11. When asked to describe his symptoms, he replied that he had a very funny pain in his side.

12. He is an extremely exceptable preacher.

1

13. He stood at the end of his class.

14. Mr. Brown is a most impractical man.

15. The journey was found to be unpracticable. 16. I found him very social in his disposition.

17. Their method of attack was most unjudicious.

18. He wrote an essay on the counsels of the Church of Rome.

19. His opponent stood at twenty paces from him with revolver drawn and loaded.

20. The sermon concluded with an example from actual life of the way in which God cares for man's happiness.

21. Othello then stifles his wife with a pillow.

22. Let us take an hypothecated case.

23. Neither one or the other will suit me.

24. At that point another engine was telegraphed for, and further up the road the train was divided into two sections, and in that way reached New York.

25. They heartlessly discarded the feelings of all most deeply concerned.

26. The swimmer was attacked with cramps, lost conscience, and sank in a few seconds.

27. Though delicate in health, she accomplishes more than stronger girls, for she is a great preservative of her energies.

28. He was thankful, though it only gave an instant relief. The pain began anew in a few seconds.

29. I was disappointed at the way the new preacher conducted the morning service. His prayers showed great lack of spiritualism.

1 If any word is less exact in expressing the intended meaning than another word would be, there is an error in precision.

SCH. ENG.-4

CHAPTER III.

CORRECTION OF ERRORS IN CONSTRUCTION.

Rhetoric and Grammar. Grammar treats of the arrangement and construction of words in a sentence, and the changes of form which words undergo in order to show their construction. Since the object of the study of rhetoric is to enable one to present ideas in such language that they may be apprehended with the least possible effort, rhetoric of course requires that our ideas be expressed with grammatical correctness.

Solecisms. Experience shows that mistakes in grammar persist even in the writings of those who have attained excellence of style. It is observed, also, that these mistakes are usually violations of the same few rules. Writers on rhetoric, therefore, include in their works a chapter reminding the student of certain rules of grammar which are most often violated. Grammatical errors, when viewed as part of the subject of rhetoric, are called solecisms, a word derived from Soli, a city in Cilicia, inhabited by Greek colonists who spoke a corrupt dialect.

Danger in Use of Long Sentences. — A practical rule of the greatest value for avoiding errors in grammatical construction is the habitual use of short sentences. The long sentence is especially fatal to the novice in the art of composition. The fair promise of the first two or three lines in which all the rules of grammar have due observance is seldom sustained to the end.

Without

the slightest provocation, the parts of speech plunge into confusion quite beyond the reach of syntax.

Never allow the length of a sentence to help it become unmanageable. With this end in view, a good rule to follow in revising what you have already written, is to cut every long sentence into two. Absolute correctness is difficult to attain even with this safeguard. As English has lost almost all its inflection, and as grammatical construction is determined almost exclusively by the order of the words, a grammatical slip is easy even when the sentence is short.

Twenty Rules of Grammar. — The following twenty rules of grammar are frequently violated. Under each rule are given the ways in which that rule is apt to be violated. For aid in memorizing, it may be noticed that the first seven rules refer to nouns or pronouns ; Nos. 8 to II, to verbs; Nos. 12 to 17, to adjectives and adverbs; No. 18, to prepositions; No. 19, to connectives; and No. 20, to the sentence as a whole.

I. Some domesticated foreign words retain their original plurals.

This rule is often violated by using plurals in s for domesticated foreign words which retain original plurals.

Violation. - Vertebras, axises.
Correction. - Vertebræ, axes.

The following is a list of foreign words which retain original plurals:

NOTE.

hypotheses.

metamorphoses.

The plurals of these words, and the original plurals of domesticated words with regular plurals in s, are sometimes incorrectly used for the singular forms.

Ex. A phenomena, a stamina, a genera, for a phenomenon, a stamen, a genus.

EXAMPLES FOR CORRECTION.

1. There were several genuses discovered.

2. He found a vertebræ of a whale.

3. The terminuses of the road were not at central points.

4. This desert has few oasises.

5. Their thesises were not on the same subject.

6. Nebulas are cloudlike in appearance.

7. Every man has many crisises in his life.

8. I do not wish to argue from any of your hypothesises.

II. The subject of a finite verb is in the nominative. This rule is often violated

(a) By using the objective case of the subject after verbs of saying, thinking, and the like.

Violation. Those whom he fancied would be his friends were his bitterest enemies.

Correction. Those who he fancied would be his friends were his bitterest enemies.

(b) By using the objective case after as or than introducing a new subject.

Violation. You know this as well as me.

Correction.

You know this as well as I (do).

EXAMPLES FOR CORRECTION.

1. He is taller than me.

2. He is not one whom I thought would do this.
3. She is further advanced than him.

4. I have found a man whom I think will suit.

5. The politicians whom he said would support the bill failed to appear.

6. She seemed to be much poorer than him.

7. Many men have lived to see the folly of confiding in whomever would receive their confidence.

8. They can afford to give much better than us.

9. Why won't mother answer as well as me?

10. The ladies whom I feared would object were not there.

III. The predicate after the verb to be, or other verb expressing existence, is in the same case as the subject.

This rule is violated

(a) By using the objective case of the predicate after a finite verb.

(b) By using the nominative case of the predicate after the infinitive mood.

Violation. He supposed it to be I.
Correction.

He supposed it to be me.