Rule XXIII.—One negative destroys another; or two negatives are equivalent to an affirmative; as, “nor have I no money, which I can spare;” that is, “I have money, which I can spare.”—“Nor was the king unacquainted with his designs;” that is, “he was acquainted.”
Note 1.—Here our language accords with the Latin. In Greek and French, two negatives render the negation stronger.
Note 2.—This rule is violated in such examples as this, “Nor is danger ever apprehended in such a government, no more than we commonly apprehend danger from thunder or earthquakes.” It should be any more.
Rule XXIV.—Interjections are joined with the objective case of the pronoun of the first person, and with the nominative of the pronoun of the second, as, “ah me,” “oh me,” “ah thou wretch,” “O thou who dwellest.”
Syntax being that part of grammar, which teaches rules not only for the concord and government, but also for the order of words in clauses and sentences, I shall subjoin the few following brief directions for the guidance of the scholar, respecting arrangement.
1st. The collocation should never invert the natural order of events, or violate the principles of reason and metaphysical propriety. It is obvious, for example, that no person can write, who cannot read. The ability to do the former necessarily implies a capacity to do the latter. It is preposterous, therefore, to say with Addison, “There will be few in the next generation, who will not at least be able to write and read.” He should have said, “to read and write.” “He was the son of a mother, who had nursed him with maternal tenderness, and had borne him in an hour of the deepest affliction.” The natural order of events should have dictated the reverse arrangement. There would be a manifest impropriety in saying “Our father is well, and alive;” the former state necessarily implying the latter. In the following passage, however, it is perhaps excusable, the answers particularly corresponding to the questions: Joseph says to his brothers, “Is your father well? The old man, of whom ye spake, is he yet alive?” They answer, “Thy servant, our father, is in good health; he is yet alive.” This error was termed by the ancient grammarians hysteron proteron; and, though not so palpably as in the preceding examples, it occurs much more frequently than an inattentive reader is apt to imagine.
2nd. The English language admits but few inflexions, and therefore little or no room for variety of arrangement. The connection of one word with another is not to be perceived, as in Greek and Latin, by correspondence of termination, but by relative position. This renders it indispensably necessary, that those words which are intimately related by sense one to another, should be closely connected by collocation. “The cunning of Hannibal was too powerful for the Pergamenians, who by the same kind of stratagem had frequently obtained great victories at land.” The relative here, by its position, must be understood as referring to the Pergamenians; whereas it is intended to refer to Hannibal. The relative clause, therefore, should have followed the name of the Carthaginian. “His picture, in distemper, of calumny, borrowed from the description of one painted by Apelles, was supposed to be a satire on that cardinal.”—Walpole. The error here is obvious. He should have said, “His picture of calumny.” “It is folly to pretend to arm ourselves against the accidents of life, by heaping up treasures, which nothing can protect us against, but the good providence of our heavenly Father.”—Sherlock. Here the grammatical antecedent is treasures; but it is intended to be accidents. The relative is removed from its proper subject.
3rd. As the converse of the preceding rule, it may be observed, that those words should be separated, which in juxta-position may, at first sight, or first hearing, possibly convey a meaning which the speaker or writer does not intend. “I, like a well-bred man, who is never disposed to mortify or to offend, praised both sorts of food.” As the two introductory words are capable of two meanings, would it not be better to say, “Like a well-bred man ... I praised both sorts of food.” I am aware, that the other collocation is preferable, where a particular stress is to be laid on the principal subject; but ambiguity is an error, which should be studiously avoided, and the meaning should not be left to the determination of a comma.
4th. From the preceding rules, it follows as a corollary, that no clause should be so placed in a sentence, as to be referable either to what precedes, or what follows. “The knight, seeing his habitation reduced to so small a compass, and himself in a manner shut out of his own house, on the death of his mother, ordered all the apartments to be flung open.” The clause in italics is ambiguously placed.