Thurber Tonight: The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide to Modern English Usage: IX. Adverbial Advice

It is wise to resort to exclamations, such as "Help!," Hey!," etc.

This brings to a close "The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide," which we've had in its entirety. To find the earlier installments, follow the link below to the "series to date" guide. -- Ken

The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide
to Modern English Usage

IX. Adverbial Advice

Someone has written in to ask whether to say "I feel bad" or "I feel badly." The question is not so easy as it might seem. Your conscientious grammarian will find out, if he has time, just what is the matter with the person who makes the inquiry, or whether anything is the matter. No one wants to just go ahead and advise a person to say either "I feel bad" or "I feel badly," much less to say both of them, because in so many cases the ailment is purely imaginary. Even if it isn't, solicitude for those who love us and who suffer when we suffer should prevent us from talking about our troubles. Yet that attitude has its drawbacks, because some people cannot suffer in silence, or even imagine they are suffering in silence, without making strange grimaces. This is likely to lead to misunderstandings and unpleasantness. Merely saying nothing, then, is scarcely the best way to avoid the use of "bad" or "badly." On the other hand, the grammarian is reluctant to advise a person who really feels bad, or badly, to say that he feels fine. This might, for one thing, revive that old wall-card about "every day in every way I am getting better and better," an expression the world is well rid of. Physically, it was never really true, and rhetorically it was nothing much.

The thing comes down finally to the necessity for special rules. As a general thing, if the illness or pain really exists, and is acute, it is better to use the shorter word "bad," because it is more easily said and will bring assistance quicker. Furthermore, "badly" sounds as if the person who had used it had deliberately chosen a euphemism and therefore couldn't be very sick. In cases of sharp, flashing pains, blind staggers, acute heart attacks, or extreme danger generally, it is wise to abandon all adverbial constructions and resort to exclamations and interjections, such as "help!," "Hey!," "hi! hi!," "halloo, there!," and the like.

The use of "I feel bad" and "I feel badly" is rather common in married life, particularly in cases where a husband wishes to stay home from a bridge party. Many husbands also use the expressions merely to gain sympathy or attention, but as a rule they prefer some more ominous statement, such as "I think I am dying, dear," or "I guess it's all up with me, Marian." Cold applications or a stiff lecture on the hygiene of eating and drinking will sometimes serve to shut them up.

There is, of course, a special problem presented by the type of person who looks well even when he doesn't feel well, and who is not likely to be believed if he says he doesn't feel well. In such cases, the sufferer should say, "I look well, but I don't feel well." While this usage has the merit of avoiding the troublesome words "bad" and "badly," it also has the disadvantage of being a negative statement. If a person is actually ill, the important thing is to find out not how he doesn't feel, but how he does feel. He should state his symptoms more specifically -- "I have a gnawing pain here, that comes and goes," or something of the sort. There is always the danger, of course, that one's listeners will cut in with a long description of how they feel; this can usually be avoided by screaming.

This can usually be avoided by screaming.

Another adverbial construction which gives considerable trouble, or will if you let it, is the adverb ending in "-lily." The best thing to do with the adverb in "-lily" is to let it alone. "Lovelily" is an example. You can say "he plays lovelily," but even though the word is perfectly proper, it won't get you anywhere. You might just get by with it at a concert; but try shouting it at a ball game. There isn't one person in ten who will go ahead with a friendship in which the "-lily" adverbs are likely to recur. The possible endings of this sort are numberless: you can even say, and be right, "heavenlily" and "ruffianlily." It is especially advisable to avoid this construction because of its "Thematic Potentiality." Thematic Potentiality is the quality which certain words and phrases have of suggesting a theme song -- that is, some such thing as "Heaven Lily O'Mine," "Rufiian Lily, Come Back to Me," "Love Vo-deo-do Lily," and so on. Think of something else.

