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>"On the beach of indecision
>lay the bleached bones of thousands
>Who with victory in sight
>Sat down to think about it"
I've been watching this thread with interest. This poem illustrates some
interesting complexities in English grammar. Many people rightly noted that
"who" is correct in this environment. However, the question about whether or
not "when" belongs in this sentence is not wholly irrelevant. The interrupting
phrase is an embedded clause, so it's condensed from a more basic form--
possibly "when they had victory in sight." Obviously such a clause would
disrupt the smooth unmetered flow, so the author chose to embed this
information in a form that would still make sense grammatically.
Strictly speaking, Bev's right about the need for commas before and after the
interrupting phrase. Conventions vary in poetry--especially when punctuation
is concerned. The current trend (at least in this very remote neck of the
woods) is to leave out punctuation and use line breaks to indicate pauses
(maintaining periods for end-stopped lines). I don't care for the convention,
but I also don't think that poetry should be constrained be the conventions of
prose.
(heck,
i sortaliketheway
e.e. cummings
messes
with
convention.)
Bill Burns * These are MY opinions,
Assm. Technical Writer/Editor * MINE I TELL YOU!
Micron Technology, Inc. *
Boise, ID * (not that they amount to much. . .)
WBURNS -at- VAX -dot- MICRON -dot- COM *
