitted)</p> + +<p>Given competition, any line would vie with the others in mirrors +and gilded furniture; but if there is none, why spend a penny? Not +a passenger the less will travel because the mode of transit is +<i>bestial</i>.—<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson.</span> (To avoid the overdone word +<i>beastly</i>—which however happens to be the right one here; +<i>bestial</i> describes character or conduct)</p> + +<p>There is, indeed, a kind of timorous atheism in the man who dares +not trust God to <i>render</i> all efforts to interpret his +Word—and what is criticism but interpretation?—work together for +good.—<i>Spectator.</i> (<i>Render</i> is substituted for <i>make</i> +because <i>make efforts</i> might be taken as complete without the +<i>work together</i> that is due. Unfortunately, <i>to render efforts +work together</i> is not even English at all)</p> +</div> + + +<p>57. <span class="smcap">Omission of the Conjunction ‘that’</span></p> + +<p>This is quite legitimate, but often unpleasant. It is partly a matter +of idiom, as, <i>I presume you know</i>, but <i>I assume that you +know</i>; partly of avoiding false scent, as in the sixth example +below, where <i>scheme</i> might be object to <i>discover</i>. In +particular it is undesirable to omit <i>that</i> when a long clause or +phrase intervenes between it and the subject and verb it introduces, as +in the first four examples.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And it is to be hoped, <i>as the tree-planting season has arrived</i>, +Stepney will now put its scheme in hand.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</span></p> + +<p>Sir,—We notice <i>in a leading article in your issue to-day on +the subject of the carriage of Australian mails</i> you imply that +the increased price demanded by the Orient Pacific Line was due +to....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Lord Balfour ... moved that it is necessary, <i>before the +constituencies are asked to determine upon the desirability of such +conference</i>, they should be informed first....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Lord Spencer held that it was impossible <i>with regard to a question +which had broken up the Government and disturbed the country</i> they +could go into a conference which....—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>If the Australian is to be convinced that is an unreasonable wish, it +will not be by arguments about taxation.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I think he would discover the scheme unfolded and explained in them is +a perfectly intelligible and comprehensive one.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>It is not till He cometh the ideal will be seen.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>And it is only by faith the evils you mention as productive of war can +be cast out of our hearts.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I do not wish it to be understood that I consider all those who +applied for work during the past two winters and who are now seeking +employment are impostors.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>I assume Turkey would require such a cash payment of at least +£500,000.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>Tawno leaped into the saddle, where he really looked like Gunnar of +Hlitharend, save and except the complexion of Gunnar was florid, +whereas that of Tawno was of nearly Mulatto darkness.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In some of these the motive is obvious, to avoid one <i>that</i>-clause +depending on another; the end was good, but the means bad; a more +thorough recasting was called for.</p> + + +<p>58. <span class="smcap">Meaningless ‘while’</span></p> + +<p><i>While</i>, originally temporal, has a legitimate use also in +contrasts. The further colourless use of it, whether with verb or +with participle, as a mere elegant variation for <i>and</i> is very +characteristic of journalese, and much to be deprecated.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Of its value there can be no question. The editor’s article on +‘Constitutions’, for example, and that of Mr. W. Wyse on ‘Law’ both +well repay most careful study; <i>while</i> when Sir R. Jebb writes +on ‘Literature’, Dr. Henry Jackson on ‘Philosophy’, or Professor +Waldstein on ‘Sculpture’, their contributions must be regarded as +authoritative.—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>The fireman was killed on the spot, and the driver as well as the +guard of the passenger train was slightly injured; <i>while</i> the +up-line was blocked for some time with débris from broken trucks of +the goods train.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</span></p> + +<p>The deer on the island took some interest in the proceeding, while the +peacocks on the lawn screamed at the right time.—<i>Birmingham Daily +Post.</i></p> + +<p>It cannot be contended that it is more profitable to convey a +passenger the twenty-four miles to Yarmouth for payment than to accept +the same payment without performing the service; <i>while</i>, if the +company wish to discourage the use of cheap week-end tickets, why +issue them at all?—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>59. <span class="smcap">Commercialisms</span></p> + +<p>Certain uses of <i>such</i>, <i>the same</i>, and other words, redolent +of commerce and the law, should be reserved for commercial and legal +contexts. <i>Anent</i>, which has been noticed in Part I, is a legalism +of this kind. In the Brontë instances quoted, a twang of flippancy will +be observed; the other writers are probably unconscious.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>This gentleman’s state of mind was very harrowing, and I was glad when +he wound up his exposition of the same.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> + +<p>The present was no occasion for showy array; my dun mist crape would +suffice, and I sought the same in the great oak wardrobe in the +dormitory.—<span class="smcap">C. Brontë.</span></p> + +<p>There are certain books that almost defy classification, and this +volume ... is one of such.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>I am pleased to read the correspondence in your paper, and hope that +good will be the result of the same.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>The man who has approached nearest to the teaching of the Master, and +carried the same to its logical and practical conclusion is General +Booth.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Do I believe that by not having had the hands of a bishop laid upon +my head I cannot engage in the outward and visible commemoration of +the Lord’s Supper as not being fit to receive the same?—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>But do the great majority of people let their belief in the hereafter +affect their conduct with regard to the same. I think not.—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>Let us hope, Sir, that it may be possible in your own interests to +continue the same till the subject has had a good innings.—<i>Daily +Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>I believe, and have believed since, a tiny child, made miserable by +the loss of a shilling, I prayed my Heavenly Father to help me to +recover the same.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>It is of course possible, in this connexion, that the Prayer Book is +responsible for ‘the same’.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>If I am refused the Sacrament I do not believe that I shall have +less chance of entering the Kingdom of God than if I received such +Sacrament.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>But when it comes to us following his life and example, in all +its intricate details, all will, I think, agree that such is +impossible.—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>An appeal to philanthropy is hardly necessary, the grounds for such +being so self-evident.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>... such a desire it should be the purpose of a Unionist Government +to foster; but such will not be attained under the present regime in +Dublin.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>... regaling themselves on half-pints at the said village +hostelries.—<span class="smcap">Borrow.</span></p> + +<p>Having read with much interest the letters re ‘believe only’ now +appearing in the <i>Daily Telegraph</i>....—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>He ruined himself and family by his continued experiments for the +benefit of the British nation.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + + +<p>60. <span class="smcap">Pet Phrases</span></p> + +<p>Vivid writers must be careful not to repeat any conspicuous phrase so +soon that a reader of ordinary memory has not had time to forget it +before it invites his attention again. Whatever its merits, to use it +twice (unless deliberately and with point) is much worse than never +to have thought of it. The pages below are those of Green’s <i>Short +History</i> (1875).</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The temper of the first [King George] was that of a gentleman usher. +p. 704.</p> + +<p>Bute was a mere court favourite, with the abilities of a gentleman +usher. p. 742.</p> + +<p>‘For weeks’, laughs Horace Walpole, ‘it rained gold boxes’. p. 729.</p> + +<p>‘We are forced to ask every morning what victory there is’, laughed +Horace Walpole. p. 737.</p> +</div> + +<p>The two following passages occur on pp. 6 and 81 of <i>The Bride of +Lammermoor</i> (Standard Edition).</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>In short, Dick Tinto’s friends feared that he had acted like the +animal called the sloth, which, having eaten up the last green leaf +upon the tree where it has established itself, ends by tumbling down +from the top, and dying of inanition.</p> + +<p>‘... but as for us, Caleb’s excuses become longer as his diet turns +more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</span> spare, and I fear we shall realise the stories they tell of +the sloth: we have almost eaten up the last green leaf on the plant, +and have nothing left for it but to drop from the tree and break our +necks.’</p> +</div> + + +<p>61. <span class="smcap">‘Also’ as Conjunction; and</span> ‘&c.’</p> + +<p><i>Also</i> is an adverb; the use of it as a conjunction is slovenly, +if not illiterate.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>We are giving these explanations gently as friends, also patiently as +becomes neighbours.—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>‘Special’ is a much overworked word, it being used to mean great in +degree, also peculiar in kind.—<span class="smcap">R. G. White.</span></p> + +<p>Mr. Sonnenschein’s volume will show by parallel passages Shakespeare’s +obligations to the ancients, also the obligations of modern writers to +Shakespeare.—<i>Times.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The use of <i>&c.</i>, except in business communications and such +contexts, has often the same sort of illiterate effect. This is very +common, but one example must suffice.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There are others with faults of temper, &c., evident enough, beside +whom we live content, as if the air about them did us good.—<span class="smcap">C. +Brontë.</span></p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">INDEX</h2> +</div> + + +<p><i>In this index all references are to pages. Small italics are used +for words and phrases; small roman type for subjects incidentally +mentioned; capitals for subjects expressly, even if not fully, +treated.