TOMORROW TONIGHT: "The Day the Dam Broke" from My Life and Hard Times


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Thurber Tonight: The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide to Modern English Usage: VIII. The Perfect Infinitive

Above: Sometimes all that's needed, really, is a little bit of simple logic. Below: We have the next-to-last installment of "The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide." -- Ken

The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide
to Modern English Usage

VIII. The Perfect Infinitive

It is easy enough to say that a person should live in such a way as to avoid the perfect infinitive after the past conditional, but it is another matter to do it. The observance of the commonest amenities of life constantly leads us into that usage. Let us take a typical case. A gentleman and his wife, calling on friends, find them not at home. The gentleman decides to leave a note of regret couched in a few well-chosen words, and the first thing he knows he is involved in this: "We would have liked to have found you in." Reading it over, the gentleman is assailed by the suspicion that he has too many "haves," and that the whole business has somehow been put too far into the past. His first reaction is to remedy this by dating the note: "9 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 21, 1931." This at once seems too formal, and with a sigh he starts in again on the sentence itself. That is where he makes a fatal mistake. The simplest way out, as always, is to seek some other method of expressing the thought. In this case the gentleman should simply dash off, "Called. You were out. Sorry," and go home to bed. What he does, however, is to lapse into a profound study of this particular grammatical situation, than which there is no more hazardous mental occupation. His wife should, above all things, not choose this time to nag at him, or hurry him. His condition now calls for the utmost kindness and consideration.

First the victim will change the sentence to: "We would have liked to find you in." Now as a matter of fact, this is correct (barring the use of "would" instead of "should"), but, alas, the gentleman does not realize it. Few people ever do realize it. This is because the present infinitive, "to find," seems to imply success. They therefore fall back on the perfect infinitive, "to have found," because it implies that the thing hoped for did not come to pass. They have fallen back on it so often that, after the ordinary past tenses, its use has come to be counted as idiomatic, even though it is incorrect. After past conditionals, however -- such as our gentleman caller has got into -- the use of the perfect infinitive is not even idiomatic. It is just dangerous.

The gentleman, with two variants on his hands, takes to mumbling them to himself, first one and then the other -- "We would have liked to have found you in," "We would have liked to find you in." After he does this several times, both expressions begin to sound meaningless. They don't make any sense at all, let alone make precise sense. His mental feeling is analogous to the terror that strikes into children's minds when they get to repeating some common word, like "saucer," over and over again, until it sounds idiotic and legendary. At this point it would be infinitely better not to leave any note at all, but the gentleman's education and his strength of mind have been challenged. He takes an envelope out of his pocket and grimly makes a list of all the possible combinations, thus getting: "We would have liked to have found," "We would have liked to find," "We would like to have found," and "We would like to find." A dull pain takes him back of the ears. This is the danger sign, and his wife should have the presence of mind to summon assistance, for he is now out of hand and uncontrollable. What she does, however, is to say, "Here, let me write it." He instantly snarls, "I'm no child" or "Get away" or some such thing, and his difficulties are added to by the quarrel which follows. At length he has the bright inspiration of going into the hope clauses and turns out: "We had hoped to have been able to have found." If he has married the right kind of woman, she will hastily scratch a brief word on a calling card, shove it under the door, and drag her husband away. Otherwise he will sink rapidly into a serious mental state, from which it may take him weeks to emerge.

There is a simple rule about past conditionals which will prevent a lapse into that deep contemplation which is so often fatal. After "would have liked," "would have hoped," "would have feared," etc., use the present indicative. The implication of non-fulfillment is inherent in the governing verb itself, that is, in the "would have liked," etc. You don't have to shade the infinitive to get a nice note of frustration. Let it alone. Dr. Fowler himself says: "Sometimes a writer, dimly aware that 'would have liked to have done' is wrong, is yet so fascinated by the perfect infinitive that he clings to that at all costs." That's what it is -- a fascination -- like a cobra's for a bird. Avoid the perfect infinitive after the past conditional as you would a cobra.

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Thurber Tonight: The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide to Modern English Usage: VII. Exclamation Points and Colons

Even if he marries someone else and she doesn't sue,
he is likely to worry and fret, believing that she will.

The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide
to Modern English Usage

VII. Exclamation Points and Colons

I shall cite, to begin with, a few general "don'ts" for exclamation marks. One general "don't" could well cover the whole thing, for the exclamation mark is never actually necessary, but the shock of giving them all up at once might prove fatal to those unfortunate writers who have become addicts. Yet some excellent books have been writen without a single exclamation mark, among them The Art of Rodin, which is a collection of photographs of the sculptor's statues with a brief foreword by Louis Wenberg, or Weinberg. On the other hand, such eminent stylists and impeccable rhetoricians as Cabell bestrew their novels with exclamation points. Very likely Cabell, who is never really excited about anything, leaves them out, and the linotypers put them in. The whole fabric of English usage, I might say in passing, is complicated by linotypers. They frequently play a game with an author, by mail, similar to chess. The author sends in a manuscript without exclamation marks, the linotyper puts them in, the author takes them out in proof, the linotyper puts them back in, together with a couple of etaoins. That's pretty much inside publishing-house stuff, however, and any further comment on it here -- or anywhere else -- wouldn't do much good. The "don'ts" with which I am concerned are aimed at the layman, the man and woman letter writer.

