by boys and girls. These are "fine," "lovely," "swell," "awful,” and "horrible."

[Good.] Five other words occur to me which are commonly misused by boys and girls. These words are, etc.

(4) Make plain the connection between a participle and the noun or pronoun with which it belongs.

[Bad.] Giving two peaches to the boy, he asked for a third. [Good.] When I gave two peaches to the boy, he asked for a third. [Good.] On my giving two peaches to the boy, etc.

(5) Omit no word needed to make the meaning clear.

A black and white dog [= one parti-colored dog].

A black and a white dog [= two dogs, one black and one white]. The treasurer and secretary [= one person who holds two offices]. The treasurer and the secretary [= two persons].

[Bad.] "There is no difference," said the elm, "between the sap in our trunks and the other trees of the forest."

A

[Good.] "There is no difference," said the elm, "between the sap in our trunks and that in the other trees of the forest."

A

A

[Bad.] I imagine a lighted city, from above, would hardly seem a city.

[Good.] I imagine that a lighted city seen from above would hardly seem a city.

[Good.] Gold and cotton, banks and railways, crowded ports and populous cities, - these are not the elements that constitute a great nation.

(6) Use no word not needed to make the meaning clear. Above all, use no word that will make the meaning obscure.1

(7) Place words, phrases, and clauses as near as possible to the words or the groups of words with which they are grammatically connected.

[Properly placed adverbs.] He spoke thoughtlessly. Courage always enlists esteem. Courage has always enlisted esteem. He might easily have won success. He will be utterly undone.

1 See Section 31.

Be careful of adverbs like " only,' 99.66 solely," and of adverbial phrases like "at least," "at all events," "at any rate," etc. "Only" is properly placed immediately before the word affected by it.

He only beat three [= He did no more than beat, did not kill, three]. He beat only three [= He beat no more than three].

A

[Bad.] To picture simple human nature was Wordsworth's theory in simple everyday words.

[Good.] To picture simple human nature in simple everyday words was Wordsworth's theory.

but also," "either

(8) Follow "not only or," "neither nor," "both . . . and," and the like, by the same part of speech.

A

[Bad.] You should not only give your work time, but also thought. [Good.] You should give your work not only time, but also thought.

SECTION 31

Essentials of the Sentence

3. IT SHOULD BE EFFECTIVE

To be effective, a sentence must make some impression on the reader. A sentence may be correct, and even clear, and yet fail to make an impression. To make an impression on the reader, a sentence must in some way attract to itself the reader's attention. It must stir up the reader's emotions and imagination in such a way as to cause him to fix his mind on the thought of the sentence. Important and interesting matters should be put in specially effective sentences.

SOME RULES FOR EFFECTIVENESS

(1) Choose the word that will drive home your meaning. Prefer a short word to a long word, a specific word to a general word, a figurative word to a literal word.1

1 See Chapter IV.

(2) Be brief.

[Bad.] The boys disputed and quarrelled.

[Good.] The boys quarrelled.

[Bad.] The language of some school themes is of such a nature that it does not arouse the reader's interest.

[Good.] Some themes are dull.

(3) Place the chief parts of the sentence where they will readily catch the eye of the reader.

This is the principle of mass. In the sentence, as in the paragraph, there are two points that most readily catch the eye, the beginning and the end. Words placed at the beginning or at the end of a sentence have greater emphasis than if placed in the middle. Take an illustration:

[Bad.] We derive the power to acquire territory by treaty and conquest from the constitution itself.

[Good.] The power to acquire territory by treaty and conquest we derive from the constitution.

In this sentence there are two important ideas, "the constitution and "the power to acquire territory by treaty and conquest." Each of these ideas should be prominently placed, but in the sentence as originally written only one of them is so placed.

(4) Put out of its normal order any part of the sentence that needs special emphasis.

This method of gaining emphasis is especially adapted to the sentence, but it should be used with caution. By this method, a word, a phrase, or a clause is made conspicuous by being put out of its normal order. For example, an adjective, whose normal position is before its. noun, may be emphasized by being placed after its noun; the subject and predicate may be emphasized by an inversion of their positions; a conditional clause, whose normal position is before its principal, may be emphasized by being placed after it; and so on with the other parts of the sentence, provided always that the English idiom is not sacrificed to get emphasis. The following sentences show how emphasis may be got by this method:

FIRST FORM

The world needs alert and

active men.

Do criminals rise viciously and voluntarily among us to lead hunted lives?

In the South Sea Islands they have a horror for contagious diseases as great as our horror of crime.

If you want to be well-to-do, make it a rule to do without everything you have not the cash to pay for.

SECOND FORM

The world needs men alert and active.

Do criminals viciously and voluntarily rise among us to lead hunted lives?

In the South Sea Islands they have for contagious diseases a horror as great as our horror of crime.

Make it a rule to do without everything you have not the cash to pay for, if you want to be well-to-do.

NOTE. Other devices for effectiveness are the interrogative sentence (Section 34), the exclamatory sentence (Section 34), climax and antithesis (Section 37), and certain uses of the periodic sentence (Section 36).

SECTION 32

Essentials of the Sentence

4. IT SHOULD BE COHERENT

Coherence requires of the sentence pretty much what it requires of the paragraph. It requires that a sentence be so framed as to leave no doubt as to the mutual relation of all its parts. In other words, a sentence, if it is to have coherence, must be so framed that the relation of its words, phrases, or clauses to each other and to the sentence as a whole shall be so perfectly obvious as to be unmistakable.

SOME RULES FOR COHERENCE

(1) Keep together matters closely connected in thought; keep apart matters distinct in thought.

[Bad.] Goldwin Smith's new work on the United States is a history of our politics, short and easily read.

[Bad.] When the team was almost ready to board the train, Young was missed. After a search of several hours he was found wandering about in an alley out of his head.

[Bad.] And the fine old fellows laughed pleasantly together: each with a tear of regard for old Tim Linkinwater standing in his eye. DICKENS.

(2) Make similar in form phrases and clauses that are similar in significance.

[Bad.] They are densely ignorant of our laws, and no language is spoken by them except Spanish.

[Good.] They are densely ignorant of our laws, and speak no language except Spanish.

[Bad.] A great crime against human liberty will be consummated; for these people are being lured from their homes by wilful deceit, and their own childishness and ignorance is hastening them to their doom.

[Good.] A great crime against human liberty will be consummated; for these people are being lured from their homes by wilful deceit, and hastened to their doom by their own childishness and ignorance. (3) Use connectives where needed, but use them with precision.1

SECTION 33

Essentials of the Sentence

5. IT SHOULD HAVE UNITY

Such

A sentence, in order to have unity, must have but one central idea. This central idea is the nucleus about which all other ideas in the sentence gather into a whole. a sentence, if it be correctly, clearly, and coherently put together, can be readily grasped by the reader as a single complete thought.

1 See Exercise 40.