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

[377] Dr. Priestley censures this construction, on the ground, that the word whole is an "attribute of unity," and therefore improperly added to a plural noun. But, in fact, this adjective is not necessarily singular, nor is all necessarily plural. Yet there is a difference between the words: whole is equivalent to all only when the noun is singular; for then only do entireness and totality coincide. A man may say, "the whole thing," when he means, "all the thing;" but he must not call all things, whole things. In the following example, all is put for whole, and taken substantively; but the expression is a quaint one, because the article and preposition seem needless: "Which doth encompass and embrace the all of things."—The Dial, Vol. i, p. 59.

[378] This is not a mere repetition of the last example cited under Note 14th above; but it is Murray's interpretation of the text there quoted. Both forms are faulty, but not in the same way.—G. BROWN.

[379] Some authors erroneously say, "A personal pronoun does not always agree in person with its antecedent; as, 'John said, I will do it.'"—Goodenow's Gram. "When I say, 'Go, and say to those children, you must come in,' you perceive that the noun children is of the third person, but the pronoun you is of the second; yet you stands for children,"—Ingersoll's Gram., p. 54. Here are different speakers, with separate speeches; and these critics are manifestly deceived by the circumstance. It is not to be supposed, that the nouns represented by one speaker's pronouns, are to be found or sought in what an other speaker utters. The pronoun I does not here stand for the noun John which is of the third person; it is John's own word, representing himself as the speaker. The meaning is, "I myself, John, of the first person, will do it." Nor does you stand for children as spoken of by Ingersoll; but for children of the second person, uttered or implied in the address of his messenger: as, "Children, you must come in."

[380] The propriety of this construction is questionable. See Obs. 2d on Rule 14th.

[381] Among the authors who have committed this great fault, are, Alden, W. Allen, D. C. Allen, C. Adams, the author of the British Grammar, Buchanan, Cooper, Cutler, Davis, Dilworth, Felton, Fisher, Fowler, Frazee, Goldsbury, Hallock, Hull, M'Culloch, Morley, Pinneo, J. Putnam, Russell, Sanborn, R. C. Smith, Spencer, Weld, Wells, Webster, and White. "You is plural, whether it refer to only one individual, or to more."—Dr. Crombie, on Etym. and Synt., p. 240. "The word you, even when applied to one person, is plural, and should never he connected with a singular verb."—Alexander's Gram., p. 53; Emmons's, 26. "You is of the Plural Number, even though used as the Name of a single Person."—W. Ward's Gram., p. 88. "Altho' the Second Person Singular in both Times be marked with thou, to distinguish it from the Plural, yet we, out of Complaisance, though we speak but to one particular Person, use the Plural you, and never thou, but when we address ourselves to Almighty God, or when we speak in an emphatical Manner, or make a distinct and particular Application to a Person."—British Gram., p. 126; Buchanan's, 37. "But you, tho' applied to a single Person, requires a Plural Verb, the same as ye; as, you love, not you lovest or loves; you were, not you was or wast."—Buchanan's Gram., p. 37.

[382] "Mr. Murray's 6th Rule is unnecessary."—Lennie's English Gram., p. 81; Bullions's, p. 90. The two rules of which I speak, constitute Murray's Rule VI; Alger's and Bacon's Rule VI; Merchant's Rule IX; Ingersoll's Rule XII; Kirkham's Rules XV and XVI; Jaudon's XXI and XXII; Crombie's X and XI; Nixon's Obs. 86th and 87th: and are found in Lowth's Gram., p. 100; Churchill's, 136; Adam's, 203; W. Allen's, 156; Blair's, 75; and many other books.

[383] This rule, in all its parts, is to be applied chiefly, if not solely, to such relative clauses as are taken in the restrictive sense; for, in the resumptive sense of the relative, who or which may be more proper than that: as, "Abraham solemnly adjures his most faithful servant, whom he despatches to Charran on this matrimonial mission for his son, to discharge his mission with all fidelity."—Milman's Jews, i, 21. See Etymology, Chap. 5th, Obs. 23d, 24th, &c., on the Classes of Pronouns.

[384] Murray imagined this sentence to be bad English. He very strangely mistook the pronoun he for the object of the preposition with; and accordingly condemned the text, under the rule, "Prepositions govern the objective case." So of the following: "It is not I he is engaged with."—Murray's Exercises, R. 17. Better: "It is not I that he is engaged with." Here is no violation of the foregoing rule, or of any other; and both sentences, with even Murray's form of the latter, are quite as good as his proposed substitutes: "It was not with him, that they were so angry."—Murray's Key, p. 51. "It is not with me he is engaged."—Ib. In these fancied corrections, the phrases with him and with me have a very awkward and questionable position: it seems doubtful, whether they depend on was and is, or on angry and engaged.

[385] In their speculations on the personal pronouns, grammarians sometimes contrive, by a sort of abstraction, to reduce all the persons to the third; that is, the author or speaker puts I, not for himself in particular, but for any one who utters the word, and thou, not for his particular hearer or reader, but for any one who is addressed; and, conceiving of these as persons merely spoken of by himself, he puts the verb in the third person, and not in the first or second: as, "I is the speaker, thou [is] the hearer, and he, she, or it, is the person or thing spoken of. All denote qualities of existence, but such qualities as make different impressions on the mind. I is the being of consciousness, thou [is the being] of perception, and he of memory."—Booth's Introd., p. 44. This is such syntax as I should not choose to imitate; nor is it very proper to say, that the three persons in grammar "denote qualities of existence." But, supposing the phraseology to be correct, it is no real exception to the foregoing rule of concord; for I and thou are here made to be pronouns of the third person. So in the following example, which I take to be bad English: "I, or the person who speaks, is the first person; you, is the second; he, she, or it, is the third person singular."—Bartlett's Manual, Part ii, p. 70. Again, in the following; which is perhaps a little better: "The person 'I' is spoken of as acted upon."—Bullions, Prin. of E. Gram., 2d Edition, p. 29. But there is a manifest absurdity in saying, with this learned "Professor of Languages," that the pronouns of the different persons are those persons: as, "I is the first person, and denotes the speaker. Thou is the second, and denotes the person spoken to."—Ib., p. 22.