Don't use an exclamation mark in a moment of anger. If you insert one in a fit of temper, lay aside the letter until morning. You will be surprised how silly it will seem then -- not only the exclamation mark but the whole letter. That brings us to the colon, or if it doesn't, we'll drag in the colon. It is my contention that a colon could almost always be used in place of an exclamation point. Its use as a symbol of passionate expression is not, I'll grant you, well known, and yet it lends itself to finer shadings of excitement than the exclamation mark, which after all is a hybrid composed, on most typewriters, by striking, successively, the period, the back-spacer, and the apostrophe. This process of synthesis usually takes from six to eight seconds and is very frequently complicated by accidentally striking the upper-case shift-lock key, thus setting the machine so that it writes solely in capitals. In this way a person, after making his exclamation mark, will sometimes go on to write six or eight sentences in capital letters without realizing he is doing it. He then either has to go back over those sentences and draw a diagonal line across each letter -- the proofreader's sign for "restore to lower case" -- or else, if he lets the capitalized words stand, he must enclose a separate note explaining what happened. All this takes time, and diverts a writer's mind from what he was trying to say. Furthermore, by following his exclamation mark with several lines of capitalized sentences, screaming and bawling across the page, he has made the exclamation mark seem ridiculous and ineffective. The best way to avoid all these complications is to use a pen or pencil. This is, however, the era of the typewriter -- even love letters are written on typewriters. Thus it will be helpful to learn that the colon, which is typed by striking only one key, can be employed in place of the exclamation mark in almost any given sentence where the emotion one wishes to express is of an amatory nature.

Even love letters are written on typewriters.

Take the sentence "You are wonderful!" That's trite, and it's made triter by the exclamation point, but if one writes it thus: "You are: wonderful," it's certainly not trite and it has a richness that the other hadn't or hasn't -- "hadn't" is better, I guess. Nothing so closely resembles the catch in the voice of the lover as that very colon. Instead of shouting the word "wonderful," as the exclamation point does, it forces a choking pause before that word, thus giving an effect of tense, nervous endearment, which is certainly what the writer is after. Of course whether he should be after that effect, no matter how the sentence is punctuated, is a separate problem. Sentences of the kind, especially when written by a gentleman to a lady, are never altogether safe. They are almost sure to lead to some further encomium, to some definitely compromising confession. If the gentleman then marries someone else, the lady may sue. Even if he marries someone else and she doesn't sue, he is likely to worry and fret, believing that she will, and the effect on his general health will be about the same as if she did.

I think that Fowler in his Modern English Usage does not discriminate as carefully as he should between what is proper and safe in exclamations and what is proper and dangerous. He makes several groupings of proper usages, one of them being "You miserable coward!, You little dear!" Obviously there's a difference in possible ultimate effect here. The former could easily drift into a suit for breach of promise, and is therefore not safe. Of his other groupings of recommended usages I should most assuredly warn any gentleman against writing to any woman any part of the list which Fowler gives as No. 4. This includes: "What a difference it makes!, What I suffered!, How I love you!" If one is going to use a whole group, I'd say take his No. 5, which is, in full: "Not another word!, If only I could!, That it should come to this!, Much care you!, Pop goes the weasel!, A fine friend you have been!" That is not only safe -- it leans over backwards. All correspondence would probably be ended after such a letter, and that is always rather more desirable than deplorable.

TOMORROW NIGHT: "The Night the Bed Fell" from My Life and Hard Times


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Thurber Tonight: The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide to Modern English Usage: V. Whether; and VI. The Subjunctive Mood

He instantly abandons all grammatical analysis
and begins to swish under beds ("The Subjunctive")

The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide
to Modern English Usage

V. Whether

A certain type of person is wont to let "whether" get him down. For one thing, he will wear himself out doubling the alternative. That is, he will write some such clause as "Whether or not the birds will or will not come north this year." Either "or not" or "or will not" should be dropped. If one or the other isn't dropped, an ornithologist can get into all sorts of trouble, such as "Whether or not the nuthatch will or will not hatch is not known." If the thing goes as far as that, a person should drop ornithology too. A good ornithologist doesn't need "whethers." He should know whether or not the bird will hatch, and say so.

