Part 32

"Whatever is dark is deep. Stir a puddle, and it is deeper than a well."--Swift.

SYNECDOCHE. The using of the name of a part for that of the whole, the name of the whole for that of a part, or the using of a definite number for an indefinite, is called, in rhetoric, synecdoche. "The bay was covered with sails"; i. e., with ships. "The man was old, careworn, and gray"; i. e., literally, his hair, not the man, was gray. "Nine tenths of every man's happiness depends on the reception he meets with in the world." "He had seen seventy winters." "Thus spoke the tempter": here the part of the character is named that suits the occasion.

"His roof was at the service of the outcast; the unfortunate ever found a welcome at his threshold."

TAKE. I copy from the "London Queen": "The verb to take is open to being considered a vulgar verb when used in reference to dinner, tea, or to refreshments of any kind. 'Will you take' is not considered comme il faut; the verb in favor for the offering of civilities being to have." According to "The Queen," then, we must say, "Will you have some dinner, tea, coffee, wine, fish, beef, salad," etc.

TASTE OF. The redundant of, often used, in this country, in connection with the transitive verbs to taste and to smell, is a Yankeeism. We taste or smell a thing, not taste of nor smell of a thing. The neuter verbs to taste and to smell are often followed by of. "If butter tastes of brass." "For age but tastes of pleasures."

"You shall stifle in your own report, and smell of calumny."--Shakespeare.

TAUTOLOGY. Among the things to be avoided in writing is tautology, which is the repeating of the same thought, whether in the same or in different words.

TAUTOPHONY. "A regard for harmony requires us, in the progress of a sentence, to avoid repeating a sound by employing the same word more than once, or using, in contiguous words, similar combinations of letters. This fault is known as tautology."--Dr. G. P. Quackenbos, "Advanced Course of Composition and Rhetoric," p. 300. Dr. Quackenbos is in error. The repetition of the same sense is tautology, and the repetition of the same sound, or, as Dr. Quackenbos has it, "the repeating of a sound by employing the same word more than once, or by using in contiguous words similar combinations of letters," is tautophony.

TEACH. To impart knowledge, to inform, to instruct; as, "Teach me how to do it"; "Teach me to swim"; "He taught me to write." The uncultured often misuse learn for teach. See LEARN.

TENSE. The errors made in the use of the tenses are manifold. The one most frequently made by persons of culture--the one that everybody makes would, perhaps, be nearer the fact--is that of using the imperfect instead of the perfect tense; thus, "I never saw it played but once": say, have seen. "He was the largest man I ever saw": say, have seen. "I never in my life had such trouble": say, have had. Another frequent error, the making of which is not confined to the unschooled, is that of using two verbs in a past tense when only one should be in that time; thus, "I intended to have gone": say, to go. "It was my intention to have come": say, to come. "I expected to have found you here": say, to find. "I was very desirous to have gone": say, to go. "He was better than I expected to have found him": say, to find.

Among other common errors are the following: "I seen him when he done it": say, "I saw him when he did it." "I should have went home": say, gone. "If he had went": say, gone. "I wish you had went": say, gone. "He has went out": say, gone. "I come to town this morning": say, came. "He come to me for advice": say, came. "It begun very late": say, began. "It had already began": say, begun. "The following toasts were drank": say, drunk. "His text was that God was love": say, is love. Another error is made in such sentences as these: "If I had have known": say, had known. "If he had have come as he promised": say, had come. "If you had have told me": say, had told.

TESTIMONY. See EVIDENCE.

THAN. Than and as implying comparison have the same case after as before them. "He owes more than me": read, than I--i. e., more than I owe. "John is not so old as her": read, as she--i. e., as she is. We should say, then, "He is stronger than she," "She is older than he," "You are richer than I," etc. But it does not always happen that the nominative case comes after than or as. "I love you more than him," "I give you more than him," "I love you as well as him"; that is to say, "I love you more than I love him," "I give you more than I give him," "I love you as well as I love him." Take away him and put he in all these cases, and the grammar is just as good, but the meaning is quite different. "I love you as well as him," means that I love you as well as I love him; but, "I love you as well as he," means that I love you as well as he loves you.

THAN WHOM. Cobbett, in his "Grammar of the English Language," says: "There is an erroneous way of employing whom, which I must point out to your particular attention, because it is so often seen in very good writers, and because it is very deceiving. 'The Duke of Argyll, than whom no man was more hearty in the cause.' 'Cromwell, than whom no man was better skilled in artifice.' A hundred such phrases might be collected from Hume, Blackstone, and even from Drs. Blair and Johnson. Yet they are bad grammar. In all such cases, who should be made use of: for it is nominative and not objective. 'No man was more hearty in the cause than he was'; 'No man was better skilled in artifice than he was.' It is a very common Parliament-house phrase, and therefore presumably corrupt; but it is a Dr. Johnson phrase, too: 'Pope, than whom few men had more vanity.' The Doctor did not say, 'Myself, than whom few men have been found more base, having, in my dictionary, described a pensioner as a slave of state, and having afterward myself become a pensioner.'

