SYNTAX
CASE
There is not much opportunity in English for going wrong here, because
we have shed most of our cases. The personal pronouns, and _who_ and
its compounds, are the only words that visibly retain three--called
subjective, objective, possessive. In nouns the first two are
indistinguishable, and are called the common case. One result of this
simplicity is that, the sense of case being almost lost, the few
mistakes that can be made are made often--some of them so often that
they are now almost right by prescription.
1. In apposition.
A pronoun appended to a noun, and in the same relation to the rest of
the sentence, should be in the same case. Disregard of this is a bad
blunder.
But to behold her mother--_she_ to whom she owed her being!--S.
FERRIER.
2. The complement with _am_, _are_, _is_, &c., should be subjective.
I am she, she _me_, till death and beyond it.--MEREDITH.
_Whom_ would you rather be?
To how many maimed and mourning millions is the first and sole angel
visitant, _him_ Easterns call Azrael.--C. BRONTË.
That’s _him_.
In the last but one, _him_ would no doubt have been defended by the
writer, since the full form would be _he whom_, as an attraction to
the vanished _whom_. But such attraction is not right; if _he_ alone
is felt to be uncomfortable, _whom_ should not be omitted; or, in this
exalted context, it might be _he that_.
On _that’s him_, see 4, below.
3. When a verb or preposition governs two pronouns united by _and_,
&c., the second is apt to go wrong--a bad blunder. _Between you and I_
is often heard in talk; and, in literature:
And now, my dear, let you and _I_ say a few words about this
unfortunate affair.--TROLLOPE.
It is kept locked up in a marble casket, quite out of reach of you or
_I_.--S. FERRIER.
She found everyone’s attention directed to Mary, and _she_ herself
entirely overlooked.--S. FERRIER.
4. The interrogative _who_ is often used for _whom_, as, _Who_ did you
see? A distinction should here be made between conversation, written or
spoken, and formal writing. Many educated people feel that in saying
_It is I, Whom do you mean?_ instead of _It’s me, Who do you mean?_
they will be talking like a book, and they justifiably prefer geniality
to grammar. But in print, unless it is dialogue, the correct forms are
advisable.
5. Even with words that have no visible distinction between subjective
and objective case, it is possible to go wrong; for the case can always
be inferred, though not seen. Consequently a word should never be so
placed that it must be taken twice, once as subject and once as object.
This is so common a blunder that it will be well to give a good number
of examples. It occurs especially with the relative, from its early
position in the sentence; but, as the first two examples show, it may
result from the exceptional placing of other words also. The mere
repetition of the relative, or insertion of _it_ or other pronoun,
generally mends the sentence; in the first example, change _should only
be_ to _only to be_.
_The occupation of the mouths of the Yalu_, however, his Majesty
considered undesirable, and should only be carried out in the last
resort.--_Times._
_This_ the strong sense of Lady Maclaughlan had long perceived, and
was the principal reason of her selecting so weak a woman as her
companion.--S. FERRIER.
Qualities _which_ it would cost me a great deal to acquire, and would
lead to nothing.--MORLEY.
A recorded saying of our Lord _which_ some higher critics of the New
Testament regard as of doubtful authenticity, and is certainly of
doubtful interpretation.
A weakness _which_ some would miscall gratitude, and is oftentimes the
corrupter of a heart not ignoble.--RICHARDSON.
Analogous to these are the next three examples, which will require
separate comment:
Knowledge _to_ the certainty of which no authority could add, or take
away, one jot or tittle.--HUXLEY.
_To_ is applicable to _add_, not to _take away_. The full form is given
by substituting for _or_ ‘and from the certainty of which no authority
could’. This is clearly too cumbrous. Inserting _or from_ after _to_
is the simplest correction; but the result is rather formal. Better,
perhaps, ‘the certainty of which could not be increased or diminished
one jot by any authority’.
From his conversation I should have pronounced him to be fitted to
excel _in_ whatever walk of ambition he had chosen to exert his
abilities.
A second _in_ is required. This common slovenliness results from the
modern superstition against putting a preposition at the end. The
particular sentence may, however, be mended otherwise than by inserting
_in_, if _excel_ is made absolute by a comma placed after it. Even
then, the _in_ would perhaps be better at the end of the clause than at
the beginning.
Lastly may be mentioned a principle _upon which_ Clausewitz insisted
with all his strength, and could never sufficiently impress upon his
Royal scholar.--_Times._
The italicized _upon_ (we have nothing to do with the other _upon_) is
right with _insist_, but wrong, though it must necessarily be supplied
again, with _impress_. It is the result of the same superstition. Mend
either by writing _upon_ after _insisted_ instead of before _which_, or
by inserting _which he_ after _and_.
6. After _as_ and _than_.
These are properly conjunctions and ‘take the same case after them as
before’. But those words must be rightly understood. (a), _I love you
more than him_, means something different from (b), _I love you more
than he_. It must be borne in mind that the ‘case before’ is that of
the word that is compared with the ‘case after’, and not necessarily
that of the word actually next before in position. In (a) _you_ is
compared with _him_: in (b) _I_ (not _you_) is compared with _he_. The
correct usage is therefore important, and the tendency illustrated in
the following examples to make _than_ and _as_ prepositions should be
resisted--though no ambiguity can actually result here.
When such as _her_ die.--SWIFT.
But there, I think, Lindore would be more eloquent than _me_.--S.
FERRIER.
It must further be noticed that both _as_ and _than_ are conjunctions
of the sort that can either, like _and_, &c., merely join coordinates,
or, like _when_, &c., attach a subordinate clause to what it depends
on. This double power sometimes affects case.
It is to him and such men as _he_ that we owe the change.--HUXLEY.
This example is defensible, _as_ being here a subordinating
conjunction, and _as he_ being equivalent to _as he is_. But it is
distinctly felt to need defence, which _as him_ would not; _as_ would
be a coordinating conjunction, and simply join the pronoun _him_ to the
noun _men_. So, with _than_:
Such as have bound me, as well as others much better than _me_, by an
inviolable attachment to him from that time forward.--BURKE.
On the other hand, we could not say indifferently, _I am as good as
he_, and _I am as good as him_; the latter would imply that _as_ was a
preposition, which it is not. And it is not always possible to choose
between the coordinating and the subordinating use. In the next example
only the coordinating will do, no verb being capable of standing after
_he_; but the author has not observed this.
I beheld a man in the dress of a postillion, whom I instantly
recognized as _he_ to whom I had rendered assistance.--BORROW.
A difficult question, however, arises with relatives after _than_.
In the next two examples _whom_ is as manifestly wrong as _who_ is
manifestly intolerable:
Dr. Dillon, than _whom_ no Englishman has a profounder acquaintance
with....--_Times._
It was a pleasure to hear Canon Liddon, than _whom_, in his day, there
was no finer preacher.
The only correct solution is to recast the sentences. For instance,
_... whose acquaintance with ... is unrivalled among Englishmen_; and
_... unsurpassed in his day as a preacher_. But perhaps the convenience
of _than whom_ is so great that to rule it out amounts to saying that
man is made for grammar and not grammar for man.
7. Compound possessives.
This is strictly the proper place for drawing attention to a question
that has some importance because it bears on the very common
construction discussed at some length in the gerund section. This is
the question whether, and to what extent, compound possessives may be
recognized. Some people say _some one else’s_, others say _some one’s
else_. Our own opinion is that the latter is uncalled for and pedantic.
Of the three alternatives, _Smith the baker’s wife_, _Smith’s wife
the baker_, _the wife of Smith the baker_, the last is unmitigated
Ollendorff, the second thrusts its ambiguity upon us and provokes an
involuntary smile, and the first alone is felt to be natural. It must
be confessed, however, that it is generally avoided in print, while the
form that we have ventured to call pedantic is not uncommon. In the
first of the examples that follow, we should be inclined to change to
_Nanny the maid-of-all-work’s_, and in the second to _the day of Frea,
goddess of_, &c.
Another mind that was being wrought up to a climax was Nanny’s, the
maid-of-all-work, who had a warm heart.--ELIOT.
Friday is Frea’s-day, the goddess of peace and joy and
fruitfulness.--J. R. GREEN.
NUMBER
Very little comment will be needed; we have only to convince readers
that mistakes are common, and caution therefore necessary.
1. The copula should always agree with the subject, not with the
complement. These are wrong:
The _pages_ which describe how the 34th Osaka Regiment wiped out the
tradition that had survived since the Saigo rebellion _is_ a typical
_piece_ of description.--_Times._
A _boy_ dressed up as a girl _and a girl_ dressed up as a girl _is_,
to the eye at least, the same _thing_.--_Times._
People do not believe now as they did, but the moral _inconsistencies_
of our contemporaries _is_ no _proof_ thereof.--_Daily Telegraph._
It must be remembered that in questions the subject often comes after
the verb and the complement before it; but the same rule must be kept.
E. g., if the last example were put as a question instead of as a
negative statement, ‘What proof _is_ the inconsistencies?’ would be
wrong, and ‘What proof _are_ &c.?’ right.
* * * * *
Some sentences in which the subject contains _only_, a superlative,
&c., have the peculiarity that subject and complement may almost be
considered to have changed places; and this defence would probably be
put in for the next three examples; but, whether actually wrong or not,
they are unpleasant. The noun that stands before the verb should be
regarded as the subject, and the verb be adapted to it.
The only _thing_ Siamese about the Consul, except the hatchment and
the flag, _were_ his _servants_.--SLADEN.
The only _difficulty_ in Finnish _are_ the _changes_ undergone by the
stem.--SWEET.
The most pompous _monument_ of Egyptian greatness, and _one_ of the
most bulky works of manual industry, _are_ the pyramids.--JOHNSON.
The next example is a curious problem; the subject to _were_ is in
sense plural, but in grammar singular (_finding_, verbal noun):
_Finding_ Miss Vernon in a place so solitary, engaged in a journey
so dangerous, and under the protection of one gentleman only, _were
circumstances_ 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 something 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
government _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.
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 awkwardness. It is a
real deficiency in English that we have no pronoun, like the French
_soi_, _son_, to stand for _him-or-her_, _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.
_Anybody_ else who _have_ only _themselves_ in view.--RICHARDSON. (has
... himself)
Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte, 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 pronominals, 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, Azidayé 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_.
_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
considering 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 Judges of the High Court _are_
represented here.--LORD HALSBURY.