The Nuthatch

The use of "whether" after "doubt" is another troublesome matter. Yet the rule is simple. When the sentence is affirmative, use "whether" -- "I doubt whether he will go." When the sentence is negative, use "that" -- "I do not doubt that he will go." Practically nobody remembers this rule, however, and the best thing to do is carry it on a little slip of paper in your pocket and refer to it when needed. In great crises, it is well not to bother with either one. For example, if a gentleman wishes to address a lady as follows, "I no longer doubt whether (that) I love you," the best modern usage is simply to place his arms around her waist. In this case her arms should go around his shoulders. Occasionally a gentleman will put his arms around a lady's shoulders and expect her to put hers around his waist. Since this is contrary to accepted custom, the result often is that both parties reach for the same place, i.e., waist or shoulders, at the same time, and thus appear to be boxing. Nothing can end a courtship any faster than to appear to be boxing. If a gentleman is going to depart from the common practice he should give warning.

Nothing can end a courtship any faster

than to appear to be boxing

The question of when to use "whether or no" instead of "whether or not" will likely never be decided now. Grammarians have avoided the subject since the deplorable experience of Dr. Amos Crawley, M.A., LL.D., who, in his invaluable but, alas, uncompleted monograph, "Clarified Expression," unaccountably got involved, while his wife and servants were away and he was alone in the house, in a construction beginning: "Whether or not 'whether or no' is ever preferable to 'whether or not' depends on whether or not . . ." at which point he was stricken. The best advice is make up your mind and avoid doubt-clauses.

§

VI. The Subjunctive Mood

The importance of correct grammar in the home can not be over-estimated. Two young people should make sure that each is rhetorically sound before they get married, because grammatical precision, particularly in mood, is just as important as anything else. Rhetoric and sex, in fact, are so closely related that when one becomes confused they both become confused. Take the subjunctive. Fowler, in his book on modern English usage, says the subjunctive is dying, but adds that there are still a few truly living uses, which he groups under "Alives, Revivals, Survivals, and Arrivals." Curiously enough, he leaves out Departures, which it seems to me are just as important as Arrivals. Let us examine the all too common domestic situation where the husband arrives just after another gentleman has departed -- or just after he thinks another gentleman has departed (Suppositional Departures lead to just as much bitterness, and even more subjunctives, than Actual Departures).

The wife, in either case, is almost sure to go into the subjunctive -- very likely before any accusation is made. Among the most common subjunctives which she will be inclined to use are those of indignation and hauteur, such as "Be that as it may," "Far be it from me," etc. For the moment, she is safe enough in the subjunctive, because her husband has probably gone into it, too, using "Would God I were," "If there be justice," and so on. Wives select the subjunctive usually because it is the best mood in which to spar for time, husbands because it lends itself most easily to ranting and posturing. As long as they both stay in it they are safe. Misunderstandings are almost certain to arise, however, when the husband goes into the indicative, as he is pretty sure to do. He usually does this preparatory to dismissing his suspicions, a step toward which every husband is impelled by his natural egotism. First he will begin with a plain past-tense indicative if-clause -- just to show that he knows who the man is -- prior to dismissing him.

"If George Spangrell was here," the husband will begin, lighting a cigarette, "I . . . ."

"Well, what would you do if he were?" demands the wife.

A husband (left) encounters a lover

The confusion, which begins at this point, is pretty intricate. The husband has gone into the indicative, but his wife has stayed in the subjunctive and, furthermore, she thinks that he is still there, too. Thus she thinks he intended to say: "If George Spangrell was here [that is, now] I would tell him what I think of him, the low scoundrel." There is no excuse for a wife prematurely imputing such a suspicion or such a rhetorical monstrosity to her husband. What he probably intended to say was merely something like this: "If George Spangrell was here, I wouldn't like it, but of course I know he wasn't, dear." However, misunderstandings now begin to pile up. The husband is instantly made suspicious by her "What would you do if he were?" He considers her "were" tantamount to "is." (This quick-tempered construction, of course, makes the "would" in his wife's sentence ridiculous, for, had she meant "is" instead of "were," she would have substituted "will" for "would.") The situation is much too involved now, however, for the husband to make an effort to parse anything. He instantly abandons all grammatical analysis, and begins to look about, peering into the wardrobe, swishing under beds with a cane or umbrella.

