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GRAMMAR

second of which it is not correctly possible, and in the third of which the failure to use it is very slovenly.

The odd part of it is that this childish confusion does not only not take from our pleasure, but does not even take from our sense of the author's talent.–H. James. (far from diminishing our pleasure, does not...)

As to the duration of the Austro-Russian mandate, there seems little disposition here to treat the question in a hard-and-fast spirit, but rather to regard it as...–Times. (...spirit; it is rather regarded as...)

To the student of the history of religious opinions in England few contrasts are more striking when he compares the assurance and complacency with which men made profession of their beliefs at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the diffidence and hesitation with which the same are recited at the beginning of the twentieth.—Daily Telegraph. (more striking than that between the assurance...)

21. Common Parts

When two sentences coupled by a conjunction (whether coordinating or subordinating) have one or more parts in common, there are two ways of avoiding the full repetition of the common parts. (a) 'I see through your villany and I detest your villany' can become 'I see through and detest your villany'; 'I have at least tricd to bring about a reconciliation, though I may have failed to bring about a reconciliation' can become 'I have at least tried, though I may have failed, to bring about, &c.' (b) By substitution or ellipse, the sentences become 'I see through your villany, and detest it' and 'I have at least tried to bring about a reconciliation, though I may have failed to do so)'. Of these, the (a) form requires careful handling: a word that is not common to both sentences must not be treated as common; and one that is common, and whose position declares that it is meant to do double duty, must not be repeated. Violations of these rules are always more or less unsightly, and are excusable only when the precise (a) form is intolerably stiff and the (b) form not available. In our examples below, the words placed in brackets are the two variants, each of which, when the other is omitted, should, with the common or unbracketed parts,