Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

 AH>  I would accept "He didn't say who that high authority was".
 AH>  I'm not sure how to account for my own discomfort about
 AH>  leaving out the indirect object with "(to) tell" in this
 AH>  context, though, because we do it in other cases.  :-(

 ak>  I see. The indirect object is a holy cow when we use "to
 ak>  tell". ;-)


          Is it??  I don't recall any grade three rules to that effect.  :-)



 ak>  As we say in Russia -- a habit is the second nature. 


          In Canada we'd leave out "the"... but books & movies often include
stock phrases such as "dead men tell no tales" and "do you swear to tell the
whole truth, the perfect truth, and nothing but the truth?"  If they come to
mind first that may have to do with the frequency of use & with the buildup.
Under ordinary circumstances we tend to specify the indirect object....  :-)



 ak>  I know that American and British versions can be slightly
 ak>  different.

 AH>  Yes... and different editors may have different ideas,
 AH>  regardless of where they live or what audience the publisher
 AH>  hopes to attract.

 ak>  We probably can also say that the language has been changing
 ak>  towards simplification and unification.


          Uh-huh.  I reckon it's been doing that for several hundred years at
least, and I've noticed many changes within my own lifetime.



 AH>  I've now requested LAST LEAVES from the public library....

 ak>  Yes, I also could not find it on-line.


          Dallas found an "independently produced E-text" version at

               https://www.fadedpage.com/books/20140455/html...

which seems virtually identical to the hard copy from the public library, with
one exception... it doesn't say it was printed in Vancouver, B.C.  When I read
"A Lecture on Walking" in its entirety I noticed from the first paragraph that
it was inspired by wartime restrictions on the use of gasoline.  In those days
fewer books were printed back east & sent here, I guess, than we see now.  :-)


          In short, the results of my research thus far are as follows:

            * Three editions of Leacock's essay, including the one Alexander
              referred to here, say "of the woods and hills".
            * The 1911 ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, which Dallas found online &
              where the citation appears on page 301 of volume 23... exactly
              as Leacock specified... says "by the woods and hills".
            * Robertson Davies, who quoted from the same encyclopedia... but
              not necessarily the same edition thereof... said "by".

I'm not sure what happened there, but the preface to LAST LEAVES says that the
material originally appeared in various newspapers & magazines.  I'm wondering
whether Leacock mistyped the quotation when he saw a deadline looming.  In any
case he says "I cannot forbear to quote again from this high authority" on the
page you highlighted.  If you review what he said +/- two pages earlier you'll
understand why he didn't go into detail about the source in your excerpt.  ;-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)