Talks on Writing English. First Series

by Arlo Bates

Professor Reed, of the University of Pennsylvania, admirably says:—

The false fastidiousness which shuns a short particle at the end of a sentence is often fatal to a force which belongs to the language in its primal character.

He points out that only the misapplication of analogies from Continental languages has brought into discredit this characteristic English idiom. He quotes Bacon, “Houses are built to live in, and not to look on;” Donne, “Hath God a name to curse by?” and Burke, “The times we live in.” He might have gone to contemporary authors, and cited Stevenson, “After expedients hitherto unthought of,” “He was all fallen away and fallen in;” James, “The different bedrooms she has successively slept in,” “There is almost literally nothing he does not care for;” Newman, “The elect are few to choose out of;” Lowell, “In accomplishing what he aimed at,” “The words are chosen for their value to fill in,” “The soil out of which such men as he are made is good to be born on, good to live on, good to die for and be buried in.” It would not be difficult to extend the list until it should include all the writers of idiomatic English.

It is necessary, however, to add here a word of warning. Allowing a particle to come at the end of a sentence or clause because it belongs there idiomatically is one thing; letting the particle drag loosely along behind from a lack of skill or energy sufficient to manage the construction properly is quite another. Idiom is a cloak which may be made to cover as many vices as virtues. The beginning and end of clause or sentence are the emphatic parts, and to give the close to an unimportant word is to waste an opportunity and weaken the effect of the whole. The reason why the idiomatic final particle is permissible is because it really belongs to the emphatic idea or is practically a part of the verb which precedes it. In the phrase “the times we live in,” it is evident that “in” is in intention part of the idea expressed by the verb, so that the sentence does not close with the particle “in” but with the verb “live in;” and so on for the other examples which have been quoted.

A common instance of unidiomatic use of a particle at the end of a sentence is that of closing with the sign of the infinitive. “Do as you have a mind to” is bad English because the words “mind” and “to” do not in idea belong together. Either the verb should be expressed,—“Do as you have a mind to do,” or the sentence should be recast. However strong colloquial precedent may seem, do not allow that forlornly orphaned sign of the infinitive to come trailing along alone as a last word.

The idiomatic use of conjunctions is one mark of a finished and careful style. It is perhaps too much to say that if a writer takes care of his particles the other parts of speech will take care of themselves, but it is at least true that no style can be lucid and polished in which the particles—and especially the conjunctions—have not been looked to most carefully. Amateur writers are apt to seem aware of the existence of only two conjunctions, “ and” and “but;” while they are especially careful to omit the conjunction “that.” It has been remarked that one of the important means by which the French masters secure that wonderful clarity and vivacity of style which so few English authors have been able to approach is a careful and explicit discrimination of the value of connectives. A stylist might be not very inaccurately defined as a writer who is always conscientious in his choice of conjunctions. Coleridge’s remarks on this point have often been quoted:—

A close reasoner and a good writer in general may be known by his pertinent use of connectives. Read that page of Johnson; you cannot alter one conjunction without spoiling the sense. It is in a linked strain throughout. In your modern books for the most part, the sentences in a page have the same connection with each other that marbles have in a bag; they touch without adhering.—Table Talk, May 15, 1833.

This is impatiently inexact, it may be, but the modern tendency, especially in careless newspaper work, is to do away with connectives for the sake of securing briskness. The result is abruptness always and confusion generally. Insignificant as they seem, connectives are the articulations of the skeleton of a composition, and unless they be flexible and delicately adjusted there is no possibility of freedom of movement in the whole.

Certain weak idioms which are common in conversation are apt to creep into the writings of those not over sensitive to literary effects, but these colloquialisms are religiously avoided by careful writers. An example of this sort of thing is the detestable use of “got”—as a substitute for “have” or as a superfluous appendage to it,—which is so conspicuous a vice in England. In America this is at least theoretically frowned upon, and indeed it is protested against by the best authorities on the other side of the water.