able implies four, three of them preferable in different degrees to the fourth. A not uncommon vulgarism.
45. Double Emphasis
Attempts at packing double emphasis into a single sentence are apt to result in real weakening.
No government ever plunged more rapidly into a deeper quagmire.–Outlook. (From the writer's evident wish to state the matter strongly, we infer that several Governments have plunged more rapidly into as deep quagmires, and as rapidly into deeper ones)
Mr. Justice Neville...will now have the very rare experience of joining on the Bench a colleague whom he defeated on the polls just fourteen years ago.–Westminster Gazette. (The experience, with exact time-interval, is probably unique, like any individual thumb-print; that does not make the coincidence more remarkable; and it is the coincidence that we are to admire)
Nothing has brought out more strongly than motor-driving the over-bearing, selfish nature of too many motor-drivers and their utter want of consideration for their fellow men.–Lord Wemyss. (The attempt to kill drivers and driving with one stone leaves both very slightly wounded. For what should show up the drivers more than the driving? and whom should the driving show up more than the drivers?)
The commonest form of this is due to conscientious but mistaken zeal for correctness, which prefers, for instance, without oppressing or without plundering to without oppressing or plundering. The first form excludes only one of the offences, and is therefore, though probably meant to be twice as emphatic, actually much weaker than the second, which excludes both. With and instead of or, it is another matter.
Actual experience has shown that a gun constructed on the wire system can still be utilized effectively without the destruction of the weapon or without dangerous effects, even with its inner tube split.–Times.
The Union must be maintained without pandering to such prejudices on the one hand, or without giving way on the other to the...schemes of the Nationalists.–Spectator.
He inhibited him, on pain of excommunication, from seeking a divorce in his own English Courts, or from contracting a new marriage.–J. R. Green (Half excused by the negative sense of inhibit)