"I differ in this matter from Bishop Lowth, who says that 'The relative who, having reference to no verb or preposition understood, but only to its antecedent, when it follows than, is always in the objective case; even though the pronoun, if substituted in its place, would be in the nominative.' And then he gives an instance from Milton. 'Beelzebub, than whom, Satan except, none higher sat.' It is curious enough that this sentence of the Bishop is, itself, ungrammatical! Our poor unfortunate it is so placed as to make it a matter of doubt whether the Bishop meant it to relate to who or to its antecedent. However, we know its meaning; but, though he says that who, when it follows than, is always in the objective case, he gives us no reason for this departure from a clear general principle; unless we are to regard as a reason the example of Milton, who has committed many hundreds, if not thousands, of grammatical errors, many of which the Bishop himself has pointed out. There is a sort of side-wind attempt at reason in the words, 'having reference to no verb or preposition understood.' I do not see the reason, even if this could be; but it appears to me impossible that a noun or pronoun can exist in a grammatical state without having reference to some verb or preposition, either expressed or understood. What is meant by Milton? 'Than Beelzebub, none sat higher, except Satan.' And when, in order to avoid the repetition of the word Beelzebub, the relative becomes necessary, the full construction must be, 'no devil sat higher than who sat, except Satan'; and not, 'no devil sat higher than whom sat.' The supposition that there can be a noun or pronoun which has reference to no verb and no preposition, is certainly a mistake."

Of this, Dr. Fitzedward Hall remarks, in his "Recent Exemplifications of False Philology": "That any one but Cobbett would abide this as English is highly improbable; and how the expression--a quite classical one--which he discards can be justified grammatically, except by calling its than a preposition, others may resolve at their leisure and pleasure."

THANKS. There are many persons who think it in questionable taste to use thanks for thank you.

THAT. The best writers often appear to grope after a separate employment for the several relatives.

"'THAT' is the proper restrictive, explicative, limiting, or defining relative.

"'That,' the neuter of the definite article, was early in use as a neuter relative. All the other oldest relatives gradually dropt away, and 'that' came to be applied also to plural antecedents, and to masculines and feminines. When 'as,' 'which,' and 'who' came forward to share the work of 'that,' there seems to have arisen not a little uncertainty about the relatives, and we find curious double forms: 'whom that,' 'which that,' 'which as,' etc. Gower has, 'Venus whose priest that I am'; Chaucer writes--'This Abbot which that was an holy man,' 'his love the which that he oweth.' By the Elizabethan period, these double forms have disappeared, and all the relatives are used singly without hesitation. From then till now, 'that' has been struggling with 'who' and 'which' to regain superior favor, with varying success. 'Who' is used for persons, 'which' for things, in both numbers; so is 'that'; and the only opportunity of a special application of 'that' lies in the important distinction between coördination and restriction. Now, as 'who' and 'which' are most commonly preferred for coördination, it would be a clear gain to confine them to this sense, and to reserve 'that' for the restrictive application alone. This arrangement, then, would fall in with the most general use of 'that,' especially beyond the limits of formal composition.

"The use of 'that' solely as restrictive, with 'who' and 'which' solely as coördinating, also avoids ambiguities that often attend the indiscriminate use of 'who' and 'which' for coördinate and for restrictive clauses. Thus, when we say, 'his conduct surprised his English friends, who had not known him long,' we may mean either that his English friends generally were surprised (the relative being, in that case, coördinating), or that only a portion of them--namely, the particular portion that had not known him long--were surprised. In this last case the relative is meant to define or explain the antecedent, and the doubt would be removed by writing thus: 'his English friends that had not known him long.' So in the following sentence there is a similar ambiguity in the use of 'which': 'the next winter which you will spend in town will give you opportunities of making a more prudent choice.' This may mean, either 'you will spend next winter in town' ('which' being coördinating), or 'the next of the winters when you are to live in town,' let that come when it may. In the former case, 'which' is the proper relative; in the latter case, the meaning is restrictive or defining, and would be best brought out by 'that': 'the next winter that you will spend in town.'

"A further consideration in favor of employing 'that' for explicative clauses is the unpleasant effect arising from the too frequent repetition of 'who' and 'which.' Grammarians often recommend 'that' as a means of varying the style; but this end ought to be sought in subservience to the still greater end of perspicuity.

"The following examples will serve further to illustrate the distinction between that, on the one hand, and who and which, on the other:

"'In general, Mr. Burchell was fondest of the company of children, whom he used to call harmless little men.' 'Whom' is here idiomatically used, being the equivalent of 'and them he used to call,' etc.

"'Bacon at last, a mighty man, arose, Whom a wise king and nation chose Lord Chancellor of both their laws.'

Here, also, 'whom' is equal to 'and him.'

"In the following instance the relative is restrictive or defining, and 'that' would be preferable: 'the conclusion of the "Iliad" is like the exit of a great man out of company whom he has entertained magnificently.' Compare another of Addison's sentences: 'a man of polite imagination is let into a great many pleasures that the vulgar are not capable of receiving.'

"Both relatives are introduced discriminatingly in this passage:--'She had learned that from Mrs. Wood, who had heard it from her husband, who had heard it at the public-house from the landlord, who had been let into the secret by the boy that carried the beer to some of the prisoners.'