How to Write Clearly | Page 8

as in "I told him to leave the room slowly, but he left quickly."
Adjectives, in clauses beginning with "if" and "though," often come at the beginning for emphasis: "Insolent though he was, he was silenced at last."
*15 a. Unemphatic words must, as a rule, be kept from the end of the sentence.* It is a common fault to break this rule by placing a short and unemphatic predicate at the end of a long sentence.
"To know some Latin, even if it be nothing but a few Latin roots, is useful." Write, "It is useful, &c."
So "the evidence proves how kind to his inferiors he is."
Often, where an adjective or auxiliary verb comes at the end, the addition of an emphatic adverb justifies the position, e.g. above, "is very useful," "he has invariably been."
A short "chippy" ending, even though emphatic, is to be avoided. It is abrupt and unrhythmical, e.g. "The soldier, transfixed with the spear, writhed." We want a longer ending, "fell writhing to the ground," or, "writhed in the agonies of death." A "chippy" ending is common in bad construing from Virgil.
*Exceptions.*--Prepositions and pronouns attached to emphatic words need not be moved from the end; e.g. "He does no harm that I hear of." "Bear witness how I loved him."
*N.B. In all styles, especially in letter-writing, a final emphasis must not be so frequent as to become obtrusive and monotonous.*
*15 b. An interrogation sometimes gives emphasis.* "No one can doubt that the prisoner, had he been really guilty, would have shown some signs of remorse," is not so emphatic as "Who can doubt, Is it possible to doubt, &c.?"
Contrast "No one ever names Wentworth without thinking of &c." with "But Wentworth,--who ever names him without thinking of those harsh dark features, ennobled by their expression into more than the majesty of an antique Jupiter?"
*16. The subject, if unusually emphatic, should often be removed from the beginning of the sentence.* The beginning of the sentence is an emphatic position, though mostly not so emphatic as the end. Therefore the principal subject of a sentence, being emphatic, and being wanted early in the sentence to tell us what the sentence is about, comes as a rule, at or near the beginning: "Thomas built this house."
Hence, since the beginning is the usual place for the subject, if we want to emphasize "Thomas" unusually, we must remove "Thomas" from the beginning: "This house was built by Thomas," or "It was Thomas that built this house."
Thus, the emphasis on "conqueror" is not quite so strong in "A mere conqueror ought not to obtain from us the reverence that is due to the great benefactors of mankind," as in "We ought not to bestow the reverence that is due to the great benefactors of mankind, upon a mere conqueror." Considerable, but less emphasis and greater smoothness (19) will be obtained by writing the sentence thus: "We ought not to bestow upon a mere conqueror &c."
Where the same subject stands first in several consecutive sentences, it rises in emphasis, and need not be removed from the beginning, even though unusual emphasis be required:
"The captain was the life and soul of the expedition. He first pointed out the possibility of advancing; he warned them of the approaching scarcity of provisions; he showed how they might replenish their exhausted stock &c."
*17. The object is sometimes placed before the verb for emphasis.* This is most common in antithesis. "Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?" "Some he imprisoned, others he put to death."
Even where there is no antithesis the inversion is not uncommon:
"Military courage, the boast of the sottish German, of the frivolous and prating Frenchman, of the romantic and arrogant Spaniard, he neither possesses nor values."
This inversion sometimes creates ambiguity in poetry, e.g. "The son the father slew," and must be sparingly used in prose.
Sometimes the position of a word may be considered appropriate by some, and inappropriate by others, according to different interpretations of the sentence. Take as an example, "Early in the morning the nobles and gentlemen who attended on the king assembled in the great hall of the castle; and here they began to talk of what a dreadful storm it had been the night before. But Macbeth could scarcely understand what they said, for he was thinking of something worse." The last sentence has been amended by Professor Bain into "What they said, Macbeth could scarcely understand." But there appears to be an antithesis between the guiltless nobles who can think about the weather, and the guilty Macbeth who cannot. Hence, "what they said" ought not, and "Macbeth" ought, to be emphasized: and therefore "Macbeth" ought to be retained at the beginning of the sentence.
The same author alters, "The praise of judgment Virgil has justly contested with him, but his