</i></p> + + +<ul class="index"> +<li class="ifrst"> A</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>A-</i>, <a href="#Page_41">41-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>A</i> <span class="smcap">between Adjective and Noun</span>, <a href="#Page_329">329-30</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Absolute Construction</span>, <a href="#Page_115">115-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Absolute construction and stops, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241-2</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Abstract Words</span>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Accent, Sentence</span>, <a href="#Page_296">296-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Acquiesce to</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Acte de malveillance</i>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Adjectival clause, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Adjectival Clause in Punctuation</span>, <a href="#Page_242">242-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Adverb and Adverbial Clause in Punctuation</span>, <a href="#Page_244">244-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Adverbial clause, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Adverse from</i>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Aesthophysiology</i>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Aggravate</i>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Aggress</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Aim to</i>, <a href="#Page_132">132-3</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Airs and Graces</span>, Cap. III.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>-al</i>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Albeit</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Alit</i>, <a href="#Page_39">39-40</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Alliteration</span>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Allusion</span>, <a href="#Page_307">307-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Alma mater</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Almost quite</i>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>Also</i>, conj., and <i>&c.</i></span>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Altogether</i>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Amateurs, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Ambiguity</span>, <a href="#Page_345">345-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Ambiguity, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, + <a href="#Page_144">144-5</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Ambiguity and punctuation, <a href="#Page_264">264-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Ambiguous Enumeration</span>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Ambiguous Position</span>, <a href="#Page_347">347-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Amend</i>, n., <a href="#Page_38">38-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Americanisms</span>, <a href="#Page_23">23-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>A-moral</i>, <a href="#Page_41">41-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Amphitryon</i>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Anachronism in thought, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>And</i>, <a href="#Page_233">233-4</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>And which</i></span>, <a href="#Page_85">85-93</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>And who</i></span>, <a href="#Page_85">85-93</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Anent</i>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Animatedly</i>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Another story</i>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Antagonize</i>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Antecedentem scelestum</i>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Antics</span>, <a href="#Page_348">348-51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Antithesis, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Anyway</i>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Appendicitis</i>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Archaism</span>, <a href="#Page_193">193-200</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Archaism, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Archaism, positive and negative, <a href="#Page_198">198-200</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Archaism, sustained</span>, <a href="#Page_198">198-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Argon</i>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Arise</i>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Arrière pensée</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>As also</i>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>As</i> and <i>while</i> clauses, slovenly, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>As</i>, Case</span>, <a href="#Page_62">62-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>As</i> Clause, Causal</span>, <a href="#Page_298">298-300</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>As far as, that</i>, <a href="#Page_168">168-70</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>As if</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>As</i>, Liberties with</span>, <a href="#Page_324">324-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>As</i>, Omission of</span>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>As to</i>, <a href="#Page_166">166-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</span> <span class="smcap"><i>As to whether</i></span>, <a href="#Page_333">333-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>As who should say</i>, <a href="#Page_325">325-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>At anyrate</i>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>At the letter</i>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Aught</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Au pied de la lettre</i>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Automedon</i>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Auxiliaries, Split</span>, <a href="#Page_342">342-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Avail</i>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Available</i>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Averse from</i>, <a href="#Page_162">162-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Avoidance, clumsy, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, + <a href="#Page_355">355-6</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Await</i>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Awful</i>, <a href="#Page_49">49-50</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> B</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Back-number</i>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Back of</i>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Bagehot, <a href="#Page_210">210-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Balance Inversion</span>, <a href="#Page_182">182-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Balfour, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Ballon d’essai</i>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Banal</i>, <a href="#Page_38">38-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Banality</i>, <a href="#Page_38">38-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Bang in the eye</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Bastard enumeration, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>Be</i> and <i>do</i></span>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Beadnell, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Bedrock</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Benefits of</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Besant, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Bethink</i>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Bêtise</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i><span class="smcap">Between ... or</span></i>, <a href="#Page_328">328-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Between two stools</span>, <a href="#Page_327">327-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Between you and I</i>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Bewilderedly</i>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Bien entendu</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Bike</i>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Birrelling</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Blooming</i>, <a href="#Page_49">49-50</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Boom</i>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Borrow, G., <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Both ... as well as</i>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Bounder</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Bow-street</i>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Brachylogy</span>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Brackets & double dashes, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Brackets and Stops</span>, <a href="#Page_270">270-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Brisken</i>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Briticism</i>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Brontë, C., <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Bureaucracy</i>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Burke, E., <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>But</i>, Superfluous</span>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> C</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Cad</i>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Camaraderie</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Careless Repetition</span>, <a href="#Page_303">303-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Carlyle, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Case</span>, <a href="#Page_60">60-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Case</i>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Case after </span><i>as</i> <span class="smcap">and</span> <i>than</i>, <a href="#Page_62">62-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Case, Compound Possessive</span>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Case Confusion</span>, <a href="#Page_61">61-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Case in absolute construction, <a href="#Page_115">115-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Case in Apposition</span>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Case of Complement</span>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Case of Relatives</span>, <a href="#Page_93">93-4</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99-100</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Causal</span> <i>as</i> <span class="smcap">Clause</span>, <a href="#Page_298">298-300</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Cela va sans dire</i>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Chamade</i>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Chasseur</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Cherchez la femme</i>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Chic</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Circumlocution</span>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Circumlocution, <a href="#Page_165">165-70</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Claim</i>, <a