Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924051009797 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 051 009 797 THE KING'S ENGLISH BY H. W. FOWLER & F. G. FOWLER COMPILERS OF THE CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF CURRENT ENGLISH No levell'd malice Infects one comma in the course I hold. Timon oj Athens, I. i. SECOND EDITION OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPE TOWN BOMBAY HUMPHREY MILFORD 1919 sX,&'zh r y:.'< BY THE SAME AUTHORS The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English Adapted by H. W. and F. G. FOWLER from the Oxford Dictionary Crown Zvo. 1056 pages. 6s. net. Also thin paper editions in superior bindings. Prices on application. Times: — ' In everything that we ordinarily expect of a popular diction- ary — spelling, pronunciations, definitions, etymologies — it inherits the superiority of the Oxford Dictionary from which it is adapted. In every- thing else that can concern a dictionary of language (and how much that is !), it is not only without a superior, it is literally without a rival? Aihenaum: — 'The 1044 pages of vocabulary before us present a con- spectus of English such as has never before been attempted in a single vohune. Special attention is due to the masterly analysis of common words.' Manchester Guardian:— It ... is executed in a scholarly spirit we should expect from the authors of The King's English. Within the limits the authors have set themselves the work is excellent and merits the highest praise? Newcastle Chronicle .—'A dictionary that will be of the greatest service to the student and to the business man.' Scotsman:— 'The dictionary cannot fail of an enormous circulation wherever the English tongue is spoken. It is the best small English dictionary exiant? Revue Germanique .•— ' Les deux e*crivains se sont applique's a e*viter un defaut general chcz les lexicographes populaires: lesdictionnaires courants tendent a Tencyclop^die et en arrivent souvent a n^gliger le mot pour £tudier la chose elle-meme. The Concise Oxford Dictionary, au con- traire, s'applique uniquement a definir le sens des vocables et des expressions courantes, et a le faire comme toucher du doigt dans des exeniples bien choisis. Nous sommes surs que le public anglisant de France fera bel accueil a ce dictionnaire a l'usage des lettrds.' Deutsche Lheralurseiiung . :—' Vorliegendes Buch ist ein besonders gutes Buch, das sich die unvergleichliche WGrterbucharbeit des Oxforder New English Dictionary oder, wie es auch heisst, des Oxford Dictionary zunutze gemacht hat. . . . Jedenfalls ist das Buch eine sehr brauchbare Leistungund stellt danR derVerwertun^ der Resultatedesgrossen Musters wohl die meisten alinlichen englisch-englischen Worterbucher ahnlichen Umfanges tief in den Schatten. Boston Herald: — 'There ia no more entertaining reading than that afforded by this Concise Dictionary. 1 New York Sun .-—'There is not another cheap dictionary that will bear comparison with this admirable adaptation of the N. E, D. t nor do we hesitate to include among cheap dictionaries certain much advertised works, many times larger and a great deal more expensive. . . . The Concise Oxford may justly be described as a miracle of condensed scholarship and the most satisfactory and practical of its kind in the language.' PREFACE 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 thej' have been among the necessarily limited number chosen to collect instances from. 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 com- position 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 (i) 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. iv PREFACE 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. The especial thanks of the compilers are offered to Dr. Bradley, joint editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, 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. The Oxford English Dictionary 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. H. W. F. F. G. F. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION In this edition new examples have been added or substituted here and there. CONTENTS PART I CHAPTER I. VOCABULARY, pp. 1-59 General Principles . Familiar and far-fetched words Concrete and abstract expression Circumlocution Short and long words Saxon and Romance words Requirements of different styles Malaprops . Neologisms Americanisms Foreign words Formation Slang . Individual Mutual Unique Aggravate CHAPTER II. SYNTAX, pp. 60-170 Case .... Number Comparatives and superlatives Relatives Defining and non-defining relative clauses Thai and who or which And who, and which Case of the relative Miscellaneous uses of the relative It ...that PAGE 60 65 70 75- '°7 vi CONTENTS PAGE Participle and gerund 107 Participles no The gerund .... 116-133 Distinguishing the gerund 116 Omission of the gerund subject 125 Choice between gerund and infinitive 129 Shall and will i33-!54 The pure system . 134 The coloured-future system 136 The plain-future system 138 Second-person questions 139 Examples of principal sentences 141 Substantival clauses 143 Conditional clauses 149 Indefinite clauses 151 Examples of subordinate clauses 152 Perfect infinitive 154 Conditionals 156 Doubt that .... 158 Prepositions 161 CHAPTER III. AIRS AND GRACES, pp. 171-218 Certain types of humour . Elegant variation Inversion Exclamatory Balance In syntactic clauses Negative, and false-emphasis Miscellaneous Archaism Occasional Sustained . , Metaphor Repetition 171 175 180-193 181 182 187 190 191 193-200 J 93 198 2 00 209 CONTENTS vii PAGE Miscellaneous . 213-218 Trite phrases 213 215 Irony Superlatives without the . 2l6 Cheap originality . 217 CHAPTER IV. PUNCTUATION, pp. 219-390 General difficulties 219 224 General principles . The spot plague 226 Over-stopping 231 Under-stopping 2 34 Grammar and punctuation . 235-263 Substantival clauses 235 Subject, &c, and verb 2 39 Adjectival clauses 242 Adverbial clauses 244 Parenthesis 247 248 Misplaced commas Enumeration 250 Comma between independent sentences 254 Semicolon with subordinate members 257 Exclamations and statements . 258 Exclamations and questions 2 59 Internal question and exclamation marks . 261 Unaccountable commas 262 The colon 263 Miscellaneous 264 Dashes . 266-275 General abuse 266 Legitimate uses . 267 Debatable questions 269 Common misuses 274 Hyphens .... 275 Quotation marks . . 280-290 Excessive use 280 Vlll CONTENTS Quotation marks (continued) Order with stops Single and double Misplaced Half quotation PAGE 282 287 288 289 PART II. p. 291 to the end Euphony, §§ 1-10 1.. Jingles 2. Alliteration - 3. Repeated prepositions 4. Sequence of relatives . 5. Sequence of that, &c. 6. Metrical prose 7. Sentence accent 8. Causal as clauses 9. Wens and hypertrophied members 10. Careless repetition Quotation, &c, §§ n-19 11. Common misquotations 12. Uncommon misquotations of well-known passages 13. Misquotation of less familiar passages 14. Misapplied and misunderstood quotations and phrases 15. Allusion 16. Incorrect allusion 17. Dovetailed and adapted quotations and phrases 18. Trite quotation 1 9. Latin abbreviations, &c. Grammar, §§ 20-37 20. Unequal yokefellows and defective double harness 2 1 . Common parts . 22. The wrong turning 23. Ellipse in subordinate clauses 24. Some illegitimate infinitives 291 292 293 293 294 2 95 2 95 298 300 3°3 3°5 305 306 306 307 308 308 310 311 311 314 316 3i7 3'7 CONTENTS ix 3'9 321 3 2 4 3 2 4 326 327 328 328 3 2 9 PAGE 25. Split infinitives . . , 319 26. Compound passives . 27. Confusion with negatives 28. Omission of as 29. Other liberties taken with as 30. Brachylogy 31. Between two stools 32. The impersonal one . 33. Between . . . or . 34. A placed between the adjective and its noun 35. Do as substitute verb . . , 330 36. Fresh starts . , b 330 37. Vulgarisms and colloquialisms . . 331 Meaning, §§ 38-48 38. Tautology . . . 331 39. Redundancies . . . .332 40. As to whether . , 333 41. Superfluous but and though . . . 334 42. If and when . , . 334 43. Maltreated idioms . . . 336 44. Truisms and contradictions in terms . 339 45. Double emphasis . . 341 46. Split auxiliaries . . . 342 47. Overloading . 343 48. Demonstrative, noun, and participle or adjective 344 Ambiguity, §§ 49-52 49. False scent . . . -345 50. Misplacement of words . . 346 51. Ambiguous position . . . 347 52. Ambiguous enumeration . . 348 Style, § 53 to the end 53. Antics ... 348 54. Journalese . . . 351 55. Somewhat, &c. .... 352 x CONTENTS PAGE 56. Clumsy patching . . - 355 57. Omission of the conjunction that . . 35° 58. Meaningless while . ■ - 357 59. Commercialisms . . 358 60. Pet Phrases . . • 359 61. Also as conjunction ; and &*c . * 359 CHAPTER 1 VOCABULARY General 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. This general principle may be translated into practical rules in the domain of vocabulary as follows : — Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance. 1 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 ; 1 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 alms to metempsychosis, may for the purposes of this chapter be considered as Romance. The vast number of purely scientific Greek words, as oxygen, meningitis, are on a different footing, since they are usually the only words for what they denote. 2 VOCABULARY 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 translate is derived from Latin, and learning that the Elizabethans had another word for it, he will pull us up by englishing his quotations ; he will puzzle the general reader by introducing his book with a fore- word. 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 ; foreword is (or may be) Saxon ; we can find out in the dictionary whether it is or not; but preface is English, dic- tionary 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 Oxford Dictionary) is English: — battle, beast, beauty, beef, bill, blue, bonnet, border, boss, bound, bowl, brace, brave, bribe, bruise, brush, butt, button. Dr. Murray observes that these 'are now no less "native", and no less important constituents of our vocabulary, than the Teutonic words '. There are, moreover, innumerable pairs of synonyms about which the Saxon principle gives us no help. The first to hand are ere and before (both Saxon), save and except (both Romance), anent and about (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 con- sider will possibly not know the linguistic facts ; indeed he more likely than not takes save for a Saxon word. But GENERAL PRINCIPLES 3 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 save, he wonders, Why not except ? At sight of ere he is irresistibly reminded of that sad spectacle, a mechanic wearing his Sunday clothes on a weekday. And anent, to continue the simile, is nothing less than a masquerade costume. The Oxford Dictionary 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 anti- quarian rubbish, Wardour-Street English. Why not (as our imagined intelligent reader asked) — why not before, except, and about} 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. Before and except, it must be clearly understood, have such a pre- scriptive 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 before, to injure ere (which is a delicate flower that will lose its quality if much handled), and to make one's sentence both pretentious and frigid. It is now perhaps clear that the Saxon oracle is not in- fallible ; 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 pro- portion 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 : In the contemplated eventuality B a 4 VOCABULARY (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 if so. It does not very greatly matter by which of the five roads the natural is reached instead of the mon- strosity, so long as it is reached. The five are indicated because (i) they differ in directness, and (2) in any given case only one of them may be possible. We will now proceed to a few examples of how not to write, roughly classified under the five headings, though, after what has4>een 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 struc- ture has to be more or less changed. 1 . Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. The old Imperial naval policy, which has failed conspicuously because it antagonized the unalterable supremacy of Colonial nationalism. — Times. (stood in the way of that national ambition which must always be uppermost in the Colonial mind) Buttercups made a sunlight of their own, and in the shelter of scattered coppices the pale wind-flowers still dreamed in whiteness.— E. F. Benson. We all know what an anemone is : whether we know what a wind-flower is, unless we happen to be Greek scholars, is quite doubtful. The state of Poland, and the excesses committed by mobilized troops have been of a far more serious nature than has been allowed to transpire. — Times, (come out) Reform converses with possibilities, perchance with impossibilities ■ but here is sacred fact— Emerson, (perhaps) Tanners and users are strongly of opinion that there is no room for FAR-FETCHED AND ABSTRACT WORDS 5 further enhancement, but on that point there is always room for doubt especially when the export phase is taken into consideration. — Times. (state of the export trade) Witchcraft has been put a stop to by Act of Parliament ; but the mysterious relations which it emblemed still continue.— Carlyle. (symbolized) It will only have itself to thank if future disaster rewards its nescience of the conditions of successful warfare. — Outlook, (ignorance) Continual vigilance is imperative on the public to ensure . . . — Times. (We must be ever on the watch) These manoeuvres are by no means new, and their recrudescence is hardly calculated to influence the development of events. — Times. (the present use of them is not likely to be effective) ' I have no particular business at L ', said he ; ' I was merely going thither to pass a day or two.'— BORROW, (there) 2. Prefer the concrete word (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. The general poverty of explanation as to the diction of particular phrases seemed to point in the same direction. — Cambridge University Reporter. (It was perhaps owing to this also that the diction of particular phrases was often so badly explained) An elementary condition of a sound discussion is u frank recognition of the gulf severing two sets of facts. — Times. (There can be no sound discussion where the gulf severing two sets of facts is not frankly recognized) The signs of the times point to the necessity of the modification of the system of administration. — Times. (It is becoming clear that the administrative system must be modified) No year passes now without evidence of the truth of the statement that the work of government is becoming increasingly difficult. — Spectator. (Every year shows again how true it is that . . .) The first private conference relating to the question of the convocation of 'representatives 'of the nation took place yesterday.— Times. (on national representation) There seems to have been an absence of attempt at conciliation between rival sects. — Daily Telegraph. (The sects seem never even to have tried mutual conciliation ) 6 VOCABULARY Zeal, however, must not outrun discretion in changing abstract to concrete. Officer is concrete, and office abstract ; but we do not promote to officers, as in the following quotation, but to offices — or, with more exactness in this context, to commissions. Over 1,150 cadets of the Military Colleges were promoted to officers at the Palace of Tsarskoe Selo yesterday. — Times. 3. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. As the word case seems to lend itself particularly to abuse, we start with more than one specimen of it. Inaccuracies were in many cases due to cramped methods of writing. — Cambridge University Reporter, (often) The handwriting was on the whole good, with a few examples of remarkably fine penmanship in the case both : Finding Miss Vernon in a place so solitary, engaged in a journey so dangerous, and under the protection of one gentleman only, were circum- stances to excite every feeling of jealousy. — Scott. 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, if it is not absolutely bad grammar' (from a review of this book, 1st ed.). And do we wonder, when the foundation of politics are in the letter only, that many evils should arise ?— Jowett. There is much in these ceremonial accretions and teachings of the Church which tend to confuse and distract, and which hinder us . . . — Daily Telegraph. This sentence, strictly taken as it stands, would mean some- thing that the writer by no means intends it to, viz., ' Though the ceremonies are confusing, there is a great deal in them '. An immense amount of confusion and indifference prevail in these days. — Daily Telegraph. They produced various medicaments, the lethal power of which were extolled at large. — Times. The partition which the two ministers made of the powers of govern- ment were singularly happy.— MACAULAY. One at least of the qualities which fit it for training ordinary men unfit it for training an extraordinary man. — Bagehot. I failed to pass in the small amount of classics which are still held to be necessary. — Times. The Tibetans have engaged to exclude from their country those dangerous influences whose appearance were the chief cause of our action. — Times. Sundry other reputable persons, I know not whom, whose joint virtue still keep the law in good odour. — Emerson. The practical results of the recognition of this truth is as follows. W. H. Mallock. ' - NUMBER : INTERVENING NOUN, Their 6j The Ordination services of the English Church states this to be a truth. — Daily Telegraph. All special rights of voting in the election of members was abolished. — J. R. Green. The separate powers of this great officer of State, who had originally acted only as President of the Council when discharging its judicial functions, seems to have been thoroughly established under Edward I. — J. R. Green. 3. They, them, their, theirs, are often used in referring back to singular pronominals (as each, one, anybody, everybody), or to singular nouns or phrases (as a parent, neither Jack nor Jill), of which the doubtful or double gender causes awkward- ness. It is a real deficiency in English that we have no pronoun, like the French soi, son, to stand for kim-or-ker, his-or-her (for he-or-she French is no better off than English). Our view, though we admit it to be disputable, is clear — that they, their, &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 (a) the possessive of one (indefinite pronoun) is one's, and that of one (numeral pronoun) is either his, or her, or its (One does not forget one's own name : I saw one of them drop his cigar, her muff, or its leaves) ; (b) he, his, him, 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 England instead of Britain, (c) Sentences may however easily be constructed (Neither John nor Mary knew his own mind) in which his is undeniably awkward. The solution is then what we so often recommend, to do a little exercise in paraphrase (John and Mary were alike irresolute, for instance), (d) Where legal precision is really necessary, he or she may be written in full. Corrections according to these rules will be appended in brackets to the examples. . F a 68 SYNTAX Anybody else who have only themselves in view. — Richardson, (has . . . himself) Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute, in novel-writing as in carrying one's head in their hand. — S. FERRIER. (one's . . . one's) The feelings of the parent upon committing the cherished object of their cares and affections to the stormy sea of life, — S. Ferrier. (his) But he never allowed one to feel their own deficiencies, for he never appeared to be aware of them himself. — S. Ferrier. (one's) A difference of opinion which leaves each free to act according to their own feelings. — S. Ferrier. (his) Suppose each of us try our hands at it. — S. Ferrier. (tries his hand ; or, if all of us are women, tries her hand) Everybody is discontented with their lot in life. — BEACONSFIELD. (his) 4. Other mistakes involving number made with such pro- nominals, or with nouns collective, personified, or abstract. No man can read Scott without being more of a public man, whereas the ordinary novel tends to make its readers rather less of one than before. — Hutton. And so each of his portraits are not only a ' piece of history ', but . . . — Stevenson. Le Roman d'un Spahi, Azidaye' and Rarahu each contains the history of a love affair. — H. James. He manages to interest us in the men, who each in turn wishes to engineer Richard Baldock's future.— Westminster Gazette. When each is appended in apposition to a plural subject, it should stand after the verb, or auxiliary, which should be plural ; read here, contain each, wish each in turn (or, each of whom wishes in turn). As the leading maritime nation in the world and dependent wholly on the supremacy of our fleet to maintain this position, everyone is virtually bound to accord some measure of aid to an association whose time and talents are devoted to ensuring this important object. — Times. Every one is indeed a host in himself, if he is the leading maritime nation. It is not in Japan's interests to allow negotiations to drag on once their armies are ready to deliver the final blow. — Times. The personification of Japan must be kept up by her. NUMBER : NOUNS OF MULTITUDE, Either 69 Many of my notes, I am greatly afraid, will be thought a superfluity.— E. V. Lucas (quoted in Times review). 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. 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. The public is naturally much impressed by this evidence, and in con- sidering it do not make the necessary allowances. — Times. The Times Brussels correspondent . . . tells us that the committee adds these words to their report. — Westminster Gazette. The Grand Opera Syndicate has also made an important addition to their German tenors. — Westminster Gazette. The only political party who could take office was that which . . . had consistently opposed the American war. — Bagehot. As the race of man, after centuries of civilization, still keeps some traits of their barbarian fathers. — Stevenson. The battleship Kniaz Potemkin, of which the crew is said to have mutinied and murdered their officers. — Times. 6. Neither, either, as pronouns, should always take a singular verb — a much neglected rule. So also every. The conception is faulty for two reasons, neither of which are noticed by Plato.— Jowett. . . . neither of which are very amiable motives for religious gratitude. — Thackeray. He asked the gardener whether either of the ladies were at home.— Trollope. Were, however, may be meant for the subjunctive, when it would be a fault of style, not of grammar. I think almost every one of the Judge* of the High Court are repre- sented here.— Lord Halsbury. Every Warwick institution, from the corporation to the schools and the almshouses, have joined hands in patriotic fellow-working.— Speaker. 70 SYNTAX 7. For rhetorical reasons, a verb often precedes its subject; but enthusiasm, even if appropriate, should not be allowed to override the concords. And of this emotion was born all the gods of antiquity. — Daily Telegraph. But unfortunately there seems to be spread abroad certain miscon- ceptions. — Times. But with these suggestions are joined some very good exposition of principles which should underlie education generally. — Spectator. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman has received a resolution, to which is appended the names of eight Liberal members and candidates for East London . . . — Times. Comparatives and Superlatives The chief point that requires mention is ill treatment of the more. In this phrase the is not the article, but an adverb, either relative or demonstrative. In the more the merrier it is first relative and then demonstrative : by-how-much we are more, by-so-much we shall be merrier. When the relative the is used, it should always be answered regularly by, or itself answer, the demonstrative the. Attempts to vary the formula are generally unhappy ; for instance, He was leaving his English business in the hands of Bilton, who . seemed to him, the more he knew him, extraordinarily efficient. — E. F. Benson. This should run, perhaps : whose efficiency impressed him the more, the more he knew him — 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 Airs and Graces concerned with originality. The farther we advance into it, we see confusion more and more unfold itself into order.— Carlyle. > Most readers will feel that this is an uncomfortable compromise between The farther we advance the more do we see and As COMPARATIVES—//^ more 71 we advance we see confusion mere and more unfold itself. Similarly, She had reflection enough to foresee, that the longer she countenanced his passion, her own heart would be more and more irretrievably engaged. —Smollett. 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 the more is merely a more imposing form of more, 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 more or the more is right. One of the meanings is a slight extension of the other. (1) The correlative meaning by so much may be kept, though the relative clause, instead of formally corresponding and containing the (meaning by how much) 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, (a) The original meaning of the demonstrative the is simply by that ; this in the complete double form, and often elsewhere, has the interpretation, limited to quantity, of by so much, or in that proportion ; but it may also mean on that account, when the relative clause is not present. Again, however, the context must answer plainly in some form the question On what account? 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. The function of the, then, is to tell us that there is, just before or after, an answer to one of the questions, More by what amount? More on what account? If there is no such 1% SYNTAX answer, we may be sure that the comparative has no right to its the. We start with a sentence that is entitled to its the, but otherwise unidiomatic. We are not a whit the less depressed in spirits at the sight of all this unrelieved misery on the stage by the reminder that Euripides was moved to depict it by certain occurrences in his own contemporary Athens. — Times. The less is less on that account, viz., that we are reminded. But the preposition required when the cause is given in this construction by a noun is for, not by. Read for the reminder. The type is shown in None the better for seeing you. Our sentence is in fact a mixture between Our depression is not lessened by the reminder, and We are not the less depressed for the reminder ; and the confusion is the worse that depressed by happens to be a common phrase. The suggestion, as regarded Mr. Sowerby, was certainly true, and was not the less so as regarded some of Mr. Sowerby's friends. — Trollope. The tells us that we can by looking about us find an answer either to Not less true by what amount? or to Not less true on what account? There is no answer to the first except Not less true about the friends in proportion as it was truer about Mr. Sowerby ; and none to the second except Not less true about the friends because it was true about Mr. Sowerby. Both are meaningless, and the the is superfluous and wrong. Yet as his criticism is more valuable than that of other men, so it is the more rarely met with. — Spectator. This is such an odd tangle of the two formulae as . . . so, the more . . . the more, that the reader is tempted to cut the knot and imagine what is hardly possible, that the is meant for the ordinary article, agreeing with kind of criticism understood between the and more. Otherwise it must be cured either by omitting the, or by writing The more valuable his criticism, the more rarely is it met with. If the latter is done, than that of other men will have to go. Which suggests the further observation that the with a comparative is almost always wrong COMPARATIVES—^ more 73 when a ^aw-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 the, will make the point clear : My eyes are more and more averse to light than ever. — S. FERRIER. You can be more averse than ever, or more and more averse, but not more and more averse than ever. Ever 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 the more . . . the more. 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 than- clause, is felt to be impossible even when the demonstrative the stands alone. In the next two examples, answers to the question More on what account? 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 ^«#-clause in each. But neither is that way open ; nor is it any the more open in the case of Canada than Australia. — F. GREENWOOD. The the might pass if than Australia were omitted, and there would be no objection to it if we read further (for in the case) if we take the case, 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. The then means on that account, viz., because we have substituted Canada. 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 the more acknowledge His unbounded love for all He has made, and our entire dependence on Him, than I could twenty years ago, when I attended church ten times where I now go once. — Daily Telegraph. 74 SYNTAX In this, the answer to More on what account? 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 can the more acknowledge . . .forgoing (or that I go) to church only once where twenty years ago I went ten times. Unless the */z««-clause is got rid of, we ought to have more without the. This question of the 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 every- body 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. i. More than I can help. Without thinking of the corresponding phrase in his native language more than he can help. — H. Sweet. We don't haul guns through traffic more than we can help.— Kipling. These really mean, of course, more than he (we) can« they ', and ' retorted Jones ' : but not ' enquired I ', ' rejoined he ', ' suggested they '. Compound verbs, as usual, do not lend themselves to inversion : ' I won't plot anything extra against Tom,' had said Isaac — M. MAA.RTENS. ' At any rate, then,' may rejoin our critic, ' it is clearly useless . . .' — Spencer. ' I am the lover of a queen,' had often sung the steward in his pantry below.— R. Elliot. ' The cook and the steward are always quarrelling, it is quite un- bearable,' had explained Mrs. Tuggy to the chief mate. — R. Elliot. Inverted said 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. 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 . . .' — S. THOMAS. Mr. Takahira and Count Cassini continue to exchange repartees through friends or through the public press. Said the Japanese Minister yesterday evening: — Times. 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 . . .' — Times. With verbs other than said, 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 Comes a new translation ... in four neat olive-green volumes. — Journal of Education. (ii) The inverted conditionals should, had, could, would, were, did, 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 INVERSION 193 of merit. Should I, from its frequency, is without taint of archaism ; but could and would, and, in a less degree, had, are apt to betray their archaic character by the addition of but (' would he but consent ') ; and were and did are felt to be slightly out of date, even without this hint. I should be, therefore, worse than a fool, did I object. — Scott. Did space allow, I could give you startling proof of this. — Times. (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 curiosi- ties as these : Be this a difference of inertia, of bulk or of form, matters not to the argument. — Spencer. 