PUNCTUATION
In this chapter we shall adhere generally to our plan of not giving
systematic positive directions, or attempting to cover all ground
familiar and unfamiliar, important or not, but drawing attention only
to the most prevalent mistakes. On so technical a subject, however, a
few preliminary remarks may be made; and to those readers who would
prefer a systematic treatise Beadnell’s _Spelling and Punctuation_
(Wyman’s Technical Series, Menken, 2/6) may be recommended. We shall
refer to it occasionally in what follows; and the examples to which
--B. is attached instead of an author’s name are taken from it; these
are all given in Beadnell (unless the contrary is stated) as examples
of correct punctuation. It should be added that the book is written
rather from the compositor’s than from the author’s point of view, and
illustrates the compositor’s natural weaknesses; it is more important
to him, for instance, that a page should not be unsightly (the
unsightliness being quite imaginary, and the result of professional
conservatism) than that quotation marks and stops, or dashes and stops,
should be arranged in their true significant order; but, as the right
and unsightly is candidly given as well as the wrong and beautiful,
this does not matter; the student can take his choice.
We shall begin by explaining how it is that punctuation is a difficult
matter, and worth a writer’s serious attention. There are only six
stops, comma, semicolon, colon, full stop, question mark, exclamation
mark; or, with the dash, seven. The work of three of them, full stop,
question, exclamation, is so clear that mistakes about their use can
hardly occur without gross carelessness; and it might be thought that
with the four thus left it ought to be a very simple matter to exhaust
all possibilities in a brief code of rules. It is not so, however.
Apart from temporary disturbing causes--of which two now operative are
(1) the gradual disappearance of the colon in its old use with the
decay of formal periodic arrangement, and (2) the encroachments of the
dash as a saver of trouble and an exponent of emotion--there are also
permanent difficulties.
Before mentioning these we observe that the four stops in the strictest
acceptation of the word (,) (;) (:) (.)--for (!) and (?) are tones
rather than stops--form a series (it might be expressed also by 1, 2,
3, 4), each member of which directs us to pause for so many units of
time before proceeding. There is essentially nothing but a quantitative
time relation between them.
The first difficulty is that this single distinction has to convey to
the reader differences of more than one kind, and not commensurable; it
has to do both logical and rhetorical work. Its logical work is helping
to make clear the grammatical relations between parts of a sentence
or paragraph and the whole or other parts: its rhetorical work is
contributing to emphasis, heightening effect, and regulating pace. It
is in vain that Beadnell lays it down: ‘The variation of pause between
the words of the same thought is a matter of rhetoric and feeling, but
punctuation depends entirely upon the variation of relations--upon
logical and grammatical principles’. The difference between these two:
The master beat the scholar with a strap.--B.
The master beat the scholar, with a strap.
is in logic nothing; but in rhetoric it is the difference between
matter-of-fact statement and indignant statement: a strap, we are to
understand from the comma, is a barbarous instrument.
Again, in the two following examples, so far as logic goes, commas
would be used in both, or semicolons in both. But the writer of the
second desires to be slow, staccato, and impressive: the writer of the
first desires to be rapid and flowing, or rather, perhaps, does not
desire to be anything other than natural.
Mathematicians have sought knowledge in figures, philosophers in
systems, logicians in subtilties, and metaphysicians in sounds.--B.
In the eclogue there must be nothing rude or vulgar; nothing fanciful
or affected; nothing subtle or abstruse.--B.
The difference is rhetorical, not logical. It is true, however, that
modern printers make an effort to be guided by logic or grammar alone;
it is impossible for them to succeed entirely; but any one who will
look at an Elizabethan book with the original stopping will see how far
they have moved: the old stopping was frankly to guide the voice in
reading aloud, while the modern is mainly to guide the mind in seeing
through the grammatical construction.
A perfect system of punctuation, then, that should be exact and
uniform, would require separate rhetorical and logical notations in
the first place. Such a system is not to be desired; the point is only
that, without it, usage must fluctuate according as one element is
allowed to interfere with the other. But a second difficulty remains,
even if we assume that rhetoric could be eliminated altogether. Our
stop series, as explained above, provides us with four degrees; but the
degrees of closeness and remoteness between the members of sentence
or paragraph are at the least ten times as many. It is easy to show
that the comma, even in its purely logical function, has not one, but
many tasks to do, which differ greatly in importance. Take the three
examples:
His method of handling the subject was ornate, learned, and
perspicuous.--B.
The removal of the comma after _learned_ makes so little difference
that it is an open question among compositors whether it should be used
or not.
The criminal, who had betrayed his associates, was a prey to remorse.
With the commas, the criminal is necessarily a certain person already
known to us: without them, we can only suppose a past state of society
to be described, in which all traitors were ashamed of themselves--a
difference of some importance.
Colonel Hutchinson, the Governor whom the King had now appointed,
having hardened his heart, resolved on sterner measures.
Omission of the comma after _appointed_ gives us two persons instead
of one, and entirely changes the meaning, making the central words
into, what they could not possibly be with the comma, an absolute
construction.
These commas, that is, have very different values; many intermediate
degrees might be added. Similarly the semicolon often separates
grammatically complete sentences, but often also the mere items of a
list, and between these extremes it marks other degrees of separation.
A perfect system for the merely logical part of punctuation, then,
would require some scores of stops instead of four. This again is not
a thing to be desired; how little, is clear from the fact that one of
our scanty supply, the colon, is now practically disused as a member
of the series, and turned on to useful work at certain odd jobs that
will be mentioned later. A series of stops that should really represent
all gradations might perhaps be worked by here and there a writer
consistently with himself; but to persuade all writers to observe the
same distinctions would be hopeless.
A third difficulty is this: not only must many tasks be performed by
one stop; the same task is necessarily performed by different stops
according to circumstances; as if polygamy were not bad enough, it
is complicated by an admixture of polyandry. We have already given
two sentences of nearly similar pattern, one of which had its parts
separated by commas, the other by semicolons, and we remarked that
the difference was there accounted for by the intrusion of rhetoric.
But the same thing occurs even when logic or grammar (it should be
explained that grammar is sometimes defined as logic applied to
speech, so that for our purposes the two are synonymous) is free from
the disturbing influence; or when that influence acts directly, not on
the stop itself that is in question, but only on one of its neighbours.
To illustrate the first case, when the stops are not affected by
rhetoric, but depend on grammar alone, we may take a short sentence
as a nucleus, elaborate it by successive additions, and observe how a
particular stop has to go on increasing its power, though it continues
to serve only the same purpose, because it must keep its predominance.
When ambition asserts the monstrous doctrine of millions made for
individuals, is not the good man indignant?
The function of the comma is to mark the division between the
subordinate and the main clauses.
When ambition asserts the monstrous doctrine of millions made for
individuals, their playthings, to be demolished at their caprice; is
not the good man indignant?
The semicolon is doing now exactly what the comma did before; but, as
commas have intruded into the clause to do the humble yet necessary
work of marking two appositions, the original comma has to dignify its
relatively more important office by converting itself into a semicolon.
When ambition asserts the monstrous doctrine of millions made for
individuals, their playthings, to be demolished at their caprice;
sporting wantonly with the rights, the peace, the comforts, the
existence, of nations, as if their intoxicated pride would, if
possible, make God’s earth their football: is not the good man
indignant?--B.
The new insertion is also an apposition, like the former ones; but,
as it contains commas within itself, it must be raised above their
level by being allowed a semicolon to part it from them. The previous
semicolon, still having the same supreme task to do, and challenged
by an upstart rival, has nothing for it but to change the regal for
the imperial crown, and become a colon. A careful observer will now
object that, on these principles, our new insertion ought to have had
an internal semicolon, to differentiate the subordinate clause, _as
if_, &c., from the mere enumeration commas that precede: in which
case the semi-colon after _caprice_ should be raised to a colon; and
then what is the newly created emperor to do? There is no papal tiara
for him to assume, the full stop being confined to the independent
sentence. The objection is quite just, and shows how soon the powers
of the four stops are exhausted if relentlessly worked. But we are
concerned only to notice that the effect of stops, even logically
considered, is relative, not absolute. It is also true that many modern
writers, if they put down a sentence like this, would be satisfied
with using commas throughout; the old-fashioned air of the colon will
hardly escape notice. But the whole arrangement is according to the
compositor’s art in its severer form.
A specimen of the merely indirect action of rhetoric may be more
shortly disposed of. In a sentence already quoted--
Mathematicians have sought knowledge in figures, philosophers in
systems, logicians in subtilties, and metaphysicians in sounds--
suppose the writer to have preferred for impressive effect, as we said
he might have, to use semicolons instead of commas. The immediate
result of that would be that what before could be left to the reader
to do for himself (i. e., the supplying of the words _have sought
knowledge_ in each member) will in presence of the semicolon require to
be done to the eye by commas, and the sentence will run:
Mathematicians have sought knowledge in figures; philosophers, in
systems; logicians, in subtilties; and metaphysicians, in sounds.
But, lest we should be thought too faithful followers of the logicians,
we will now assume that our point has been sufficiently proved: the
difficulties of punctuation, owing to the interaction of different
purposes, and the inadequacy of the instruments, are formidable enough
to be worth grappling with.
We shall now only make three general remarks before proceeding to
details. The first is implied in what has been already said: the work
of punctuation is mainly to show, or hint at, the grammatical relation
between words, phrases, clauses, and sentences; but it must not be
forgotten that stops also serve to regulate pace, to throw emphasis
on particular words and give them significance, and to indicate tone.
These effects are subordinate, and must not be allowed to conflict with
the main object; but as the grammatical relation may often be shown in
more than one way, that way can be chosen which serves another purpose
best.
Secondly, it is a sound principle that as few stops should be used as
will do the work. There is a theory that scientific or philosophic
matter should be punctuated very fully and exactly, whereas mere
literary work can do with a much looser system. This is a mistake,
except so far as scientific and philosophic writers may desire to give
an impressive effect by retarding the pace; that is legitimate; but
otherwise, all that is printed should have as many stops as help the
reader, and not more. A resolution to put in all the stops that can be
correctly used is very apt to result in the appearance of some that can
only be used incorrectly; some of our quotations from Huxley and Mr.
Balfour may be thought to illustrate this. And whereas slight stopping
may venture on small irregularities, full stopping that is incorrect
is also unpardonable. The objection to full stopping that is correct
is the discomfort inflicted upon readers, who are perpetually being
checked like a horse with a fidgety driver.
Thirdly, every one should make up his mind not to depend on his stops.
They are to be regarded as devices, not for saving him the trouble of
putting his words into the order that naturally gives the required
meaning, but for saving his reader the moment or two that would
sometimes, without them, be necessarily spent on reading the sentence
twice over, once to catch the general arrangement, and again for the
details. It may almost be said that what reads wrongly if the stops are
removed is radically bad; stops are not to alter meaning, but merely
to show it up. Those who are learning to write should make a practice
of putting down all they want to say without stops first. What then,
on reading over, naturally arranges itself contrary to the intention
should be not punctuated, but altered; and the stops should be as few
as possible, consistently with the recognized rules. At this point
those rules should follow; but adequately explained and illustrated,
they would require a volume; and we can only speak of common abuses and
transgressions of them.
First comes what may be called for short the spot-plague--the tendency
to make full-stops do all the work. The comma, most important, if
slightest, of all stops, cannot indeed be got rid of, though even for
that the full-stop is substituted when possible; but the semicolon
is now as much avoided by many writers as the colon (in its old use)
by most. With the semicolon go most of the conjunctions. Now there
is something to be said for the change, or the two changes: the
old-fashioned period, or long complex sentence, carefully worked out
with a view to symmetry, balance, and degrees of subordination, though
it has a dignity of its own, is formal, stiff, and sometimes frigid;
the modern newspaper vice of long sentences either rambling or involved
(far commoner in newspapers than the spot-plague) is inexpressibly
wearisome and exasperating. Simplification is therefore desirable. But
journalists now and then, and writers with more literary ambition than
ability generally, overdo the thing till it becomes an affectation;
it is then little different from Victor Hugo’s device of making every
sentence a paragraph, and our last state is worse than our first.
Patronizing archness, sham ingenuousness, spasmodic interruption,
scrappy argument, dry monotony, are some of the resulting impressions.
We shall have to trouble the reader with at least one rather long
specimen; the spot-plague in its less virulent form, that is, when it
is caused not by pretentiousness or bad taste, but merely by desire
to escape from the period, does not declare itself very rapidly. What
follows is a third or so of a literary review, of which the whole is
in exactly the same style, and which might have been quoted entire
for the same purpose. It will be seen that it shows twenty full-stops
to one semicolon and no colons. Further, between no two of the twenty
sentences is there a conjunction.
The life of Lord Chatham, which has just appeared in three volumes,
by Dr. Albert v. Ruville of the University of Halle deserves special
notice. It is much the most complete life which has yet appeared of
one of the most commanding figures in English history. It exhibits
that thoroughness of method which characterized German historical
writings of other days, and which has not lately been conspicuous.
It is learned without being dull, and is free from that uncritical
spirit of hostility to England which impairs the value of so many
recent German histories. That portion which deals with the closing
years of George II and with events following the accession of George
III is exceptionally interesting. One of the greatest misfortunes that
ever happened to England was the resignation of Pitt in 1761. It was
caused, as we all know, by difference of opinion with his colleagues
on the Spanish question. Ferdinand VI of Spain died in 1759, and was
succeeded by King Charles III, one of the most remarkable princes of
the House of Bourbon. This sovereign was an enthusiastic adherent of
the policy which found expression in the celebrated family compact.
On August 15, 1761, a secret convention was concluded between
France and Spain, under which Spain engaged to declare war against
England in May, 1762. Pitt quite understood the situation. He saw
that instant steps should be taken to meet the danger, and proposed
at a Cabinet held on October 2 that war should be declared against
Spain. Newcastle, Hardwicke, Anson, Bute, and Mansfield combated this
proposal, which was rejected, and two days afterwards Pitt resigned.
His scheme was neither immature nor ill-considered. He had made his
preparations to strike a heavy blow at the enemy, to seize the Isthmus
of Panama, thereby securing a port in the Pacific, and separating the
Spanish provinces of Mexico and Peru. He had planned an expedition
against Havana and the Philippine Islands, where no adequate
resistance could have been made; and, had he remained in office, there
is but little doubt that the most precious possessions of Spain in the
New World would have been incorporated in the British Empire. When he
left the Cabinet all virility seems to have gone out of it with him.
