Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant: Save me for Thy mercies' sake. 4. The DASH is often used instead of commas, semicolons, colons, and parentheses, but its proper place is in impassioned language, to indicate abrupt transitions of thought: How poor-how rich-how abject-how august— Wouldst thou, proud man, be safely placed above 5. A PERIOD marks the end of a sentence. It is also used after abbreviations of words-as, Then take, says Justice, take ye, each, a shell. A.M., Master of Arts; D.D., Doctor of Divinity. 6. The sign of INTERROGATION is put at the end of a question-as, Is your name Clive? 7. The PARENTHESIS serves to separate from the rest of the sentence any clause which in a measure interrupts the sense, but good writers avoid it, and its object may be served by commas: Know then this truth (enough for man to know) He gave to misery (all he had) a tear, He gained from heaven ('tis all he wished) a friend. 8. The sign of EXCLAMATION is used to express wonder or some other emotion-as, O happiness! our being's end and aim! (-) The Hyphen is used to separate syllables, and the members of compound words; as watch-man, coach-man. (The Apostrophe at the head of a letter denotes the omission of one or more letters; as lov'd, fear'd, 'prentice, for loved, feared, apprentice, &c. It is also the sign of the possessive case. () The Accent, or mark for pronunciation, placed over a vowel in a word, shows that the stress of the voice in pronouncing the word is upon that syllable. (") A Quotation (two commas turned), is put at the beginning of such words or lines as are quoted from other authors. (*) An Asterisk and (†) Obelisk or Dagger direct to some note. ($) A Section or Division is used in subdividing a chapter into lesser parts. RULES FOR GOOD COMPOSITION. 1. Use as few foreign words and as many purely English ones as you can. If words are short and in common use, they are, as a rule, English. YOUR STYLE OUGHT TO BE LIKE A PLATE-GLASS WINDOW, THROUGH WHICH YOU SEE EVERYTHING WITHOUT THINKING OF THE GLASS AT ALL. A sentence from Dr. Johnson illustrates the grandiose rhetorical style; "When the radical idea branches out into parallel ramifications, how can a consecutive series be formed of senses in their nature collateral ? " This can only be understood after no little trouble. Compare with this Macaulay's prose, and you will see the difference. Aim at perfect simplicity and naturalness. To use long words, when they can be avoided, shows bad taste and imperfect training. 2. Use as few words as will clearly give your meaning. Before you begin to write, have your sentence in your head, and you will then put it clearly on paper. Blot out as many words as you can with advantage to clearness and force. Take care of repeating the same idea, though in different words. 3. Do not use exaggerations, such as He is as thin as a needle. The brilliancy of her eyes outshone the day. He flew like lightning. The sea rose mountains high. 4. Metaphor, rightly used, is of great use and beauty, but take care of false metaphors, such as: It is easy sailing on the broad road to destruction.—Anon. I smell a rat, I see it brewing in the air, and presently I shall crush it in the bud. To hear such sounds, smells horribly in the eye of imagination.-Marquis of Londonderry. And now, sir, I must embark into the feature on which this question chiefly hinges. Anon. 5. Avoid the use of doubtful words. Nothing is more common than sentences which may bear different and perhaps opposed meanings. Take care that you leave no question as to your meaning. 6. Take care how you use Pronouns. What is the meaning of this sentence? John Milton knows the prisoner, who is present. It should be, John Milton, who is present, knows the prisoner. Their parents died when they were in America. Who were in America-the parents or the children? 7. Avoid fine writing. Study ease and simplicity. Never strive to use grand phrases for common things. It is a sign of a vulgar and commonplace, or of an untrained mind to do so. Thus it is wrong to say-" He laved his face with the crystal fluid," for he washed his face in the clear water; or "he indued his garments," for "he put on his clothes;" or "oppressed with sable-coloured melancholy, I resolved to take the wholesome medicine of the health-giving air," instead of "being out of spirits, I resolved to walk in the open air." An example of the same thing told in fine writing, and also in natural and easy statement, occurs in Dr. Johnson. In one of his letters he says; When we were taken upstairs, a dirty fellow bounced out of the bed on which one of us was to lie. In his "Journey to the Hebrides" the same incident is thus given: Out of one of the beds on which we were to repose started up at our entrance a man as black as a Cyclops from the forge. Fine writing often makes nonsense, and is sure to be stilted and pompous. 8. Never use slang words. Use no slang names or adjectives. and you will not use them in writing. Never use such words in conversation, Schools, colleges, professions, arts, trades, &c., have all a slang of their own. Avoid it. 9. Use words in their strictly proper sense. A knowledge of etymology is a great help in this, and a close study of the best authors is also of vital importance. 10. Do not use "and" before "which." I bought a cake, full of currants, (and) which cost me a shilling. 11. The case and number of pronouns referring to the same person or thing should be the same throughout. 12. Each sentence should have only one principal subject, and each part of a sentence should naturally lead to the other. 