ADVERBS.
Position of only, even,
etc.
452. A very careful writer
will place the modifiers of a verb so that the reader will not mistake the
meaning.
The rigid rule in would be to put the modifier in such a
position that the reader not only can understand the meaning, but cannot
misunderstand the thought. Now, when such adverbs as only,
even, etc., are used, they are usually placed in a strictly correct
position, if they modify single words; but they are often removed from the
exact position, if they modify phrases or clauses: for example, from Irving,
"The site is only to be traced by fragments of bricks, china, and
earthenware." Here only modifies the phrase by fragments of
bricks, etc., but it is placed before the infinitive. This misplacement of
the adverb can be detected only by analysis of the sentence.
Exercise.
Tell what the adverb modifies in each quotation, and see
if it is placed in the proper position:—
1. Only the name of one obscure epigrammatist has been
embalmed for us in the verses of his rival.—Palgrave.
2. Do you remember pea shooters? I think we only had
them on going home for holidays.—Thackeray.
3. Irving could only live very modestly. He could only
afford to keep one old horse.—Id.
4. The arrangement of this machinery could only be
accounted for by supposing the motive power to have been steam.—Wendell Phillips.
5. Such disputes can only be settled by
arms.—Id.
6. I have only noted one or two topics which I thought
most likely to interest an American reader.—N. P.
Willis.
7. The silence of
the first night at the farmhouse,—stillness broken only by two
whippoorwills.—Higginson.
8. My master, to avoid a crowd, would suffer only thirty
people at a time to see me.—Swift.
9. In relating these and the following laws, I would
only be understood to mean the original institutions.—Id.
10. The perfect loveliness of a woman's countenance can
only consist in that majestic peace which is founded in the memory of happy and
useful years.—Ruskin.
11. In one of those celestial days it seems a poverty
that we can only spend it once.—Emerson.
12. My lord was only anxious as long as his wife's
anxious face or behavior seemed to upbraid him.—Thackeray.
13. He shouted in those clear, piercing tones that could
be even heard among the roaring of the cannon.—Cooper.
14. His suspicions were not even excited by the ominous
face of Gérard.—Motley.
15. During the whole course of his administration, he
scarcely befriended a single man of genius.—Macaulay.
16. I never remember to have felt an event more deeply
than his death.—Sydney Smith.
17. His last journey to Cannes, whence he was never
destined to return.—Mrs. Grote.
USE OF DOUBLE NEGATIVES.
The old usage.
453. In Old and Middle
English, two negatives strengthened a negative idea; for example,—
He nevere yet no
vileineye ne sayde,
In al his lyf unto no maner
wight.
—Chaucer.
No sonne, were he never so old of yeares, might
not marry. —Ascham.
The first of these is equivalent to "He didn't never say
no villainy in all his life to no manner of man,"—four negatives.
This idiom was common in the older stages of the language,
and is still kept in vulgar English; as,—
I tell you she ain' been nowhar ef she
don' know we all. —Page, in Ole Virginia.
There weren't no pies to equal hers.—Mrs. Stowe.
Exceptional use.
There are sometimes found two negatives in modern English
with a negative effect, when one of the negatives is a connective. This,
however, is not common.
I never did see him again, nor never shall.—De Quincey.
However, I did not act so hastily,
neither.—Defoe.
The prosperity of no empire, nor the grandeur of
no king, can so agreeably affect, etc.—Burke.
Regular law of negative in modern
English.
But, under the influence of Latin syntax, the usual way of
regarding the question now is, that two negatives are equivalent to an
affirmative, denying each other.
Therefore, if two negatives are found together, it is a
sign of ignorance or carelessness, or else a purpose to make an affirmative
effect. In the latter case, one of the negatives is often a prefix; as
infrequent, uncommon.
Exercise.
Tell whether the two or more negatives are properly used
in each of the following sentences, and why:—
1. The red men were not so infrequent visitors of the
English settlements.—Hawthorne.
2. "Huldy was so up to everything about the house, that
the doctor didn't miss nothin' in a temporal way."—Mrs. Stowe.
3. Her younger sister was a wide-awake girl, who hadn't
been to school for nothing.—Holmes.
4. You will find no battle which does not exhibit the
most cautious circumspection.—Bayne.
5. Not only could man not acquire such information, but
ought not to labor after it.—Grote.
6. There is no thoughtful man in America who would not
consider a war with England the greatest of calamities.—Lowell.
7. In the execution
of this task, there is no man who would not find it an arduous effort.—Hamilton.
8. "A weapon," said the King, "well worthy to confer
honor, nor has it been laid on an undeserving shoulder."—Scott. |
