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Dates Without Prepositions
Dates Without Prepositions (or: The Punctuation of Henry Adams)
1 November 2003
Henry Adams' histories of the Jefferson and Madison administrations contain many, many sentences like the following:
"In July he (James Monroe) crossed the Channel to London and Aug. 17, 1803, was duly presented to George III. as the successor of Rufus King.." (p. 496 of the Library of America Jefferson )
Dates are pitchforked into the narrative as a sort of parenthesis, with no proposition at all, but usually with a comma or two.
Two questions:
(1) Does any other author make a habit of this?
(2) Considering how peculiar the usage is, how does Adams get away with it? Why does it seem only slightly odd and not flagrantly wrong?
1 November 2003
Henry Adams' histories of the Jefferson and Madison administrations contain many, many sentences like the following:
"In July he (James Monroe) crossed the Channel to London and Aug. 17, 1803, was duly presented to George III. as the successor of Rufus King.." (p. 496 of the Library of America Jefferson )
Dates are pitchforked into the narrative as a sort of parenthesis, with no proposition at all, but usually with a comma or two.
Two questions:
(1) Does any other author make a habit of this?
(2) Considering how peculiar the usage is, how does Adams get away with it? Why does it seem only slightly odd and not flagrantly wrong?
Top answer
[nq:1]Dates Without Prepositions (or: The Punctuation of Henry Adams) 1 November 2003 Henry Adams' histories of the Jefferson and Madison ... , The president returned to the White House Tuesday. We had a thread about this phenomenon a while ago.
- [nq:1]Dates Without Prepositions (or: The Punctuation of Henry Adams) 1 November 2003 Henry Adams' histories of the Jefferson and Madison ...
- , The president returned to the White House Tuesday.
- We had a thread about this phenomenon a while ago.
- [/nq] The historian Will Durant surrounds his dates with parenthesis: Cicero returned in triumph to Italy (57).
- This is not nearly as offensive as the inline style.
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1 Answers
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[nq:1]Dates Without Prepositions (or: The Punctuation of Henry Adams) 1 November 2003 Henry Adams' histories of the Jefferson and Madison ... into the narrative as a sort of parenthesis, with no proposition at all, but usually with a comma or two.[/nq]
Some American jouralists use days of the week in the same way, e.g., The president returned to the White House Tuesday. We had a thread about t
Some American jouralists use days of the week in the same way, e.g., The president returned to the White House Tuesday. We had a thread about t
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