_Every_ Warwick institution, from the corporation to the
schools and the almshouses, _have_ joined hands in patriotic
fellow-working.--_Speaker._
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
_misconceptions_.--_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 we advance we see
confusion more 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. (2) 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 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 when a _than_-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 _than_-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._
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
... for going_ (or _that I go_) _to church only once where twenty years
ago I went ten times_. Unless the _than_-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 everybody says are not good enough for you?’ is bad
policy; ‘in vitium ducit culpae fuga si caret arte.’ But if a way
round presents itself that does not at once suggest an assumption of
superiority, so much the better.
1. _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_not_ help. To say
that, however, is by this time impossible. More than he need, if (when)
he can help it, too much, unnecessarily, and other substitutes, will
sometimes do.
2. _Most of any_ (singular).
A political despotism, the most unbounded, both in power and
principle, of any tyranny that ever existed so long.--GALT.
She has the most comfortable repository of stupid friends to have
recourse to of anybody I ever knew.--S. FERRIER.
And they had the readiest ear for a bold, honourable sentiment, of any
class of men the world ever produced.--STEVENSON.
Latin at any rate should be an essential ingredient in culture as the
best instrument of any language for clear and accurate expression of
thought.--_Times._
The first chapter, which from the lessons it enforces is perhaps the
most valuable of any in the present volume....--SIR G. T. GOLDIE.
Disraeli said that he had ‘the largest parliamentary knowledge of any
man he had met’.--BRYCE.
Though this is extremely common, as the examples are enough to show,
there is seldom any objection to saying either _most of all_ or _more
than any_.
3. _Most_ with words that do not admit of degrees.
_Unique_ has been separately dealt with in the chapter on _Vocabulary_.
_Ideal_ is another word of the same sort; _an ideal solution_ is one
that could not possibly be improved upon, and _most_ is nonsense with
it; _an ideal and most obvious_ should be read in the example:
That the transformation of the Regular Army into the general service
Army and of the Militia into the home service Army is a most ideal and
obvious solution admits, I think, of no contradiction.--_Times._
RELATIVES
=a. Defining and non-defining relative clauses.=
For the purposes of b. and c. below, all relative clauses are divided
into defining and non-defining. The exact sense in which we use these
terms is illustrated by the following groups, of which (i) contains
defining clauses, (ii) non-defining.
(i) The man who called yesterday left no address.
Mr. Lovelace has seen divers apartments at Windsor: but not one, he
says, that he thought fit for me.--RICHARDSON.
He secured ... her sincere regard, by the feelings which he
manifested.--THACKERAY.
The Jones who dines with us to-night is not the Jones who was at
school with you.
The best novel that Trollope ever wrote was....
Any man that knows three words of Greek could settle that point.
(ii) At the first meeting, which was held yesterday, the chair....
Deputies must be elected by the Zemstvos, which must be extended and
popularized, but not on the basis of....--_Times._
The Emperor William, who was present ..., listened to a loyal
address.--_Times._
The statue of the Emperor Frederick, which is the work of the sculptor
Professor Uphnes, represents the Monarch on horseback.--_Times._
Jones, who should know something of the matter, thinks differently.
The function of a defining relative clause is to limit the application
of the antecedent; where that is already precise, a defining clause
is not wanted. The limitation can be effected in more than one way,
according to the nature of the antecedent. As a rule, the antecedent
gives us a class to select from, the defining clause enables us to make
the selection. Thus in our first example the antecedent leaves us to
select from the general class of ‘men’, the defining clause fixes the
particular man (presumably the only man, or the only man that would
occur in the connexion) ‘who called yesterday’. Sometimes, however, the
functions of the two are reversed. When we have an antecedent with a
superlative, or other word of exclusive or comprehensive meaning, such
as ‘all’, ‘only’, ‘any’, we know already how to make our selection,
and only wait for the relative clause to tell us from what class to
make it. We know that we are to choose ‘the best novel’: the relative
clause limits us to the works of Trollope. We are to choose ‘any man’
we like, provided (says our relative clause) that he ‘knows three
words of Greek’. In either case, the work of definition is done by the
exclusion (implied in the relative clause) of persons or things that
the antecedent by itself might be taken to include.
The point to notice is that, whichever way the defining clause does its
work, it is essential to and inseparable from its antecedent. If for
any reason we wish to get rid of it, we can only do so by embodying its
contents in the antecedent: ‘The man in Paris with whom I correspond’
must become ‘My Paris correspondent’. To remove the clause altogether
is to leave the antecedent with either no meaning or a wrong one. Even
in such extreme cases as ‘the wisest man that ever lived’, ‘the meanest
flower that blows’, where the defining clause may seem otiose and
therefore detachable, we might claim that future wise men, and past and
future flowers, are excluded; but we shall better realize the writer’s
intention if we admit that these clauses are only a pretence of
limitation designed to exclude the reality; it is as if the writers,
invited to set limits to their statements, had referred us respectively
to Time and Space.
This fact, that the removal of a defining clause destroys the meaning
of the antecedent, supplies an infallible test for distinguishing
between the defining and the non-defining clause: the latter can
always, the former never, be detached without disturbing the truth of
the main predication. A non-defining clause gives independent comment,
description, explanation, anything but limitation of the antecedent;
it can always be rewritten either as a parenthesis or as a separate
sentence, and this is true, however essential the clause may be to the
point of the main statement. ‘Jones’, in our last example above, is
quoted chiefly as one ‘who should know something of the matter’; but
this need not prevent us from writing: ‘Jones thinks differently; and
he should know something of the matter’.
To find, then, whether a clause defines or does not define, remove it,
and see whether the statement of which it formed a part is unaltered:
if not, the clause defines. This test can be applied without difficulty
to all the examples given above. It is true that we sometimes get
ambiguous cases: after removing the relative clause, we cannot always
say whether the sense has been altered or not. That means, however,
not that our test has failed, but that the clause is actually capable
of performing either function, and that the main sentence can bear
two distinct meanings, between which even context may not enable us
to decide. The point is illustrated, in different degrees, by the
following examples:
Mr. H. Lewis then brought forward an amendment, which had been put
down by Mr. Trevelyan and which provided for an extension of the
process of income-tax graduation.--_Times._
This was held to portend developments that somehow or other have not
followed.--_Times._
The former of these is quite ambiguous. The bringing forward of an
amendment (no matter what or whose) may be all that the writer meant
to tell us of in the first instance; the relative clauses are then
non-defining clauses of description. On the other hand, both clauses
may quite well be meant to define; and it is even possible that the
second is meant to define, and the first not, though the coordination
is then of a kind that we shall show under c. to be improper.
Similarly, in the second sentence, ‘to portend developments’ may
possibly be complete in itself; the whole might then be paraphrased
thus: ‘It was thought that the matter would not stop there: but it
has’. More probably the clause is meant to define: ‘It was held to
portend what have since proved to be unrealized developments’. This
view is confirmed, as we shall see, both by the use of ‘that’ (not
‘which’) and by the absence of a comma before it.
Punctuation is a test that would not always be applicable even if all
writers could be assumed to punctuate correctly; but it is often a
guide to the writer’s intention. For (1) a non-defining clause should
always be separated from the antecedent by a stop; (2) a defining
clause should never be so separated unless it is either preceded by a
parenthesis indicated by stops, or coordinated with a former defining
clause or with adjectives belonging to the antecedent; as in the
following examples:
The only circumstance, in fact, that could justify such a course....
It is he only who does this, who follows them into all their force and
matchless grace, that does or can feel their full value.--HAZLITT.
Perfect types, that satisfy all these requirements, are not to be
looked for.
It will occur to the reader that our last two examples are strictly
speaking exceptions to the rule of defining clauses, since they tell us
only what is already implied, and could therefore be removed without
impairing the sense. That is true to some extent of many parallel
defining clauses: they are admissible, however, if, without actually
giving any limitation themselves, they make more clear a limitation
already given or implied; if, in fact, they are offered as alternative
versions or as reminders. Our next example is of a defining clause of
the same kind:
This estimate which he gives, is the great groundwork of his plan for
the national redemption.--BURKE.
The limitation given by ‘this’ is repeated in another form by the
relative clause. ‘This estimate, the one he gives, is....’
The reader should bear in mind that the distinction between the two
kinds of relative is based entirely on the closeness of their relation
to the antecedent. The information given by a defining clause must be
taken at once, with the antecedent, or both are useless: that given by
a non-defining clause will keep indefinitely, the clause being complete
in sense without the antecedent, and the antecedent without the clause.
This is the only safe test. To ask, for instance, whether the clause
conveys comment, explanation, or the like, is not a sufficient test
unless the question is rightly understood; for, although we have said
that a non-defining clause conveys comment and the like, as opposed
to definition of the antecedent, it does not follow that a defining
clause may not (while defining its own antecedent) _contribute_ towards
comment; on the contrary, it is often open to a writer to throw his
comment into such a form as will include a defining clause. It may even
appear from a comparison of the two sentences below that this is the
origin of the non-defining clause, (2) being an abbreviation of (1):
1. Lewis, a man to whom hard work never came amiss, sifted the
question thoroughly.
2. Lewis, to whom hard work never came amiss, sifted the question....
In (1), a comment is introduced by ‘a man’ in apposition with Lewis; ‘a
man’ is antecedent to a defining relative clause; separate them, and
the antecedent is meaningless. But next remove the connecting words ‘a
man’, and the relative changes at once its antecedent and its nature:
the antecedent is ‘Lewis’; the relative is non-defining; and the
clause _is_ a comment, and does not merely contribute to one.
=b. ‘That’ and ‘who’ or ‘which’.=
‘That’ is evidently regarded by many writers as nothing more than
an ornamental variation for ‘who’ and ‘which’, to be used, not
indeed immoderately, but quite without discrimination. The opinion
is excusable; it is not easy to draw any distinction that is at all
consistently supported by usage. There was formerly a tendency to use
‘that’ for everything: the tendency now is to use ‘who’ and ‘which’
for everything. ‘That’, from disuse, has begun to acquire an archaic
flavour, which with some authors is a recommendation. De Quincey, for
one, must certainly have held that in exalted prose ‘that’, in all
connexions, was the more dignified relative; his higher flights abound
in curious uses of the word, some instances of which are quoted below.
