Part 18

"The savage people in many places in America, except the government of families, have no government at all, and live at this day in that savage manner as I have said before."--Hobbes. Better: "The savage people ... in America have no government at all, except the government of families," etc.

"I shall have a comedy for you, in a season or two at farthest, that I believe will be worth your acceptance."--Goldsmith. Bettered: "In a season or two at farthest, I shall have a comedy for you that I believe will be worth your acceptance."

Among the following examples of the wrong placing of words and clauses, there are some that are as amusing as they are instructive: "This orthography is regarded as normal in England." What the writer intended was, "in England as normal"--a very different thought. "The Normal School is a commodious building capable of accommodating three hundred students four stories high." "HOUSEKEEPER.--A highly respectable middle-aged Person who has been filling the above Situation with a gentleman for upwards of eleven years and who is now deceased is anxious to meet a similar one." "TO PIANO-FORTE MAKERS.--A lady keeping a first-class school requiring a good piano, is desirous of receiving a daughter of the above in exchange for the same." "The Moor, seizing a bolster boiling over with rage and jealousy, smothers her." "The Dying Zouave the most wonderful mechanical representation ever seen of the last breath of life being shot in the breast and life's blood leaving the wound." "Mr. T---- presents his compliments to Mr. H----, and I have got a hat that is not his, and, if he have a hat that is not yours, no doubt they are the expectant ones." See ONLY.

MISPLACED WORDS. "Of all the faults to be found in writing," says Cobbett, "this is one of the most common, and perhaps it leads to the greatest number of misconceptions. All the words may be the proper words to be used upon the occasion, and yet, by a misplacing of a part of them, the meaning may be wholly destroyed; and even made to be the contrary of what it ought to be."

"I asked the question with no other intention than to set the gentleman free from the necessity of silence, and to give him an opportunity of mingling on equal terms with a polite assembly from which, however uneasy, he could not then escape, by a kind introduction of the only subject on which I believed him to be able to speak with propriety."--Dr. Johnson.

"This," says Cobbett, "is a very bad sentence altogether. 'However uneasy' applies to assembly and not to gentleman. Only observe how easily this might have been avoided. 'From which he, however uneasy, could not then escape.' After this we have, 'he could not then escape, by a kind introduction.' We know what is meant; but the Doctor, with all his commas, leaves the sentence confused. Let us see whether we can not make it clear. 'I asked the question with no other intention than, by a kind introduction of the only subject on which I believed him to be able to speak with propriety, to set the gentleman free from the necessity of silence, and to give him an opportunity of mingling on equal terms with a polite assembly from which he, however uneasy, could not then escape.'"

"Reason is the glory of human nature, and one of the chief eminences whereby we are raised above our fellow-creatures, the brutes, in this lower world."--Doctor Watts' "Logic."

"I have before showed an error," Cobbett remarks, "in the first sentence of Doctor Watts' work. This is the second sentence. The words in this lower world are not words misplaced only; they are wholly unnecessary, and they do great harm; for they do these two things: first, they imply that there are brutes in the higher world; and, second, they excite a doubt whether we are raised above those brutes.

"I might greatly extend the number of my extracts from these authors; but here, I trust, are enough. I had noted down about two hundred errors in Dr. Johnson's 'Lives of the Poets'; but, afterward perceiving that he had revised and corrected 'The Rambler' with extraordinary care, I chose to make my extracts from that work rather than from the 'Lives of the Poets.'"

The position of the adverb should be as near as possible to the word it qualifies. Sometimes we place it before the auxiliary and sometimes after it, according to the thought we wish to express. The difference between "The fish should properly be broiled" and "The fish should be properly broiled" is apparent at a glance. "The colon may be properly used in the following cases": should be, "may properly be used." "This mode of expression rather suits a familiar than a grave style": should be, "suits a familiar rather than a grave style." "It is a frequent error in the writings even of some good authors": should be, "in the writings of even some good authors." "Both the circumstances of contingency and futurity are necessary": should be, "The circumstances of contingency and futurity are both necessary." "He has made charges ... which he has failed utterly to sustain."--"New York Tribune." Here it is uncertain at first sight which verb the adverb is intended to qualify; but the nature of the case makes it probable that the writer meant "has utterly failed to sustain."

MISTAKEN. "If I am not mistaken, you are in the wrong": say, "If I mistake not." "I tell you, you are mistaken." Here mistaken means, "You are wrong; you do not understand"; but it might be taken to mean, "I mistake you." For "you are mistaken," say, "you mistake." If, as Horace and Professor Davidson aver, usage in language makes right, then the grammarians ought long ago to have invented some theory upon which the locution you are mistaken could be defended. Until they do invent such a theory, it will be better to say you mistake, he mistakes, and so on; or you are, or he is--as the case may be--in error.

MORE PERFECT. Such expressions as, "the more perfect of the two," "the most perfect thing of the kind I have ever seen," "the most complete cooking-stove ever invented," and the like, can not be defended logically, as nothing can be more perfect than perfection, or more complete than completeness. Still such phrases are, and probably will continue to be, used by good writers.