13. Let each word come as near as possible to the words with which it is grammatically connected. 14. Clauses that are grammatically connected should be as little separated as possible. EXERCISES. Correct the grammatical errors in the following quotations: 1. IN THE USE OF PRONOUNS. We contributed a third more than the Dutch, who were obliged to the same proportion more than us.-Swift's Conduct of the Allies. King Charles, and more than him, the duke and the popish faction, were at liberty to form new schemes.-Bolingbroke's Dissertation on Parties. Phalaris, who was so much older than her.-Bentley's Dissertation upon Phalaris. The drift of all his sermons was, to prepare the Jews for the reception of a prophet mightier than him, and whose shoes he was not worthy to bear.Atterbury's Sermons. If the king gives us leave, you or I may as lawfully preach as them that do. -Hobbe's History of the Civil Wars. The Goths, the Vandals, the Gepida, the Burgundians, the Alemanni, wasted each other's strength, and whosoever vanquished, they vanquished the enemies of Rome.-Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Cæsar having in this manner made an example which he supposed was to overawe all the nations of that neighbourhood, he withdrew with his army.— Fergusson's History of the Roman Republic. Who is the poet but lately arrived in Elysium, whom I saw Spenser lead in, and present him to Virgil ?—Lyttelton's Dialogues of the Dead. Whom do men say that I am?-St. Matthew. Whom think ye that I am ?-Acts of the Apostles. These feasts were celebrated to the honour of Osiris, whom the Grecians called Dionysius, and is the same with Bacchus.-Swift on the Mechan. Oper. of the Spirit. Who should I meet at the coffee-house t'other night, but my old friend?— Steele, Spectator. It is another pattern of this answerer's fair dealing, to give us hints that the author is dead, and yet to lay the suspicion upon somebody, I know not who, in the country.-Swift's Tale of a Tub. My son is going to be married to I don't know who.-Goldsmith's Goodnatured Man. The confession is ingenuous, and I hope more from thee now, than I could if you had promised.—Arbuthnot's Notes and Memorandums. Thy own words have convinced me (stand a little more out of the sun, if you please) that thou hast not the least idea of true honour.-Fielding's Dialogue between Alexander and Diogenes. Base ungrateful boy! miserable as I am, yet I cannot cease to love thee. My love even now speaks in my resentment. I am still your father, nor can your usage form my heart anew.-Goldsmith's Essays. Ye, which is the nominative or vocative plural of the pronoun thou, some writers have inaccurately used as the objective plural. His wrath, which one day will destroy ye both.-Milton. The more shame for ye; holy men I thought ye.-Shakspeare. I feel the gales that from ye blow.-Gray. But tyrants dread ye, lest your just decree Transfer the power, and set the people free.-Prior. This by the calumniators of Epicurus his philosophy was objected as one of most scandalous of all their sayings.-Cowley's Essays. I heard it first observed by an ingenious and learned old gentleman lately deceased, that many of Mr. Hobbes his seeming new opinions are gathered from those which Sextus Empiricus exposed.-Dryden's Life of Plutarch. My paper is Ulysses his bow, in which every man of wit or learning may try his strength.-Addison, Guardian. 2. IN THE USE OF VERBS. And Rebekah took goodly raiment of her eldest son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them upon Jacob her youngest son.-Genesis. The number of the names together were about an hundred and twenty.-Acts of the Apostles. If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ. purge your conscience from dead works?-Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews. . I have considered what have been said on both sides of the controversy.Tillotson's Sermons. One would think there was more sophists than one had a finger in this volume of letters.-Bentley's Dissert. upon Socrates's Epistles. There's two or three of us have seen strange sights.-Shakspeare. The undisciplined fury and unarmed courage of the Pisidians was unable to check the progress of Alexander.-Gillies's Hist. of Greece. Knowing that you was my old master's good friend, I could not forbear sending you the melancholy news of his death.--Addison, Spectator. I am just now as well as when you was here.-Pope's Letters. Desire this passionate lover to give you a character of his mistress, he will tell you that he is at a loss for words to describe her charms, and will ask you seriously, if ever you was acquainted with a goddess or an angel.-Hume's Essays. Thou great First Cause, least understood, Who all my sense confined To know but this, that thou art good, Yet gave me, in this dark estate, Left free the human will.-Pope. Nor thou, Lord Arthur, shalt escape; Against that assassin in crape; Yet thou couldst tamely see me slain; Nor, when I felt the dreadful blow, Or chid the dean, or pinched his spouse.-Swift. But the temper, as well as knowledge, of a modern historian, require a more sober and accurate language.-Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Magnus, with four thousand of his supposed accomplices, were put to death. -Ibid. Those whom the splendour of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the summit of human life, have not often given any just occasion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower station.-Johnson's Life of Savage. He knows not what spleen, languor, or listlessness, are.-Blair's Sermons. |