Exercise:
- One end of a camera carries the film, and the lens and shutter are in the other end.
- When an athlete is in training, good healthful food should be eaten.
- An engineer's time is not devoted to one branch of science, but should include many.
- By having only five men in charge of our city government, they would have more power, and we could then fix responsibility.
- There are two main classes of cake, sponge and butter. We are taught to make both in cooking school. I like the sponge cake. The butter cake is preferred by most persons.
[Shift in Number, Person, or Tense]
33. Avoid an inconsistent change in number, person, or tense.
- Faulty change in number: One should save their money.
- Right: People should save their money. [Or] A man should save his money.
- Faulty change in person: Place the seeds in water, and in a few days a person can see that they have started to grow.
- Right: Place the seeds in water, and in a few days you will see that they have started to grow.
- Faulty change in number: Take your umbrella with you. They will be needed today.
- Right: Take your umbrella with you. You will need it today.
- Faulty change in tense: Freedom means that a man may conduct his affairs as he pleases so long as he did not injure anybody else.
- Right: Freedom means that a man may conduct his affairs as he pleases so long as he does not injure anybody else.
- Faulty change in tense: When he heard the news, he hurries down town and buys a paper.
- Right: When he heard the news, he hurried down town and bought a paper.
[Note.]—A change of tense within a sentence is desirable and necessary in certain instances, for which see [55].
Sometimes, for the sake of vividness, past events are described in the present tense, as if they were taking place before our eyes. This usage is called the historical present. A shift to the historical present should not be made abruptly, or frequently, or for any subject except an important crisis.
Exercise:
- A person should be careful of their conduct.
- Sentences should be so formed that the reader feels it to be a unit.
- One should make the best of their surroundings and their possessions, provided they cannot better them.
- When he sees me coming, he looked the other way.
- Silas Marner lost many of his habits of solitude, and goes out among his neighbors.