[386] (1.) Concerning the verb need, Dr. Webster has the following note: "In the use of this verb there is another irregularity, which is peculiar, the verb being without a nominative, expressed or implied. 'Whereof here needs no account.'—Milt., P. L., 4. 235. There is no evidence of the fact, and there needs none. This is an established use of need."—Philos. Gram., p. 178; Improved Gram., 127; Greenleaf's Gram. Simp., p. 38; Fowler's E. Gram., p. 537. "Established use?" To be sure, it is "an established use;" but the learned Doctor's comment is a most unconscionable blunder,—a pedantic violation of a sure principle of Universal Grammar,—a perversion worthy only of the veriest ignoramus. Yet Greenleaf profitably publishes it, with other plagiarisms, for "Grammar Simplified!" Now the verb "needs," like the Latin eget, signifying is necessary, is here not active, but neuter; and has the nominative set after it, as any verb must, when the adverb there or here is before it. The verbs lack and want may have the same construction, and can have no other, when the word there, and not a nominative, precedes them; as, "Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous."—Gen., xviii, 28. There is therefore neither "irregularity," nor any thing "peculiar," in thus placing the verb and its nominative.

(2.) Yet have we other grammarians, who, with astonishing facility, have allowed themselves to be misled, and whose books are now misleading the schools, in regard to this very simple matter. Thus Wells: "The transitive verbs need and want, are sometimes employed in a general sense, without a nominative, expressed or implied. Examples:—'There needed a new dispensation.'—Caleb Cushing. 'There needs no better picture.'—Irving. 'There wanted not patrons to stand up.'—Sparks. 'Nor did there want Cornice, or frieze.'—Milton."—Wells's School Gram., 1st Ed., p. 141: 113th Ed., p. 154. In my edition of Milton, the text is, "Nor did they want Cornice or frieze."—P. L., B. i, l. 715, 716. This reading makes want a "transitive" verb, but the other makes it neuter, with the nominative following it. Again, thus Weld: "A verb in the imperative mode, and the transitive verbs need, want, and require, sometimes appear to be used indefinitely, without a nominative; as, let there be light; There required haste in the business; There needs no argument for proving, &c. There wanted not men who would, &c. The last expressions have an active form with a passive sense, and should perhaps rather be considered elliptical than wanting a nominative; as, haste is required, no argument is needed, &c."—Weld's English Grammar Illustrated, p. 143. Is there anywhere, in print, viler pedantry than this? The only elliptical example, "Let there be light,"—a kind of sentence from which the nominative is usually suppressed,—is here absurdly represented as being full, yet without a subject for its verb; while other examples, which are full, and in which the nominative must follow the verb, because the adverb "there" precedes, are first denied to have nominatives, and then most bunglingly tortured with false ellipses, to prove that they have them!

(3.) The idea of a command wherein no person or thing is commanded, seems to have originated with Webster, by whom it has been taught, since 1807, as follows: "In some cases, the imperative verb is used without a definite nominative."—Philos. Gram., p. 141; Imp. Gram., 86; Rudiments, 69. See the same words in Frazee's Gram., p. 133. Wells has something similar: "A verb in the imperative is sometimes used absolutely, having no direct reference to any particular subject expressed or implied; as, 'And God said, Let there be light.'"—School Gram., p. 141. But, when this command was uttered to the dark waves of primeval chaos, it must have meant, "Do ye let light be there." What else could it mean? There may frequently be difficulty in determining what or who is addressed by the imperative let, but there seems to be more in affirming that it has no subject. Nutting, puzzled with this word, makes the following dubious and unsatisfactory suggestion: "Perhaps it may be, in many cases, equivalent to may; or it may be termed itself an imperative mode impersonal; that is, containing a command or an entreaty addressed to no particular person."—Nutting's Practical Gram., p. 47.

(4.) These several errors, about the "Imperative used Absolutely," with "no subject addressed," as in "Let there be light," and the Indicative "verbs NEED and WANT, employed without a nominative, either expressed or implied," are again carefully reiterated by the learned Professor Fowler, in his great text-book of philology "in its Elements and Forms,"—called, rather extravagantly, an "English Grammar." See, in his edition of 1850, §597, Note 3 and Note 7; also §520, Note 2. Wells's authorities for "Imperatives Absolute," are, "Frazee, Allen and Cornwell, Nutting, Lynde, and Chapin;" and, with reference to "NEED and WANT," he says, "See Webster, Perley, and Ingersoll."—School Gram., 1850, §209.

(5.) But, in obvious absurdity most strangely overlooked by the writer, all these blunderers are outdone by a later one, who says: "Need and dare are sometimes used in a general sense without a nominative: as, 'There needed no prophet to tell us that;' 'There wanted no advocates to secure the voice of the people.' It is better, however, to supply it, as a nominative, than admit an anomala. Sometimes, when intransitive, they have the plural form with a singular noun: as,