Under these circumstances, it would be interesting to ascertain the exact position of landlords whose tenants decline to pay rent, and whose only asset (!) from their property is the income tax now claimed.–Times.
What is meant is the ugly stop in the middle of a sentence, unbracketed and undefended by quotation marks, of which examples follow. To novelists, as in the first example, it may be necessary for the purpose of avoiding the nuisance of perpetual quotation marks. But elsewhere it should be got rid of by use of the indirect question or otherwise. Excessive indulgence in direct questions or exclamations where there is no need for them whatever is one of the sensational tendencies of modern newspapers.
Why be scheming? Victor asked.–Meredith.
What will Japan do? is thought the most pressing question of all.–Times. (What Japan will do is thought, &c.)
What next? is the next question which the American Press discusses. Times. ('What next?' is, &c. Or, What will come next is, &c.)
Amusing efforts are shown below at escaping the ugliness of the internal question mark. Observe that the third quotation has a worse blunder, since we have here two independent sentences.
Can it be that the Government will still persist in continuing the now hopeless struggle is the question on every lip?–Times.
Men are disenchanted. They have got what they wanted in the days of their youth, yet what of it, they ask?–Morley.
Yet we remember seeing l'Abbé Constantin some sixteen years ago or more at the Royalty, with that fine old actor Lafontaine in the principal part, and seeing it with lively interest. Was it distinctly 'dates', for nothing wears so badly as the namby-pamby?–Times.
13. The unaccountable comma.
We shall now conclude these grammatical sections with a single example of those commas about which it is only possible to say that they are repugnant to grammar. It is as difficult to decide what principle they offend against as what impulse can possibly have dictated them. They are commonest in
