(b.) Improper coördination of clauses. Examples:

The first to answer our advertisement was a strong-looking Swedish girl who could not speak a word of English, and we knew we could not get along with her.

He has sent me a civil enough letter, but implying th t he is prepared to go the length of taking legal action in the

matter.

It is a wonderful sight to see the fire eating into the body of the trees, then suddenly they snap off without warning and fall prostrate upon the ground.

The fault in these sentences consists in joining, by means of a coördinating conjunction, parts unlike in kind or rank.

(c.) Lack of correspondence in form between phrases or clauses which are correspondent in function or meaning.

Examples:

She shows us the gentle nature which he possessed, but that he could be driven into terrible passions.

She was tall and slender, with sharp features and also very quick tempered.

By this foundation is meant not only the knowledge gained, but it also includes the training in methods of study which one acquires through taking regular work. (The words it and includes should be omitted, since they change the construction of training, which should have the same construction as knowledge.)

The rule that parts of the sentence which are similar in function or meaning should be similar in

form derives its force from the fact that similarity in form is the readiest way of indicating similarity in function. It may be noted here that those parts which are not correspondent in function should not be strikingly alike in form, inasmuch as similarity in this case would be likely to cause the reader confusion. Hence the following sentence, with its three infinitive phrases following one another, is faulty:

He said that he wished to take his friend with him to visit the capital and to study medicine.

Three different interpretations may be given this sentence, according to which of the characters is thought of as making the visit to the capital, and which as engaging in the study of medicine. The remedy is to change the construction of one or more of the infinitive phrases. The following version, for example, would be free from ambiguity.

He said that he wished to take his friend with him on a visit to the capital, and that he also wished to study medicine.

(d.) Faulty comparisons.

Examples:

He was the man of all others in the world I had most longed to see.

She is regarded as the most beautiful of all her sisters. It was certainly the steepest hill I ever climbed before. His work is as good, if not better than, the average. No course of action could be better suited to our purposes, or so well calculated to strengthen our position, than that. The snowfall in the mountains has not been as heavy in the last few years, and hence the streams are not so bountifully fed.

The last example is typical of a very common blunder, the incomplete comparison, or comparison not carried out. Elliptical comparisons are allowable only when the ellipsis can easily be supplied from the sentence, or sentences, immediately preceding.

43. Faulty punctuation. - One of the commonest faults in the composition of beginners is bad punctuation. Few beginners, indeed, seem able to punctuate properly.

The function of punctuation, as it is used by modern writers, is to serve as a mechanical means of supplementing the natural means of indicating relationship between sentence elements. It may be true, as a general rule, that the parts of a sentence should be so constructed and so placed that the proper understanding of their relation to each other will not be dependent wholly on the presence or absence of punctuation marks; but it is not always possible to manage this easily. Punctuation is always a legitimate and often a necessary means of indicating the relationship between sentence elements.

In the following sentence, for example, the presence or absence of a comma at a certain point affects the meaning; but to render the meaning quite independent of the punctuation would require a somewhat cumbrous construction in the sentence:

Besides these officers, there are a number of standing committees, the executive committee, the committees on finance and currency, foreign commerce, internal trade, insurance and charities.

The meaning here is that there is but one committee on insurance and charities. If the writer wished to express the idea that there were two, one on insurance and one on charities, he might simply place a comma after the word "insurance"; or he might repeat the word the word "committee" before each phrase denominating a committee. The simpler. method is to use the comma.

Perhaps the most common fault in punctuation is that which fails to distinguish the explanatory from the restrictive clause. The clause which is added simply by way of giving further particulars or explanations, but which is not at all necessary to the sense, ought to be marked off by means of commas; the restrictive clause, on the other hand, which is always necessary to make the sentence complete, ought not to be so distinguished.

The following examples illustrate correct punctuation in cases of this kind:

We have here a clew to the effect of polysyllables, above all in Latin, where they are so common and make so brave an architecture in the verse.

This culture is more interesting and more far-reaching than that other, which is founded solely on the scientific passion for knowing.

Here I find myself talking on a matter whereof I know very little.

The hypothesis which is based on sound scientific knowledge is sure to have a corresponding value; and that which is a mere hasty random guess is likely to have but little value.

In the first two sentences, the clauses italicized are purely explanatory; in the last two, they are restrictive. In the former case, commas are used; in the latter case, they are not.

There are cases, to be sure, where it is next to impossible to tell whether the clause was meant to be restrictive or explanatory; but they do not occur very often. The following is an illustration:

We passed over a Lurned tract where the ground was hot beneath the horse's feet, and between the blazing sides of two mountains.

In cases like this, the punctuation is a matter of indifference.

44. Emphasis in the sentence. An important thing in sentence structure is getting the emphasis properly placed. Certain of its parts will naturally be more important than other parts; these parts, therefore, ought to be given the most prominent positions, that is to say, placed either at the beginning or at the end of the sentence.

From the fact that the last word said has the best chance of remaining longest in the mind, the end is a rather more emphatic position than the beginning. Much depends, however, on the position which the part to be emphasized would naturally occupy. What would be an emphatic position for one part of the sentence would not necessarily be an emphatic position for another. To make any given part specially emphatic, we must put that part into a position it would not normally occupy.