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

their errors by G. Brown, who, instead of 'disburdening the language of 144,000 useless distinctions, increases their number just 144,000."—Oliver B. Peirce's Gram., p. 85 Among people of sense, converts are made by teaching, and reasoning, and proving; but this man's disciples must yield to the balderdash of a false speller, false quoter, and false assertor! This author says, that "dropt" is the past tense of "drop;" (p. 118;) let him prove, for example, that droptest is not a clumsy innovation, and that droppedst is not a formal archaism, and then tell of the egregious error of adopting neither of these forms in common conversation. The following, with its many common contractions, is the language of POPE; and I ask this, or any other opponent of my doctrine, TO SHOW HOW SUCH VERBS ARE RIGHTLY FORMED, either for poetry or for conversation, in the second person singular.

   "It fled, I follow'd; now in hope, now pain;
    It stopt, I stopt; it mov'd, I mov'd again.
    At last it fix't,'twas on what plant it pleas'd,
    And where it fix'd, the beauteous bird I seiz'd."
        —Dunciad, B. IV, l. 427.

[249] The Rev. W. Allen, in his English Grammar, p. 132, says: "Yth and eth (from the Saxon lað [sic—KTH]) were formerly, plural terminations; as, 'Manners makyth man.' William of Wykeham's motto. 'After long advisement, they taketh upon them to try the matter.' Stapleton's Translation of Bede. 'Doctrine and discourse maketh nature less importune.' Bacon." The use of eth as a plural termination of verbs, was evidently earlier than the use of en for the same purpose. Even the latter is utterly obsolete, and the former can scarcely have been English. The Anglo-Saxon verb lufian, or lufigean, to love, appears to have been inflected with the several pronouns thus: Ic lufige, Thu lufast, He lufath, We lufiath, Ge lufiath, Hi lufiath. The form in Old English was this: I love, Thou lovest, He loveth, We loven, Ye loven, They loven. Dr. Priestley remarks, (though in my opinion unadvisedly,) that, "Nouns of a plural form, but of a singular signification, require a singular construction; as, mathematicks is a useful study. This observation will likewise," says he, "in some measure, vindicate the grammatical propriety of the famous saying of William of Wykeham, Manners maketh man."—Priestley's Gram., p. 189. I know not what half-way vindication there can be, for any such construction. Manners and mathematics are not nouns of the singular number, and therefore both is and maketh are wrong. I judge it better English to say, "Mathematics are a useful study."—"Manners make the man." But perhaps both ideas may be still better expressed by a change of the nominative, thus: "The study of mathematics is useful."—"Behaviour makes the man."

[250] What the state of our literature would have been, had no author attempted any thing on English grammar, must of course be a matter of mere conjecture, and not of any positive "conviction." It is my opinion, that, with all their faults, most of the books and essays in which this subject has been handled, have been in some degree beneficial, and a few of them highly so; and that, without their influence, our language must have been much more chaotic and indeterminable than it now is. But a late writer says, and, with respect to some of our verbal terminations, says wisely: "It is my sincere conviction that fewer irregularities would have crept into the language had no grammars existed, than have been authorized by grammarians; for it should be understood that the first of our grammarians, finding that good writers differed upon many points, instead of endeavouring to reconcile these discrepancies, absolutely perpetuated them by citing opposite usages, and giving high authorities for both. To this we owe all the irregularity which exists in the personal terminations of verbs, some of the best early writers using them promiscuously, some using them uniformly, and others making no use of them; and really they are of no use but to puzzle children and foreigners, perplex poets, and furnish an awkward dialect to that exemplary sect of Christians, who in every thing else study simplicity."—Fowle's True E. Gram., Part II, p. 26. Wells, a still later writer, gives this unsafe rule: "When the past tense is a monosyllable not ending in a single vowel, the second person singular of the solemn style is generally formed by the addition of est; as heardest, fleddest, tookest. Hadst, wast, saidst, and didst, are exceptions."—Wells's School Gram., 1st Ed., p. 106; 3d Ed., p. 110; 113th Ed., p. 115. Now the termination d or ed commonly adds no syllable; so that the regular past tense of any monosyllabic verb is, with a few exceptions, a monosyllable still; as, freed, feed, loved, feared, planned, turned: and how would these sound with est added, which Lowth, Hiley, Churchill, and some others erroneously claim as having pertained to such preterits anciently? Again, if heard is a contraction of heared, and fled, of fleed, as seems probable; then are heardst and fledtst, which are sometimes used, more regular than heardest, fleddest: so of many other preterits.

[251] Chaucer appears not to have inflected this word in the second person: "Also ryght as thou were ensample of moche folde errour, righte so thou must be ensample of manifold correction."—Testament of Love. "Rennin and crie as thou were wode."—House of Fame. So others: "I wolde thou were cold or hoot."—WICKLIFFE'S VERSION OF THE APOCALYPSE. "I wolde thou were cold or hote."—VERSION OF EDWARD VI: Tooke, Vol. ii, p. 270. See Rev., iii, 15: "I would thou wert cold or hot."—COMMON VERSION.

[252] See evidence of the antiquity of this practice, in the examples under the twenty-third observation above. According to Churchill, it has had some local continuance even to the present time. For, in a remark upon Lowth's contractions, lov'th, turn'th, this author says, "These are still in use in some country places, the third person singular of verbs in general being formed by the addition of the sound th simply, not making an additional syllable."—Churchill's Gram., p. 255 So the eth in the following example adds no syllable:—

   "Death goeth about the field, rejoicing mickle
    To see a sword that so surpass'd his sickle."
       Harrington's Ariosto, B. xiii:
         see Singer's Shak., Vol. ii, p. 296.

