The Grammar of English Grammars - Goold Brown (spiritual books to read TXT) 📗

means, "a journey of three days;" and, whether the construction be right or wrong, the article a cannot be said to relate to the plural noun. Possibly such a phrase as, "the three years' war," might mean, "the war of three years;" so that the article must relate to the latter noun. But in general it is the latter noun that is rendered definite by the possessive relation: thus the phrase, "man's works" is equivalent to "the works of man," not to "works of the man;" so, "the man's works," is equivalent, not to "the works of man," but to "the works of the man."

[336] Horne Tooke says, "The use of A after the word MANY is a corruption for of; and has no connection whatever with the article A, i. e. one."—Diversions of Purley, Vol. ii, p. 324. With this conjecture of the learned etymologist, I do not concur: it is hardly worth while to state here, what may he urged pro and con.

[337] "Nothing can be more certain than that [in Greek syntax] all words used for the purpose of definition, either stand between the article and the noun, or have their own article prefixed. Yet it may sometimes happen that an apposition [with an article] is parenthetically inserted instead of being affixed."—J. W. DONALDSON: Journal of Philology, No. 2, p. 223.

[338] Churchill rashly condemns this construction, and still more rashly proposes to make the noun singular without repeating the article. See his New Gram., p. 311. But he sometimes happily forgets his own doctrine; as, "In fact, the second and fourth lines here stamp the character of the measure."—Ib., p. 391. O. B. Peirce says, "'Joram's second and third daughters,' must mean, if it means any thing, his second daughters and third daughters; and, 'the first and second verses.' if it means any thing, must represent the first verses and the second verses."— Peirce's English Gram., p. 263. According to my notion, this interpretation is as false and hypercritical, as is the rule by which the author professes to show what is right. He might have been better employed in explaining some of his own phraseology, such as, "the indefinite-past and present of the declarative mode."—Ib., p. 100. The critic who writes such stuff as this, may well be a misinterpreter of good common English. It is plain, that the two examples which he thus distorts, are neither obscure nor inelegant. But, in an alternative of single things, the article must be repeated, and a plural noun is improper; as, "But they do not receive the Nicene or the Athanasian creeds."—Adam's Religious World, Vol. ii, p. 105. Say, "creed." So in an enumeration; as, "There are three participles: the present, the perfect, and the compound perfect participles"—Ingersoll's Gram., p. 42. Expunge this last word, "participles." Sometimes a sentence is wrong, not as being in itself a solecism, but as being unadapted to the author's thought. Example: "Other tendencies will be noticed in the Etymological and Syntactical part."—Fowler's E. Gram., N. Y., 1850, p. 75. This implies, what appears not to be true, that the author meant to treat Etymology and Syntax together in a single part of his work. Had he put an s to the noun "part," he might have been understood in either of two other ways, but not in this. To make sure of his meaning, therefore, he should have said—"in the Etymological Part and the Syntactical."

[339] Oliver B. Peirce, in his new theory of grammar, not only adopts Ingersoll's error, but adds others to it. He supposes no ellipsis, and declares it grossly improper ever to insert the pronoun. According to him, the following text is wrong: "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord."—Heb., xii, 5. See Peirce's Gram., p. 255. Of this gentleman's book I shall say the less, because its faults are so many and so obvious. Yet this is "The Grammar of the English Language," and claims to be the only work which is worthy to be called an English Grammar. "The first and only Grammar of the English Language!"—Ib., p. 10. In punctuation, it is a very chaos, as one might guess from the following Rule: "A word of the second person, and in the subjective case, must have a semicolon after it; as, John; hear me."—Id., p. 282. Behold his practice! "John, beware."—P. 84. "Children, study."—P. 80. "Henry; study."—P. 249. "Pupil: parse."—P. 211; and many other places. "Be thou, or do thou be writing? Be ye or you, or do ye or you be writing?"—P. 110. According to his Rule, this tense requires six semicolons; but the author points it with two commas and two notes of interrogation!

[340] In Butler's Practical Grammar, first published in 1845, this doctrine is taught as a novelty. His publishers, in their circular letter, speak of it as one of "the peculiar advantages of this grammar over preceding works," and as an important matter, "heretofore altogether omitted by grammarians!" Wells cites Butler in support of his false principle: "A verb in the infinitive is often preceded by a noun or pronoun in the objective, which has no direct dependence on any other word. Examples:—'Columbus ordered a strong fortress of wood and plaster to be erected.'—Irving. 'Its favors here should make us tremble.'— Young." See Wells's School Gram., p. 147.

[341] "Sometimes indeed the verb hath two regimens, and then the preposition is necessary to one of them; as, 'I address myself to my judges.'"—Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, p. 178. Here the verb address governs the pronoun myself, and is also the antecedent to the preposition to; and the construction would be similar, if the preposition governed the infinitive or a participle: as, "I prepared myself to swim;" or, "I prepared myself for swimming." But, in any of these cases, it is not very accurate to say, "the verb has two regimens;" for the latter term is properly the regimen of the preposition. Cardell, by robbing the prepositions, and supposing ellipses, found two regimens for every verb. W. Allen, on the contrary, (from whom Nixon gathered his doctrine above,) by giving the "accusative" to the infinitive, makes a multitude of our active-transitive verbs "neuter." See Allen's Gram., p. 166. But Nixon absurdly calls the verb "active-transitive," because it governs the infinitive; i. e. as he supposes—and, except when to is not used, erroneously supposes.