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. — Spencer. 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, . . .' Archaism a. Occasional. 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. 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. K.S. O 194 AIRS AND GRACES Yet charitable readers will believe that in the following sen- tence demiss has slipped unconsciously from a learned pen: He perceived that the Liberal ministry had offended certain influential sections by appearing too demiss or too unenterprising in foreign affairs. — Bryce. 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 It should seem, even the essayist's You shall find, is less odious, though not less deliberate, than the ere, oft, aught, thereanent, T wot, I trow, 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 ofttimes, and ends it with a grammatical blunder ; aspires to albeit, and achieves howbeit. 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 worth- less. 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. A coiner or a smuggler shall get off tolerably well.— Lamb. The same circumstance may make one person laugh, which shall raider another very serious. — Lamb. You shall hear the same persons say that George Barnwell is very natural, and Othello is very natural. — Lamb. ARCHAISM 195 Don Quixote shall last you a month for breakfast reading. — Spectator. Take them as they come, you shall find in the common people a surly indifference. — Emerson. The worst of making a mannerism of this shall 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. Some of us, like Mr. Andrew Lang for instance, cannot away with a person who does not care for Scott or Dickens. — Spectator. One needs not praise their courage. — Emerson. What turn things are likely to take if this version be persisted in is a matter for speculation. — Times. If Mr. Hobhouse's analysis of the vices of popular government be correct, much more would seem to be needed. — Times. Mr. Bowen has been, not recalled, but ordered to Washington, and will be expected to produce proof, if any he have, of his chaiges against Mr. Loomis. — Times. It were futile to attempt to deprive it of its real meaning. — Times. It were idle to deny that the revolutionary movement in Russia is nowhere followed with keener interest than in this country. — Times. It were idle to deny that coming immediately after the Tangier demonstration it assumes special and unmistakable significance. — Times. He is putting poetic ' frills ', if the phrase be not too mean, on what is better stated in the prose summary of the argument. — Times. Regarded as a counter-irritant to slang, archaism is a failure. Frills is ten times more noticeable for the prim and pom- pous be. Under them the land is being rapidly frivolled away, and, unless immediate action be taken, the country will be so tied that . . . — Times. That will depend a good deal on whether he be shocked by the cynicism of the most veracious of all possible representations . . . — H. James. We may not quote the lengthy passage here : it is probably familiar to many readers. — Times. ' We must not '. Similarly, the modern prose English for */ / be, it were, is if I am, it would be. ' I have no particular business at L.,' said he ; 'I was merely going thither to pass a day or two.'— BORROW. I am afraid you will hardly be able to ride your horse thither in time to dispose of him.— Borrow. O 2 196 AIRS AND GRACES It will necessitate my recurring thereto in the House of Commons. — Spectator. The Scottish Free Church had theretofore prided itself upon the rigidity of its orthodoxy. — Bryce. The special interests of France in Morocco, whereof thz recognition by Great Britain and Spain forms the basis of the international agreements concluded last year by the French Government. — Times. To what extent has any philosophy or any revelation assured us hereof till now ?— F. W. H. Myers. On the concert I need not dwell ; the reader would not care to have my impressions ihereanent. — C. Bronte. There, not thither, is the modern form ; to it, not thereto ; of which, of this, not whereof, hereof; till then, or up to that time, not theretofore. So, in the following examples, except, perhaps, before, though ; not save, perchance, ere, albeit. Nobody save an individual in no condition to distinguish a hawk from a handsaw . . .—Times. My ignorance as to ' figure of merit ' is of no moment save to myself. — Times. This we obtain by allowing imports to go untaxed save only for revenue purposes. — Spectator. Who now reads Barry Cornwall or Talfourd save only in connexion with their memorials of the rusty little man in black? — Times. In my opinion the movements may be attributed to unconscious cerebra- tion, save in those cases in which it is provoked wilfully. — Times. 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, perchance neither correctly forecasted the actual result. — Times. Dr. Bretton was a cicerone after my own heart ; he would take me betimes ere the galleries were filled. — C. Bronte. He is certainly not cruising on a trade route, or his presence would long ere this have been reported. — Times. Mr. Shaynor unlocked a drawer, and ere he began to write, took out a meagre bundle of letters. — Kipling. Fortifications are fixed, immobile defences, and, in time of war, must await the coming of an enemy ere they can exercise their powers of offence. — Times. ' It is something in this fashion ', she cried out ere long ; ' the man is too romantic and devoted.' — C. Bronte. Ere departing, however, I determined to stroll about and examine the town. — Borrow. ARCHAISM—**-*, aught, anent 197 The use of ere with a gerund is particularly to be avoided. And that she should force me, by the magic of her pen to mentally acknowledge, albeit with wrath and shame, my own inferiority ! — Corelli. Such things as our modern newspapers chronicle, albeit in different form. — Corelli. It is thought by experts that there could be no better use of the money, albeit the best American colleges, with perhaps one exception, have very strong staffs of professors at incredibly low salaries. — Times. ' Oxoniensis ' approaches them with courage, his thoughts are expressed in plain, unmistakable language, howbeit with the touch of a master hand. — Daily Telegraph. The writer means albeit ; he would have been safer with though. Living in a coterie, he seems to have read the laudations and not to have noticed aught else. — Times. Hence, if higher criticism, or aught besides, compels any man to question, say, the historic accuracy of the fall . . . — Daily Telegraph. Many a true believer owned not up to his faith. — Daily Telegraph. The controversy now going on in your columns anent ' Do we believe ? ' throws a somewhat strange light upon the religion of to-day. — Daily Telegraph. It is because the world has not accepted the religion of Jesus Christ our Lord, that the world is in the parlous state we see it still. — Daily Telegraph. A discussion in which well nigh every trade, profession and calling have been represented. — Daily Telegraph. Why not ? Because we have well-nigh bordering on 300 different interpretations of the message Christ bequeathed us. — Daily Telegraph. It is quite a common thing to see ladies with their hymn-books in their hands, ere returning home from church enter shops and make purchases which might every whit as well have been effected on the Saturday.— Daily Telegraph. How oft do those who train young minds need to urge the necessity of being in earnest . . . — Daily Telegraph. I trow not. — Daily Telegraph. 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 wotted not why. — Scott. I should be right glad if the substance could be made known to clergy and ministers of all denominations. — Daily Telegraph. 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 withal. — Dickens. 198 AIRS AND GRACES b. Sustained archaism in narrative and dialogue. 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 com- monly, 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 pre- served, he will have little to do. This we may call negative archaism. Esmond is an admirable example of it, and the 'Dame Gossip ' part of Mr. Meredith's Amazing Marriage 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 Treasure Island, and of one or two novels of Besant's. 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 ARCHAISM IN DIALOGUE 199 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 -st and -th. Our list is largely drawn from Stevenson, who, having tried negative archaism with success in Treasure Island, chose to give us a positive specimen in The Black Arrow. 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 The Black 'Arrow. An I had not been a thief, I could not have painted me your face. Put me your hand into the comer, and see what ye find there. Bring me him down like a ripe apple. And keep ever forward, Master Shelton ; turn me not back again, an ye love your life. Selden, take me this old shrew softly to the nearest elm, and hang me him tenderly by the neck, where I may see him at my riding. Mark me this old villain on the piebald. ' Sirrah, no more words,' said Dick. ' Bend me your back.' 'Here is a piece of forest that I know not', Dick remarked 'Where goeth me this track ? ' ' I slew him fair. I ran me in upon his bow,' he cried. ' Swallow me a good draught of this,' said the knight. It is like a child with a new toy. aoo AIRS AND GRACES 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, . . . ' : 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 got the great chuck. Yes, madam, I would have broke Mister Caius on the spot'. — Crockett. But if you once go in for having a good time (as Miss Anne in her innocence used to remark) you must be prepared to . . . — Crockett. ... as all girls love to do when they are content with the way they have put in their time.— Crockett. Metaphor 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 ex- press 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 think is a metaphor from vine-pruning ; ' seeing ' of the mind is borrowed from literal sight; 'pondering' is meta- phorical '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 METAPHOR. 'LIVE' AND 'DEAD' aoi 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? 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 explain : its literal meaning is ' spread out flat ' : how are we to say now whether necessity or picturesqueness first prompted its meta- phorical use? And the same doubt might arise centuries hence as to the origin of a phrase so obviously artificial to us as 'glaring inconsistency'. 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 Spectator. These we should call dead : ' his vuzvs were personal ' ; c carry out his policy ' ; ' not acceptable to his colleagues ' ; aoa AIRS AND GRACES 'the Chancellor proposed' ; 'some grounds for complaint'; ' refrain from talking about them ' ; 'the remission of the Tea- duty'; 'sound policy'; 'a speech almost entirely composed of extracts ' ; ' reduction of taxation' ; ' discussion ' ; 'the /czc/ price of Consols'; 'falls due'; 'succeeded'; 'will approach their task ' ; ' delivered a speech ' ; 'postponing 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 atmosphere'; ' this would leave a margin of £122,000' ; 'the loss of elasticity ' in the Fund ; ' recasting our whole Fiscal system ' ; ' to uphold the unity of the Empire ' ; ' to strengthen the Exchequer balances ' ; 'all dwelt on the grave injury ' ; ' his somewhat shattered authority ' ; ' the policy of evasion now pursued' ; 'throws new light on the situation'; 'a gap in our fiscal system'. Intentional metaphors are of course less plentiful: 'the home-rule motion designed to "draw" Sir Henry'; 'a dissolving view of General Elections'; 'this reassuring declaration knocks the bottom out of the plea of urgency ' ; ' the scattered remnants of that party might rally after the disastrous defeat '. 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 im- possible, 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 MIXED METAPHOR 403 of ', ' opens the door to ', are not themselves particularly noisy- phrases ; but writers who indulge in them generally end by being noisy. Unintentional metaphor is the source, too, of most actual blunders. Every one is on his guard when his metaphor is in- tentional ; 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. 1. If only one of the metaphors is a live one, the confusion is not a confusion for practical purposes. a. Confusion can only exist between metaphors that are grammatically inseparable ; parallel metaphors between which there is no grammatical dependence cannot result in con- fusion. 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 '. Him 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 : This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, . . . This fortress built by Nature for herself . . . This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, . . . This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, . . . 3. Metaphor within metaphor is dangerous. Here there is a grammatical dependence between the metaphors, and if the 204 AIRS AND GRACES combination is unsuitable confusion will result. But combi- nation 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 Zea- land) 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. This pillar of the state Hath swallowed hook and bait. The swallowing is applicable only to the person metaphorically called a pillar. 4. Cofifusion of metaphor is sometimes alleged against sentences that contain only one metaphor — a manifest ab- surdity. 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. This diverting incident contributed in a high degree to the general merriment. Here we have four different metaphors ; but as they are all dead, there is no real confusion. MIXED METAPHOR 205 This, as you know, was a burning question ; and its unseasonable introduction threw a chill on the spirits of all our party. Burning and chill a*e both live metaphors, they are gram- matically connected by its, and they are inconsistent ; there is therefore confusion. The uncertainty which hangs over every battle extends in a special degree to battles at sea. — Spectator. Extends is usually dead ; and if in this case it is living, it is also suitable. A centre and nucleus round which the scattered remnants of that party might rally after the disastrous defeat.— Spectator. 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, nucleus 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. 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 combina- tion of the three. This is quoted in a newspaper as an example of mixed metaphor. It is nothing of the kind : they in New Zealand are detached from the metaphor. 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, . . . ' 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 206 AIRS AND GRACES ' Moderate churchmen, moving at length from their old moor- ings, are beginning to lift this question out of the party rut ', we should have had a genuine confusion, the moorings and the rut being then inseparable. Both this sentence and the pre- ceding 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. . . . the keenest incentive man can feel to remedy ignorance and abolish guilt. It is under the impelling force of this incentive that civilization progresses. — Spectator. 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 incentive had entirely vanished : but the successive attributes keenness and impelling force are too severe a test ; the dead metaphor is resuscitated, and a perceptible confusion results. Her forehand drive— her most trenchant asset. — Daily Mail. Another case of resuscitation. Trenchant turns in its grave ; and asset, 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. 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. — Spectator. We impose a burden, we apply a stimulus. 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 impose a mere slip in idiom, the confusion is none the less apparent. Sword of the devil, running with the blood of saints, poisoned adder, thy work is done. These are independent metaphors ; and, as thy work is done is applicable to each of them, there is no confusion. 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 administra- tion. — Times. To stave off a brand is not, perhaps, impossible ; but we sus- MIXED METAPHOR 307 pcct that it would be a waste of energy. The idea of bulk is inseparable from the process of staving oft". The metaphor is usually applied to literal abstract nouns, not to metaphorical concretes : ruin and disaster one can suppose to be of a toler able size ; but a metaphorical brand does not present itself to the imagination as any larger than a literal one. We assume that by brand the instrument is meant : the eleventh hour is all too early to set about staving off the mark. 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 impose a stimulus was perhaps a short cut to the expression of two different meta- phors, and the same might be said of staving off the brand. But we shall get a clearer idea of the nature of mixed meta- phor if we regard all these as violations of the following simple rule: When a live metaphor (intentional or uninten- tional) 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) un- metaphorical, 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 re- sistance, or (b) the duty of resistance ; and we shall stave off not the ' brand ' but the ' ignominy of failure from our military administration '. 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. 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 ? — Spectator. May I be allowed to add a mite of experience of an original Volunteer in a good City regiment? — Spectator. But also in Italy many ancient edifices have been recently coated with stucco and masked by superfluous repairs. — Spectator. ao8 AIRS AND GRACES 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. — Spectator. The scourge of tyranny had breathed his last. The means of education at the disposal of the Protestants and Presby- terians of the North were stunted and sterilized. — Balfour. I once heard a Spaniard shake his head over the present Queen of Spain. — (Quoted by Spectator!) 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. — De Quincey. 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 screw. We prefer to believe that De Quincey was not think- ing of the horns at all ; they are a gratuitous metaphorical ornament ; dilemma, in English at any rate, is a literal word, and means an argument that presents two undesirable alter- natives. 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. These remarks have been dictated in order that the importance of recog- nizing the difference and the value of soils may be understood. — J. LONG. This metaphor always requires that the dictator — usually a personified abstract — should be mentioned. ' Dictated by the importance '. 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 : 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 CATCHWORD METAPHORS, REPETITION 209 tremble, lest I should split upon the former or strike upon the latter. But you, my better pilot, . . . — Richardson. Such phases of it as we did succeed in mentally kodaking are hardly to be ' developed ' in cold print. — Times. We are not photographers enough to hazard a comment on cold print. The leading planks of the Opposition policy are declared to be the proper audit of public accounts, . . . — Times. Repetition ' Rhetorical ' or — to use at once a wider and a more intelli- gible 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 repe- tition is intentional, rashly infer that all intentional repetition is good ; and others who may be suspected of making repeti- tions 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, con- sideration 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. 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 dis- tinction 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 210 AIRS AND GRACES popular writers on subjects that demand lucidity; and there is the further difference, that rhetorical repetition often dic- tates 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. We shall illustrate both the good and bad points of repeti- tion almost exclusively from a few pages of Bagehot, one of its most successful exponents, in whom nevertheless it de- generates 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. 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 interest- ing 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. 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 goae on— to shift for themselves as they had always shifted. REPETITION 211 Without Spanish and without French, Walpole would have made a good peace ; Bolingbroke could not do so with both. 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. A man like Walpole, or a man like Louis Napoleon, is protected by an unsensitive nature from intellectual destruction. 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. He hated the City because they were Whigs, and he hated the Dutch because he had deserted them. But he professed to know nothing of commerce, and did know nothing. 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. Using the press without reluctance and without cessation. 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. 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. He had no popularity; little wish for popularity; little respect for popular judgement. 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 them- selves, 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 is possible to have too much of P i aia AIRS AND GRACES 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 men- tioned 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 dis- tinction 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. 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 pro- nounced 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 REPETITION 313 that what may be spoken effectively will not always bear the test of writing. 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 in- tentional is good '. I have summoned you here to witness your own work. I have sum- moned you here to witness it, because I know it will be gall and worm- wood 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 ! —Dickens. 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. — DICKENS. Russia may split into fragments, or Russia may become a volcano.— Spectator. Miscellaneous a. Some more trite phrases. 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, aud 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. 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 ai4 AIRS AND GRACES 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 if or a causal participle, not co-ordinated with it by and. My dear fellow, it stands to reason that if the square of a is a squared, and the square of b is b squared, then the square of a minus b is a squared minus b squared. You may argue till we are both tired, you will never alter that. 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. 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. 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 . . . — Spectator. 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 tempta- tion comes decides, with archaic rectitude, that he 'will not do this thing'; 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, mutatis mutandis ('cruel little laugh, that some- how . . .'), he shares with the heroine, who for her exclusive ELEMENTARY IRONY 415 perquisite has ' this man who had somehow come into her life'. Somehow and half-dazed are invaluable for throwing a mysterious glamour over situations and characters that shun the broad daylight of common sense. b. Elementary irony. 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 objec- tion: the writer who uses it is taking our intellectual measure; he forgets our ex officio perfection in wisdom. Theoretically, indeed, the reader is admitted to the author's confidence ; he is not the corpus vile on which experiment is made : that, how- ever, is scarcely more convincing than the two-edged formula 1 present company excepted '. For minute, detailed illustra- tion of truths that have had the misfortune to become commonplaces without making their due impression, sus- tained 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 reductio ad absurdum : ' for if not, let some other kind of man be admirable ; as Jonathan Wild '. But the reductio 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. 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. — Scott. 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. — Times. 4i6 AIRS AND GRACES 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. — Dickens. 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! — H. D. Macleod. Pleasant is put for unpleasant because the latter seemed dull and unnecessary ; the writer should have taken the hint, and put nothing at all. The climax is reached by those pessimists who, regarding the reader's case as desperate, assist him with punctuation, italics, and the like: And this honourable (?) proposal was actually made in the presence of two at least of the parties to the former transaction ! These so-called gentlemen seem to forget . . . 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 o/ aristocrats, but I . . . — Corelli. The much-prated-of ' kindness of heart ' and ' generosity ' possessed by millionaires, generally amounts to this kind of thing. — CORELLI. Was I about to discover that the supposed ' woman-hater ' had been tamed and caught at last ? — Cqrelli. That should undoubtedly have been your * great ' career — you were bom for it — made for it I You would have been as brute-souled as you are now . . . — Corelli. c. Superlatives without the. The omission of the with superlatives is limited by ordinary prose usage to (i) Superlatives after a possessive: 'Your best plan '. (a) Superlatives with most : ' in most distressing circumstances', but not 'in saddest circumstances'. (3) Superlatives in apposition, followed by of: '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 the in all cases where SUPERLATIVES, CHEAP ORIGINALITY 217 the superlative only means very. No harm will be done if they eventually have their way : in the meantime, the omission of the with inflected superlatives has the appearance of gross mannerism. Our enveloping movements since some days proved successful, and fiercest battle is now proceeding. — Times. In which, too, so many noblest men have . . . both made and been what will be venerated to all time. — Carlyle. Struggling with objects which, though it cannot master them, are essentially of richest significance. — Carlyle. 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.— Emerson. In Darkest Africa. — Stanley. Delos furnishes, not only quaintest tripods, crude bronze oxen and horses like those found at Olympia, but . . . — L. M. Mitchell. 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. — L. M. Mitchell. A world of highest and noblest thought in dramas of perfect form. — L. M. Mitchell. From earliest times such competitive games had been celebrated. — L. M. Mitchell. When fullest, freest forms had not yet been developed. — L. M. Mitchell, d. Cheap originality. * 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 expe- dients, '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 ai8 AIRS AND GRACES 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. How beautiful is noble-sentiment ; like gossamer-gauze beautiful and cheap, which will stand no tear and wear. — Carlyle. Bloated promises, which end in nothing or little. — Emerson. The universities also are parcel of the ecclesiastical system. — Emerson. Fox, Burke, Pitt, Erskine, Wilberforce, Sheridan, Romilly, or whatever national man, were by this means sent to Parliament. — Emerson. And the stronger these are, the individual is so much weaker. — EMERSON. The faster the ball falls to the sun, the force to fly off is by so much augmented. — Emerson. The friction in nature is so enormous that we cannot spare any power. // is not question to express our thought, to elect our way, but to overcome resistances.— Emerson CHAPTER IV PUNCTUATION 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 Spelling and Punctuation (Wyman's Tech- nical Series, Menken, a/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 profes- sional 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. 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, i3 320 PUNCTUATION so clear that mistakes about their use can hardly occur with- out 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 («) the encroachments of the dash as a saver of trouble and an exponent of emotion — there are also permanent difficulties. 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 ex- pressed also by I, 3, 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. The first difficulty is that this single distinction has to con- vey 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 gram- matical relations between parts of a sentence or paragraph and the whole or other parts : its rhetorical work is con- tributing 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 : The master beat the scholar with a strap. — B. The master beat the scholar, with a strap. 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 Again, in the two following examples, so far as logic goes, commas would be used in both, or semicolons in both. But LOGIC AND RHETORIC aai the writer of the second desires to be slow, staccato, and im- pressive: the writer of the first desires to be rapid and flowing, or rather, perhaps, does not desire to be anything other than natural. Mathematicians have sought knowledge in figures, philosophers in systems, logicians in subtilties, and metaphysicians in sounds. — B. In the eclogue there must be nothing rude or vulgar ; nothing fanciful or affected ; nothing subtle or abstruse. — B. 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. 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 : His method of handling the subject was ornate, learned, and per- spicuous. — B. The removal of the comma after learned makes so little difference that it is an open question among compositors whether it should be used or not. The criminal, who had betrayed his associates, was a prey to remorse. 222 PUNCTUATION 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. Colonel Hutchinson, the Governor whom the King had now appointed, having hardened his heart, resolved on sterner measures. Omission of the comma after appointed 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. These commas, that is, have very different values ; many intermediate degrees might be added. Similarly the semi- colon 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. A third difficulty is this: not only must many tasks be performed by one stop ; the same task is necessarily per- formed 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 sen- tences 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 LOGIC AND RHETORIC 223 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 neigh- bours. 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. When ambition asserts the monstrous doctrine of millions made for individuals, is not the good man indignant? The function of the comma is to mark the division between the subordinate and the main clauses. 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? 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 impor- tant office by converting itself into a semicolon. 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. 