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

Lines, poetic, technical denominations of

Liquids, what letters so called

Literary division of a work, common order of, downwards, and throughout;
but all literary works not thus divided. Literary blunders, Crit. N.
concerning
    —awkwardness, do.
    —ignorance, do.
    —silliness, do.

Little, lesser, less, different uses and import of
    —Little, much, &c., preceded by not, too, or other such adv., how
      taken
    —Less, improp. used as an adj. of number; does not signify fewer;
      not to be used in the sense of do.
    —Less, least, adv., to be parsed separately, in the comparison of
      adjectives and adverbs

LOVE, verb active-trans., CONJUGATED affirmatively
    —BE LOVED, pass., do.
    —LOVE, conjug. negatively
    —do., interrogatively
    —do., interrogatively and negatively

Low and provincial expressions, use of, as opp. to purity, PREC. against

Ly, most common terminal of Eng. adverbs; added to nouns to form adjectives

(I,) u; 1055, b; 1053, L:
    —when adverbs ending in, are preferable to those of other forms.

M, its name and plur. numb., —of the class liquids, —its sounds, —when silent, —as written for a number.

Macron, or macrotone, mark, its use.

Make, verb, whether to should be suppressed, and be, inserted, after, ("MAKE yourself BE heard," BLAIR,) —its construc. with infin. following.

Man and woman, comp. nouns in, (man-servant, woman-servant, &c.,) how pluralized.

Many a, with noun sing. represented by a plur. pronoun.

Marks, or points, used in literary composition, the principal; occasional. See Punctuation.

May, verb, how varied, —derivation and uses of.

Mean, means, use and construc. of.

Measure, &c., see Time. Measure, poetical, see Verse.

Melody or beauty of a sentence, words necessary to, rarely to be omitted.

Member, or clause, defined.
    —Memb. and clause, generally used as synonymous, are discriminated
      by some,
    —Clause and phrase, confounded by some,
    —Members, simple, of a sent., punct. of,
    —complex, do., do.,
    —Members of a sentence, arrangem. of, as affecting STRENGTH.

Metaphor, defined, —what commonly understood to be, —agreem. of pron. with antecedent in cases of.

Methinks, explanation of; the lexicographers on the word.

Metonymy, defined, —Meton., on what founded, —agreem. of pron. with its antecedent, in cases of.

Metres, more found in actual use, than those acknowledged in the ordinary schemes of prosody. Metre, see Verse.

Milton, MURR. proposed amendment of the "unintelligible" language of a
certain passage of, criticised,
    —double solec. in a pass, of, noticed,
    —his poem, L'Allegro, what its versificat.; what the management of
      the orders of its verse,
    —do., Il Penseroso, what its extent and construction.

Miss or Misses, Mr. or Messrs., what the proper applicat. of, when name and title are to be used together, in a plur. sense.

Mistaken, to be, irregularity of the verb; its import as applied to persons, and as applied to things.

Mimesis, explained; droll examples of.

Minus, plus, versus, viâ, Lat., use of, in Eng., in partic. constructions.

Mixing of synt. with etymol., the manner of INGERS., KIRKH., et al., censured. Mixture of the forms of style, inelegance of.

Modifications, defined, —sense of the term as employed by BROWN.

Moloss, defined.

Monometer, scarcely constitutes a line, yet is sometimes so placed. —Monometer line, iambic, examples of, —trochaic, do., —anapestic, do., —dactylic, an examp. of.

Monopersonal verbs, see Impersonal Verbs.

Monotone, what, and how produced in elocution.

Months and days, names of, appar. proper names, and require capitals, —how best expressed in literary compositions.

Moods of a verb, term defined, —the five, named and defined, —Mood, or MODE, the name. See Infinitive Mood, Indic. Mood, &c.

More and most, in ambiguous construction, ("Some people MORE than them," MURR.,) —how parsed in comparisons of adjectives and adverbs.

Moses, in what characters, is supposed to have written.

Most, for almost, by vulgarism.

Motion, verbs of, with hither, &c., in stead of here.

