Henry Watson Fowler

“ You can be more averse than ever, or more and more averse, but not more and more averse than ever. Ever can only mean the single point of time in the past, whichever it was, at which you were most averse. But to be more and more averse is to be more averse at each stage than at each previous stage. Just such a sliding scale is essential with the more...the more. And perhaps it becomes so closely associated with the phrase that the expression of a fixed standard of comparison, such as is inevitably set up by a than-clause, is felt to be impossible even when the demonstrative the stands alone. ”

“ To use individual wrongly in the twentieth century stamps a writer, more definitely than almost any other single solecism, not as being generally ignorant or foolish, but as being without the literary sense. For the word has been pilloried time after time; every one who is interested in style at all—which includes every one who aspires to be readable—must at least be aware that there is some mystery about the word, even if he has not penetrated it. ”

“ War between these two great nations would be an inexplicable impossibility.–Choate. (Inexplicable does not qualify the whole of impossibility; to make sense we must divide impossibility into impossible event, and take inexplicable only with event)
And the cry has this justification,—that no age can see itself in a proper perspective, and is therefore incapable of giving its virtues and vices their relative places.—Spectator. (No age is equivalent to not any age, and out of this we have to take any age as subject to the last sentence; this is common, but untidy and blameworthy device) ”

“ On the other hand it is certain that the permanent tendency in language is towards the correct and logical, not from it; it is merely hoped that the considerable number of instances here collected may attract the attention of some writers who have not been aware of the question, and perhaps convince them that the distinction is a useful one, that a writer ought to know and let us know whether he is using a participle or a gerund, and that to abandon the gerund when it cannot be distinguished without clumsiness need cause no difficulty to any but the very unskilful in handling words. ”

“ When the writer's point is rather the extravagance of the doubt than the truth of the thing doubted, 'whether' is often retained:
It is as if a man should doubt whether he has a head on his shoulders. ”

“ Our practical distinction will therefore be between conscious or 'living' and unconscious or 'dead' metaphor, whether natural or artificial in origin: and again, among living metaphors, we shall distinguish between the intentional, which are designed for effect, and the unintentional, which, though still felt to be metaphors, are used merely as a part of the ordinary vocabulary. It may seem at first sight that this classification leaves us where we were: how can we know whether a writer uses a particular metaphor consciously or unconsciously? ”

“ When ambition asserts the monstrous doctrine of millions made for individuals, their playthings, to be demolished at their caprice; is not the good man indignant?
The semicolon is doing now exactly what the comma did before; but, as commas have intruded into the clause to do the humble yet necessary work of marking two appositions, the original comma has to dignify its relatively more important office by converting itself into a semicolon. ”

“ Consequently a word should never be so placed that it must be taken twice, once as subject and once as object. This is so common a blunder that it will be well to give a good number of examples. It occurs especially with the relative, from its early position in the sentence; but, as the first two examples show, it may result from the exceptional placing of other words also. The mere repetition of the relative, or insertion of it or other pronoun, generally mends the sentence; in the first example, change should only be to only to be. ”

“ This surprising sentence means that Vanity Fair was lent to Paradise Lost, and Paradise Lost to Vanity Fair. If we further assume for politeness' sake that mutually is not mere tautology with to each other, the only thing left for it to mean is by each other. ”

“ A writer who abounds in literary allusions necessarily appeals to a small audience, to those acquainted with about the same set of books as himself; they like his allusions, others dislike them. Writers should decide whether it is not wise to make their allusions explain themselves. In the first two instances quoted, though the reader who knows the original context has a slight additional pleasure, any one can see what the point is. ”

“ A style that groups several complete sentences together, by the use of semicolons, because they are more closely connected in thought, is far more restful and easy–for the reader, that is–than the style that leaves him to do the grouping for himself; and yet it is free from the formality of the period, which consists, not of grammatically independent sentences, but of a main sentence with many subordinate clauses. We have not space for a long example of the group system rightly applied; most good modern writers free from the craving to be up to date will supply them on every page ”

