Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

5. Relative: We stayed here twelve days, during which time the natives were very obliging to us. DEFOE. (§ 84.)

6. Compound relative: He used whatever means he had. (§ 100.) 7. Indefinite: Any plan is better than no plan. (§ 103.)

8. Numeral: Ten men; a third part; a threefold cord; a half cup of tea. (§ 121.)

117. Descriptive and proper adjective. A descriptive adjective describes, or denotes a quality. Among the descriptive adjectives are those formed from proper names; such adjectives are called proper adjectives. Proper adjectives, unless they have lost their primary meaning, begin with a capital letter (§ 438):

1. The English alphabet; Indian baskets; American cotton. 2. An Alpine village (= a village in the Alps); but, alpine plants (= plants such as grow in the Alps).

3. The Italic languages; but, italic type.

118. Possessive adjectives. The possessive adjectives are my, mine, our, thy, thine, your, his, her, its, their (see $59, N.). When mine, thine, and his do not modify nouns, they are possessive pronouns (§ 68). Mine and thine are found chiefly in the Bible and in poetry.

NOTE. His is masculine, but includes the feminine (see § 60, Ex. 6); for examples, see §§ 108, 120. In the older language his was neuter also (in Shakespeare's day its was just coming into use): "the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind”. - THE BIBLE.

Do not use an apostrophe with his and its (§ 68).

Our, ours, your, yours, etc. Distinguish the possessive adjectives our, your, her, and their, which modify nouns, from the possessive pronouns ours, yours, hers, and theirs, which do not modify anything (§ 68):

1. He thinks that your friends and mine will help him. 2. He thinks that my friends and yours will help him.

119. Indefinite adjectives. The indefinite adjectives include those given as indefinite pronouns in § 102 and such words as a, an (§ 139), all (§ 143), every, no, few, many, numerous, several, various.

120. Verb with each, every, etc. Do not use a plural verb, a plural pronoun, or a possessive adjective referring to a plural, with such indefinite adjectives as each, every, either, neither (see he, him, § 60; his, § 118, N.; § 200):

1. Each of them looks out for himself. (Not 'for themselves'.) 2. Each (or Every) class has its president.

3. Everybody has his troubles. (Not 'their troubles '.)

4. Neither of us has his umbrella. (Not have our umbrellas '.) 5. Every boy was busy at his bench.

6. Every girl was busy in her garden.

7. Every student brought specimens of his work. (§ 118, N.) 8. All the students brought specimens of their work.

9. Exception: Each (or Every) ten girls elect their leader.

121. Numeral adjectives. Numeral adjectives express number. They are of three kinds, cardinal, ordinal, and

[blocks in formation]

For the use of the hyphen in the writing of the numeral adjectives, see §§ 506, 507.

Cardinal numeral adjectives tell how many; ordinal numeral adjectives tell where in a series; multiplicative numeral adjectives tell how many times taken, or of how many similar parts made up:

1. Three fishers went sailing out into the West.

2. He rested on the seventh day from all his work.

3. They gave us a double measure of corn.

4. The reasons for the delay were threefold.

122. Hundred, thousand, million. When used as nouns, such words as hundred, thousand, and million either have plurals ending in s or are treated as collective nouns (§ 36), but they always take a plural verb (§ 197):

1. Thousands of cattle graze on this plain.

2. Several thousand of his cattle graze on this plain.

123. Concrete and abstract numbers. When a cardinal numeral modifies a noun (that is, a concrete object), it is called a concrete number; when it does not modify a noun, expressed or understood, it is called an abstract number:

1. Two boys; five oranges; ten pennies. (Concrete.) 2. Five and five are ten. (Abstract; see §§ 199, 200.)

124. And in numbers. In the reading and writing of numbers and is retained before tens, units, and fractions, just as before the last term in any other series (§ 299); the parts of written numbers are not separated by commas (see § 481):

1. A thousand and one nights.

2. One hundred and one thousand one hundred and one.

3. Five thousand three hundred and forty-two.

4. Seven hundred and ten and three tenths.

5. Eight and a half; a pound and three quarters.

NOTE. The omission of and before the last term of a series is so unusual as to be a rhetorical figure, called asyndeton (not bound together'; see an- and syn-, § 408), as in 'I came, I saw, I conquered'. In the writing of numbers and has been used since early times. The various schoolroom devices now employed in the reading and writing of whole or mixed numbers are not for general use, and students should be cautioned against them. In ordinary practice it is no more proper to say 'I counted a thousand one' than 'I saw Frank, Mary'.

125. Time-table style. Colloquially (§ 380) it is usual to announce the time of the arrival and departure of trains, boats, and the like in a short (time-table) style without and:

1. Our train starts at two p.m. (at two fifteen, at two thirty, at two forty). (Colloquial.)

2. Our train started at two o'clock in the afternoon (at a quarter past two, at half past two, at twenty minutes to three). (Literary.)

126. Year of event. The year of an event may sometimes be read in two different ways, the one formal, the other colloquial:

In 1914 the war began. In nineteen hundred and fourteen the war began' (formal; see also § 128, a, 4-6); 'In nineteen fourteen the war began' (colloquial).

127. Written numbers. In the writing of numbers the literary style should be distinguished from the technical style. In the literary style numbers are generally written out. In the technical style (the style for works of a scientific and technical nature) numbers are generally expressed by figures.

128. Literary style. The literary style for writing numbers is of two kinds, the more formal and the less formal:

a. In the more formal literary style (as in Shakespeare and the Bible, and in proclamations) all numbers are written out (see § 124):

1. And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years. THE BIBLE.

[ocr errors]

2. And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth. THE BIBLE (Revised Version).

3. The remaining nine cohorts consisted each of five hundred and fifty-five; and the whole body of legionary infantry amounted to six thousand one hundred men. GIBBON.

[ocr errors]

4. It was on the twenty-seventh of July, in the year twelve hundred and ninety-nine of the Christian Era, that Othman first invaded the territory of Nicomedia. - GIBBON.

5. It was in the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five.

DICKENS.

6. Done in the District of Columbia this tenth day of November, in the year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and nineteen, and of the independence of the United States the one hundred and forty-fourth.

b. In the less formal literary style, which is the style for ordinary use, numbers are treated as follows:

(1) In general, most numbers are written out (see § 130): 1. A square chapel, twenty-four cubits long, twenty-three broad, and twenty-seven high. GIBBON.

2. The year has three hundred and sixty-five days.

3. Last Friday was the eighteenth of October.

4. At eight o'clock on June the twenty-third. (Used in formal notes; § 532.)

5. He describes this in the second volume of his history.

6. Page a hundred and nine, Mr. Boffin. DICKENS.

7. We waited until one o'clock at night. (Not 'one a.m.'; § 125.) 8. The experiment cost him one hundred and nine dollars and thirty-seven cents in money, and twenty-three days and a half in time.

9. He had lost two thirds or three fourths of his property. 10. This ship had three twenty-four-pound guns.

11. He had engaged room two hundred and five.

(2) Years are generally expressed in figures; days are expressed in figures or are written out:

« AnteriorContinuar »