9. Correct the following sentences. Each sentence contains more than one error; some contain several.

'Somebody called, I could not firstly tell whom, but, after, I found it was her.'

'Three courses suggest themselves to me; but neither of these, or indeed any other seem acceptable to the President, whom people think is one of the most incompetent men that has ever occupied the Chair.' 'My niece, whom it was supposed had been murdered, is a girl of ten years old.'

'Do you remember my cousin whom we thought had settled in Australia? There is some talk of him returning.'

IO. Is any correction required in the following sentence?—'I, he, and you can go.'

[In this sentence there is nothing formally wrong, but usage enjoins a different arrangement of the pronouns. From motives of politeness the first place is given to the person addressed: from feelings of modesty the speaker mentions himself last. Hence we should say 'You, he, and I can go.' When a speaker joins others with himself and uses the plural number, considerations of courtesy and modesty are no longer applicable, and the pronouns occupy their natural positions, we standing first, you second, and they third: 'We, you and they can go.']

11. Correct the following sentences, and give a reason for every change:

'For ever in this humble cell

Let thee and I, my fair one, dwell.'

'Who did you see at the regatta ?'

'The latter of the three solutions is more preferable.'

'If this be him we mean, let him beware.'

'I saw the pickpocket and policeman on opposite sides of the street.'

'These kinds of birds are found in Africa.'

'It is unfair to argue like you do.'

'This principle is of all others the most important.'

'The logical and historical analysis of a language often coincides.' 'Who can it be for.'

'Government sells arms to whomsoever wishes to buy.'

'They show marks who they come from.'

'I am one of those who cannot describe what I do not see.'

'It was the most amiable, although the least dignified, of all the party squabbles by which it had been preceded.'

253

CHAPTER XXV.

SYNTAX OF VERBS.

260. Concord. The Verb agrees with its Subject in Number and Person.

Thus we say 'He is,' 'They are,' 'Men work,' not 'He are,' 'They is,' 'Men works.' Observe, however, that

I. Collective nouns in the singular may be followed by a verb in the singular or plural, according as we are thinking of the aggregate, or of the individuals composing it. We may say 'The Committee were divided in opinion,' or 'The Committee was unanimous.'

2. Several nouns which are plural in form are usually construed as singular, since their meaning is singular or collective: thus, 'The news is true.' Other examples are given on p. 89, (3).

The same explanation applies to our employment of a singular verb with a plural noun which forms the title of a book: the book is singular though the title is plural. We say therefore 'Johnson's Lives of the Poets has been edited afresh'; 'Macaulay's Biographies is a reprint from the Encyclopædia Britannica.'

Two or more nouns in the singular joined by and require a verb in the plural: 'He and I were astonished.' But if

the nouns are names of the same thing, the verb is singular : so we say 'The secretary and treasurer has absconded,' when one man holds the two offices. And on similar grounds, when the different nouns together express one idea, the verb is frequently in the singular: 'Two and two is four': 'Early to bed and early to rise

'Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.'

But if we employ with' or 'as well as' in the place of 'and,' the verb is not plural, unless indeed it would be plural without the addition of these words and the noun which follows them. Thus, 'The minister, with his private secretaries, was present'; as with is a preposition, it is impossible that secretaries should be a nominative to the verb, for secretaries is in the objective case governed by with. Again, 'Veracity, as well as justice, is to be our rule,' not are, for the elliptical clause 'as well as justice' is introduced as a parenthesis.

Nouns in the singular joined by or or nor require a verb in the singular: the force of these conjunctions is to present the subjects as alternatives, not jointly.

Hence the following are wrong:

'Nor want nor cold his course delay.'

'Death or banishment were the alternatives placed before him.'

If or or nor connects two Pronouns of different persons, it is doubtful what the construction of the verb should be. Perhaps the safest rule would be to make the verb agree with the pronoun which immediately precedes it, but even this arrangement produces very harsh effects. Should we say—

The usage of different people may vary. A good many would say are, although as or is an alternative conjunction

and indicates that the subjects are to be taken separately, the verb must at any rate be singular. If we say am, the verb agrees with the subject I but not with the subject he: if we say is, it agrees with he but not with I. In practice it is easy, and also desirable, to avoid this difficulty by modifying the sentence thus: Either he is going or I am.' Grammatical blunders often arise through mistaking for the subject a dependent noun of a different number from that of the subject, owing to its position immediately before the verb. The following are illustrations of this error:

'To Marat, and Danton, and Robespierre, are due the honour of having made it universal.' The subject of the verb is honour, and the verb should be singular.

'His knowledge of French and English literature were far beyond the common.' The writer is misled by the words French and English literature' which come next the verb, and forgets that the noun 'knowledge' in the singular is subject of the verb.

When words take irregular constructions owing to the influence of other words, they are said to be attracted.

261. Government. The Direct Object and the Indirect Object are dealt with on p. 100, the Cognate Object on p. 137, the Retained Object in the Passive construction with verbs which take a Direct and an Indirect Object on pp. 143, 238. Note that, when both Objects follow the verb, the Indirect Object precedes the Direct Object. For if this order is reversed, a preposition is required before the Indirect Object, and the noun or pronoun is then the object of the preposition and no longer the Indirect Object of the verb. So, 'Get me a cab' becomes 'Get a cab for me': 'I gave him a book' becomes 'I gave a book to him.'

262. Moods. The uses of the Subjunctive are set out on p. 147. The constructions of the different parts of the Verb Infinite, Noun and Adjective, are given on pp. 149-154. The student is advised to read these passages

again and then to consider carefully Questions 6 to 20 at the end of this Chapter.

263. Uses of Shall and Will.

In the Chapter on Auxiliary Verbs, it was pointed out that Shall and Will, when employed as auxiliaries, express futurity. A more detailed statement of their different uses is given in a convenient form in the following table1:

1 Adapted from Sir E. B. Head's Shall and Will, p. 119.

The student should learn the first column of this table containing the list of different notions under which our uses of shall and will are classified. Then, if he grasps the meaning of the terms employed, he can easily make his own examples and, by the exercise of his intelligence, write down either shall or will as appropriate to the different persons. This will be a much better course for him than burdening his mind with a table of details mechanically got by heart.