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

with thousands that used the second person singular in conversation, but never with any one that employed, on ordinary occasions, all the regular endings of the solemn style. The simplification of the second person singular, which, to a greater or less extent, is everywhere adopted by the Friends, and which is here defined and explained, removes from each verb eighteen of these peculiar terminations; and, (if the number of English verbs be, as stated by several grammarians, 8000,) disburdens their familiar dialect of 144,000 of these awkward and useless appendages.[248] This simplification is supported by usage as extensive as the familiar use of the pronoun thou; and is also in accordance with the canons of criticism: "The first canon on this subject is, All words and phrases which are remarkably harsh and unharmonious, and not absolutely necessary, should be rejected." See Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, B. ii, Ch. ii, Sec. 2, Canon Sixth, p. 181. See also, in the same work, (B. hi, Ch. iv, Sec. 2d,) an express defence of "those elisions whereby the sound is improved;" especially of the suppression of the "feeble vowel in the last syllable of the preterits of our regular verbs;" and of "such abbreviations" as "the eagerness of conveying one's sentiments, the rapidity and ease of utterance, necessarily produce, in the dialect of conversation."—Pages 426 and 427. Lord Kames says, "That the English tongue, originally harsh, is at present much softened by dropping many redundant consonants, is undoubtedly true; that it is not capable of being further mellowed without suffering in its force and energy, will scarce be thought by any one who possesses an ear."—Elements of Criticism, Vol. ii, p. 12.

OBS. 26.—The following examples are from a letter of an African Prince, translated by Dr. Desaguillier of Cambridge, England, in 1743, and published in a London newspaper: "I lie there too upon the bed thou presented me;"—"After thou left me, in thy swimming house;"—"Those good things thou presented me;"—"When thou spake to the Great Spirit and his Son." If it is desirable that our language should retain this power of a simple literal version of what in others may be familiarly expressed by the second person singular, it is clear that our grammarians must not continue to dogmatize according to the letter of some authors hitherto popular. But not every popular grammar condemns such phraseology as the foregoing. "I improved, Thou improvedst, &c. This termination of the second person preterit, on account of its harshness, is seldom used, and especially in the irregular verbs."—Harrison's Gram., p. 26. "The termination est, annexed to the preter tenses of verbs, is, at best, a very harsh one, when it is contracted, according to our general custom of throwing out the e; as learnedst, for learnedest; and especially, if it be again contracted into one syllable, as it is commonly pronounced, and made learndst. * * * I believe a writer or speaker would have recourse to any periphrasis rather than say keptest, or keptst. * * * Indeed this harsh termination est is generally quite dropped in common conversation, and sometimes by the poets, in writing."—Priestley's Gram., p. 115. The fact is, it never was added with much uniformity. Examples: "But like the hell hounde thou waxed fall furious, expressing thy malice when thou to honour stied."—FABIAN'S CHRONICLE, V. ii, p. 522: in Tooke's Divers., T. ii, p. 232.

   "Thou from the arctic regions came. Perhaps
    Thou noticed on thy way a little orb,
    Attended by one moon—her lamp by night."
        —Pollok, B. ii, l. 5.

    "'So I believ'd.'—No, Abel! to thy grief,
    So thou relinquish'd all that was belief."
        —Crabbe, Borough, p. 279.

OBS. 27.—L. Murray, and his numerous copyists, Ingersoll, Greenleaf, Kirkham, Fisk, Flint, Comly, Alger, and the rest; though they insist on it, that the st of the second person can never be dispensed with, except in the imperative mood and some parts of the subjunctive; are not altogether insensible of that monstrous harshness which their doctrine imposes upon the language. Some of them tell us to avoid this by preferring the auxiliaries dost and didst: as dost burst, for burstest; didst check, for checkedst. This recommendation proceeds on the supposition that dost and didst are smoother syllables than est and edst; which is not true: didst learn is harsher than either learnedst or learntest; and all three of them are intolerable in common discourse. Nor is the "energy, or positiveness," which grammarians ascribe to these auxiliaries, always appropriate. Except in a question, dost and didst, like do, does, and did, are usually signs of emphasis; and therefore unfit to be substituted for the st, est, or edst, of an unemphatic verb. Kirkham, who, as we have seen, graces his Elocution with such unutterable things, as "prob'dst, hurl'dst, arm'dst, want'dst, burn'dst, bark'dst, bubbl'dst, troubbl'dst," attributes the use of the plural for the singular, to a design of avoiding the raggedness of the latter. "In order to avoid the disagreeable harshness of sound, occasioned by the frequent recurrence of the termination est, edst, in the adaptation of our verbs to the nominative thou, a modern innovation which substitutes you for thou, in familiar style, has generally been adopted. This innovation contributes greatly to the harmony of our colloquial style. You was formerly restricted to the plural number; but now it is employed to represent either a singular or a plural noun."—Kirkham's Gram., p. 99. A modern innovation, forsooth! Does not every body know it was current four hundred years ago, or more? Certainly, both ye and you were applied in this manner, to the great, as early as the fourteenth century. Chaucer sometimes used them so, and he died in 1400. Sir T. More uses them so, in a piece dated 1503.

   "O dere cosyn, Dan Johan, she sayde,
    What eyleth you so rathe to aryse?"—Chaucer.