As he had foreseen, Spain declared war on England at a suitable moment
for herself, and the unfortunate negotiations were opened leading to
the Peace of Paris in 1763, which was pregnant with many disastrous
results for England. The circumstances which led to the resignation
of Pitt are dealt with by Dr. v. Ruville much more lucidly than by
most historians. This portion of his work is the more interesting
because of the pains he takes to clear George III from the charge of
conspiring against his great Minister.--_Times._
The reader’s experience has probably been that the constant fresh
starts are at first inspiriting, that about half-way he has had
quite enough of the novelty, and that he is intensely grateful, when
the solitary semicolon comes into sight, for a momentary lapse into
ordinary gentle progress. Writers like this may almost be suspected of
taking literally a summary piece of advice that we have lately seen
in a book on English composition: _Never use a semicolon when you can
employ a full-stop._ Beadnell lays down a law that at first sight seems
to amount to the same thing: _The notion of parting short independent
sentences otherwise than by a full-stop, rests upon no rational
foundation, and leads to endless perplexities._ But his practice
clears him of the imputation: he is saved by the ambiguity of the word
_independent_. There are grammatical dependence, and dependence of
thought. Of all those ‘little hard round unconnected things’, in the
_Times_ review, that ‘seem to come upon one as shot would descend from
a shot-making tower’ (Sir Arthur Helps), hardly one is not dependent
on its neighbours in the more liberal sense, though each is a complete
sentence and independent in grammar. Now one important use of stops
is to express the degrees of thought dependence. A style that groups
several complete sentences together, by the use of semicolons, because
they are more closely connected in thought, is far more restful and
easy--for the reader, that is--than the style that leaves him to do
the grouping for himself; and yet it is free from the formality of the
period, which consists, not of grammatically independent sentences, but
of a main sentence with many subordinate clauses. We have not space for
a long example of the group system rightly applied; most good modern
writers free from the craving to be up to date will supply them on
every page; but a very short quotation may serve to emphasize the
difference between group and spot-plague principles. The essence of the
latter is that almost the only stops used are full-stops and commas,
that conjunctions are rare, and that when a conjunction does occur the
comma is generally used, not the full-stop. What naturally follows is
an arrangement of this kind:
The sheil of Ravensnuik was, for the present at least, at his
disposal. The foreman or ‘grieve’ at the Home Farm was anxious to be
friendly, but even if he lost that place, Dan Weir knew that there was
plenty of others.--CROCKETT.
(To save trouble, let it be stated that the sheil is a dependency of
the Home Farm, and not contrasted with or opposed to it.) Here there
are three grammatically independent sentences, between the two latter
of which the conjunction _but_ is inserted. It follows from spot-plague
principles that there will be a full-stop at the end of the first,
and a comma at the end of the second. With the group system it is not
so simple a matter; before we can place the stops, we have to inquire
how the three sentences are connected in thought. It then appears
that the friendliness of the grieve is mentioned to account for the
sheil’s being at disposal; that is, there is a close connexion, though
no conjunction, between the first and the second sentences. Further,
the birds in the bush of the third sentence are contrasted, not with
the second sentence’s friendliness, but with the first sentence’s
bird in the hand (which, however, is accounted for by the second
sentence’s friendliness). To group rightly, then, we must take care,
quite reversing the author’s punctuation, that the first and second
are separated by a stop of less power than that which separates the
third from them. Comma, semicolon, would do it, if the former were
sufficient between two grammatically independent sentences not joined
by a conjunction; it obviously is not sufficient here (though in some
such pairs it might be); so, instead of comma, semicolon, we must use
semicolon, full-stop; and the sentence will run, with its true meaning
much more clearly given:
The sheil of Ravensnuik was, for the present at least, at his
disposal; the foreman or ‘grieve’ at the Home Farm was anxious to be
friendly. But even if he lost that place, Dan Weir knew that there was
plenty of others.
The group system gives more trouble to the writer or compositor, and
less to the reader; the compositor cannot be expected to like it, if
the burden falls on him; inferior writers cannot be expected to choose
it either, perhaps; but the good writers who do choose it no doubt find
that after a short time the work comes to do itself by instinct.
We need now only add two or three short specimens, worse, though
from their shortness less remarkable, than the _Times_ extract. They
are not specially selected as bad; but it may be hoped that by their
juxtaposition they may have some deterrent effect.
So Dan opened the door a little and the dog came out as if nothing had
happened. It was now clear. The light was that of late evening. The
air hardly more than cool. A gentle fanning breeze came from the North
and....--CROCKETT.
Allies must have common sentiments, a common policy, common interests.
Russia’s disposition is aggressive. Her policy is the closed door.
Her interests lie in monopoly. With our country it is precisely the
opposite. Japan may conquer, but she will not aggress. Russia may be
defeated, but she will not abandon her aggression. With such a country
an alliance is beyond the conception even of a dream.--_Times._
Upon a hillside, a great swelling hillside, high up near the clouds,
lay a herd lad. Little more than a boy he was. He did not know much,
but he wanted to know more. He was not very good, but he wanted to be
better. He was lonely, but of that he was not aware. On the whole he
was content up there on his great hillside.--CROCKETT.
To be popular you have to be interested, or appear to be interested,
in other people. And there are so many in this world in whom it
is impossible to be interested. So many for whom the most skilful
hypocrisy cannot help us to maintain a semblance of interest.--_Daily
Telegraph._
Of course a girl so pretty as my Miss Anne could not escape having
many suitors, especially as all over the countryside Sir Tempest had
the name of being something of a skinflint. And skinflints are always
rich, as is well known.--CROCKETT.
The last sentence here is a mere comment on what is itself only an
appendage, the clause introduced by _especially_; it has therefore
no right to the dignity of a separate sentence. But it can hardly be
mended without some alteration of words as well as stops; for instance,
put a semicolon after suitors, write _moreover_ for _especially as_,
and put only a comma after _skinflint_; the right proportion would then
be secured.
The spot-plague, as we have shown, sometimes results in illogicality;
it need not do so, however; when it does, the fault lies with the
person who, accepting its principles, does not arrange his sentences
to suit them. It is a new-fashioned and, in our opinion, unpleasant
system, but quite compatible with correctness.
Over-stopping, to which we now proceed, is on the contrary
old-fashioned; but it is equally compatible with correctness. Though
old-fashioned, it still lingers obstinately enough to make some slight
protest desirable; the superstition that every possible stop should be
inserted in scientific and other such writing misleads compositors,
and their example affects literary authors who have not much ear. Any
one who finds himself putting down several commas close to one another
should reflect that he is making himself disagreeable, and question his
conscience, as severely as we ought to do about disagreeable conduct in
real life, whether it is necessary. He will find that the parenthetic
or emphatic effect given to an adverbial phrase by putting a comma
at each end of it is often of no value whatever to his meaning; in
other words, that he can make himself agreeable by merely putting off
a certain pompous solemnity; erasing a pair of commas may make the
difference in writing that is made in conversation by a change of tone
from the didactic to the courteous. Sometimes the abundance of commas
is not so easily reduced; a change in the order of words, the omission
of a needless adverb or conjunction, even the recasting of a sentence,
may be necessary. But it is a safe statement that a gathering of commas
(except on certain lawful occasions, as in a list) is a suspicious
circumstance. The sentence should at least be read aloud, and if it
halts or jolts some change or other should be made.
The smallest portion possible of curious interest had been
awakened within me, and, at last, I asked myself, within my own
mind....--BORROW.
None of the last three commas is wanted; those round _at last_ are very
unpleasant, and they at least should be omitted.
In questions of trade and finance, questions which, owing, perhaps, to
their increasing intricacy, seem....--BRYCE.
_Perhaps_ can do very well without commas.
It is, however, already plain enough that, unless, indeed, some great
catastrophe should upset all their calculations, the authorities have
very little intention....--_Times._
_Indeed_ can do without commas, if it cannot itself be done without.
Jeannie, too, is, just occasionally, like a good girl out of a book by
a sentimental lady-novelist.--_Times._
If _just_ is omitted, there need be no commas round _occasionally_.
There may be a value in _just_; but hardly enough to compensate for the
cruel jerking at the bit to which the poor reader is subjected by a
remorseless driver.
Thus, their work, however imperfect and faulty, judged by modern
lights, it may have been, brought them face to face with....--HUXLEY.
The comma after _thus_ is nothing if not pompous. And another can be
got rid of by putting _it may have been_ before _judged by modern
lights_.
Lilias suggested the advice which, of all others, seemed most suited
to the occasion, that, yielding, namely, to the circumstances of their
situation, they should watch....--SCOTT.
Omit _namely_ and its commas.
Shakespeare, it is true, had, as I have said, as respects England, the
privilege which only first-comers enjoy.--LOWELL.
A good example of the warning value of commas. None of these can
be dispensed with, since there are no less than three parenthetic
qualifications to the sentence. But the crowd of commas ought to have
told the writer how bad his sentence was; it is like an obstacle race.
It should begin, It is true that ..., which disposes of one obstacle.
_As I have said_ can be given a separate sentence afterwards--So much
has been said before.
Private banks and capitalists constitute the main bulk of the
subscribers, and, apparently, they are prepared to go on subscribing
indefinitely.--_Times._
Putting commas round _apparently_ amounts to the insertion of a
further clause, such as, Though you would not think they could be such
fools. But what the precise contents of the further clause may be is
problematic. At any rate, a writer should not invite us to read between
the lines unless he is sure of two things: what he wants to be read
there; and that we are likely to be willing and able readers of it. The
same is true of many words that are half adverbs and half conjunctions,
like _therefore_. We have the right to comma them off if we like; but,
unless it is done with a definite purpose, it produces perplexity as
well as heaviness. In the first of the next two examples, there is
no need whatever for the commas. In the second, the motive is clear:
having the choice between commas and no commas, the reporter uses them
because he so secures a pause after _he_, and gives the word that
emphasis which in the speech as delivered doubtless made the _I_ that
it represents equivalent to _I for my part_.
Both Tom and John knew this; and, therefore, John--the soft-hearted
one--kept out of the way.--TROLLOPE.
It would not be possible to sanction an absolutely unlimited
expenditure on the Volunteers; the burden on the tax-payers would be
too great. He, therefore, wished that those who knew most about the
Volunteers would make up their minds as to the direction in which
there should be development.--_Times._
After _for_ and _and_ beginning a sentence commas are often used
that are hardly even correct. It may be suspected that writers allow
themselves to be deceived by the false analogy of sentences in which
the _and_ or _for_ is immediately followed by a subordinate clause
or phrase that has a right to its two commas. When there is no such
interruption, the only possible plea for the comma is that it is not
logical but rhetorical, and conveys some archness or other special
significance such as is hardly to be found in our two examples:
The lawn, the soft, smooth slope, the ... bespeak an amount of elegant
comfort within, that would serve for a palace. This indication is
not without warrant; for, within it is a house of refinement and
luxury.--DICKENS.
And, it is true that these were the days of mental and moral
fermentation.--HUTTON.
We shall class here also, assuming for the present that the rhetorical
plea may be allowed even when there is no logical justification for a
stop, two sentences in which the copula _is_, standing between subject
and complement, has commas on each side of it. Impressiveness is what
is aimed at; it seems to us a tawdry device for giving one’s sentence
an _ex cathedra_ air:
The reason why the world lacks unity, is, because man is disunited
with himself.--EMERSON.
The charm in Nelson’s history, is, the unselfish greatness.--EMERSON.
Many other kinds of over-stopping might be illustrated; but we have
intentionally confined ourselves here to specimens in which grammatical
considerations do not arise, and the sentence is equally correct
whether the stops are inserted or not. Sentences in which over-stopping
outrages grammar more or less decidedly will be incidentally treated
later on. Meanwhile we make the general remark that ungrammatical
insertion of stops is a high crime and misdemeanour, whereas
ungrammatical omission of them is often venial, and in some cases
even desirable. Nevertheless the over-stopping that offends against
nothing but taste has its counterpart in under-stopping of the same
sort. And it must be added that nothing so easily exposes a writer
to the suspicion of being uneducated as omission of commas against
nearly universal custom. In the examples that follow, every one will
see at the first glance where commas are wanting. When it is remembered
that, as we have implied, an author has the right to select the degree
of intensity, or scale, of his punctuation, it can hardly be said
that grammar actually demands any stops in these sentences taken by
themselves. Yet the effect, unless we choose to assume misprints, as we
naturally do in isolated cases, is horrible.
It may be asked can further depreciation be afforded.--_Times._
I believe you used to live in Warwickshire at Willowsmere Court did
you not?--CORELLI.
The hills slope gently to the cliffs which overhang the bay of Naples
and they seem to bear on their outstretched arms a rich offering
of Nature’s fairest gifts for the queen city of the south.--F. M.
CRAWFORD.
‘You made a veritable sensation Lucio!’ ‘Did I?’ He laughed. ‘You
flatter me Geoffrey.’--CORELLI.
I like your swiftness of action Geoffrey.--CORELLI.
Good heavens man, there are no end of lords and ladies who
will....--CORELLI.
Although we are, when we turn from taste to grammar, on slightly firmer
ground, it will be seen that there are many debatable questions; and
we shall have to use some technical terms. As usual, only those points
will be attended to which our observation has shown to be important.
1. The substantival clause.
Subordinate clauses are sentences containing a subject and predicate,
but serving the purpose in the main sentence (to which they are
sometimes joined by a subordinating conjunction or relative pronoun,
but sometimes without any separate and visible link) of single words,
namely, of noun, adjective, or adverb; they are called respectively
substantival, adjectival, or adverbial clauses. Examples:
Substantival. He asked _what I should do_. (_my plan_, noun)
Adjectival. The man _who acts honestly_ is respected. (_honest_,
adjective)
Adverbial. I shall see you _when the sun next rises_. (_to-morrow_,
adverb)
Now there is no rule that subordinate clauses must be separated from
the main sentence by a stop; that depends on whether they are essential
parts of the proposition (when stops are generally wrong), or more or
less separable accidents (when commas are more or less required). But
what we wish to draw attention to is a distinction in this respect,
very generally disregarded, between the substantival clause and the two
other kinds. When the others are omitted, though the desired meaning
may be spoilt, the grammar generally remains uninjured; a complete,
though not perhaps valuable sentence is left. _The man is respected_,
_I shall see you_, are as much sentences alone as they were with the
adjectival and adverbial clauses. With substantival clauses this is
seldom true; they are usually the subjects, objects, or complements,
of the verbs, that is, are grammatically essential. _He asked_ is
meaningless by itself. (Even if the point is that he asked and did not
answer, _things_, or _something_, has to be supplied in thought.) Now
it is a principle, not without exceptions, but generally sound, that
the subject, object, or complement, is not to be separated from its
verb even by a comma (though _two_ commas belonging to an inserted
parenthetic clause or phrase or word may intervene). It follows that
there is no logical or grammatical justification, though there may
be a rhetorical one, for the comma so frequently placed before the
_that_ of an indirect statement. Our own opinion (which is, however,
contrary to the practice of most compositors) is that this should
always be omitted except when the writer has a very distinct reason for
producing rhetorical impressiveness by an unusual pause. Some very ugly
overstopping would thus be avoided.
Yet there, too, we find, that character has its problems to
solve.--MEREDITH.
We know, that, in the individual man, consciousness grows.--HUXLEY.
And it is said, that, on a visitor once asking to see his library,
Descartes led him....--HUXLEY.
The general opinion however was, that, if Bute had been early
practised in debate, he might have become an impressive
speaker.--MACAULAY.
