One critic cites against me “one example, which figures in almost every Rhetoric as a violation of clearness: And thus the son the fervid sire address’d,” and he adds: “The use of a separate form for nominative and accusative would clear up the ambiguity immediately.” The retort is obvious: no doubt it would, but so would the use of a natural word order. Word order is just as much a part of English grammar as case-endings are in other languages; a violation of the rules of word order may cause the same want of intelligibility as the use of dominum instead of dominus would in Latin. And if the example is found in almost every English Rhetoric, I am glad to say that equally ambiguous sentences are very rare indeed in other English books. Even in poetry, where there is such a thing as poetic licence, and where the exigencies of rhythm and rime, as well as the fondness for archaic and out-of-the-way expressions, will often induce deviations from the word order of prose, real ambiguity will very seldom arise on that account. It is true that it has been disputed which is the subject in Gray’s line:
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
but then it does not matter much, for the ultimate understanding of the line must be exactly the same whether the air holds stillness or stillness holds the air. In ordinary language we may find similar collocations, but it is worth saying with some emphasis that there can never be any doubt as to which is the subject and which the object. The ordinary word order is, Subject-Verb-Object, and where there is a deviation there must always be some special reason for it. This may be the wish, especially for the sake of some contrast, to throw into relief some member of the sentence. If this is the subject, the purpose is achieved by stressing it, but the word order is not affected. But if it is the object, this may be placed in the very beginning of the sentence, but in that case English does not, like German and Danish, require inversion of the verb, and the order consequently is, Object-Subject-Verb, which is perfectly clear and unambiguous. See, for instance, Dickens’s sentence: “Talent, Mr. Micawber has; capital, Mr. Micawber has not,” and the following passage from a recent novel: “Even Royalty had not quite their glow and glitter; Royalty you might see any day, driving, bowing, smiling. The Queen had a smile for every one; but the Duchess no one, not even Lizzie, ever saw.” Thus, also, in Shakespeare’s:
Things base and vilde, holding no quantity,
Loue can transpose to forme and dignity (Mids. I. 1. 233),
and in Longfellow’s translation from Logau:
A blind man is a poor man, and blind a poor man is;
For the former seeth no man, and the latter no man sees.
The reason for deviating from the order, Subject-Verb-Object, may again be purely grammatical: a relative or an interrogative pronoun must be placed first; but here, too, English grammar precludes ambiguity, as witness the following sentences: This picture, which surpasses Mona Lisa | This picture, which Mona Lisa surpasses | What picture surpasses Mona Lisa? | What picture does not Mona Lisa surpass? In German (dieses bild, welches die M. L. übertrifft, etc.) all four sentences would be ambiguous, in Danish the two last would be indistinguishable; but English shows that a small number of case forms is not incompatible with perfect clearness and perspicuity. If the famous oracular answer (Henry VI, 2nd Part, I. 4. 33), “The Duke yet liues, that Henry shall depose,” is ambiguous, it is only because it is in verse, where you expect inversions: in ordinary prose it could be understood only in one way, as the word order would be reversed if Henry was meant as the object.