30. (b.) Words between which there is naturally a rhetorical or grammatical pause should not be joined. To connect words whose sense relation is not close gives a combination which is not suggestive. Two words may so constantly recur together that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they would be easily and properly joined; yet in some rare instances those words, though one immediately succeeds the other, may be so separated in sense relation as to require a separation of their written signs. Thus it is not is a very common and, in general, an unobjectionable phrase; yet the sentence I said that it is, not that it was, would be very perplexing to the reader if not were joined to it is, immediately preceding. So the phrase in this is ordinarily unimpeachable; yet in the sentence, the vessel came in this morning, the words in this could not properly be written as a phrase.

*Fred Irland.

31. (c.) The words of a phrase should join each other easily and fluently; otherwise no time is saved by joining. "Awkward joinings, however closely the words may be related, are to be avoided." If the phrase is one in which the hand must pause as it passes from word to word, it is better to lift the pen, because such phrases waste time, instead of saving it. There are many cases in which the tyro loses time by joining, or undertaking to join, words which might much better be written separately. Defining generally the characteristics of a bad junction, it may be said that either it is non-facile (on account of clumsily-joined outlines, forced hooks, etc.,) or, while manually easy of execution, it leads to ambiguity or difficulty in reading.

32. From the fact that some of the letters of the alphabet do not so easily and gracefully connect as others, bad or indifferent junctions in the writing of single words are sometimes unavoidable; but such junctions are generally avoidable when they occur between two words in the midst of a phrase.