Paul,  

I think it is important, as you have done, to interpret the relationships between the clauses that the author puts together in the same sentence.  The use of 'and' to join clauses on the same level is very weak, yet some languages almost require it (cf. e. g., Greek and particularly Hebrew).  We have in English a much used device called asyndeton.  This is the joining of elements without an overt conjunction.  Dickens has left out the adversative 'but' between contrasting clauses, and the conjunctive 'and' between the pairs of clauses.  He leaves it for the reader to supply these in thought if not in words.  You are right to think that this device has gone out of style, but it is nevertheless a very powerful one.  Often other meanings are implicit in a simple conjoining relationship.  Which is better?

Ring out the old, ring in the new,  
Ring out the false, ring in the true.   --Tennyson. 

One may ring out the old, and thereby ring in the new.  By this means one may ring out the false and thereby ring in the true . 

I think Tennyson knew what he was doing.  Though he is not trying to be more colloquial in expressing himself, the colloquial style requires the listener to apply himself to understand the speaker's statements more fully.  Not spelling out every relationship lets the reader participate in the writing.  

>>> [log in to unmask] 06/29/01 03:58PM >>>
Here's a poser for all:

The recent discussion regarding comma splices reminds me of an interesting
literary reference. In Dickens's _A Tale of Two Cities_, the opening
paragraph is punctuated as a single sentence with each item in the list of
antitheses separated by a comma. I wonder how all we would explain this to
the students who would raise (and, in my experience, HAVE raised) the
comment that it's a "run-on sentence." Would you say that all these items
are elements in a list? Wouldn't you want to separate each antithesis group
with end punctuation: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness." and so forth?

How would you explain the dash (is it an em-dash?) that separates the list
from the main sentence? What would each of you identify as the main subject
and predicate (I would probably say, "The core sentence of the whole
paragraph is 'authorities insisted', which is also one of the main thematic
elements of the story."). How, finally, would you deal with the inevitable
complaint that the paragraph is not a paragraph, but rather a sentence?

And then ... which one of us would be so rash as to correct Dickens?

Here's a good example, I think, of an opportunity to teach grammar and
literature together.

Paul E. Doniger

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