This confusion is to be regretted; for although no distinction can
be authoritatively drawn between the two relatives, an obvious one
presents itself. The few limitations on ‘that’ and ‘who’ about which
every one is agreed all point to ‘that’ as the defining relative,
‘who’ or ‘which’ as the non-defining. We cannot say ‘My father, that
left Berlin last night, will shortly arrive’, and an examination of
instances would show that we can never use ‘that’ where the clause is
unmistakably non-defining. On the other hand, we cannot say ‘All which
I can do is useless’; this time, it is true, the generalization will
not hold; ‘which’ can, and sometimes must, be used, and ‘who’ commonly
is used, in defining clauses. But that is explained partly by the
obvious inconvenience sometimes attending the use of ‘that’, and partly
by the general tendency to exclude it from regular use, which has
already resulted in making it seem archaic when used of persons, except
in certain formulae.
The rules given below are a modification of this principle, that
‘that’ is the defining, ‘who’ or ‘which’ the non-defining relative;
the reason for each modification is given in its place. We must here
remind the reader of the distinction drawn in a. between defining and
non-defining clauses: a defining clause limits the application of the
antecedent, enabling us to select from the whole class to which the
antecedent is applicable the particular individual or individuals meant.
1. ‘That’ should never be used to introduce a non-defining clause; it
is therefore improperly used in all the following examples:
But by her side was kneeling her better angel, that hid his face with
wings: that wept and pleaded for her: that prayed when she could not:
that fought with Heaven by tears for her deliverance.--DE QUINCEY.
Rendering thanks to God in the highest--that, having hid his face
through one generation behind thick clouds of war, once again was
ascending.--DE QUINCEY.
And with my own little stock of money besides, that Mrs. Hoggarty’s
card-parties had lessened by a good five-and-twenty shillings, I
calculated....--THACKERAY.
How to keep the proper balance between these two testy old wranglers,
that rarely pull the right way together, is as much....--MEREDITH.
Nataly promised amendment, with a steely smile, that his lips mimicked
fondly.--MEREDITH.
It is opposed to our Constitution, that only allows the Crown to
remove a Norwegian Civil servant.--NANSEN.
I cannot but feel that in my person and over my head you desire to pay
an unexampled honour to the great country that I represent, to its
Bench and Bar, that daily share your labours and keep step with your
progress.--CHOATE.
‘That I represent’ is right: ‘that daily share’ is wrong.
As to dictionaries of the present day, that swell every few years
by the thousand items, the presence of a word in one of them shows
merely....--R. G. WHITE.
The sandy strip along the coast is fed only by a few scanty streams,
that furnish a remarkable contrast to the vast volumes of water which
roll down the Eastern sides.--PRESCOTT.
‘That’ and ‘which’ should change places.
The social and economic sciences, that now specially interest me, have
no considerable place in such a reform.--_Times._
If this is a defining clause, excluding ‘the social and economic
sciences that’ do _not_ interest the writer, the comma after ‘sciences’
should be removed.
2. ‘Who’ or ‘which’ should not be used in defining clauses except when
custom, euphony, or convenience is decidedly against the use of ‘that’.
The principal exceptions will be noted below; but we shall first give
instances in which ‘that’ is rightly used, and others in which it might
have been used with advantage.
In those highly impressionable years that lie between six and
ten....--_Spectator._
The obstacles that hedge in children from Nature....--_Spectator._
The whole producing an effect that is not without a certain
poetry.--_Times._
He will do anything that he deems convenient.--BORROW.
The well-staffed and well-equipped ‘High Schools’ that are now at work
... had not yet sprung into being.--_Times._
Then, Sir, you keep up revenue laws which are mischievous, in order to
preserve trade laws that are useless.--BURKE.
‘That’ should have been used in both clauses.
The struggle that lay before him.--J. R. GREEN.
There goes another sort of animal that is differentiating from my
species....--H. G. WELLS.
There are other powers, too, that could perform this grateful but
onerous duty.--_Times._
In the following examples, ‘that’ is to be preferred to ‘which’;
especially with antecedent ‘it’, and after a superlative or other word
of exclusive or comprehensive meaning, such as ‘all’, ‘only’, ‘any’.
The opportunities which London has given them.--_Times._
The principles which underlay the agreement.--_Times._
One cause which surely contributes to this effect has its root in
early childhood.--_Spectator._
A meeting which was held yesterday, which consisted in the main of a
bitter personal attack.--ROSEBERY.
‘Which consisted’ is right: but we should have ‘that was held’; the
clause defines.
The first thing which the person who desires to be amiable must
determine to do is....--_Spectator._
The most abominable din and confusion which it is possible for a
reasonable person to conceive.--POE.
Reverential objections, composed of all which his unstained family
could protest.--MEREDITH.
He required all the solace which he could derive from literary
success.--MACAULAY.
All the evidence which we have ever seen tends to prove....--MACAULAY.
A battle more bloody than any which Europe saw in the long interval
between Malplaquet and Eylau.--MACAULAY.
The only other biography which counts for much is....--_Times._
The French Government are anxious to avoid anything which might be
regarded as a breach of neutrality.--_Times._
It was the ecclesiastical synods which by their example led the way to
our national parliaments.--J. R. GREEN.
It is the little threads of which the inner substance of the nerves is
composed which subserve sensation.--HUXLEY.
‘Of which’ in a defining clause is one of the recognized exceptions;
but we ought to have ‘that subserve’.
It is not wages and costs of handling which fall, but profits and
rents.--_Times._
It has been French ports which have been chosen for the beginning and
for the end of his cruise.--_Times._
Who is it who talks about moral geography?--E. F. BENSON.
3. We come now to the exceptions. The reader will have noticed that of
all the instances given in (2) there is only one--the last--in which we
recommend the substitution of ‘that’ for ‘who’; in all the others, it
is a question between ‘that’ and ‘which’. ‘That’, used of persons, has
in fact come to look archaic: the only cases in which it is now to be
preferred to ‘who’ are those mentioned above as particularly requiring
‘that’ instead of ‘which’; those, namely, in which the antecedent is
‘it’, or has attached to it a superlative or other word of exclusive
meaning. We should not, therefore, in the _Spectator_ instance above,
substitute ‘the person that desires’ for ‘who desires’; but we should
say
The most impartial critic that could be found.
The only man that I know of.
Any one that knows anything knows this.
It was you that said so.
Who is it that talks about moral geography?
Outside these special types, ‘that’ used of persons is apt to sound
archaic.
4. It will also have been noticed that all the relatives in (2)
were either in the subjective case, or in the objective without
a preposition. ‘That’ has no possessive case, and cannot take a
preposition before it. Accordingly ‘the man that I found the hat of’
will of course give place to ‘the man whose hat I found’; and ‘the
house in which this happened’ will generally be preferred to ‘the
house that this happened in’. The latter tendency is modified in the
spoken language by the convenient omission of ‘that’; for always in
a defining clause, though never in a non-defining, a relative in the
objective case, with or without a preposition, can be dropped. But few
writers like, as a general rule, either to drop their relatives or to
put prepositions at the end. ‘The friends I was travelling with’, ‘the
book I got it from’, ‘the place I found it in’, will therefore usually
appear as
The friends with whom I was travelling.
The book from which I got it.
The place in which I found it.
5. Euphony demands that ‘that that’ should become ‘that which’, even
when the words are separated; and many writers, from a feeling that
‘which’ is the natural correlative of the demonstrative ‘that’, prefer
the plural ‘those which’; but the first example quoted in (2) seems to
show that ‘those ... that’ can be quite unobjectionable.
6. A certain awkwardness seems to attend the use of ‘that’ when the
relative is widely separated from its antecedent. When, for instance,
two relative clauses are coordinate, some writers use ‘that’ in the
first, ‘which’ in the second clause, though both define. This point
will be illustrated in c., where we shall notice that inconsistency in
this respect sometimes obscures the sense.
It may seem to the reader that a rule with so many exceptions to it
is not worth observing. We would remind him (i) that it is based upon
those palpable misuses of the relatives about which every one is
agreed; (ii) that of the exceptions the first and last result from,
and might disappear with, the encroachment of ‘who’ and the general
vagueness about the relatives; while the other two, being obvious and
clearly defined, do not interfere with the remaining uses of ‘that’;
(iii) that if we are to be at the expense of maintaining two different
relatives, we may as well give each of them definite work to do.
In the following subsections we shall not often allude to the
distinction here laid down. The reader will find that our rules are
quite as often violated as observed; and may perhaps conclude that if
the vital difference between a defining and a non-defining clause were
consistently marked, wherever it is possible, by a discriminating use
of ‘that’ and ‘which’, false coordination and other mishandlings of the
relatives would be less common than they are.
=c. ‘And who’; ‘and which’.=
The various possibilities of relative coordination, right and wrong,
may be thus stated: (i) a relative clause may be rightly or wrongly
coordinated with another relative clause; this we shall call ‘open’
coordination; (ii) it may be rightly or wrongly coordinated with words
that are equivalent to a relative clause, and for which a relative
clause can be substituted; ‘latent’ coordination; (iii) a clause that
has obviously no coordinate, open or latent, may yet be introduced by
‘and’ or other word implying coordination; for such offenders, which
cannot be coordinate and will not be subordinate, ‘insubordination’ is
not too harsh a term.
The following are ordinary types of the three classes:
(i) Men who are ambitious, and whose ambition has never been thwarted,
....
Pitt, who was ambitious, but whose ambition was qualified by....
(ii) Ambitious men, and whose ambition has never been thwarted, ....
An evil now, alas! beyond our power to remedy, and for which we have
to thank the folly of our predecessors.
(iii) Being thus pressed, he grudgingly consented at last to a
redistribution, and which, I need not say, it was his duty to have
offered in the first instance.
A coordination in which ‘and’ is the natural conjunction may also be
indicated simply by a comma; there is safety in this course, since the
clause following the comma may be either coordinate or subordinate. But
we have to deal only with clauses that are committed to coordination.
‘Insubordination’ will not detain us long; it is always due either to
negligence or to gross ignorance; we shall illustrate it in its place
with a few examples, but shall not discuss it. With regard, however,
to open and latent coordination opinions differ; there is an optimist
view of open coordination, and a pessimist view of latent, both of
which seem to us incorrect. It is held by some that open coordination
(provided that the relatives have the same antecedent) is never wrong,
and by some--not necessarily others--that latent coordination is never
right: we shall endeavour to show that the former is often wrong, and
the latter, however ungainly, often right.
The essential to coordination is that the coordinates should be
performing the same function in the sentence. It is not necessary, nor
is it enough, that they should be in the same grammatical form: things
of the same form may have different functions, and things of different
forms may have the same function. If we say ‘Unambitious men, and who
have no experience’, ‘unambitious’ and ‘who have no experience’ are not
in the same form, but they have the same function--that of specifying
the class of men referred to. Their grammatical forms (vocabulary
permitting) are interchangeable: a defining adjective can always take
the form of a relative clause, and a defining relative clause can often
take the form of an adjective: ‘inexperienced men, and who have no
ambition’. ‘Unambitious’ is therefore the true grammatical equivalent
of ‘who have no ambition’, and latent coordination between it and a
relative clause is admissible.
