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Fri 9 Aug, 2013 12:21 am
Was that how Courtenay regarded her? Was that to be her function and place in life, a painted background, a decorative setting to other people’s triumphs and tragedies? Somehow to-night she had the feeling that a general might have who brought imposing forces into the field and could do nothing with them. She possessed youth and good looks, considerable wealth, and had just made what would be thought by most people a very satisfactory marriage.
It seems to me that the bold part isn't grammatically correct. If it is correct, what does it mean? Thanks
I'm not entirely sure if it is correct or not, but I can help with what it means.
The sentence is talking about a hypothetical military general on a battlefield. If such a general had a potent force at his command, but was unable to effectively use that force due to circumstances beyond his control, he would feel helpless and frustrated.
The woman described in the paragraph possesses a number of potent social assets, but she is unable to use them effectively, so she feels similarly helpless and frustrated.
@lizfeehily,
lizfeehily wrote:
Somehow to-night she had the feeling that a general might have who brought imposing forces into the field and could do nothing with them.
It seems to me that the bold part isn't grammatically correct. If it is correct, what does it mean? Thanks
Delete the "who." Then it will make sense.
Somehow to-night she had the feeling that a general might have brought imposing forces into the field and could do nothing with them.
@Roberta,
Roberta wrote:Delete the "who." Then it will make sense.
That changes the meaning of the sentence though.
The original has her sharing a feeling of helpless frustration felt by a hypothetical general.
Deleting the "who" has her thinking that there might be an actual helpless general somewhere.
Thanks. That makes perfect sense.
@lizfeehily,
The grammar seems okay Liz but in the US at least we write "tonight"
@Roberta,
Somehow to-night she had the feeling that a general might have who brought imposing forces into the field and could do nothing with them.
Quote:Delete the "who." Then it will make sense.
Somehow to-night she had the feeling that a general might have brought imposing forces into the field and could do nothing with them.
Can't delete the 'who', Roberta. Let's move the relative clause closer to its antecedent, 'general'.
Somehow to-night she had the feeling that a general who brought imposing forces into the field and could do nothing with them might have.
Now let's delete 'who'.
Somehow to-night she had the feeling that a general brought imposing forces into the field and could do nothing with them might have.
Highly questionable if not ungrammatical.
@JTT,
Tonight has no hyphen in it.
@Roberta,
Roberta wrote:Delete the "who." Then it will make sense.
It makes perfect sense with the 'who', and means something different without it.
@McTag,
McTag wrote:Tonight has no hyphen in it.
It used to, and so did "to-day" and "to-morrow", in 1912, when Saki wrote "The Unbearable Bassington".
@McTag,
Okay, so you were wrong again. No biggee, McTag. We're used to it.
@JTT,
Yes. And let's go back to spelling musick and magick the good old-fashioned way.
Messieurs! To-morrow we attack the Bas-tille. May our ef-forts be crowned with suc-cess!
@lizfeehily,
Quote:Somehow to-night she had the feeling that a general might have who brought imposing forces into the field and could do nothing with them.
Close to being reasonable. Better would be:
Somehow to-night, she had the feeling that a general might have had, having brought imposing forces into the field and being unable to do anything with them.
@gungasnake,
gungasnake wrote:
Close to being reasonable. Better would be:
Why is everybody here intent on obligingly changing Saki's perfectly good, perfectly understandable (to a native reader) prose, and in so doing altering the meaning, just because a non-native learner can't understand it?
This needs saying clearly: there is nothing "wrong" with the original text. It does not need altering. IT IS FINE.
@Roberta,
Roberta wrote:
Delete the "who." Then it will make sense.
It made sense already. It doesn't "make sense" to the OP because her level of reading ability and experience does not match the material, which is rather more formal and elegant than much modern prose.
@contrex,
I had to read it several times, I must confess. I get it now.
"A feeling a general might have..." is the key bit. To have a feeling. Maybe that will help the doubters.
@McTag,
Quote:Yes. And let's go back to spelling musick and magick the good old-fashioned way.
Nobody has suggested, is suggesting that nonsense except you. You were wrong. Why can't you just accept that and move on?
@McTag,
McTag wrote:Messieurs! To-morrow we attack the Bas-tille. May our ef-forts be crowned with suc-cess!
Now this is missing the point altogether. In the last 100 years there has been a steady decline in the use of a hyphen to denote the join in compound words such as machine-gun, jack-boot, door-knob, bolt-hole, etc. To-day, to-night and to-morrow have a compound origin also. When you wrote Bas-tille, ef-forts and suc-cess you were just being silly.
@JTT,
Don't be so ******* stupid. In fact I don't believe you are that stupid, so you are being disingenuous in your usual spiteful way.
@contrex,
Quote: you were just being silly.
Of course I was. And "tonight" is not hyphenated in this year of Our Lord 2103.
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