Much, little, all, &c., as nouns, —preceded by not, too, or other such adv., —This much, in stead of thus much, DR. BLAIR.

Mulkey, W., strictures on his system of orthoëpy.

Multiplication, subject of the verb in, see Abstract Numbers.

Multiplicative numerals, as running on in a series; how written above decuple or tenfold.

Multitude, noun of, see Collective Noun.

Mute or silent, epithet applied to what letters. —Mutes, what so reckoned; of these, which imperfect. —Where a letter must be once mute.

My and mine, thy and thine, as duplicate forms of the poss. case, use of.

N, its name and plur. numb., —of the class liquids, —its sounds, —in what position silent.

Name and title, see Proper Names.

Naming the letters of the alphab., importance of.

Narration, see Discourse.

Nasals, what consonants so called.

Near and nigh, see Like.

Need, as an uninflected third pers. sing. of the verb,
    —has perh. become an auxiliary of the pot. mood,
    —to what tenses must be understood to belong, if to be recognized as
      an auxil. of the pot. mood,
    —that good writers sometimes inflect the verb, and sometimes do not,
      and that they sometimes use to after it, and sometimes do not, how
      may be accounted for
    —three authorized forms of expression, with respect to the verb.
      Needs, as an adv., its composition

Needless, mixing of characters in printing, bad effect of
    —capitals; effect of
    —articles, to be omitted
    —ellipses, the supposition of, a common error among grammarians
    —use of participles for nouns, or nouns for participles
    —words, ineleg.
    —possessive or art. before a part., how corrected
    —periods, or other points, after certain numeral expressions
    —abbreviations, offend against taste
    —dashes inserted, how to be treated

Negation, expressed in the early Eng. by multiplied negatives; such manner of expression now obsolete and improper —Effect on a negation, of two negatives in the same clause

Negatives, the comm. rule of the grammars, that "two negatives, in Eng., destroy each other, or &c.," whether a correct one

Neither, see Either

Neuter verb, defined
    —Neuter verbs, the active-trans. verbs are so called in most
      grammars and dictionaries; the absurdity of this
    —extent of this class of verbs; their existence in any lang. denied by
      some grammarians
    —Neut. verb BE, conjugated
    —Neuter verbs, made from active-transitives, (am come, is gone,
      &c.;) these called by some, "neuter passives"
    —of passive form, (am grown, are flown, &c.,) as errors of
      conjugat., or of synt.
    —do., how may be distinguished from pass. verbs
    —do., DR. PRIESTL. mistaken notions concerning their nature and
      propriety
    —Neut. verbs, and their participles, take the same case after as
      before them
    —Neuter verb between two nominatives, its agreem.

Nevertheless, its composition and class

No or none, pronom. adj. No, as negative adj., "remarkable ambiguity
in the use of," noticed by PRIESTL., ("No laws are better than the
English;") how the ambiguity may be avoided
    —as a simple negation, its construc.
    —as an adv. of deg., relating only to comparatives, ("NO more,"
    —"NO better")
    —set before a noun, is an adj., corresponding to Lat. nullus
    —In the phrases, no longer, no more, no where, DR. JOH. appar.
      suggests wrongly the class; its true class according to its several
      relations
    —No, or an other independent negative, repeated, its effect
    —No, adv., not to be used with reference to a verb or part.
    —derivation of, from Anglo-Sax.

Nominative case, defined
    —Nom. case, how distinguished from the objective in nouns
    —as subj. of a finite verb
    —different ways of using
    —Nominative and verb, usual position of, and when varied
    —Nom. case and object., at the same time, noun placed in the
      relation of
    —Nom. following a verb or part, with what must accord in signif. See
      also Subject, &c.

Nominative sentences, examples of what MURR. erron. so terms; the prop. construc. shown

Nor, see Or.