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, as 234 PUNCTUATION if, &c, from the mere enumeration commas that precede ; in which case the semi-colon after caprice should be raised to a colon ; and then what is the newly created emperor to do t 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 satis- fied with using commas throughout ; the old-fashioned air of the colon will hardly escape notice. But the whole arrange- ment is according to the compositor's art in its severer form. A specimen of the merely indirect action of rhetoric maybe more shortly disposed of. In a sentence already quoted — Mathematicians have sought knowledge in figures, philosophers in systems, logicians in subtilties, and metaphysicians in sounds — 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 supply- ing of the words have sought knowledge in each member) will in presence of the semicolon require to be done to the eye by commas, and the sentence will run : Mathematicians have sought knowledge in figures ; philosophers, in systems ; logicians, in subtilties ; and metaphysicians, in sounds. But, lest we should be thought too faithful followers of the logicians, we will now assume that our point has been suffi- ciently 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. We shall now only make three general remarks before pro- ceeding to details. The first is implied in what has been already said : the work of punctuation is mainly to show, or FULL AND SLIGHT STOPPING 235 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 par- ticular 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. 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 quota- tions from Huxley and Mr. Balfour may be thought to illus- trate this. And whereas slight stopping may venture on small irregularities, full stopping that is incorrect is also un- pardonable. 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. 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 n c Q 2a6 PUNCTUATION 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. 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 com- moner 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 arch- ness, sham ingenuousness, spasmodic interruption, scrappy argument, dry monotony, are some of the resulting impres- sions. 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 THE SPOT-PLAGUE 227 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. 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, 1 76 1, 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 2 2a8 PUNCTUATION 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. — Times. 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 : Never use a semicolon when you can employ a full-stop. Beadnell lays down a law that at first sight seems to amount to the same thing : The notion of parting short independent sentences otherwise than by a full-stop, rests upon no rational foundation, and leads to endless perplexities. But his practice clears him of the imputation : he is saved by the ambiguity of the word independent. There are grammatical dependence, and dependence of thought. Of all those ' little hard round unconnected things ', in the Times review, that ' seem to come upon one as shot would descend from a shot- making tower ' (Sir Arthur Helps), hardly one is not depen- dent 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 THE GROUP SYSTEM tig 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 : The sheil of Ravensnuilc was, for the picsent 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. — Crockett. (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 6ut 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 shell's being at disposal ; that is, there is a close connexion, though no conjunction, between the first and the second sen- tences. 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 sen- tences 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- 230 PUNCTUATION stop ; and the sentence will run, with its true meaning much more clearly given : 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. The group system gives more trouble to the writer or com- positor, 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. We need now only add two or three short specimens, worse, though from their shortness less remarkable, than the Times extract. They are not specially selected as bad ; but it may be hoped that -by their juxtaposition they may have some deterrent effect. 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 . . .—Crockett. 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. — Times. 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. — Crockett. 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 impos- sible to be interested. So many for whom the most skilful hypocrisy cannot help us to maintain a semblance of interest. — Daily Telegraph. 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 OVER-STOPPING 331 name of being something of a skinflint. And skinflints are always rich, as is well known. — Crockett. The last sentence here is a mere comment on what is itself only an appendage, the clause introduced by especially ; 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 moreover for especially as, and put only a comma after skinflint ; the right proportion would then be secured. 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. 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 33a PUNCTUATION 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. The smallest portion possible of curious interest had been awakened within me, and, at last, I asked myself, within my own mind . . . — Borrow. None of the last three commas is wanted ; those round at last are very unpleasant, and they at least should be omitted. In questions of trade and finance, questions which, owing, perhaps, ta their increasing intricacy, seem . . . — Bryce. Perhaps can do very well without commas. It is, however, already plain enough that, unless, indeed, some great catastrophe should upset all their calculations, the authorities have very little intention . . . — Times. Indeed can do without commas, if it cannot itself be done without. Jeannie, too, is, just occasionally, like & good girl out of a book by a sentimental lady-novelist. — Times. If just is omitted, there need be no commas round occasionally. There may be a value in just; but hardly enough to compensate for the cruel jerking at the bit to which the poor reader is subjected by a remorseless driver. Thus, their work, however imperfect and faulty, judged by modern lights, it may have been, brought them face to face with . . . — Huxley. The comma after thus is nothing if not pompous. And another can be got rid of by putting it may have been before judged by modern lights. 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 . . . — Scott. Omit namely and its commas. Shakespeare, it is true, had, as 1 have said, as respects England, the privilege which only first-comers enjoy.— Lowell. OVER-STOPPING 233 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. As I have said can be given a separate sentence afterwards — So much has been said before. Private banks and capitalists constitute the main bulk of the sub- scribers, and, apparently, they are prepared to go on subscribing indefinitely. — Times. Putting commas round apparently 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 conjunc- tions, like therefore. 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 he, and gives the word that emphasis which in the speech as delivered doubtless made the / that it represents equivalent to I for my part. Both Tom and John knew this ; and, therefore, John— the soft-hearted one — kept out of the way. — Trollope. It would not be possible to sanction an absolutely unlimited expendi- ture 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. — Times. After for and and beginning a sentence commas are often 234 PUNCTUATION 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 and ox for 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 signifi- cance such as is hardly to be found in our two examples : 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. — • Dickens. And, it is true that these were the days of mental and moral fermenta- tion.— Hutton. 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 is, 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 ex cathedra air: The reason why the world lacks unity, is, because man is disunited with himself. — Emerson. The charm in Nelson's history, is, the unselfish greatness. — Emerson. 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 UNDER-STOPPING 235 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 punctua- tion, 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. It may be asked can further depreciation be afforded. — Times. I believe you used to live in Warwickshire at Willowsmere Court did you not ? — Corelli. 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.— F. M. Crawford. ' You made a veritable sensation Lucio ! ' ' Did I ? ' He laughed. ' You flatter me Geoffrey.' — Corelli. I like your swiftness of action Geoffrey. — Corelli. Good heavens man, there are no end of lords and ladies who will . . . — Corelli. 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. 1. The substantival clause. 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 conjunc- tion 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 : Substantival. He asked what I should do. {my plan, noun) Adjectival. The man who acts honestly is respected, {honest, adjective) 336 PUNCTUATION Adverbial. I shall see you when the sun next rises, {to- morrow, adverb) 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. The man is respected, I shall see you, 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. He asked is meaningless by itself. (Even if the point is that he asked and did not answer, things, or something, 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 two commas belonging to an inserted parenthetic clause or phrase or word may intervene). It follows that there js no logical or grammatical justification, though there may be a rhetorical one, for the comma so frequently placed before the that of an indirect statement. Our own opinion (which is, however, con- trary 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. Yet there, too, we find, that character has its problems to solve. — Meredith. We know, that, ip the individual man, consciousness grows. — Huxley. And it is said, that, on a visitor once asking to see his library, Descartes led him . .—Huxley. SUBSTANTIVAL CLAUSE . 237 The general opinion however was, that, if Bute had been early practised in debate, he might have become an impressive speaker. — Macaulay. The comma before whether in the next is actually mislead- ing; we are tempted to take as adverbial what is really a substantival clause, object to the verbal noun indifference : 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. — Speaker. Grammar, however, would afford some justification for distinguishing between the substantival clause as subject, object, or complement, and the substantival clause in apposi- tion with one of these. Though there should decidedly be no comma in He said that . . , it is strictly defensible in It is said, that . . . The thai-clause in the latter is explanatory of, and in apposition with, it ; and the ordinary sign of apposition is a comma. Similarly, My opinion is that : It is my opinion, that. 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 Manual of Punctuation we read: 'Clauses like "It is said", introducing several propositions or quotations, each preceded by the word that, should have a comma before the first thai. But if a single proposition or quotation only is given, no comma is necessary. Example : Philosophers assert, that Nature is unlimited in her operations, that she has inexhaustible treasures in reserve, that 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. A more important distinction is this : He said, &c, may have for its object, and It is said, &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. 338 PUNCTUATION Thus He told her, You are in danger may be kept, but is usually altered to He told her that she was in danger, or to He told her she ivas in danger. In the first, You are in danger is not properly a subordinate clause, but a sentence, which may be said to be in apposition with these words understood. In the second and third alike, the altered words are a sub- ordinate substantival clause, the object to told. It follows that when the actual words are given as such (this is some- times only to be known by the tone : compare / tell you, I will come, and / tell you I will come), 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. 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 : (a) Add to all this that he died in his thirty-seventh year : and then ask, If it be strange that his poems are imperfect ? — CARLYLE. Accommodation of the stops to the words would give : and then ask if it be strange that his poems are imperfect. And accommodation of the words to the stops would give: and then ask, Is it strJtnge that his poems are imperfect ? (i) It may be asked can further depreciation be afforded. — Times. The two correct alternatives here are similarly : It may be asked, Can further depreciation be afforded ? It may be asked whether further depreciation can be afforded. As the sentences stood originally, we get in the Carlyle a most theatrical, and in the Times a most slovenly effect. SUBJECT, &c, AND VERB 239 2. The verb and its subject, object, or complement. Our argument against the common practice of placing a comma before substantival Mat-clauses and others like them was, in brief : This sort of tkat-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. 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. — BORROW. He was, moreover, not an unkind man ; but the crew of the Bounty, mutinied against him, and set him half naked in an open boat. — Borrow. Very little better than these, but each with some perceptible motive, are the next six : Depreciation of him, fetched up at a stroke the glittering armies of her enthusiasm. — Meredith. Opposition to him, was comparable to the stand of blocks of timber before a flame.— Meredith. In each of these the comma acts as an accent upon him, and is purely rhetorical and illogical. Such women as you, are seldom troubled with remorse. — CORELLI. Here the comma guards us from taking you are together. We have already said that this device is illegitimate. Such sentences should be recast ; for instance, Women like you are seldom, &c. 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. — CORELLI. With them came young boys and little children, while on either side, 34Q PUNCTUATION maidens white-veiled and rose-wreathed, paced demurely, swinging silver censers to and fro. — CORELLI. Swift's view of human nature, is too black to admit of any hopes of their millennium. — L. STEPHEN. Loveliness, maidens, view, the strict subjects, have adjectival phrases attached after them. The temptation to insert the comma is comprehensible, but slight, and should have been resisted. 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 earth, victims, Schleiden. 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. — Swift. An order of the day expressing sympathy with the families of the victims and confidence in the Government, was adopted.— Times. The famous researches of Schwann and Schleiden in 1837 an d the following years, founded the modern science of histology. — Huxley. 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. 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 1 ), it is practically impossible to fudge in these 1 See chapter Syntax, section Relatives. SUBJECT &c. AND VERB 341 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. 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.— BRYCE. One of its agents is our will, but that which expresses itself in our will, is stronger than our will.— Emerson. The very interesting class of objects to which these belong, do not differ from the rest of the material universe. — BALFOUR. And thus, the great men who were identified with the war, began slowly to edge over to the party . . . — L. STEPHEN. In becoming a merchant-gild the body of citizens who formed the ' town ', enlarged their powers of civic legislation. — J. R. Green. In the two sentences that now follow from Mr. Morley, the offending comma of the first parts centre, which is what grammarians call the oblique complement, from its verb made ; the offending comma of the second parts the direct object groups from its verb drew. 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. 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. — MoRLEY. 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. — Morley. It may be added, by way of concluding this section, that the insertion of a comma in the middle of an absolute construc- tion, which is capable, as was shown in the sentence about Colonel Hutchinson and the governor, of having very bad 24a PUNCTUATION results indeed, is only a particular instance and reductio ad absurdum 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. Sir E. Seymour, having replied for the Navy, the Duke of Connaught, in replying for the Army, said . . . — Times. Thus got, having been by custom poorly substituted for gat, so that we say He got away, instead of He gat away, many persons abbreviate gotten Sx&ogot, saying He had got, for He had gotten. — R. G. WHITE. The garrison, having been driven from the outer line of defences on July 30, Admiral Witoft considered it high time to make a sortie. — Times. But that didn't last lon;j ; for Dr. Blimber, happening to change the position of his tight plump legs, as if he were going to get up, Toots swiftly vanished. — Dickens. 3. The adjectival clause. 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 who does not breathe dies, is equivalent to The unbreathing man dies. The place where we stand is holy ground, is equivalent to This 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 denning 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 that, when possible, is the appropriate relative for defining, and which 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: (Defining) The river that (which) runs through London is turbid. RELATIVES 243 (Commenting) The Thames, which runs through London, is turbid. 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 which is intended merely to show how great the weariness is, and which is practically equivalent to so great that, it may be called a defining clause, and the omission of the comma is right. But if the which 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. The man, who thinketh in his heart and hath the power straightway (very straightway) to go and do it, is not so common in any country. — Crockett. Now everyone must do after his kind, be he asp or angel, and these must. The question, which a wise man and a student of modern history will ask, is, what that kind is. — Emerson. Those, who are urging with most ardour what are called the greatest benefits of mankind, are narrow, self-pleasing, conceited men. — Emerson. A reminder is being sent to all absent; members of the Nationalist party that their attendance at Westminster is urgently required next week when the Budget will be taken on Monday. — Times. R % 244 TUNCTUATION The Marshall Islands will pass from the control of the Jaluit Company under that of the German colonial authorities who will bear the cost of administration and will therefore collect all taxes. — Times. The causes of this popularity are, no doubt, in part, the extreme sim- plicity of the reasoning on which the theory rests, in part its extreme plausibility, in part, perhaps, the nature of the result -which is commonly thought to be speculatively interesting without being practically incon- venient. — Balfour. Naval critics . . . are showing signs of weariness which even the reported appearance of Admiral Nebogatoff in the Malacca Strait is unable to remove. — Times. 4. The adverb, adverbial phrase, and adverbial clause. 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. Now is an adverb ; in the house is usually an adverbial phrase; if I know it is an adverbial clause. Logic and grammar never prohibit the separating of any such expres- sions 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. / cannot do it now means no more than it says : T cannot do it, now conveys a further assurance that the speaker would have been delighted to do ADVERBS AND ADVERBIALS 245 it yesterday or will be quite willing tomorrow. This dis- tinction, 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 allow- ance 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. 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 : But with their triumph over the revolt, Cranmer and his colleagues advanced yet more boldly. — J. R. Green. The adverbial phrase is with their triumph over the revolt. But does not belong to it, but to the whole sentence. The writer has no defence whatever as against the logician ; never- theless, his reader will be grateful to him. The familiar intrusion of a comma after initial And and For 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. Laxity once introduced, however, has to be carefully kept within bounds. It may be first laid down absolutely that 246 PUNCTUATION 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. His health gave way, and at the age of fifty-six, he died prematurely in harness at Quetta. — Times. If mankind was in the condition of believing nothing, and without a bias in any partictdar direction, was merely on the look-out for some legitimate creed, it would not, I conceive, be possible . . . — BALFOUR. The party then, consisted of a man and his wife, of his mother-in-law and his sister.— F. M. CRAWFORD. These men in their honorary capacity, already have sufficient work to perform. — Guernsey Evening Press. It will be observed that in the sentence from Mr. Balfour the chief objection to omitting the comma between and and without is that we are taken off on a false scent, it being natural at first to suppose that we are to supply was 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. 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. It is not strange that the sentiment of loyalty should, from the day of his accession have begun to revive. — Macaulay. Was it possible that having loved she should not so rejoice, or that, rejoicing she should not be proud of her love ?— Trollope. I venture to suggest that, had Lord Hugh himself been better informed in the matter he would scarcely have placed himself . . . — Times. The necessary consequence being that the law, to uphold the restraints of which such unusual devices are employed is in practice destitute of the customary sanctions. — Times. The view held ... is that, owing to the constant absence of the Com' mander-in-Chief on tour it is necessary that . . . — Times. PARENTHESIS 247 The master of the house, to whom, as in duly bound I communicated my intention . . . — BORROW. After this victory, Hunyadi, -with his army entered Belgrade, to the great joy of the Magyars. — Borrow. M. Kossuth declares that, until the King calls on the majority to take office with its own programme chaos will prevail.— Times. A love-affair, to be conducted with spirit and enterprise should always bristle with opposition and difficulty.— Corelli. And that she should force me, by the magic of her pen to mentally acknowledge . . ., albeit with wrath and shame, my own inferiority ! — Corelli. She is a hard-working woman dependant on her literary success for a livelihood, and you, rolling in wealth do your best to deprive her of the means of existence. — Corelli. Although three trainings of the local militia have been conducted under the new regime, Alderney, despite the fact that it is a portion of the same military command has not as yet been affected. — Guernsey Evening Press. 5. Parenthesis. 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. Another kind of parenthesis is that whose meaning prac- tically 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 : Where, do you imagine, she would lay it ? — Meredith. a 4 8 PUNCTUATION These commas cannot possibly indicate anything but paren- thesis ; but, if the comma'd words were really a parenthesis, we ought to have would she instead of she would. 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 And and For ; and the second being the comma wrongly used, as we have maintained, before substantival ^«*-clauses. Whence, it would appear, that he considers that all deliverances of consciousness are original judgments. — BALFOUR. Hence, he reflected, that if he could but use his literary instinct to feed some commercial undertaking, he might gain a considerable . . . — Hutton. But, depend upon it, that no Eastern difficulty needs our intervention so seriously as . . . — Huxley. And yet, it has been often said, that the party issues were hopelessly confused.— L. Stephen. 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 (i) if them had stood after discovered instead of where it does, (2) if them had been omitted, and any had served as the common object to both verbs. And to things of great dimensions, if we annex an adventitious idea of terror, they become without comparison greater. — Burke. Any of which peccadilloes, if Miss Sharp discovered, she did not tell them to Lady Crawley.— Thackeray. 6. The misplaced comma. Some authors would seem to have an occasional feeling that here or hereabouts is the place for a comma, just as in PARENTHESIS 349 handwriting some persons are well content if they get a dot in somewhere within measurable distance of its 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. 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. — Huxley. Exactly qualifies and belongs to in so far, &c, not such. The comma should be before it. This, they for the most part, throw away as worthless. — COREIXI. For the most part, alone, is the adverbial parenthesis. But this fault occurs, perhaps nine times out of ten, in combination with the */W-clause comma so often mentioned. It may be said, when our instances have been looked into, that in each of them, apart from the t/iat-c\ause 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. And the second is, that for the purpose of attaining culture, an exclusively scientific education is at least as effectual as . . .—Huxley. 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. — J. R. Green. 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.— J. R. Green. It follows directly from this definition, that however restricted the range of possible knowledge may be, philosophy can never be excluded from .it.— Balfour. But the difficulty here, as it seems to me, is, that if you start from your idea of evolution, these assumptions are . . . — Balfour. 350 PUNCTUATION He begged me to give over all unlawful pursuits, saying, that it persisted in, they were sure of bringing a person to destruction. — Borrow. 7. Enumeration. 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 is 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 : a. Industry, honesty, and temperance, are essential to happiness. — B. b. Let us freely drink in the soul of love and beauty and wisdom, from all nature and art and history. — B. c. Plain honest truth wants no colouring. — B. d. Many states are in alliance with, and under the protection of France. — B. Common variants for (a) are (1) Industry, honesty and temperance are essential ... (2) Industry, honesty and temper- ance, 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 (a), 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 interests, 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. ENUMERATION 351 But those that remain, the women, the youths, the children, and the elders, work all the harder. — Times. Japanese advisers are now attached to the departments of the House- hold, War, Finance, Education, and Police.— Times. An American, whose patience, tact, and ability in reconciling conflict- ing interests have won the praise of all nationalities. — Times. Sometimes enumerations are arranged in pairs ; it is then most unpleasant to have the comma after the last pair omitted, as in : The orange and the lemon, the olive and the walnut elbow each other for a footing in the fat dark earth. — F. M. CRAWFORD. 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 (a) ; and a quite unnecessary objection to the repetition of and no doubt supplies the motive. Examples are : He kept manoeuvring upon Neipperg, who counter-manoeuvred with vigilance, good judgment, and would not come to action. — Carlyle. Moltke had recruited, trained, and knew by heart all the men under him. — Times. Hence loss of time, of money, and sore trial of patience. — R. G. White. The principle is this: in an enumeration given by means of a comma or commas, the last comma being replaced by or combined with and — our type (a), that is — , there must not be anything that fs common to two members (as here, counter- manoeuvred with, had, loss) 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 Times 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. So much for type (a). Type (b) can be very shortly disposed of. It differs in that the conjunction (and, or, nor, &c.) is expressed every time, instead of being represented except in the last place by a comma. It is logically quite 352 PUNCTUATION 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 ands 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 fall 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. Neither the Court, nor society, nor Parliament, nor the older men in the Army have yet recognized the fundamental truth that . . . — Times. 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 . . . — Times. But there are uninstructed ears on whom the constant abuse, and imputation of low motives may fall, with a mischievous and misleading effect. — Times. Of type [c] 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 enumera- tion then at all. This is sometimes useful ; and so is the more practical and less theoretic direction to ask whether and could be inserted, and if so use the comma, but not other- wise. These both sound sufficient in the abstract. But that there are doubts left in practice is shown by the type sentence, ENUMERATION ,253 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. Type (d) 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 : His eloquence was the main, one might almost say the sole, source of his influence. — Bryce. To dazzle people more, he learned or pretended to learn, the Spanish language.— Bagehot. . . . . apart from philosophical and sometimes from theological, theories. —Balfour. 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. 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 last two are clearly wrong. The four would then stand as follows : Many states are in alliance with and under the protection of France. 854. PUNCTUATION His eloquence was the main, one might almost say the sole source of his influence. To dazzle people more, he learned or pretended to learn the Spanish language. . . . apart from philosophical, and sometimes from theological theories. 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 : He was born, in, or near, London, on December 24th, 1900. 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 : 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. No one would write this without both commas (after because and why) 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. 8. The comma between independent sentences. Among the signs that more particularly betray the unedu- cated 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. 