“ Sentence Accent
It is only necessary to read aloud any one of the sentences quoted below, to perceive at once that there is something wrong with its accentuation. To lay down rules on this point would be superfluous, even if it were practicable; for in all doubtful cases the ear can and should decide. A writer who cannot trust himself to balance his sentences properly should read aloud all that he writes. It is useless for him to argue that readers will not read his work aloud, and that therefore the fault of which we are speaking will escape notice. ”

“ In non-defining clauses (Jones, who we know is honest) , we can regard the words as parenthetic if we choose, except when the phrase is negative (Jones, who I cannot think is honest) ; but in a defining clause they are anything but parenthetic. When we say 'Choose men who you know are honest', the words 'you know' add a new circumstance of limitation: it is not enough that the men should in fact be honest; you must know them to be honest; honest men of whose honesty you are not certain are excluded by the words 'you know'. ”

“ He analysed not a particular government, but what is common to all governments; not one law, but what is common to all laws; not political communities in their features of diversity, but political communities in their features of necessary resemblance. He gave politics not an interesting aspect, but a new aspect: for by giving men a steady view of what political communities must be, he nipped in the bud many questions as to what they ought to be. ”

“ Writers like Bagehot do not tend at all to impressive repetition: their motive is always the business-like one of lucidity, though it is sometimes lucidity run mad. Repetition of this kind, not being designed to draw the reader's attention to itself, wears much better in practice than the more pronounced types of rhetorical repetition. The latter should be used very sparingly. As the spontaneous expression of strong feeling in the writer, it is sometimes justified by circumstances: employed as a deliberate artifice to impress the reader, it is likely to be frigid, and to fail in its object ”

“ Neatness is the sole consideration; just as the cars may be regarded as not hearing organs, but 'handsome volutes of the human capital', so quotation marks may be welcomed as giving a good picturesque finish to a sentence; those who are of this way of thinking must feel that, if they allowed outside them anything short of fine handsome stops like the exclamation and question marks, they would be countenancing an anticlimax. ”

“ The novice who is told to avoid foreign words, and then observes that these English words are used freely, takes the rule for a counsel of perfection—not accepted by good writers, and certainly not to be accepted by him, who is sometimes hard put to it for the ornament that he feels his matter deserves. Even with the best will in the world, he finds that there are many words of which he cannot say whether they are yet English or not, as gancherie, bêtise, camaraderie, soupçon, so that there is no drawing the line. ”

“ We shall first illustrate the absurd prevailing abuse of the compound preposition as to. In each of the following sentences, if as to is simply left out, no difference whatever is made in the meaning. It is only familiarity with unnecessary circumlocution that makes such a state of things tolerable to any one with a glimmering of literary discernment. As to flows from the pen now at every possible opportunity, till many writers seem quite unaware that such words as question or doubt can bear the weight of a whether-clause without help from this offensive parasite. ”

“ Idioms are special forms of speech that for some reason, often inscrutable, have proved congenial to the instinct of a particular language. To neglect them shows a writer, however good a logician he may be, to be no linguist—condemns him, from that point of view, more clearly than grammatical blunders themselves. But though the subject of prepositions is thus very important, the idioms in which they appear are so multitudinous that it is hopeless to attempt giving more than the scantiest selection ”

“ The sheil of Rarensnuik was, for the present at least, at his disposal; the foreman or 'grieve' at the Home Farm was anxious to be friendly. But even if he lost that place, Dan Weir knew that there was plenty of others.
The group system gives more trouble to the writer or compositor, and less to the reader; the compositor cannot be expected to like it, if the burden falls on him; inferior writers cannot be expected to choose it either, perhaps; but the good writers who do choose it no doubt find that after a short time the work comes to do itself by instinct. ”

