Part 49 (2/2)

Pupils may copy the following, and note the arrangement and the punctuation of the phrases:--

(_g_) This place is endeared to me by many a.s.sociations.

(_h_) To me, this place is endeared by many a.s.sociations.

(_i_) Your answers, with few exceptions, have been correctly given.

(_j_) He applied for the position, without a recommendation.

+Observation Lesson+.--Phrases in their natural order follow the words they modify. When two or more phrases belong to the same word, the one most closely modifying it stands nearest to it.

In the first sentence above, _to me_ tells to whom the place is endeared; _by many a.s.sociations_ tells how it is endeared to me, and is therefore placed after to me. Try the effect of placing _to me_ last. Phrases, like adjectives, may be of different rank.

Phrases are often transposed, or placed out of their natural order. Notice that _to me_, in (_h_) above, is transposed, and thus made emphatic, and that it is set off by the comma.

In (_i_), the phrase is loosely thrown in as if it were not essential, thus making a break in the sentence. To make this apparent to the eye we set the phrase off by the comma.

Place the phrase of (_i_) in three other positions, and set it off. When the phrase is at the beginning or at the end of the sentence, how many commas do you need to set it off? How many, when it is in the middle?

Do you find any choice in the four positions of this phrase? After having been told that your answers were correct, would it be a disappointment to be told that they were not all correct? Is the interest in a story best kept up by first telling the important points and then the unimportant particulars? What then do you think of placing this phrase at the end?

What does the last phrase of (_j_) modify? Take out the comma, and then see whether there can be any doubt as to what the phrase modifies.

In the placing of adverbs and phrases great freedom is often allowable, and the determining of their best possible position affords an almost unlimited opportunity for the exercise of taste and judgment.

Such questions as those on (_i_) above may suggest a mode of easy approach to what is usually relegated to the province of rhetoric. Let the pupils see that phrases may be transposed for various reasons--for emphasis, as in (_h_) above; for the purpose of exciting the reader's curiosity and holding his attention till the complete statement is made, as in (_i_) above, or in, ”In the dead of night, with a chosen band, under the cover of a truce, he approached”; for the sake of balancing the sentence by letting some of the modifying terms precede, and some follow, the princ.i.p.al parts, as, ”In 1837, on the death of William IV., Victoria succeeded to the throne”; and for other reasons.

Other selections maybe made and these exercises continued, the pupils discussing fully the effects of all possible changes.

Pupils may note the transposed words and phrases in the following sentences, explaining their office and the effect of the transposition:--

1. Victories, indeed, they were.

2. Down came the masts.

3. Here stands the man.

4. Doubtful seemed the battle.

5. Wide open stood the doors.

6. A mighty man is he.

7. That gale I well remember.

8. Behind her rode Lalla Rookh.

9. Blood-red became the sun.

10. Louder waxed the applause.

11. Him the Almighty Power hurled headlong.

12. Slowly and sadly we laid him down.

13. Into the valley of death rode the six hundred.

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