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; INDEPENDENT SENTENCES 255 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 for coordinates, and because 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. Assuming that it is now understood (1) what a subordinating and what a coordinating conjunction is, (a) 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 semi- colon, 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 356 PUNCTUATION dignity. The order may perhaps be given as : and, or, but, so, nor, for ; 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 for. (a) 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 indepen- dent 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 indepen- dent sentences tagged on with commas, as those beginning with nor and for are in that example. No peace at night he tn)oys,for he lays awake. — Guernsey Advertiser. Now accepted, nominal Christendom believes this, and strives to attain unto it, then why the inconsistency of creed and deed? — Daily Telegraph. But who is responsible to Government for the efficiency of the Army? The Commander-in-Chief and no one else, nor has anyone questioned the fact, for it is patent. — Times. But even on this theory the formula above stated holds good, for such systems, so far from being self-contained (as it were) and sufficient evidence for themselves, are really . . . — BALFOUR. Some banks on the* Nevsky Prospect are having iron shutters fitted, otherwise there is nothing apparently to justify General Trepoff's pro- clamation. — Times. Everybody knows where his own shoe pinches, and, if people find drawbacks in the places they inhabit, they must also find advantages, otherwise they would not be there. — Times. We have suffered many things at the hands of the Russian Navy during the war, nevertheless the news that Admiral Rozhdestvensky . . . will send a thrill of admiration . . . — Times. 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. — Times. It will not be irrelevant to add here, though the point has been touched upon in Understopping, that though a light SEMICOLON FOR COMMA 357 and-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 : 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. — Times. 9. The semicolon between subordinate members. 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. 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. — Kipling. 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? — Carlyle. 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 (a) either omitted the third and fourth denies (reminding us 258 PUNCTUATION of Zola's famous f accuse, not vicarious, and on an adequate occasion), or else inserted an and before the last repetition. Mr. Loomis denies all three categorically. He denies that the Asphalt Company paid him £1,000 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. — Times. 10. The exclamation mark when there is no exclamation. My friend ! this conduct amazes me !— B. 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 friend 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 alas, (2) fragmentary expressions that are not- complete sentences, as My friend in the example, and (3) complete statements that contain an exclamatory word, as : What a piece of work is man ! — B. 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. Entomb'd within this vault a lawyer lies Who, Fame assureth us, was just and wise ! — B. The exclamation mark is a neat and concise sneer at the legal profession. 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 EXCLAMATION MARK 359 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. 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 ! — Prescott. The road now struck into the heart of a mountain region, where woods, precipices, and ravines were mingled together in a sort of chaotic con- fusion, with here and there a green and sheltered valley, glittering like an island of verdure amidst the wild breakers of a troubled ocean ! — Prescott. 11. Confusion between question and exclamation. Fortunate man ! — who would not envy you ! Love ! — who would, who could exist without it — save me ! — Corelli. What wonder that the most docile of Russians should be crying out ' how long' ! — Times. 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 exclama- tion 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. The case is not always so clear. In the six sentences lettered for reference, a-d have the wrong stop ; in e the stop implied by he exclaims is also wrong ; in /, though the stop is right assuming that the form of the sentence is what was S 2 a6o PUNCTUATION 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. a. In that interval what had I not lost ! — Lamb. 6. And what will not the discontinuance cost me ! — RICHARDSON. c. A streak of blue below the hanging alders is certainly a character- istic introduction to the kingfisher. How many peopJe first see him so ? — Times. d. Does the reading of history make us fatalists ? What courage does not the opposite opinion show!— EMERSON. e. 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. — Times. f. How many, who think no otherwise than the young painter, have we not heard disbursing secondhand hyperboles ? — Stevenson. It will be noticed that in all these sentences except c there is a negative, which puts them, except/, wrong; while in c it is the absence of the negative that makes the question wrong. It will be simplest to start with c. 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 — How many first see him so ! Or he might (very artificially) give it as a question — How many do not first see him so f — a ' rhetorical question ' in which How many interrogative is understood to be equivalent to Few 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 possiblt*exclamation and the stop of the possible question. In a, b, d, and implicitly in e, 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 QUESTION AND EXCLAMATION *6i the process that accounts for a ; the ambiguity is easily got rid of by inserting a noun with what. Question : What amount had I lost ? Exclamation : What an amount I had lost ! 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 In that interval. So we get Question : In that interval, what (amount) had I lost ? Exclamation : In that interval, what (an amount) had I lost ! 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 not ; what . . - not, in rhetorical questions, being equivalent to everything. At this stage some writers stick, as Stevenson in f. 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 not into a question, the exclamation mark to which it has after conversion no right. Such is the genesis of a, b, d. The proper method, when the simple statement is rejected, as it often reasonably may be, is to use the exclamation, not the Stevensonian question ', to give the exclamation its right mark, and not to insert the illogical negative. i a. Internal question and exclamation marks. 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 Airs and Graces, miscellaneous ; but it is outside grammar, with which these sections are concerned. 1 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 , What would I not give to be there f To what subterfuge has he not resitted? 26a PUNCTUATION 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. — Times. 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. Why be scheming? Victor asked. — Meredith. What will Japan do ? is thought the most pressing question of all. — Times. (What Japan will do is thought, &c.) What next ? is the next question which the American Press discusses. Times. (' What next 1 ' is, &c. Or, What will come next is, &c.) 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. Can it be that the Government will still persist in continuing the now hopeless struggle is the question on every lip? — Times. Men are disenchanted. They have got what they wanted in the days of their youth, yet what of it, they ask ? — Morley. Yet we remember seeing l'Abbe' 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? — Times. 13. The unaccountable comma. 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 THE COLON 363 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. The Rector, lineal representative of the ancient monarchs of the University, though now, little more than a ' king of shreds and patches.' — Huxley. The Colon 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; (a) 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 for or the like. Examples are : (1) Man proposes : God disposes. (2) Always remember the ancient maxim : Know thyself. — B. (3) Chief rivers : Thames, Severn, Humber . . . (4) .Some things we can, and others we cannot do : we can walk, but we cannot fly.— Bigelow. (5) Rebuke thy son in private : public rebuke hardens the heart. — B. 364 PUNCTUATION In the following clear case of antithesis a colon would have been more according to modern usage than the semi- colon. As apart from our requirements Mr. Arnold-Forster's schemes have many merits ; in relation to them they have very few. — Times. 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 stop- ping. We have not hunted up, and shall not manufacture, any of the patent absurdities that are amusing but unprofit- able. 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. 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 . . . — Times. With no comma after unnaturally 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. Simultaneously extensive reclamation of land and harbour improvements are in progress at Chemulpo and Fusan. — Times. With no comma after the first word, the sleepy reader is set wondering what simultaneously extensive means, and whether it is journalese for equally extensive. 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. — Crockett. A comma after together 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 gold is apparently meant to warn us quite unnecessarily that here and there belongs to the verb. Flecks of straw-coloured gold, here and there lay upon it, where the sunshine touched the bent of last year. — Crockett. AMBIGUITY, POSITION 265 After tli&t, 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.— S. T. IRWIN. The omission of the comma between and and beating would ordinarily be quite legitimate. Here, it puts us off on a false scent, because it allows beating to seem parallel with crossing and object to succeeded in ; we have to go back again when we get to the end, and work it out. The French demurring to the conditions which the English commander offered, again commenced the action. — B. The want of a comma between French and demtirring makes us assume an absolute construction and expect another subject, of which we are disappointed. The next two pairs of examples illustrate the effect of mere accidental position on stopping. This is one of the number- less small disturbing elements that make cast-iron rules impossible in punctuation. I must leave you to discover what the answer is. What the answer is, I must leave you to discover. That is, a substantival clause out of its place is generally allowed the comma that all but the straitest sect of punctua- tors would refuse it in its place. 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. — Times. Of its forty-four commissioners however few actually took any part in its proceedings ; and the powers of the Commission . . . — J. R. Green. The half adverbs half conjunctions of which therefore and however 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. Therefore in the first of these sentences would be as uncomfortable if stripped as however actually is in the second. 866 PUNCTUATION Dashes Moved beyond his wont by our English ill-treatment of the dash, Beadnell permits himself a wail as just as it is pathetic. ' 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.' 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 Tristram Shandy at a venture, and ' thus the Anarch old With faltering speech and visage incomposed Answered ' : — 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 couid be supposed to hold out so long, — to the very end of the world. — Sterne. The modern newspaper writer who overdoes the use of dashes is seldom as incorrect as Sterne, but is perhaps more irritating: 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 . . . — Spectator. 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. Under these circumstances we shall have to abandon our usual practice of attending only to common mistakes, and THE DASH: TYPES 267 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. 1. Chief common uses. a. Adding to a phrase already used an explanation, example, or preferable substitute. 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) 2. Anybody might be an accuser, — a personal enemy, an infamous person, a child, parent, brother, or sister. — Lowell. (Omit the comma) 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. — Lowell. (Omit the comma) b. 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. 4. To write imaginatively a man should have — imagination. — Lowell. c. 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. 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. — Crockett. d. Marking arrival at the principal sentence or the predicate after a subordinate clause or a subject that is long or com- pound. 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. e. Resuming after a parenthesis or long phrase, generally 268 PUNCTUATION with repetition of some previous words in danger of being forgotten. 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. — Times. (Add a comma after intelligence) f. 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 ; other- wise it is slightly insulting to the reader, implying that he was not worth working out the sentence for before it was put down. 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. g. 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. 9. Who created you ? — God. — B; 10. ... And lose the name of action. — Soft you now ! The fair Ophelia! h. With colon or other stop before a quotation. 11. Hear Milton : — How charming is divine Philosophy ! 12. What says Bacon ? — Revenge is a kind of wild justice. *'. Introducing a list. 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) k. Confessing an anacoluthon, or substitution of a new con- struction for the one started with. 14. Then the eye of a child, — who can look unmoved into that well undefined, in which heaven itself seems to be reflected f — BlGELOW. (Omit the comma) /. Breaking off a sentence altogether. 15. Oh, how I wish— ! But what is the use of wishing? THE DASH: DIFFICULTIES a6 9 tn. 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. 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) 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. a. Debatable questions. 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, assum- ing that it is or can be combined with stops, what is the right order as between the two ? Beadnell's answer to the first question is : 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. 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 270 PUNCTUATION before he was on with the new. There are exceptions to this : obviously in examples 9, 10, u, 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 gram- matical development. In example 7, for instance, it is clear that a participle {displayed or another) is due after never was &c. ; a comma after intelligence is therefore definitely ex- pected. So in example 6 we are expecting either another continuation of as soon as, 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 com- plete at'the place where the dash stands, so that no expecta- tion 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. 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. Con- sequently, 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 DASHES AND STOPS 271 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 correc- tions in brackets : 17. Garinet cites the case of a girl near Amiens possessed by three demons, — Mimi, Zozo, and Crapoulet,— in 1816.— Lowell. (Omit both commas ; the first is indeed just possible, though not required, in the principal sentence ; the last is absolutely meaningless in the parenthesis) 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. — Ruskin. (Omit both commas ; this time the first is as impossible in the principal sentence as the second is meaningless in the parenthesis) 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 . . .—Times. (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) 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. 20. The Moral Nature, that Law of laws, whose revelations introduce greatness — yea, God himself, into the open soul, is not explored.— EMERSON. (Substitute a dash for the comma after himself. Here, how- ever, Emerson expects us to terminate the authority at the right comma rather than at the first that comes, making things worse) 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. — H. Sidgwick. (Substitute a dash for the comma after &*c.) 22. There are vicars and vicars, and of all sorts I love an innovating vicar — a piebald progressive professional reactionary, the least.— H. G. WELLS. (Substitute a dash for the comma after reactionary) It needs no further demonstration, however, that commas 272 PUNCTUATION 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 neighbour- ing 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. 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. — Times. (Insert a dash between bettered and the semicolon, which then need not be more than a comma) But that it is not true will probably be admitted on the strength of sentences like : 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. 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 dis- tinction 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 construc- tion, 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. Our answer to the third question has already been given by DASH AND STOP 273 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. 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. — Ruskin. (Remove both commas, and use according to taste either none at all, or one after the second bracket) 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 . . . — Emerson. (Remove both commas, and place one after the second dash) A protest must next be made against the compositor's superstition embodied in Beadnell's words: 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. 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 accord- ing 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 274 PUNCTUATION 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. 27. When I last saw him, (a singular fact) his nose was pea-green. 3. Common misuses. a. 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. 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. — Crockett. 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. — Emerson. As for Anne — well, Anne was Anne — never more calm than when others were tempestuous. — CROCKETT. b. The first dash is inserted and the second forgotten. It will suffice to refer back to examples 20, 21, 22. c. 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 robur et aes triplex. 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.— Carlyle. d. 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 DASHES, HYPHENS 375 second dash should be two places earlier, and itself be re- placed by a comma. 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. — Times. The girl he had dreamed about — the girl with the smile was there — near him, in his hut. — Crockett. e. 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. 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 . . . — Lowell. 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 . . . — Lowell. We were shown in, — and Mavis, who had expected our visit did not keep us waiting long. — Corelli. Hyphens We return here to our usual practice of disregarding every- thing not necessary for dealing with common mistakes. But some general principles, most of which will probably find acceptance, will be useful to start from. 1. Hyphens are regrettable necessities, and to be done without when they reasonably may. 2. There are three degrees of intimacy between words, of which the first and loosest is expressed by their mere juxta- position 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. T a 376 PUNCTUATION 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, war expendi- ture ; but there are sometimes special objections to its being done. Thus, words in -ing may be actual adjectives (parti- ciples), or nouns (gerunds), used in virtue of their position as adjectives ; and a visible distinction is needed. A walking stick is a stick that walks, and the phrase might occur as a metaphorical description of a stiffly behaved person: a iv alking- stick or walkingstick 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. 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. 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 and, as in The London, Chatham, and Dover. On another, it is to be observed that New York-street should mean the new part of York Street, but New-York Street the street named after New York. The set of examples includes some analogous cases, besides the railway and street names. 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. — Times. Hsinmintun, Kaupantse, and Yingkau. These places can surely do without their internal hyphens in an English news- paper ; and one almost suspects, from the absence of a HYPHENS 277 hyphen between Ying and kau, that the Times's stock must have run short. Even third-class carriages are scarce on the Dalny-Port Arthur line. — Times. The Dalny and Port-Arthur line. By general principle 4, though Port Arthur needs no hyphen by itself, it does as soon as it stands for an adjective with line : the Port -Arthur line. Also, by a, the Times version implies that Dalny is more closely connected with Port than Port with Arthur. 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 ? A general strike has been declared on the Warsaw-Brest Litovski railway. The telegraph stations at Praga, Warsaw, and Brest Litovski have been damaged. — Times. The Warsaw and Brest- Litovski railway. By 4, the hyphen between Brest and Litovski is necessary. If we write Warsaw- Brest- Litovski, it is natural to suppose that three places are meant ; the and solution is accordingly the best. At Bow-street, Robert Marsh, greengrocer, of Great Western-road, Harrow-road, was charged . . . — Times. Great- Western Road, Harrow Road. Bow-street, as at (not in) shows, is a compound epithet for police-court understood, and has a right to its hyphen. By 3, there is no need for a hyphen after Harrow, and by 1, if unnecessary, it is undesir- able. As to the other road, there are three possibilities. The Times is right if there is a Western Road of which one section is called Great, and the other Little. 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. Cochin China waters. — Times. By 4, Cochin China gives Ccchin-Chitia waters. 278 PUNCTUATION Within the last ten days two Anglo-South Americans have been in my office arranging for passages to New Zealand. — Times. Anglo-South-Americans is the best that can be done. What is really wanted is Anglo- South Americans, to show that South goes more closely with America. But it is too hope- lessly contrary to usage at present. The proceeds of the recent London-New York loan. — Times. (London and New- York loan.) A good, generous, King Mark-like sort of man. — Times. King-Mark-like, in default of KingMark-like. But the addition of -like to compound names should be avoided. The Fugitive Slave-law in America before the rebellion. — H. SiDGWICK. (Fugitive-Slave law) The steam-cars will have 16-horse power engines. — Times. Steam cars is better, by 3, and 1. And 16-horsepower engines. We can do this time what the capitals of American and Mark prevented in the previous compounds. Entirely gratuitous hyphens. One had a male-partner, who hopped his loutish burlesque. — Meredith. Gluttony is the least-generous of the vices. — Meredith. A little china-box, bearing the motto ' Though lost to sight, to memory dear,' which Dorcas sent her as a remembrance.— Eliot. 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 black bird, as opposed to black-bird or blackbird, is the type. Bertie took up a quantity of waste-papers, and thrust them down into the basket.— E. F. Benson. This is probably formed by a mistaken step backwards from waste-paper basket, where the hyphen is correct, as explained in 3. In phrases like wet and dry fly fishing, compounded of wet-fly fishing and dry-fly fishing, methods vary. For instance : A low door, leading through a moss and ivy-covered wall. — Scott. HYPHENS aJ9 A language . . . not yet fetlocked by dictionary and grammar mongers. —Lowell. Those who take human or womankind for their study. — THACKERAY. The single phrases would have the hyphen for different reasons (moss-covered, &c), all but human kind. The only quite satisfactory plan is the Germans', who would write moss- and ivy-covered. This is imitated in English, as : In old woods and on fern- and gorse-covered hilltops they do no harm whatever. — Spectator. Refreshment-, boarding-, and lodging-house keepers have suffered severely too. — Westminster Gazette. 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. 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. He gratefully hands-over the establishment to his country. — Meredith. Thoughtful persons, unpledged to shore-up tottering dogmas. — HUXLEY. It is a much commoner fault to over-hyphen than to under-hyphen. But in the next example malaria-infected must be written, by 3. And in the next again, one of the differentiations we have spoken of is disregarded ; the fifty first means the fifty that come first : the fifty-first is the one after fifty. The ambiguity in the third example is obvious. The demonstration that a malaria infected mosquito, transported a great distance tp a non-malarial country, can . . . — Times. 'Nothing serious, I hope? How do cars break down?' 'In fifty different ways. Only mine has chosen the fifty first.' — Kipling. The Cockney knew what the Lord of Session knew not, that the British public is gentility crazy. — BORROW. There comes a time when compound words that have long had a hyphen should drop it ; this is when they have become a8o PUNCTUATION quite familiar. It seems absurd to keep any longer the division in to-day and to-morrow; 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 to. 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 Oxford Dictionary, 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. The soldiers . . . have been building dugouts throughout April. — Times. There is a tendency to write certain familiar combinations irrationally, which may be mentioned here, though it does not necessarily involve the hyphen. With in no wise and at any rate, the only rational possibilities are to treat them like nevertheless as one word, or like none the less as three words (the right way, by usage), or give them two hyphens. Nowise and anyrate are not nouns that can be governed by in and at. Don McTaggart was the only man on his estate whom Sir Tempest could in nowise make afraid. — Crockett. French rules of neutrality are in nowise infringed by the squadron. — Tunes. At anyrate.— CORELLI, passim. Quotation Marks 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 QUOTATION MARKS 381 marks they can ; their readers may be gratified by seeing how well read the author is, or may think quotation marks decora- tive. The following examples start with the least justifiable uses, and stop at the point where quotation marks become more or less necessary. John Smith, Esq., ' Chatsworth ', Melton Road, Leamington. The implication seems to be : living in the house that sensible people call 164 Melton Road, but one fool likes to call Chatsworth. 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 2 — Times. Every metaphor ought to be treated as a quotation, if in the pillory is to be. Here, moreover, quotation marks are a practical tautology, after so to speak. 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. — Times. There is by this time no danger whatever of confusion with the cat of one tail. . . . not forgetful of how soon ' things Japanese ' would be things of the past for her. — Sladen. 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. So that the prince and I were able to avoid that ' familiarity that breeds contempt' by keeping up our own separate establishments. — CORELLI. . . . the Rector, lineal representative of the ancient monarchs of the University, though now, little more than a 'king of shreds and patches'. — Huxley. We agree pretty well in our tastes and habits— yet so, as ' with a difference '. — Lamb. a8a PUNCTUATION With a difference {Ophelia : 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, how- ever, could scarcely fail to be sufficiently warned by fhe odd turn of the preceding words. 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 com- positor, 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. 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. A stop is required to separate the containing sentence, which may go on beyond the quotation's end, but more com- monly does not, from what follows. An exclamation or question mark — which are not true stops, but tone symbols — may be an essential part of the quotation. When a quotation is broken by such insertions as he said, any stop or tone symbol may be an essential part of the first fragment of quotation. No stop is needed at either end of such insertions as he said QUOTATIONS AND STOPS 383 to part them from the quotation, that being sufficiently done by the quotation marks. From these considerations we deduce the following rules : 1. The true stops should never stand before the second quotation mark except (a) 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. (b) when a stop is necessary to divide the first fragment of an interrupted quotation from the second. 2. Words that interrupt quotations should never be allowed stops to part them from the quotation. 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. The bracketed numbers before the examples repeat the numbers of the rules. (1) Views advocated by Dr. Whately in his well-known ' Essays ' ; It is enough for us to reflect that ' Such shortlived wits do wither as they grow '. We hear that 'whom the gods love die young', and thenceforth we collect the cases that illustrate it. (1 a) ' You are breaking the rules.' ' Well, the rules are silly.' (I b) ' Certainly not ; ' he exclaimed ' I would have died rather '. (2) ' I cannot guess ' he retorted ' what you mean '. (3) But ' why drag in Velasquez ? ' But what is the use of saying ' Call no man happy till he dies ' f Is the question ' Where was he V or ' What was he doing ? ' ? How absurd to ask ' Can a thing both be and not be ? ' ! 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 384 PUNCTUATION 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. 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. The objections may now be considered. ' 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. After giving this example, Beadnell says : — ' The reason is clear : the words quoted are those of another, but the question is the writer's own. Nevertheless, for the sake of neatness, the ordinary points, such as the comma, semicolon, colon, and full stop, precede the quotation marks in instances analogous to the one quoted ; but the exclamation follows the same rule as the interrogation '. 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 ouglit hardly ever to do so, whereas the two that are some- times 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 hear- ing organs, but ' handsome volutes of the human capital ', so quotation marks may be welcomed as giving a good pic- turesque finish to a sentence ; those who are of this way of thinking must feel that, if they allowed outside them anything QUOTATIONS AND STOPS 385 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 under- stand fully, is to prevail. 