Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/267
which Beadnell gives as correct, though either test would rather require the comma. He gives also as correct, Can flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?—which is not very clearly distinguishable from the other. Our advice is to use these tests when in doubt, but with a leaning to the omission of the comma. If it happens that a comma of this particular class is the only stop in a sentence, it has a false appearance of dividing the sentence into two parts that is very unpleasant, and may make the reader go through it twice to make sure that all is right—an inconvenience that should by all means be spared him.
Type (d) is one in which the final word or phrase of a sentence has two previous expressions standing in the same grammatical relation to it, but their coding with different prepositions, or the fact that one is to be substituted for the other, or the length of the expressions, or some other cause, obscures this identity of relation. Add to the type sentence the following:
His eloquence was the main, one might almost say the sole, source of his influence.–Bryce.
To dazzle people more, he learned or pretended to learn, the Spanish language.–Bacehot.
...apart from philosophical and sometimes from theological, theories.–Balfour.
The rules we lay down are: (1) If possible use no stops at all. (2) Never use the second comma and omit the first. (3) Even when the first is necessary, the second may often be dispensed with. (4) Both commas may be necessary if the phrases are long.
We should correct all the examples, including the type: the type under rule (1); the Bryce (which is strictly correct) under rule (3); the Bagehot under rules (2) and (1); and the Balfour under rules (2) and (3); the last two are clearly wrong. The four would then stand as follows:
Many states are in alliance with and under the protection of France.