href="#Page_317">317-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Climb down</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Closure</i>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Clumsy patching</span>, <a href="#Page_355">355-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Coastal</i>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Colloquialisms</span>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Colon</span>, <a href="#Page_263">263-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Colon, changed usage of, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Come into her life</i>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Comma before <i>that</i>, <a href="#Page_236">236-7</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249-50</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Comma between Independent Sentences</span>, <a href="#Page_254">254-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Comma, distinct functions, <a href="#Page_221">221-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Comma misplaced</span>, <a href="#Page_248">248-50</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Comma, Unaccountable</span>, <a href="#Page_262">262-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Commas, illogical, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Commas, unnecessary, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Commercialisms</i>, <a href="#Page_358">358-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Common case, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Common parts</span>, <a href="#Page_314">314-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Comparatives</span>, <a href="#Page_70">70-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</span> <i>Complacent</i>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Complaisant</i>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Compositors, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Compound passives</span>, <a href="#Page_319">319-21</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Compound possessive, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Compound verbs and inversion, <a href="#Page_184">184-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Compound words, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Comprehensively</i>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Comprise</i>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Concision</i>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Conditionals</span>, <a href="#Page_156">156-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Conditionals, Subjunctive</span>, <a href="#Page_157">157-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Conditionals, subjunctive, <a href="#Page_192">192-3</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Confusion with Negatives</span>, <a href="#Page_321">321-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Conjunctions, Compound</span>, <a href="#Page_165">165-70</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Conjunctions, coordinating and subordinating, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Consequential</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Consist of</i> or <i>in</i>, <a href="#Page_163">163-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Content myself by</i>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Contest</i>, vb, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Continuance</i>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Continuation</i>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Continuity</i>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Contradictions in Terms</span>, <a href="#Page_339">339-41</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Contumacity</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Coordination of Relatives</span>, <a href="#Page_85">85-100</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Copula, Number</span>, <a href="#Page_65">65-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Corelli, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Cornering</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Correctitude</i>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Coûte que coûte</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Criterion of rightness, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, + <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Crockett, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Cryptic</i>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Cui bono?</i>, <a href="#Page_35">35-6</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> D</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Dans cette galère</i>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Dashes</span>, <a href="#Page_266">266-75</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Dashes and Stops</span>, <a href="#Page_269">269-75</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Dashes, Debatable Questions</span>, <a href="#Page_269">269-74</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Dashes, Double</span>, <a href="#Page_270">270-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Dashes, Misuses</span>, <a href="#Page_274">274-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Dashes, Types</span>, <a href="#Page_267">267-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Dead metaphors, <a href="#Page_201">201-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Decapitable Sentences</span>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Defining Relatives</span>, <a href="#Page_75">75-85</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Defining relatives in punctuation, <a href="#Page_240">240-1</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Déjeuner</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Démarche</i>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Demean</i>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Démenti</i>, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Demonstrative, Noun, and Participle or Adjective</span>, <a href="#Page_344">344-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Depend upon it</i>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Dependable</i>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Deplacement</i>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Deprecate</i>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Depreciate</i>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> De Quincey, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Desultory</i>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Détente</i>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Determinedly</i>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Differentiation, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Different to</i>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Dilemma</i>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Diplomatic French</span>, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Disagree from</i>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Dishabille</i>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Dispensable</i>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Disposable</i>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Distinction</i>, <a href="#Page_38">38-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Distinction, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Distinctly</i>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Distinguished</i>, <a href="#Page_38">38-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Distrait</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>Do</i> as Substitute Verb</span>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Double dashes & brackets, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Double Emphasis</span>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Double event</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Double Harness</span>, <a href="#Page_311">311-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Doubtful gender, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Doubt that</i>, <a href="#Page_158">158-60</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Dovetailing</span>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308-10</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> E</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Each</i>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>-edly</i>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>E.g.</i>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Eirenicon</i>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>Either</i></span>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</span> <i>Eke out</i>, <a href="#Page_14">14-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Elegant Variation</span>, <a href="#Page_175">175-80</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Elegant variation, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Eliot, George, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Ellipse in Subordinate Clauses</span>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Emblem</i>, vb, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Emerson, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Emphasis, Double</span>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Emphatic Inversion</span>, <a href="#Page_190">190-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Employé</i>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Endowed by</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>English</i>, vb, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Enjoinder</i>, <a href="#Page_43">43-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Ennui</i>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Entente</i>, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Entourage</i>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Enumeration</span>, <a href="#Page_250">250-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Enumeration, Ambiguous</span>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Envisage</i>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Epithets, recherché, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Epoch-making</i>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Equally as</i>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Ere</i>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Especial</i>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Esprit d’escalier</i>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>Etc.