The comma before _whether_ in the next is actually misleading; we are
tempted to take as adverbial what is really a substantival clause,
object to the verbal noun _indifference_:
The book ... had merits due to the author’s indifference, whether he
showed bad taste or not, provided he got nearer to the impression he
wished to convey.--_Speaker._
Grammar, however, would afford some justification for distinguishing
between the substantival clause as subject, object, or complement, and
the substantival clause in apposition with one of these. Though there
should decidedly be no comma in _He said that ..._, it is strictly
defensible in _It is said, that...._ The _that_-clause in the latter
is explanatory of, and in apposition with, _it_; and the ordinary
sign of apposition is a comma. Similarly, _My opinion is that_: _It
is my opinion, that_. But as there seems to be no value whatever in
the distinction, our advice is to do without the comma in all ordinary
cases of either kind. A useful and reasonable exception is made in
some manuals; for instance, in Bigelow’s _Manual of Punctuation_ we
read: ‘Clauses like “It is said”, introducing several propositions
or quotations, each preceded by the word _that_, should have a comma
before the first _that_. But if a single proposition or quotation only
is given, no comma is necessary. Example:
Philosophers assert, that Nature is unlimited in her operations, that
she has inexhaustible treasures in reserve, that....’
Anything that shows the reader what he is to expect, and so saves
him the trouble of coming back to revise his first impressions, is
desirable if there is no strong reason against it.
A more important distinction is this: _He said_, &c., may have
for its object, and _It is said_, &c., for its (virtual) subject,
either the actual words said, or a slight rearrangement of them (not
necessarily to the eye, but at least to the mind), which makes them
more clearly part of the grammatical construction, and turns them
into true subordinate clauses. Thus _He told her, You are in danger_
may be kept, but is usually altered to _He told her that she was in
danger_, or to _He told her she was in danger_. In the first, _You
are in danger_ is not properly a subordinate clause, but a sentence,
which may be said to be in apposition with _these words_ understood.
In the second and third alike, the altered words are a subordinate
substantival clause, the object to _told_. It follows that when the
actual words are given as such (this is sometimes only to be known by
the tone: compare _I tell you, I will come_, and _I tell you I will
come_), a comma should be inserted; whereas, when they are meant as
mere reported or indirect speech, it should be omitted. Actual words
given as such should also be begun with a capital letter; and if they
consist of a compound sentence, or of several sentences, a comma will
not suffice for their introduction; a colon, a colon and dash, or a
full stop, with quotation marks always in the last case, and usually in
the others, will be necessary; but these are distinctions that need not
be considered here in detail.
Further, it must be remembered that substantival clauses include
indirect questions as well as indirect statements, and that the same
rules will apply to them. The two following examples are very badly
stopped:
(_a_) Add to all this that he died in his thirty-seventh year: and
then ask, If it be strange that his poems are imperfect?--CARLYLE.
Accommodation of the stops to the words would give:
and then ask if it be strange that his poems are imperfect.
And accommodation of the words to the stops would give:
and then ask, Is it strange that his poems are imperfect?
(_b_) It may be asked can further depreciation be afforded.--_Times._
The two correct alternatives here are similarly:
It may be asked, Can further depreciation be afforded?
It may be asked whether further depreciation can be afforded.
As the sentences stood originally, we get in the Carlyle a most
theatrical, and in the _Times_ a most slovenly effect.
2. The verb and its subject, object, or complement.
Our argument against the common practice of placing a comma before
substantival _that_-clauses and others like them was, in brief: This
sort of _that_-clause is simply equivalent to a noun; that noun is,
with few exceptions, the subject, object, or complement, to a verb;
and between things so closely and essentially connected as the verb
and any of these no stop should intervene (unless for very strong and
special rhetorical reasons). This last principle, that the verb and its
essential belongings must not be parted, was merely assumed. We think
it will be granted by any one who reads the next two examples. It is
felt at once that a writer who will break the principle with so little
excuse as here will shrink from nothing.
So poor Byron was dethroned, as I had prophesied he would be, though I
had little idea that his humiliation, would be brought about by one,
whose sole strength consists in setting people to sleep.--BORROW.
He was, moreover, not an unkind man; but the crew of the _Bounty_,
mutinied against him, and set him half naked in an open boat.--BORROW.
Very little better than these, but each with some perceptible motive,
are the next six:
Depreciation of him, fetched up at a stroke the glittering armies of
her enthusiasm.--MEREDITH.
Opposition to him, was comparable to the stand of blocks of timber
before a flame.--MEREDITH.
In each of these the comma acts as an accent upon _him_, and is purely
rhetorical and illogical.
Such women as you, are seldom troubled with remorse.--CORELLI.
Here the comma guards us from taking _you are_ together. We have
already said that this device is illegitimate. Such sentences should be
recast; for instance, Women like you are seldom, &c.
The thick foliage of the branching oaks and elms in my grounds
afforded grateful shade and repose to the tired body, while the
tranquil loveliness of the woodland and meadow scenery, comforted and
soothed the equally tired mind.--CORELLI.
With them came young boys and little children, while on either side,
maidens white-veiled and rose-wreathed, paced demurely, swinging
silver censers to and fro.--CORELLI.
Swift’s view of human nature, is too black to admit of any hopes of
their millennium.--L. STEPHEN.
_Loveliness_, _maidens_, _view_, the strict subjects, have adjectival
phrases attached after them. The temptation to insert the comma is
comprehensible, but slight, and should have been resisted.
In the three that come next, the considerable length of the subject,
it must be admitted, makes a comma comforting; it gives us a sort of
assurance that we have kept our hold on the sentence. It is illogical,
however, and, owing to the importance of not dividing subject from
verb, unpleasantly illogical. In each case the comfort would be equally
effective if it were legitimized by the insertion of a comma before
as well as after the clause or phrase at the end of which the present
comma stands. The extra commas would be after _earth_, _victims_,
_Schleiden_.
To see so many thousand wretches burdening the earth when such as her
die, makes me think God did never intend life for a blessing.--SWIFT.
An order of the day expressing sympathy with the families of the
victims and confidence in the Government, was adopted.--_Times._
The famous researches of Schwann and Schleiden in 1837 and the
following years, founded the modern science of histology.--HUXLEY.
It may be said that it is ‘fudging’ to find an excuse, as we have
proposed to do, for a stop that we mean really to do something
different from its ostensible work. But the answer is that with few
tools and many tasks to do much fudging is in fact necessary.
A special form of this, in protest against which we shall give five
examples, each from a different well-known author, is when the subject
includes and ends with a defining relative clause, after which an
illogical comma is placed. As the relative clause is of the defining
kind (a phrase that has been explained[12]), it is practically
impossible to fudge in these sentences by putting a comma before the
relative pronoun. Even in the first sentence the length of the relative
clause is no sufficient excuse; and in all the others we should abolish
the comma without hesitation.
The same quickness of sympathy which had served him well in his work
among the East End poor, enabled him to pour feeling into the figures
of a bygone age.--BRYCE.
One of its agents is our will, but that which expresses itself in our
will, is stronger than our will.--EMERSON.
The very interesting class of objects to which these belong, do not
differ from the rest of the material universe.--BALFOUR.
And thus, the great men who were identified with the war, began slowly
to edge over to the party....--L. STEPHEN.
In becoming a merchant-gild the body of citizens who formed the
‘town’, enlarged their powers of civic legislation.--J. R. GREEN.
In the two sentences that now follow from Mr. Morley, the offending
comma of the first parts _centre_, which is what grammarians call the
oblique complement, from its verb _made_; the offending comma of the
second parts the direct object _groups_ from its verb _drew_. Every one
will allow that the sentences are clumsy; most people will allow that
the commas are illogical. As for us, we do not say that, if the words
are to be kept as they are, the commas should be omitted; but we do say
that a good writer, when he found himself reduced to illogical commas,
should have taken the trouble to rearrange his words.
De Maistre was never more clear-sighted than when he made a vigorous
and deliberate onslaught upon Bacon, the centre of his movement
against revolutionary principles.--MORLEY.
In saying that the Encyclopaedists began a political work, what
is meant is that they drew into the light of new ideas, groups of
institutions, usages, and arrangements which affected the well-being
of France, as closely as nutrition affected the health and strength of
an individual Frenchman.--MORLEY.
It may be added, by way of concluding this section, that the insertion
of a comma in the middle of an absolute construction, which is capable,
as was shown in the sentence about Colonel Hutchinson and the governor,
of having very bad results indeed, is only a particular instance
and _reductio ad absurdum_ of inserting a comma between subject and
verb. The comma in the absolute construction is so recognized a trap
that it might have been thought needless to mention it; the following
instances, however, will show that a warning is even now necessary.
Sir E. Seymour, having replied for the Navy, the Duke of Connaught, in
replying for the Army, said....--_Times._
Thus _got_, having been by custom poorly substituted for _gat_,
so that we say He got away, instead of He gat away, many persons
abbreviate _gotten_ into _got_, saying He had got, for He had
gotten.--R. G. WHITE.
The garrison, having been driven from the outer line of defences
on July 30, Admiral Witoft considered it high time to make a
sortie.--_Times._
But that didn’t last long; for Dr. Blimber, happening to change the
position of his tight plump legs, as if he were going to get up, Toots
swiftly vanished.--DICKENS.
3. The adjectival clause.
This, strictly speaking, does the work of an adjective in the sentence.
It usually begins with a relative pronoun, but sometimes with a
relative adverb. The man _who does not breathe_ dies, is equivalent to
The _unbreathing_ man dies. The place _where we stand_ is holy ground,
is equivalent to _This_ place is holy ground. But we shall include
under the phrase all clauses that begin with a relative, though some
relative clauses are not adjectival, because a division of all into
defining clauses on the one hand, and non-defining or commenting on the
other, is more easily intelligible than the division into adjectival
and non-adjectival. This distinction is more fully gone into in the
chapter on Syntax, where it is suggested that _that_, when possible,
is the appropriate relative for defining, and _which_ for non-defining
clauses. That, however, is a debatable point, and quite apart from the
question of stopping that arises here. Examples of the two types are:
(Defining) The river that (which) runs through London is turbid.
(Commenting) The Thames, which runs through London, is turbid.
It will be seen that in the first the relative clause is an answer to
the imaginary question, ‘Which river?’; that is, it defines the noun
to which it belongs. In the second, such a question as ‘Which Thames?’
is hardly conceivable; the relative clause gives us a piece of extra
and non-essential information, an independent comment. The two types
are not always so easily distinguished as in these examples constructed
for the purpose. What we wish here to say is that it would contribute
much to clearness of style if writers would always make up their minds
whether they intend a definition or a comment, and would invariably use
no commas with a defining clause, and two commas with a non-defining.
All the examples that follow are in our opinion wrong. The first
three are of defining relative clauses wrongly preceded by commas;
the second three of commenting relative clauses wrongly not preceded
by commas. The last of all there may be a doubt about. If the long
clause beginning with _which_ is intended merely to show how great the
weariness is, and _which_ is practically equivalent to _so great that_,
it may be called a defining clause, and the omission of the comma is
right. But if the _which_ really acts as a mere connexion to introduce
a new fact that the correspondent wishes to record, the clause is
non-defining, and the comma ought according to our rule to be inserted
before it.
The man, _who_ thinketh in his heart and hath the power straightway
(very straightway) to go and do it, is not so common in any
country.--CROCKETT.
Now everyone must do after his kind, be he asp or angel, and these
must. The question, _which_ a wise man and a student of modern history
will ask, is, what that kind is.--EMERSON.
Those, _who_ are urging with most ardour what are called the
greatest benefits of mankind, are narrow, self-pleasing, conceited
men.--EMERSON.
A reminder is being sent to all absent members of the Nationalist
party that their attendance at Westminster is urgently required next
week _when_ the Budget will be taken on Monday.--_Times._
The Marshall Islands will pass from the control of the Jaluit Company
under that of the German colonial authorities _who_ will bear the cost
of administration and will therefore collect all taxes.--_Times._
The causes of this popularity are, no doubt, in part, the extreme
simplicity of the reasoning on which the theory rests, in part its
extreme plausibility, in part, perhaps, the nature of the result
_which_ is commonly thought to be speculatively interesting without
being practically inconvenient.--BALFOUR.
Naval critics ... are showing signs of weariness _which_ even the
reported appearance of Admiral Nebogatoff in the Malacca Strait is
unable to remove.--_Times._
4. The adverb, adverbial phrase, and adverbial clause.
In writing of substantival and adjectival clauses, our appeal was for
more logical precision than is usual. We said that the comma habitual
before substantival clauses was in most cases unjustifiable, and should
be omitted even at the cost of occasional slight discomfort. We said
that with one division of adjectival, or rather relative clauses,
commas should always be used, and with another they should always be
omitted. With the adverbial clauses, phrases, and words, on the other
hand, our appeal is on the whole for less precision; we recommend that
less precision should be aimed at, at least, though more attained, than
at present. Certain kinds of laxity here are not merely venial, but
laudable: certain other kinds are damning evidence of carelessness or
bad taste or bad education. It is not here a mere matter of choosing
between one right and one wrong way; there are many degrees.
_Now_ is an adverb; _in the house_ is usually an adverbial phrase; _if
I know it_ is an adverbial clause. Logic and grammar never prohibit the
separating of any such expressions from the rest of their sentence--by
two commas if they stand in the middle of it, by one if they begin or
end it. But use of the commas tends, especially with a single word,
but also with a phrase or clause, though in inverse proportion to its
length, to modify the meaning. _I cannot do it now_ means no more than
it says: _I cannot do it, now_ conveys a further assurance that the
speaker would have been delighted to do it yesterday or will be quite
willing tomorrow. This distinction, generally recognized with the
single word, applies also to clauses; and writers of judgement should
take the fullest freedom in such matters, allowing no superstition
about ‘subordinate clauses’ to force upon them commas that they feel to
be needless, but inclining always when in doubt to spare readers the
jerkiness of overstopping. It is a question for rhetoric alone, not for
logic, so long as the proper allowance of commas, if any, is given;
what the proper allowance is, has been explained a few lines back. We
need not waste time on exemplifying this simple principle; there is so
far no real laxity; the writer is simply free.
Laxity comes in when we choose, guided by nothing more authoritative
than euphony, to stop an adverbial phrase or adverbial clause, but
not to stop it at both ends, though it stands in the middle of its
sentence. This is an unmistakable offence against logic, and lays one
open to the condemnation of examiners and precisians. But the point we
wish to make is that in a very large class of sentences the injury to
meaning is so infinitesimal, and the benefit to sound so considerable,
that we do well to offend. The class is so large that only one example
need be given:
But with their triumph over the revolt, Cranmer and his colleagues
advanced yet more boldly.--J. R. GREEN.
