Random letter
Nov. 19th, 2011 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xenithThis letter amused me, because it's just one sentence.
A day or two before I'd been reading an exchange online about a point of grammar and a rarely used form of a common verb. It might have been lain. One party argued that it was the correct term and therefore should have been used. The other party argued that if a word has fallen out of use to the extent that people weren't familiar with it, was it necessarily correct. To which the rejoinder was: the rules of grammar don't change! Well...
Still, this isn't an example of a change of grammar rules but a change in how sentences were put together. It was written by the Colonial Secretary* (19 September 1937) but I'm sure even today's government bureaucrats would be doing well to match it. (Possibly it's missing a comma. It can be hard to see them sometimes.) So for your entertainment...
I am directed to inform you that the necessary Instructions have been given for authorizing to you from the date of your Landing salary and allowances according to the provision made for the Minister of St Andrew’s Church in the Estimate which passed the Council in July last, and that henceforth you will be the medium of communication between the Government, and the Presbyterian Body, an arrangement from which His Excellency anticipates the most satisfactory consequences, as regards order and uniformity of procedure upon all points in which the Acts of Government may involve, in any respect the Interests of the Church of Scotland in this Colony.
*John Montagu, who not only writes a very neat hand that's easy to read, but is quite a interesting person .
A day or two before I'd been reading an exchange online about a point of grammar and a rarely used form of a common verb. It might have been lain. One party argued that it was the correct term and therefore should have been used. The other party argued that if a word has fallen out of use to the extent that people weren't familiar with it, was it necessarily correct. To which the rejoinder was: the rules of grammar don't change! Well...
Still, this isn't an example of a change of grammar rules but a change in how sentences were put together. It was written by the Colonial Secretary* (19 September 1937) but I'm sure even today's government bureaucrats would be doing well to match it. (Possibly it's missing a comma. It can be hard to see them sometimes.) So for your entertainment...
I am directed to inform you that the necessary Instructions have been given for authorizing to you from the date of your Landing salary and allowances according to the provision made for the Minister of St Andrew’s Church in the Estimate which passed the Council in July last, and that henceforth you will be the medium of communication between the Government, and the Presbyterian Body, an arrangement from which His Excellency anticipates the most satisfactory consequences, as regards order and uniformity of procedure upon all points in which the Acts of Government may involve, in any respect the Interests of the Church of Scotland in this Colony.
*John Montagu, who not only writes a very neat hand that's easy to read, but is quite a interesting person .
