How to Speak and Write Correctly Part 17

Here are a few authors' slips:--

"The terms in which the sale of a patent _were_ communicated to the public."--Junius's _Letters_.

"The richness of her arms and apparel _were_ conspicuous."--Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_.

"Everyone of this grotesque family _were_ the creatures of national genius."--D'Israeli.

"He knows not what spleen, languor or listlessness _are_."--Blair's _Sermons_.

"Each of these words _imply_, some pursuit or object relinquished."

--_Ibid_.

"Magnus, with four thousand of his supposed accomplices _were_ put to death."--_Gibbon_.

"No nation gives greater encouragements to learning than we do; yet at the same time _none are_ so injudicious in the application."

--_Goldsmith_.

"_There's two_ or _three_ of us have seen strange sights."--_Shakespeare_.

The past participle should not be used for the past tense, yet the learned Byron overlooked this fact. He thus writes in the _Lament of Ta.s.so_:--

"And with my years my soul _begun to pant_ With feelings of strange tumult and soft pain."

Here is another example from Savage's _Wanderer_ in which there is double sinning:

"From liberty each n.o.bler science _sprung_, A Bacon brighten'd and a Spenser _sung_."

Other breaches in regard to the participles occur in the following:--

"Every book ought to be read with the same spirit and in the same manner as it is _writ_"--Fielding's _Tom Jones_.

"The Court of Augustus had not _wore_ off the manners of the republic"

--Hume's _Essays_.

"Moses tells us that the fountains of the earth were _broke_ open or clove asunder."--Burnet.

"A free const.i.tution when it has been _shook_ by the iniquity of former administrations."--_Bolingbroke_.

"In this respect the seeds of future divisions were _sowed_ abundantly."

--_Ibid_.

In the following example the present participle is used for the infinitive mood:

"It is easy _distinguis.h.i.+ng_ the rude fragment of a rock from the splinter of a statue."--Gilfillan's _Literary Portraits_.

_Distinguis.h.i.+ng_ here should be replaced by _to distinguish_.

The rules regarding _shall_ and _will_ are violated in the following:

"If we look within the rough and awkward outside, we _will_ be richly rewarded by its perusal."--Gilfillan's _Literary Portraits_.

"If I _should_ declare them and speak of them, they should be more than I am able to express."--_Prayer Book Revision of Psalms XI_.

"If I _would_ declare them and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered."--_Ibid_.

"Without having attended to this, we _will_ be at a loss, in understanding several pa.s.sages in the cla.s.sics."--Blair's _Lectures_.

"We know to what cause our past reverses have been owing and _we_ will have ourselves to blame, if they are again incurred."--Alison's _History of Europe_.

Adverbial mistakes often occur in the best writers. The adverb _rather_ is a word very frequently misplaced. Archbishop Trench in his "English Past and Present" writes, "It _rather_ modified the structure of our sentences than the elements of our vocabulary." This should have been written,--"It modified the structure of our sentences _rather than_ the elements of our vocabulary."

"So far as his mode of teaching goes he is _rather_ a disciple of Socrates than of St. Paul or Wesley." Thus writes Leslie Stephens of Dr.

Johnson. He should have written,--" So far as his mode of teaching goes he is a disciple of Socrates _rather_ than of St. Paul or Wesley."

The preposition is a part of speech which is often wrongly used by some of the best writers. Certain nouns, adjectives and verbs require particular prepositions after them, for instance, the word _different_ always takes the preposition _from_ after it; _prevail_ takes _upon_; _averse_ takes _to_; _accord_ takes _with_, and so on.

In the following examples the prepositions in parentheses are the ones that should have been used:

"He found the greatest difficulty _of_ (in) writing."--Hume's _History of England_.

"If policy can prevail _upon_ (over) force."--_Addison_.

"He made the discovery and communicated _to_ (with) his friends."

--Swift's _Tale of a Tub_.

"Every office of command should be intrusted to persons _on_ (in) whom the parliament shall confide."--_Macaulay_.

Several of the most celebrated writers infringe the canons of style by placing prepositions at the end of sentences. For instance Carlyle, in referring to the Study of Burns, writes:--"Our own contributions to it, we are aware, can be but scanty and feeble; but we offer them with good will, and trust they may meet with acceptance from those they are intended _for_."

--"for whom they are intended," he should have written.

"Most writers have some one vein which they peculiarly and obviously excel _in_."--_William Minto_.

This sentence should read,--Most writers have some one vein in which they peculiarly and obviously excel.

Many authors use redundant words which repeat the same thought and idea.

This is called tautology.

"Notwithstanding which (however) poor Polly embraced them all around."

--_d.i.c.kens_.

"I judged that they would (mutually) find each other."--_Crockett_.

"....as having created a (joint) partners.h.i.+p between the two Powers in the Morocco question."--_The Times_.

"The only sensible position (there seems to be) is to frankly acknowledge our ignorance of what lies beyond."--_Daily Telegraph_.

"Lord Rosebery has not budged from his position--splendid, no doubt,--of (lonely) isolation."--_The Times_.