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| II. ELEMENTARY RULES OF USAGE (Continued) |
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- Do not join independent clauses by a comma.
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| If two or more clauses, grammatically complete and not joined by a conjunction, are to form a single compound sentence, the proper mark of punctuation is a semicolon. |
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| Stevenson's romances are entertaining; they are full of exciting adventures. |
| It is nearly half past five; we cannot reach town before dark. |
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| It is of course equally correct to write the above as two sentences each, replacing the semicolons by periods. |
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| Stevenson's romances are entertaining. They are full of exciting adventures. |
| It is nearly half past five. We cannot reach town before dark. |
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| If a conjunction is inserted, the proper mark is a comma (Rule 4). |
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| Stevenson's romances are entertaining, for they are full of exciting adventures. |
| It is nearly half past five, and we cannot reach town before dark. |
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| Note that if the second clause is preceded by an adverb, such as accordingly, besides, so, then, therefore, or thus, and not by a conjunction, the semicolon is still required. |
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| I had never been in the place before; so I had difficulty in finding my way about. |
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| In general, however, it is best, in writing, to avoid using so in this manner; there is danger that the writer who uses it at all may use it too often. A simple correction, usually serviceable, is to omit the word so, and begin the first clause with as: |
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| As I had never been in the place before, I had difficulty in finding my way about. |
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| If the clauses are very short, and are alike in form, a comma is usually permissible: |
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| Man proposes, God disposes. |
| The gate swung apart, the bridge fell, the portcullis was drawn up. |
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- Do not break sentences in two.
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| In other words, do not use periods for commas. |
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| I met them on a Cunard liner several years ago. Coming home from Liverpool to New York. |
| He was an interesting talker. A man who had traveled all over the world, and lived in half a dozen countries. |
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| In both these examples, the first period should be replaced by a comma, and the following word begun with a small letter. |
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| It is permissible to make an emphatic word or expression serve the purpose of a sentence and to punctuate it accordingly: |
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| Again and again he called out. No reply. |
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| The writer must, however, be certain that the emphasis is warranted, and that he will not be suspected of a mere blunder in punctuation. |
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| Rules 3, 4, 5, and 6 cover the most important principles in the punctuation of ordinary sentences; they should be so thoroughly mastered that their application becomes second nature. |
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- A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject.
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| Walking slowly down the road, he saw a woman accompanied by two children. |
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| The word walking refers to the subject of the sentence, not to the woman. If the writer wishes to make it refer to the woman, he must recast the sentence: |
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| He saw a woman, accompanied by two children, walking slowly down the road. |
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| Participial phrases preceded by a conjunction or by a preposition, nouns in apposition, adjectives, and adjective phrases come under the same rule if they begin the sentence. |
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| On arriving in Chicago, his friends met him at the station. |
When he arrived (or, On his arrival) in Chicago, his friends met him at the station. |
| A soldier of proved valor, they entrusted him with the defence of the city. |
A soldier of proved valor, he was entrusted with the defence of the city. |
| Young and inexperienced, the task seemed easy to me. |
Young and inexperienced, I thought the task easy. |
| Without a friend to counsel him, the temptation proved irresistible. |
Without a friend to counsel him, he found the temptation irresistible. |
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| Sentences violating this rule are often ludicrous. |
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| Being in a dilapidated condition, I was able to buy the house very cheap. |
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- Divide words at line-ends, in accordance with their formation and pronunciation.
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| If there is room at the end of a line for one or more syllables of a word, but not for the whole word, divide the word, unless this involves cutting off only a single letter, or cutting off only two letters of a long word. No hard and fast rule for all words can be laid down. The principles most frequently applicable are: |
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- Divide the word according to its formation:
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| know-ledge (not knowl-edge); Shake-speare (not Shakes-peare); de-scribe (not des-cribe); atmo-sphere (not atmos-phere); |
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- Divide "on the vowel:"
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| edi-ble (not ed-ible); propo-sition; ordi-nary; espe-cial; reli-gious; oppo-nents; regu-lar; classi-fi-ca-tion (three divisions possible); deco-rative; presi-dent; |
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- Divide between double letters, unless they come at the end of the simple form of the word:
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| Apen-nines; Cincin-nati; refer-ring; but tell-ing. |
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| The treatment of consonants in combination is best shown from examples: |
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| for-tune; pic-ture; presump-tuous; illus-tration; sub-stan-tial (either division); indus-try; instruc-tion; sug-ges-tion; incen-diary. |
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| The student will do well to examine the syllable-division in a number of pages of any carefully printed book. |
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