The adverbial phrase is _with their triumph over the revolt_. _But_
does not belong to it, but to the whole sentence. The writer has no
defence whatever as against the logician; nevertheless, his reader will
be grateful to him. The familiar intrusion of a comma after initial
_And_ and _For_ where there is no intervening clause to justify it, of
which we gave examples when we spoke of overstopping, comes probably by
false analogy from the unpleasant pause that rigid punctuation has made
common in sentences of this type.
Laxity once introduced, however, has to be carefully kept within
bounds. It may be first laid down absolutely that when an adverbial
clause is to be stopped, but incompletely stopped, the omitted stop
must always be the one at the beginning, and never the one at the end.
Transgression of this is quite intolerable; we shall give several
instances at the end of the section to impress the fact. But it is also
true that even the omission of the beginning comma looks more and more
slovenly the further we get from the type of our above cited sentence.
The quotations immediately following are arranged from the less to the
more slovenly.
His health gave way, and _at the age of fifty-six_, he died
prematurely in harness at Quetta.--_Times._
If mankind was in the condition of believing nothing, and _without a
bias in any particular direction_, was merely on the look-out for some
legitimate creed, it would not, I conceive, be possible....--BALFOUR.
The party _then_, consisted of a man and his wife, of his
mother-in-law and his sister.--F. M. CRAWFORD.
These men _in their honorary capacity_, already have sufficient work
to perform.--_Guernsey Evening Press._
It will be observed that in the sentence from Mr. Balfour the chief
objection to omitting the comma between _and_ and _without_ is that we
are taken off on a false scent, it being natural at first to suppose
that we are to supply _was_ again; this can only happen when we are in
the middle of a sentence, and not at the beginning as in the pattern
Cranmer sentence.
The gross negligence or ignorance betrayed by giving the first and
omitting the second comma will be convincingly shown by this array of
sentences from authors of all degrees.
It is not strange that the sentiment of loyalty should, _from the day
of his accession_ have begun to revive.--MACAULAY.
Was it possible that having loved she should not so rejoice, or that,
_rejoicing_ she should not be proud of her love?--TROLLOPE.
I venture to suggest that, _had Lord Hugh himself been better informed
in the matter_ he would scarcely have placed himself....--_Times._
The necessary consequence being that the law, _to uphold the
restraints of which such unusual devices are employed_ is in practice
destitute of the customary sanctions.--_Times._
The view held ... is that, _owing to the constant absence of the
Commander-in-Chief on tour_ it is necessary that....--_Times._
The master of the house, to whom, _as in duty bound_ I communicated my
intention....--BORROW.
After this victory, Hunyadi, _with his army_ entered Belgrade, to the
great joy of the Magyars.--BORROW.
M. Kossuth declares that, _until the King calls on the majority to
take office with its own programme_ chaos will prevail.--_Times._
A love-affair, _to be conducted with spirit and enterprise_ should
always bristle with opposition and difficulty.--CORELLI.
And that she should force me, _by the magic of her pen_ to
mentally acknowledge ..., albeit with wrath and shame, my own
inferiority!--CORELLI.
She is a hard-working woman dependant on her literary success for a
livelihood, and you, _rolling in wealth_ do your best to deprive her
of the means of existence.--CORELLI.
Although three trainings of the local militia have been conducted
under the new regime, Alderney, _despite the fact that it is a portion
of the same military command_ has not as yet been affected.--_Guernsey
Evening Press._
5. Parenthesis.
In one sense, everything that is adverbial is parenthetic: it can be
inserted or removed, that is, without damaging the grammar, though not
always without damaging the meaning, of the sentence. But the adverbial
parenthesis, when once inserted, forms a part of the sentence; we have
sufficiently dealt with the stops it requires in the last section; the
use of commas emphasizes its parenthetic character, and is therefore
sometimes desirable, sometimes not; no more need be said about it.
Another kind of parenthesis is that whose meaning practically governs
the sentence in the middle of which it is nevertheless inserted as an
alien element that does not coalesce in grammar with the rest. The
type is--But, you will say, Caesar is not an aristocrat. This kind is
important for our purpose because of the muddles often made, chiefly by
careless punctuation, between the real parenthesis and words that give
the same meaning, but are not, like it, grammatically separable. We
shall start with an indisputable example of this muddle:
Where, do you imagine, she would lay it?--MEREDITH.
These commas cannot possibly indicate anything but parenthesis; but, if
the comma’d words were really a parenthesis, we ought to have _would
she_ instead of _she would_. The four sentences that now follow are all
of one pattern. The bad stopping is probably due to this same confusion
between the parenthetic and the non-parenthetic. But it is possible
that in each the two commas are independent, the first being one of
those that are half rhetorical and half caused by false analogy, which
have been mentioned as common after initial _And_ and _For_; and the
second being the comma wrongly used, as we have maintained, before
substantival _that_-clauses.
Whence, it would appear, that he considers that all deliverances of
consciousness are original judgments.--BALFOUR.
Hence, he reflected, that if he could but use his literary
instinct to feed some commercial undertaking, he might gain a
considerable....--HUTTON.
But, depend upon it, that no Eastern difficulty needs our intervention
so seriously as....--HUXLEY.
And yet, it has been often said, that the party issues were hopelessly
confused.--L. STEPHEN.
A less familiar form of this mistake, and one not likely to occur
except in good writers, since inferior ones seldom attempt the
construction that leads to it, is sometimes found when a subordinating
conjunction is placed late in its clause, after the object or other
member. In the Thackeray sentence, it will be observed that the first
comma would be right (1) if _them_ had stood after _discovered_ instead
of where it does, (2) if _them_ had been omitted, and _any_ had served
as the common object to both verbs.
And to things of great dimensions, if we annex an adventitious idea of
terror, they become without comparison greater.--BURKE.
Any of which peccadilloes, if Miss Sharp discovered, she did not tell
them to Lady Crawley.--THACKERAY.
6. The misplaced comma.
Some authors would seem to have an occasional feeling that here or
hereabouts is the place for a comma, just as in handwriting some
persons are well content if they get a dot in somewhere within
measurable distance of its _i_. The dot is generally over the right
word at any rate, and the comma is seldom more than one word off its
true place.
All true science begins with empiricism--though all true science is
such exactly, in so far as it strives to pass out of the empirical
stage.--HUXLEY.
_Exactly_ qualifies and belongs to _in so far_, &c., not _such_. The
comma should be before it.
This, they for the most part, throw away as worthless.--CORELLI.
_For the most part_, alone, is the adverbial parenthesis.
But this fault occurs, perhaps nine times out of ten, in combination
with the _that_-clause comma so often mentioned. It may be said, when
our instances have been looked into, that in each of them, apart from
the _that_-clause comma, which is recognized by many authorities, there
is merely the licence that we have ourselves allowed, omission of the
first, without omission of the last, comma of an adverbial parenthesis.
But we must point out that Huxley, Green, and Mr. Balfour, man of
science, historian, and philosopher, all belong to that dignified class
of writers which is supposed to, and in most respects does, insist on
full logical stopping; they, in view of their general practice, are not
entitled to our slovenly and merely literary licences.
And the second is, that for the purpose of attaining culture,
an exclusively scientific education is at least as effectual
as....--HUXLEY.
But the full discussion which followed over the various claims showed,
that while exacting to the full what he believed to be his right,
Edward desired to do justice to the country.--J. R. GREEN.
The one difference between these gilds in country and town was, that
in the latter case, from their close local neighbourhood, they tended
to coalesce.--J. R. GREEN.
It follows directly from this definition, that however restricted the
range of possible knowledge may be, philosophy can never be excluded
from it.--BALFOUR.
But the difficulty here, as it seems to me, is, that if you start from
your idea of evolution, these assumptions are....--BALFOUR.
He begged me to give over all unlawful pursuits, saying,
that if persisted in, they were sure of bringing a person to
destruction.--BORROW.
7. Enumeration.
This name, liberally interpreted, is meant to include several more
or less distinct questions. They are difficult, and much debated by
authorities on punctuation, but are of no great importance. We shall
take the liberty of partly leaving them undecided, and partly giving
arbitrary opinions; to argue them out would take more space than it
is worth while to give. But it _is_ worth while to draw attention to
them, so that each writer may be aware that they exist, and at least be
consistent with himself. Typical sentences (from Beadnell) are:
_a._ Industry, honesty, and temperance, are essential to happiness.--B.
_b._ Let us freely drink in the soul of love and beauty and wisdom,
from all nature and art and history.--B.
_c._ Plain honest truth wants no colouring.--B.
_d._ Many states are in alliance with, and under the protection of
France.--B.
Common variants for (_a_) are (1) Industry, honesty and temperance
are essential ... (2) Industry, honesty and temperance, are essential
... (3) Industry, honesty, and temperance are essential.... We
unhesitatingly recommend the original and fully stopped form, which
should be used irrespective of style, and not be interfered with by
rhetorical considerations; it is the only one to which there is never
any objection. Of the examples that follow, the first conforms to the
correct type, but no serious harm would be done if it did not. The
second also conforms; and, if this had followed variant (1) or (2),
here indistinguishable, we should have been in danger of supposing
that Education and Police were one department instead of two. The
third, having no comma after _interests_, follows variant (3), and,
as it happens, with no bad effect on the meaning. All three variants,
however, may under different conditions produce ambiguity or worse.
But those that remain, the women, the youths, the children, and the
elders, work all the harder.--_Times._
Japanese advisers are now attached to the departments of the
Household, War, Finance, Education, and Police.--_Times._
An American, whose patience, tact, and ability in
reconciling conflicting interests have won the praise of all
nationalities.--_Times._
Sometimes enumerations are arranged in pairs; it is then most
unpleasant to have the comma after the last pair omitted, as in:
The orange and the lemon, the olive and the walnut elbow each other
for a footing in the fat dark earth.--F. M. CRAWFORD.
There is a bastard form of enumeration against which warning is
seriously needed. It is viewed as, but is not really, a legitimate case
of type (_a_); and a quite unnecessary objection to the repetition of
_and_ no doubt supplies the motive. Examples are:
He kept manœuvring upon Neipperg, who counter-manœuvred with
vigilance, good judgment, and would not come to action.--CARLYLE.
Moltke had recruited, trained, and knew by heart all the men under
him.--_Times._
Hence loss of time, of money, and sore trial of patience.--R. G. WHITE.
The principle is this: in an enumeration given by means of a comma or
commas, the last comma being replaced by or combined with _and_--our
type (_a_), that is--, there must not be anything that is common to
two members (as here, _counter-manœuvred with_, _had_, _loss_) without
being common to all. We may say, Moltke had recruited and trained and
knew, Moltke had recruited, had trained, and knew, or, Moltke had
recruited, trained, and known; but we must not say what the _Times_
says. The third sentence may run, Loss of time and money, and sore
trial, or, Loss of time, of money, and of patience; but not as it does.
So much for type (_a_). Type (_b_) can be very shortly disposed of. It
differs in that the conjunction (_and_, _or_, _nor_, &c.) is expressed
every time, instead of being represented except in the last place by
a comma. It is logically quite unnecessary, but rhetorically quite
allowable, to use commas as well as conjunctions. The only caution
needed is that, if commas are used at all, and if the enumeration does
not end the sentence, and is not concluded by a stronger stop, a comma
must be inserted after the last member as well as after the others.
In the type sentence, which contains two enumerations, it would be
legitimate to use commas as well as _and_s with one set and not with
the other, if it were desired either to avoid monotony or to give one
list special emphasis. The three examples now to be added transgress
the rule about the final comma. We arrange them from bad to worse; in
the last of them, the apparently needless though not necessarily wrong
comma after _fall_ suggests that the writer has really felt a comma to
be wanting to the enumeration, but has taken a bad shot with it, as in
the examples of section 6 on the misplaced comma.
Neither the Court, nor society, nor Parliament, nor the older men in
the Army have yet recognized the fundamental truth that....--_Times._
A subordinate whose past conduct in the post he fills, and whose known
political sympathies make him wholly unfitted, however loyal his
intentions may be, to give that....--_Times._
But there are uninstructed ears on whom the constant abuse, and
imputation of low motives may fall, with a mischievous and misleading
effect.--_Times._
Of type (_c_) the characteristic is that we have two or more adjectives
attached to a following noun; are there to be commas between the
adjectives, or not? The rule usually given is that there should be,
unless the last adjective is more intimately connected with the noun,
so that the earlier one qualifies, not the noun, but the last adjective
and the noun together; it will be noticed that we strictly have no
enumeration then at all. This is sometimes useful; and so is the more
practical and less theoretic direction to ask whether _and_ could be
inserted, and if so use the comma, but not otherwise. These both sound
sufficient in the abstract. But that there are doubts left in practice
is shown by the type sentence, which Beadnell gives as correct, though
either test would rather require the comma. He gives also as correct,
Can flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?--which is not very
clearly distinguishable from the other. Our advice is to use these
tests when in doubt, but with a leaning to the omission of the comma.
If it happens that a comma of this particular class is the only stop in
a sentence, it has a false appearance of dividing the sentence into two
parts that is very unpleasant, and may make the reader go through it
twice to make sure that all is right--an inconvenience that should by
all means be spared him.
Type (_d_) is one in which the final word or phrase of a sentence has
two previous expressions standing in the same grammatical relation to
it, but their ending with different prepositions, or the fact that one
is to be substituted for the other, or the length of the expressions,
or some other cause, obscures this identity of relation. Add to the
type sentence the following:
His eloquence was the main, one might almost say the sole, source of
his influence.--BRYCE.
To dazzle people more, he learned or pretended to learn, the Spanish
language.--BAGEHOT.
... apart from philosophical and sometimes from theological,
theories.--BALFOUR.
The rules we lay down are: (1) If possible use no stops at all. (2)
Never use the second comma and omit the first. (3) Even when the first
is necessary, the second may often be dispensed with. (4) Both commas
may be necessary if the phrases are long.
We should correct all the examples, including the type: the type under
rule (1); the Bryce (which is strictly correct) under rule (3); the
Bagehot under rules (2) and (1); and the Balfour under rules (2) and
(3); the list two are clearly wrong. The four would then stand as
follows:
Many states are in alliance with and under the protection of France.
His eloquence was the main, one might almost say the sole source of
his influence.
To dazzle people more, he learned or pretended to learn the Spanish
language.
... apart from philosophical, and sometimes from theological theories.
Learners will be inclined to say: all this is very indefinite; do
give us a clear rule that will apply to all cases. Such was the view
with which, on a matter of even greater importance than punctuation,
Procrustes identified himself; but it brought him to a bad end. The
clear rule, Use all logical commas, would give us:
He was born, in, or near, London, on December 24th, 1900.
No one would write this who was not suffering from bad hypertrophy of
the grammatical conscience. The clear rule, Use no commas in this sort
of enumeration, would give:
If I have the queer ways you accuse me of, that is because but I
should have thought a man of your perspicacity might have been
expected to see that it was also why I live in a hermitage all by
myself.
No one would write this without both commas (after _because_ and _why_)
who was not deeply committed to an anti-comma crusade. Between the two
extremes lie cases calling for various treatment; the ruling principle
should be freedom within certain limits.
