The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown (free ebook reader .txt) 📕

use of whose, except in grave poetry: saying, "This manner of personification adds an air of dignity to the higher and more solemn kind of poetry, but it is highly improper in the lower kind, or in prose."—Buchanan's English Syntax, p. 73. And, of the last two examples above quoted, he says, "It ought to be of which, in both places: i. e. The followers of which; the solution of which."—Ib., p. 73. The truth is, that no personification is here intended. Hence it may be better to avoid, if we can, this use of whose, as seeming to imply what we do not mean. But Buchanan himself (stealing the text of an older author) has furnished at least one example as objectionable as any of the foregoing: "Prepositions are naturally placed betwixt the Words whose Relation and Dependence each of them is to express."—English Syntax, p. 90; British Gram., p. 201. I dislike this construction, and yet sometimes adopt it, for want of another as good. It is too much, to say with Churchill, that "this practice is now discountenanced by all correct writers."—New Gram., p. 226. Grammarians would perhaps differ less, if they would read more. Dr. Campbell commends the use of whose for of which, as an improvement suggested by good taste, and established by abundant authority. See Philosophy of Rhetoric, p. 420. "WHOSE, the possessive or genitive case of who or which; applied to persons or things."—Webster's Octavo Dict. "Whose is well authorized by good usage, as the possessive of which."—Sanborn's Gram., p. 69. "Nor is any language complete, whose verbs have not tenses."—Harris's Hermes.

   "————'Past and future, are the wings
    On whose support, harmoniously conjoined,
    Moves the great spirit of human knowledge.'—MS."
           Wordsworth's Preface to his Poems, p. xviii.

OBS. 6.—The relative which, though formerly applied to persons and made equivalent to who, is now confined to brute animals and inanimate things. Thus, "Our Father which art in heaven," is not now reckoned good English; it should be, "Our Father who art in heaven." In this, as well as in many other things, the custom of speech has changed; so that what was once right, is now ungrammatical. The use of which for who is very common in the Bible, and in other books of the seventeenth century; but all good writers now avoid the construction. It occurs seventy-five times in the third chapter of Luke; as, "Joseph, which was the son of Heli, which was the son of Matthat," etc. etc. After a personal term taken by metonymy for a thing, which is not improper; as, "Of the particular author which he is studying."—Gallaudet. And as an interrogative or a demonstrative pronoun or adjective, the word which is still applicable to persons, as formerly; as, "Which of you all?"—"Which man of you all?"—"There arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be the greatest."—Luke, ix, 46. "Two fair twins—the puzzled Strangers, which is which, inquire."—Tickell.

OBS. 7.—If which, as a direct relative, is inapplicable to persons, who ought to be preferred to it in all personifications: as,

   "The seal is set. Now welcome thou dread power,
    Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here
    Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour."
        BYRON: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cant, iv, st. 138.

What sort of personage is here imagined and addressed, I will not pretend to say; but it should seem, that who would be more proper than which, though less agreeable in sound before the word here. In one of his notes on this word, Churchill has fallen into a strange error. He will have who to represent a horse! and that, in such a sense, as would require which and not who, even for a person. As he prints the masculine pronoun in Italics, perhaps he thought, with Murray and Webster, that which must needs be "of the neuter gender." [189] He says, "In the following passage, which seems to be used instead of who:—

    'Between two horses, which doth bear him best;
    I have, perhaps, some shallow spirit of judgment'
                   SHAKS., 1 Hen. VI."—Churchill's Gram., p. 226.

OBS. 8.—The pronoun what is usually applied to things only. It has a twofold relation, and is often used (by ellipsis of the noun) both as antecedent and as relative, in the form of a single word; being equivalent to that which, or the thing which,—those which, or the things which. In this double relation, what represents two cases at the same time: as, "He is ashamed of what he has done;" that is, "of what [thing or action] he has done;"—or, "of that [thing or action] which he has done." Here are two objectives. The two cases are sometimes alike, sometimes different; for either of them may be the nominative, and either, the objective. Examples: "The dread of censure ought not to prevail over what is proper."—Kames, El. of Crit., Vol. i, p. 252. "The public ear will not easily bear what is slovenly and incorrect."—Blair's Rhet., p. 12. "He who buys what he does not need, will often need what he cannot buy."—Student's Manual, p. 290. "What is just, is honest; and again, what is honest, is just."—Cicero. "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."—Rev., ii, 7, 11, 17, 29; iii, 6, 13, 22.

OBS. 9.—This pronoun, what, is usually of the singular number, though sometimes plural: as, "I must turn to the faults, or what appear such to me."—Byron. "All distortions and mimicries, as such, are what raise aversion instead of pleasure."—Steele. "Purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects."—Wordsworth's Pref., p. xix. "Every single impression, made even by the same object, is distinguishable from what have gone before, and from what succeed."—Kames, El. of Crit., Vol. i, p. 107. "Sensible people express no thoughts but what make some figure."—Ib., Vol. i, p. 399. The following example, which makes what both singular and plural at once, is a manifest solecism: "What has since followed are but natural consequences."—J. C. CALHOUN, Speech in U. S. Senate, March 4, 1850. Here has should be have; or else the form should be this: "What has since followed, is but a natural consequence."

OBS. 10.—The common import of this remarkable pronoun, what, is, as we see in the foregoing examples, twofold; but some instances occur, in which it does not appear to have this double construction, but to be simply declaratory; and many, in which the word is simply an adjective: as, "What a strange run of luck I have had to-day!"—Columbian Orator, p. 293. Here what is a mere adjective; and, in the following examples, a pronoun indefinite:—

"I tell thee what, corporal, I could tear her."—Shak.

