H.W. Fowler (1858C1933). The
Kings English, 2nd ed. 1908.
Part II
AMBIGUITY
49. FALSE SCENT
It is most annoying to a reader to be misled about the construction, and
therefore most foolish in a writer to mislead him. In the sentences that
follow, facilities and excesses are naturally taken as in
the same construction, and similarly influences and nature,
until the ends of the sentences show us that we have gone wrong. These
are very bad cases; but minor offences of the kind are very common, and
should be carefully guarded against.
He gloats over the facilities the excesses and the blunders of the
authorities have given his comrades for revolutionary action among the
masses.Times.
The influences of that age, his open, kind, susceptible nature, to say
nothing of his highly untoward situation, made it more than usually
difficult for him to cast aside or rightly subordinate.Carlyle.
That there is no comma between facilities and the excesses
is no defence, seeing how often commas go wrong; indeed the comma after age
in the second piece, which is strictly wrong, is a proof how little
reliance is to be placed on such signs.
50. MISPLACEMENT OF WORDS
Generous interpretation will generally get at a writer's meaning; but
for him to rely on that is to appeal ad misericordiam. Appended
to the sentences, when necessary, is the result of supposing them to
mean what they say.
It is with grief and pain, that, as admirers of the British
aristocracy, we find ourselves obliged to admit the existence of
so many ill qualities in a person whose name is in Debrett.Thackeray.
(implies that admirers must admit this more than other people)
It is from this fate that the son of a commanding prime minister is at
any rate preserved.Bagehot. (implies that preserved is a
weak word used instead of a stronger)
And even if we could suppose it to be our duty, it is not one which, as
was shown in the last chapter, we are practically competent to
perform.Balfour.
The chairman said there was no sadder sight in the world than to see
women drunk, because they seemed to lose complete control of
themselves. (implies that losing complete control leaves you with less
than if you lost incomplete control)
The soldiers are deeply chagrined at having had to give up positions, in
obedience to orders, which the Japanese could not take.Times.
Great and heroic men have existed, who had almost no other information
than by the printed page. I only would say, that it needs a
strong head to bear that diet.Emerson. (implies that no one else
would say it)
Yes, the laziest of human beings, through the providence of God, a
being, too, of rather inferior capacity, acquires the written part
of a language so difficult that...Borrow.
Right or wrong as his hypothesis may be, no one that knows him will
suspect that he himself had not seen it, and seen over it... Neither, as
we often hear, is there any superhuman faculty required to follow
him.Carlyle. (implies that we often hear there is not)
This, we say to ourselves, may be all very true (for have we, too,
not browsed in the Dictionary of National Biography?); but why does
Tanner say it all, just at that moment, to...Times. (implies
that others have refrained from browsing)
But in 1798 the Irish rising was crushed in a defeat of the insurgents
at Vinegar Hill; and Tippoo's death in the storm of his own capital,
Seringapatam, only saved him from witnessing the English
conquest of Mysore.J. R. Green. (implies that that was all it saved
him from)
51. AMBIGUOUS POSITION
In this matter judgement is required. A captious critic might find
examples on almost every page of almost any writer; but most of them,
though they may strictly be called ambiguous, would be quite
justifiable. On the other hand a careless writer can nearly always
plead, even for a bad offence, that an attentive reader would take the
thing the right way. That is no defence; a rather inattentive and sleepy
reader is the true test; if the run of the sentence is such that he at
first sight refers whatever phrase is in question to the wrong
government, then the ambiguity is to be condemned.
Louis XVIII, dying in 1824, was succeeded, as Charles X, by his
brother the Count d'Artois.E. Sanderson. (The sleepy reader,
assisted by memories of James the First and Sixth, concludes, though
not without surprise, which perhaps finally puts him on the right
track, that Louis XVIII of France was also Charles X of some other
country)
In 1830 Paris overthrew monarchy by divine right.Morley. (By
divine right looks so much more like an adverbial than an
adjectival phrase that the sleepy reader takes it with overthrew)
(From review of a book on ambidexterity) Two kinds of emphatic type
are used, and both are liberally sprinkled about the pages on some
principle which is not at all obvious. The practice may have its
merits, like ambidexterity, but it is generally eschewed by good
writers who know their business, although they are not
ambidextrous.Times. (The balance of the sentence is
extremely bad if the although clause is subordinated to who;
and the sleepy reader accordingly does not take it so, but with is
eschewed, and so makes nonsense)
It was a temper not only legal, but pedantic in its legality,
intolerant from its very sense of a moral order and law of the
lawlessness and disorder of a personal tyranny.J. R. Green.
The library over the porch of the church, which is large and handsome,
contains one thousand printed books.R. Curzon. (A large and
handsome library, or porch, or church?)
Both these last are very unkind to the poor sleepy reader; it is true
that in one of them he is inexcusable if he goes wrong, but we should
for our own sakes give him as few chances of going wrong as possible.
Luck and dexterity always give more pleasure than intellect and
knowledge; because they fill up what they fall on to the brim
at once, and people run to them with acclamation at the splash.Landor.
(On and to so regularly belong together now, though they
did not in Landor's time, that it is disconcerting to be asked to
pause between them)
52. AMBIGUOUS ENUMERATION
In comma'd enumerations, care should be taken not to insert appositions
that may be taken, even if only at first sight, for separate members.
Some high officials of the Headquarter Staff, including the officer
who is primus inter pares, the Director of Military Operations, and
the Director of Staff duties...Times. (Two, or three,
persons? Probably two; but those who can be sure of this do not need
the descriptive clause, and those who need it cannot be sure)
Lord Curzon, Sir Edmond Elles, the present Military Member, and the
Civilian Members of Council traverse the most material of Lord
Kitchener's statements of fact.Times. (Is Sir E. Elles the
Military Member? No need to tell any one who knows; and any one who
does not know is not told)
I here wish to remark that Lord Dufferin first formed the Mobilization
Committee, of which the Commander-in-Chief is President, and the
Military Member, Secretary, Military Department, and the heads of
departments both at Army Headquarters and under the Government of
India, are members with the express intention of...Times.
(Is the Military Member Secretary of the Mobilization Committee? Well,
he may be, but a certain amount of patience shows us that the sentence
we are reading does not tell us so)
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