8. The comma between independent sentences.
Among the signs that more particularly betray the uneducated writer is
inability to see when a comma is not a sufficient stop. Unfortunately
little more can be done than to warn beginners that any serious slip
here is much worse than they will probably suppose, and recommend them
to observe the practice of good writers.
It is roughly true that grammatically independent sentences should be
parted by at least a semicolon; but in the first place there are very
large exceptions to this; and secondly, the writer who really knows a
grammatically independent sentence when he sees it is hardly in need of
instruction; this must be our excuse for entering here into what may
be thought too elementary an explanation. Let us take the second point
first; it may be of some assistance to remark that a sentence joined
to the previous one by a coordinating conjunction is grammatically
independent, as well as one not joined to it at all. But the difference
between a coordinating and a subordinating conjunction is itself in
English rather fine. Every one can see that ‘I will not try; it is
dangerous’ is two independent sentences--independent in grammar, though
not in thought. But it is a harder saying that ‘I will not try, for it
is dangerous’ is also two sentences, while ‘I will not try, because it
is dangerous’ is one only. The reason is that _for_ coordinates, and
_because_ subordinates; instead of giving lists, which would probably
be incomplete, of the two kinds of conjunction, we mention that a
subordinating conjunction may be known from the other kind by its
being possible to place it and its clause before the previous sentence
instead of after, without destroying the sense: we can say ‘Because it
is dangerous, I will not try’, but not ‘For it is dangerous, I will
not try’. This test cannot always be applied in complicated sentences;
simple ones must be constructed for testing the conjunction in question.
Assuming that it is now understood (1) what a subordinating and what
a coordinating conjunction is, (2) that a member joined on by no
more than a coordinating conjunction is a grammatically independent
sentence, or simply a sentence in the proper meaning of the word,
and not a subordinate clause, we return to the first point. This was
that, though independent sentences are regularly parted by at least
a semicolon, there are large exceptions to the rule. These we shall
only be able to indicate very loosely. There are three conditions
that may favour the reduction of the semicolon to a comma: (1) Those
coordinating conjunctions which are most common tend in the order of
their commonness to be humble, and to recognize a comma as sufficient
for their dignity. The order may perhaps be given as: _and_, _or_,
_but_, _so_, _nor_, _for_; conjunctions less common than these should
scarcely ever be used with less than a semicolon; and many good
writers would refuse to put a mere comma before _for_. (2) Shortness
and lightness of the sentence joined on helps to lessen the need for
a heavy stop. (3) Intimate connexion in thought with the preceding
sentence has the same effect. Before giving our examples, which are
all of undesirable commas, we point out that in the first two there
are independent signs of the writers’ being uneducated; and such signs
will often be discoverable. It will be clear from what we have said
why the others are bad--except perhaps the third; it is particularly
disagreeable to have two successive independent sentences tagged on
with commas, as those beginning with _nor_ and _for_ are in that
example.
No peace at night he enjoys, _for_ he lays awake.--_Guernsey
Advertiser._
Now accepted, nominal Christendom believes this, and strives to attain
unto it, _then_ why the inconsistency of creed and deed?--_Daily
Telegraph._
But who is responsible to Government for the efficiency of the Army?
The Commander-in-Chief and no one else, _nor_ has anyone questioned
the fact, _for_ it is patent.--_Times._
But even on this theory the formula above stated holds good, _for_
such systems, so far from being self-contained (as it were) and
sufficient evidence for themselves, are really....--BALFOUR.
Some banks on the Nevsky Prospect are having iron shutters fitted,
_otherwise_ there is nothing apparently to justify General Trepoff’s
proclamation.--_Times._
Everybody knows where his own shoe pinches, and, if people find
drawbacks in the places they inhabit, they must also find advantages,
_otherwise_ they would not be there.--_Times._
We have suffered many things at the hands of the Russian Navy during
the war, _nevertheless_ the news that Admiral Rozhdestvensky ... will
send a thrill of admiration....--_Times._
I think that on the whole we may be thankful for the architectural
merits of the Gaiety block, it has breadth and dignity of design and
groups well on the angular site.--_Times._
It will not be irrelevant to add here, though the point has been
touched upon in Understopping, that though a light _and_-clause may be
introduced by no more than a comma, it does not follow that it need not
be separated by any stop at all, as in:
When the Motor Cars Act was before the House it was suggested that
these authorities should be given the right to make recommendations to
the central authorities and that right was conceded.--_Times._
9. The semicolon between subordinate members.
Just as the tiro will be safer if he avoids commas before independent
sentences, so he will generally be wise not to use a semicolon before
a mere subordinate member. We have explained, indeed, that it is
sometimes quite legitimate for rhetorical reasons, and is under certain
circumstances almost required by proportion. This is when the sentence
contains commas doing less important work than the one about which the
question arises. But the tiro’s true way out of the difficulty is to
simplify his sentences so that they do not need such differentiation.
Even skilful writers, as the following two quotations will show,
sometimes come to grief over this.
One view called me to another; one hill to its fellow, half across the
county, and since I could answer at no more trouble than the snapping
forward of a lever, I let the county flow under my wheels.--KIPLING.
Nay, do not the elements of all human virtues and all human vices;
the passions at once of a Borgia and of a Luther, lie written, in
stronger or fainter lines, in the consciousness of every individual
bosom?--CARLYLE.
In the first of these the second comma and the semicolon clearly ought
to change places. In the second it looks as if Carlyle had thought
it dull to have so many commas about; but the remedy was much worse
than dullness. Avoidance of what a correspondent supposes to be dull,
but what would in fact be natural and right, accounts also for the
following piece of vicarious rhetoric; the writer is not nearly so
excited, it may be suspected, as his semicolons would make him out.
The ordinary sensible man would have (1) used commas, and (2) either
omitted the third and fourth _denies_ (reminding us of Zola’s famous
_j’accuse_, not vicarious, and on an adequate occasion), or else
inserted an _and_ before the last repetition.
Mr. Loomis denies all three categorically. He denies that the
Asphalt Company paid him £2,000 or any other sum; denies that he
purchased a claim against the Venezuelan Government and then used his
influence when Minister at Caracas to collect the claim; denies that
he agreed with Mr. Meyers or anybody else to use his influence for
money.--_Times._
10. The exclamation mark when there is no exclamation.
My friend! this conduct amazes me!--B.
We must differ altogether from Beadnell’s rule that ‘This point is
used to denote any sudden emotion of the mind, whether of joy, grief,
surprise, fear, or any other sensation’--at least as it is exemplified
in his first instance, given above. The exclamation mark after _friend_
is justifiable, not the other. The stop should be used, with one
exception, only after real exclamations. Real exclamations include
(1) the words recognized as interjections, as _alas_, (2) fragmentary
expressions that are not complete sentences, as _My friend_ in the
example, and (3) complete statements that contain an exclamatory word,
as:
What a piece of work is man!--B.
The exception mentioned above is this: when the writer wishes to
express his own incredulity or other feeling about what is not his own
statement, but practically a quotation from some one else, he is at
liberty to do it with a mark of exclamation; in the following example,
the epitaph-writer expresses either his wonder or his incredulity about
what Fame says.
Entomb’d within this vault a lawyer lies
Who, Fame assureth us, was just and wise!--B.
The exclamation mark is a neat and concise sneer at the legal
profession.
Outside these narrow limits the exclamation mark must not be used. We
shall quote a very instructive saying of Landor’s: ‘I read warily;
and whenever I find the writings of a lady, the first thing I do
is to cast my eye along her pages, to see whether I am likely to be
annoyed by the traps and spring-guns of interjections; and if I happen
to espy them I do not leap the paling’. To this we add that when the
exclamation mark is used after mere statements it deserves the name,
by which it is sometimes called, mark of admiration; we feel that the
writer is indeed lost in admiration of his own wit or impressiveness.
But this use is mainly confined to lower-class authors; when a grave
historian stoops to it, he gives us quite a different sort of shock
from what he designed.
The unfortunate commander was in the situation of some bold,
high-mettled cavalier, rushing to battle on a warhorse whose tottering
joints threaten to give way at every step, and leave his rider to the
mercy of his enemies!--PRESCOTT.
The road now struck into the heart of a mountain region, where
woods, precipices, and ravines were mingled together in a sort of
chaotic confusion, with here and there a green and sheltered valley,
glittering like an island of verdure amidst the wild breakers of a
troubled ocean!--PRESCOTT.
11. Confusion between question and exclamation.
Fortunate man!--who would not envy you! Love!--who would, who could
exist without it--save me!--CORELLI.
What wonder that the most docile of Russians should be crying out ‘how
long’!--_Times._
We have started with three indisputable instances of the exclamation
mark used for the question mark. It is worth notice that the correct
stopping for the end of the second quotation (though such accuracy
is seldom attempted) would be:--long?’? To have fused two questions
into an exclamation is an achievement. But these are mere indefensible
blunders, not needing to be thought twice about, such as author and
compositor incline to put off each on the other’s shoulders.
The case is not always so clear. In the six sentences lettered for
reference, _a_-_d_ have the wrong stop; in _e_ the stop implied by _he
exclaims_ is also wrong; in _f_, though the stop is right assuming
that the form of the sentence is what was really meant, we venture to
question this point, as we do also in some of the earlier sentences.
Any one who agrees with the details of this summary can save himself
the trouble of reading the subsequent discussion.
_a._ In that interval what had I not lost!--LAMB.
_b._ And what will not the discontinuance cost me!--RICHARDSON.
_c._ A streak of blue below the hanging alders is certainly a
characteristic introduction to the kingfisher. How many people first
see him so?--_Times._
_d._ Does the reading of history make us fatalists? What courage does
not the opposite opinion show!--EMERSON.
_e._ What economy of life and money, he exclaims, would not have been
spared the empire of the Tsars had it not rendered war certain by
devoting itself so largely to the works of peace.--_Times._
_f._ How many, who think no otherwise than the young painter, have we
not heard disbursing secondhand hyperboles?--STEVENSON.
It will be noticed that in all these sentences except _c_ there is a
negative, which puts them, except _f_, wrong; while in _c_ it is the
absence of the negative that makes the question wrong. It will be
simplest to start with _c_. The writer clearly means to let us know
that many people see the kingfisher first as a blue streak. He might
give this simply so, as a statement. He might (artificially) give it
as an exclamation--_How many first see him so!_ Or he might (very
artificially) give it as a question--_How many do not first see him
so?_--a ‘rhetorical question’ in which _How many_ interrogative is
understood to be equivalent to _Few_ positive. He has rejected the
simple statement; vaulting ambition has o’erleapt, and he has ended in
a confusion between the two artificial ways of saying the thing, taking
the words of the possible exclamation and the stop of the possible
question. In _a_, _b_, _d_, and implicitly in _e_, we have the converse
arrangement, or derangement. But as a little more clear thinking is
required for them, we point out that the origin of the confusion
(though the careless printing of fifty or a hundred years ago no doubt
helped to establish it) lies in the identity between the words used
for questions and for exclamations. It will be enough to suggest the
process that accounts for _a_; the ambiguity is easily got rid of by
inserting a noun with _what_.
_Question_: What amount had I lost?
_Exclamation_: What an amount I had lost!
That is the first stage; the resemblance is next increased by inverting
subject and verb in the exclamation, which is both natural enough in
that kind of sentence, and particularly easy after _In that interval_.
So we get
_Question_: In that interval, what (amount) had I lost?
_Exclamation_: In that interval, what (an amount) had I lost!
The words, when the bracketed part of each sentence is left out, are
now the same; but the question is of course incapable of giving the
required meaning. The writer, seeing this, but deceived by the order
of words into thinking the exclamation a question, tries to mend it
by inserting _not_; _what ... not_, in rhetorical questions, being
equivalent to _everything_. At this stage some writers stick, as
Stevenson in _f_. Others try to make a right out of two wrongs by
restoring to the quondam exclamation, which has been wrongly converted
with the help of _not_ into a question, the exclamation mark to which
it has after conversion no right. Such is the genesis of _a_, _b_, _d_.
The proper method, when the simple statement is rejected, as it often
reasonably may be, is to use the exclamation, not the Stevensonian
question[13], to give the exclamation its right mark, and not to insert
the illogical negative.
12. Internal question and exclamation marks.
By this name we do not mean that insertion of a bracketed stop of which
we shall nevertheless give one example. That is indeed a confession of
weakness and infallible sign of the prentice hand, and further examples
will be found in _Airs and Graces_, _miscellaneous_; but it is outside
grammar, with which these sections are concerned.
Under these circumstances, it would be interesting to ascertain
the exact position of landlords whose tenants decline to pay rent,
and whose only asset (!) from their property is the income-tax now
claimed.--_Times._
What is meant is the ugly stop in the middle of a sentence, unbracketed
and undefended by quotation marks, of which examples follow. To
novelists, as in the first example, it may be necessary for the purpose
of avoiding the nuisance of perpetual quotation marks. But elsewhere
it should be got rid of by use of the indirect question or otherwise.
Excessive indulgence in direct questions or exclamations where there
is no need for them whatever is one of the sensational tendencies of
modern newspapers.
Why be scheming? Victor asked.--MEREDITH.
What will Japan do? is thought the most pressing question of
all.--_Times._ (What Japan will do is thought, &c.)
What next? is the next question which the American Press
discusses.--_Times._ (‘What next?’ is, &c. Or, What will come next is,
&c.)
Amusing efforts are shown below at escaping the ugliness of the
internal question mark. Observe that the third quotation has a worse
blunder, since we have here two independent sentences.
Can it be that the Government will still persist in continuing the now
hopeless struggle is the question on every lip?--_Times._
Men are disenchanted. They have got what they wanted in the days of
their youth, yet what of it, they ask?--MORLEY.
Yet we remember seeing l’Abbé Constantin some sixteen years ago or
more at the Royalty, with that fine old actor Lafontaine in the
principal part, and seeing it with lively interest. Was it distinctly
‘dates’, for nothing wears so badly as the namby-pamby?--_Times._
13. The unaccountable comma.
We shall now conclude these grammatical sections with a single example
of those commas about which it is only possible to say that they are
repugnant to grammar. It is as difficult to decide what principle they
offend against as what impulse can possibly have dictated them. They
are commonest in the least educated writers of all; and, next to
these, in the men of science whose overpowering conscientiousness has
made the mechanical putting in of commas so habitual that it perhaps
becomes with them a sort of reflex action, and does itself at wrong
moments without their volition.
The Rector, lineal representative of the ancient monarchs of the
University, though now, little more than a ‘king of shreds and
patches.’--HUXLEY.