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 '. lie 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 exclama- tion 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 its full stop ; it 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 a), 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 says. — ' But says 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 says, read continues, to which the quotation clearly cannot be object ; will that affect 386 PUNCTUATION 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 thus, attached to the verb. Satisfied on that point, the objector takes up our statement that the quotation mark cuts communications ; a similar state- ment was made in the Dashes 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 con- ceit that is a dangerous thing. ' It is surely not true that either quotation mark or bracket cuts the communications there ; under in the quotation, but in the brackets, are in very active communication with burdens and conceit, outside.' The answer is that these are merely convenient misuses of quota- tion 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:— (i) 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 im- portance 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, QUOTATIONS AND STOPS 287 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. 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 im- proving 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. 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 288 PUNCTUATION 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 expres- sions, 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 habitua- tion. It should be mentioned that most of the quoted quota- tions 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. 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 that, which it is often obvious that the original did not contain. Gener- ally speaking, if that 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. 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.' — Burke. As the aphorism descends through Latin from Aristotle (q Bripiov ?) deos), the precise English words are of no importance, and the quotation marks might as well be away ; at least the first should be after that. Then, with 'a sarvant, sir' to me, he took himself into the kitchen.— Borrow. Clearly a is not included in the quotation. QUOTATION MARKS 289 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.' — Times. The change from him to my would be quite legitimate if the first quotation mark stood before rather instead of where it does ; as it stands, it is absurd. 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 . . . '. — Times. The {his) is evidently bracketed to show that it is substituted for the original writer's my. This is very conscientious ; but it follows that either the same should have been done for he, or the quotation mark should be after he. 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 '. (a) 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 dis- agreeable it is will appear in the example below. For ordinary purposes the second variety, which involves no quotation marks, is the best. 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.' — Borrow. 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 Times extract below. Taken by itself, there is no objection to it. We point out, however, that it is irreconcilable with the principles N.S. U 390 PUNCTUATION 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 Times method should be abandoned, and the first or second of the others used ac- cording to circumstances. The next question is, Whence is this income derived ? — Times. The next question is ' Whence is this income derived ? '- (Full direct quotation. Observe the ' monstrosity ' stop) The next question is whence this income is derived. (Indirect quotation) The next question is 'Whence this income is derived'. (Indirect quotation with quotation marks, or half-and-half quotation, like the Borrow sentence) 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 con- siderable 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. PART II 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 indepen- dent sections, with what seemed the minimum of comment. i. Jingles To read his tales is a baptism of optimism. — Times. Sensation is the direct effect of the mode of motion of the sensorium.— Huxley. There have been no periodica/ genera/ physical catastrophes.— Huxley. It is contended, indeed, that these preparations are intended only . . . — Times. It is intended, to extend the system to this country. — Times. M. Sphakianakis conducted protracted negotiations. — Times. Those inalienable rights of life, liberty and proper// upon which the safety of society depends. — CHOATE. He served his apprenticeship to statesmanship. — BRYCE. Apparently prepared to hold its ground. — Times. I awaited a belated train.— R. G. WHITE. Hand them on silver salvers to the server.— E. F. Benson. . . . adjourned the discussion of the question of delation until to-day. — Times. In this house of poverty and dignity, of past grandeur and present simplici/j', the brothers lived together in unity. — H. Caine. Their invalidity was caused by a technicali/y. — Times. . . . had for consolation the expanww of its dominion. — Spectator. The essential foundation of all the organization needed for the promo- tion of education. — Huxley. The projects of M. Witte relative to the regulation of the relations between capital and labour. — Times. The remaining instances are of consecutive adverbs in -ly. Parallel adverbs, qualifying the same word simultaneously, do V 2 393 EUPHONY 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, unquestionably either qualifies is, or qualifies true only after largely has qualified it: it is not the (universal) truth, but the partial truth, of the proposition that is unquestionable. When the traffic in our streets becomes entirely mechanically pro- pelled. — Times. He lived practically exclusively on milk. — E. F. BENSON. Critics would probably decidedly disagree. — Hutton. The children are functionally mentally defective. — Times. What is practically wholly and entirely the British commerce and trade. — Times. . . . who answered, usually monosyllabically, . . . — E. F. BENSON. The policy of England towards Afghanistan is, as formerly, entirely frien dly . — Times. Money spent possibly unwisely, probably illegally, and certainly hastily. Times. The deer are necessarily closely confined to definite areas. — Times. We find Hobbes's view . . . tolerably effectively combated. — MORLEY. Great mental endowments do not, unhappily, necessarily involve a passion for obscurity. — H. G. WELLS. The proposition of Descartes is unquestionably largely true. — Huxley a. Alliteration 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. I must needs trudge at every old beldam's bidding and every young minx's maggot. — Scott. Onward ^vTided Dame Ursula, now in ^/immer and now in gloom. — Scott. I have seen her in the same day as changeful as a zrcarmozet, and as stubborn as a »mle. — Scott. Thus, in consequence of the continuance of that grievance, the means of education at the disposal of the Protestants and Presbyterians were bunted and sterilized. — Balfour. A gaunt well with a shattered pent-house dwarfed the dwelling. — H. G. Wells. EUPHONY 393 It shall be lawful to /icket /remises for the purpose of peacefully persuading any person to . . . — Times. 3. Repeated Prepositions The founders of the study of the origin of human culture. — Morley. After the manner of the author of the immortal speeches of Pericles. — Morley. Togo's announcement of the destruction of the fighting power of Russia's Pacific squadron.— Times. The necessity of the modification of the system of administration.— Times. An exaggeration of the excesses of the epoch of sentimentalism. — Morley. Hostile to the justice of the principle of the taxing of those values which . . . — Lord Rosebery. The observation of the facts of the geological succession of the forms of life. — Huxley. Devoid of any accurate knowledge of the mode of development of many groups of plants and animals. — Huxley. One uniform note of cordial recognition of the complete success of the experiment. — Times. The first fasciculus of the second volume of the Bishop ^/Salisbury's critical edition of St. Jerome's Revision of the Latin New Testament. — Times. The appreciation of the House of the benefits derived by the encourage- ment afforded by the Government to the operations of. . . — Times. The study of the perfectly human theme of the affection of a man of middle age. — Times. His conviction of the impossibility of the proposal either of the creation of elective financial boards . . . — Daily Express. Representative of the mind of 'the age of literature. — RUSKIN. Indignation against the worst offenders against . . . — Times. A belief in language in harmony with . . . — Daily Telegraph. The opposition . . .to the submission to the claims. — Times. Taken up with warfare with an enemy . . . — FREEMAN. Palmerston wasted the strength derived by England by the great war by his brag. — Granville. Unpropitious_/br any project for the reduction . . . — Titnes. Called upon to decide upon the reduction . . . — Times. 4. Sequence of Relatives A garret, in which were two small beds, in one of which she gave me to understand another gentleman slept. — Borrow. 294 EUPHONY Still no word of enlightenment had come which should pierce the thick clouds of doubt which hid the face of the future.— E. F. Benson. The ideal of a general alphabet ... is one which gives a basis which is generally acceptable. — H. Sweet. He enjoyed a lucrative practice, which enabled him to maintain and educate a family with all the advantages which money can give in this country.— Trollope. The clown who views the pandemonium of red brick which he has built on the estate which he has purchased. — BORROW. The main thread of the book, which is a daring assault upon that serious kind of pedantry which utters itself in . . . — L. STEPHEN. Practical reasons which combine to commend this architectural solution of a problem which so many of us dread . . . — Times. The teachers, who took care that the weaker, who might otherwise be driven to the wall, had . . . their fair share. — Times. Let the heads and rulers of free peoples tell this truth to a Tsar who seeks to dominate a people who will not and cannot . . . — Times. He made a speech . . . which contained a passage on the conditions of modern diplomacy which attracted some attention. — Times. There is of course no objection to the recurrence when the relatives are parallel. 5. Sequence of ' that ' or other Conjunctions Here, as with relatives, the recurrence is objectionable only when one of the clauses is subordinate to the other. I do not forget that some writers have held that a system is to be inferred. — Balfour. I say that there is a real danger that we may run to the other extreme. —Huxley. It is clear . . . that the opinion was that it is not incompatible. — Nansen. I find that the view that Japan has now a splendid opportunity ... is heartily endorsed. — Times. I must point out that it is a blot on our national education that we have serving . . . — Times. The Chairman replied to the allegation made by the Radical press to the effect that the statement that the British workman will not work as an unskilled labourer in the mines is inaccurate. — Times. An official telegram states that General Nogi reports that . . . — Times. The conviction that the Tsar must realize that the prestige of Russia is at stake. — Times. EUPHONY 395 He was so carried away by his discovery that he ventured on the assertion that the similarity between the two languages was so great that an educated German could understand whole strophes of Persian poetry. — H. Sweet. I may fairly claim to have no personal interest in defending the council, although I believe, though I am not certain, that . . . — Times. 6. Metrical Prose 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. 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 have 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 ! / — Dickens. 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 . . . — CORELLI. And the gathering orange stain / upon the edge of yonder western peak, / reflects the sunsets of a thousand years. — Ruskin. His veins were opened ; but he talked on still / while life was slowly ebbing, and was calm / through all the agony of lingering death.— W. W. CAfES. 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 ! — Smollett. 396 EUPHONY 7. Sentence Accent 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. 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 pupils, and still more after counterpoint, the accentuation should steadily decline to the end of the passage ; but, con- SENTENCE ACCENT 297 flicting 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 insignifi- cant appendage to pupils 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. 1 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.— D. Sladen. '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.— D. Sladen. 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. — Peacock. 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.—. Meredith. The verb wonder 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 wondered is of course impossible. 398 EUPHONY How doth 'tlie earth terrifie and oppress us with terrible earthquakes, which are most frequent in China, Japan, and those eastern climes, swallow- ing up sometimes six cities at once ! — Burton. Of the many possible violations of sentence accent, one — common in inferior writers — is illustrated in the next section. 8. Causal 'as' Clauses 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 as 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: I have an edition with German notes ; but that is of no use, as you do not read German. I caught the train, but afterwards wished I had not, as I presently discovered that my luggage was left behind. The second of these, it will be noticed, is unreadable, unless we slur the as 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 as, 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 as 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 as, and secure the proper accentuation, we must place the CAUSAL AS CLAUSE 399 clause at the beginning; where this is not practicable, as 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 : becmise, while, whereas, since, can be used where as still betrays a careless or illiterate writer. There is the same false ring in all the following sentences : 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. — Times. Remove as, and use a heavier stop. Very true, Jasper ; but you really ought to learn to read, as, by so doing, you might learn your duty towards yourselves. — Borrow. To read ; by so doing, . . . 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. — Borrow. Use a semicolon and ' for ' ; the assertion requires all the support that vigorous accentuation can lend. 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. — Borrow. For instead of as will best suit this illogical and falsely coordinated sentence. 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. — EMERSON. 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 as. Pure clauses, being from their nature more or less otiose, 300 EUPHONY belong rather to the spoken .than to the written language. It follows that a good writer will seldom have a causal as clause of any kind at the end'of a sentence. Two further limitations remain to be noticed : i. When the cause, not the effect, is obviously the whole point of the sentence, because, not as, should be used ; the following is quite impossible English : I make these remarks as quick shooting at short ranges has lately been so strongly recommended. — Times. ii. As 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 : You refer me to the Encyclopaedia : you are mistaken, as I find the Encyclopaedia exactly confirms my view. 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.— Times. My finding the Encyclopaedia's confirmation was not the cause of mistake, nor the keeping too close the cause of bad steering. 9. Wens and Hypertrophied Members 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 pro- portions, 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. 1. Disproportionate insertions. Some simple eloquence distinctly heard, though only uttered in her eyes, unconscious that he read them, as, 'By the death-beds I have HYPERTROPHIED MEMBERS 301 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. — Dickens. 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. — Dickens. 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. —Meredith. 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 . . . — Meredith. ' It takes ', it is said that Sir Robert Peel observed, ' three generations to make a gentleman '. — BAGEHOT. Behind, round the windows of the lower story, clusters of clematis, like large purple sponges, blossomed, miraculously fed through their thin, dry stalks.— E. F. Benson. It is a striking exhibition of the power which the groups, hostile in different degrees to a democratic republic, have of Parliamentary combina- tion. — Spectator. 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 . . . — Times. In the course of a conversation with a representative of the Gaulois, Captain Klado, after repeating his views on the necessity for Russia to secure the command of the sea which have already appeared in the Times, 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]— Times. 302 EUPHONY a. Sentences of which the end is allowed to trail on to unexpected length. 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 ereoting an East London Clubhouse, where the children of the poor by day could play, and their parents pass a disengaged evening. — Meredith. 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.— D. Sladen. 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. — Times. 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. — Times. 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 con- sideration 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. — Dickens. 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. — Times. HYPERTROPHIED MEMBERS 303 3. Decapitable sentences. 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. 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 conjunct'on 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. — Westminster Gazette. 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. — F. G. Aflalo. 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 80c 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. — Borrow. 10. Careless Repetition Conscious repetition of a word or phrase has been discussed in Part I (Airs and Graces) : in the following examples the 304 EUPHONY repetition is unconscious, and proves only that the writer did not read over what he had written. ... a man . . . who directly impresses one with the impression ... — Times. For most of them get rid of them more or less completely. — H. Sweet. The most important distinction between dialogue on the one hand and purely descriptive and narrative pieces on the other hand is a purely grammatical one. — H. Sweet. And it may be that from a growing familiarity with Canadian winter amusements may in time spring an even warmer regard . . . — Times. It may well induce the uncomfortable reflection that these historical words may prove . . . — Times. The inclusion of adherents would be adhered to. — Times. The remainder remaming\oya\, fierce fighting commenced. — Spectator. Every subordinate shortcoming, every incidental defect, will bepardoned. ' Save us ' is the cry of the moment ; and, in the confident hope of safety, any deficiency will be overlooked, and any frailty pardoned. — Bagehot. They were followed by jinrikshas containing young girls with very carefully-dressed hair, carrying large bunches of real flowers on their laps, followed in turn by two more coolies carrying square white wooden jars, containing huge silver tinsel flowers. — D. SLADEN. It can do so, in all reasonable probability, provided its militia character is maintained. But in any case it will provide us at home with the second line army of our needs. — Times. Dressed in a subtly \W-dressed, expensive mode. — E. F. BENSON. Toodle being the family name of the apple-faced family. — Dickens. Artillery firing extends along the whole front, extending for eighty miles. — Times. I regard the action and conduct of the Ministry as a whole as of far greater importance. — Times. The fleet passed the port on its way through the Straits on the way to the China Sea. — Times. Much of his popularity he owed, we believe, to that very timidity which his friends lamented. That timidity often prevented him from exhibiting his talents to the best advantage. But it propitiated Nemesis. It averted that envy which would otherwise have been excited . . . — MACAULAY. I will lay down a pen I am so little able to govern. — And I will try to subdue an impatience which . . . may otherwise lead me into still more punishable errors. — I will return to a subject which I cannot fly from for ten minutes together. — Richardson. At the same time it was largely owing to his careful training that so many great Etonian cricketers owed their success. — Times. QUOTATION 305 11. Common Misquotations These are excusable in talk, but not in print. A few pieces are givdn correctly, with the usual wrong words in brackets. An ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own. (poor) Fine by degrees and beautifully less, "(small) That last infirmity of noble mind, (the : minds) Make assurance double sure, (doubly) To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new. (fields) The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose, (quote) Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy, (cud) When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war. (Greek meets Greek : comes) A goodly apple rotten at the heart, (core) 13. Uncommon Misquotations of Well-known Passages or Phrases It is still worse to misquote what is usually given right, however informal the quotation. The true reading is here added in brackets. Now for the trappings and the weeds of woe. — S. Ferrier. (suits) She had an instinctive knowledge that she knew her, and she felt her genius repressed by her, as Julius Caesar's was by Cassius. — S. Ferrier. (My genius is rebuked 2.%, it is said, Mark Antony's was by Caesar) The new drama represented the very age and body of the time, his form and. feature. — J. R. Green, (pressure) He lifts the veil from the sanguinary affair at Kinchau, and we are allowed glimpses of blockade-running, train-wrecking and cavalry recon- naissance, and of many other moving incidents by flood and field. — • Times, (accidents) To him this rough world was but too literally a rack. — LOWELL, (who would, upon the rack of this tough world, stretch him out longer) Having once begun, they found returning more tedious than giving o'er. — Lowell, (returning were as tedious as go o'er) Posthaec [sic] meminisse juvabit. — Hazlitt. (et haec olim) Quid vult valde vult. What they do, they do with a will.— EMERSON, (quod) Quid is not translatable. Then that wonderful esprit du corps, by which we adopt into our self-love everything we touch. — EMERSON, (de) Let not him that fluiielh on his armour boast as him that taketh it off. — Westminster Gazette, (girdeth, harness, boast himself, he, putteth) 3 o6 QUOTATION Elizabeth herself, says Spenser, 'to mine open pipe inclined her ear*.— J. R. Green, (oaten) He could join the crew of Mirth, and look pleasantly on at a village fair, ' where the jolly rebecks sound to many a youth and many a maid, dancing in the chequered shade '.—J. R. Green, (jocund) Heathen Kaffirs, et hoc genero, &c. : . . . Daily Mail, (genus omne) If she takes her husband au pied de lettre — Westm. Gaz. (de la lettre) 13. Misquotation of Less Familiar Passages But the greatest wrong is done to readers when a passage that may not improbably be unknown to them is altered. It was at Dublin or in his castle of Kilcolman, two miles from Doneraile, ' under the fall of Mole, that mountain hoar ', that he spent the memorable years in which . . .—J. R. Green, (foot) Petty spites of the village squire.— Spectator, (pigmy : spire) 14. Misapplied and Misunderstood Quotations and Phrases Before leading question or the exception proves the rule is written, a lawyer should be consulted ; before cui bono, Cicero ; before more honoured in the breach than the obser- vance, Hamlet. A leading question is one that unfairly helps a witness to the desired answer ; cui bono has been explained on p. 35 ; the exception, &c, is not an absurdity when under- stood, but it is as generally used ; more honoured, &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 '. But cui bono all this detail of our debt ? Has the author given a single light towards any material reduction of it ? Not a glimmering.— BURKE. 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. — Times. 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, QUOTATION, &c. 307 proposed to subvert this unquestioned and unquestionable authority, they are very much mistaken.— Times. (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) The Nationalist, M. Archdeacon, and M. Meslier put to the Prime Minister several leading questions, such as, 'Why were you so willing promptly to part with M. Delcasse", 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. — Times. (Leading questions are necessarily not hostile, as these clearly were) The happy phrase that an Ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country. — Westminster Gazette. (Happier when correctly quoted : sent to lie abroad for the good of) 15. Allusion 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. 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. — Times. 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. — Times. 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. — Lucien Wolf. 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. — Kipling. 308 QUOTATION 16. Incorrect Allusion Every one who detects a writer pretending to more know- ledge 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. Homer would have seemed arrogantly superior to his audience if he had not called Hebe ' white-armed '- or ' ox-eyed '. — Times. (He seldom mentions her, and calls her neither) 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. — Corelli. (It is hardly possible for any one who knows what the Hesperides were to omit the) My publisher, John Morgeson . . . was not like Shakespeare's Cassio strictly ' an honourable man '. — Corelli. (Cassio was an honourable man, but was never called so. Even Cassius has only his share in So are they all, all honourable men. Brutus, perhaps ?) A sturdy Benedict to propose a tax on bachelors. — Westminster Gazette. (Benedick. In spite of the Oxford Dictionary, the differentiation between the saint, Benedict, and the converted bachelor, Benedick, is surely not now to be given up) 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'. — Times. (The French do not say give reason to think; and if they did the phrase would hardly be worth treating as not English ; they say give to think, which is often quoted because it is unlike English) 17. Dovetailed and Adapted Quotations and Phrases 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 intoler- ably ponderous effects. Though his denial of any steps in that direction may be true in his official capacity, there is probably some smoke in the fire of comment to which his personal relations with German statesmen have given rise. — Times. (The reversal of smoke and fire may be a slip of the pen or a joke ; but the correction of it mends matters little) It remains to be seen whether ... the pied h 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 repre- QUOTATION, &c. 309 sent, like so many other German enterprises, the end of the beginning. — Times. (The reversal this time is clearly facetious) But they had gone on adding misdeed to misdeed, they had blundered after blunder. — L. Courtney. Germany has, it would appear, yet another card in her hand, a card of the kind which is useful to players when in doubt. — Times. But the problem of inducing a refractory camel to squeeze himself through the eye of an inconvenient needle is and remains insoluble. — Times. 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 set back the hand on the dial of fapanese rapprochement. — Times. Is there no spiritual purge to make the eye of the camel easier for a South-African millionaire? — Times. And so it has come to pass that, not only where invalids do congregate, but in places hitherto reserved for the summer recreation of the tourist or the mountaineer there is a growing influx of winter pleasure-seekers.— Times. Salmasius alone was not unworthy sublimiflagello. — Landor. Even if a change were desirable with Kitchener duce et auspice. — Times. Charged with carrying out the Military Member's orders, but having, pace Sir Edwin Collen, no authority of his own. — Times. 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. — Times. (Beati possidentes is a sentence, meaning Blessed are those who are in possession ; to fit it into another sentence is most awkward) 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. — Times. (In the original phrase, of necessity does not depend on virtue, but on make; and it is intolerable without the word that gives it its meaning) Many of the celebrities who in that most frivolous of watering-places do congregate. — BARONESS VON Hutten. 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. — Times. A special protest should be made against the practice of intro- ducing 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. 3i° QUOTATION The 'pigmy body' seemed 'fretted to decay' by the 'fiery soul' within it— J. R. Green. (The original is: — A fiery soul which, working out its way, Fretted the pygmy-body to decay. — Dryden.) 18. Trite Quotation 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 red- diderit junctura novum) such things as : 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. The plan partook of the nature of that of those ingenious islanders who lived entirely by taking in each other's washing. — E. F. Benson. For he was but moderately given to ' the cups that cheer but not inebriate ', and had already finished his tea. — Eliot. 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 leave the matter severely alone. — Westminster Gazette. (Severely is much worse than pointless here) They carried compulsory subdivision and restriction of all kinds of QUOTATION, &c, GRAMMAR 311 skilled labour down to a degree that would have been laughable enough, if it had only been less destructive. — Morley. If Diderot had visited . . . Rome, even the mighty painter of the Last Judgment . . . would have found an interpreter worthy of him. But it •was not to be. — Morley. Mr. de Se'lincourt has, of course, the defects of his qualities. — Times. The beloved lustige Wien [Vienna, that is] of his youth had suffered a sea-change. The green glacis down which Sobieski drove the defeated besieging army of Kara Mustafa was blocked by ranges of grand new buildings. — Westminster Gazette. 19. Latin Abbreviations, &c. No one should use these who is not sure that he will not expose his ignorance by making mistakes with them. Con- fusion is very common, for instance, between i.e. and e.g. Again, sic 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. Vide is only in place when a book or dictionary article is being referred to. 