On the other hand, among things that have the same grammatical form,
but different functions, are the defining and the non-defining relative
clause. A non-defining clause, we know, can be removed without
disturbing the truth of the predication; it has therefore no essential
function; it cannot therefore have the same function as a defining
clause, whose function we know to be essential. It follows that open
coordination is not admissible between a defining and a non-defining
clause; and, generally, coordination, whether open or latent, is
admissible between two defining or two non-defining coordinates, but
not between a defining and a non-defining.
Our object, however, in pointing out what seems to be the true
principle of relative coordination is not by any means to encourage the
latent variety. It has seldom any advantage over full coordination;
it is perhaps more apt to lead to actual blunders; it is usually
awkward; and it does violence--needless violence, as often as not--to
a very widespread and not unreasonable prejudice. Many writers may
be suspected of using it, against their better judgement, merely for
the purpose of asserting a right; it is their natural protest against
the wholesale condemnation of ignorant critics, who do not see that
latent coordination may be nothing worse than clumsy, and that open
coordination may be a gross blunder. For the benefit of such critics it
seems worth while to examine the correctness of various examples, both
open and latent; on the other merits and demerits of the latent variety
the reader will form his own judgement.
(i) =Open coordination.=
A few minutes brought us to a large and busy bazaar, with the
localities of which the stranger appeared well acquainted, and where
his original demeanour again became apparent.--POE.
Mr. Lovelace has seen divers apartments at Windsor; but not one,
he says, that he thought fit for me, and which, at the same time,
answered my description.--RICHARDSON.
All the toys that infatuate men, and which they play for, are the
self-same thing.--EMERSON.
All these are correct: in the first both clauses are non-defining, in
the others both define.
The hills were so broken and precipitous as to afford no passage
except just upon the narrow line of the track which we occupied, and
which was overhung with rocks, from which we might have been destroyed
merely by rolling down stones.--SCOTT.
Wrong: the first clause defines, the second not.
From doing this they were prevented by the disgraceful scene which
took place, and which the leader of the Opposition took no steps to
avert.--_Times._
Wrong. The first clause defines, the second is obviously one of
comment: the ‘scene’ is not distinguished from those that the leader
_did_ take steps to avert.
They propose that the buildings shall belong ... to the communes
in which they stand, and which, it is hoped, will not permit their
desecration.--_Spectator._
Wrong. The communes that ‘will not permit’ are not meant to be
distinguished from those that will. The second clause is comment, the
first defines.
The way in which she jockeyed Jos, and which she described with
infinite fun, carried up his delight to a pitch....--THACKERAY.
In the best French which he could muster, and which in sooth was of a
very ungrammatical sort....--THACKERAY.
Peggy ... would have liked to have shown her turban and bird of
paradise at the ball, but for the information which her husband had
given her, and which made her very grave.--THACKERAY.
All these are wrong. Thackeray would probably have been saved from
these false coordinations if he had observed the distinction between
‘that’ and ‘which’: ‘In the best French (that) he could muster, which
in sooth was...’.
There goes another sort of animal that is differentiating from my
species, and which I would gladly see exterminated.--H. G. WELLS.
Probably the second clause, like the first, is meant to define: if so,
the coordination is right; if not, it is wrong. We have alluded to the
tendency to avoid ‘that’ when the relative is widely separated from its
antecedent; here, the result is ambiguity.
And here he said in German what he wished to say, and which was of no
great importance, and which I translated into English.--BORROW.
Wrong: ‘what (that which)’ defines, the ‘and which’ clauses do not.
(ii) =Latent coordination=, between relative clause and equivalent,
is seldom correct when the relative clause is non-defining; for the
equivalent, with few and undesirable exceptions, is always a defining
adjective or phrase, and can be coordinate only with a defining
clause. The equivalent must of course be a true one; capable, that
is, of being converted into a relative clause without altering the
effect of the sentence. Neglect of this restriction often results in
false coordination, especially in one particular type of sentence.
Suppose that a historian, after describing some national calamity,
proceeds: ‘In these distressing circumstances....’ Here we might seem
to have two possible equivalents, ‘these’ and ‘distressing’. First
let us expand ‘these’ into a relative clause: ‘In the distressing
circumstances that I have described’. This, in the context, is a fair
equivalent, and as often as not would actually appear instead of
‘these’. But next expand ‘distressing’: ‘In these circumstances, which
were distressing’, a non-defining clause. To this expansion no writer
would consent; it defeats the object for which ‘distressing’ was placed
before the antecedent. That object was to record his own sensibility
without disparaging the reader’s by telling him in so many words (as
our relative clause does) that the circumstances were distressing; and
it is secured by treating ‘distressing’ not as a separate predication
but as an inseparable part of the antecedent. ‘Distressing’, it will
be observed, cannot give us a defining clause; it is obviously meant
to be co-extensive with ‘these’; we are not to select from ‘these’
circumstances those only that are ‘distressing’. Moreover, as ‘these’,
although capable of appearing as a relative clause, can scarcely
require another relative clause to complete the limitation of the
antecedent, it follows that in sentences of this form coordination will
generally be wrong. We have examples in the Cowper quotation below,
and in the anonymous one that precedes it.
Juices ready prepared, and which can be absorbed immediately.--HUXLEY.
A deliberate attempt to frame and to verify general rules as to
phenomena of all kinds, and which can, therefore, be propagated by
argument or persuasion....--L. STEPHEN.
‘Rules that shall be general, and that can....’
A painful, comprehensive survey of a very complicated matter,
and which requires a great variety of considerations, is to be
made.--BURKE.
The goldsmith to the royal household, and who, if fame spoke true,
oftentimes acted as their banker, ... was a person of too much
importance to...--SCOTT.
‘The man who was goldsmith to ... and who’.
It is a compliment due, and which I willingly pay, to those who
administer our affairs.--BURKE.
All these are correct, with defining coordinates throughout.
‘A junior subaltern, with pronounced military and political views,
with no false modesty in expressing them, and who (sic) possesses the
ear of the public, ....’--(Quoted by the _Times_.)
‘Who has ... views, and who....’ ‘Sic’ is the comment of the _Times_
writer. The coordination is correct.
While there, she had ample opportunity afforded her of studying
fashionable life in all its varied and capricious moods, and which
have been preserved to posterity in her admirable delineations of
character.
I am sensible that you cannot in my uncle’s present infirm state, and
of which it is not possible to expect any considerable amendment,
indulge us with a visit.--COWPER.
These are the instances of false expansion alluded to above. The former
is based on the non-defining expansion ‘in all its moods, which are
varied and capricious’; the true expansion being ‘in all the varied and
capricious moods in which it reveals itself’, a defining clause, which
will not do with the ‘and which’. Similarly, the second is based on the
non-defining expansion ‘in my uncle’s present state, which is an infirm
one’; the true expansion is ‘in the infirm state in which my uncle now
is’. In both, a non-defining clause is coordinated with words that can
only yield a defining clause.
Previous to the innovations introduced by the Tudors, and which had
been taken away by the bill against pressing soldiers, the King in
himself had no power of calling on his subjects generally to bear
arms.--J. R. GREEN.
If the writer means us to distinguish, among the innovations introduced
by the Tudors, those that had also been taken away, the ‘and which’
clause defines, and the coordination is right. But more probably the
clause conveys independent information; the coordination is then wrong.
[The various arrangements of _pueri puellam amabant_] all have the
same meaning--the boys loved the girl. For _puellam_ shows by its form
that it must be the object of the action; _amabant_ must have for
its subject a plural substantive, and which must therefore be, not
_puellam_, but _pueri_.--R. G. WHITE.
Wrong. ‘A plural substantive’ can yield only the defining clause ‘a
substantive that is plural’. Now these words contain an inference
from a general grammatical principle (that a plural verb must have a
plural subject); and any supplementary defining clause must also be
general, not (like the ‘and which’ clause) particular. We might have,
for instance, ‘Amabant, being plural, and finite, must have for its
subject a plural substantive, and which is in the nominative case’. But
the ‘and which’ clause is evidently non-defining; the inference ends at
‘substantive’; then comes the application of it to the particular case.
He refused to adopt the Restrictive Theory, and impose a numerical
limit on the Bank’s issues, and which he again protested against in
1833.--H. D. MACLEOD.
Wrong. The ‘and which’ clause is non-defining; none of the three
possible antecedents (‘Theory’, ‘limit’, ‘imposition’) will give a
non-defining clause.
The great obstacle ... is the religion of Europe, and which has
unhappily been colonially introduced into America.--BEACONSFIELD.
This illustrates an important point. ‘Of Europe’ gives the defining
clause ‘that prevails in Europe’; the coordination therefore requires
that the ‘and which’ clause should define. Now a defining clause must
contain no word that is not meant to contribute to definition; if,
then, the ‘and which’ clause defines, the writer wishes to distinguish
the religion in question, not only from those European religions that
have not been colonially introduced into America, but also from those
European religions that have been introduced, but whose introduction
is not a matter for regret; that is the only defining meaning that
‘unhappily’ can bear, and unless we accept this interpretation the
clause is non-defining.--We shall allude to this sentence again in
d., where the possibilities of parenthesis in a defining clause are
discussed.
It may seem strange that this important place should not have been
conferred on Vaca de Castro, already on the spot, and who had shown
himself so well qualified to fill it.--PRESCOTT.
One of our ‘few and undesirable exceptions’, in which the
clause-equivalent is non-defining (‘who was already on the spot’); for
a person’s name can only require a defining clause to distinguish him
from others of the same name. The sentence is an ugly one, even if we
remove the ‘and who’ clause; but the coordination is right.
(iii) =Insubordination.=
The struggler, the poor clerk, mechanic, poorer musician, artist, or
actor, feels no right to intrude, and who quickly falls from a first
transient resentment....--_Daily Telegraph._
Such a person may reside there with absolute safety, unless it becomes
the object of the government to secure his person; and which purpose,
even then, might be disappointed by early intelligence.--SCOTT.
All this when Madame saw, and of which when she took note, her sole
observation was:--...--C. BRONTË.