</i></span>, <span class="smcap">Slovenly</span>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Euchred</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Eudaemometer</i>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Euphemism</i>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Euphony</span>, <a href="#Page_291">291-304</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Euphony, <a href="#Page_46">46-7</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, + <a href="#Page_326">326</a>;</li> +<li class="isub2">and punctuation, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Euphony with relatives, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Euphuism</i>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Evasion</i>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Excepting</i>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Exclamation and Question</span>, <a href="#Page_259">259-61</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Exclamation Mark</span>, <a href="#Page_258">258-62</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Exclamation Mark, Internal</span>, <a href="#Page_261">261-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Exclamatory Inversion</span>, <a href="#Page_181">181-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Ex-Participles</span>, <a href="#Page_110">110-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Experimentalize</i>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Exploit</i>, vb, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Extemporaneous</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> F</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Faits divers</i>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Fall</i> (autumn), <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">False Scent</span>, <a href="#Page_345">345-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> False scent, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123-4</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264-5</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, + <a href="#Page_356">356</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Fanfaronnade</i>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Far-fetched Words</span>, <a href="#Page_4">4-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Femininity</i>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Ferrier, S., <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Fielding, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Find fault to</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Fix up</i>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Flexibility, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Flood-of-Tears-and-Sedan-Chair</span>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Floored</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>For</i>, <a href="#Page_233">233-4</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>For all it is worth</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Forbid from</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Forceful</i>, <a href="#Page_21">21-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Foreign Words</span>, <a href="#Page_26">26-39</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Foreign Words, Adaptation of</span>, <a href="#Page_37">37-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Foreign Words, Blunders</span>, <a href="#Page_34">34-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Foreign Words Translated</span>, <a href="#Page_30">30-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Foreword</i>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Formation and Analogy</span>, <a href="#Page_41">41-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Formation Blunders</span>, <a href="#Page_39">39-41</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Formation, Ugly</span>, <a href="#Page_46">46-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Fresh Starts</span>, <a href="#Page_330">330-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Frills</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Frontal attack</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Frontispiece</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Fudging in punctuation, <a href="#Page_240">240-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Fused Participle</span>, <a href="#Page_117">117-25</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> G</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Gallant</i>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Galore</i>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Ganymede</i>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Gaucherie</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> George Eliot, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Gerund</span>, <a href="#Page_116">116-33</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Gerund and Infinitive</span>, <a href="#Page_129">129-33</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Gerund and Participle</span>, <a href="#Page_107">107-10</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Gerund and Possessive</span>, <a href="#Page_116">116-25</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Gerund, Compound Subject</span>, <a href="#Page_123">123-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Gerund, Omission of Subject</span>, <a href="#Page_125">125-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</span> <i>Get the boot</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Globetrotter</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Go Nap</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Go one better</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Grammar</span>, <a href="#Page_311">311-31</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Grammar and Punctuation</span>, <a href="#Page_220">220-5</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235-63</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Green, J. R., <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Group System in Punctuation</span>, <a href="#Page_228">228-30</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> H</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Half-world</i>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Hebe</i>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Hedge</i>, vb., <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> He-or-she, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Hereof</i>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>He said</i>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Homologate</i>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Honey-coloured</i>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Howbeit</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>However</i>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>How it pans out</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Hugo, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Humour, Polysyllabic</span>, <a href="#Page_171">171-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Humour, Types</span>, <a href="#Page_171">171-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Huxley, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Hybrid words, <a href="#Page_41">41-2</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Hyphens</span>, <a href="#Page_275">275-80</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Hyphens, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> I</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Ideal</i>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Idiom, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Idioms, Maltreated</span>, <a href="#Page_336">336-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>I. e.</i>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>If and when</i></span>, <a href="#Page_334">334-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Ignorance crasse</i>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>I guess</i>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Illegitimate Infinitives</span>, <a href="#Page_317">317-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Immanence</i>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Immovability</i>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Impersonal</span> <i>one</i>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Impliedly</i>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Inasmuch as</i>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Incentive</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Incongruity, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Incontinently</i>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Indirect question and punctuation, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Individual</i>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Infinitive and Gerund</span>, <a href="#Page_129">129-33</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Infinitive, Omission of Subject</span>, <a href="#Page_125">125-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Infinitive Perfect</span>, <a href="#Page_154">154-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Infinitives, Illegitimate</span>, <a href="#Page_317">317-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Infinitive, Split</span>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>-ing</i>, <a href="#Page_107">107-10</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Initiative of</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Innate</i>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>In nowise</i>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Insensate</i>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>In so far as, that</i>, <a href="#Page_168">168-70</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Instil</i>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Insuccess</i>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Intellectuals</i>, <a href="#Page_22">22-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Intelligence</i>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Intensate</i>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Intervening-noun error in number, <a href="#Page_66">66-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Intimism</i>, <a href="#Page_38">38-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Intimity</i>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Inversion</span>, <a href="#Page_180">180-93</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Inversion and compound verbs, <a href="#Page_184">184-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Inversion and emphasis, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Inversion, Balance</span>, <a href="#Page_182">182-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Inversion, Emphatic</span>, <a href="#Page_190">190-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Inversion, Exclamatory</span>, <a href="#Page_181">181-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Inversion in <i>as</i> or <i>than</i> clauses, <a href="#Page_188">188-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Inversion in relative clauses, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Inversion in Syntactic Clauses</span>, <a href="#Page_187">187-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Inversion, Miscellaneous</span>, <a href="#Page_191">191-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Inversion, Negative</span>, <a href="#Page_190">190-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>In view of</i>, <a href="#Page_167">167-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Inwardness</i>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Irony</span>, <a href="#Page_215">215-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Irony</i>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Irreparable</i>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Italics, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Italics and irony, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>It should seem</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>It’s me</i>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>It ... that</i>, <a href="#Page_104">104-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>It were</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> J</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Jehu</i>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Jingles</span>, <a href="#Page_291">291-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</span> Jonathan Wild, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Journalese</span>, <a