Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/278

264 In the following clear case of antithesis a colon would have been more according to modern usage than the semicolon.

As apart from our requirements Mr. Arnold-Forster's schemes have many merits; in relation to them they have very few.–Times.

It now only remains, before leaving actual stops for the dash, hyphen, quotation mark, and bracket, to comment on a few stray cases of ambiguity, false scent, and ill-judged stopping. We have not hunted up, and shall not manufacture, any of the patent absurdities that are amusing but unprofitable. The sort of ambiguity that most needs guarding against is that which allows a sleepy reader to take the words wrong when the omission or insertion of a stop would have saved him.

The chief agitators of the League, who have—not unnaturally considering the favours showered upon them in the past—a high sense of their own importance...–Times.

With no comma after unnaturally the first thought is that the agitators not unnaturally consider; second thoughts put it right; but second thoughts should never be expected from a reader.

Simultaneously extensive reclamation of land and harbour improvements are in progress at Chemulpo and Fusan.–Times.

With no comma after the first word, the sleepy reader is set wondering what simultaneously extensive means, and whether it is journalese for equally extensive.

But Anne and I did, for we had played there all our lives—at least, all the years we had spent together and the rest do not count in the story. When Anne and I came together we began to live.–.

A comma after together would save us from adding the two sets of years to each other. In the next piece, on the other hand, the uncomfortable comma after gold is apparently meant to warn us quite unnecessarily that here and there belongs to the verb.

Flecks of straw-coloured gold, here and there lay upon it, where the sunshine touched the bent of last year.–.