To these we may add examples in which the coordinated relatives
have different antecedents. In practice, nothing can justify such
coordination: in theory, it is admissible when the antecedents are
coordinate, as in the following sentence:
We therefore delivered the supplies to those individuals, and at those
places, to whom the special grants had been made, and for which they
were originally designed.
But in the following instances, one antecedent is subordinate to
another in the same clause, or is in a clause subordinate to that of
the other.
They marched into the apartment where the banquet was served; and
which, as I have promised the reader he shall enjoy it, he shall have
the liberty of ordering himself.--THACKERAY.
A large mineral-water firm in London, whose ordinary shares are a
million in value, and which shares always paid a dividend before
the imposition of the sugar-tax, have not paid any dividend
since.--_Times._
He very much doubted whether I could find it on his mine, which was
located some five miles from St. Austell, Cornwall, and upon whose
property I had never been.--_Times._
But I have besought my mother, who is apprehensive of Mr. Lovelace’s
visits, and for fear of whom my uncles never stir out without arms,
...--RICHARDSON.
It was of Mr. Lovelace that the uncles were afraid.
=d. Case of the relative.=
Special attention was not drawn, in the section on Case, to the gross
error committed in the following examples:
Instinctively apprehensive of her father, whom she supposed it was,
she stopped in the dark.--DICKENS.
That peculiar air of contempt commonly displayed by insolent menials
to those whom they imagine are poor.--CORELLI.
It is only those converted by the Gospel whom we pretend are
influenced by it.--_Daily Telegraph._
We found those whom we feared might be interested to withhold the
settlement alert and prompt to assist us.--GALT.
Mr. Dombey, whom he now began to perceive was as far beyond human
recall.--DICKENS.
Those whom it was originally pronounced would be allowed to
go.--_Spectator._
But this looks as if he has included the original 30,000 men whom he
desires ‘should be in the country now’.--_Times._
We feed children whom we think are hungry.--_Times._
The only gentlemen holding this office in the island, whom, he felt
sure, would work for the spiritual good of the parish.--_Guernsey
Advertiser._
These writers evidently think that in ‘whom we think are hungry’ ‘whom’
is the object of ‘we think’. The relative is in fact the subject of
‘are’; and the object of ‘we know’ is the clause ‘who are hungry’; the
order of the words is a necessary result of the fact that a relative
subject must stand at the beginning of its clause.
(The same awkward necessity confronts us in clauses with ‘when’,
‘though’, &c., in which the subject is a relative. Such clauses are
practically recognized as impossible, though Otway, in a courageous
moment, wrote:
Unblemished honour, and a spotless love;
_Which tho’_ perhaps now _know_ another flame,
Yet I have love and passion for their name.)
Some writers, with a consistency worthy of a better cause, carry the
blunder into the passive, renouncing the advantages of an ambiguous
‘which’ in the active; for in the active ‘which’ of course tells no
tales.
As to all this, the trend of events has been the reverse of
that which was anticipated would be the result of democratic
institutions.--_Times._
‘Which _it_ was anticipated would be’. Similarly, the passive
of ‘men whom we-know-are-honest’ is the impossible ‘men who
are-known-are-honest’: ‘men who we know are honest’ gives the correct
passive ‘men who it is known are honest’.
Nor must it be supposed that ‘we know’ is parenthetic. In non-defining
clauses (Jones, who we know is honest), we can regard the words as
parenthetic if we choose, except when the phrase is negative (Jones,
who I cannot think is honest); but in a defining clause they are
anything but parenthetic. When we say ‘Choose men who you know are
honest’, the words ‘you know’ add a new circumstance of limitation:
it is not enough that the men should in fact be honest; you must know
them to be honest; honest men of whose honesty you are not certain
are excluded by the words ‘you know’. Similarly, in the _Guernsey
Advertiser_ quotation above, the writer does not go the length of
saying that these are the only gentlemen who would work: he says that
they are the only ones of whom he feels sure. The commas of parenthesis
ought therefore to go, as well as the comma at ‘island’, which is
improper before a defining clause.
The circumstances under which a parenthesis is admissible in a defining
clause may here be noticed.
(i) When the clause is too strict in its limitation, it may be modified
by a parenthesis:
Choose men who, during their time of office, have never been suspected.
A whole class, excluded by the defining clause, is made eligible by the
parenthesis.
(ii) Similarly, a parenthesis may be added to tell us that within the
limits of the defining clause we have perfect freedom of choice:
Choose men who, at one time or another, have held office.
They must have held office, that is all; it does not matter when.
(iii) Words of comment, indicating the writer’s authority for his
limitation, his recognition of the sentiments that it may arouse, and
the like, properly stand outside the defining clause: when they are
placed within it, they ought to be marked as parenthetic.
There are men who, so I am told, prefer a lie to truth on its own
merits.
The religion that obtains in Europe, and that, unhappily, has been
introduced into America.
The latter sentence is an adaptation of one considered above on
p. 91. ‘Unhappily’ there appeared not as a parenthesis but as
an inseparable part of the relative clause, which was therefore
defining or non-defining, according as ‘unhappily’ could or could
not be considered as adding to the limitation. But with the altered
punctuation ‘unhappily’ is separable from the relative clause, which
may now define: ‘that obtains in Europe and (I am sorry to have to add)
in America.’
In sentences of this last type, the parenthesis is inserted in
the defining clause only for convenience: in the others, it is an
essential, though a negative, part of the definition. But all three
types of parenthesis agree in this, that they do not limit the
antecedent; they differ completely from the phrases considered above,
which do limit the antecedent, and are not parenthetic.
=e. Miscellaneous uses and abuses of the relative.=
(i) A relative clause is sometimes coordinated with an independent
sentence; such coordination is perhaps always awkward, but is not
always incorrect. The question arises chiefly when the two have a
common subject expressed only in the relative clause; for when the
subject is expressed in both, the independent sentence may be taken to
be coordinate, not with the relative clause, but with the main sentence
to which the relative clause is attached, as in the following instance:
To begin with, he had left no message, which in itself I felt to be a
suspicious circumstance, and (I) was at my wits’ end how to account
plausibly for his departure.
Retain ‘I’, and ‘I was’ may be coordinate with ‘he had left’: remove
it, and the coordination is necessarily between ‘I was’ and ‘I felt’.
In our next examples the writers are committed:
These beatitudes are just laws which we have been neglecting, and have
been receiving in ourselves the consequences that were meet.--_Daily
Telegraph._
The idea which mankind most commonly conceive of proportion, is the
suitableness of means to certain ends, and, where this is not the
question, very seldom trouble themselves about the effect of different
measures of things.--BURKE.
Fictitious capital, a name of extreme inaccuracy, which too many
persons are in the habit of using, from the hasty assumption that what
is not real must necessarily be fictitious, and are more led away by a
jingling antithesis of words than an accurate perception of ideas.--H.
D. MACLEOD.
The first two of these are wrongly coordinated: the third, a curiosity
in other respects, is in this respect right. The reason is that in the
first two we have a defining, in the third a non-defining relative
clause. A defining clause is grammatically equivalent to an adjective
(‘violated laws’, ‘the popular idea’), and can be coordinated only with
another word or phrase performing the same function; now the phrase ‘we
have been receiving’, not being attached to the antecedent by means of
a relative, expressed or understood, is not equivalent to an adjective.
We could have had ‘and (which we) have been properly punished _for
neglecting_’, or we could have had the ‘and’ sentence in an adverbial
form, ‘with the fitting result’; but coordination between the two as
they stand is impossible.
The Burke sentence is a worse offender. Coordination of this kind is
not often attempted when the antecedent of the relative is _subject_
of the main sentence; and when it is attempted, the two coordinates
must of course not be separated by the predicate. If we had had ‘the
idea which mankind most commonly conceive of proportion, and very
seldom trouble themselves about anything further’, the coordination
would have been similar to the other, and could have been rectified
in the same way (‘and beyond which they very seldom ...’, or ‘to the
exclusion of any other considerations’). But this alteration we cannot
make; for there is a further and an essential difference. The _Daily
Telegraph_ writer evidently _meant_ his second coordinate to do the
work of a defining clause; he has merely failed to make the necessary
connexion, which we supply, as above, either by turning the words into
a second defining clause, or by embodying them, adverbially, in the
first. Burke’s intention is different, and would not be represented by
our proposed alteration in the order. All that a defining clause can do
in his sentence is to tell us _what_ idea is going to be the subject.
If we were to give a brief paraphrase of the whole, italicizing the
words that represent the second coordinate, it would be, not ‘mankind’s
_sole_ idea of proportion is the suitableness ...’, but ‘mankind’s idea
of proportion is the suitableness ..., _and very little else_’; for
the question answered is, not ‘what is mankind’s sole idea?’ but ‘what
is mankind’s idea?’ In other words, the second coordinate belongs in
intention not, like the relative clause, to the subject, but to the
predicate; to rectify it, we must either make it part of the predicate
(‘and is not concerned with ...’), or, by inserting ‘they’, coordinate
it with the main sentence. Obvious as the latter correction is, the
sentence repays close examination, as illustrating the incoherence of
thought that may underlie what seems a very trifling grammatical slip.
But in our third example, the relative clause is non-defining; it is
grammatically equivalent to, and could be replaced by, an independent
sentence: ‘Many persons are in the habit of using it’. There is nothing
grammatically wrong in this type of coordination; it is objectionable
only because it seems to promise what it does not fulfil. When the
common subject of two coordinates is expressed only with the first, it
is natural to assume that all words preceding it are also to be applied
to both coordinates; and the violation of this principle, though not
of course ungrammatical, is often felt to be undesirable in other than
relative clauses.
(ii) In the sentences considered above, the antecedent of the relative
did not belong to the second coordinate, and could not have been
represented in it without the material alterations there proposed. But
it may also happen that the antecedent, as in the following examples,
belongs equally to both coordinates, being represented in the first by
a relative, in the second by some other pronoun.
There were two or three _whose_ accuracy was more scrupulous, _their_
judgement more uniformly sober and cautious.--BRYCE.
He renewed the old proposal, _which_ Pizarro treated as a piece of
contemptible shuffling, and curtly rejected _it_.
_Which_ she has it in her option either to do or to let _it_
alone.--RICHARDSON.
In the pair of parallel coordinates from Mr. Bryce, insert the
suppressed ‘was’, and it becomes clear that ‘whose’, not ‘their’, is
the right pronoun.
