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

NOTE II.—A change of number in the second person, or even a promiscuous use of ye and you in the same case and the same style, is inelegant, and ought to be avoided; as, "You wept, and I for thee"—"Harry, said my lord, don't cry; I'll give you something towards thy loss."—Swift's Poems, p. 267. "Ye sons of sloth, you offspring of darkness, awake from your sleep."—Brown's Metaphors, p. 96. Our poets have very often adopted the former solecism, to accommodate their measure, or to avoid the harshness of the old verb in the second person singular: as, "Thy heart is yet blameless, O fly while you may!"—Queen's Wake, p. 46.

   "Oh! Peggy, Peggy, when thou goest to brew,
    Consider well what you're about to do."—King's Poems, p. 594.

    "As in that lov'd Athenian bower,
    You learn'd an all-commanding power,
    Thy mimic soul, O nymph endear'd!
    Can well recall what then it heard."—Collins, Ode to Music.

NOTE III.—The relative who is applied only to persons, and to animals or things personified; and which, to brute animals and inanimate things spoken of literally: as, "The judge who presided;"—"The old crab who advised the young one;"—"The horse which ran away;"—"The book which was given me."

NOTE IV.—Nouns of multitude, unless they express persons directly as such, should not be represented by the relative who: to say, "The family whom I visited," would hardly be proper; that would here be better. When such nouns are strictly of the neuter gender, which may represent them; as, "The committees which were appointed." But where the idea of rationality is predominant, who or whom seems not to be improper; as, "The conclusion of the Iliad is like the exit of a great man out of company whom he has entertained magnificently."—Cowper. "A law is only the expression of the desire of a multitude who have power to punish."—Brown's Philosophy of the Mind.

NOTE V.—In general, the pronoun must so agree with its antecedent as to present the same idea, and never in such a manner as to confound the name with the thing signified, or any two things with each other. Examples: "Jane is in the nominative case, because it leads the sentence."—Infant School Gram., p. 30. Here it represents the word "Jane" and not the person Jane. "What mark or sign is put after master to show that he is in the possessive case? Spell it"—Ib., p. 32. Here the word "master" is most absurdly confounded with the man; and that to accommodate grammar to a child's comprehension!

NOTE VI.—The relative that may be applied either to persons or to things. In the following cases, it is more appropriate than who, whom, or which; and ought to be preferred, unless it be necessary to use a preposition before the relative:—(1.) After an adjective of the superlative degree, when the relative clause is restrictive;[383] as, "He was the first that came."—"He was the fittest person that could then be found."—Campbell's Rhet., p. 422. "The Greeks were the greatest reasoners that ever appeared in the world."—BEATTIE: Murray's Gram., p. 127. (2.) After the adjective same, when the relative clause is restrictive; as, "He is the same man that you saw before."— Priestley's Gram., p. 101; Murray's, 156; Campbell's Rhet., 422. (3.) After the antecedent who; as, "Who that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?"—Washington. (4.) After two or more antecedents that demand a relative adapted both to persons and to things; as, "He spoke largely of the men and things that he had seen."—"When some particular person or thing is spoken of, that ought to be more distinctly marked."— Murray's Gram., p. 51. (5.) After an unlimited antecedent which the relative clause is designed to restrict; as, "Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."—Gray. "Music that accords with the present tone of mind, is, on that account, doubly agreeable."—Kames, El. of Crit., ii, 311. "For Theocritus descends sometimes into ideas that are gross and mean."—Blair's Rhet., p. 393. (6.) After any antecedent introduced by the expletive it; as, "It is you that suffer."—"It was I, and not he, that did it."—Churchill's Gram., p. 142. "It was not he[384] that they were so angry with."—Murray's Exercises, R. 17. "It was not Gavius alone that Verres meant to insult."—Blair's Rhet., p. 325. (7.) And, in general, wherever the propriety of who or which is doubtful; as, "The little child that was placed in the midst."

NOTE VII.—When two or more relative clauses connected by a conjunction have a similar dependence in respect to the antecedent, the same pronoun must be employed in each; as, "O thou, who art, and who wast, and who art to come!"—"And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshiped."—Jer., viii, 2. NOTE VIII.—The relative, and the preposition governing it, should not be omitted, when they are necessary to the sense intended, or to a proper connexion of the parts of the sentence; as, "He is still in the situation you saw him." Better thus: "He is still in the situation in which you saw him."

NOTE IX.—After certain nouns, of time, place, manner, or cause, the conjunctive adverbs when, where, whither, whence, how, and why, are a sort of special relatives; but no such adverb should be used where a preposition and a relative pronoun would better express the relation of the terms: as, "A cause where justice is so much concerned." Say, "A cause in which." See Etymology, Obs. 6th, 7th, and 8th, on the Classes of Adverbs.

NOTE X.—Where a pronoun or a pronominal adjective will not express the meaning clearly, the noun must be repeated, or inserted in stead of it: as, "We see the beautiful variety of colour in the rainbow, and are led to consider the cause of it." Say,—"the cause of that variety;" because the it may mean the variety, the colour, or the rainbow.

NOTE XI.—To prevent ambiguity or obscurity, the relative should, in general, be placed as near as possible to the antecedent. The following sentence is therefore faulty: "He is like a beast of prey, that is void of compassion." Better thus: "He that is void of compassion, is like a beast of prey."

NOTE XII.—The pronoun what should never be used in stead of the conjunction that; as, "Think no man so perfect but what he may err." This is a vulgar fault. Say,—"but that he may err."

