Page:The Elements of Style (Strunk).djvu/53

 III. Explain and correct the errors in punctuation:

4. This course is intended for Freshmen, who in the opinion of the Department are not qualified for military drill.

5. A restaurant, not a cafeteria where good meals are served at popular prices.—Advt.

6. The poets of The Nation, for all their intensity of patriotic feeling, followed the English rather than the Celtic tradition, their work has a political rather than a literary value and bears little upon the development of modem Irish verse.

7. We were in one of the strangest places imaginable. A long and narrow passage overhung on either side by a stupendous barrier of black and threatening rocks.

8. Only a few years ago after a snow storm in the passes not far north of Jerusalem no less than twenty-six Russian pilgrims perished amidst the snow. One cannot help thinking largely because they made little attempt to save themselves.

IV. Point out and correct the faults in the following sentences:

9. During childhood his mother had died.

10. Any language study is good mind training while acquiring vocabulary.

11. My farm consisted of about twenty acres of excellent land, having given a hundred pounds for my predecessor's lease.

12. Prepared to encounter a woman of disordered mind, the appearance presented by Mrs. Taylor at his entrance greatly astonished him.

13. Pale and swooning, with two broken legs, they carried him into the house.

14. Count Cassini, the Russian plenipotentiary, had several long and intimate conversations during the tedious weeks of the conference with his British colleague, Sir Arthur Nicholson.

15. But though they had been victorious in the land engagements, they were so little decisive as to lead to no important results.

16. Knowing nothing of the rules of the college or of its customs, it was with the greatest difficulty that the Dean could make me comprehend wherein my wrong-doing lay.

17. Fire, therefore, was the first object of my search. Happily, some embers were found upon the hearth, together with potato-stalks and dry chips. Of these, with much difficulty, I kindled a fire, by which some warmth was imparted to our shivering limbs.