The British ambassador to Norway has offered $25,000 reward for his capture, and he bears a special passport from the Kaiser.
Witter was standing near the curb, but the death-car passed without his seeing it.
Improved, these sentences become:
The British ambassador to Norway has offered $25,000 reward for the capture of Benson, who bears a special passport from the Kaiser.
Witter was standing near the curb, but failed to see the death-car pass.
163. Coherence.—Clearness frequently is destroyed or greatly lessened through lack of proper coherence. Writers often forget that every sentence has a double purpose: to convey a meaning itself and to make clearer the meaning of preceding and succeeding sentences. The reporter should watch closely to see not only that the phrases of his sentences follow each other in natural sequence, but also that the relation of those phrases to adjacent ones in the same or other sentences is clearly shown. Here is a notice made ludicrous because the reporter used a connective indicating a wrong relation between two clauses:
Mrs. Alpheus White is on the sick list this week. Dr. Anderson has been with her, but we hope she may soon recover.
The connective that the writer should have used, of course, was and, or else none at all. Substitute the and or merely omit the but and the coherence is perfect.
164. Coherence and Unity.—Many sentences that appear to lack unity are really wanting in proper coherence. For instance,
Dr. Alvers was called as soon as the accident was discovered, and it is feared now she will not recover,