Composition and Punctuation Familiarly Explained (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: eludes all the words that you find, until you come to a period or full point. In the preceding paragraph, there are three sentences, from If down to explanation. The parts or divisions that compose them, are called Members, and where there is more than one of these, the whole is termed a compound sentence. If there be only one, it is a simple sentence, and observe that all, whether compound or simple, must begin with a capital letter. A plainer definition of a member is, every part where we find a point, but this cannot be taken in a literal sense. Thus, in the following there are six points, that is, five commas and one period, yet there are truly but five members, because although is only a transposition, and really belongs to what follows after colleagues: ? He would not accept any remuneration for his services, although, in the opinion of his colleagues, he was well entitled to five hundred, or even a thousand pounds, with the house and land also. The following will illustrate what is meant by simple sentences. Each, it will be seen, has only one member: ? None could exceed him in candour. His benevolence was equally remarkable. He had no affectation whatever. All his actions were distinguished by a noble carelessness of public opinion. This did not arise from pride. He was a rare example of masculine humility. Some writers are very fond of simple sentences, but their too constant use will, imperceptibly, conduct to a feeble style. Their occasional introduction is enlivening, and, if well arranged, they are peculiarly agreeable at the commencement of an essay. But their management requires great dexterity, and I caution you against making too free with them. They are, too frequently, only compound sentences unnaturally broken, and, even when perfectly constructe...