In the ‘Pizarro’ sentence, ‘it’ is not only superfluous, but disturbing
to the reader, who assumes that ‘which’ is common to both clauses, and
on reaching ‘it’ has to glance back and check the sentence. Here,
as often, the pronoun seems to be added to restore an ill-balanced
sentence; but that can be done in several other ways. In the Richardson
sentence also the ‘it’ should go.
More commonly, the repetition of the antecedent in another form results
from the superstitious avoidance of a preposition at the end:
A demand by Norway for political separation, to which Sweden will not
assent, but will not go to war to prevent it.--_Times._
‘To (which)’ is not common to both coordinates: accordingly the writer
finds it necessary to give ‘it’ in the second. But, even if we respect
our superstition, and exclude ‘which Sweden will not assent to, but
will not go to war to prevent’, we have still the two possibilities
of (1) complete relative coordination, ‘to ..., but which ...’; (2)
subordination, ‘though she will not go to war to prevent it’.
In our next example, Lord Rosebery, again for fear of a preposition at
the end, falls into the trap clumsily avoided by the _Times_ writer:
That promised land for which he was to prepare, but scarcely to enter.
So perhaps Bagehot, though his verb may be _conceive of_:
English trade is carried on upon borrowed capital to an extent of
which few foreigners have an idea, and none of our ancestors could
have conceived.
(iii) When the relative is the subject of both coordinates, or the
object of both, its repetition in the second is a matter of choice. But
to omit the relative when it is in a different case from the first is a
gross, though not uncommon, blunder. The following are instances:
A league which their posterity for many ages kept so inviolably,
and proved so advantageous for both the kingdoms of France and
Scotland.--LOCKHART.
Questions which we either do not put to ourselves, or are turned aside
with traditional replies.--MARK RUTHERFORD.
It is just conceivable that in the last of these the subject of ‘are’
is ‘we’: if so, the sentence is to be referred to (i) above (wrong
coordination of an independent sentence with a defining relative
clause).
It is not easy to see why the relative more than other words should be
mishandled in this way; few would write (but see p. 61, s. f.) ‘This
league we kept and has proved advantageous’.
The condensed antecedent-relative ‘what’ is only an apparent exception
to this universal rule. In the sentence ‘What I hold is mine’, ‘what’
is only object to ‘hold’, not subject to ‘is’; the subject to ‘is’ is
the whole noun-clause ‘what I hold’. Sentences of this type, so far
from being exceptions, often give a double illustration of the rule,
and leave a double possibility of error. For just as a single ‘what’
cannot stand in different relations to two coordinate verbs in its
clause, so a single noun-clause cannot stand in different relations to
two coordinate main verbs. We can say ‘What I have and hold’, where
‘what’ is object to both verbs, and ‘what is mine and has been fairly
earned by me’, where it is subject to both; but we cannot say ‘what I
have and has been fairly earned by me’. Similarly, we can say ‘What
I have is mine and shall remain mine’, where the noun-clause ‘what I
have’ is subject to both verbs, and ‘What I have I mean to keep, and
will surrender to no man’, where it is object to both; but not ‘What I
have is mine, and I will surrender to no man’. Of the various ways of
avoiding this error (subordination, adaptation of verbs, insertion of
a pronoun, relative or otherwise), that chosen by Miss Brontë below is
perhaps the least convenient. Her sentence is, however, correct; that
from the _Spectator_ is not.
Not mere empty ideas, but what were once realities, and that I long
have thought decayed.--C. BRONTË.
Whatever we possessed in 1867 the British Empire possesses now, and is
part of the Dominion of Canada.--_Spectator._
‘Things that were once realities, and that I long have thought
decayed’; a pair of defining clauses.
The condensed ‘what’ must of course be distinguished from the ‘what’
of indirect questions, which is not relative but interrogative. In
the following example, confusion of the two leads to an improper
coordination.
What sums he made can only be conjectured, but must have been
enormous.--MACAULAY.
In the first sentence, ‘what’ is an interrogative, in the second, a
condensed antecedent-relative, standing for ‘the sums that’. It is the
sums that were enormous: it is the answer to the question ‘What sums
did he make?’ that can only be conjectured. The mistake is possible
only because ‘can’ and ‘must’ do not reveal their number: ‘can’ is
singular, ‘must’ plural.
The differentiation between the two _what_s and their equivalents
is not, indeed, complete: just as the condensed antecedent-relative
resembles in form, though not in treatment, the unresolved
interrogative, so the interrogative, by resolution into ‘the ... that
(which)’, not only resembles, but is grammatically identified with,
the uncondensed relative and antecedent. The resolution is, no doubt,
convenient: it should be noticed, however, that the verbs with which
alone it can be employed (verbs that may denote either perception of
a fact or other kinds of perception) are precisely those with which
ambiguity may result. ‘I know the house (that) you mean’: it may
(antecedent and relative) or may not (resolved interrogative) follow
that I have ever seen it. ‘We must first discover the scoundrel who
did it’; antecedent and relative? then we must secure the scoundrel’s
person; resolved interrogative? then only information is needed.
‘I can give a good guess at the problem that is puzzling you’: and
the solution?--I know nothing of the solution; I was resolving an
interrogative.
This, however, does not affect sentences like the Macaulay one above:
for although the resolved or uncondensed forms (‘the ... which’) are
grammatically identified, the condensed or unresolved forms (‘what’)
are not.
(iv) The omission of the relative in isolated clauses (as opposed to
coordinates) is a question not of correctness but of taste, so far
as there is any question at all. A non-defining relative can never be
omitted. The omission of a defining relative subject is often effective
in verse, but in prose is either an archaism or a provincialism. It
may, moreover, result in obscurity, as in the second of our examples,
which may possibly puzzle the reader for a moment:
Now it would be some fresh insect won its way to a temporary fatal new
development--H. G. WELLS.
No one finds himself planted at last in so terribly foul a morass, as
he would fain stand still for ever on dry ground.--TROLLOPE.
But when the defining relative is object, or has a preposition, there
is no limit to the omission, unless euphony is allowed to be one. We
give three instances in which the reader may or may not agree that the
relative might have been retained with advantage:
We do that in our zeal our calmer moments would be afraid to
answer.--SCOTT.
But did you ever see anything there you had never seen
before?--BAGEHOT.
These ethical judgements we pass on self-regarding acts are ordinarily
little emphasized.--SPENCER.
(v) When a defining relative has the same preposition as its
antecedent, it is not uncommon, in the written as well as in the
spoken language, to omit the preposition in the relative clause. There
is something to be said for a licence that rids us of such cumbrous
formulae as ‘in the way in which’, ‘to the extent to which’, and the
like; in writing, however, it should be used with caution if at all.
In the first place, if the preposition is to go, the relative should
go too, or if retained should certainly be ‘that’, not ‘which’; and if
the verb of the relative clause is the same as in the main sentence,
it should be represented by ‘do’, or (in a compound tense) by its
auxiliary component.
Because they found that it touched them in a way which no book in the
world could touch them.--_Daily Telegraph._
The man who cleaned the slate in the manner which Sir E. Satow has
done both in Morocco and Japan might surely rank as a reflective
diplomatist.--_Spectator._
‘In a way no other book in the world could’: ‘in the way (that) Sir E.
Satow has done’.
A further limitation is suggested by our next example:
The Great Powers, after producing this absolutely certain result, are
ending with what they ought to have begun,--coercion.--_Spectator._
Here, of course, the relative cannot be omitted, since relative and
antecedent are one. But that is not the principal fault, as will appear
from a resolution of the antecedent-relative: ‘they are ending with
the very thing (that) they ought to have begun ...’. We are now at
liberty to omit our relative or retain it, as we please; in either
case, the omission of ‘with’ is unbearable. The reason is that ‘with’
does not, like the ‘in’ of our former examples, introduce a purely
adverbial phrase: it is an inseparable component of the compound verbs
‘end-with’ and ‘begin-with’, of which the antecedent and relative are
respectively the objects. Similarly, we cannot say ‘He has come to the
precise conclusion (that) I thought he would come’, because we should
be mutilating the verb to ‘come-to’; we can, however, say ‘to the
conclusion (that) I thought he would’, ‘come-to’ being then represented
by ‘would’.
Finally, the omission is justifiable only when antecedent and relative
have the same preposition. Sentences like the next may pass in
conversation, but (except with the one noun _way_) are intolerable in
writing:
One of the greatest dangers in London is the pace that the corners in
the main streets are turned.--_Times._
(vi) The use of ‘such ... who (which)’, ‘such ... that (defining
relative)’, for ‘such ... as’ is sometimes an archaism, sometimes a
vulgarism.
Till such time when we shall throw aside our earthly garment.--_Daily
Telegraph._
Only such supplies were to be made which it would be inhuman to refuse
to ships in distress.--_Times._
The censorship of literature extends to such absurd prohibitions which
it did not reach even during the worst period of the forties.--_Times._
A God in such an abstract sense that, as I have pointed out before,
does not signify.--_Daily Telegraph._
They would find such faith, such belief, that would be a revelation to
them.--_Daily Telegraph._
Swift’s plan was to offer to fulfil it on conditions so insulting that
no one with a grain of self-respect could accept.--L. STEPHEN.
=f. ‘It ... that.’=
Two constructions, closely allied, but grammatically distinct, are
often confused: (i) Antecedent ‘=it=’ followed by a defining relative
clause with ‘that’ (who, which); (ii) ‘=it=’ followed by a clause in
apposition, introduced by the conjunction ‘that’. The various correct
possibilities are represented in the set of examples given below.
Relative clauses are marked R, conjunction clauses C. One impossible
example is added in brackets, to mark the transition from relative to
conjunction.
(1) It is money that I want. R.
(2) It was you that told me. R.
(3) It was you that I gave it to (or, to whom I gave it). R.
(4) It was to you that I gave it. C.
(5) It was the Romans that built this wall. R.
(6) It is the Romans that we are indebted to for this. R.
(7) It is to the Romans that we are indebted for this. C.
(8) It was Jones whose hat I borrowed. R.
(9) It was Jones’s hat that I borrowed. R.
(10) It was a knife that I cut it with. R.
(11) It was with a knife that I cut it. C.
(12) It was with difficulty that I cut it. C.
(13) (It was difficulty that I cut it with.) R.
(14) It was provisionally that I made the offer. C.
(15) It was in this spring, too, that the plague broke out. C.
(16) Accordingly, it was with much concern that I presently received a
note informing me of his departure. C.
In the relative construction, the antecedent ‘it’ is invariable,
whatever the number and gender of the relative. The main verb is also
invariable in number, but in tense is usually adapted to past, though
not (for euphony’s sake) to future circumstances: ‘it was you that
looked foolish’, but ‘it is you that will look foolish’.