“ Good and sufficient occasions will arise—rarely—for using most of these phrases and the rest of the slang vocabulary. To those, however, who desire that what they write may endure it is suggested that, as style is the great antiseptic, so slang is the great corrupting matter; it is perishable itself, and infects what is round it—the catchwords that delight one generation stink in the nostrils of the next; individual, which almost made the fortune of many a Victorian humorist, is one of the modern editor's shibboleths for detecting the unfit. ”

“ Again, there is sometimes virtue in half-measures: from 'something which he did not know that he wanted' remove the first three words, and there remains quite repetition enough. "Wild in life and not wild in mind' is a repetition that is clearly called for; but it is followed by the wholly gratuitous 'fit... and fit...', and the result is disastrous. Finally, in 'who did not like..., who did not like...', mannerism gets the upper hand altogether: instead of the appearance of natural vigour that ordinarily characterizes the writer, we have stiff, lumbering artificiality. ”

“ We shall begin by explaining how it is that punctuation is a difficult matter, and worth a writer's serious attention. There are only six stops, comma, semicolon, colon, full stop, question mark, exclamation mark; or, with the dash, seven. The work of three of them, full stop, question, exclamation, is so clear that mistakes about their use can hardly occur without gross carelessness; and it might be thought that with the four thus left it ought to be a very simple matter to exhaust all possibilities in a brief code of rules. ”

“ A well-known novelist speaks of the resentment that children feel against those elders who insist upon addressing them in a jocular tone, as if serious conversation between the two were out of the question. Irony is largely open to the same objection: the writer who uses it is taking our intellectual measure; he forgets our ex officio perfection in wisdom. Theoretically, indeed, the reader is admitted to the author's confidence ”

“ If we say 'Unambitious men, and who have no experience', 'unambitious' and 'who have no experience' are not in the same form, but they have the same function—that of specifying the class of men referred to. Their grammatical forms (vocabulary permitting) are interchangeable: a defining adjective can always take the form of a relative clause, and a defining relative clause can often take the form of an adjective: 'inexperienced men, and who have no ambition'. ”

“ The amateur indulges us with his whole repertoire in a single newspaper letter of twenty or thirty lines, and–what is worse–cannot live up to the splendours of which he is so lavish: charmed with the discovery of some antique order of words, he selects a modern slang phrase to operate upon; he begins a sentence with ofttimes, and ends it with a grammatical blunder; aspires to albeit, and achieves howbeit. Our list begins with the educated specimens, but lower down the reader will find several instances of this fatal incongruity of style ”

“ Awfully nice is an expression than which few could be sillier; but to have succeeded in going through life without saying it a certain number of times is as bad as to have no redeeming vice. Further, the writer who deals in conversation may sometimes find it necessary, by way of characterizing his speakers, to put slang in their mouths; if he is wise he will make the least possible use of this resource; and to interlard the non-conversational parts of a book or article with slang, quotation marks or no quotation marks, is as bad as interlarding with French. ”

“ The idiomatic writer differs chiefly from the slangy in using what was slang and is now idiom; of what is still slang he chooses only that part which his insight assures him has the sort of merit that will preserve it. In a small part of their vocabulary the idiomatic and the slangy will coincide, and be therefore confused by the undiscerning. The only advice that can be given to novices uncertain of their own discrimination is to keep carefully off the debatable ground. Full idiom and full slang are as far apart as virtue and vice ”

“ In the conditionals, both statement and question can be done all through. I can give orders to my imaginary, though not to my actual self. I cannot say (as a command) I shall do it; but I can say, as a conditional command, I should do it.
I shall and we shall are accordingly the superfluous forms of the present shall in the pure system.
Again, with will, I will meaning it is my will, it is obvious that we can generally state this only of ourselves; we do not know the inside of other people's minds, but we can ask about it. The present runs, then,
I will. Will you? Will he? We will. ”

“ Any one who finds himself putting down several commas close to one another should reflect that he is making himself disagreeable, and question his conscience, as severely as we ought to do about disagreeable conduct in real life, whether it is necessary. He will find that the parenthetic or emphatic effect given to an adverbial phrase by putting a comma at each end of it is often of no value whatever to his meaning ”