Over at
Language Log, they've taken to calling the restrictive
that rule "
Fowler's Rule". And from what
I recall,
Merriam Webster's Usage also attributes this to Fowler (1926).
I was trolling Google books for
more on coordinating conjunctions, when I came across
Alexander Bain's
An English Grammar (published in 1863 by Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, one of the various incarnations of
Longman). A section in the introduction caught my attention (click for larger images):
![](//1.bp.blogspot.com/_4IeyWToBJS4/RhESirmrcgI/AAAAAAAAAAc/Sr_0iEXcX1Q/s400/bain1a.bmp)
![](//1.bp.blogspot.com/_4IeyWToBJS4/RhESormrchI/AAAAAAAAAAk/FIE5QBRUAPM/s400/bain2a.bmp)
This is followed up on p. 23 with the following:
![](//4.bp.blogspot.com/_4IeyWToBJS4/Rg8Bt7mrceI/AAAAAAAAAAM/bT5-FemoIeg/s400/bain1.bmp)
![](//3.bp.blogspot.com/_4IeyWToBJS4/Rg8B6rmrcfI/AAAAAAAAAAU/bYJDWSRlocU/s400/bain2.bmp)
Interestingly, in the examples that Bain supplies to show how
which can be ambiguous, he seems to completely overlook the comma, which--at least from this twenty-first-century viewpoint--removes any trace of doubt at all.
So, even if Fowler popularised the rule, Bain claims it as a novelty over 60 years earlier.
No comments:
Post a Comment