In both constructions, the ‘that’ clause, supplemented or introduced
by ‘it’, gives us the subject of a predication, the relative clause
(with _it_) being equivalent to a pure noun, the conjunction clause to
a verbal noun in apposition, partly retaining its verbal character. In
both, also, the predication answers an imaginary question, recorded
distinctly in the relative, less distinctly in the conjunction clause.
‘What do you want?’ ‘It (the thing) that I want is money.’ ‘To whom did
you give it?’ ‘It (the persons) that I gave it to was your friends.’
‘As to your cutting it: give particulars.’ ‘It--that I cut it (my
cutting it)--was with a knife.’
From the above examples it will be seen that the two constructions
largely overlap. When (as in 1, 2, 5, 8) the relative is subject or
direct object of the clause-verb, or is in the possessive case, it
cannot be replaced by the conjunction; but when its relation to the
clause-verb is marked by a preposition, the conjunction always may take
its place, and sometimes must, as in 12 and 13. For the relative clause
can only be used when the question reflected in it is calculated to
secure the right kind of answer. Now the natural answer to the question
‘What did you cut it with?’ is not ‘difficulty’ but ‘a knife’. The
misleading ‘with’ is therefore removed from the relative clause in
13, and placed within the predicate, the definite question ‘What did
you cut it with?’ giving place to the vague demand for particulars.
‘With’ being removed, the relative clause falls to pieces, for want of
a word to govern the relative, and the conjunction clause takes its
place. In the same way, ‘it was _a cab_ (but not _high indignation_)
that he drove away in’; ‘it was _a concert_ (but not _curiosity_) that
I was returning from’; ‘it was a _beech-tree_ (but not _unpleasant
circumstances_) that I found him under’. And, generally, it will be
found that a preposition is admissible in the relative clause only when
used in the literal or the most obvious sense.
The conjunction clause is, as we have said, a verbal noun; so far a
noun that things can be predicated of it, and so far a verb that the
things predicated of it are verbal relations and verbal circumstances,
indirect object, agent, instrument, means, manner, cause, attendant
circumstances; anything but subject and direct object. ‘My giving was
to you’; ‘my offering was provisionally’; ‘my concealing it was because
I was ashamed’.
The mistakes that constantly occur in careless writers result from
hesitation between the two forms where both are possible. The
confusion, however, ought not to arise; for always with a relative
clause, and never with a conjunction, the complement of the main
predicate (the answer to the suppressed question) is a noun or the
grammatical equivalent of a noun. ‘A knife’, ‘Jones’, ‘you’, ‘my friend
in Chicago’, ‘the man who lives next door’, are the answers that
accompany the relative clause: ‘with a knife’, ‘with difficulty’, ‘to
you’, ‘occasionally’, ‘because I was ashamed’, are those that accompany
the conjunction.
Examples 15 and 16, though quite recognized types, are really
artificial perversions. In 15 the true question and answer in the
circumstances would be, not, as the sentence falsely implies, ‘When did
the plague break out?’ ‘That too happened in this same spring’, but
‘Were there any other notable events in this spring?’ ‘Yes: the plague
broke out’. Impressiveness is given to the announcement by the fiction
that the reader is wondering when the plague broke out; in fact, he is
merely waiting for whatever may turn up in the history of this spring.
In 16 we go still further: the implied question, ‘What were your
feelings on receiving a (not _the_) note ...?’ could not possibly be
asked; the information that alone could prompt it is only given in the
‘that’ clause.
It has been pointed out in b. that a relative clause with antecedent
‘it’ particularly calls for the relative ‘that’, in preference
to ‘which’, and even to ‘who’. Even when the relative is in the
possessive case, ‘that’, which has no possessive, is often retained
by transferring to the main predicate the noun on which it depends; 8
thus gives place to 9, even at the risk of ambiguity; for the relative
clause now supplies us with the question (not ‘whose hat ...?’ but)
but ‘what did you borrow?’ leaving us theoretically in doubt whether
Jones’s hat is distinguished from his other property, from other
people’s hats, or from things in general.
On the other hand, the two blunders that are most frequently made
almost invariably have the relative ‘who’ or ‘which’.
And it is to me, the original promoter of the whole scheme, to whom
they would deny my fair share in the profits!
‘To me’ implies a conjunction clause: ‘to whom ...’ is a relative
clause. ‘It is to me that...’.
It was _to Mrs._ Brent, the beetle-browed wife of Mr. Commissary
Brent, _to whom_ the General transferred his attentions
now.--THACKERAY.
It is to you whom I address a history which may perhaps fall into very
different hands.--SCOTT.
‘To you that’, or ‘you to whom’.
It is not taste that is plentiful, but courage that is
rare.--STEVENSON.
Again a common blunder; not, however, a confusion between the two
constructions above, but between one of them (the relative) and a
third. The sentence explains why every one seems to prefer Shakespeare
to Ouida (they are afraid to say that they like Ouida best). ‘What is
the explanation of this?’ ‘It is not the plentifulness of taste, but
the rarity of courage, that explains it.’ Or, less clumsily, using the
construction that Stevenson doubtless intended: ‘It (the inference to
be drawn) is not that taste is plentiful, but that courage is rare.’
PARTICIPLE AND GERUND
It is advisable to make a few remarks on the participle and gerund
together before taking them separately. As the word _gerund_ is
variously used, we first define it. A gerund is the verbal noun
identical in form with any participle, simple or compound, that
contains the termination _-ing_. Thus the verb _write_ has the active
participles _writing_, _having written_, _being about to write_,
_about to write_, and the passive participles _written_, _having been
written_, _being written_, _about to be written_, _being about to
be written_. Any of these except _written_, _about to write_, _about
to be written_, may be a gerund also; but while the participle is
an adjective, the gerund is a noun, differing from other nouns in
retaining its power (if the active gerund of a transitive verb) of
directly governing another noun.
Both these are of great importance for our purpose. The participle
itself, even when confusion with the other cannot occur, is much
abused; and the slovenly uses of it that were good enough in Burke’s
time are now recognized solecisms. Again, the identity between the two
forms leads to loose and unaccountable gerund constructions that will
probably be swept away, as so many other laxities have been, with the
advance of grammatical consciousness. We shall have to deal with both
these points at some length.
It is indeed no wonder that the forms in _-ing_ should require close
attention. Exactly how many old English terminations _-ing_ is heir
to is a question debated by historical grammarians, which we are not
competent to answer. But we may point out that _writing_ may now be (1)
participle--I was writing; I saw him writing; writing piously, he acts
profanely--, (2) gerund or full verbal noun--I object to your writing
that--, (3) hybrid between gerund and participle--I do not mind you
writing it--, (4) detached verbal noun--Writing is an acquired art--,
(5) concrete noun--This writing is illegible. Moreover, the verbal noun
_writing_ has the synonym _to write_, obligatory instead of it in some
connexions, better in some, worse in some, and impossible in others;
compare, for instance: I do not like the trouble of writing; I shall
not take the trouble to write; the trouble of writing is too much for
him; it is a trouble to write; writing is a trouble. The grammatical
difficulties, that is, are complicated by considerations of idiom.
In these preliminary remarks, however, it is only with the distinction
or want of distinction between participle and gerund that we are
concerned. The participle is an adjective, and should be in agreement
with a noun or pronoun; the gerund is a noun, of which it should be
possible to say clearly whether, and why, it is in the subjective,
objective, or possessive case, as we can of other nouns. That the
distinction is often obscured, partly in consequence of the history of
the language, will be clear from one or two facts and examples.
1. _The man is building_ contains what we should all now call, whether
it is so or not historically, a participle or verbal adjective: _the
house is building_ (older but still living and correct English for
_the house is being built_) contains, as its remarkable difference of
meaning prepares us to believe, a gerund or verbal noun, once governed
by a now lost preposition.
2. In _He stopped, laughing_ we have a participle; in _He stopped
laughing_, a verbal noun governed directly by the verb; in _He burst
out laughing_, a verbal noun governed by a vanished preposition.
3. Present usage does not bear out the definite modern ideas of the
distinction between participle and gerund as respectively adjective
and noun. So long as that usage continues, there are various degrees
of ambiguity, illustrated by the three following examples. It would
be impossible to say, whatever the context, whether the writer of the
first intended a gerund or a participle. In the second, a previous
sentence would probably have decided the question. In the third, though
grammar (again as modified by present usage) leaves the question open,
the meaning of the sentence is practically decisive by itself.
Can he conceive _Matthew Arnold permitting_ such a book to be written
and published about himself?--_Times._
And no doubt that end will be secured by _the Commission sitting_ in
Paris.--_Times._
Those who know least of them [the virtues] know very well how much
they are concerned in _other people having_ them.--MORLEY.
In the second of these, if _sitting_ is a participle, the meaning is
that the end will be secured by the Commission, which is described by
way of identification as the one sitting in Paris. If _sitting_ is
gerund, the end will be secured by the wise choice of Paris and not
another place for its scene. If _Commission’s_ were written, there
could be no doubt the latter was the meaning. With _Commission_, there
is, by present usage, absolutely no means of deciding between the two
meanings apart from possible light in the context. In the third, common
sense is able to tell us, though grammar gives the question up, that
what is interesting is not the other people who have them, but the
question whether other people have them.
We shall, in the section on the gerund, take up the decided position
that all gerunds ought to be made distinguishable from participles. We
are quite aware, however, that in the first place a language does not
remodel itself to suit the grammarian’s fancy for neat classification;
that secondly the confusion is not merely wanton or ignorant, but the
result of natural development; that thirdly the change involves some
inconveniences, especially to hurried and careless writers. On the
other hand it is certain that the permanent tendency in language is
towards the correct and logical, not from it; it is merely hoped that
the considerable number of instances here collected may attract the
attention of some writers who have not been aware of the question,
and perhaps convince them that the distinction is a useful one,
that a writer ought to know and let us know whether he is using a
participle or a gerund, and that to abandon the gerund when it cannot
be distinguished without clumsiness need cause no difficulty to any but
the very unskilful in handling words.
PARTICIPLES
The unattached or wrongly attached participle is one of the blunders
most common with illiterate or careless writers. But there are degrees
of heinousness in the offence; our examples are arranged from 1. to 8.
in these degrees, starting with perfect innocence.
1. Participles that have passed into prepositions, conjunctions, or
members of adverbial phrases.
_Considering_ the circumstances, _you_ may go.
_Seeing_ that it was involuntary, _he_ can hardly be blamed.