THE COLON
It was said in the general remarks at the beginning of this chapter
that the systematic use of the colon as one of the series (,), (;),
(:), (.), had died out with the decay of formal periods. Many people
continue to use it, but few, if we can trust our observation, with any
nice regard to its value. Some think it a prettier or more impressive
stop than the semicolon, and use it instead of that; some like variety,
and use the two indifferently, or resort to one when they are tired
of the other. As the abandonment of periodic arrangement really makes
the colon useless, it would be well (though of course any one who
still writes in formal periods should retain his rights over it) if
ordinary writers would give it up altogether except in the special
uses, independent of its quantitative value, to which it is being more
and more applied by common consent. These are (1) between two sentences
that are in clear antithesis, but not connected by an adversative
conjunction; (2) introducing a short quotation; (3) introducing a
list; (4) introducing a sentence that comes as fulfilment of a promise
expressed or implied in the previous sentence; (5) introducing an
explanation or proof that is not connected with the previous sentence
by _for_ or the like. Examples are:
(1) Man proposes: God disposes.
(2) Always remember the ancient maxim: Know thyself.--B.
(3) Chief rivers: Thames, Severn, Humber....
(4) Some things we can, and others we cannot do: we can walk, but we
cannot fly.--BIGELOW.
(5) Rebuke thy son in private: public rebuke hardens the heart.--B.
In the following clear case of antithesis a colon would have been more
according to modern usage than the semicolon.
As apart from our requirements Mr. Arnold-Forster’s schemes have many
merits; in relation to them they have very few.--_Times._
It now only remains, before leaving actual stops for the dash, hyphen,
quotation mark, and bracket, to comment on a few stray cases of
ambiguity, false scent, and ill-judged stopping. We have not hunted
up, and shall not manufacture, any of the patent absurdities that
are amusing but unprofitable. The sort of ambiguity that most needs
guarding against is that which allows a sleepy reader to take the words
wrong when the omission or insertion of a stop would have saved him.
The chief agitators of the League, who have--not unnaturally
considering the favours showered upon them in the past--a high sense
of their own importance....--_Times._
With no comma after _unnaturally_ the first thought is that the
agitators not unnaturally consider; second thoughts put it right; but
second thoughts should never be expected from a reader.
Simultaneously extensive reclamation of land and harbour improvements
are in progress at Chemulpo and Fusan.--_Times._
With no comma after the first word, the sleepy reader is set wondering
what _simultaneously extensive_ means, and whether it is journalese for
_equally extensive_.
But Anne and I did, for we had played there all our lives--at least,
all the years we had spent together and the rest do not count in the
story. When Anne and I came together we began to live.--CROCKETT.
A comma after _together_ would save us from adding the two sets
of years to each other. In the next piece, on the other hand, the
uncomfortable comma after _gold_ is apparently meant to warn us quite
unnecessarily that _here and there_ belongs to the verb.
Flecks of straw-coloured gold, here and there lay upon it, where the
sunshine touched the bent of last year.--CROCKETT.
After that, having once fallen off from their course, they at length
succeeded in crossing the Aegean, and beating up in the teeth of the
Etesian winds, only yesterday, seventy days out from Egypt, put in at
the Piraeus.--S. T. IRWIN.
The omission of the comma between _and_ and _beating_ would ordinarily
be quite legitimate. Here, it puts us off on a false scent, because
it allows _beating_ to seem parallel with _crossing_ and object to
_succeeded in_; we have to go back again when we get to the end, and
work it out.
The French demurring to the conditions which the English commander
offered, again commenced the action.--B.
The want of a comma between _French_ and _demurring_ makes us assume
an absolute construction and expect another subject, of which we are
disappointed.
The next two pairs of examples illustrate the effect of mere accidental
position on stopping. This is one of the numberless small disturbing
elements that make cast-iron rules impossible in punctuation.
I must leave you to discover what the answer is.
What the answer is, I must leave you to discover.
That is, a substantival clause out of its place is generally allowed
the comma that all but the straitest sect of punctuators would refuse
it in its place.
In the present dispute, therefore, the local politicians have had to
choose between defence of the principle of authority and espousing the
cause of the local police.--_Times._
Of its forty-four commissioners however few actually took any part in
its proceedings; and the powers of the Commission....--J. R. GREEN.
The half adverbs half conjunctions of which _therefore_ and _however_
are instances occupy usually the second place in the sentence. When
there, it is of little importance whether they are stopped or not,
though we have indicated our preference for no stops. But when it
happens that they come later (or earlier), the commas are generally
wanted. _Therefore_ in the first of these sentences would be as
uncomfortable if stripped as _however_ actually is in the second.
DASHES
Moved beyond his wont by our English ill-treatment of the dash,
Beadnell permits himself a wail as just as it is pathetic.
‘The dash is frequently employed in a very capricious and arbitrary
manner, as a substitute for all sorts of points, by writers whose
thoughts, although, it may be, sometimes striking and profound, are
thrown together without order or dependence; also by some others, who
think that they thereby give prominence and emphasis to expressions
which in themselves are very commonplace, and would, without this
fictitious assistance, escape the observation of the reader, or be
deemed by him hardly worthy of notice.’
It is all only too true; these are the realms of Chaos, and the lord
of them is Sterne, from whom modern writers of the purely literary
kind have so many of their characteristics. Wishing for an example,
we merely opened the first volume of _Tristram Shandy_ at a venture,
and ‘thus the Anarch old With faltering speech and visage incomposed
Answered’:
--Observe, I determine nothing upon this.--My way is ever to point
out to the curious, different tracts of investigation, to come at the
first springs of the events I tell;--not with a pedantic fescue,--or
in the decisive manner of Tacitus, who outwits himself and his
reader;--but with the officious humility of a heart devoted to the
assistance merely of the inquisitive;--to them I write,--and by them I
shall be read,--if any such reading as this could be supposed to hold
out so long,--to the very end of the world.--STERNE.
The modern newspaper writer who overdoes the use of dashes is seldom as
incorrect as Sterne, but is perhaps more irritating:
There are also a great number of people--many of them not in the
least tainted by militarism--who go further and who feel that a man
in order to be a complete man--that is, one capable of protecting
his life, his country, and his civil and political rights--should
acquire as a boy and youth the elements of military training,--that
is, should be given a physical training of a military character,
including....--_Spectator._
It must be added, however, that Beadnell himself helps to make things
worse, by countenancing the strange printer’s superstition that (,--)
is beautiful to look upon, and (--,) ugly.
Under these circumstances we shall have to abandon our usual practice
of attending only to common mistakes, and deal with the matter a
little more systematically. We shall first catalogue, with examples,
the chief uses of the dash; next state the debatable questions that
arise; and end with the more definite misuses. It will be convenient
to number all examples for reference; and, as many or most of the
quotations contain some minor violation of what we consider the true
principles, these will be corrected in brackets.
1. Chief common uses.
_a._ Adding to a phrase already used an explanation, example, or
preferable substitute.
1. Nicholas Copernicus was instructed in that seminary where it is
always happy when any one can be well taught,--the family circle.--B.
(Omit the comma)
2. Anybody might be an accuser,--a personal enemy, an infamous person,
a child, parent, brother, or sister.--LOWELL. (Omit the comma)
3. That the girls were really possessed seemed to Stoughton and his
colleagues the most rational theory,--a theory in harmony with the
rest of their creed.--LOWELL. (Omit the comma)
_b._ Inviting the reader to pause and collect his forces against the
shock of an unexpected word that is to close the sentence. It is
generally, but not always, better to abstain from this device; the
unexpected, if not drawn attention to, is often more effective because
less theatrical.
4. To write imaginatively a man should have--imagination.--LOWELL.
_c._ Assuring the reader that what is coming, even if not unexpected,
is witty. Writers should be exceedingly sparing of this use; good wine
needs no bush.
5. Misfortune in various forms had overtaken the county families, from
high farming to a taste for the junior stage, and--the proprietors
lived anywhere else except on their own proper estates.--CROCKETT.
_d._ Marking arrival at the principal sentence or the predicate after a
subordinate clause or a subject that is long or compound.
6. As soon as the queen shall come to London, and the houses of
Parliament shall be opened, and the speech from the throne be
delivered,--then will begin the great struggle of the contending
factions.--B.
_e._ Resuming after a parenthesis or long phrase, generally with
repetition of some previous words in danger of being forgotten.
7. It is now idle to attempt to hide the fact that never was the
Russian lack of science, of the modern spirit, or, to speak frankly,
of intelligence--never was the absence of training or of enthusiasm
which retards the efforts of the whole Empire displayed in a more
melancholy fashion than in the Sea of Japan.--_Times._ (Add a comma
after _intelligence_)
_f._ Giving the air of an afterthought to a final comment that would
spoil the balance of the sentence if preceded only by an ordinary stop.
Justifiable when really wanted, that is, when it is important to keep
the comment till the end; otherwise it is slightly insulting to the
reader, implying that he was not worth working out the sentence for
before it was put down.
8. As they parted, she insisted on his giving the most solemn
promises that he would not expose himself to danger--which was quite
unnecessary.
_g._ Marking a change of speakers when quotation marks and ‘he said’,
&c., are not used; or, in a single speech, a change of subject or
person addressed.
9. Who created you?--God.--B.
10. ... And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia!
_h._ With colon or other stop before a quotation.
11. Hear Milton:--How charming is divine Philosophy!
12. What says Bacon?--Revenge is a kind of wild justice.
_i._ Introducing a list.
13. The four greatest names in English literature are almost the first
we come to,--Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton.--B. (Omit the
comma before the dash)
_k._ Confessing an anacoluthon, or substitution of a new construction
for the one started with.
14. Then the eye of a child,--who can look unmoved into that well
undefiled, in which heaven itself seems to be reflected?--BIGELOW.
(Omit the comma)
_l._ Breaking off a sentence altogether.
15. Oh, how I wish--! But what is the use of wishing?
_m._ Doubled to serve the purpose of brackets. It gives a medium
between the light comma parenthesis and the heavy bracket parenthesis.
It also has the advantage over brackets that when the parenthesis
ends only with the sentence the second dash need not be given; this
advantage, however, may involve ambiguity, as will be shown.
16. In every well regulated community--such as that of England,--the
laws own no superior.--B. (The comma should either be omitted or
placed after instead of before the second dash).
These are a dozen distinct uses of more or less value or importance,
to which others might no doubt be added; but they will suffice both to
show that the dash is a hard-worked symbol, and to base our remarks
upon.
2. Debatable questions.
There are several questions that must be answered before we can use
the dash with confidence. First, is the dash to supersede stops at the
place where it is inserted, or to be added to them? Secondly, what is
its relation to the stops in the part of the sentence (or group of
sentences) that follows it? Does its authority, that is, extend to the
end of the sentence or group, or where does it cease? Thirdly, assuming
that it is or can be combined with stops, what is the right order as
between the two?
Beadnell’s answer to the first question is: _The dash does not dispense
with the use of the ordinary points at the same time, when the
grammatical construction of the sentence requires them._ But inasmuch
as a dash implies some sort of break, irregular pause, or change of
intention, it seems quite needless to insert the stop that would have
been used if it had not been decided that a stop was inadequate. The
dash is a confession that the stop will not do; then let the stop go.
The reader, who is the person to be considered, generally neither
knows nor cares to know how the sentence might, with inferior effect,
have been written; he only feels that the stop is otiose, and that
his author had better have been off with the old love before he was
on with the new. There are exceptions to this: obviously in examples
9, 10, 11, 12, and 15, where the dash is at the end or beginning of a
sentence; and perhaps also in sentences of which the reader can clearly
foresee the grammatical development. In example 7, for instance, it
is clear that a participle (_displayed_ or another) is due after
_never was_ &c.; a comma after _intelligence_ is therefore definitely
expected. So in example 6 we are expecting either another continuation
of _as soon as_, or the principal sentence, before either of which
a comma is looked for. In examples 2 and 3, on the other hand, the
sentence may for all we know be complete at the place where the dash
stands, so that no expectation is disappointed by omitting the comma.
The rule, then, should be that a dash is a substitute for any internal
stop, and not an addition to it, except when, from the reader’s point
of view, a particular stop seemed inevitable.
It must be admitted that that conclusion is not very certain, and also
that the matter is of no great importance, provided that the stops,
if inserted, are the right ones. More certainty is possible about
the combination of stops with the double dash, which we have not yet
considered. The probable origin of the double dash will be touched
upon when we come to the second question; but whatever its origin,
it is now simply equivalent to a pair of brackets, except that it is
slightly less conspicuous, and sometimes preferred on that account.
Consequently, the same rule about stops will apply to both, and as
there is no occasion to treat of brackets separately, it may here be
stated for both. The use of a parenthesis being to insert, without
damage to the rest of the sentence, something that is of theoretically
minor importance, it is necessary that we should be able simply to
remove the two dashes or brackets with everything enclosed by them, and
after their removal find the sentence complete and rightly punctuated.
Further, there is no reason for using inside the parenthesis any stop
that has not an internal value; that is, no stop can possibly be
needed just before the second dash except an exclamation or question
mark, and none at all just after the first; but stops may be necessary
to divide up the parenthesis itself if it is compound. Three examples
follow, with the proper corrections in brackets:
17. Garinet cites the case of a girl near Amiens possessed by three
demons,--Mimi, Zozo, and Crapoulet,--in 1816.--LOWELL. (Omit both
commas; the first is indeed just possible, though not required, in
the principal sentence; the last is absolutely meaningless in the
parenthesis)
18. Its visions and its delights are too penetrating,--too
living,--for any white-washed object or shallow fountain long to
endure or to supply.--RUSKIN. (Omit both commas; this time the
first is as impossible in the principal sentence as the second is
meaningless in the parenthesis)
19. The second carries us on from 1625 to 1714--less than a
century--yet the walls of the big hall in the Examination Schools are
not only well covered....--_Times._ (Insert a comma, as necessary
to the principal sentence, outside the dashes; whether before the
first or after the last will be explained in our answer to the third
question)
The second question is, how far the authority of the dash extends.
There is no reason, in the nature of things, why we should not on
the one hand be relieved of it by the next stop, or on the other be
subject to it till the paragraph ends. The three following examples,
which we shall correct in brackets by anticipation, but which we shall
also assume not to be mere careless blunders, seem to go on the first
hypothesis.
20. The Moral Nature, that Law of laws, whose revelations
introduce greatness--yea, God himself, into the open soul, is not
explored.--EMERSON. (Substitute a dash for the comma after _himself_.
Here, however, Emerson expects us to terminate the authority at the
right comma rather than at the first that comes, making things worse)
21. I ... there complained of the common notions of the special
virtues--justice, &c., as too vague to furnish exact determinations of
the actions enjoined under them.--H. SIDGWICK. (Substitute a dash for
the comma after _&c._)
22. There are vicars and vicars, and of all sorts I love an innovating
vicar--a piebald progressive professional reactionary, the least.--H.
G. WELLS. (Substitute a dash for the comma after _reactionary_)
It needs no further demonstration, however, that commas are frequently
used after a dash without putting an end to its influence; and if they
are to be sometimes taken, nevertheless, as doing so, confusion is sure
to result. Unless the author of the next example is blind to the danger
that two neighbouring but independent dashes may be mistaken for a
parenthetic pair, he must have assumed that the authority of a dash is
terminated at any rate by a semicolon; that, if true, would obviate the
danger.
