CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VI

ON WELL-KNIT SENTENCES

A sentence may be said to be well-knit if it stands the following tests. It must have unity of form; freedom from excessive looseness; a due amount of emphasis; and climax, if climax is required. All these technical terms need explanation.

=Unity of Form.=—To be a unit of form, a sentence must place subordinate thoughts in subordinate clauses, and must keep one coherent structure throughout.

=Subordination of Clauses.=—In the early years of a language, before it has been used to express philosophy and science, the structure of the sentences is loose and simple; it sounds like the speech of a child. Here is a passage from a book which appeared about 1370, as the _Voyage and Travels of Sir John Mandeville_. There is some doubt whether or not there was really a Sir John; but these Travels are very interesting and curious reading.

And some men say that in the Isle of Lango is yet the daughter of Hippocrates, in form and likeness of a great dragon, that is a hundred fathom of length, as men say: for I have not seen her. And they of the Isles call her, Lady of the Land. And she lieth in an old castle, in a cave, and sheweth twice or thrice in the year. And she doth no harm to no man, but if men do her harm. And she was thus changed and transformed, from a fair damsel, into likeness of a dragon, by a goddess, that was cleped Diana. And men say, that she shall so endure in that form of a dragon, unto the time that a knight come, that is so hardy, that dare come to her and kiss her on the mouth: and then shall she turn again to her own kind, and be a woman again. But after that she shall not live long.

Though much of the naïve, childlike quality of this passage is due to the archaic phraseology, much also is due to the use of _and_ and _but_ instead of other conjunctions.

In certain kinds of writing it is natural enough that ideas should be strung together with _and_’s. Thus: “It rained, and hailed, and blew, and snowed, and froze, and they became weary of winter.” But suppose that they did not weary of winter. The sentence then would run, “Though it rained, and hailed, and snowed, and froze, they did not become weary of winter.” Here we have ceased the mere enumeration of things that happened, one after the other, and have stated a process of reasoning. The result is a complex sentence. The ability to construct good complex sentences means ability to do careful thinking.

In every complex sentence there is some one _proposition_ that ought to stand out, with the high light upon it. This is the thing we most wish to say; to change the comparison, it is the heart of the sentence. If the other parts can be made subordinate to it, the strongest kind of sentence unity is secured. In the sentence, “It rained; it snowed; it hailed; they did not weary of winter,” all the assertions are stated as equally important. But, clearly enough, the last one is the kernel of the sentence. Therefore the preceding clauses ought to be reduced to their proper rank by being made dependent.

=Oral Exercise.=—Examine the following compound sentences, to decide whether or not there is in each some important thought to which the others ought to have been subordinated. Then improve the unity by reducing the subordinate ideas to dependent clauses having a participle, or a relative adverb like _when_.