    "He knows what's what, and that's as high
    As metaphysic wit can fly."—Hudibras.

OBS. 11.—What is sometimes used both as an adjective and as a relative at the same time, and is placed before the noun which it represents; being equivalent to the adjective any or all, and the simple relative who, which[190] or that: as, "What money we had, was taken away." That is, "All the money that we had, was taken away." "What man but enters, dies." That is, "Any man who enters, dies." "It was agreed that what goods were aboard his vessels, should be landed."—Mickle's India, p. 89. "What appearances of worth afterwards succeeded, were drawn from thence."—Internal Policy of Great Britain, p. 196. That is, "All the appearances of worth, which afterwards succeeded."—Priestley's Gram., p. 93. Indeed, this pronoun does not admit of being construed after a noun, as a simple relative: none but the most illiterate ever seriously use it so. What put for who or which, is therefore a ludicrous vulgarism; as, "The aspiring youth what fired the Ephesian dome."—Jester. The word used as above, however, does not always preclude the introduction of a personal pronoun before the subsequent verb; as,[191]

   "What god but enters yon forbidden field,
    Who yields assistance, or but wills to yield,
    Back to the skies with shame he shall be driven,
    Gash'd with dishonest wounds, the scorn of heaven."—Pope's Homer.

OBS. 12.—The compound whatever or whatsoever has the same peculiarities of construction as has the simpler word what: as, "Whatever word expresses an affirmation, or assertion, is a verb; or thus, Whatever word, with a noun or pronoun before or after it, makes full sense, is a verb."—Adam's Latin Gram., p. 78. That is, "Any word which expresses," &c. "We will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth."—Jeremiah, xliv, 17. That is—"any thing, or every thing, which." "Whatever sounds are difficult in pronunciation, are, in the same proportion, harsh and painful to the ear."—Blair's Rhet., p. 121; Murray's Gram., p. 325. "Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning."—Romans, xv, 4. In all these examples, the word whatever or whatsoever appears to be used both adjectively and relatively. There are instances, however, in which the relation of this term is not twofold, but simple: as, "Whatever useful or engaging endowments we possess, virtue is requisite in order to their shining with proper lustre."—English Reader, p. 23. Here whatever is simply an adjective. "The declarations contained in them [the Scriptures] rest on the authority of God himself; and there can be no appeal from them to any other authority whatsoever."—London Epistle, 1836. Here whatsoever may be parsed either as an adjective relating to authority, or as an emphatic pronoun in apposition with its noun, like himself in the preceding clause. In this general explanatory sense, whatsoever may be applied to persons as well as to things; as, "I should be sorry if it entered into the imagination of any person whatsoever, that I was preferred to all other patrons."—Duncan's Cicero, p. 11. Here the word whomsoever might have been used.

OBS. 13.—But there is an other construction to be here explained, in which whatever or whatsoever appears to be a double relative, or a term which includes both antecedent and relative; as, "Whatever purifies, fortifies also the heart."—English Reader, p. 23. That is. "All that purifies—or, Everything which purifies—fortifies also the heart." "Whatsoever he doeth, shall prosper."—Psal., i, 3. That is, "All that he doeth—or, All the things which he doeth—shall prosper." This construction, however, may be supposed elliptical. The Latin expression is, "Omnia quæcumque faciet prosperabuntur."—Vulgate. The Greek is similar: [Greek: "Kai panta hosa an poiæi kateuodothæsetai."]— Septuagint. It is doubtless by some sort of ellipsis which familiarity of use inclines us to overlook, that what, whatever, and whatsoever, which are essentially adjectives, have become susceptible of this double construction as pronouns. But it is questionable what particular ellipsis we ought here to suppose, or whether any; and certainly, we ought always to avoid the supposing of an ellipsis, if we can.[192] Now if we say the meaning is, "Whatsoever things he doeth, shall prosper;" this, though analogous to other expressions, does not simplify the construction. If we will have it to be, "Whatsoever things he doeth, they shall prosper;" the pronoun they appears to be pleonastic. So is the word it, in the text, "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it."—John, ii, 5. If we say the full phrase is, "All things whatsoever he doeth, shall prosper;" this presents, to an English ear, a still more obvious pleonasm. It may be, too, a borrowed idiom, found nowhere but in translations; as, "All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."—Matt., xxi, 22. From these views, there seems to be some objection to any and every method of parsing the above-mentioned construction as elliptical. The learner may therefore say, in such instances, that whatever or whatsoever is a double relative, including both antecedent and relative; and parse it, first as antecedent, in connexion with the latter verb, and then as relative, in connexion with the former. But let him observe that the order of the verbs may be the reverse of the foregoing; as, "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you."—John, xv, 14. That is, according to the Greek, "If ye do whatsoever I command to you;" Though it would be better English to say, "If ye do whatsoever I command you to do." In the following example, however, it seems proper to recognize an ellipsis; nay, the omissions in the construction of the last line, are as many as three or four;—

   "Expatiate with glad step, and choose at will
    Whate'er bright spoils the florid earth contains,
    Whate'er the waters, or the liquid air."—Akenside.

OBS. 14.—As the simple word who differs from which and what, in being always a declinable pronoun; so its compounds differ from theirs, in being incapable of either of the double constructions above described. Yet whoever and whoso or whosoever, as well as whichever and whichsoever, whatever and whatsoever, derive, from the affix which is added, or from the peculiarity of their syntax, an unlimited signification—or a signification which is limited only by the following verb; and, as some general term, such as any person, or all persons,