23. It is a forlorn hope, however excellent the translation--and Mr.
Hankin’s could not be bettered; or however careful the playing--and
the playing at the Stage Society performance was meticulously
careful.--_Times._ (Insert a dash between _bettered_ and the
semicolon, which then need not be more than a comma)
But that it is not true will probably be admitted on the strength of
sentences like:
24. There may be differences of opinion on the degrees--no one takes
white for black: most people sometimes take blackish for black--, but
that is not fatal to my argument.
On the other hand, we doubt whether a full stop is ever allowed to
stand in the middle of a dash parenthesis, as it of course may in a
bracket parenthesis. The reason for the distinction is clear. When we
have had a left-hand bracket we know for certain that a right-hand
one is due, full stops or no full stops; but when we have had a dash,
we very seldom know for certain that it is one of a pair; and the
appearance of a full stop would be too severe a trial of our faith.
It seems natural to suppose that the double-dash parenthesis is thus
accounted for: the construction started with a single dash; but as it
was often necessary to revert to the main construction, the second
dash was resorted to as a declaration that the close time, or state of
siege, was over. The rule we deduce is: All that follows a dash is to
be taken as under its influence until either a second dash terminates
it, or a full stop is reached.
Our answer to the third question has already been given by
implication; but it may be better to give it again explicitly. We first
refer to examples 1, 2, 3, 6, 13, 14, 24, in all of which the stop, if
one is to be used, though our view is that in most of these sentences
it should not, is in the right place; and to example 16, in which it is
in the wrong place. We next add two new examples of wrong order, with
corrections as usual; the rules for stops with brackets are the same as
with double dashes.
25. Throughout the parts which they are intended to make most
personally their own, (the Psalms,) it is always the Law which is
spoken of with chief joy.--RUSKIN. (Remove both commas, and use
according to taste either none at all, or one after the second bracket)
26. What is the difference, whether land and sea interact, and worlds
revolve and intermingle without number or end,--deep yawning under
deep, and galaxy balancing galaxy, throughout absolute space,--or,
whether....--EMERSON. (Remove both commas, and place one after the
second dash)
A protest must next be made against the compositor’s superstition
embodied in Beadnell’s words: _As the dash in this case supplies the
place of the parenthesis, strictly speaking, the grammatical point
should follow the last dash; but as this would have an unsightly
appearance, it is always placed before it._ This unsightliness is
either imaginary or at most purely conventional, and should be entirely
disregarded. The rules will be (1) For the single dash: Since the dash
is on any view either a correction of or an addition to the stop that
would have been used if dashes had not existed, the dash will always
stand after the stop. (2) For the double dash or brackets: There will
be one stop or none according to the requirements of the principal
sentence only; there will never be two stops (apart, of course, from
internal ones); if there is one, it will stand before the first or
after the last dash or bracket according as the parenthesis belongs to
the following or the preceding part of the principal sentence. It may
be added that it is extremely rare for the parenthesis to belong to
the last part, and therefore for the stop to be rightly placed before
it. In the following example constructed for the occasion it does so
belong; but for practical purposes the rule might be that if a stop is
required it stands after the second dash or bracket.
27. When I last saw him, (a singular fact) his nose was pea-green.
3. Common misuses.
_a._ If two single independent dashes are placed near each other, still
more if they are in the same sentence, the reader naturally takes
them for a pair constituting a parenthesis, and has to reconsider the
sentence when he finds that his first reading gives nonsense. We refer
back to example 23. But this indiscretion is so common that it is well
to add some more. The sentences should be read over without the two
dashes and what they enclose.
Then there is also Miss Euphemia, long deposed from her office
of governess, but pensioned and so driven to good works and the
manufacture of the most wonderful crazy quilts--for which, to her
credit be it said, she shows a remarkable aptitude--as I should have
supposed.--CROCKETT.
The English came mainly from the Germans, whom Rome found hard to
conquer in 210 years--say, impossible to conquer--when one remembers
the long sequel.--EMERSON.
As for Anne--well, Anne was Anne--never more calm than when others
were tempestuous.--CROCKETT.
_b._ The first dash is inserted and the second forgotten. It will
suffice to refer back to examples 20, 21, 22.
_c._ Brackets and dashes are combined. It is a pity from the
collector’s point of view that Carlyle, being in the mood, did not
realize the full possibilities, and add a pair of commas, closing up
the parenthesis in _robur et aes triplex_.
How much would I give to have my mother--(though both my wife and I
have of late times lived wholly for her, and had much to endure on her
account)--how much would I give to have her back to me.--CARLYLE.
_d._ Like the comma, the dash is sometimes misplaced by a word or two.
In the first example, the first dash should be one place later; and in
the second, unless we misread the sentence and this is another case of
two single dashes, the second dash should be two places earlier, and
itself be replaced by a comma.
Here she is perhaps at her best--and in the best sense--her most
feminine, as a woman sympathizing with the sorrows peculiar to
women.--_Times._
The girl he had dreamed about--the girl with the smile was there--near
him, in his hut.--CROCKETT.
_e._ Dashes are sometimes used when an ordinary stop would serve
quite well. In the Lowell sentences, the reason why a comma is not
used is that the members are themselves broken up by commas, and
therefore demand a heavier stop to divide them from each other; this,
as explained in the early part of the chapter, is the place for a
semicolon. In the Corelli sentence, it is a question between comma and
semicolon, either of which would do quite well.
Shakespeare found a language already to a certain extent established,
but not yet fetlocked by dictionary and grammar mongers,--a
versification harmonized, but which had not yet....--LOWELL.
While I believe that our language had two periods of culmination
in poetic beauty,--one of nature, simplicity, and truth, in the
ballads, which deal only with narrative and feeling,--another of
Art....--LOWELL.
We were shown in,--and Mavis, who had expected our visit did not keep
us waiting long.--CORELLI.
HYPHENS
We return here to our usual practice of disregarding everything
not necessary for dealing with common mistakes. But some general
principles, most of which will probably find acceptance, will be useful
to start from.
1. Hyphens are regrettable necessities, and to be done without when
they reasonably may.
2. There are three degrees of intimacy between words, of which the
first and loosest is expressed by their mere juxtaposition as separate
words, the second by their being hyphened, and the third or closest
by their being written continuously as one word. Thus, hand workers,
hand-workers, handworkers.
3. It is good English usage to place a noun or other non-adjectival
part of speech before a noun, printing it as a separate word, and to
regard it as serving the purpose of an adjective in virtue of its
position; for instance, _war expenditure_; but there are sometimes
special objections to its being done. Thus, words in _-ing_ may be
actual adjectives (participles), or nouns (gerunds), used in virtue of
their position as adjectives; and a visible distinction is needed. A
_walking stick_ is a stick that walks, and the phrase might occur as a
metaphorical description of a stiffly behaved person: a _walking-stick_
or _walkingstick_ is a stick for walking; the difference may sometimes
be important, and consistency may be held to require that all compounds
with gerunds should be hyphened or made into single words.
4. Not only can a single word in ordinary circumstances be thus treated
as an adjective, but the same is true of a phrase; the words of the
phrase, however, must then be hyphened, or ambiguity may result. Thus:
Covent Garden; Covent-Garden Market; Covent-Garden-Market salesmen.
* * * * *
The prevailing method of giving railway and street names, besides its
ungainliness, is often misleading and contrary to common sense. For
one difficulty we suggest recurrence to the old-fashioned formula with
commas, and _and_, as in _The London, Chatham, and Dover_. On another,
it is to be observed that _New York-street_ should mean the new part of
York Street, but _New-York Street_ the street named after New York. The
set of examples includes some analogous cases, besides the railway and
street names.
It is stated that the train service on the
Hsin-min-tun-Kau-pan-tse-Yingkau section of the Imperial Chinese
Railway will be restored within a few days.--_Times._
Hsinmintun, Kaupantse, and Yingkau. These places can surely do without
their internal hyphens in an English newspaper; and one almost
suspects, from the absence of a hyphen between _Ying_ and _kau_, that
the _Times’s_ stock must have run short.
Even third-class carriages are scarce on the Dalny-Port Arthur
line.--_Times._
The Dalny and Port-Arthur line. By general principle 4, though _Port
Arthur_ needs no hyphen by itself, it does as soon as it stands for an
adjective with _line_: the Port-Arthur line. Also, by 2, the _Times_
version implies that _Dalny_ is more closely connected with _Port_ than
_Port_ with _Arthur_. We do indeed most of us know at present that
there is no Dalny Port so called, and that there is a Port Arthur. But
in the next example, who would know that there was a Brest Litovski,
but for the sentence that follows?
A general strike has been declared on the Warsaw-Brest Litovski
railway. The telegraph stations at Praga, Warsaw, and Brest Litovski
have been damaged.--_Times._
The Warsaw and Brest-Litovski railway. By 4, the hyphen between _Brest_
and _Litovski_ is necessary. If we write _Warsaw-Brest-Litovski_, it is
natural to suppose that three places are meant; the _and_ solution is
accordingly the best.
At Bow-street, Robert Marsh, greengrocer, of Great Western-road,
Harrow-road, was charged....--_Times._
Great-Western Road, Harrow Road. Bow-street, as _at_ (not _in_) shows,
is a compound epithet for _police-court_ understood, and has a right to
its hyphen. By 3, there is no need for a hyphen after _Harrow_, and by
1, if unnecessary, it is undesirable. As to the other road, there are
three possibilities. The _Times_ is right if there is a _Western Road_
of which one section is called _Great_, and the other _Little_. If the
name means literally the great road that runs west, there should be no
hyphen at all. If the road is named from the Great Western Railway, or
from the Great-Western Hotel, our version is right.
Cochin China waters.--_Times._
By 4, _Cochin China_ gives _Cochin-China_ waters.
Within the last ten days two Anglo-South Americans have been in my
office arranging for passages to New Zealand.--_Times._
_Anglo-South-Americans_ is the best that can be done. What is really
wanted is _Anglo-SouthAmericans_, to show that _South_ goes more
closely with _America_. But it is too hopelessly contrary to usage at
present.
The proceeds of the recent London-New York loan.--_Times._ (London and
New-York loan.)
A good, generous, King Mark-like sort of man.--_Times._
_King-Mark-like_, in default of _KingMark-like_. But the addition of
_-like_ to compound names should be avoided.
The Fugitive Slave-law in America before the rebellion.---H. SIDGWICK.
(Fugitive-Slave law.)
The steam-cars will have 16-horse power engines.--_Times._
_Steam cars_ is better, by 3, and 1. And 16-horsepower engines. We can
do this time what the capitals of _American_ and _Mark_ prevented in
the previous compounds.
Entirely gratuitous hyphens.
One had a male-partner, who hopped his loutish burlesque.--MEREDITH.
Gluttony is the least-generous of the vices.--MEREDITH.
A little china-box, bearing the motto ‘Though lost to sight, to memory
dear,’ which Dorcas sent her as a remembrance.--ELIOT.
This evidently means a box made of china. A box to hold china would
have the hyphen properly, and there are many differentiations of this
kind, of which _black bird_, as opposed to _black-bird_ or _blackbird_,
is the type.
Bertie took up a quantity of waste-papers, and thrust them down into
the basket.--E. F. BENSON.
This is probably formed by a mistaken step backwards from _waste-paper
basket_, where the hyphen is correct, as explained in 3.
In phrases like _wet and dry fly fishing_, compounded of _wet-fly
fishing_ and _dry-fly fishing_, methods vary. For instance:
A low door, leading through a moss and ivy-covered wall.--SCOTT.
A language ... not yet fetlocked by dictionary and grammar
mongers.--LOWELL.
Those who take human or womankind for their study.--THACKERAY.
The single phrases would have the hyphen for different reasons
(_moss-covered_, &c.), all but _human kind_. The only quite
satisfactory plan is the Germans’, who would write _moss-_ and
_ivy-covered_. This is imitated in English, as:
In old woods and on fern-and gorse-covered hilltops they do no harm
whatever.--_Spectator._
Refreshment-, boarding-, and lodging-house keepers have suffered
severely too.--_Westminster Gazette._
But imitations of foreign methods are not much to be recommended;
failing that, Lowell’s method seems the best--to use no hyphens, and
keep the second compound separate.
Adverbs that practically form compounds with verbs, but stand after,
and not necessarily next after them, need not be hyphened unless
they would be ambiguous in the particular sentence if they were
not hyphened. This may often happen, since most of them are also
prepositions; but even then, it is better to rearrange the sentence
than to hyphen.
He gratefully hands-over the establishment to his country.--MEREDITH.
Thoughtful persons, unpledged to shore-up tottering dogmas.--HUXLEY.
It is a much commoner fault to over-hyphen than to under-hyphen. But
in the next example _malaria-infected_ must be written, by 3. And
in the next again, one of the differentiations we have spoken of is
disregarded; _the fifty first_ means the fifty that come first: _the
fifty-first_ is the one after fifty. The ambiguity in the third example
is obvious.
The demonstration that a malaria infected mosquito, transported a
great distance to a non-malarial country, can....--_Times._
‘Nothing serious, I hope? How do cars break down?’ ‘In fifty different
ways. Only mine has chosen the fifty first.’--KIPLING.
The Cockney knew what the Lord of Session knew not, that the British
public is gentility crazy.--BORROW.
There comes a time when compound words that have long had a hyphen
should drop it; this is when they have become quite familiar. It seems
absurd to keep any longer the division in _to-day_ and _to-morrow_;
there are no words in the language that are more definitely single
and not double words; so much so that the ordinary man can give no
explanation of the _to_. On the other hand, the word italicized in the
next example may well puzzle a good many readers without its hyphen;
it has quite lately come into use in this country (‘Chiefly U.S.’ says
the _Oxford Dictionary_, which prints the hyphen, whereas Webster does
not), and is in danger of being taken at first sight for a foreign word
and pronounced in strange ways.
The soldiers ... have been building _dugouts_ throughout
April.--_Times._
There is a tendency to write certain familiar combinations
irrationally, which may be mentioned here, though it does not
necessarily involve the hyphen. With _in no wise_ and _at any rate_,
the only rational possibilities are to treat them like _nevertheless_
as one word, or like _none the less_ as three words (the right way, by
usage), or give them two hyphens. _Nowise_ and _anyrate_ are not nouns
that can be governed by _in_ and _at_.
Don McTaggart was the only man on his estate whom Sir Tempest could in
nowise make afraid.--CROCKETT.
French rules of neutrality are in nowise infringed by the
squadron.--_Times._
At anyrate.--CORELLI, _passim_.
QUOTATION MARKS
Quotation marks, like hyphens, should be used only when necessary.
The degree of necessity will vary slightly with the mental state of
the audience for whom a book is intended. To an educated man it is
an annoyance to find his author warning him that something written
long ago, and quoted every day almost ever since, is not an original
remark now first struck out. On the other hand, writers who address
the uneducated may find their account in using all the quotation
marks they can; their readers may be gratified by seeing how well read
the author is, or may think quotation marks decorative. The following
examples start with the least justifiable uses, and stop at the point
where quotation marks become more or less necessary.
