Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/108

(The same awkward necessity confronts us in clauses with 'when', 'though', &c., in which the subject is a relative. Such clauses are practically recognized as impossible, though Otway, in a courageous moment, wrote:

Some writers, with a consistency worthy of a better cause, carry the blunder into the passive, renouncing the advantages of an ambiguous 'which' in the active; for in the active 'which' of course tells no tales.

As to all this, the trend of events has been the reverse of that which was anticipated would be the result of democratic institutions.—Times.

'Which it was anticipated would be'. Similarly, the passive of 'men whom we-know-are-honest' is the impossible 'men who are-known-are-honest': 'men who we know are honest' gives the correct passive 'men who it is known are honest'.

Nor must it be supposed that 'we know' is parenthetic. 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'. Similarly, in the Guernsey Advertiser quotation above, the writer does not go the length of saying that these are the only gentlemen who would work: he says that they are the only ones of whom he feels sure. The commas of parenthesis ought therefore to go, as well as the comma at 'island', which is improper before a defining clause.

The circumstances under which a parenthesis is admissible in a defining clause may here be noticed.