Multiple Sentence Defined

We often meet with a sentence which is neither entirely Multiple nor entirely Complex, but a mixture of both. The following is an example:

“What is obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always present to those who need it”.

The sentence as a whole is Double, the two main parts being combined co-ordinately by “and”. But each part taken separately is a complex sentence, the first having one subordinate clause, and the second two.

A Multiple sentence, then, is one that is made up of two or more Co-ordinate sentences, any of which taken by itself may be either Simple or Complex.

Ex.6. Miscellaneous sentences to be analysed.

1. Blessed is the man that walked not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful.

2. Nothing can describe the confusion of thought which I felt when I sank into the water.

3. At four o’clock p.m. we reached York, which is a fine old town dating back to the time of the Romans, though they called it by a different name that I cannot now remember.

4. If you put the end of an iron rod in the fire and hold it there, you not only heat the end, but the whole of the rod up to the end that you hold in your hand.

5. The elections proved that since the spring the distrust and hatred with which this Government was regarded had made fearful progress.

6. These men, whom I have never known, have suddenly left me, merely because I asked them to work a little overtime on account of certain orders that I unexpectedly received this morning from the Admiralty.

7. Sir Isaac Newton, after deep meditation, discovered that there is force in nature called attraction, by virtue of which every particle of matter in the world draws towards itself every other particle of matter with a force that is proportionate to its mass and distance.

8. Everywhere there is a class of men who cling with fondness to whatever is ancient.

9. When she I loved was strong and gay

And like a rose in June,

I to her cottage bent my way

Beneath the evening moon. Wordsworth.

10. After his schooling was finished, his father desiring him to be a merchant like himself, gave him a ship freighted with various sorts of merchandise, so that he might go and trade about the world, and become a help to his parents who were now advanced in age.

11. I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sat reclined

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind. Wordsworth.

12. Content is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires, makes a good purchase.

13. The rocks that first meet the eye of the traveller, as he enters the Suez Canal, are a part of the breakwater that extends out into the sea for two miles on either side of the canal.

14. This poor widow had cast in more than they all; for they cast in of their abundance; but she of her want had cast in all that she had, even all her living.

15. Air, when it is heated, expands, or in other words the particles of which it is composed are driven farther and farther apart from one another; and so the air being less dense, less compact, or less solid, becomes proportionately lighter.

16. Our deeds shall travel with us from afar,

And what we have been makes us what we are. G. Eliot.

17. Foul deeds will rise,

Though all the earth overwhelm them, to men’s eyes. Shakespeare.

18. An anonymous letter signifies that the writer lacks moral courage to affix his name, and either cannot or dare not face the contents.

19. Just so we have heard a baby, mounted on the shoulders of its father, cry out, “How much taller I am than papa! ”

20. I like a rascal to be punished, when I am quite sure that his guilt has been proved before a jury who had no prejudice against him, before they began hearing his case.

21. The electricity of the air stimulates the vegetation of the trees, and scarcely a week passes before the plants are covered with the larvae of butterflies, the forest is murmuring with the hum of insects, and the air is harmonious with the voices of birds. – Tennet’s Ceylon.

22. As a goddess, she had whims and fancies of her own; and one of these was that no woman was permitted to touch the verge of her mountain or pluck the berries of a certain bush that grew upon the sides. – Volcano of the Hawaians.

23. I shun a friend who pronounces my actions to be good when they are bad; but I like a simple and sincere friend, who holds my faults as he would a looking-glass before my face, and compels me to see them.

24. He that bullies those who are not in a position to resist him may be a snob, but cannot be a gentleman.

25. When the eggs have been transformed into the state of larva or caterpillar they change their skin three times in the course of two or three weeks, each change being preceded by a period of repose and succeeded by one of activity and voracity.

26. Every one who is not blind has seen a butterfly, that light and happy insect, which flies from flower to flower in fields and gardens, adding brightness and beauty wherever it goes.