Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/159

if even then, that the original W. can be kept when the report introduces I in place of the original question's you or he. For instance, the original question being How will he be treated? it may be just possible to say You had made up your mind how I would be treated, because You had made up your mind how I should be treated almost inevitably suggests (assisted by the ambiguity of making up your mind, which may imply either resolve or inference) that the original question was How shall he be treated?

It would be well, perhaps, if writers who take their responsibilities seriously would stretch a point sometimes to keep the more consistent and less ambiguous usage alive; but for practical purposes the rule must run:

In these (whether 'reported' strictly or otherwise subordinated) pure-system or coloured-future forms invariably keep the Sh. or W. of the original statement or question, unaffected by any change of person. Reports of plain-future forms do this also, if there would be serious danger of ambiguity, but almost always have Sh. in the first person, and usually W. in the second and third persons.

As the division of substantival clauses into indirect (or reported or subordinate or oblique) statements, questions, and commands, is familiar, it may be well to explain that in English the reported command strictly so called hardly exists. In what has the force of a reported command it is in fact a statement that is reported. For instance, He said I was to go, though used as the indirect form of Go, is really the indirect of the statement You are to go. He ordered that they should be released (though the actual words were Be they, or Let them be, released) is formed on the coloured-future statement, They shall be released. It is therefore unnecessary to give special rules for reported command. But there are one or two types of apparent indirect command about which, though there is no danger of error, the reader may feel curious.