href="#Page_351">351-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Journalese, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Judicial</i>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Just</i>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> K</li> + +<li class="indx"> Kipling 24-5, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Knock out</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> L</li> + +<li class="indx"> Lamb, Charles, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Lapsus calami, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Latin Abbreviations</span>, &c., <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Laughable</i>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Laxity, disappearance of, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Laxity in punctuation, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Laze</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Leading question</i>, <a href="#Page_306">306-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Legislature</i>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Lie</i> and <i>lay</i>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Like</i>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>-like</i>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Literary critics’ words, <a href="#Page_38">38-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Logic and Punctuation</span>, <a href="#Page_220">220-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Logic and rhetoric in punctuation, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Log-rolling</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Long and Short Derivatives</span>, <a href="#Page_44">44-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Long sentences, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Long words, <a href="#Page_349">349-50</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Loquently</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>-ly</i>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> M</li> + +<li class="indx"> Macaulay, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Malaprops</span>, <a href="#Page_8">8-18</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Maltreated Idioms</span>, <a href="#Page_336">336-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Mannerism, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, + <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Meaning</span>, <a href="#Page_331">331-45</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Meaningless</span> <i>while</i>, <a href="#Page_357">357-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Me</i>, ethic, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Mercury</i>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Meredith, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Metaphor</span>, <a href="#Page_200">200-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Metaphor, live and dead, <a href="#Page_201">201-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Metaphysical</i>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Meticulous</i>, <a href="#Page_38">38-9</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Metrical Prose</span>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Misplacement of Words</span>, <a href="#Page_346">346-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Misquotation</span>, <a href="#Page_305">305-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Mixed metaphor, <a href="#Page_203">203-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Mob</i>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Monstrosity stops, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286-7</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Morale</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>More and more than ever</i>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>More easily imagined than described</i>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>More honoured in the breach</i>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>More than I can help</i>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Most</i>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Most of any</i>, <a href="#Page_74">74-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Mutual</i>, <a href="#Page_56">56-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>My</i> and <i>mine</i>, <a href="#Page_40">40-1</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> N</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Naïveté</i>, <a href="#Page_37">37-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Naivety</i>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Native words, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Negative Confusion</span>, <a href="#Page_321">321-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Negative Inversion</span>, <a href="#Page_190">190-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Negatives, resolved and compound, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Négligé</i>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Negotiate</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Neither</i>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Neither ... or</i>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Neologisms</span>, <a href="#Page_18">18-23</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Neologisms, scientific, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Newspaper style, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, + <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Nice</i>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>No</i> and <i>none</i>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Noisiness, <a href="#Page_202">202-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Nom de guerre</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Nom de plume</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Nonce-words, <a href="#Page_19">19-20</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Non-defining Relatives</span>, <a href="#Page_75">75-85</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Non est</i>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Nouns and abstract expression, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Nouns of Multitude</span>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Nouns used adjectivally, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Number</span>, <a href="#Page_65">65-70</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Number of Copula</span>, <a href="#Page_65">65-7</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> O</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Oblivion to</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Oblivious to</i>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</span> <i>Observance</i>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Œuvre</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Of sorts</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Oft</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Oft-times</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Ohne Hast ohne Rast</i>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Old-fashioned enough to</i>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Olfactory organ</i>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Omission of</span> <i>as</i>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Omission of Relatives</span>, <a href="#Page_101">101-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Omission of relatives, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Omission of</span> <i>that</i>, <span class="smcap">conj.</span>, <a href="#Page_356">356-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>On a moment’s notice</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>One</i>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>One</i>, Impersonal</span>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>One’s</i> and <i>his</i>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>One’s</i> or <i>his</i>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>On your own</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Oppositely</i>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Orient</i>, vb., <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Originality, Cheap</span>, <a href="#Page_217">217-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Ornament, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Ostentation, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Our</i> and <i>ours</i>, <a href="#Page_40">40-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Overloading</span>, <a href="#Page_343">343-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Over-stopping</span>, <a href="#Page_231">231-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Over-stopping, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262-3</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> P</li> + +<li class="indx"> Parenthesis, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Parenthesis</span>, <a href="#Page_247">247-50</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Parenthesis in Relative Clauses</span>, <a href="#Page_94">94-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Partially</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Participle and Gerund</span>, <a href="#Page_107">107-10</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Participles</span>, <a href="#Page_110">110-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Participles Absolute</span>, <a href="#Page_115">115-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Participles Unattached</span>, <a href="#Page_112">112-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Participles with</span> <i>my</i>, &c., <a href="#Page_111">111-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Passive monstrosities, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Passives, Compound</span>, <a href="#Page_319">319-21</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Patching, Clumsy</span>, <a href="#Page_355">355-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Paulo-post future</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Pedantry, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Penchant</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Perchance</i>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Perfect Infinitive</span>, <a href="#Page_154">154-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Perfection</i>, vb., <a href="#Page_44">44-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Period, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Perseverant</i>, <a href="#Page_21">21-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Personification, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Perspicuity</i>, <a href="#Page_8">8-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Peter out</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Pet Phrases</span>, <a href="#Page_359">359-60</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Phantasmagoria</i>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Phase</i>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Phenomenal</i>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Philistine</i>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Picturesque, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Picturesquities</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Placate</i>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Playful Repetition</span>, <a href="#Page_172">172-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Play the game</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Pleonasm, v. Redundancies.