Roughly _speaking_, all _men_ are liars.
_Looking_ at it in a shortened perspective of time, those _years_ of
transition have the quality of a single consecutive occurrence.--H. G.
WELLS.
The _Bill_ ... will bring about, _assuming_ that it meets with good
fortune in the remaining stages of its passage through Parliament, a
very useful reform.--_Times._
Regarded as participles, these are incorrect. It is not _you_ that
consider, but I; not _he_ that sees, but we; not _men_ that roughly
speak, but the moralist; not _years_ that look, but philosophic
historians; not _the Bill_ that assumes, but the newspaper prophet.
The development into prepositions, &c., is a natural one, however; the
only question about any particular word of the kind is whether the vox
populi has yet declared for it; when it has, there is no more to be
said; but when it has not, the process should be resisted as long as
possible, writers acting as a suspensive House of Lords; an instance
will be found in 4.
Three quotations from Burke will show that he, like others of his time,
felt himself more at liberty than most good writers would now feel
themselves.
_Founding_ the appeal on this basis, _it was judged_ proper to lay
before Parliament....--BURKE.
_Flattering_ themselves that their power is become necessary to the
support of all order and government, _everything_ which tends to the
support of that power _is sanctified_.--BURKE.
_Having considered_ terror as producing an unnatural tension and
certain violent emotions of the nerves; _it_ easily _follows_.--BURKE.
Similar constructions may be found on almost every page of Smollett.
2. Participles half justified by attachment to a pronoun implied in
_my_, _your_, _his_, _their_. These are perhaps better avoided.
_Having_ thus _run_ through the causes of the sublime with reference
to all the senses, _my_ first observation will be found very nearly
true.--BURKE.
_Being_ much _interested_ in the correspondence bearing on the
question ‘Do we believe?’, the first difficulty arising in _my_ mind
is....--_Daily Telegraph._
_My_ farm consisted of about twenty acres of excellent land, _having
given_ a hundred pounds for my predecessor’s good will.--GOLDSMITH.
3. Mere unattached participles for which nothing can be said, except
that they are sometimes inoffensive if the word to be supplied is very
vague.
_Doubling_ the point, and _running_ along the southern shore of the
little peninsula, the scene changes.--F. M. CRAWFORD.
The most trying ... period was this one of enforced idleness _waiting_
for the day of entry.--_Times._
_Having acquired_ so many tropical colonies there is the undoubted
duty attached to such possession of....--_Times._
4. Participles that may some day become prepositions, &c.
Sir--_Referring_ to your correspondent’s (the Bishop of Croydon’s)
letter in to-day’s issue, _he_ quotes at the close of it the following
passage.--_Daily Telegraph._
_He_ must be the Bishop; for the immediately preceding _Sir_, marking
the beginning of the letter, shows that no one else has been mentioned;
but if we had given the sentence without this indication, no one
could possibly have believed that this was so; _referring_ is not yet
unparticipled.
5. An unwary writer sometimes attaches a participle to the subject of
a previous sentence, assuming that it will be the subject of the new
sentence also, and then finds (or rather is not awake enough to find)
himself mistaken. This is a trap into which good writers sometimes
fall, and so dangerous to bad writers that we shall give many examples.
It is important for the tiro to realize that he has not satisfied the
elementary requirements of grammar until he has attached the participle
to a noun in the same sentence as itself, not in another. He must also
remember that, for instance, _I went and he came_, though often spoken
of loosely as a sentence, is in fact as fully two sentences as if each
half of it were ten lines long, and the two were parted by a full stop
and not connected by a conjunction.
_They_ had now reached the airy dwelling where Mrs. Macshake
resided, and _having rung, the door_ was at length most deliberately
opened.--S. FERRIER.
_The lovers_ sought a shelter, and, mutually _charmed_ with each
other, _time_ flew for a while on downy pinions.--S. FERRIER.
A molecular _change_ is propagated to the muscles by which the body is
retracted, and _causing_ them to contract, _the act_ of retraction is
brought about.--HUXLEY.
_Joseph_, as they supposed, by tampering with Will, got all my
secrets, and was acquainted with all my motions--; and _having_ also
_undertaken_ to watch all those of his young lady, the wise _family_
were secure.--RICHARDSON.
_Miss Pinkerton_ ... in vain ... tried to overawe her. _Attempting_
once to scold her in public, _Rebecca_ hit upon the ... plan of
answering her in French, which quite routed the old woman.--THACKERAY.
But _he_ thought it derogatory to a brave knight passively to await
the assault, and _ordering_ his own men to charge, the hostile
_squadrons_, rapidly advancing against each other, met midway on the
plain.--PRESCOTT.
Alvarado, roused by the noise of the attack on this quarter, hastened
to the support of his officer, when _Almagro_, seizing the occasion,
pushed across the bridge, dispersed the small body left to defend it,
and, _falling_ on Alvarado’s rear, _that general_ saw himself hemmed
in on all sides.--PRESCOTT.
_Murtagh_, without a word of reply, went to the door, and _shouting_
into the passage something in Irish, _the room_ was instantly filled
with bog-trotters.--BORROW.
But, as before, _Anne_ once more made me smart, and _having equipped_
herself in a gown and bonnet of mine--not of the newest--off _we_
set.--CROCKETT.
At this I was silent for a little, and then _I_ resolved to speak
plainly to Anne. But not _being_ ready with my words, _she_ got in
first.--CROCKETT.
For many years _I_ had to contend with much opposition in the nature
of scepticism; but _having had_ hundreds of successful cases and
proofs _it_ has become such an established fact in the eastern
counties that many landowners, &c., would not think of sinking a well
without first seeking the aid of a water diviner.--_Times._
6. A more obvious trap, and consequently less fatal, is a change from
the active construction that may have been intended to a passive,
without corresponding alterations. If the writers of the next two had
used _we must admit_ instead of _it must be admitted_, _a policy that
they put forward_, instead of _a policy put forward_, the participles
_hesitating_ and _believing_ would have had owners.
While _hesitating_ to accept this terrible indictment of French
infancy, _it must be admitted_ that French literature in all its
strength and wealth is a grown-up literature.--_Spectator._
He and those with whom he acted were responsible for the policy
promulgated--_a policy_ put forward in all seriousness and honesty
_believing_ it to be essential to the obtaining of the better
government of Ireland.--_Times._
7. Participles that seem to belong to a noun, but do not.
Letters on the constant stopping of omnibuses, thus _causing_
considerable suffering to the horses.
Does _causing_ agree with _letters_? Then the letters annoy the horses.
With _stopping_? Then stopping causes suffering by stopping (_thus_).
With _omnibuses_? The horses possibly blame those innocents, but we
can hardly suppose a human being, even the writer of the sentence, so
illogical. The word _thus_, however, is often considered to have a kind
of dispensing power, freeing its participle from all obligations; so:
The Prince was, by the special command of his Majesty the Emperor,
made the guardian of H.I.H. the Crown Prince, _thus necessitating_ the
Prince’s constant presence in the capital of Japan.--_Times._
A very wealthy man can never be sure even of friendship,--while the
highest, strongest and noblest kind of love is nearly always denied to
him, in this way _carrying out_ the fulfilment of those strange but
true words:--‘How hardly shall he that is a rich man enter the Kingdom
of Heaven!’--CORELLI.
It is not _love_ that carries out, but the power that denies love,
which is not mentioned.
8. Really bad unattached or wrongly attached participles. The reader
will generally find no difficulty in seeing what has led to the
blunder, and if he will take the trouble to do this, will be less
likely to make similar blunders himself.
And then _stooping_ to take up the key to let _myself_ into the
garden, _he_ started and looked as if he heard somebody near the
door.--RICHARDSON.
Sir--With reference to this question ‘Do we believe?’, while
_recognizing_ the vastness of the subject, its modern aspect has some
definite features.--_Daily Telegraph._
_Taken_ in conjunction with the splendid white and brown trout-fishing
of the Rosses lakes and rivers, anglers have now the opportunity of
fishing one of the best, if not the best, fishery to be obtained in
Ireland.--ADVT.
Sir--_Having read_ with much interest the letters re ‘Believe only’
now appearing in the _Daily Telegraph_, perhaps some of your readers
might be interested to know the following texts which have led some
great men to ‘believe only’.--_Daily Telegraph._
_Being pushed_ unceremoniously to one side--which was precisely what I
wished--he usurped my place.--C. BRONTË.
The higher forms of speech acquire a secondary strength from
association. _Having_, in actual life, habitually _heard_ them in
connexion with mental impressions, and _having been accustomed_ to
meet with them in the most powerful writing, they come to have in
themselves a species of force.--SPENCER.
_Standing_ over one of the sluices of the Aswan dam last January, not
only was the vibration evident to the senses....--_Times._
The following passage may be commended for use in examination
papers. ‘Always _beloved_ by the Imperial couple who are to-day the
Sovereign lord and lady of Great Britain, their Majesties have, on
many occasions since the Devonshire houses rejoiced in a mistress once
more, honoured them by visits extending over some days.’--_Times._
The last, as the _Times_ reviewer has noticed, will repay analysis in
several ways.
=9. The absolute construction= is not much to be recommended, having
generally an alien air in English; but it is sometimes useful. It must
be observed, first, that the case used should now invariably be the
subjective, though it was otherwise in old English. Secondly, it is
very seldom advisable to make an absolute construction and insert a
pronoun for the purpose when the participle might simply be attached
in ordinary agreement to a noun already to hand. Thirdly, it is very
bad to use the construction, but omit to give the participle a noun
or pronoun to itself. These three transgressions will be illustrated,
in the same order, by the next three examples. But many of the wrong
sentences in 5 above may be regarded as absolute constructions with
the subject omitted.
I, with whom that Impulse was the most intractable, the most
capricious, the most maddening of masters (_him_ before me always
excepted)....--C. BRONTË.
‘Special’ is a much overworked word, _it_ being loosely used to mean
great in degree, also peculiar in kind.--R. G. WHITE.
This is said now because, _having been said_ before, I have been
judged as if I had made the pretensions which were then and which are
now again disclaimed.--R. G. WHITE.
THE GERUND
There are three questions to be considered: whether a writer ought to
let us know that he is using a gerund and not a participle; when a
gerund may be used without its subject’s being expressed; when a gerund
with preposition is to be preferred to the infinitive.
=1. Is the gerund to be made recognizable?= And, in the circumstances
that make it possible, that is, when its subject is expressed, is this
to be done sometimes, or always?