John Smith, Esq., ‘Chatsworth’, Melton Road, Leamington.
The implication seems to be: living in the house that sensible people
call 164 Melton Road, but one fool likes to call Chatsworth.
How is it that during the year in which that scheme has been, so to
speak, ‘in the pillory’, no alternative has, at any rate, been made
public?--_Times._
Every metaphor ought to be treated as a quotation, if _in the pillory_
is to be. Here, moreover, quotation marks are a practical tautology,
after _so to speak_.
Robert Brown and William Marshall, convicted of robbery with
violence, were sentenced respectively to five years’ penal servitude
and eighteen strokes with the ‘cat’, and seven years’ penal
servitude.--_Times._
There is by this time no danger whatever of confusion with the cat of
one tail.
... not forgetful of how soon ‘things Japanese’ would be things of the
past for her.--SLADEN.
This may be called the propitiatory use, analogous in print to the
tentative air with which, in conversation, the Englishman not sure of
his pronunciation offers a French word. So trifling a phrase is not
worth using at the cost of quotation marks. If it could pass without,
well and good.
So that the prince and I were able to avoid that ‘familiarity
that breeds contempt’ by keeping up our own separate
establishments.--CORELLI.
... the Rector, lineal representative of the ancient monarchs of
the University, though now, little more than a ‘king of shreds and
patches’.--HUXLEY.
We agree pretty well in our tastes and habits--yet so, as ‘with a
difference’.--LAMB.
_With a difference_ (_Ophelia_: O, you must wear your rue with a
difference) might escape notice as a quotation if attention were not
drawn to it. A reader fit to appreciate Lamb, however, could scarcely
fail to be sufficiently warned by the odd turn of the preceding words.
* * * * *
A question of some importance to writers who trouble themselves about
accuracy, though no doubt the average reader is profoundly indifferent,
is that of the right order as between quotation marks and stops.
Besides the conflict in which we shall again find ourselves with the
aesthetic compositor, it is really difficult to arrive at a completely
logical system. Before laying down what seems the best attainable, we
must warn the reader that it is not the system now in fashion; but
there are signs that printers are feeling their way towards better
things, and this is an attempt to anticipate what they will ultimately
come to. We shall make one or two postulates, deduce rules, and give
examples. After the examples (in order that readers who are content
either to go on with the present compromise or to accept our rules
may be able to skip the discussion), we shall consider some possible
objections.
No stop is ever required at the end of a quotation to separate the
quotation, as such, from what follows; that is sufficiently done by the
quotation mark.
A stop is required to separate the containing sentence, which may go
on beyond the quotation’s end, but more commonly does not, from what
follows.
An exclamation or question mark--which are not true stops, but tone
symbols--may be an essential part of the quotation.
When a quotation is broken by such insertions as _he said_, any stop or
tone symbol may be an essential part of the first fragment of quotation.
No stop is needed at either end of such insertions as _he said_ to
part them from the quotation, that being sufficiently done by the
quotation marks.
From these considerations we deduce the following rules:
1. The true stops should never stand before the second quotation mark
except
(_a_) when, as in dialogue given without framework, complete sentences
entirely isolated and independent in grammar are printed as quotations.
Even in these, it must be mentioned that the true stops are strictly
unnecessary; but if the full stop (which alone can here be in question)
is used in deference to universal custom, it should be before the
quotation mark.
(_b_) when a stop is necessary to divide the first fragment of an
interrupted quotation from the second.
2. Words that interrupt quotations should never be allowed stops to
part them from the quotation.
3. The tone symbols should be placed before or after the second
quotation mark according as they belong to the quotation or to the
containing sentence. If both quotation and containing sentence need a
tone symbol, both should be used, with the quotation mark between them.
The bracketed numbers before the examples repeat the numbers of the
rules.
(1) Views advocated by Dr. Whately in his well-known ‘Essays’;
It is enough for us to reflect that ‘Such shortlived wits do wither as
they grow’.
We hear that ‘whom the gods love die young’, and thenceforth we
collect the cases that illustrate it.
(1 _a_) ‘You are breaking the rules.’ ‘Well, the rules are silly.’
(1 _b_) ‘Certainly not;’ he exclaimed ‘I would have died rather’.
(2) ‘I cannot guess’ he retorted ‘what you mean’.
(3) But ‘why drag in Velasquez?’
But what is the use of saying ‘Call no man happy till he dies’?
Is the question ‘Where was he?’ or ‘What was he doing?’?
How absurd to ask ‘Can a thing both be and not be?’!
If indignation is excited by the last two monstrosities, we can only
say what has been implied many other times in this book, that the
right substitute for correct ugliness is not incorrect prettiness,
but correct prettiness. There is never any difficulty in rewriting
sentences like these. (Is the question where he was, &c.?) (‘Can a
thing both be and not be?’ The question is absurd.) But it should be
recognized that, if such sentences are to be written, there is only one
way to punctuate them.
It may be of interest to show how these sentences stand in the books.
1st sentence (‘Essays;’); 2nd (grow.’); 3rd (young,’); 4th, as here;
5th (not,’ he exclaimed;) (rather.’); 6th (guess,’ he retorted,)
(mean.’); 7th (Velasquez’?); 8th (saying,) (dies?’). The last two are
fabricated.
The objections may now be considered.
‘The passing crowd’ is a phrase coined in the spirit of indifference.
Yet, to a man of what Plato calls ‘universal sympathies,’ and even
to the plain, ordinary denizens of this world, what can be more
interesting than ‘the passing crowd’?--B.
After giving this example, Beadnell says:--‘The reason is clear: the
words quoted are those of another, but the _question_ is the writer’s
own. Nevertheless, for the sake of neatness, the ordinary points, such
as the comma, semicolon, colon, and full stop, _precede_ the quotation
marks in instances analogous to the one quoted; but the exclamation
follows the same rule as the interrogation’.
Singularly enough, the stops that are according to this always to
precede the quotation mark (for the ‘analogous cases’ are the only
cases in which the outside position would be so much as considered) are
just the ones that by our rules ought hardly ever to do so, whereas the
two that are sometimes allowed the outside position are the two that we
admit to be as often necessary inside as outside. Neatness is the sole
consideration; just as the ears may be regarded as not hearing organs,
but ‘handsome volutes of the human capital’, so quotation marks may be
welcomed as giving a good picturesque finish to a sentence; those who
are of this way of thinking must feel that, if they allowed outside
them anything short of fine handsome stops like the exclamation and
question marks, they would be countenancing an anticlimax. But they
are really mere conservatives, masquerading only as aesthetes; and
their conservatism will soon have to yield. Argument on the subject is
impossible; it is only a question whether the printer’s love for the
old ways that seem to him so neat, or the writer’s and reader’s desire
to be understood and to understand fully, is to prevail.
Another objector takes a stronger position. He admits that logic, and
not beauty, must decide: ‘but before we give up the old, let us be
sure we are giving it up for a new that is logical’. He invites our
attention to the recent paragraph containing Beadnell’s views. ‘Why,
in the last sentence of that paragraph, is the full stop outside?
“But the exclamation follows the same rule as the interrogation” is
a complete sentence, quoted; why should its full stop be separated
from it?’ The answer is that the full stop is not _its_ full stop;
_it_ needs no stop, having its communications forward absolutely
cut off by the quotation mark. It is a delusion to suppose that any
sentence has proprietary rights in a stop, though it may have in a
tone symbol; a stop is placed after it merely to separate it from what
follows, if necessary.--‘And the full stop after every last sentence
(not a question or exclamation) of a paragraph, chapter, or book?’--Is
illogical, and only to be allowed, like those in the isolated
quotations mentioned in rule (1 _a_), in deference to universal custom.
Our full stop belongs, not to the last sentence of the quotation,
but to the paragraph, which is all one sentence, the whole quotation
simply playing the part, helped by the quotation marks, of object to
_says_.--‘But _says_ is followed by a colon, and a colon between verb
and object breaks your own rules.’--No; (:--) is something different
from a stop; it is an extra quotation mark, as much a conventional
symbol as the full stop in M.A. and other abbreviations.--‘Well, then,
instead of _says_, read _continues_, to which the quotation clearly
cannot be object; will that affect our full stop?’--No; the quotation
will still be part of the sentence; not indeed a noun, as before,
and object to the verb; but an adverb, simply equivalent to _thus_,
attached to the verb.
Satisfied on that point, the objector takes up our statement that
the quotation mark cuts communications; a similar statement was made
in the _Dashes_ section about brackets and double dashes. He submits
a quotation:--Some people ‘grunt and sweat under’ very easy burdens
indeed; and a pair of brackets:--It is (not a little learning, but)
much conceit that is a dangerous thing. ‘It is surely not true that
either quotation mark or bracket cuts the communications there;
_under_ in the quotation, _but_ in the brackets, are in very active
communication with _burdens_ and _conceit_, outside.’ The answer
is that these are merely convenient misuses of quotation marks
and brackets. A quotation and a parenthesis should be complete
in themselves, and instances that are not so may be neglected in
arguing out principles. Special rules might indeed be required in
consequence for the abnormal cases; but in practice this is not so with
quotations.--‘A last point. To adapt one of your instances, here are
two sets of sentences, stopped as I gather you would stop them:--(1) He
asked me “Can a thing both be and not be?” The question is absurd. (2)
He said “A thing cannot both be and not be”. I at once agreed. Now, if
the full stop is required after the quotation mark in the second, it
must be required after that in the first, in each case to part, not the
quotation, but the containing sentence, from the next sentence. What
right have you to omit the full stop in the first?’--None whatever; it
will not be omitted.--‘So we have an addition of some importance to the
monstrosities you said we should have to avoid.’--Well, sentences of
this type are not common except in a style of affected simplicity.--‘Or
real simplicity. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of
Jonas, lovest thou me? And is there any particular simplicity, real or
affected, about this:--(Richmond looked at him with an odd smile for a
moment or two before asking, as if it were the most natural question in
the world, “But is it true?”.)?’--In the Bible quotation there is, as
you say, real simplicity--or rather there was. That sort of simplicity
now would not be real, but artificial. Any one who has good reason to
imitate primitive style may imitate primitive punctuation too. But one
step forward in precision we have definitely taken from the biblical
typography: we should insist on quotation marks in such a sentence.
They do not seem pedantic or needless now; nor will a further step in
precision seem so when once it has been taken. And as to your Richmond
sentence, and ‘monstrosities’ in general, it may be confessed here,
as we are out of hearing in this discussion of all but those who are
really interested, that the word was used for the benefit only of those
who are indifferent. A sentence with two stops is not a monstrosity, if
it wants them; and that will be realized, if once sensible punctuation
gets the upper hand of neatness.
These are the most plausible objections on principle to a system of
using quotation marks with stops that would be in the main logical.
It may be thought, however, that it was our business to be practical
and opportunist, and suggest nothing that could not be acted on at
once. But general usage, besides being illogical, is so inconsistent,
different writers improving upon it in special details that appeal to
them, that it seemed simpler to give our idea of what would be the best
attainable, and trust to the tiro’s adopting any parts of it that may
not frighten him by their unaccustomed look.
* * * * *
There are single and double quotation marks, and, apart from minor
peculiarities, two ways of utilizing the variety. The prevailing one is
to use double marks for most purposes, and single ones for quotations
within quotations, as:--“Well, so he said to me ‘What do you mean by
it?’ and I said ‘I didn’t mean anything’”. Some of those who follow
this system also use the single marks for isolated words, short
phrases, and anything that can hardly be called a formal quotation;
this avoids giving much emphasis to such expressions, which is an
advantage. The more logical method is that adopted, for instance, by
the Oxford University Press, of reserving the double marks exclusively
for quotations within quotations. Besides the loss of the useful
degrees in emphasis (sure, however, to be inconsistently utilized),
there is a certain lack of full-dress effect about important quotations
when given this way; but that is probably a mere matter of habituation.
It should be mentioned that most of the quoted quotations in this
section had originally the double marks, but have been altered to
suit the more logical method; and the unpleasantness of the needless
quotation marks with which we started has so been slightly toned down.
* * * * *
A common mistake, of no great importance, but resulting in more or less
discomfort or perplexity to the reader, is the placing of the first
quotation mark earlier than the place where quotation really begins.
The commonest form of it is the including of the quoter’s introductory
_that_, which it is often obvious that the original did not contain.
Generally speaking, if _that_ is used the quotation marks may be
dispensed with; not, however, if the exact phraseology is important;
but at least the mark should be in the right place.
I remember an old scholastic aphorism, which says, ‘that the man
who lives wholly detached from others, must be either an angel or a
devil.’--BURKE.
As the aphorism descends through Latin from Aristotle (ἢ θηρίον
ἢ θεός), the precise English Words are of no importance, and the
quotation marks might as well be away; at least the first should be
after _that_.
Then, with ‘a sarvant, sir’ to me, he took himself into the
kitchen.--BORROW.
Clearly _a_ is not included in the quotation.
They make it perfectly clear and plain, he informed the House, that
‘Sir Antony MacDonnell was invited by him, rather as a colleague than
as a mere Under-Secretary, to register my will.’--_Times._
The change from _him_ to _my_ would be quite legitimate if the first
quotation mark stood before _rather_ instead of where it does; as it
stands, it is absurd.
It is long since he partook of the Holy Communion, though there was an
Easterday, of which he writes, when ‘he might have remained quietly in
(his) corner during the office, if...’.--_Times._
The (_his_) is evidently bracketed to show that it is substituted for
the original writer’s _my_. This is very conscientious; but it follows
that either the same should have been done for _he_, or the quotation
mark should be after _he_.
* * * * *
We began this section by saying that quotation marks should be used
only when necessary. A question that affects the decision to some
extent is the difference between direct, indirect, and half-and-half
quotation. We can say (1) He said ‘I will go’. (2) He said he would go.
(3) He said ‘he would go’. The first variety is often necessary for the
sake of vividness. The third is occasionally justified when, though
there is no occasion for vividness, there is some turn of phrase that
it is important for the reader to recognize as actually originating,
not with the writer, but with the person quoted; otherwise, that
variety is to be carefully avoided; how disagreeable it is will appear
in the example below. For ordinary purposes the second variety, which
involves no quotation marks, is the best.
He then followed my example, declared he never felt more refreshed in
his life, and, giving a bound, said, ‘he would go and look after his
horses.’--BORROW.
Further, there may be quotation, not of other people’s words, but of
one’s own thoughts. In this case the method prevailing at present is
that exemplified in the _Times_ extract below. Taken by itself, there
is no objection to it. We point out, however, that it is irreconcilable
with the principles explained in this section, which demand the
addition of a full stop (derived?.). That would be a worse monstrosity
than the one in the first of the three legitimate alternatives that we
add. We recommend that the _Times_ method should be abandoned, and the
first or second of the others used according to circumstances.
The next question is, Whence is this income derived?--_Times._
The next question is ‘Whence is this income derived?’. (Full direct
quotation. Observe the ‘monstrosity’ stop)