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. — Times. 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. — Times. (This is the true use of sic; as the years mentioned are not consecutive, a reader might suppose that something was wrong ; sic tells him that it is not so) The Boersen Courier . . . maintains that 'nothing remains for M. Delcasse" but to cry Pater peccavi to Germany and to retrieve as quickly as possible his diplomatic mistake (sic) '. — Times. 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.e. you could not dispense with the note of interrogation in asking questions).— Bygott & Jones, (e.g. is wanted, not i. e.) 20. Unequal Yokefellows and Defective Double Harness 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. 3 i2 GRAMMAR They did not linger in the long scarlet colonnades of the temple itself, nor gazing at the dancing for which it is famous. — Sladen. This undoubtedly caused prices to rise ; but did it not also cause all Lancashire to work short time, many mills to close, and a great restric- tion in the purchases of all our customers for cotton goods ? — Times. . . . set herself quietly down to the care of her own household, and to assist Benjamin in the concerns of his trade. — SCOTT. This correspondent says that not only did the French Government know that Germany recognised the privileges resulting for France from her position in Algeria, but also her general views on the work of reform which it would be the task of the conference to examine. — Times. Teach them the ' character of God ' through the ' Son's Life of Love ', that conscience 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 . . . — Daily Telegraph. And any one who permits himself this incongruity is likely to be betrayed into actual blunders. 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 . . . — Ti7nes. (Here because they seemed does not really fit the popularity . . . was, but parlements were popular) 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. — F. Greenwood. (The last clause does not fit the end of the war was thought, but it was thought) Attila and his armies, he said, came and disappeared in a very mysterious manner, and that nothing could be said with positiveness about them.— Borrow. Save him accordingly she did : but no sooner is he dismissed, and Faust has made a remark on the multitude of arrows which she is darting forth on all sides, than Lynceus returns. — Carlyle. The short drives at the beginning of the course of instruction were intended gradually to accustom the novice to the speed, and of giving him in the pauses an opportunity to fix well in his mind the principles of the automobile. — Times. The predecessors of Sir Antony MacDonnell . . . were, to use the words of the Prime Minister, 'the aiders, advisers, and suggesters of their official chiefs'. — Times. (Though a chief can have a suggester as well as an adviser, adviser is naturally followed by an objective genitive, but sug- gester can only be followed by a possessive genitive — except of the suggestion made) UNEQUAL YOKEFELLOWS ,313 My assiduities expose me rather to her'scorn . . . than to the treatment due to a man. — Richardson. One worthy gentleman, who is, perhaps, better known than popular in City restaurants, is never known to have lavished even the humblest copper coin on a waiter. — Titbits. Its hands require strengthening and its resources increased. — Times. 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 neitherhy or, both by as well as, and the like. Diderot presented a bouquet which was neither well or ill received. — Morley. Like the Persian noble of old, I ask, ' that I may neither command or obey '. — Emerson. She would hear nothing of a declaration of war, or give any judgment on . . . — J. R. Green. It appears, then, that neither the mixed and incomplete empiricism considered in the third chapter, still less the pure empiricism considered in the second chapter, affords us . . . — Balfour. Scarcely was the nice new drain finished than several of the children sickened with diphtheria. — Spectator. . Which differs from that and who in being used both as an adjective as •well as a noun. — H. Sweet. M. Shipoff in one and the same breath denounces innovations, yet bases the whole electoral system on the greatest innovation in Russian history. — Times. It would be equally absurd to attend to all the other parts of an engine and to neglect the principal source of its energy — the firebox — as it is ridiculous to pay particular attention to the cleanliness of the body and to neglect the mouth and teeth. — Advertisement. The conception of God in their minds was not that of a. Father, but as a dealer out of rewards and punishments. — Daily Telegraph. Dr. Dillon, than whom no Englishman has a profounder and more accurate acquaintance with the seamy side — as, indeed, of all aspects of Russian life — assumes . . . — Times. Sir, — In view of the controversy which has arisen concerning the 12 in. Mark VIII guns in the Navy, and especially to the suggestion which might give rise to some doubt as to the efficiency of the wire system of construction . . . — Times. We add three sentences, in the first of which double harness should not have been used because it is too cumbrous, in the 314 IxKAMMAK second of which it is not correctly possible, and in the third of which the failure to use it is very slovenly. 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.— H. James, (far from diminishing our pleasure, does not . . .) As to the duration of the Austro-Russian mandate, there seems little disposition here to treat the question in a. hard-and-fast spirit, but rather to regard it as . . . — Times. (. . . spirit ; it is rather regarded as . . .) To the student of the history of religious opinions in England few contrasts are more striking when he compares the assurance and com- placency 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. — Daily Telegraph. (more striking than that between the assurance . . .) 31. Common Parts 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, (a) ' 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 recon- ciliation, though I may have failed to bring about a reconcilia- tion ' can become ' I have at least tried, though I may have failed, to bring about, &c.' (&) 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 (a) 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 (a) form is intolerably stiff and the (b) 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, COMMON PARTS 315. form a complete sentence ; the conjunctions being of course ignored for this purpose. What other power (could) or (ever has) produced such changes?— Daily Telegraph. Things temporal (had) and (would) alter.— Daily Telegraph. (It had), as (all houses should), been in tune with the pleasant, mediocre charm of the jsland. — E. F. Benson. This type will almost always admit of the emphatic repetition of the verb : ' could produce or ever has produced '. Those of us who still believe in Greek as (one of the finest), if not (the finest) instruments . . . — Times. (One of the noblest), if not (the noblest), feelings an Englishman could possess. — Daily Telegraph. Use (b) : ' One of the finest instruments, if not the finest '. The games were looked upon as being (quite as important) or (perhaps more important) than drill. — Times. The railway has done (all) and (more) than was expected of it. — Spectator. Use (b) : ' as important as drill, if not more so ' ; ' all that was expected of it, and more'. 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 : The pamphlet forms (not only a valuable addition to our works on scientific subjects), but (is also of deep interest to German readers). — Times, (not only forms . . . , but is . . .) Forty-five percent of the old Rossallians... received (either decorations) (or were mentioned in despatches). — Daily Telegraph. (Either received . . . or were) The Senate, however, has (either passed) (or will pass) amendments to every clause. — Spectator, (either has passed or will pass) Cloth of gold (neither seems to elate) (nor cloth of frieze to depress) him.— Lamb. A curious extension, not to be mended in the active ; for neither cannot well precede the first of two subjects when they have different verbs. 3i6 GRAMMAR On the other hand, words placed between the two correlatives are declared by their position not to be common : Which neither (suits one purpose) (nor the other).— Times, (suits neither . . . nor) Not only (against my judgment), (but my inclination).— RICHARDSON. Not only (in the matter of malaria), (but also beriberi). — Times. (In the matter not of malaria only, but of . . .) 22. The Wrong Turning 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. 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. . . . — Daily Telegraph. {Would believe is made parallel to they are today; it is really parallel to there never was a time ; and we should read and that they would openly believe) 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. — Times. {The charge should be withdrawn is made parallel to Coroner Troutbeck has stated and they contain ; it is really parallel to proofs should be adduced; and we should omit that, and read or failing this, the offensive . . .) 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 . . ,— Spectator. (The judgment is admired, not controlled) Sometimes the confusion is not merely of the pen, but is in the writer's thought ; and it is then almost incurable. ... 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 suc- cessions of objects. — De Quincey. GRAMMAR 317 23. Ellipse in Subordinate Clauses 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 are, and the subject is that of the principal sen- tence. Other violations of the rule occur, but are scarcely tolerable even in the spoken language. The following are undesirable instances : For, though summer, I knew . . . Mr. Rochester would like to see a cheerful hearth. — C. Bronte. We can supply was, but not it; the natural subject is /. I have now seen him, and though not for long, he is a man who speaks with Bismarckian frankness. — Times. ' Though I did not see him for long ', we are meant to under- stand. But the though clause is not subordinate to the sentence containing that subject and verb : and always joins coordinates and announces the transition from one coordinate to another. Consequently, the thoiigh clause must be a part (a subordinate part) of the second coordinate, and must draw from that its subject and ve*b : ' though he is not a man of Bismarckian frankness for long, . . . '. Even if we could supply / saw 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 emen- dations : ' 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 34. Some Illegitimate Infinitives Claim is not followed by an infinitive except when the subject of claim is also that of the infinitive. Thus, / claim to 3i 8 GRAMMAR be honest, but not I claim this to be honest. The Oxford Dictionary (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 pretend. ' This entirely new experiment ' which you claim to have ' solved the problem of combining . . .' — Times. Usage, therefore, is not, as it is often claimed to be, the absolute law of language. — R. G. White. 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. — Times. 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. — Daily Telegraph. The anonymous and masked delators whose creation the Opposition pretends to be an abuse of power on the part of M. Combes. — Times. Possible and probable are not to be completed by an infinitive. For are possible to read can ; and for probable read likely. But no such questions are possible, as it seems to me, to arise between your nation and ours. — CHOATE. Should Germany meditate anything of the kind it would look un- commonly like a deliberate provocation of France, and for that reason it seems scarcely probable to be borne out by events. — Times. Prefer has two constructions : I prefer this (living) to that (dying), and I prefer to do this rather than that. The infini- tive construction must not be used without rather (unless, of course, the second alternative is suppressed altogether). Other things being equal, I should prefer to marry a rich man than a poor one. — E. F. BENSON. The following infinitives are perhaps by false analogy from those that might follow forbade, seen, ask. It may be noticed generally that slovenly and hurried writers find the infinitive a great resource. Marshal Oyama strictly prohibited his troops to take quarter within the walls. — Times. The Chinese held a chou-chou, during which the devil was exorcised and duly witnessed by several believers to take his flight in divers guises. — Times. Third, they might demand from Germany, all flushed as she was with military pride, to tell us plainly whether . . . — Morley. INFINITIVES 319 35. 'Split' Infinitives The ' split ' infinitive has taken such hold upon the con- sciences 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 differ- ence 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 myster- ious 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.' — Times. The time has come to once again voice the general discontent. — Times. It should be authorized to immediately put in hand such work.— Times. Important negotiations are even now proceeding to further cement trade relations.— Times. We were not as yet strong enough in numbers to seriously influence the poll. — Times. Keep competition with you unless you wish to once more see a similar state of things to those prevalent prior to the inauguration . . . — Guernsey Evening Press. And that she should force me, by the magic of her pen to mentally acknowledge, albeit with wrath and shame, my own inferiority. — COREIXI. The oil lamp my landlady was good enough to still allow me the use of. — Corelli. The ' persistent agitation ' ... is to so arouse public opinion on the subject as to . . . — Times. In order to slightly extend that duration in the case of a few. — Times. To thus prevent a constant accretion to the Jewish population of Russia from this country would be nobler work . . . — Times. 26. Compound Passives Corresponding to the active construction ' . . . have at- tempted 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: 330 GRAMMAR ' 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 (a) 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 some- times 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. 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. — Times. But when it was attempted to give practical effect to the popular exasperation, serious obstacles arose. — Times. (When an attempt was made to . . .) 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 . . . — Times, (if an attempt was made to run it on the . . .) It is not however attempted to be denied. — H AZLITT. (No one attempts to deny) 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, . . .— Times, (whose sympathies were to be enlisted) He will see the alterations that were proposed to be made, but rejected. — Times, (proposed, but rejected) The argument by which this difficulty is sought to be evaded. — Balfour. This and the following instances are not easily mended, COMPOUND PASSIVES . 321 unless we may supply the subject of 'seek', &c. ('some writers '). The arguments by which the abolition was attempted to be supported were founded on the rights of man. — Times. Some mystery in regard to her birth, which, she was well in- formed, was assiduously, though vainly, endeavoured to be discovered. — Fanny Burney. The close darkness of the shut-up house (forgotten to be opened, though it was long since day) yielded to the unexpected glare. — Dickens. Those whose hours of employment are proposed to be limited. — Times. The insignificant duties proposed to be placed on food. — Times. The anti-liberal principles which it was long ago attempted to embody in the Holy Alliance. — Times. Considerable support was managed to be raised for Waldemar. — Carlyle. 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 it and staff would be the direct objects of the active verb. 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.— Emerson. Used or employed, and so in the next : No salvage appliances or staff could have been availed of in time to save the lives of the men. — Times. 27. Confusion with Negatives This is extraordinarily common. The instances are ar- ranged in order of obviousness. 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. — Spectator. Not a whit undeterred by the disaster which overtook them at Cavendish-square last week . . . the suffragettes again -made themselves prominent.— Daily Mail. 32a GRAMMAR 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. — Huxley. 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. — BORROW. 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 ? — Times. 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. — L. Stephen. 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. — Daily Telegraph. 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 ? — Daily Telegraph. 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. — Times. 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'. — J. R. Green. 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. — Spectator. No one scarcely really believes. — Daily Telegraph. 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?— Stevenson. 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 ? — F. Greenwood. 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. — Times. 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. — Dickens. CONFUSION WITH NEGATIVES 333 But it is one thing to establish these conditions [the Chinese Ordinance], and another to remove them suddenly. — Westminster Gazette. What economy of life and money would not have been spared the empire of the Tsars had it not rendered war certain. — Times. {It is the empire. The instance is not quoted for not, though that too is wrong, but for the confusion between loss and economy) 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. — Lonsdale Hale. (An odd puzzle. Within thirty means less than thirty ; at least thirty 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) 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 con- fusion, the construction proper to the resolved form being used with the compound and vice versa. My feelings, Sir, are moderately unspeakable, and that is a fact. — American, (not moderately speakable : moderately belongs only to half of unspeakable) . . . who did not aim, like the Presbyterians, at a change in Church government, but rejected the notion of a national Church at all. — J. R. Green. (Reject is equivalent to will not have. I reject altogether : I will not have at all) And your correspondent does not seem to know, or not to realize, the conditions of the problem. — Times. (Seems, not does not seem, has to be supplied in the second clause) I confess myself altogether unable to formulate such a principle, much less to prove it. — BALFOUR. (Less does not suit unable, but able ; but the usage of much less and much more is hopelessly chaotic) War between these two great nations would be an inexplicable impossi- bility. — CHOATE. (Inexplicable does not qualify the whole of impossibility ; to make sense we must divide impossibility into impossible event, and take inexplicable only with event) 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. — Spectator. (No age is equivalent to not any age, and out of this we have to take any age as subject to the last sentence ; this is a common, but untidy and blameworthy device) v a 3»4 GRAMMAR 28. Omission of 'as' This is very common, but quite contrary to good modern usage, after the verb regard, 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 consider, that does not require as. In the later instances the omission is gratuitous. I regard it as important as anything. 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. — Crockett. So vital is this suggestion regarded. Rare early editions of Shakespeare's plays and poems— editions which had long been regarded among the national heirlooms. — S. Lee. The latter may now be expected to regard himself absolved from such obligation as he previously felt. — Times. A memoir which was justly regarded of so much merit an3 importance that . . .—Huxley. . . . what might be classed a ' horizontal ' European triplice. — Times. You would look upon yourself amply revenged if you knew what they have cost me.— Richardson. 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. — Times. ... 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 as sure am /that I eat and drink and live to-day, so certain am I that this mysterious Divine Redeemer is in living . . . — Daily Telegraph. The last example is of a different kind. Read as sure as I am for as sure am I as the least possible correction. -Unprac- tised writers should beware of correlative clauses except in their very simplest forms. 29. Other Liberties taken with 'as' As must not be expected to do by itself the work of such as. AS 325 There were not two dragon sentries keeping ward before the gate of this abode, as in magic legend are usually found on duty over the wronged innocence imprisoned. — Dickens. 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, as it has been the glory of our nation to produce both in the Army and elsewhere. — Times. We question if throughout the French Revolution there was a single case of six or seven thousand insurgents blasted away by cannon shot, as is believed to have happened in Odessa. — Spectator. (This is much more defensible than the previous two ; but when a definite noun — as here case — can be naturally supplied for the verb introduced by as, such as is better). 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, as is customary on such occasions. — Times. Neither as nor such as should be made to do the work of the relative pronoun where there would be no awkwardness in using the pronoun itself. With a speed of eight knots, as [which] has been found practicable in the case of the Suez Canal, the passage would occupy five days. — Times. The West Indian atmosphere is not of the limpid brightness and transparent purity such as [that] are found in the sketch entitled 'A Street in Kingston '. — Times. The ideal statues and groups in this room and the next are scarcely so interesting as we have sometimes seen. — Times. (As is clearly here a relative adverb, answering to so ; nevertheless the construction can be theoretically justified, the full form being as we have sometimes seen groups interesting. But it is very ugly ; why not say instead as some that we have seen ?) The idiom as who should say must not be used unless the sentence to which it is appended has for subject a person to whom the person implied in who 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. 336 GRAMMAR 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. — MORLEY. 30. Brachylogy t. 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 : I should be proud to lay an obligation upon my charmer to the amount of half, nay, to the whole of my estate. — Richardson. There is as much of the pure gospel in their teachings as in any other community of Christians in our land. There cannot be the same reason for a prohibition of correspondence with me, as there was of mine with Mr. Lovelace. — RICHARDSON. Here the right preposition is retained. A man holding such a responsible position as Minister of the United States.— D. Sladen. 2. A preposition is sometimes left out, quite unwarrant- ably, from a mistaken idea of euphony : Without troubling myself as to what suck self-absorption might lead in the future.— Corelli. (lead to) He chose to fancy that she was not suspicious of what all his acquaint- ance were perfectly aware— namely, that . . . — Thackeray, (aware of) 3. Impossible compromises between two possible alter- natives. To be a Christian means to us one who has been regenerated. — Daily Telegraph. (' A Christian means one who has ' : ' to be a Christian means to have been ') To do what as far as human possibility has proved out of his power. — Daily Telegraph. (' As a matter of human possibility ' : ' as far as human possibility goes ') One compromise of this kind has come to be generally recognized : So far from being annoyed, he agreed at once. (' So far was he from being annoyed that . . .' : ' far from being annoyed, he agreed ') GRAMMAR 337 31. Between two Stools The commonest form of indecision is that between state- ment and question. But the examples of this are followed by a few miscellaneous ones. May I ask that if care should be taken of remains of buildings a thousand years old, ought not care to be taken of ancient British earth- works several thousand years old ? — Times. Can I not make you understand that you are ruining yourself and me, and that if you don't get reconciled to your father what is to become of you ? — S. Ferrier. We will only say that if it was undesirable for a private member to induce the Commons to pass a vote against Colonial Preference, why was it not undesirable for a private member . . . — Spectator. Surely, then, if I am not claiming too much for our efforts at that time to maintain the Union, am 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? — Times. I then further observed that China having observed the laws of neutrality, how could he believe in the possibility of an alliance with Russia ? — Times. The next two use both the relative and the participle con- struction, instead of choosing between them. Thus it befell that our high and low labour vote, which (if one might say so in the hearing of M. Jaures and Herr Bebel) being vertical rather than horizontal, and quite unhindered in the United States, of course by an overwhelming majority elected President Roosevelt. — Times. He replied to Mr. Chamberlain's Limehouse speech, the only part of which that he could endorse being, he said, the suggestion that the electorate should go to the root of the question at the next general election. — Times. Who, in Europe, at least, would forego the delights of kissing, — (which the Japanese by-the-by consider a disgusting habit),— without embraces, — and all those other endearments which are supposed to dignify the progress of true love ! — CoRELLl. Poor, bamboozled, patient public !— no wonder it is beginning to think that a halfpenny spent on a newspaper which is purchased to be thrown away, enough and more than enough.— Corelli. But hurriedly dismissing whatever shadow of earnestness, or faint 338 liKAMMAK confession of a purpose, laudable or wicked, that her face, or voice, or manner, had, for the moment betrayed, she lounged . . . — Dickens. At the £pee Team Competition for Dr. Savage's Challenge Cup, held on the 25th and 27th February last, was won by the Inns of Court team, consisting of . . . — 14th Middlesex Battalion Orders. 32. The Impersonal 'one' This should never be mixed up with other pronouns. Its possessive is one's, not his, and one should be repeated, if necessary, not be replaced by him, &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. That inequality and incongruousness in his writing which makes one revise his judgment at every tenth page. — Lowell. As one grows older, one loses many idols, perhaps comes at last to have none at all, although he may honestly enough uncover in deference to the worshippers at any shrine. — Lowell. There are many passages which one is rather inclined to like than sure he would be right in liking. — Lowell. He is a man who speaks with Bismarckian frankness, and who directly impresses one with the impression that you are speaking to a man and not to an incarnate bluebook. — Times. 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 oneself 'of what has been done by his pre- decessors. — Times. If one has an opinion on any subject, it is of little use to read books or papers which tell you what you know already. — Times. ... are all creations which make one laugh inwardly as we read. — HUTTON. Ones, on the other hand, is not the right possessive for the generic man; man's or his is required according to circum- stances ; his in the following example : There is a natural desire in the mind of man to sit for one's picture. — Hazlitt. 33. Between ... or This is a confusion between two ways of giving alternatives — between . . . and, and either . . . or. It is always wrong. GRAMMAR 339 The choice Russia has is between payment for damages in money or in kind. — Times. Forced to choose between the sacrifice of important interests on the one hand or the expansion of the Estimates on the other. — Times. We have in that substance the link between organic or inorganic matter which abolishes the distinction between living and dead matter.— West- minster Gazette. (Observe the ' elegant variation ') The question lies between a God and a creed, or a God in such an abstract sense that does not signify. — Daily Telegraph. The author of the last has been perplexed by the and in one of his alternatives. He should have used on the one hand, &c. 34. 'a' placed between the adjective and its Noun This is ugly when not necessary. Types of phrase in which it is necessary are : Many a youth ; What a lie ! How dreadful a fate ! So lame an excuse. But there is no difficulty in placing a before ordinary qualifications of the adjective like quite, more, much less. In the following, read quite a sufficient, a more valuable, a more glorious, a more serviceable, no different position, a greater or less degree. . . . adding that there was no suggestion of another raid against the Japanese flank, which was quite stifficient an indication of coming events for those capable of reading between the lines. — Times. Can any one choose more glorious an exit than to die fighting for one's own country? — Times. Of sympathy, of . . . Mr. Baring has a full measure, which, in his case, is more valuable an asset than familiarity with military textbooks.— Times. No great additional expenditure is required in order to make Oxford more serviceable apart of our educational system.— Westminster Gazette. And young undergraduates are in this respect in no different a position from that of any other Civil Servant.— Westminster Gazette. The thousand and one adjuncts to devotion finding place in more or less a degree in all churches, are all . . . — Daily Telegraph. The odd arrangement in the following will not do ; we should have a either before so or before degree. But what I do venture to protest against is the sacrificing of the 330 GRAMMAR interests of the country districts in so ridiculously an unfair degree to those of a small borough. — Times. 35. DO as Substitute Verb Do cannot represent (1) be, (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 did, but have made, was afraid of making, expected to make, shall {make). It . . . ought to have been satisfying to the young man. And so, in a manner of speaking, it did. — Crockett. It may justly be said, as Mr. Paul does, that . . . — Westminster Gazette. To inflict upon themselves a disability which one day they will find the mistake and folly of doing. — Westminster Gazette. We can of course say He lost his train, which I had warned him not to do ; because lose is then represented not by do, but by which (thing). 36. Fresh Starts The trick of taking breath in the middle of a sentence by means of a resumptive that 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. 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. — Balfour. 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 . . . ? — Daily Telegraph. A very short-winded correspondent. 