Not, its place in negative questions
    —how spoken in grave discourse, and how ordinarily
    —vulg. contractions of, with certain verbs
    —used with other negatives
    —do. with nor (in stead of or) following, whether correctly, or
      not
    —derivation of, from Anglo-Sax. Not but, how resolved. Not only,
      not merely, to what are correspondents

Notwithstanding, import and construc. of; misunderstood by DR. WEBST.
    —formation and signif. of

NOUNS, Etymol. of
    —Noun, defined
    —Nouns, Classes of, named and defined
    —Modifications of, named
    —Persons of, named and defined; (see Persons)
    —Numbers of, do.; (see Plural Number)
    —Genders of, do.; (see Genders)
    —Cases of, do.; (see Cases)
    —Declension of
    —Nouns, number of, in Eng.
    —the sense of, how made indefinitely partitive
    —examples of words commonly belonging to other classes, used as
    —collective, abstract, and verbal or participial, included among
      common nouns; (see Collective Noun, and Particip. Noun)
    —proper, (see Proper Names)
    —Nouns, Synt. of
    —Noun, why may not be put in the relation of two cases at once
    —taken figuratively sing. for literally plur.
    —required to be repeated, or inserted, in stead of a pronoun
    —ellips. of, shown
    —Nouns of time, measure, distance, &c., (see Time)
    —Nouns, derivation of, from nouns, adjectives, verbs, or participles
    —poet. peculiarities of

Numbers, the distinction of, to what belongs, and how applied. (See
Plural Number.) Numbers, cardinal, ordinal, &c., (see Cardinal
Numbers, &c.)
    —Numbers, abstract, expressions of multiplication in, ("Twice one
      IS two,"
    —"Twice two ARE four," &c.,) seven different opinions of
      grammarians respecting, examined by BROWN; who determines the prop.
      forms of expression
    —Numbers, expressed by letters, how to be considered; whether to be
      marked by the period
    —combined arithmetical, one adjective relating to an other

Numerals, numeral adjectives, see Adjectives, Numeral. Numerical figures used for references

O, lett., as A, E, I, and U, self-naming
    —its plural
    —formation of the plur. of nouns in
    —sounds properly its own
    —where sounded as short u
    —do. as obscure e
    —diphthongs beginning with
    —triphth. do. O, interj., with cap. lett.
    —what emotion indicates
    —differs from oh
    —as denoting earnestness, before nouns or pronouns put absol. by
      direct address; is no positive index of the vocative
    —O, &c., MURR., erron. doctrine concerning, to what teaching it has
      given rise
    —O, &c., with a case following, Lat. construc. of, examined
    —O, not unfreq. confounded with oh, even by grammarians.

Obelisk, or dagger, as mark of reference.

Objective case, defined
    —Obj. case, how distinguished from the nom. in nouns
    —before the infin. mood, how taken in Eng.
    —as governed by active-trans. verb or part.
    —"Active verbs govern the obj. case," MURR., defect of this brief
      assertion; its uselessness as a RULE for "the syntax of verbs."
    —Obj. case, of how many constructions susceptible
    —whether infinitives, participles, &c., can be in
    —two nouns in, after a verb, how parsed,
    —Whether any verb in Eng. governs two objectives not coupled
    —Obj. case as governed by passive verbs, erron. allowed by some
    —what verbs not to be employed without
    —Obj. case as governed by prep.
    —"Prepositions gov. the obj. case," why the brief assertion is
      exceptionable, as the sole RULE, in parsing prep.

Obsolete or antiquated words, use of, as opposed to purity, PREC. against
    —Things obsolete in Eng., DR. LATHAM'S attempts to revive.

Ocean, figurative representation of, as uttering his voice in tones of varied quantity.

Octometer line, may be reduced to tetrameter —iambic, examples of —trochaic, do —dactylic, example of —Octometer, trochaic, rhyme and termination of; its pauses, and how may be divided; the most common form of.

Of and on or upon, difference between.

Old English, characters of its alphabet, shown —occasional use of do.

Omissions of words that are needful to the sense, Crit. N. against.

Omitting, verbs of, with part. in stead of infin.

One, employment of, as a noun or as a substitute for a noun; how classed
by some grammarians
    —may be preceded by the articles, or by adjectives
    —like Fr. on or l'on, used indef. for any person; in this sense
      preferable to a pers. pron. applied indefinitely
    —CHURCH., citation