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Poetic words, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Polysyllabic humour, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Polysyllabic Humour</span>, <a href="#Page_171">171-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Pontificalibus</i>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Possessive, absolute, <a href="#Page_40">40-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Possessive and Gerund</span>, <a href="#Page_116">116-25</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Possessive, Compound</span>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Possessive, compound, <a href="#Page_122">122-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Possible</i>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Preciosity, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Predication</i>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Prediction</i>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Preface</i>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Prefer</i>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Preposition at end of clause, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Prepositions</span>, <a href="#Page_161">161-70</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Prepositions, Compound</span>, <a href="#Page_165">165-70</a>;</li> +<li class="isub2"><span class="smcap">Omitted</span>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</li> +<li class="isub2"><span class="smcap">Repeated</span>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;</li> +<li class="isub2"><span class="smcap">Superfluous</span>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Pretend</i>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Preventative</i>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Probable</i>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Procession</i>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Promote</i>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Pronominal variation, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Proportion, <a href="#Page_300">300-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Provided</i>, <a href="#Page_13">13-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Prudential</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Psychological moment</i>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Punctuation</span>, Cap. IV.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Punctuation and ambiguity, <a href="#Page_264">264-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Punctuation and neatness, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Punctuation and relatives, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Punctuation, Difficulties</span>, <a href="#Page_219">219-24</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</span> Punctuation, full and slight, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Punctuation, group system, <a href="#Page_228">228-31</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Punctuation in scientific and philosophic work, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Punctuation, Logic, and Rhetoric</span>, <a href="#Page_220">220-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Punctuation, Spot Plague</span>, <a href="#Page_226">226-31</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> Q</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Qua</i>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Quand même</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Question and Exclamation</span>, <a href="#Page_259">259-61</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Question-mark, Internal</span>, <a href="#Page_261">261-62</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Quieten</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Quotation</span>, <a href="#Page_305">305-11</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Quotation, half-and-half, <a href="#Page_237">237-8</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Quotation marks</span>, <a href="#Page_280">280-90</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Quotation marks and irony, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Quotation marks and slang, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Quotation marks and Stops</span>, <a href="#Page_282">282-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Quotation marks misplaced, <a href="#Page_288">288-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Quotation marks, Single and Double</span>, <a href="#Page_287">287-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Quotation marks, superfluous, <a href="#Page_280">280-82</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Quotation, Trite</span>, <a href="#Page_310">310-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Quotations cut up, <a href="#Page_309">309-10</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> R</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Racial</i>, <a href="#Page_22">22-3</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Railway names, <a href="#Page_276">276-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Raison d’être</i>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Reader, <a href="#Page_2">2-3</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, + <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231-3</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>,</li> +<li class="isub4">280-1, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347-8</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Reading aloud, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Recasting, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177-8</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, + <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232-3</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>,</li> +<li class="isub4">257, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355-6</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Recliner</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Record</i>, adj., <a href="#Page_51">51-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Recrudescence</i>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Rectitudinous</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Rédaction</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Redundancies</span>, <a href="#Page_332">332-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Regard</i>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Regenesis</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Régime</i>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Relative and participle, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Relative clauses and inversion, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Relative Coordination</span>, <a href="#Page_85">85-100</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Relative, Miscellaneous Uses and Abuses</span>, <a href="#Page_96">96-107</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Relative, Omission of Preposition</span>, <a href="#Page_102">102-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Relative omitted</span>, <a href="#Page_101">101-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Relatives</span>, <a href="#Page_75">75-107</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Relatives and punctuation, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Relatives, Case</span>, <a href="#Page_93">93-4</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99-100</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Relatives Defining and Non-Defining</span>, <a href="#Page_75">75-85</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Relatives, Parenthesis</span>, <a href="#Page_94">94-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Relatives, Sequence of</span>, <a href="#Page_293">293-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Reliable</i>, <a href="#Page_42">42-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Remindful</i>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Repetition</span>, <a href="#Page_209">209-13</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Repetition, Careless</span>, <a href="#Page_303">303-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Repetition, Playful</span>, <a href="#Page_172">172-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Requisition</i>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Research</i>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Resource</i>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Reverend</i>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Rhetoric, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Rhetorical repetition, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Rhetoric and Punctuation</span>, <a href="#Page_220">220-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Right along</i>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Romance Words</span>, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Royal pronoun, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Run the show</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> S</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Said</i> with inversion, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Same, the</i>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Sans</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Save</i>, <a href="#Page_2">2-3</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Saxon Words</span>, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_2">2-3</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Scandalum magnatum</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Schadenfreude</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Scott, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Seasonable</i>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Self-consciousness, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Semicolon and independent sentences, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</span> <span class="smcap">Semicolon and Subordinate Clauses</span>, <a href="#Page_257">257-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Semicolon, distinct functions of, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Sense and sound, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Sensibleness</i>, <a href="#Page_44">44-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Sentence, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Sentence Accent</span>, <a href="#Page_296">296-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>Shall</i> and <i>will</i></span>, <a href="#Page_133">133-54</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Shall</i>, archaic and literary, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Short and Long Words</span>, <a href="#Page_6">6-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Shrimp-pink</i>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Sic</i>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Signpost connexion, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Since several days</i>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Skilled</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Slang</span>, <a href="#Page_47">47-53</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Slang and idiom, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Slang, Various Origins</span>, <a href="#Page_49">49-51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Slang with quotation