His wife now has the advantage of him, not only in mood, but in posture. A woman must naturally view with disdain and contempt any man who is down on all fours unless he has taken that position for the purpose of playing horse with some children -- an extenuation which we need not discuss here. To meet her on even terms, the husband should walk, not crawl, from wardrobe to chaise longue, using the mandatory subjunctive in a firm voice, as follows: "If anyone be in (or under) there, let him come out!" ["Come out" is better here than "emerge" because stronger, but a husband should not fall into the colloquial "Come on out of that!" He may, however, if he so wishes, address the gentleman, whether he be present or not, as "Spangrell" but never "Mr. Spangrell" (Hypocritical Dignification) and certainly never as "George" -- the use of the given name being in extreme bad taste where no endearment is intended.]

The wife of course will resent all these goings-on, and the quarrel that results will probably last late into the night.

Ordinarily, his wife would reply, "Oh, no you won't!"

There are several ways to prevent a situation like this. In the first place, when a husband says "was" a wife should instantly respond with "wasn't" at its face value, because it preserves their egotism and self-respect. On the other hand, "if . . . were" is always dangerous. Husbands have come to know that a wife's "if . . . were" usually means that what she is presenting as purely hypothetical is, in reality, a matter of fact. Thus, if a wife begins, one evening after an excellent dinner, "Dear, what would you do, if I were the sort of woman who had, etc.," her husband knows full well that it is going to turn out that she is the sort of woman who has. Husbands are suspicious of all subjunctives. Wives should avoid them. Once a woman has "if . . . were'd" a Mr. Spangrell, her husband is, nine times out of ten, going to swish under the chaise longue. Even if he finds no one, the situation becomes extremely awkward, and there is of course always the plaguey hundredth chance that he may discover a strange cane or pair of gloves.

The best of all ways out is for the husband to go instantly into the future indicative and say, with great dignity, "I shall go down to the drugstore." Ordinarily, his wife would reply, "Oh, no you won't," but with all the doubt and suspicion in the air, she will be inclined to humor him and let him have his way. She is certain to, if Spangrell is in the clothes hamper.

TOMORROW NIGHT: Let Your Mind Alone!: "Anodynes for Anxieties"


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Thurber Tonight: The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide to Modern English Usage: IV. Only and One

George L. Wodolgoffing becomes an angel

The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide
to Modern English Usage

IV. Only and One

Where to use "only" in a sentence is a moot question, one of the mootest questions in all rhetoric. The purist will say that the expression: "He only died last week" is incorrect, and that it should be: "He died only last week." The purist's contention is that the first sentence, if carried out to a natural conclusion, would give us something like this: "He only died last week, he didn't do anything else, that's all he did." It isn't a natural conclusion, however, because nobody would say that and if anybody did it would be likely to lead to stomping of feet and clapping of hands, because it is one of those singy-songy expressions which set a certain type of person to acting rowdy and becoming unmanageable. It is better just to let the expression go, either one way or the other, because, after all, this particular sentence is of no importance except in cases where one is breaking the news to a mother. In such cases one should begin with: "Mrs. Gormley, your son has had an accident," or: "Mrs. Gormley, your son is not so good," and then lead up gently to: "He died only last week."

The best way is often to omit "only" and use some other expression. Thus, instead of saying: "He only died last week," one could say: "It was no longer ago than last Thursday that George L. Wodolgoffing became an angel." Moreover, this is more explicit and eliminates the possibility of a misunderstanding as to who died. The greatest care in this regard, by the way, should be taken with the verbs "to die," "to love," "to embezzle," and the like. In this connection, it is well never to use "only" at the beginning of a sentence -- "Only one person loves me," for example. This of course makes it necessary to capitalize "Only" and there is the risk of a hurried reader taking it for a proper noun and confusing it with the late Richard Olney, who was Secretary of State under Cleveland.

The indefinite "one" is another source of trouble and is frequently the cause of disagreeable scenes. Such a sentence as "One loves one's friends" is considered by some persons to be stilted and over-formalized, and such persons insist that "One loves his friends" is permissible. It is not permissible, however, because "one" is indefinite and "his" is definite and the combination is rhetorically impossible. This is known as hendiadys and was a common thing in Latin. Rare examples of it still exist and are extremely valuable as antiques, although it is usually unsafe to sit or lie down on one.