MOST. "Everybody abuses this word," says Mr. Gould in his "Good English"; and then, in another paragraph, he adds: "If a man would cross out most wherever he can find it in any book in the English language, he would in almost every instance improve the style of the book." That this statement may appear within bounds, he gives many examples from good authors, some of which are the following: "a most profound silence"; "a most just idea"; "a most complete orator"; "this was most extraordinary"; "an object of most perfect esteem"; "a most extensive erudition"; "he gave it most liberally away"; "it is, most assuredly, not because I value his services least"; "would most seriously affect us"; "that such a system must most widely and most powerfully," etc.; "it is most effectually nailed to the counter"; "it is most undeniable that," etc.

This word is much, and very erroneously, used for almost. "He comes here most every day." The user of such a sentence as this means to say that he comes nearly every day, but he really says, if he says anything, that he comes more every day than he does every night. In such sentences almost, and not most, is the word to use.

MUTUAL. This word is much misused in the phrase "our mutual friend." Macaulay says: "Mutual friend is a low vulgarism for common friend." Mutual properly relates to two persons, and implies reciprocity of sentiment--sentiment, be it what it may, received and returned. Thus, we say properly, "John and James have a mutual affection, or a mutual aversion," i. e., they like or dislike each other; or, "John and James are mutually dependent," i. e., they are dependent on each other. In using the word mutual, care should be taken not to add the words for each other or on each other, the thought conveyed by these words being already expressed in the word mutual. "Dependent on each other" is the exact equivalent of "mutually dependent"; hence, saying that John and James are mutually dependent on each other is as redundant in form as it would be to say that the editors of "The Great Vilifier" are the biggest, greatest mud-slingers in America.

MYSELF. This form of the personal pronoun is properly used in the nominative case only where increased emphasis is aimed at.

"I had as lief not be as live to be In awe of such a thing as I myself."

"I will do it myself," "I saw it myself." It is, therefore, incorrect to say, "Mrs. Brown and myself were both very much pleased."

NAME. This word is sometimes improperly used for mention; thus, "I never named the matter to any one": should be, "I never mentioned the matter to any one."

NEIGHBORHOOD. See VICINITY.

NEITHER. See EITHER.

NEITHER--NOR. "He would neither give wine, nor oil, nor money."--Thackeray. The conjunction should be placed before the excluded object; "neither give" implies neither some other verb, a meaning not intended. Rearrange thus, taking all the common parts of the contracted sentences together: "He would give neither wine, nor oil, nor money." So, "She can neither help her beauty, nor her courage, nor her cruelty" (Thackeray), should be, "She can help neither," etc. "He had neither time to intercept nor to stop her" (Scott), should be, "He had time neither to intercept," etc. "Some neither can for wits nor critics pass" (Pope), should be, "Some can neither for wits nor critics pass."

NEVER. Grammarians differ with regard to the correctness of using never in such sentences as, "He is in error, though never so wise," "Charm he never so wisely." In sentences like these, to say the least, it is better, in common with the great majority of writers, to use ever.

NEW. This adjective is often misplaced. "He has a new suit of clothes and a new pair of gloves." It is not the suit and the pair that are new, but the clothes and the gloves.

NICE. Archdeacon Hare remarks of the use, or rather misuse, of this word: "That stupid vulgarism by which we use the word nice to denote almost every mode of approbation, for almost every variety of quality, and, from sheer poverty of thought, or fear of saying anything definite, wrap up everything indiscriminately in this characterless domino, speaking at the same breath of a nice cheese-cake, a nice tragedy, a nice sermon, a nice day, a nice country, as if a universal deluge of niaiserie--for nice seems originally to have been only niais--had whelmed the whole island." Nice is as good a word as any other in its place, but its place is not everywhere. We talk very properly about a nice distinction, a nice discrimination, a nice calculation, a nice point, and about a person's being nice, and over-nice, and the like; but we certainly ought not to talk about "Othello's" being a nice tragedy, about Salvini's being a nice actor, or New York bay's being a nice harbor.

NICELY. The very quintessence of popinjay vulgarity is reached when nicely is made to do service for well, in this wise: "How do you do?" "Nicely." "How are you?" "Nicely."

NO. This word of negation is responded to by nor in sentences like this: "Let your meaning be obscure, and no grace of diction nor any music of well-turned sentences will make amends."

"Whether he is there or no." Supply the ellipsis, and we have, "Whether he is there or no there." Clearly, the word to use in sentences like this is not no, but not. And yet our best writers sometimes inadvertently use no with whether. Example: "But perhaps some people are quite indifferent whether or no it is said," etc.--Richard Grant White, in "Words and Their Uses," p. 84. Supply the ellipsis, and we have, "said or no said." In a little book entitled "Live and Learn," I find, "No less than fifty persons were there; No fewer," etc. In correcting one mistake, the writer himself makes one. It should be, "Not fewer," etc. If we ask, "There were fifty persons there, were there or were there not?" the reply clearly would be, "There were not fewer than fifty." "There was no one of them who would not have been proud," etc., should be, "There was not one of them."