[253] The second person singular of the simple verb do, is now usually written dost, and read dust; being permanently contracted in orthography, as well as in pronunciation. And perhaps the compounds may follow; as, Thou undost, outdost, misdost, overdost, &c. But exceptions to exceptions are puzzling, even when they conform to the general rule. The Bible has dost and doth for auxilliaries, and doest and doeth for principal verbs.

[254] N. Butler avers, "The only regular terminations added to verbs are est, s, ed, edst, and ing."—Butler's Practical Gram., p. 81. But he adds, in a marginal note, this information: "The third person singular of the present formerly ended in eth. This termination is still sometimes used in the solemn style. Contractions sometimes take place; as, sayst for sayest."—Ibid. This statement not only imposes a vast deal of needless irregularity upon the few inflections admitted by the English verb, but is, so far as it disagrees with mine, a causeless innovation. The terminations rejected, or here regarded as irregular, are d, st, es, th, and eth; while edst, which is plainly a combination of ed and st,—the past ending of the verb with the personal inflection,—is assumed to be one single and regular termination which I had overlooked! It has long been an almost universal doctrine of our grammarians, that regular verbs form their preterits and perfect participles by adding d to final e, and ed to any other radical ending. Such is the teaching of Blair, Brightland, Bullions, Churchill, Coar, Comly, Cooper, Fowle, Frazee, Ingersoll, Kirkham, Lennie, Murray, Weld, Wells, Sanborn, and others, a great multitude. But this author alleges, that, "Loved is not formed by adding d to love, but by adding ed, and dropping e from love."—Butler's Answer to Brown. Any one is at liberty to think this, if he will. But I see not the use of playing thus with mute Ees, adding one to drop an other, and often pretending to drop two under one apostrophe, as in lov'd, lov'st! To suppose that the second person of the regular preterit, as lovedst, is not formed by adding st to the first person, is contrary to the analogy of other verbs, and is something worse than an idle whim. And why should the formation of the third person be called irregular when it requires es, as in flies, denies, goes, vetoes, wishes, preaches, and so forth? In forming flies from fly, Butler changes "y into ie," on page 20th, adding s only; and, on page 11th, "into i" only, adding es. Uniformity would be better.

[255] Cooper says, "The termination eth is commonly contracted into th, to prevent the addition of a syllable to the verb, as: doeth, doth."—Plain and Practical Gram., p. 59. This, with reference to modern usage, is plainly erroneous. For, when s or es was substituted for th or eth, and the familiar use of the latter ceased, this mode of inflecting the verb without increasing its syllables, ceased also, or at least became unusual. It appears that the inflecting of verbs with th without a vowel, as well as with st without a vowel, was more common in very ancient times than subsequently. Our grammarians of the last century seem to have been more willing to encumber the language with syllabic endings, than to simplify it by avoiding them. See Observations, 21st, 22d, and 23d, above.

[256] These are what William Ward, in his Practical Grammar, written about 1765, denominated "the CAPITAL FORMS, or ROOTS, of the English Verb." Their number too is the same. "And these Roots," says he, "are considered as Four in each verb; although in many verbs two of them are alike, and in some few three are alike."—P. 50. Few modern grammarians have been careful to display these Chief Terms, or Principal Parts, properly. Many say nothing about them. Some speak of three, and name them faultily. Thus Wells: "The three principal parts of a verb are the present tense, the past tense, and the perfect participle."—School Gram., 113th Ed., p. 92. Now a whole "tense" is something more than one verbal form, and Wells's "perfect participle" includes the auxiliary "having." Hence, in stead of write, wrote, writing, written, (the true principal parts of a certain verb,) one might take, under Wells's description, either of these threes, both entirely false: am writing, did write, and having written; or, do write, wrotest, and having written. But writing, being the root of the "Progressive Form of the Verb," is far more worthy to be here counted a chief term, than wrote, the preterit, which occurs only in one tense, and never receives an auxiliary. So of other verbs. This sort of treatment of the Principal Parts, is a very grave defect in sundry schemes of grammar.

[257] A grammarian should know better, than to exhibit, as a paradigm for school-boys, such English as the following: "I do have, Thou dost have, He does have: We do have, You do have, They do have."—Everest's Gram., p. 106. "I did have, Thou didst have, He did have: We did have, You did have, They did have."—Ib., p. 107. I know not whether any one has yet thought of conjugating the verb be after this fashion; but the attempt to introduce, "am being, is being," &c., is an innovation much worse.

[258] Hiley borrows from Webster the remark, that, "Need, when intransitive, is formed like an auxiliary, and is followed by a verb, without the prefix to; as, 'He need go no farther.'"—Hiley's Gram., p. 90; Webster's Imp. Gram., p. 127; Philos. Gram., p. 178. But he forbears to class it with the auxiliaries, and even contradicts himself, by a subsequent remark taken from Dr. Campbell, that, for the sake of "ANALOGY, 'he needs,' he dares,' are preferable to 'he need,' 'he dare,'"—Hiley's Gram., p. 145; Campbell's Rhet., p. 175

[259] This grammarian here uses need for the third person singular, designedly, and makes a remark for the justification of the practice; but he neither calls the word an auxiliary, nor cites any other than anonymous examples, which are, perhaps, of his own invention.

[260] "The substantive form, or, as it is commonly termed, infinitive mood, contains at the same time the essence of verbal meaning, and the literal ROOT on which all inflections of the verb are to be grafted. This character being common to the infinitive in all languages, it [this mood] ought to precede the [other] moods of verbs, instead of being made to follow them, as is absurdly practised in almost all grammatical systems."—Enclytica, p. 14.

[261] By this, I mean, that the verb in all the persons, both singular and plural, is the same in form. But Lindley Murray, when he