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. — Times. If the writer means what he says, and the grounds of the deduction are not included in the sentence, reconstruction is not obvious, and that is perhaps wanted to pick up the thread ; but if, as may be suspected, the when clauses con- tain the grounds of the deduction, we may reconstruct as GRAMMAR, MEANING 331 follows : 'When the Japanese . . . , and when . . . , it was natural to infer that 37. Vulgarisms and Colloquialisms Like for as : Sins that were degrading me, like they have many others.— Daily Telegraph. They should not make a mad, reckless, frontal attack like General Buller made at the battle of Colenso.— Daily Telegraph. Coming to God the loving Father for pardon, like the poor prodigal did.— Daily Telegraph. There is no moral force in existence . . . which enlarges our outlook like suffering does.— Daily Telegraph. Wkat ever . . . ? is a colloquialism ; whatever ...fa. vul- garism : Whatever reason have we to suppose, as the vast majority of professing Christians appear to do, that the public worship of Almighty God . . . ?— Daily Telegraph. Whatever is the good in wrangling about bones when one is hungry and has nutritious food at hand 1— Daily Telegraph. ' Those sort ' : I know many of those sort of girls whom you call conjurors. — Trollope. Those sort of writers would merely take it as a first-class advertisement. — CORELLI. 38. Tautology Lord Rosebery has not budged from his position — splendid, no doubt — of (lonely) isolation. — Times. Counsel admitted that that was a grave suggestion to make, but he sub- mitted that it was borne out by the (surrounding) circumstances. — Times. One can feel first the characteristics which men have in common and only afterward those which distinguish them (apart) from one another. — Times. A final friendly agreement with Japan, which would be very welcome to Russia, is only possible if Japan (again) regains her liberty of action. — Times. Miss Tox was (often) in the habit of assuring Mrs. Chick that . . . — Dickens. He had come up one morning, as was now (frequently) his wont.— Trollope. The counsellors of the Sultan (continue to) remain sceptical. — Times. 333 MEANING The Peresviet lost both her fighting-tops and (in appearance) looked the most damaged of all the ships. — Times. They would, however, strengthen their position if they returned the (tem- porary) loan of Sir A. MacDonnell to his owners with thanks. — Times. The score was taken to 136 when Mr. MacLaren, who had (evidently) seemed bent on hitting Mr. Armstrong off, was bowled. — Times. . . . cannot prevent the diplomacy of the two countries from lending each other (mutual) support. — Times. However, I judged that they would soon (mutually) find each other out.— Crockett. Notwithstanding which, (however,) poor Polly embraced them all round. — Dickens. If any real remedy is to be found, we must first diagnose the true nature of the disease ; (but) that, however, is not hard. — Times. M. Delcasse' 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. — Times. The strong currents frequently shifted the mines, to the equal danger (both) of friend and foe. — Times. 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. — J. R. Green. But to the ordinary English Protestant (both) Latitudinarian and High Churchmen were equally hateful. — J. R. Green. Seriously, (and apart from jesting,) this is no light matter. — Bagehot. To go back to your own country . . . with (the consciousness that you go back with) the sense of duty done.— LORD Halsbury. 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. — Times. ... as having created a (joint) partnership between the two Powers in the Morocco question. — Times. 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. — Daily Telegraph. 39. Redundancies Dr. Redmond told his constituents that by reducing the National vote in the House of Commons they would not thereby get rid of obstruction. — Times. It is not a thousand years ago since municipalities in Scotland were by no means free from the suspicion of corruption. — Lord RoSEBERY. Some substance equally as yielding, — Daily Mail. MEANING 333 Had another expedition reached the Solomon Islands, who knows but that the Spaniards might not have gone on to colonize Australia and so turned the current of history ? — Spectator. As one being able to give full consent ... I am yours faithfully . . . — Daily Telegraph. But to where shall I look for some small ray of light that will illumine the darkness surrounding the mystery of my being ? — Daily Telegraph. It is quite possible that if they do that it may be possible to amend it in certain particulars. — Westminster Gazette. .Men and women who professed to call themselves Christians. — Daily Telegraph. (An echo, no doubt, of 'profess and call them- selves Christians') The correspondence that you have published abundantly throws out into bold relief the false position assumed . . . — Daily Telegraph. In the course of the day, yesterday, M. Rouvier was able to assure M. Delcasse . . . — Times. Moreover, too, do we not all feel . . . ? — J. C. COLLINS. The doing nothing for a length of days after the first shock he sustained was the reason of how it came that Nesta knitted closer her acquaintance . . . — Meredith. When the public adopt new inventions wholesale, . . . some obligation is due to lessen, so far as is possible, the hardships in which . . . — West- minster Gazette. 40. ' AS TO WHETHER ' 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 imme- diately by whether 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 whether, but even with verbs. The Court declined to express any opinion as to whether the Russian Ambassador was justified in giving the assurances in question and as to whether the offences with which the accused were charged were punish- able by German law.— Times. (Perhaps ' declined to say "whether in their opinion'; but this is less easily mended than most) The difficulties of this task were so great that I was in doubt as to whether it was possible. — Times. His whole interest is concentrated on the question as to how his mission will affect his own fortunes. — Times. A final decision has not yet been arrived at as to whether or not the 334 JYUiAJNUNOr proceedings shall be public. — Times. (It has not yet been finally decided whether) You raise the question as to whether Admiral Rozhdestvensky will not return. — Times. I have much pleasure in informing Rear Admiral Mather Byles as to where he could inspect a rifle of the type referred to. The interesting question which such experiments tend to suggest is as to how far science may . . .— Outlook. When we come to consider the question as to whether, upon the dissolution of the body, the spirit flies to some far-distant celestial realm . . . — Daily Telegraph. He never told us to judge by the lives of professing Christians as to whether Christianity is true. — Daily Telegraph. M. Delcasse - did not allude to the debated question as to 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 as to whether the French Government expected . . . — Times. 41. Superfluous 'but' and 'though' 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 in vain, only, and reserves and sole, had not been used in the following sentences, but and though would have been right ; as it is, they are wrong. (The author dreams that he is a horse being ridden) In vain did I rear and kick, attempting to get rid of my foe ; but the surgeon remained as saddle-fast as ever. — Borrow. But the substance of the story is probably true, though Voltaire has only made a slip in a name. — Morley. Germany, it appears, reserves for herself the sole privilege of creating triple alliances and ' purely defensive ' combinations of that character, but when the interests of other Powers bring them together their action is reprobated as aggressive and menacing. — Times. 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. 4a. ' Ie and when ' This formula has enjoyed more popularity than it deserves ; either 'when ' or 'if ' by itself would almost always give the MEANING 335 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 paren- thetic 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 respon- sibilities without the other word to keep it in countenance. No doubt it will accept the experimental proof here alleged, if and when it is repeated under conditions . . . — Times. The latter will include twelve army corps, six rifle brigades, and nine divisions or brigades of mounted troops, units which, if and when com- plete, will more than provide . . . — Times. Unless and until we pound hardest we shall never beat the Boers. — Spectator. It is only if, and when, our respective possessions become conterminous with those of great military states on land that we each . . . — Times. If and when it was done, it was done so to speak judicially. — Gladstone. No prudent seaman would undertake an invasion unless or until he had first disposed of the force preparing ... to impeach him. — Times. Its leaders decline to take office unless and until the 90 or 100 German words of command used . . . are replaced . . . — Times. If and when employment is abundant . . . — Westminster Gazette. 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. — Westmitister Gazette. It is clear, however, that the work will gain much if and when she plays faster. — Westminster Gazette. 33 6 MEANING 43. Maltreated Idioms 1. Two existing idioms are fused into a non-existent one. It did not take him much trouble. — Sladen. (I take : it costs me) An opportunity should be afforded the enemy of retiring northwards, more or less of their own account. — Times, (of my own accord ; on my own account) Dr. Kuyper admitted that his opinion had been consulted. — Times. (I consult you : take your opinion) But it was in vain with the majority to attempt it. — BAGEHOT. (I attempt in vain : it is vain to attempt) The captain got out the shutter of the door, shut it up, made it all fast, and locked the door itself. — Dickens, (make it fast : make all fast) The provisioning of the Russian Army would practically have to be drawn exclusively from the mother country. — Times, (draw provisions ; do provisioning) It gives me the greatest pleasure in adding my testimony. — Daily Telegraph. (I have pleasure in adding : it gives me pleasure to add) 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? — Chamberlain (reported). (Might not Canada turn ? ... to expect that Canada would not turn) I can speak from experience that . . . ' conversion ' . . . was a very real and powerful thing. — Daily Telegraph, (speak to conversion's being : say that conversion was) He certainly possessed, though in no great degree, the means of affording them more relief than he practised. — Scott, (preached more than he practised : had means of affording more than he did afford) My position is one of a clerk, thirty-eight years of age, and married. — Daily Telegraph, (one that no one would envy : that of a clerk) 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. — J. R. GREEN, (put the finishing touches on : given the finishing stroke to) 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. — R. G. White, "(exceptions well taken : objections rightly made. To take an objection well can only mean to keep your temper when it is raised) 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 . . . Daily Telegraph, (by far too great: quite an unnecessary" 1 MEANING 337 The fines inflicted for excess of the legal speed. — Times, (excess of speed : exceeding the legal speed) Notwithstanding the no inconsiderable distance by sea.— Giternsey Advertiser, (it is no inconsiderable distance : the— or a— not incon- siderable distance) His whim had been gratified at a trifling cost of ten thousand pounds. — Crawford, (a trifling cost — unspecified : a trifle of ten thou- sand or so : the trifling cost of ten thousand. So in the next) Dying at a ripe old age of eighty-three. — Westminster Gazette. 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 . . . — Times, (the fact that: the question whether. But depends not upon whether would be best here) 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. — Guernsey Advertiser, (accord thanks : acknowledge obligation) 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. — Times, (the revolts were alike drowned : the revolt was drowned) a. Of two distinct idioms the wrong is chosen. 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. — Times. It is our pleasure to present to you the enclosed notification of the proportion of profits which has been placed to the credit of yout account. — Company circular. (I had, we have, the pleasure of — . The form chosen is proper to royal personages expressing their gracious will) In the face of it the rule appears a most advisable one. — Guernsey Advertiser. {On the face of it means prima facie: the other means in spite of) 3. The form of an idiom is distorted, without confusion with another. However, towards evening the wind and the waves subsided and the night became quiet and starlight. — Times. {Starlight is a noun, which can be used as an adjective immediately before another noun only ; a starlight night) Russia is now bitterly expiating her share in the infamy then visited upon Japan. — Times. (We visit upon a person his sins, or something for MS- Z 338 MEANING which he is responsible, and not we ; or again, we may visit our indigna- tion upon him) He anticipated much towards Mary's recovery in her return to Japan. — Sladen. (anticipate . . . from) But both Governments have now requested Washington to be chosen as the place of meeting. — Times, (requested that Washington should) 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. — Times. (Put pen to paper. This looks like imitation French ; it is certainly not English) 4. The meaning of an idiom is mistaken without confusion with another. 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. — Trollope. (To darken the door is always to enter as a visitor, never to go out) 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 direc- tion. If I did not have the most thorough dependence on your good sense and high principles, I should Hot speak to you in this way. — Trollope. Japan, while desiring the massacre of her own and Russia's subjects to be brought to an end, has nevertheless every interest that the war should go on. — Times. The unpublished state, of which only an extremely few examples are in existence. — Times. Once I jested her about it. — Crockett. It is significant to add that when Mrs. Chesnut died in 1886 her servants were with her. — Times. Herring boats, the drapery of whose black suspended nets contrasted with picturesque effect the white sails of the larger vessels. — S. Ferrier. It is at least incumbent to be scrupulously accurate. — Times. (The metaphor in incumbent is so much alive that upon — is never dispensed with) A measure according Roman Catholic clergymen who have passed through the local seminaries but have not yet passed the prescribed Russian language test to hold clerical appointments. — Times. There will be established in this free England a commercial tyranny the like of which will not be inferior to the tyrannical Inquisition ol the Dark Ages. — Spectator. MEANING 339 44. Truisms and Contradictions in Terms 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. Praise which perhaps was scarcely meant to be taken too literally. — Bagehot. Where no standard of literalness is mentioned, too literally is ' more literally than was meant '. We may safely affirm, with- out the cautious reservations perhaps and scarcely, that the praise was not meant to be taken more literally than it was meant to be taken. Omit too. He found what was almost quite as interesting. — Times. If it was almost as interesting, we do not want quite : if quite, we do not want almost. Splendid and elegant, but somewhat bordering on the antique fashion. —Scott. Bordering on means not ' like ' but ' very like ' ; * somewhat very like '. A very unique child, thought I. — C. Bronte. A somewhat unique gathering of our great profession. — HALSBURY. There are no degrees in uniqueness. Steady, respectable labouring men — one and all, with rare exceptions, married. — Times, (all without exception, with rare exceptions)' To name only a few, take Lord Rosebery, Lord Rendel, Lord . . . , .... . . ., . . ., and many others. — Times. Take in this context means ' consider as instances ' ; we cannot consider them as instances unless we have their names ; take must therefore mean ' let me name for your consideration '. Thus we get : ' To name only a few, let me name . . . and many others (whom I do not name)'. More led away by a jingling antithesis of words than an accurate per- ception of ideas.— H. D. Macleod. ' Guided by an accurate perception ' is what is meant. To be z % 340 MEANING ' ted 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 '. Long before the appointed hour for the commencement of the recital, standing room only fell to the lot of those who arrived just previous to Mr. K.'s appearance on the platform. — Guernsey Advertiser. 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. The weather this week has for the most part been of that quality which the month of March so strikingly characterizes in the ordinary course of events.— Guernsey Advertiser. 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. "Re. forgot 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 has followed it. — Bagehot. He could not forget, because he could not know, anything about the despotisms which have in fact followed. He might know and forget something about all the despotisms that had preceded or should follow (in direct speech, ' that have pre- ceded 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 he ought to have reflected. Some people would say that my present manner of travelling is much the most preferable, riding as I do now, instead of leading my horse. — Borrow. Only two modes of travelling are compared : the most prefer- MEANING 341 able implies four, three of them preferable in different degrees to the fourth. A not uncommon vulgarism. 45. Double Emphasis Attempts at packing double emphasis into a single sentence are apt to result in real weakening. No government ever plunged more rapidly into a deeper quagmire. — — Outlook. (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) Mr. Justice Neville . . . will now have the very rare experience of joining on the Bench a colleague whom he defeated on the polls just fourteen years ago. — Westminster Gazette. (The experience, with exact time- interval, is probably unique, like any individual thumb-print ; that does not make the coincidence more remarkable ; and it is the coincidence that we are to admire) 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. — Lord Wemyss. (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 .') The commonest form of this is due to conscientious but mistaken zeal for correctness, which prefers, for instance, with- out oppressing or without plundering to without oppressing or plundering. 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 ex- cludes both. With and instead of or, it is another matter. 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. — Tifnes. The Union must be maintained without pandering to such prejudices on the one hand, or without giving way on the other to the . . . schemes of the Nationalists.— Spectator. He inhibited him, on pain of excommunication, from seeking a divorce in his own English Courts, or from contracting a new marriage. — J. R. Green. (Half excused by the negative sense of inhibit) 342 MEANING 46. ' Split ' Auxiliaries. 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 : ' Evi- dently 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 deceived 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. I recognize this truth, and always have recognized it. Refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion, and ever will be so, as long as the world endures. — Burke. They never are suffered to succeed in their opposition. — Burke. She had received the homage of . . . and occasionally had deigned to breathe forth . . . — Beaconsfield. He ordered breakfast as calmly as if he never had left his home.— Beaconsfield. Miss Becky, whose sympathetic powers never had been called into action before.— Ferrier. MEANING 343 They now were bent on taking the work into their own hands. — MORLEY. There may have been a time when a king was a god, but he now is pretty much on a level with his subjects. — Jowett. They both are contradicted by all positive evidence. — W. H. Mal- LOCK. Religious art at once complete and sincere never yet has existed. — Ruskin. Not mere empty ideas, but what were once realities, and that I long have thought decayed. — C. Bronte. So that he might assist at a Bible class, from which he never had been absent. — Beaconsfield. If we would write an essay, we necessarily must have something to say. — Bygott & Jones. The protectionists lately have been affirming that the autumn sessior will be devoted to railway questions. — Times. Visitors no longer can drive in open carriages along the littoral. — Times. It still is the fact that his mind . . . was essentially the mind of a poet — Times. To whom in any case its style would have not appealed. — Times. To go wrong with not is an achievement possible only with triple compounds, where the principal division is of course between the finite (would) and the infinitive with participle {have appealed). ' Would not have appealed ' must be written, though at an enormous sacrifice of ' distinction '. 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 . . . — Times. 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.— Times. 47. Overloading A single sentence is sometimes made to carry a double burden : So unique a man as Sir George Lewis has, in truth, rarely been lost to this country. — BAGEHOT. 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 the late a word was required that 344 MJiAlNHNLr should express proper concern ; lost is a short cut to ' men so unique as he whose loss we now deplore '. There are but few men whose lives abound in such wild and romantic adventure, and, for the most part, crowned with success.— Prescott. The writer does not mean ' adventures so wild, so romantic, and so successful in the main ' ; that is shown by the qualify- ing parenthesis, which is obviously one of comment on the individual case. What he does mean ought to have been given in two sentences : i There are but few . . . aJventure ; — 's, moreover, was for the most part crowned with suc- cess '. The Sultan regrets that the distance and the short notice alone prevent him from coming in person. — Times. 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 '. 48. Demonstrative, Noun, and Participle or Adjective Of the forms, persons interested, the persons interested, those interested, those who are interested, one or another may better suit a particular phrase or context. Those interested is the least to be recommended, especially with an active participle or adjective. The form those persons interested is a hybrid, and is very seldom used by any good writer ; but it is becom- ing so common in inferior work that it is thought necessary to give many examples. The first two, of the form those inter- ested, will pass, though those who were concerned, all who drive, would be better. In the others that and those should be either replaced by the or (sometimes) simply omitted. The idea of a shortage had hardly entered the heads even of those most immediately concerned. — Times. They are the terror of all those driving or riding spirited horses. — Times. MEANING, AMBIGUITY 345 At every time and in every place throughout that very limited portion of time and space open to human observation. — BALFOUR. That part of the regular army quartered at home should be grouped by divisions. — Times. Here they beheld acres of that stupendous growth seen only in the equinoctial regions. — Prescott. It is not likely that General Kuropatkine has amassed those reserves of military stores and supplies plainly required by the circumstances of his situation. — Times. The insurrection had been general throughout the country, at least that portion of it occupied by the Spaniards. — Prescott. My amendment would be that that part of the report dealing with the dividend on the ' A ' shares ... be not adopted. — Company report. We shall fail to secure that unanimity of thought and doctrine so indispensable both for . . . — Times. ... in order to minimize the effect produced by that portion of the Admirals' report favourable to England. — Times. A struggle . . . which our nation must be prepared to face in the last resort, or else give way to those countries not afraid to accept the responsibilities and sacrifices inseparable from Empire. — Times. Civil servants will not, nay, cannot, work with that freedom of action so essential to good work in the case of such persons, so long as . . . — Times. To those Colonies unable to concur with these suggestions a warning should be addressed. — Times. 49. False Scent 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, facilities and excesses are naturally taken as in the same construction, and similarly influences and nature, 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. He gloats over the facilities the excesses and the blunders of the authorities have given his comrades for revolutionary action among the masses. — Times. The influences of that age, his open, kind, susceptible nature, to say 346 /\ivir>njruii i nothing of his highly untoward situation, made it more than usually difficult for him to cast aside or rightly subordinate. — Carlyle. That there is no comma between facilities and the excesses is no defence, seeing how often commas go wrong ; indeed the comma after age in the second piece, which is strictly wrong, is a proof how little reliance is to be placed on such signs. 50. Misplacement of Words Generous interpretation will generally get at a writer's meaning ; but for him to rely on that is to appeal ad miseri- cordiam. Appended to the sentences, when necessary, is the result of supposing them to mean what they say. It is with grief and pain, that, as admirers of the British aristocracy, we find ourselves obliged to admit the existence of so many ill qualities in a person whose name is in Debrett. — Thackeray, (implies that admirers must admit this more than other people) It is from this fate that the son of a commanding prime minister is at any rate preserved.— BAGEHOT. (implies that preserved is a weak word used instead of a stronger) And even if we could suppose it to be our duty, it is not one which, as was shown in the last chapter, we are practically competent to perform. — Balfour. The chairman said there was no sadder sight in the world than to see women drunk, because they seemed to lose complete control of themselves, (implies that losing complete control leaves you with less than if you lost incomplete control) The soldiers are deeply chagrined at having had to give up positions, in obedience to orders, which the Japanese could not take. — Times. Great and heroic men have existed, who had almost no other information than by the printed page. I only would say, that it needs a strong head to bear that diet. — Emerson, (implies that no one else would say it) Yes, the laziest of human beings, through the providence of God, a being, too, of rather inferior capacity, acquires the written part of a language so difficult that . . . — BORROW. 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, as we often hear, is there any superhuman faculty required to follow him. — Carlyle. (implies that we often hear there is not) This, we say to ourselves, may be all very true (for have we, too, not browsed in the Dictionary of National Biography ?) ; but why does Tanner AMBIGUITY 347 say it all, just at that moment, to . . . — Times, (implies that others have refrained from browsing) 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, only saved him from witnessing the English conquest of Mysore.— J. R. Green, (implies that that was all it saved him from) 51. Ambiguous Position 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. Louis XVIII, dying in 1824, was succeeded, as Charles X, by his brother the Count d'Artois. — E. Sanderson. (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) In 1830 Paris overthrew monarchy by divine right. — Mqrley. (By divine right looks so milch more like an adverbial than an adjectival phrase that the sleepy reader takes it with overthrew) (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. — Times. (The balance of the sentence is extremely bad if the although clause is subordinated to who ; and the sleepy reader accordingly does not take it so, but with is eschewed, and so makes nonsense) It was a temper not only legal, but pedantic in its legality, intolerant from its very sense of a moral order and law of the lawlessness and disorder of a personal tyranny. — J. R. Green. The library over the porch of the church, which is large and hand- some, contains one thousand printed books. — R. Curzon (A large and handsome library, or porch, or church ?) 348 AMBIGUITY 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. Luck and dexterity always give more pleasure than intellect and knowledge ; because they fill up what they fall on to the brim at once, and people run to them with acclamation at the splash. — Landor. (On and to so regularly belong together now, though they did not in Landor's time, that it is disconcerting to be asked to pause between them) 5a. Ambiguous Enumeration In comma'd enumerations, care should be taken not to in- sert appositions that may be taken, even if only at first sight, for separate members. 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 . . . — Times. (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) 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. — Times. (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) 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 . . . — Times. (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) 53. Antics A small selection must suffice. Straining after the digni- fied, 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. 1. Use of stiff, full-dress, literary, or out-of-the-way words. STYLE 349 And in no direction was the slightest concern evinced. — Times. The majority display scant anxiety for news. — Times. . . . treating his characters on broader lines, occupying himself with more elemental emotions and types, and forsaking altogether his almost meiiculotis analysis of motive and temperament. — Westminster Gazette. (We recommend to this reviewer a more meticulous use of the dictionary) 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 bawbees easily extracted from a large class of contractors who are only too willing . . . — Times. 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 monumentally droll. — Times. Nothing definite has been decided upon as to the exact date of the visits, the venue of the visits, the . . . — Times. i. Pretentious circumlocution. That life was brought to a close in November 1567, at an age, probably, not far from the one fixed by the sacred writer as the term of human existence. — PRESCOTT. She skated extremely badly, but with an enjoyment that was almost pathetic, in consideration of the persistence of 'frequent fall'. — E. F. Benson. 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 not unconnected there- with. — Times. 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. A period when, as she puts it, men and women of fashion ' tried not to be themselves, yet never so successfully displayed the naked hearts of them'. — Times. The last week in February was harnessing her seven bright steeds in shining tandem in the silent courtyard of the time to be. — The Lamp. Our enveloping movements since some days prove successful, and fiercest battle is now proceeding. — Tunes. The unhappy man persuades himself that he has in truth become a new creature, of the wonderfullest symmetry. — Carlyle. 