marks, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Slating</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Smartness, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Smollett, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>So far as, that</i>, <a href="#Page_168">168-70</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>Somewhat</i></span>, &c., <a href="#Page_352">352-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Sordor</i>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Sound and sense, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Soupçon</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Special</i>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Spencer, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Spirit of the staircase</i>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Split Auxiliaries</span>, <a href="#Page_342">342-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Split Infinitive</span>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Spot-Plague</span>, <a href="#Page_226">226-31</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Standpoint</i>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Stands to reason</i>, <a href="#Page_213">213-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Status quo</i>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Stave off</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Steep</i> (slang), <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Sterne, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Stevenson, <a href="#Page_198">198-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Stops and tone symbols, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Street names, <a href="#Page_276">276-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Stronger</i>, adv., <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Stumped</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Style</span>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>-end.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Styles, various, <a href="#Page_7">7-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Subject</span>, &c., and <span class="smcap">Verb in Punctuation</span>, <a href="#Page_239">239-42</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Subjunctive, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Subjunctive conditionals, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Substantival Clause in Punctuation</span>, <a href="#Page_235">235-8</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Such</i>, <a href="#Page_358">358-9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Such who</i>, <i>which</i>, and <i>that</i>, <a href="#Page_103">103-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Summerly</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Superfluous</span> <i>but</i> <span class="smcap">and</span> <i>though</i>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Superlatives</span>, <a href="#Page_74">74-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Superlatives, Carlylese, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Superlatives without</span> <i>the</i>, <a href="#Page_216">216-17</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Super-sensitized</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Superstitions, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, + <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Surprisedly</i>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Syntax</span>, Cap. II.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> T</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Tache</i>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Tackle</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Take a back seat</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Take it lying down</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Take my word for it</i>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Tautology</span>, <a href="#Page_331">331-2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Tautology, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Tear and wear</i>, <a href="#Page_217">217-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Telegram</i>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Tell-tale errors, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, + <a href="#Page_308">308</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Tête-à-tête</i>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Thackeray, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>Than</i>, Case</span>, <a href="#Page_62">62-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Than whom</i>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>That</i> and <i>which</i>, <a href="#Page_242">242-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>That</i> and <i>which</i> (<i>who</i>)</span>, <a href="#Page_80">80-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>That</i> (conjunction), Omission of</span>, <a href="#Page_356">356-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>That</i> (relative) of persons</span>, <a href="#Page_83">83-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>That</i> resumptive, <a href="#Page_330">330-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>That</i>, Sequence of</span>, <a href="#Page_294">294-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>That’s him</i>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>The exception proves</i>, &c., <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Their</i>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>The more</i></span>, <a href="#Page_70">70-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>The more</i>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Thereanent</i>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Therefore</i>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Thereto</i>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Theretofore</i>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>The same</i>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>The ... that</i> (resolved interrogative), <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</span> <i>Thither</i>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Those interested</i>, <a href="#Page_344">344-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Those sort</i>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>Though</i> superfluous</span>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Thrasonical</i>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Tinker with</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Today</i>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>To have ...</i>, <a href="#Page_154">154-6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Tomorrow</i>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Tone symbols and stops, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>To the foot of the letter</i>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Transcendentally</i>, <a href="#Page_10">10-11</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Translate</i>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Translation of Foreign Words</span>, <a href="#Page_30">30-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Transpire</i>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Trite Phrases</span>, <a href="#Page_213">213-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Trite Quotation</span>, <a href="#Page_310">310-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Trow</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Truisms</span>, <a href="#Page_339">339-41</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Trustedly</i>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Trustfulness</i>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Types of Humour</span>, <a href="#Page_171">171-5</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> U</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>-ude</i>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Unconscious to</i>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Under dog</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Under-stopping</span>, <a href="#Page_234">234-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Unequal Yokefellows</span>, &c., <a href="#Page_311">311-14</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Unique</i>, <a href="#Page_58">58-9</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Unquiet</i>, n., <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Up to date</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> V</li> + +<li class="indx"> Verbal noun, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Verberant</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Vexedly</i>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Vide</i>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Vieille escrime</i>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Vieilles perruques</i>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Vieux jeu</i>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Violence</i>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Vividity</i>, <a href="#Page_46">46-7</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Vocabulary</span>, Cap. I.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Vocabulary, General Rules</span>, <a href="#Page_1">1-4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Vocabulary, prose and poetry, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> Vulgarism, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Vulgarisms</span>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> W</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Waddle</i>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Walking stick</i>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>War-famous</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Wens and Hypertrophied Members</span>, <a href="#Page_300">300-3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Were</i>, <a href="#Page_157">157-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>What</i>, antecedent-relative, <a href="#Page_100">100-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>What ever...?</i>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Whatever...?</i>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>What</i>, relative and interrogative, <a href="#Page_100">100-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Whereof</i>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>While</i> and <i>as</i>, clauses, slovenly 189.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>While</i>, Meaningless</span>, <a href="#Page_357">357-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Whimsical</i>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>Who</i> and <i>whom</i></span>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Whole-hogging</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap"><i>Will</i> and <i>shall</i></span>, <a href="#Page_133">133-54</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Will not do this thing</i>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Wind-flower</i>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Wire</i>, vb., <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>With a view to</i>, <a href="#Page_167">167-8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>With the view of</i>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Word-formation</span>, <a href="#Page_37">37-47</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>World policy</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Worn-out Humorous Phrases</span>, <a href="#Page_173">173-5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Worthy</i>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Wot</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Write you</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <span class="smcap">Wrong Turning</span>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>.