CHAPTER XI DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH-THE To minds of a certain order—often of a very learned order the English language bristles with difficulties. It is sown thick with perplexities. The fact that English-speaking people are quite generally unaware of these affords the censors no relief. In their view, this simply shows the dense stupidity of the uninstructed "masses," and the careless superficiality of multitudes who mistakenly suppose themselves to be educated. It is related that a Western cowboy, on a visit to town, applied to a dentist to fill two teeth for him, but the dentist refused, assuring him that the teeth were perfectly sound. Next day the cowboy returned, exclaiming triumphantly, "I went to that dentist over the way, and he filled those two teeth for me." "That is strange," said the first practitioner, "for I could not find any cavities." "Oh, well," was the cheerful reply, "he couldn't till he'd drilled a spell." There are linguistic operators who have drilled the English language so thoroughly that they have published thick books, showing the cavities they would fill with the pure gold of scholarship, manifestly superior to the mere natural growth. Such books have upon the average student much the effect that the reading of patent-medicine advertisements has upon a healthy man. He is quite sure he has some of the symptoms, and all these diseases may be lying in wait for him. So the numberless "errors" in English may have left their trail over all he has ever spoken or written-who shall say where?—and may blemish all he shall ever yet speak or write. Under such treatment the speaking or writing of English becomes a fearsome thing. As in the ancient prophetic vision, "He that fleeth from the fear shall fall into the pit, and he that cometh up out of the pit shall be taken in the snare." The researches of these experts of inaccuracy remind one of the fox-hunting of Sir Roger de Coverley, when he killed more foxes than were ever before known to be in the country, and confided to the "Spectator" that he used to pay collectors to introduce and liberate the animals surreptitiously, in order that they might be hunted down. The pleasure, be it understood, is not in the elimination of the foxes or the difficulties, but in the hunting of them. Let us note a few of the difficulties and, first, "THE NON-TRANSFERABLE GENDER:" "If any lady or gentleman has lost her or his purse, and if she or he will call at the office, and identify the same as her or his property, it will be returned to her or him." But did any one, in actual fact, ever get entangled in a sentence like this? No man ever found such a cavity in English without drilling for it. This is not a morass into which the unwary traveler may fall, but a ditch deliberately dug for a critic to wade in. There is less gender in English than in any other of the great, leading languages. But there still appears to be too much. Among the hundreds of thousands of English words, there is just one set of forms-those of the pronoun of the third person singular, that must be masculine, feminine, or neuter. On that unfortunate pronoun the censors sweep down with the unerring cer tainty of vultures from a clear sky on the only bit of carrion in the landscape. They find an amount of perplexity in inverse ratio to the original equipment. In their distress of mind, they have even labored to invent a genderless pronoun, "THON," to be used as a lifepreserver in such emergencies. But it has been found impossible to inflate the contrivance sufficiently to keep it afloat and it is now shelved among the curiosities of the dictionary. But why meet the difficulty at all? Here is a steersman on the open sea, who says, "There's an iceberg dead ahead. What shall I do when I come to it?" The answer is, "Don't come to it. Steer around it." The English language is not a canal, but an ocean. There is always sea-room. Steer around the difficulty. It may require a little foresight. "The prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself; the simple pass on, and are punished." The military device of a flank movement is as valuable in language as in war. Try it on the sentence above given. We refuse to step into the trap. It is easier to keep out than to get out. We say, "Any lady or gentleman who has lost a purse may obtain it at the office by proving property." Could anything be simpler? What has become of the difficulty? Or, we may start with the purse, and say, "A purse has been found, which the owner may obtain at the office by proving property." Still other forms of expression will avoid the difficulty equally well. In fact, the ways around are so many as to make it surprising that any one ever fell in,-but especially that any one was ever entrapped twice. Nevertheless, it is asked, what shall we do for the "plain people," who stumble into sentences, where they are driven to use "they" or "their" as singular pro nouns, to fill out the construction? as, "If any one tries that, they will fail," etc. Dear friend, omit the "if," and say, "Any one who tries that will fail." Is the difficulty very serious now? English has an ample supply of sentence-forms, so that we need not continue to wrestle with the one that first occurred to the mind. A sentence is but an envelope for a thought; if the envelope first chosen does not fit, try another. The difficulty will usually vanish with the transition. That is one prime secret of good writing or speaking, and,— like most great discoveries, one of the simplest applications of common sense. Suppose, however, that you, at some time, thoughtlessly run into the double-gender sentence too far to get back, what then? Then hew your way out with a vigorous he, his, him. The masculine has stood as the representative gender for a "time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," and that immemorial prescription still holds good, even in this period of militant feminism. Trust it, with the consent of the ages behind you, and every sensible English-speaking person will understand you, and, even in spite of himself, approve. Occasionally, indeed, we encounter a difficulty so real that it may beset even the unlearned: Which is right? Here our trouble is not with gender but with case, yet for a precisely similar reason. We have so little declension in English that we do not know what to do with it when we find it. There is just one of the relative or interrogative pronouns that has a semblance of declension, and we are at our wits' end how to handle it. We are appalled at a word that riots in the luxury of a nominative, possessive, and objective case, who, whose, whom. Well, if you will observe actual usage, you will find that almost all the real perplexity occurs when who or whom is followed, as in the examples just given, by a parenthetical expression, as "I believe," "I am told," or the like. Very well. Omit, for the moment, the parenthetical expression, since a parenthesis does not affect the construction of the rest of the sentence. Then the form,-either who or whom, which is right without that parenthetical expression, is right with it. Thus: "I met two men who were policemen. They were seeking a man whom they found." The explanation, when given, seems too simple to be needed, for which reason it is rarely given in critical works,-perhaps on the principle that the eternal pursuit of syntax is more desirable than its attainment. It must be admitted that a somewhat advanced knowledge of English grammar is required for the correct use of who or whom in certain special constructions, so that inexperienced persons had best treat this pronoun like a firearm, and let it alone if they are not sure at which end it will go off. The relative may be omitted altogether:-"They were seeking a man, and I am told they afterward found him." Even the wayfaring man need not err in that construction. Or, we may keep any parenthetical phrase from intruding between the relative and its verb, in which case all trouble disappears:-"I met two men who were, I believe, policemen. They were seeking a man whom they after |