Shakspeare most commonly uses thou, but he sometimes has you in stead of it. Thus, he makes Portia say to Brutus:

"You suddenly arose, and walk'd about, Musing, and sighing, with your arms across; And when I ask'd you what the matter was, You star'd upon me with ungentle looks."—J. Cæsar, Act ii, Sc. 2.

OBS. 28.—"There is a natural tendency in all languages to throw out the rugged parts which improper consonants produce, and to preserve those which are melodious and agreeable to the ear."—Gardiner's Music of Nature, p. 29. "The English tongue, so remarkable for its grammatical simplicity, is loaded with a great variety of dull unmeaning terminations. Mr. Sheridan attributes this defect, to an utter inattention to what is easy to the organs of speech and agreeable to the ear; and further adds, that, 'the French having been adopted as the language of the court, no notice was taken, of the spelling or pronunciation of our words, until the reign of queen Anne.' So little was spelling attended to in the time of Elizabeth, that Dr. Johnson informs us, that on referring to Shakspeare's will, to determine how his name was spelt, he was found to have written it himself [in] no less [fewer] than three different ways."—Ib., p. 477. In old books, our participial or verbal termination ed, is found written in about a dozen different ways; as, ed, de, d, t, id, it, yd, yt, ede, od, ud. For est and eth, we find sometimes the consonants only; sometimes, ist or yst, ith or yth; sometimes, for the latter, oth or ath; and sometimes the ending was omitted altogether. In early times also the th was an ending for verbs of the third person plural, as well as for those of the third person singular;[249] and, in the imperative mood, it was applied to the second person, both singular and plural: as,

"Demith thyself, that demist other's dede; And trouthe the shall deliver, it's no drede."—Chaucer.

OBS. 29.—It must be obvious to every one who has much acquaintance with the history of our language, that this part of its grammar has always been quite as unsettled as it is now; and, however we may wish to establish its principles, it is idle to teach for absolute certainty that which every man's knowledge may confute. Let those who desire to see our forms of conjugation as sure as those of other tongues, study to exemplify in their own practice what tends to uniformity. The best that can be done by the author of a grammar, is, to exhibit usage, as it has been, and as it is; pointing out to the learner what is most fashionable, as well as what is most orderly and agreeable. If by these means the usage of writers and speakers cannot be fixed to what is fittest for their occasions, and therefore most grammatical, there is in grammar no remedy for their inaccuracies; as there is none for the blunders of dull opinionists, none for the absurdities of Ignorance stalled in the seats of Learning. Some grammarians say, that, whenever the preterit of an irregular verb is like the present, it should take edst for the second person singular. This rule, (which is adopted by Walker, in his Principles, No. 372,) gives us such words as cast-edst, cost-edst, bid-dedst, burst-edst, cut-tedst, hit-tedst, let-tedst, put-tedst, hurt-edst, rid-dedst, shed-dedst, &c. But the rule is groundless. The few examples which may be adduced from ancient writings, in support of this principle, are undoubtedly formed in the usual manner from regular preterits now obsolete; and if this were not the case, no person of taste could think of employing, on any occasion, derivatives so uncouth. Dr. Johnson has justly remarked, that "the chief defect of our language, is ruggedness and asperity." And this defect, as some of the foregoing remarks have shown, is peculiarly obvious, when even the regular termination of the second person singular is added to our preterits. Accordingly, we find numerous instances among the poets, both ancient and modern, in which that termination is omitted. See Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, everywhere.

"Thou, who of old the prophet's eye unsealed."—Pollok.

"Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste."—Burns.[250]

OBS. 30.—With the familiar form of the second person singular, those who constantly put you for thou can have no concern; and many may think it unworthy of notice, because Murray has said nothing about it: others will hastily pronounce it bad English, because they have learned at school some scheme of the verb, which implies that this must needs be wrong. It is this partial learning which makes so much explanation here necessary. The formation of this part of speech, form it as you will, is central to grammar, and cannot but be very important. Our language can never entirely drop the pronoun thou, and its derivatives, thy, thine, thee, thyself, without great injury, especially to its poetry. Nor can the distinct syllabic utterance of the termination ed be now generally practised, except in solemn prose. It is therefore better, not to insist on those old verbal forms against which there are so many objections, than to exclude the pronoun of the second person singular from all such usage, whether familiar or poetical, as will not admit them. It is true that on most occasions you may be substituted for thou, without much inconvenience; and so may we be substituted for I, with just as much propriety; though Dr. Perley thinks the latter usage "is not to be encouraged."—Gram., p. 28. Our authors and editors, like kings and emperors, are making we for I their most common mode of expression. They renounce their individuality to avoid egotism. And when all men shall have adopted this enallage, the fault indeed will be banished, or metamorphosed, but with it will go an other sixth part of every English conjugation. The pronouns in the following couplet are put for the first person singular, the second person singular, and the second person plural; yet nobody will understand them so, but by their antecedents:

"Right trusty, and so forth—we let you to know We are very ill used by you mortals below."—Swift.

OBS. 31.—It is remarkable that some, who forbear to use the plural for the singular in the second person, adopt it without scruple, in the first. The figure is the same in both; and in both, sufficiently common. Neither practice is worthy to be made more general than it now is. If thou should not be totally sacrificed to what was once a vain compliment, neither should I, to what is now an occasional, and perhaps a vain assumption. Lindley Murray, who does not appear to have used you for thou, and who was sometimes singularly careful to periphrase [sic—KTH] and avoid the latter, nowhere in his grammar speaks of himself in the first person singular. He