5. There are some modifiers of verbs consisting of several words which should not be separated, inasmuch as they express only one idea. Some of these are by and by, off hand, day by day, side by side. Some of these expressions after they have been considered as units may be separated into their compound elements. In the sentence, “They have infested the place time out of mind,” we say that the predicate have infested the place is modified by the adverbial phrase time out of mind, this having the force of one adverb. We may then say that this phrase is made up of the noun time modified by the prepositional phrase out of mind.
6. Certain absolute phrases have become equivalent to single words and as such are used adjectively or adverbially to modify nouns or verbs. Some of these are wrong side out, upside down, one behind the other. Each of these consists of a substantive—wrong side, upside, one,—and an attribute of this substantive—out, down, and behind the other. These attributes are joined directly to the substantive because of the omission of the participle being. Examples of these phrases are found in the following sentences:
(a) “Apoplexy is only egotism wrong side out.”—Holmes.
(b) “Salvationists sat three in a seat and played concertinas.”—Bolles.
Exercise 37
Find examples of peculiar modifications in the following sentences.
1. One is always the better for a walk in the morning air, a medicine which may be taken over and over again without any sense of sameness or any failure of its invigorating quality.—Lowell.
2. Her gratitude for such thoughtfulness of his smote him like a reproach; all the more that he knew her gentle heart had never held a thought of reproach in it towards him.—H. H.
3. These barges were all tied one behind the other with tow-ropes, to the number of twenty-five or thirty.—Stevenson.
4. I ran the same way, outstripping a good many, and soon came facing the sea.—Dickens.