The chief objection to a consistent, or "cross-country," use of "one" is that it tends to make a sentence sound like a trombone solo -- such as: "One knows one's friends will help one if one is in trouble, or at least one trusts one's friends will help one." Even though this is correct, to the point of being impeccable, there is no excuse for it. The "one" enthusiast should actually take up the trombone and let it go at that.

"One" is, as a matter of fact, too often used for the personal pronoun. What, for example, could be sillier than to write a lady like this: "One loves you and one wonders if you love one." Such a person is going to get nowhere. "I love you. Do you love me?" is a much simpler and better way to say it, except, of course, that there is always the danger here of drifting into a popular ballad of the "Ramona" type.

Some persons use neither the indefinite "one" nor the definite pronoun, but substitute a pet name and get some such result as "Mopsy loves Flopsy and wonders if Flopsy loves Mopsy." This usage frequently gets into the newspapers and becomes famous, particularly if Flopsy is an ambitious blonde and Mopsy a wealthy mop-handle manufacturer. The fault here, however, is not so much with the nouns or pronouns as with the verb "to love." Nothing can be done about the verb "to love."

TOMORROW NIGHT: "Destructive Forces in Life" (from Let Your Mind Alone)


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Thurber Tonight: The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide to Modern English Usage: III. The Split Infiniitve

It is all but impossible to sit quietly by
when someone is throwing salad plates

The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide
to Modern English Usage

III. The Split Infinitive

Word has somehow got around that a split infinitive is always wrong. This is of a piece with the sentimental and outworn notion that it is always wrong to strike a lady. Everybody will recall at least one woman of his acquaintance whom, at one time, or another, he has had to punch or slap. I have in mind a charming lady who is overcome by the unaccountable desire, at formal dinners with red and white wines, to climb up on the table and lie down. Her dinner companions used at first to pinch her, under cover of the conversation, but she pinched right back or, what is even less defensible, tickled. They finally learned that they could make her hold her seat only by fetching her a smart downward blow on the head. She would then sit quietly through the rest of the dinner, smiling dreamily and nodding at people, and looking altogether charming.

A man who does not know his own strength could, of course, all too easily overshoot the mark and, instead of producing the delightful languor to which I have alluded, knock his companion completely under the table, an awkward situation which should be avoided at all costs because it would leave two men seated next to each other. I know of one man who, to avert this faux pas, used to punch his dinner companion in the side (she would begin to cry during the red-wine courses), a blow which can be executed, as a rule, with less fuss, but which has the disadvantage of almost always causing the person who is struck to shout. The hostess, in order to put her guest at her ease, must shout too, which is almost certain to arouse one of those nervous, high-strung men, so common at formal dinners, to such a pitch that he will begin throwing things. There is nothing more deplorable than the spectacle of a formal dinner party ending in a brawl. And yet it is surprising how even the most cultured and charming people can go utterly to pieces when something is unexpectedly thrown at table. They instantly have an overwhelming desire to "join in." Everybody has, at one time or another, experienced the urge to throw a plate of jelly or a half grapefruit, an urge comparable to the inclination that suddenly assails one to leap from high places. Usually this tendency passes as quickly as it comes, but it is astounding how rapidly it can be converted into action once the spell of dignity and well-bred reserve is broken by the sight of, say, a green-glass salad plate flying through the air. It is all but impossible to sit quietly by while someone is throwing salad plates. One is stirred to participation not only by the swift progress of the objects and their crash as they hit something, but also by the cries of "Whammy!" and Whoop!" with which most men accompany the act of hurling plates. In the end someone is bound to be caught over the eye by a badly aimed plate and rendered unconscious.

