m into the cooler." (Battery Dan Finn.)

_Q._ I am told that it is wrong to place a preposition at the end of a
sentence. Why can't I say, "Mr. Roosevelt is a man whom I should enjoy
talking _with_"? _A._ Your example is unfortunate. You should say, "Mr.
Roosevelt is a man whom I should enjoy talking _after_."

_Q._ Is it wrong to split infinitives? Is a phrase like "to seriously
complain" really objectionable? _A._ We hasten to most emphatically say
"Yes!"

_Q._ Is there a rigid rule with regard to the use of the preterite
tense? When do you say "hung" and when do you say "hanged"? _A._ Two
examples from a universally recognised authority will illustrate the
flexibility of our language in the general use of tenses: (1) "'I know a
gen'l'man, sir,' said Mr. Weller, 'as did that, and _begun_ at two
yards; but he never tried it on ag'in; for he _blowed_ the bird right
clean away at the first fire, and nobody ever _seed_ a feather on him
arterwards.'" (2) "So I take the privilidge of the day, Mary, my
dear--as the gen'lem'n in difficulties did, ven he valked out of a
Sunday--to tell you that the first and only time I _see_ you your
likeness was _took_ on my hart in much quicker time and brighter colours
than ever a likeness was took by the profeel macheens (wich p'r'aps you
may have _heerd_ on Mary my dear) altho it does finish a portrait and
put the frame and glass on complete with a hook at the end to hang it up
by and all in two minutes and a quarter." (Charles Dickens.)

_Q._ What is "elegance" in style? I know it does not mean long words and
many of them; but just what does it mean? _A._ Elegance is
appropriateness. Long and circumlocutory terms are just as elegant in
the mouth of a fashionable preacher as shorter and uglier words in the
mouth of some one else. Hamlet's "Angels and ministers of grace defend
us!" and Chuck Connors's "Wouldn't it bend your Merry Widow?" are
equally elegant.

_Q._ What is force in style? _A._ We may illustrate with a quotation
from Hall Caine's unannounced book: "He drew her to him and kissed her
as men and women have kissed through the aeons, since the first star
hymned to the first moonrise." Now, as a matter of fact, kissing is only
about two thousand years old, and is still unknown to the Chinese, the
native Africans, the Hindus, the Australians, the Indians of South
America, the Polynesians, and the Eskimos; but the sentence is
nevertheless a very forcible one.

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