Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/124

Paris. If sitting is gerund, the end will be secured by the wise choice of Paris and not another place for its scene. If Commission's were written, there could be no doubt the latter was the meaning. With Commission, there is, by present usage, absolutely no means of deciding between the two meanings apart from possible light in the context. In the third, common sense is able to tell us, though grammar gives the question up, that what is interesting is not the other people who have them, but the question whether other people have them.

We shall, in the section on the gerund, take up the decided position that all gerunds ought to be made distinguishable from participles. We are quite aware, however, that in the first place a language does not remodel itself to suit the grammarian's fancy for neat classification; that secondly the confusion is not merely wanton or ignorant, but the result of natural development; that thirdly the change involves some inconveniences, especially to hurried and careless writers. 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.

The unattached or wrongly attached participle is one of the blunders most common with illiterate or careless writers. But there are degrees of heinousness in the offence; our examples are arranged from 1. to 8. in these degrees, starting with perfect innocence.

1. Participles that have passed into prepositions, conjunctions, or members of adverbial phrases.