</li> + + +<li class="ifrst"> Y</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>Your</i> and <i>yours</i>, <a href="#Page_40">40-1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"> <i>You shall find</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> +</ul> + + +<p class="center p4 big">Printed in England at the Oxford University Press</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<h3> +Some Oxford Books<br> +on<br> +ENGLISH</h3> +</div> + + +<p class="center"> +¶ <i>General.</i><br> +</p> + +<p>THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH, by <span class="smcap">W. S. Tomkinson</span>. Pp. 230. 5s. 6d. +net.</p> + +<p>‘It is full of good things.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>Educational Times</i><br> +</p> + + +<p>THE RUDIMENTS OF CRITICISM, by <span class="smcap">E. A. G. Lamborn</span>. Pp. 192. 3s. +6d. net.</p> + +<p>‘A valuable book for teachers, showing how children may be taught to +appreciate poetry and verbal melody.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>Athenaeum.</i><br> +</p> + + +<p>EXPRESSION IN SPEECH AND WRITING, by <span class="smcap">E. A. G. Lamborn</span>. Pp. +120. 4s. 6d. net.</p> + +<p>‘It is hard to over praise this inspiring little book, written with +all the author’s raciness, humour, and enthusiasm. It deals in five +chapters with oral and written composition, verse making, original +music, and the rendering of poetry.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>AMA.</i><br> +</p> + + +<p class="center"> +¶ <i>Phonetics.</i><br> +</p> + +<p>THE SOUNDS OF ENGLISH, by <span class="smcap">Henry Sweet</span>. Pp. 140. 3s 6d. n.</p> + +<p>An elementary introduction to Phonetics with particular reference to +Standard English.</p> + + +<p>A PRIMER OF SPOKEN ENGLISH. Introduction, Analysis, Synthesis, by +<span class="smcap">Henry Sweet</span>. 4th edition revised. 1911. Pp. 110. 3s. 6d. net.</p> + + +<p>PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTIONS OF ENGLISH PROSE, by <span class="smcap">Daniel Jones</span>. Pp. +60. 2s. 6d. net.</p> + + +<p>EXAMINATION PAPERS IN PHONETICS, by <span class="smcap">Daniel Jones</span>. Pp. 52. 2s. +6d. net.</p> + +<p>Designed to furnish practice for Oxford, Cambridge, and London +Certificates.</p> + + +<p class="center"> +¶ <i>English Grammar, Descriptive.</i><br> +</p> + +<p>ELEMENTARY GRAMMAR AND EXERCISE BOOK, by <span class="smcap">O. W. Tancock</span>. Third +edition. Pp. 92. 2s.</p> + + +<p>AN ENGLISH GRAMMAR AND READING BOOK. For lower forms in Classical +Schools, by <span class="smcap">O. W. Tancock</span>. Pp. 332. 3s. 6d.</p> + + +<p>ELEMENTARY LESSONS IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR, by <span class="smcap">H. C. Wyld</span>. Pp. 224. +2s. 6d. net.</p> + + +<p>A NEW ENGLISH GRAMMAR based on the recommendations of the Joint +Committee on Grammatical Terminology by <span class="smcap">E. A. Sonnenschein</span>, +with exercises by <span class="smcap">E. Archibald</span>. Part I, 1s. 6d. net; Part II, +2s. net; Part III, 2s. 6d. net. Also in one volume. Pp. 426. 5s. net.</p> + + +<p>SENTENCE ANALYSIS for the Lower Forms of Public Schools, by <span class="smcap">H. W. +Fowler</span>. Pp. 68. 2s. net.</p> + +<p>‘A clear, simple, and exact practical exposition of the subject, +produced in typographical form which leaves nothing to be desired.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>Pitman’s Journal.</i><br> +</p> + + +<p>For books marked with a dagger, thus †, teachers’ Keys are available. +Prices and conditions may be had on application to the publisher.</p> + + +<p class="center"> +¶ <i>English Historical Grammar.</i><br> +</p> + +<p>A PRIMER OF HISTORICAL ENGLISH GRAMMAR, by <span class="smcap">Henry Sweet</span>. Second +edition. Pp. 120. 3s. net.</p> + + +<p>A SHORT HISTORICAL ENGLISH GRAMMAR, by <span class="smcap">Henry Sweet</span>. Corrected +impression. 1924. Pp. 276. 4s. 6d. net.</p> + + +<p>NEW ENGLISH GRAMMAR: Logical and Historical, in two parts, by <span class="smcap">Henry +Sweet</span>.</p> + +<p>Part I: Introduction, Phonology, and Accidence. Pp. 524. 10s. 6d. n. +Part II: Syntax. Pp. 148. 5s. net.</p> + + +<p>A PRIMER OF ENGLISH ETYMOLOGY, by <span class="smcap">W. W. Skeat</span>. Sixth edition, +revised. 1923. Pp. 120. 2s. 6d. net.</p> + +<p>Chapters on the Sources of the Language; the History, Symbols and +Sounds; Modern English Spelling; Words of Native Origin; Vowel Mutation +and Gradation, &c.</p> + + +<p>STANDARD ENGLISH, by <span class="smcap">T. Nicklin</span>. (World’s Manuals.) Pp. 102. +2s. 6d. net.</p> + +<p>‘The author pleads that all children of whatever birth shall be +carefully taught the “standard dialect”—the English, that is to say, +of the educated class, and often hitherto regarded as a prerogative of +that class.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>Journal of Education.</i><br> +</p> + + +<p>ON THE RELATIONS BETWEEN SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE, by <span class="smcap">Henry +Bradley</span>. Pp. 36. 2s. net.</p> + +<p>An examination of the difficulties of spelling reform.</p> + + +<p class="center"> +¶ <i>Dictionaries.</i><br> +</p> + +<p>¶ THE POCKET OXFORD DICTIONARY OF CURRENT ENGLISH, compiled by H. W. +and <span class="smcap">F. G. Fowler</span>. Pp. 1016. Cloth, 3s. 6d. net. India Paper, +6s. net.</p> + +<p>An authoritative guide to the latest and best English usage. Over 2,000 +columns of clear type; yet the volume is small enough to be carried in +the pocket of a traveller or holiday maker.</p> + + +<p>¶ THE CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY, compiled by H. W. and <span class="smcap">F. G. +Fowler</span>. Eleventh impression. 1923. Pp. 1076. Cloth, 7s. 6d. net.</p> + +<p>‘We strongly recommend every one to secure this Dictionary. Whatever +they may possess this will be a distinct acquisition, and daily use +will make it more and more indispensable.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>London Quarterly Review.</i><br> +</p> + + +<p>¶ The <i>Pocket Oxford Dictionary</i> and the <i>Concise Oxford +Dictionary</i> are of unrivalled authority because they alone among +one-volume dictionaries are based on the great <span class="smcap">Oxford English +Dictionary</span>, edited by Sir James Murray, Dr. Bradley, Dr. Craigie, +and Mr. Onions. Of this great work Vol. I was published in 1888 after +many years of preparation. Vol. X (the last) is now appearing in +sections. The complete work will contain articles on about 425,000 +words and will extend to over 15,000 large pages, each of three +columns. For details see the General Catalogue.</p> + + +<p>A CONCISE ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY, by <span class="smcap">W. W. Skeat</span>; new and +corrected impression. 1911. Pp. 680. 6s. net; on thin paper, 7s. 6d. +net.</p> + + +<p class="center"> +¶ <i>English Composition.</i><br> +</p> + +<p>EXERCISES IN PROSE LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION, by <span class="smcap">G. Clifford +Dent</span>. Pp. 300. 4s.</p> + +<p>Also separately. Part I (Ages 8-10),Text, 9d., Text and Exercises, 1s. +Part II (Ages 11-14), Text, 1s., Text and Exercises, 1s. 6d. Part III +(Ages 15-18), Text, 1s. 3d., Text and Exercises, 2s.</p> + + +<p>ENGLISH COMPOSITION, based on the study of literary models, by <span class="smcap">A. +Cruse</span>. Pp. 200. 2s. 6d.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Contents</span>:—The History of the Essay, Writing an Essay, Types +of Essay, Style, Letter Writing, Paraphrasing, Verse Writing.</p> + + +<p>ENGLISH COMPOSITION, Progressive Exercises (A Two-Years’ Course for +upper forms), by <span class="smcap">C. E. L. Hammond</span>. With an introduction by +<span class="smcap">J. C. Smith</span>. Pp. 176. 3s. 6d. Also in two parts: Part I, pp. +80. 2s.; Part II, pp. 112, 2s. 6d.</p> + +<p>‘These books are truly admirable. We have not seen a more interesting +or more suggestive treatment of English, and we cordially recommend +them to all teachers of English.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>Scottish Educational Journal.</i><br> +</p> + + +<p>EXERCISES IN DICTATION AND COMPOSITION, with selected examination +papers and a vocabulary of all difficult words, by <span class="smcap">N. Notman</span>. +Pp. 168. 2s. 6d. net.</p> + +<p>Standard of Oxford and Cambridge Locals.</p> + + +<p>† SHORT ESSAYS FOR FOURTH AND FIFTH FORMS, with specimen analyses, by +<span class="smcap">S. E. Winbolt</span>. Pp. 292. 3s. 6d.</p> + + +<p>THE WRITING OF ENGLISH, by <span class="smcap">P. J. Hartog</span>, assisted by Mrs. +<span class="smcap">Amy H. Langdon</span>. Third edition. Pp. 176. 4s. net.</p> + +<p>The authors explain how it is that French boys write French so well +while English boys write English so indifferently; and apply to +English, with acknowledged practical success, the French method of +teaching the mother tongue.</p> + + +<p><i>By H. W. and F. G. Fowler.</i></p> + + +<p>THE KING’S ENGLISH, ABRIDGED for School use. Pp. 160. 3s. net.</p> + +<p>‘For the young writer we know of no better work since the appearance of +Hodgson’s <i>Errors in English</i>.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>Literary World.</i><br> +</p> + +<p>‘If freely used, it would do much to arrest the degradation of the +English language.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>The Scotsman.</i><br> +</p> + + +<p>THE KING’S ENGLISH. Second edition. Pp. 380. 6s. net.</p> + +<p>‘To author and journalists <i>The King’s English</i> should be +invaluable.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>The Author.</i><br> +</p> + +<p>‘This is the best book of its kind we have ever seen.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>Glasgow Herald.</i><br> +</p> + + +<p class="center"> +¶ <i>Précis Writing.</i><br> +</p> + +<p>† A PROGRESSIVE COURSE OF PRÉCIS WRITING. Part I for beginners, Part II +Official Correspondence, Minutes, &c., pp. 146, graduated, by <span class="smcap">F. E. +Robeson</span>. 2s. 6d.</p> + + +<p>HISTORICAL PASSAGES FOR PRÉCIS WRITING, by <span class="smcap">F. E. Robeson</span>. Pp. +118. 2s. 6d.</p> + + +<p>PRÉCIS WRITING. The two books in one volume. Pp. 264. 4s. 6d.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="OXFORD_SERIES_OF_TEXTS_OR_TRANSLATIONS_FOR_SCHOOLS">OXFORD SERIES OF TEXTS OR TRANSLATIONS FOR SCHOOLS</h2> +</div> + + +<p>DR. LOWE’S POPULAR READERS, with Notes, Maps, Vocabularies, English +Exercises, and many illustrations. Each book proceeds from simple +sentences to compound sentences; then to short paragraphs; and finally +to a slightly adapted version of the original text. 2s. each.</p> + + +<p>LINGUA LATINA. The Direct Method. Edited by <span class="smcap">W. H. D. Rouse</span> and +<span class="smcap">S. O. Andrew</span>. Crown 8vo. Eight text-books, a Teacher’s book, +and a wall-picture.</p> + + +<p>OXFORD JUNIOR LATIN SERIES. Under the General Editorship of <span class="smcap">C. E. +Freeman</span>. Fcap 8vo. 2s. each. The series includes the following +volumes:—</p> + +<p><i>Virgil, Aeneid I, II, IV, V, VI, X; Catullus; Horace, Select Odes; +Selections from Ovid; Livy I, XXI, XXII.</i></p> + + +<p>THE CLARENDON LATIN AND GREEK SERIES. Partly in the Original and +partly in Translation. Under the general editorship of <span class="smcap">R. W. +Livingstone</span>. 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