Language: allusions, tone groups and transitive verbs

The Greek creatures in the essay, such as the Centaur, the Sphinx and the Gorgon, have Indian parallels, such as Narasimha (half man, half lion) and Garuda.

English rhythm uses word stress and sentence stress. Speech is broken into tone groups, each said in one breath, often of about five words.

Tone groups match both our breathing and our thinking: a polite refusal, for example, may come in three short breaths: a no, a reason, a goodbye.

Verbs followed by a noun-phrase object are transitive, and usually have a passive: 'They expected a sudden change of rules' becomes 'A sudden change of rules was expected'. ('Have' usually does not.)

Some verbs take a that-clause: ask, believe, know, realise, promise: 'I ask only that they be self-consistent'.