Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/147
So far from aiming to be mistress of Europe, she was rapidly sinking into the almost helpless prey of France.—J. R. Green.
This is to avoid aiming at being; compare the avoidance of double of above.
Lose no time, I pray you, to advise.—Richardson.
In advising may have been avoided as ambiguous.
Egotism has its root in the cardinal necessity by which each individual persists to be [in being] what he is.—Emerson.
I do not despair to see [of seeing] a motor public service.—Guernsey Advertiser.
Their journeymen are far too declamatory, and too much addicted to substitute [substituting] vague and puerile dissertations for solid instruction.—Morley.
In the common phrase addicted to drink, drink is a noun, not a verb.
His blackguard countrymen, always averse, as their descendants are, to give [giving] credit to anybody, for any valuable quality.—Borrow.
Is he to be blamed, if he thinks a person would make a wife worth having, to endeavour [for endeavouring] to obtain her?—Richardson.
d. If a deferred subject, anticipated by it, is to be verbal, it must of course be either the infinitive or a gerund without preposition.
Fortune, who has generally been ready to gratify my inclinations, provided it cost her very little by so doing...—Borrow.
Shall and Will
It is unfortunate that the idiomatic use, while it comes by nature to southern Englishmen (who will find most of this section superfluous), is so complicated that those who are not to the manner born can hardly acquire it; and for them the section is in danger of being useless. In apology for the length of these remarks it must be said that the short and simple directions often given are worse than useless. The observant reader soon loses faith in them from their constant failure to take him right; and the unobservant is the victim of false security.
Roughly speaking, should follows the same rules as shall,