Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/117

Rh 'In a way no other book in the world could': 'in the way (that) Sir E. Satow has done'.

A further limitation is suggested by our next example:

The Great Powers, after producing this absolutely certain result, are ending with what they ought to have begun,—coercion.—Spectator.

Here, of course, the relative cannot be omitted, since relative and antecedent are one. But that is not the principal fault, as will appear from a resolution of the antecedent-relative: 'they are ending with the very thing (that) they ought to have begun...'. We are now at liberty to omit our relative or retain it, as we please; in either case, the omission of 'with' is unbearable. The reason is that 'with' does not, like the 'in' of our former examples, introduce a purely adverbial phrase: it is an inseparable component of the compound verbs 'end-with' and 'begin-with', of which the antecedent and relative are respectively the objects. Similarly, we cannot say 'He has come to the precise conclusion (that) I thought he would come', because we should be mutilating the verb to 'come-to'; we can, however, say 'to the conclusion (that) I thought he would', 'come-to' being then represented by 'would'.

Finally, the omission is justifiable only when antecedent and relative have the same preposition. Sentences like the next may pass in conversation, but (except with the one noun way) are intolerable in writing:

One of the greatest dangers in London is the pace that the corners in the main streets are turned.—Times.

(vi) The use of 'such...who (which)', 'such...that (defining relative)', for 'such...as' is sometimes an archaism, sometimes a vulgarism.