Let’s analyze the four sentences that you found puzzling:
(1) “Some make much of what matters little and little of much, always weighting on the wrong scale.”You commented about the sentence above as follows:
(a) In the second half sentence, “weighting” is used instead of “weight.” If so, there is no verb there. Then this second half is incorrect in grammar, right?There’s actually a verb in that second half of the sentence, and that verb is “weighting.” This is a transitive verb that means “making heavy or heavier” or “causing to have a slant or bias.” It’s semantically different from the transitive verb “weighing” (spelled without the “t”), which means “ascertaining the heaviness of something by or as if by a balance.” In other words, “weighting” is meant to come up with a weight different from the actual weight, but “weighing” is meant to measure the weight correctly or objectively.
(b) In the first half sentence, this is the first time for me to see this “little and little of much.” Could you tell me how to use it?Take a closer look at the sentence in question here:
“Some make much of what matters little and little of much, always weighting on the wrong scale.”
It’s actually an
elliptical sentence, a sentence construction that omits one or more words that are obviously understood but that must be supplied to make a construction grammatically complete. That grammatical procedure is called
ellipsis.
The full, unellipted construction of that sentence is as follows:
“Some make much of what matters little and
they make little of
what matters much, always weighting on the wrong scale.”
Note that what were ellipted or dropped from the sentence are the words “they make” and “what matters,” which are actually repetitions of words used earlier in that clause. In the full sentence, the pronoun “they” is used instead of the indefinite pronoun “some” to avoid using this word twice.
Ellipses are resorted to by some professional writers to make sentences more concise, nonrepetitive, and punchy. Elliptical sentences are nice to have, but they are grammatically tricky. I therefore suggest that you avoid constructing them until you have become more conversant with your English.
(c) Is it necessary to use a semicolon instead of a comma?Let’s closely examine the structure of that sentence:
“Some make much of what matters little and little of much, always weighting on the wrong scale.”
No, a semicolon isn’t the proper punctuation for the sentence above. When a semicolon is used, the adverbial phrase “always weighting on the wrong scale” will become a dangling modifying phrase because it will have no subject to modify. However, a semicolon will be called for if we provide a subject—the pronoun “they” in this case—for that adverbial phrase (in which case it will have something specific to modify), as follows:
“Some make much of what matters little and little of much;
they are always weighting on the wrong scale.”
(2) “I prefer to going to lunch at 12:00p.m. than at 1:00 p.m.”You commented on the above sentence as follows:
(a) According to what I know about the usage of “prefer,” =>. But the above sentence does not satisfy “prefer sth to sth.”To begin with, that sentence is improperly worded because it uses the preposition “to” ahead of the gerund “going.” The correct construction is as follows:
“I prefer going to lunch at 12:00 p.m. than at 1:00 p.m.”
This sentence construction is, of course, an ellipted form of the following longer sentence:
“I prefer going to lunch at 12:00 p.m. than
going to lunch at 1:00 p.m.”
(3) “Time enlightens us too late of what was first only a flattering of the passions.”You commented about the sentence above as follows:
(a) This sentence is too complicated to my existing level of English. Firstly, I just understand the basic sentence “Time enlightens us too late.” I really get a headache trying to understand the other part that follows in that sentence. You’re right; that sentence uses a rather advanced level of English, one that uses poetic language and sentence inversion. The grammatical structure “of what” in such sentences introduces an object of the preposition in the form of a relative clause. It’s somewhat similar to—but not the same as—the grammatical structures as “on which,” “from which,” and “with which” that I discussed in an earlier posting in the Students’ Sounding Board section (
“The usage of the form that combines prepositions with the pronoun ‘which’”). The difference, though, is that in this particular case, the preposition “of” links the intransitive verb “enlightens” to the object of the preposition, which is the relative clause “what was first only a flattering of the passions.”
A simpler, unpoetic form of that sentence is this:
“It’s too late before we realize that what we felt the first time around was only a flattering of the passions.”
(4) “In some people judgement excels, in others valor.”You commented about the sentence above as follows:
(a) Is it necessary to use a semicolon instead of a comma in that sentence?Yes, we need a semicolon instead of a comma—and for good measure, a comma as well—to punctuate that compound sentence, as follows:
“In some people judgement excels; in others, valor.”
What’s being compared in that sentence is the noun “judgement” in the first coordinate clause and the noun “valor” in the second coordinate clause.
(b) According to my understanding, “excels” is a verb in the first half of the sentence, then the other half should also use a verb. But, why does it use noun “valor”?We actually have another elliptical sentence here, one that’s an ellipted construction of this fully stated sentence:
“In some people judgement excels; in other
people, valor
excels.”
As we can see, the ellipted sentence above dropped the repeated noun “people” and the repeated verb “excels” for brevity and greater expressiveness. Actually, therefore, both clauses use the verb “excels” but the second clause dropped or ellipted it.
