Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/322
16. Incorrect Allusion
Every one who detects a writer pretending to more knowledge than he has jumps to the conclusion that the detected must know less than the detective, and cannot be worth his reading. Incorrect allusion of this kind is therefore fatal.
Homer would have seemed arrogantly superior to his audience if he had not called Hebe 'white-armed' or 'ox-eyed '.–Times. (He seldom mentions her, and calls her neither)
My access to fortune had not, so far, brought me either much joy or distinction,—but it was not too late for me yet to pluck the golden apples of Hesperides.—Corelli. (It is hardly possible for any one who knows what the Hesperides were to omit the)
My publisher, John Morgeson...was not like Shakespeare's Cassio strictly 'an honourable man'.–Corelli. (Cassio was an honourable man, but was never called so. Even Cassius has only his share in So are they all, all honourable men. Brutus, perhaps?)
A sturdy Benedict to propose a tax on bachelors.–Westminster Gazette. (Benedick. In spite of the Oxford Dictionary, the differentiation between the saint, Benedict, and the converted bachelor, Benedick, is surely not now to be given up)
But impound the car for a longer or shorter period according to the offence, and that, as the French say, 'will give them reason to think'.—Times. (The French do not say give reason to think; and if they did the phrase would hardly be worth treating as not English; they say give to think, which is often quoted because it is unlike English)
17. Dovetailed and Adapted Quotations and Phrases
The fitting into a sentence of refractory quotations, the making of facetious additions to them, and the constructing of Latin cases with English governing words, have often intolerably ponderous effects.
Though his denial of any steps in that direction may be true in his official capacity, there is probably some smoke in the fire of comment to which his personal relations with German statesmen have given rise.–Times. (The reversal of smoke and fire may be a slip of the pen or a joke; but the correction of it mends matters little)
It remains to be seen whether...the pied à terre which Germany hopes she has won by her preliminary action in the Morocco question will form the starting-point for further achievements or will merely repre-