4. Patronizing superiority expressed by describing simple things in long words. The skating-rink, where happy folk all day slide with set purpose on 35° STYLE the elusive material, and with great content perform mystic evolutions of the most complicated order. — E. F. BENSON. 5. The determined picturesque. Across the street blank shutters flung back the gaslight in cold smears. —Kipling. 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. — KlPLING. An under-carry of grey woolly spindrift of a slaty colour flung itself noiselessly in the opposite direction, a little above the tree tops.— Crockett. 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.— E. F. Benson. At some distance off, in Winchester probably, which pricked the blue haze of heat with dim spires, a church bell came muffled and languid. — E. F. Benson. A carriage drive lay in long curves like a flicked whip lash, surmounting terrace after terrace set with nugatory nudities. — E. F. Benson. 6. Recherche epithets. Perhaps both Milton and Beethoven would live in our memories as writers of idylls, had not a brusque infirmity dreadfully shut them off from their fellow men. — Times. The high canorous note of the north-easter. Stevenson. By specious and clamant exceptions. — Stevenson. 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. He had neither the qualities which make dulness respectable, nor the qualities which make libertinism attractive. — Macaulay. 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. — Macaulay. But he was indolent and dissolute, and had early impaired a fine estate with the dice-box, and a fine constitution with the bottle.— Macaulay. The disclosure of the stores of Greek literature had wrought the revolu- tion of the Renascence. The disclosure of the older mass of Hebrew literature wrought the revolution of the Reformation. — J. R. GREEN. STYLE 351 8. Author's self-consciousness. ' You mean it is,' she said — ' about Bertie '- Charlie made the noise usually written ' Pshaw '. — E. F. Benson. 9. Intrusive smartness — another form of self-consciousness. Round her lay piles of press notices, which stripped the American variety of the English language bare of epithets. — E. F. BENSON. 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. — Times. 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 is an acrobatic feat which concerns the thermometer only, and at the junction of Sixth Avenue and Broadway there was no slackening in the tides of the affairs of men. — E. F. Benson. 54. Miscellaneous Types of Journalese Mr. Lionel Phillips maintained that it was impossible to introduce white unskilled labour on a large scale as a payable proposition without lowering the position of the white man. — Times. How labour can be a proposition, and how a proposition can be payable 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. They have not hitherto discovered the formula for the intelligent use of our unrivalled resources for the satisfaction of our security. — Times. This perhaps means : ' They have not yet discovered how our unrivalled resources may be made to ensure our safety '. An attempt to efface the ill-effects of the Czar's refusal to see the work- men has been made by the grant of an interview by the Czar at Tsarkoe Selo to a body of workmen officially selected to represent the masses. — Spectator. 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. — Spectator. The Russian Government is at last face to face with the greatest crisis of the war, in the shape of the fact that the Siberian railway . . . — Spectator. 352 oixLJi No year passes now without evidence of the truth of the statement that the work of government is becoming increasingly difficult. — Spectator. 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. — Times. 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, . . . — Times. In default of information of the result of the deliberations which it has been stated the Imperial Defence Committee have been engaged in . . .— Times. 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 in- difference. — Times. 55. Somewhat, &c. Indulgence in qualifying adverbs, as perhaps, possibly, pro- bably, rather, a little, somewhat, amounts with English jour- nalists to a disease ; the intemperate orgy of moderation is renewed every morning. As somewhat 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. 1. Somewhat clearly illogical. 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 somewhat belated in view of the official announcement made this morning. — Times. (The announcement contained both the list of members and the full reference) Thrills which gave him rather a unique pleasure. — HUTTON. Russian despatches are somewhat inconsistent, one of them stating that there is no change in the position of the armies, while another says that the Japanese advance continues. — Times. Being faint with hunger I was somewhat in a listless condition border- ing on stupor. — CORELLI. STYLE 353 In the light of these, it would be hard to say what fullbelated- ness, inconsistency, and listlessness may be. a. Somewhat with essentially emphatic words. 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 somewhat, when we might use the gentler word by itself. 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 somewhat infinitesimal point. — Times. Thirdly, it is rather agonizing at times to the philologist. — Times. The distances at which the movements are being conducted receive a somewhat startling illustration from the statement that . . . — Times. Under these circumstances it is somewhat extraordinary to endeavour to save the Government from blame. — Times. In various evidently ' well-informed ' journals the somewhat amazing proposition is set up that . . . — Times. But unfortunately the word ' duties ' got accidentally substituted for ' bounties ' in two places, and made the utterance somewhat unintelligible to the general reader. — Times. The songs are sung by students to the accompaniment of a somewhat agonizing band. — Times. There is a mysterious man-killing orchid, a great Eastern jewel of State, and many other properties, some of them a little well worn, sjiitable for the staging of a tale of mystery. — Spectator. 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. 3. Somewhat shyly announcing an epigrammatic or well- chosen phrase. There is a very pretty problem awaiting the decision of Prince Biilow, and one which is entirely worthy of his somewhat acrobatic diplomacy. — Times. Gaston engaged in a controversy on the origin of evil, which ter- minated by his somewhat abruptly quitting his Alma Maters— Beaconsfield. n.b A a 354 biYL-b, Why even Tennyson became an amateur milkman to somewhat conceal and excuse the shame and degradation of writing verse.— CoRELLI. The virtuous but somewhat unpleasing type of the Roman nation. — Times. 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 somewhat weird. — Times. While Mary was trying to decipher these somewhat mystic lines. — S. Ferrier. 4. Somewhat conveying a sneer. It is somewhat strange that any one connected with this institution should be so unfamiliar with its regulations. — Times. . . . that the conclusion arrived at by the shortest route is to be accepted — a somewhat extravagant doctrine, according to which . . . — Balfour. But very few points of general interest have been elicited in any quarter by these somewhat academic reflections. — Times. This somewhat glowing advertisement of the new loan. — Times. 5. The genuine somewhat, merely tame, timid, undecided, conciliatory, or polite. 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.— Times. I am certain that the clergy themselves only too gladly acquiesce in this somewhat illogical division of labour. — Times. This, no doubt, is what Professor Ray Lankester is driving at in his somewhat intemperate onslaught. — Times. The rather mysterious visit of S. Tittoni, the Italian Foreign Minister, to Germany. — Times. These are of rather remarkable promise ; the head shows an unusual power of realizing character under a purely ideal conception. — Times. The rather finely conceived statuette called 'The Human Task' by Mr. Oliver Wheatley.- — Times. It is somewhat the fashion to say that in these days . . . — Times. A letter from one whose learning and experience entitle him to be heard, conceived, as I think, in a spirit of somewhat exaggerated pessimism. — Times. The statement made by the writer is somewhat open to doubt. — Times. 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. — Times. It would be valuable if he would somewhat expand his ideas regarding local defence by Volunteers. — Times. STYLE 355 Sir, — I have been somewhat interested in the recent correspondence in your columns. — Times. So many persons of undoubted integrity believe in ' dowsing * that he is a somewhat rash man who summarily dismisses the matter. — Times. Sir Francis Bertie, whose dislike of unnecessary publicity is somewhat pronounced. — Times. It is not too much to say that any one who hopes to write well had better begin by abjuring somewhat altogether. 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 distinctly than of the qualifier somewhat. The use meant is that seen in : The effect as the procession careers through the streets of Berlin is described as distinctly interesting. Distinctly gives the patronizing interest, as somewhat 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. 56. Clumsy Patching When a writer detects a fault in what he has written or thought of writing, his best course is to recast the whole sen- tence. The next best is to leave it alone. The worst is to patch it in such a w.ay 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. Numerous allegations, too, were made of prejudiced treatment measured- out against motorists by rural magistrates. — Times, (avoidance of the jingle in meted out to motorists) No crew proved to be of the very highest class ; but this, perhaps, led the racing to be on the whole close and exciting. — Times, (avoidance of the jingle in led to the racing being) The Lord Mayor last night entertained the Judges to a banquet at the Mansion House. — Times, (avoidance of double at) A a a 356 STYLE The occupants talked, inspected the cars of one another interchanged tales of . . . — Times, (avoidance, in grammatical pusillanimity, of one another's cars) . . . who have only themselves in view by breaking through it. — Richardson, (avoidance of double in) He nodded, as one who would say, ' I have already thought of that *.— Crockett, (avoidance of the archaism, which however is the only natural form, as who should say) It is now practically certain that the crews of Nebogatoff's squadron were in a state of mutiny, and that this is the explanation for the surrender (jf these vessels. — Times, (avoidance of double of) And for the first time after twenty years the Whigs saw themselves again in power. — J. R. Green. (Avoidance of double for; if after had been originally intended, we should have had at last instead of for the first time) And oppressive laws forced even these few with scant exceptions to profess Protestantism. — J. R. Green. (To avoid the repetition of few the affected word scant has been admitted) 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 bestial. — E. F. Benson. (To avoid the overdone word beastly— which however happens to be the right one here ; bestial describes character or conduct) There is, indeed, a kind of timorous atheism in the man who dares not trust God to render all efforts to interpret his Word — and what is criticism but interpretation? — work together for good.— Spectator. (Render is substituted for make because make efforts might be taken as complete without the work together that is due. Unfortunately, to render efforts work together is not even English at all) 57. Omission of the Conjunction 'that' This is quite legitimate, but often unpleasant. It is partly a matter of idiom, as, I presume you know, but / assume that you know ; partly of avoiding false scent, as in the sixth example below, where scheme might be object to discover. In particular it is undesirable to omit that when a long clause or phrase intervenes between it and the subject and verb it intro- duces, as in the first four examples. And it is to be hoped, as the tree-planting season has arrived, Stepney will now put its scheme in hand. — Times. STYLE 357 Sir, — We notice in a leading article in your issue to-day on the subject of the carriage of Australian mails you imply that the increased price demanded by the Orient Pacific Line was due to . . . — Times. Lord Balfour . . . moved that it is necessary, before the constituencies are asked to determine upon the desirability of such conference, they should be informed first . . . — Times. Lord Spencer held that it was impossible with regard to a question ■which had broken up the Government and disturbed the country they could go into a conference which . . . — Times. If the Australian is to be convinced that is an unreasonable wish, it will not be by arguments about taxation. — Times. I think he would discover the scheme unfolded and explained in them is a perfectly intelligible and comprehensive one. — Times. It is not till He cometh the ideal will be seen. — Times. And it is only by faith the evils you mention as productive of war can be cast out of our hearts. — Times. 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. — Times. I assume Turkey would require such a cash payment of at least ,£500,000. — Times. 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. — BORROW. In some of these the motive is obvious, to avoid one thai- clause depending on another ; the end was good, but the means bad ; a more thorough recasting was called for. 58. Meaningless 'while' While, originally temporal, has a legitimate use also in con- trasts. The further colourless use of it, whether with verb or with participle, as a mere elegant variation for and is very characteristic of journalese, and much to be deprecated. Of its value there can be no question. The editor's article on ' Constitu- tions ', for example, and that of Mr. W. Wyse on ' Law ' both well repay most careful study ; while when Sir R. Jebb writes on ' Literature ', Dr. Henry Jackson on ' Philosophy ', or Professor Waldstein on ' Sculpture ', their contributions must be regarded as authoritative. — Spectator. The fireman was killed on the spot, and the driver as well as the guard of the passenger train was slightly injured ; while the up-line was blocked for some time with de"bris from broken trucks of the goods train. — Times. 35% STYLE The deer on the island took some interest in the proceeding, while the peacocks on the lawn screamed at the right time. — Birmingham Daily Post. 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 ; while, if the company wish to discourage the use of cheap week-end tickets, why issue them at all ? — Times. 59. Commercialisms Certain uses of such, the same, and other words, redolent of commerce and the law, should be reserved for commercial and legal contexts. Anent, which has been noticed in Part I, is a legalism of this kind. In the Bronte instances quoted, a twang of flippancy will be observed ; the other writers are probably unconscious. This gentleman's state of mind was very harrowing, and I was glad when he wound up his exposition of the same. — C. Bronte. 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.— C. Bronte. There are certain books that almost defy classification, and this volume ... is one of such. — Daily Telegraph. I am pleased to read the correspondence in your paper, and hope that good will be the result of the same. — Daily Telegraph. 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. — Daily Telegraph. 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 ? — Daily Telegraph. But do the great majority of people let their belief in the hereafter affect their conduct with regard to the same. I think not. — Daily Telegraph. 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. — Daily Telegraph. 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. — Daily Telegraph. It is of course possible, in this connexion, that the Prayer Book is responsible for ' the same '. STYLE 359 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. Daily Telegraph. 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. — Daily Telegraph. An appeal to philanthropy is hardly necessary, the grounds for such being so self-evident. — Times. . . . 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. — Times. . . . regaling themselves on half-pints at the said village hostelries. — Borrow. Having read with much interest the letters re 'believe only' now appearing in the Daily Telegraph . . . — Daily Telegraph. He ruined himself and family by his continued experiments for the benefit of the British nation. — Times. 60. Pet Phrases 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. What- ever 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 Short History (1875). The temper of the first [King George] was that of a gentleman usher. p. 704. Bute was a mere court favourite, with the abilities of a gentleman usher, p. 742. ' For weeks', laughs Horace Walpole, ' it rained gold boxes ' p. 729. ' We are forced to ask every morning what victory there is ", laughed Horace Walpole. p. 737. The two following passages occur on pp. 6 and 81 of The Bride of Lammermoor (Standard Edition). 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. ' . . . but as for us, Caleb's excuses become longer as his diet turns more 360 STYLE 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.' 61. 'Also' as Conjunction; and '&c. ' Also is an adverb ; the use of it as a conjunction is slovenly, if not illiterate. We are giving these explanations gently as friends, also patiently as becomes neighbours. — Times. ' Special ' is a much overworked word, it being used to mean great in degree, also peculiar in kind. — R. G. WHITE. Mr. Sonnenschein's volume will show by parallel passages Shakespeare's obligations to the ancients, also the obligations of modern writers to Shakespeare. — Times. The use of &°c, except in business communications and such contexts, has often the same sort of illiterate effect. This is very common, but one example must suffice. There are others with faults of temper, &c, evident enough, beside whom we live content, as if the air about them did us good. — C. Bronte. INDEX In this index all references are to pages. Small italics are used f 01 words and phrases j small roman type for subjects incidentally mentioned ; capitals for subjects expressly, even if not fully, treated. A- 41-2. A between Adjective and Noun 329-30. Absolute Construction i i 5-6. Absolute construction and stops 222, 241-2, 265. Abstract Words 4, 5-6. Accent, Sentence 296-8. Acquiesce to 164. Acte de malveillance 30. Adjectival clause 235. Adjectival Clause in Punctu- ation 242-4. Adverb and Adverbial Clause in Punctuation 244-7. Adverbial clause 236. Adverse from 163. Aesthophysiology 23. Aggravate 59. Aggress 20. Aim to 132-3, 164. Airs and Graces, Cap. III. -al 22, 42. Albeit 17, 194, 196-7. Alit 39-40. Alliteration 292. Allusion 307-8. Alma mater 27. Almost quite 339. *ALSO, CON J., AND S-"C. 360. Altogether 11. Amateurs 127, 194. Ambiguity 345-8. Ambiguity 88, 109, 117, 120, 127, 142, 144-5, 2 5°. 264-5. Ambiguity and punctuation 264-5. Ambiguous Enumeration 348. Ambiguous Position 347-8. Amend, n. 38-9. Americanisms 23-6. A-moral 41-2. Amphitryon 174. Anachronism in thought 198, 200. And233~4, 245. And which 85-93. And who 85-93. Ane?it 3. Animatedly 47. Another story 175. Antagonize 4, 24, 26. Antecedentem scelesium 33. Antics "348-51. Antithesis 292, 350. Anyway 25. Appendicitis 19. Archaism 193-200. Archaism 17, 83, 103, 137. Archaism, positive and negative 198-200. Archaism, sustained 198-9. Argon 19. Arise 9. Arriire pensie 34. As also 189. As and while clauses, slovenly 189. • As, Case 62-4. As Clause, Causal 298-300. As far as, that 168-70. ^jz/156-7. As, Liberties with-324-6. As, Omission of 324. As to 166-7. AS TO WHETHER 333-4. 363 11NU.E.A As wlw should say 325-6. At anyrate 280. At the letter 33. Aught 194, 197. Au pied de la lettre 32. Automedon 174. Auxiliaries, Split 342-3. Avail 321. Available 43. Averse from 162-3. Avoidance, clumsy 17, 74, 125, 179, 217, 355-6, 357- Await 9. Awful 49-50. B Back-number 25. Back 0/25. Bagehot 210-2. Balance Inversion 1S2-7. Balfour 225, 249. Ballon d'essai 30. Banal 38-9. Banality 38-9. Bang in the eye 48. Bastard enumeration 25 1. Be and do 330. Beadnell2i9. Bedrock 51. Benefits 0/165. Besant 198. Bethink 9. Bitise 27. Between. . . or 328-9- Between two stools 327-8. Between you and 1 61. Bewilderedly 47. ^z>« etitendu 27. Z?/'£« 49. Birr el ling 5 1. Blooming 49-50. ^fl(7»z 52. Borrow, G. 13. ifo/A . . . as well as 313. Bounder 48 , 50. Bow-street 277. Brachylogy 326. Brackets & double dashes 272, 286. Brackets and Stops 270-1. Brisken, 21. Briticism 43. Bronte, C. 29, 358. Bureaucracy 46. Burke, E. III. .Swr, Superfluous 334. CW 50. Camaraderie 27. Careless Repetition 303-4. Carlyle 44, 349. Case 60-4. C«.fi? 6. Case after v45 and than 62-4. Case, Compound Possessive 64. Case Confusion 61-2. Case in absolute construction 1 1 5-6. Case in Apposition 60. Case of Complement 60. Case of Relatives 93-4, 99- 100. Causal as Clause 298-300. Cela va sans dire 31. Chamade 29. Chasseur 27, 37. Cherchez la femme 35. Chichi. Circumlocution 6. Circumlocution 165-70, 349. Claim 317-8. Climb down 51. Closure 23. Clumsy patching 355-6. Coastal 42. Colloquialisms 331. Colon 263-4. Colon, changed usage of 220, 222. Come into her life 215. Comma before that 236-7, 249-50. Comma between Independent Sentences 254-7. Comma, distinct functions 221-2. Comma misplaced 248-50. Comma, Unaccountable 262-3. Commas, illogical 241. Commas, unnecessary 232. Commercialisms 358-9. Common case 60. Common parts 314-6. Comparatives 70-4. Complacent 10. INDEX 3 6 3 Complaisant 10. Compositors 219, 230, 266, 273, 282. Compound passives 319-21. Compound possessive 04, 122-3. Compound verbs and inversion 184-6. Compound words 20. Comprehensively S. Comprise 12. Concision 18. Conditionals 156-8. Conditionals, Subjunctive 157-8. Conditionals, subjunctive 192-3, 195- Confusion with Negatives 321-3. Conjunctions, Compound 165- 70. Conjunctions, coordinating and sub- ordinating 63, 255. Consequential 17. Consist of or in 163-4. Content myself by 163. Contest, vb 12. Continuance 10. Continuation 10. Continuity 10. Contradictions in Terms 339- 41- Contumactty 45. Coordination of Relatives 85- 100. Copula, Number 65-7. Corelli 47. Cornering 51. Correctitude 21. Coute que coute 27-8. Criterion of rightness 3, 8, 41, 42, 165, 181, 347. Crockett 200. Cryptic 50. Cuibono? 35-6, 306. D Dans cette galere 32. Dashes 266-75. Dashes and Stops 269-75. Dashes, Debatable Questions 269-74- Dashes, Double 270-1. Dashes, Misuses 274-5. Dashes, Types 267-9. Dead metaphors 201-9. Decapitable Sentences 303. Defining Relatives 75-85. Defining relatives in punctuation 240-1, 242-4. Dijeuner 27. D-marche 30. Demean 16. Dementi 29-30. Demonstrative, Noun.and Par- ticiple or Adjective 344-5. Depend upon it 213. Dependable 43. Deplacemetit 21. Deprecate 12. Depreciate 12. De Quincey 80. Desultory 18. Detente 30. Determinedly 47. Differentiation 10, 11, 46, 85. Different to 162. Dilemma 208. Diplomatic French 29-30. Disagree from 163. Dishabille 37. Dispensable 43. Disposable 43. Distinction 3S-9. Distinction 217, 319. Distinctly 355. Distinguished 38-9. Distrait 27. Do as Substitute Verb 33°- Double dashes & brackets 272, 286. Double Emphasis 341. Double event 5 1 . Double Harness 31 1-4. Doubtful gender 67. Doubt that 158-60. Dovetailing 33, 30S-10. E Each 68. -edly 47. E.g. 311. Eirenicon 26. Either 69. Eke out 14-5. 3 6 4 UN Uh, A Elegant Variation 175-80. Elegant variation 30, 163, 211, 357. Eliot, George 171. Ellipse in Subordinate Clauses 317. Emblem, vb 5. Emerson 26, 43, 44, 217. Emphasis, Double 341. Emphatic Inversion 190-1. Employe 36. Endowed by 164. English, vb 2. Enjoinder 43-4. Ennui 26, 37. Entente 29-30. Entourage 30. Enumeration 250-4. Enumeration, Ambiguous 348. Envisage 7. Epithets, recherche 1 350. Epoch-making 31, 50. Equally as ?,y2.. Ere 2, 194, 196-7. Especial 11. Esprit d'escalier 32. .£7r., Slovenly 360. Euchred 51. Eudaemometer 23. Euphemism 12. Euphony 291-304. Euphony 46-7, 102, 104, 122, 132, 326 ; and punctuation 245. Euphony with relatives 84. Euphuism 12. Evasion 11. Excepting 46. Exclamation and Question 259-61. Exclamation Mark 258-62. Exclamation Mark, Internal 261-2. Exclamatory Inversion 181-2. Ex-Participles iio-i. Experimentalize 46. Exploit, vb 51. Exte77iporaneous 45. i^izz/j divers 28. i 67. On your own 51. Oppositely 44. Orient, vb 31. Originality, Cheap 217-S. Ornament 35, 215. Ostentation 27, 31, 349. 0«r and «w.r 40-1. Overloading 343-4. Over-stopping 231-4. Over-stopping 245, 262-3. Parenthesis 269, 270. Parenthesis 247-50. Parenthesis in Relative Clauses 94-5. Partially 45-6. Participle and Gerund 107-10, 119. Participles 110-6. Participles Absolute 115-6. Participles Unattached 112-5. Participles with my, &c. 111-2. Passive monstrosities 43. Passives, Compound 319-21. Patching, Clumsy 355-6. Paulo-post future 17. Pedantry 34, 42, 64, 129, 162. Penchant 27. Perchance 4, 196. Perfect Infinitive 154-6. Perfection, vb 44-5. Period 226. Perseverant 21-2. Personification 68. Perspicuity 8-9. Peter out 48. Pet Phrases 359-60. Phantasmagoria 35. Phase 5. Phenomenal 50. Philistine 50. Picturesque 350. Picturesquities 20. Placate. 24, 26. Playful Repetition 172-3. Play the game 51. Pleonasm, v. Redundancies. Poetic words 3, 349. Polysyllabic humour 51, 54. Polysyllabic Humour 171-2. Pontificalibus 33. Possessive, absolute 40-1. Possessive and Gerund 116-25. Possessive, Compound 64. Possessive, compound 122-3. Possible 318. Preciosity 2. Predication 13. Prediction 13. Preface 2. Prefer 318. Preposition at end of clause 62, 84, 99- Prepositions 161-70. Prepositions, Compound 165-70 ; Omitted 165 ; Repeated 293 ; Superfluous 165. Pretend 318. Preventative 46. Probable 318. Procession II. Promote 6. Pronominal variation 175. Proportion 300-3. Provided 13-4. Prudential 45. Psychological moment 50, 52. Punctuation, Cap. IV. Punctuation and ambiguity 264-5. Punctuation and neatness 284. Punctuation and relatives 78, 242-4. Punctuation, Difficulties 219- 24. Punctuation, full and slight 225. 3 68 llNUliA Punctuation, group system 228-31. Punctuation in scientific and philo- sophic work 225, 231. Punctuation, Logic, and Rhe- toric 220-5. Punctuation, Spot Plague 226- 31. Q Qua 29. Quand mime 27. Question and Exclamation 259-61. Question-mark, Internal 261- 62. Quieten 45 Quotation 305-11. Quotation, half-and-half, 237-8, 289. Quotation marks 280-90. Quotation marks and irony 216. Quotation marks and slang 48, 49, 50. Quotation marks and Stops 282-8. Quotation marks misplaced 288-9. Quotation marks, Single and Double 287-8. Quotation marks, superfluous 280- 82. Quotation, Trite 310-1. Quotations cut up 309-10. R Racial 22-3, 42. Railway names 276-7. Raison d'etre 26. Reader 2-3, 7, 36, 98, 210, 225, 228, 230, 231-3, 253, 268, 269, 280-1, 310, 347-8, 355. Reading aloud 296, 300. Recasting 64, 67, 120, 125, 177-8, 185, 226, 231, 232-3, 239, 241, 257, 284, 330, 35S-6, 357- Recliner 20. Record, adj. 51-2. Recrudescence 5, 15-6. Rectitudinous 20. Redaction 27. Redundancies 332-3. Regard 324. Regenesis 20. Regime 36. Relative and participle 327. Relative clauses and inversion 188. Relative Coordination 85-100. Relative, Miscellaneous Uses and Abuses 96-107. Relative, Omission of Prepo- sition 102-3. Relative omitted 101-2. Relatives 75-107. Relatives and punctuation 78, 242-4. Relatives, Case 93-4, 99-100. Relatives Defining and Non- Defining 75-85. Relatives, Parenthesis 94-5. Relatives, Sequence of 293-4. Reliable 42-3. Remindful 21. Repetition 209-13. Repetition, Careless 303-4. Repetition, Playful 172-3. Requisition 11. Research II. Resource 13. Reverend 8. Rhetoric 234, 236. Rhetorical repetition 209, 213. Rhetoric and Punctuation 220-5. Right along 25. Romance Words i. 3. Royal pronoun 178. Run the show 51. Said with inversion, 192. Same, the 358. Sans 27. Save 2-3, 196. Saxon Words i, 2-3, 7. Scandalum magnatum 34. Schadenfreude 27-8. Scott 174. Seasonable 43. Self-consciousness 351. Semicolon and independent sen- tences 255. Semicolon and Subordinate Clauses 257-8. INDEX 369 Semicolon, distinct functions of 222. Sense and sound 296. Sensibleness 44-5. Sentence 112, 254-5. Sentence Accent 296-8. Shall and will 133-54. Shall, archaic and literary 137, 153, 194-5. Short and Long Words 6-7. Shrimp-pink 25. Sic 90, 311. Signpost connexion 183, 184. Since several days 32. Skilled 17. Slang 47-53. Slang and idiom 53. Slang, Various Origins 49-51. Slang with quotation marks 48. Slating 5 1 . Smartness 351. Smollett in. So far as, that 168-70. Somewhat, &c. 352-5. S or dor 43. Sound and sense 296. Soupqon 27. Special 1 1 . Spencer 193. Spirit of the staircase 32. Split Auxiliaries 342-3. Split Infinitive 319. Spot-Plague 226-31. Standpoint 25. Stands to reason 213-4. Status quo 26. Stave 0^206-7. Steep (slang) 48. Sterne 266. Stevenson 198-9. Stops and tone symbols 220, 285. Street names 276-7. Stronger, adv. 40. Stumped 51. Style 348-end. Styles, various 7-8. Subject, &c, and Verb in Punc- tuation 239-42. Subjunctive 154, 157-8. Subjunctive conditionals 195. Substantival Clause in Punc- tuation 235-8, 265. Such 358-9. Such who, which, and that 103-4. Summerly 20. Superfluous but and though 334- Superlatives 74-5. Superlatives, Carlylese 349. Superlatives without the 216- i7- Super-sensitized 20. Superstitions 62, 99, 245, 266, 273, 319- Surprisedly 47. Syntax, Cap. II. Tache 28. Tackle 5 1. Take a back seat 51. Take it lying down 51. Take my word for it 213. Tautology 331-2. Tautology 56. Tear and wear 217-8. Telegram 19, 23. Tell-tale errors 21, 53, 56, 235, 254, 261, 308. Tete-a-tete 26. Thackeray 88, 198. Than, Case 62-4. Than whom 64. That and which 242-3. Tha t and which (who) 80-5. That (conjunction), Omission of 356-7. Tha t (relative) of PERSONS83-4. That resumptive 330-I. That, Sequence of 294-5. That's him 60. The exception proves, &c. 306. Their 67. The more 70-4. The more 218. Thereanent 29, 194. Therefore 265. Thereto 196. Theretofore 196. The same 358. The . . . that (resolved interroga- tive) 101. Thilhsr 5, 196. Bb 37° INDEX Those interested 344-5. Those sort 331. Though superfluous 334. Thrasonical 50, 52. Tinker with 164. Today 280. To have . . . 1 5 4-6. Tomorrow 280. Tone symbols and stops 285. To the foot of the letter 32. Transcendentally 10-11. Translate 2. Translation of Foreign Words 30-3. Transpire 4, 16, 24. Trite Phrases 213-5. Trite Quotation 310- 1. Trow 194. Truisms 339-41. Trust edly 47. Trustfulness 9. Types of Humour 171-5. U -tide 21. Unconscious to 161. Under dog 5 1. Under-stopping 234-5. Unequal Yokefellows, &c. 311- 14. Unique 58-9, 339. Unquiet, n. .21, Up to date 5 1 . Verbal noun 108. Verberant 20. yexedly 47. Vide 311. Vieille escrime 28. Vieilles perruques 28- Vieuxjeu 28. Violence n. Vividity 46-7. Vocabulary, Cap. I. Vocabulary, General Rules 1-4. Vocabulary, prose and poetry 3. Vulgarism 103, 118. Vulgarisms 331. W Waddle 25. Walking stick 276. War-famous 20. Wens and HypertrophiedMem- BERS 3OO-3. Were 157-8. What, antecedent-relative 100-1. What ever . . .? 331. Whatever . . . ? 331. What, relative and interrogative IOO-I. Whereof '196. While and as clauses, slovenly 189, While, Meaningless 357-8. Whimsical 42. Who and whom 61. Whole-hogging 5 1 . 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