Exercise.
In the following citations, see if the adverbs can be placed before or after the infinitive and still modify it as clearly as they now do:—
1. There are, then, many things to be carefully considered, if a strike is to succeed.—Laughlin.
2. That the mind may not have to go backwards and forwards in order to rightly connect them.—Herbert Spencer.
3. It may be easier to bear along all the qualifications of an idea ... than to first imperfectly conceive such idea.—Id.
4. In works of art, this kind of grandeur, which consists in multitude, is to be very cautiously admitted.—Burke.
5. That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarcely worth the sentinel.—Goldsmith.
6. Burke said that such "little arts and devices" were not to be wholly condemned.—The Nation, No. 1533.
7. I wish the reader to clearly understand.—Ruskin.
8. Transactions which seem to be most widely separated from one another.—Dr. Blair.
9. Would earnestly advise them for their good to order this paper to be punctually served up.—Addison.
10. A little sketch of his, in which a cannon ball is supposed to have just carried off the head of an aide-de-camp.—Trollope.
11. The ladies seem to have been expressly created to form helps meet for such gentlemen.—Macaulay.
12. Sufficient to disgust a people whose manners were beginning to be strongly tinctured with austerity.—Id.
13. The spirits, therefore, of those opposed to them seemed to be considerably damped by their continued success.—Scott.
ADVERBS.
Position of only, even, etc.
452.A very careful writer will so place the modifiers of a verb that the reader will not mistake the meaning.
The rigid rule in such a case would be, to put the modifier in such a position that the reader not only can understand the meaning intended, but cannot misunderstand the thought. Now, when such adverbs as only, even, etc., are used, they are usually placed in a strictly correct position, if they modify single words; but they are often removed from the exact position, if they modify phrases or clauses: for example, from Irving, "The site is only to be traced by fragments of bricks, china, and earthenware." Here only modifies the phrase by fragments of bricks, etc., but it is placed before the infinitive. This misplacement of the adverb can be detected only by analysis of the sentence.