Chapter IV: Punctuation (2)

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?