NOTE XIII.—A pronoun should never be used to represent an adjective,—except the pronominal adjectives, and others taken substantively; because a pronoun can neither express a concrete quality as such, nor convert it properly into an abstract: as, "Be attentive; without which you will learn nothing." Better thus: "Be attentive; for without attention you will learn nothing."

NOTE XIV.—Though the relative which may in some instances stand for a phrase or a sentence, it is seldom, if ever, a fit representative of an indicative assertion; as, "The man opposed me, which was anticipated."— Nixon's Parser, p. 127. Say,—"but his opposition was anticipated." Or: "The man opposed me, as was anticipated." Or:—"as I expected he would." Again: "The captain disobeys orders, which is punished."—Ib., p. 128. This is an other factitious sentence, formed after the same model, and too erroneous for correction: none but a conceited grammatist could ever have framed such a construction.

NOTE XV.—The possessive pronouns, my, thy, his, her, its, &c., should be inserted or repeated as often as the sense or construction of the sentence requires them; their omission, like that of the articles, can scarcely in any instance constitute a proper ellipsis: as, "Of Princeton and vicinity."—Say, "Of Princeton and its vicinity." "The man and wife."—Say, "The man and his wife." "Many verbs vary both their signification and construction."—Adam's Gram., p. 170; Gould's, 171. Say,—"and their construction."

NOTE XVI.—In the correcting of any discord between the antecedent and its pronoun, if the latter for any sufficient reason is most proper as it stands, the former must be changed to accord with it: as, "Let us discuss what relates to each particular in their order:—its order."— Priestley's Gram., p. 193. Better thus: "Let us discuss what relates to the several particulars, in their order." For the order of things implies plurality.

"The subject is to be joined with his predicate."—BP. WILKINS: Lowth's
Gram., p. 42.

[FORMULE.—Not proper, because the pronoun his is of the masculine gender, and does not correctly represent its antecedent noun subject, which is of the third person, singular, neuter. But, according to Rule 10th, "A pronoun must agree with its antecedent, or the noun or pronoun which it represents, in person, number, and gender." Therefore, his should be its; thus, "The subject is to be joined with its predicate."]

"Every one must judge of their own feelings."—Byron's Letters. "Every one in the family should know their duty."—Wm. Penn. "To introduce its possessor into 'that way in which it should go.'"—Infant School Gram., p. v. "Do not they say, every true believer has the Spirit of God in them?"—Barclay's Works, iii, 388. "There is none in their natural state righteous, no not one."—Wood's Dict. of Bible, ii, 129. "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own."—John, xv, 19. "His form had not yet lost all her original brightness."—Milton. "No one will answer as if I were their friend or companion."—Steele, Spect., No. 534. "But in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves."— Philippians, ii, 3. "And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour."—Zechariah, viii, 17. "For every tree is known by his own fruit."—Luke, vi, 44. "But she fell to laughing, like one out of their right mind."—Castle Rackrent, p. 51. "Now these systems, so far from having any tendency to make men better, have a manifest tendency to make him worse."—Wayland's Moral Science, p. 128. "And nobody else would make that city their refuge any more."—Josephus's Life, p. 158. "What is quantity, as it respects syllables or words? It is that time which is occupied in pronouncing it."—Bradley's Gram., p. 108. "In such expressions the adjective so much resembles an adverb in its meaning, that they are usually parsed as such."—Bullions, E. Gram., p. 103. "The tongue is like a race-horse; which runs the faster the less weight it carries."—ADDISON: Joh. Dict.; Murray's Key, Rule 8. "As two thoughtless boys were trying to see which could lift the greatest weight with their jaws, one of them had several of his firm-set teeth wrenched from their sockets."—Newspaper. "Everybody nowadays publishes memoirs; everybody has recollections which they think worthy of recording."—Duchess D'Abrantes, p. 25. "Every body trembled for themselves or their friends."—Goldsmith's Greece, i, 171.

   "A steed comes at morning: no rider is there;
    But its bridle is red with the sign of despair."—Campbell.

"Charles loves to study; but John, alas! he is very idle."—Merchant's School Gram., p. 22. "Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?"—Matt., vii, 9. "Who, in stead of going about doing good, they are perpetually intent upon doing mischief."— Tillotson. "Whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pontius Pilate."—Acts, iii, 13. "Whom, when they had washed, they laid her in an upper chamber."—Acts, ix, 37. "Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God."—2 Chron., xxxiii, 13. "Whatever a man conceives clearly, he may, if he will be at the trouble, put it into distinct propositions, and express it clearly to others."—Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 293. "But to that point of time which he has chosen, the painter being entirely confined, he cannot exhibit various stages of the same action."—Blair's Rhet., p. 52. "It is without any proof at all what he subjoins."—Barclay's Works, i, 301. "George Fox his Testimony concerning Robert Barclay."—Ib., i, 111. "According to the author of the Postscript his advice."—Ib., iii, 263. "These things seem as ugly to the Eye of their Meditations, as those Æthiopians pictur'd in Nemesis her Pitcher."—Bacon's Wisdom of the Ancients, p. 49. "Moreover, there is always a twofold Condition propounded with Sphynx her Ænigma's."—Ib., p. 73. "Whoever believeth not therein, they shall perish."—Sale's Koran, p. 20. "When, at Sestius his entreaty, I had been at his house."—Walker's Particles, p. 59.

   "There high on Sipylus his shaggy brow,
    She stands, her own sad monument of woe."
        —Pope's Homer, B. xxiv, l. 777.

"So will I send upon you famine, and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee."—Ezekiel, v, 17. "Why do you plead so much for it? why do ye preach it up?"—Barclay's Works,