[342] A certain new theorist, who very innocently fogs himself and his credulous readers with a deal of impertinent pedantry, after denouncing my doctrine that to before the infinitive is a preposition, appeals to me thus: "Let me ask you, G. B.—is not the infinitive in Latin the same as in the English? Thus, I desire to teach Latin—Ego Cupio docere. I saw Abel come—Ego videbam Abelem venire. The same principle is recognized by the Greek grammars and those of most of the modern languages."—O. B. Peirce's Gram., p. 358. Of this gentleman I know nothing but from what appears in his book—a work of immeasurable and ill-founded vanity—a whimsical, dogmatical, blundering performance. This short sample of his Latin, (with six puerile errors in seven words,) is proof positive that he knows nothing of that language, whatever may be his attainments in Greek, or the other tongues of which he tells. To his question I answer emphatically, NO. In Latin, "One verb governs an other in the infinitive; as, Cupio discere, I desire to learn."—Adam's Gram., p. 181. This government never admits the intervention of a preposition. "I saw Abel come," has no preposition; but the Latin of it is, "Vidi Abelem venientem," and not what is given above; or, according to St. Jerome and others, who wrote, "Abel," without declension, we ought rather to say, "Vidi Abel venientem." If they are right, "Ego videbam Abelem venire," is every word of it wrong!

[343] Priestley cites these examples as authorities, not as false syntax. The errors which I thus quote at secondhand from other grammarians, and mark with double references, are in general such as the first quoters have allowed, and made themselves responsible for; but this is not the case in every instance. Such credit has sometimes, though rarely, been given, where the expression was disapproved.—G. BROWN.

[344] Lindley Murray thought it not impracticable to put two or more nouns in apposition and add the possessive sign to each; nor did he imagine there would often be any positive impropriety in so doing. His words, on this point, are these: "On the other hand, the application of the genitive sign to both or all of the nouns in apposition, would be generally harsh and displeasing, and perhaps in some cases incorrect: as, 'The Emperor's Leopold's; King George's; Charles's the Second's; The parcel was left at Smith's, the bookseller's and stationer's."—Octavo Gram., p. 177. Whether he imagined any of these to be "incorrect" or not, does not appear! Under the next rule, I shall give a short note which will show them all to be so. The author, however, after presenting these uncouth fictions, which show nothing but his own deficiency in grammar, has done the world the favour not to pronounce them very convenient phrases; for he continues the paragraph as follows: "The rules which we have endeavoured to elucidate, will prevent the inconveniences of both these modes of expression; and they appear to be simple, perspicuous, and consistent with the idiom of the language.'—Ib. This undeserved praise of his own rules, he might as well have left to some other hand. They have had the fortune, however, to please sundry critics, and to become the prey of many thieves; but are certainly very deficient in the three qualities here named; and, taken together with their illustrations, they form little else than a tissue of errors, partly his own, and partly copied from Lowth and Priestley.

Dr. Latham, too, and Prof. Child, whose erroneous teaching on this point is still more marvellous, not only inculcate the idea that possessives in form may be in apposition, but seem to suppose that two possessive endings are essential to the relation. Forgetting all such English as we have in the phrases, "John the Baptist's head,"—"For Jacob my servant's sake,"—"Julius Cæsar's Commentaries,"—they invent sham expressions, too awkward ever to have come to their knowledge from any actual use,—such as, "John's the farmer's wife,"—"Oliver's the spy's evidence,"—and then end their section with the general truth, "For words to be in apposition with each other, they must be in the same case."—Elementary Grammar, Revised Edition, p. 152. What sort of scholarship is that in which fictitious examples mislead even their inventors?

[345] In Professor Fowler's recent and copious work, "The English Language in its Elements and Forms," our present Reciprocals are called, not Pronominal Adjectives, but "Pronouns," and are spoken of, in the first instance, thus: "§248. A RECIPROCAL PRONOUN is one that implies the mutual action of different agents. EACH OTHER, and ONE ANOTHER, are our reciprocal forms, which are treated exactly as if they were compound pronouns, taking for their genitives, each other's, one another's. Each other is properly used of two, and one another of more." The definition here given takes for granted what is at least disputable, that "each other," or "one another," is not a phrase, but is merely "one pronoun." But, to none of his three important positions here taken, does the author himself at all adhere. In §451, at Note 3, he teaches thus: "'They love each other.' Here each is in the nominative case in apposition with they, and other is in the objective case. 'They helped one another.' Here one is in apposition with they, and another is in the objective case." Now, by this mode of parsing, the reciprocal terms "are treated," not as "compound pronouns," but as phrases consisting of distinct or separable words: and, as being separate or separable words, whether they be Adjectives or Pronouns, they conform not to his definition above. Out of the sundry instances in which, according to his own showing, he has misapplied one or the other of these phrases, I cite the following: (1.) "The two ideas of Science and Art differ from one another as the understanding differs from the will."—Fowler's Gram., 1850, §180. Say,—"from each other;" or,—"one from the other." (2.) "THOU, THY, THEE, are etymologically related to each other."—Ib., §216. Say,—"to one an other;" because there are "more" than "two." (3.) "Till within some centuries, the Germans, like the French and the English, addressed each other in familiar conversation by the Second Person Singular."—Ib., §221. Say,—"addressed one an other." (4.) "Two sentences are, on the other hand, connected in the way of co-ordination [,] when they are not thus dependent one upon _an_other."—Ib., §332. Say,—"upon each other;" or,—"one upon the other;" because there are but two. (5.) "These two rivers are at a great distance from one _an_other."—Ib., §617. Say,—"from each other;" or,—"one from the other." (6.) "The trees [in the Forest of Bombast] are close, spreading, and twined into each other."—Ib., §617. Say,—"into