THE COMMUTATIVE LAW
Often the meaning of a sentence tacitly implies that the commutative law
does not hold. We are all familiar with the passage in which Macaulay
pointed out that, by using the commutative law because of exigencies of
metre, Robert Montgomery unintentionally made Creation tremble at the
Atheist's nod instead of the Almighty's. This use of the commutative law
by writers of verse renders it doubtful whether, in the hymn-line:
The humble poor believe,
we are to understand a statement about the humble poor, or a doubtful
maxim as to the attitude of our minds to statements made by the humble
poor.
The non-commutativity of English titles offers difficulties to some
novelists and Americans who refer to Mary Lady So-and-So as Lady Mary
So-and-So, and _vice versa_.