Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/204

190 d. Negative inversion, and false 'emphasis' inversion.

The connexion here suggested between certain forms of inversion must be taken to represent, not by any means the historical order of development, with which we are not directly concerned, but the order in which a modern writer may be supposed, more or less unconsciously, to adopt them. Starting from an isolated case of necessary inversion, we proceed to extensions of it that seem natural and are sanctioned by modern usage; and from these to other extensions, based probably on a misunderstanding, and producing in modern writers the effect of archaism.

Nor, except when used in conjunction with neither, always stands first; and if the subject appears at all, the sentence is always inverted. This requires no illustration.

On the analogy of nor, many other negative words and phrases are thrown to the beginning of the sentence, and again inversion is the result.

It is at this stage that misconception creeps in. Most of these negative phrases are in themselves emphatic; and from their being placed first (really on the analogy of nor) comes the mistaken idea that they derive emphasis from their position. This paves the way for wholesale inversion: any words, other than the subject, are placed at the beginning; and this, not always in order to emphasize the words so placed, but merely to give an impressive effect to the whole. The various steps are marked by the instances that follow. In the first two, inversion may be on the analogy of negatives, or may be designed for emphasis; in the third, emphasis is clearly the motive; and in the rest we have mere impressiveness—not to say mere mannerism.