A charming lady overcome by the unaccountable
desire to climb up on the table and lie down

My contemporary, Mr. Fowler, in a painstaking analysis of the split infinitive, divides the English-speaking world into five classes as regards this construction: those who don't know and don't care, those who don't know and do care, those who know and approve, those who know and condemn, and those who know and discriminate. (The fact that there was no transition at all between the preceding paragraph and this one does not mean that I did not try, in several different ways, to get back to the split infinitive logically. As in a bridge hand, the absence of a re-entry is not always the fault of the man who is playing the hand, but of the way the cards lie in the dummy. To say more would only make it more difficult than it now is, if possible, to get back to Mr. Fowler.) Mr. Fowler's point is, of course, that there are good split infinitives and bad ones. For instance, he contends that it is better to say "Our object is to further cement trade relations," thus splitting "to cement," than to say "Our object is further to cement trade relations," because the use of "further" before "to cement" might lead the reader to think it had the weight of "moreover" rather than of "increasingly." My own way out of all this confusion would be simply to say "Our object is to let trade relations ride," that is, give them up, let them go. Some people would regard the abandonment of trade relations, merely for the purpose of avoiding grammatical confusion, as a weak-kneed and unpatriotic action. That, it seems to me, is a matter for each person to decide for himself. A man who, like myself, has no knowledge at all of trade relations cannot be expected to take the same interest in cementing them as, say, the statesman or the politician. This is no reflection on trade relations.

TOMORROW NIGHT: A Christmas Eve special, "File and Forget" (with an interesting footnote)


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Thurber Tonight: The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide to Modern English Usage: II. Which

Eliza crossing the ice

(This conception of the famous incident departs radically from the old and generally accepted notion that Eliza maintained, at all times, a position slightly in advance of the bloodhounds. It also departs radically from other notions.) [From the discussion of "Which" in The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide.]

The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide
to Modern English Usage

II. Which

The relative pronoun "which" can cause more trouble than any other word, if recklessly used. Foolhardy persons sometimes get lost in which-clauses and are never heard of again. My distinguished contemporary, Fowler, cites several tragic cases, of which the following is one: "It was rumoured that Beaconsfield intended opening the Conference with a speech in French, his pronunciation of which language leaving everything to be desired. . . ." That's as much as Mr. Fowler quotes because, at his age, he was afraid to go any farther. The young man who originally got into that sentence was never found. His fate, however, was not as terrible as that of another adventurer who became involved in a remarkable which-mire. Fowler has followed his devious course as far as he safely could on foot: "Surely what applies to games should also apply to racing, the leaders of which being the very people from whom an example might well be looked for . . . ." Not even Henry James could have successfully emerged from a sentence with "which," "whom," and "being" in it. The safest way to avoid such things is to follow in the path of the American author, Ernest Hemingway. In his youth he was trapped in a which-clause one time and barely escaped with his mind. He was going along on solid ground until he got into this: "It was the one thing of which, being very much afraid -- for whom has not been warned to fear such things -- he . . ." Being a young and powerfully built man, Hemingway was able to fight his way back to where he had started, and begin again. This time he skirted the treacherous morass in this way: "He was afraid of one thing. This was the one thing. He had been warned to fear such things. Everybody has been warned to fear such things." Today Hemingway is alive and well, and many happy writers are following along the trail he blazed.

What most people don't realize is that one "which" leads to another. Trying to cross a paragraph by leaping from "which" to "which" is like Eliza crossing the ice. The danger is in missing a "which" and falling in. A case in point is this: "He went up to a pew which was in the gallery, which brought him under a colored window which he loved and always quieted his spirit." The writer, worn out, missed the last "which" -- the one that should come just before "always" in that sentence. But supposing he had got it in! We would have: "He went up to a pew which was in the gallery, which brought him under a colored window which he loved and which always quieted his spirit." Your inveterate whicher in this way gives the effect of tweeting like a bird or walking with a crutch, and is not welcome in the best company.

American rabbit, or "which"

It is well to remember that one "which" leads to two and that two "whiches" multiply like rabbits. You should never start out with the idea that you can get by with one "which." Suddenly they are all around you. Take a sentence like this: "It imposes a problem which we either solve, or perish." On a hot night, or after a hard day's work, a man often lets himself get by with a monstrosity like that, but suppose he dictates that sentence bright and early in the morning. It comes to him typed out by his stenographer and he instantly senses that something is the matter with it. He tries to reconstruct the sentence, still clinging to the "which," and gets something like this: "It imposes a problem which we either solve, or which, failing to solve, we must perish on account of." He goes to the water-cooer, gets a drink, sharpens his pencil, and grimly tries again: "It imposes a problem which we either solve or which we don't solve and . . ." He begins once more: "It imposes a problem which we either solve, or which we do not solve, and from which . . ." The more times he does it the more "whiches" he gets. The way out is simple. "We must either solve this problem, or perish." Never monkey with "which." Nothing except getting tangled up in a typewriter ribbon is worse.

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