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

be."—Infant School Gram., p. 32. "It is found tolerably easy to apply them, by practising a little guess work."—Cardell's Gram., p. 91. "For between which two links could speech makers draw the division line?"—Ib., p. 50. "The wonderful activity of the rope dancer who stands on his head."—Ib., p. 56. "The brilliancy which the sun displays on its own disk, is sun shine."—Ib., p. 63. "A word of three syllables is termed a trisyllable."—Murray's Gram., p. 23; Coar's, 17; Jaudon's, 13; Comly's, 8; Cooper's, New Gr., 8; Kirkham's, 20; Picket's, 10; Alger's, 12; Blair's, 1; Guy's, 2; Bolles's Spelling-Book, 161. See Johnson's Dict. "A word of three syllables is termed a trissyllable."—British Gram., p. 33; Comprehensive Gram., 23; Bicknell's, 17; Allen's, 31; John Peirce's, 149; Lennie's, 5; Maltby's, 8; Ingersoll's, 7; Bradley's, 66; Davenport's, 7; Bucke's, 16; Bolles's Spelling-Book, 91. See Littleton's Lat. Dict. (1.) "Will, in the first Persons, promises or threatens: But in the second and third Persons, it barely foretells."—British Gram., p. 132. (2.) "Will, in the first Persons, promises or threatens; but in the second and third Persons, it barely foretells."—Buchanan's Gram., p. 41. (3.) "Will, in the first person, promises, engages, or threatens. In the second and third persons, it merely foretels."—Jaudon's Gram., p. 59. (4.) "Will, in the first person singular and plural, promises or threatens; in the second and third persons, only foretells."—Lowth's Gram., p. 41. (5.) "Will, in the first person singular and plural, intimates resolution and promising; in the second and third person, only foretels."—Murray's Gram., p. 88; Ingersoll's, 136; Fisk's, 78; A. Flint's, 42; Bullions's, 32; Hamlin's, 41; Cooper's Murray, 50. [Fist] Murray's Second Edition has it "foretells." (6.) "Will, in the first person singular and plural, expresses resolution and promising. In the second and third persons it only foretells."—Comly's Gram., p. 38; E. Devis's, 51; Lennie's, 22. (7.) "Will, in the first person, promises. In the second and third persons, it simply foretels."—Maltby's Gram., p. 24. (8.) "Will, in the first person implies resolution and promising; in the second and third, it foretells."—Cooper's New Gram., p. 51. (9.) "Will, in the first person singular and plural, promises or threatens; in the second and third persons, only foretels: shall, on the contrary, in the first person, simply foretels; in the second and third persons, promises, commands, or threatens."—Adam's Lat. and Eng. Gram., p. 83. (10.) "In the first person shall foretels, and will promises or threatens; but in the second and third persons will foretels, and shall promises or threatens."—Blair's Gram., p. 65.

   "If Mævius scribble in Apollo's spight,
    There are who judge still worse than he can write."—Pope.

EXERCISE X.—MIXED ERRORS.

"I am liable to be charged that I latinize too much."—DRYDEN: in Johnson's Dict. "To mould him platonically to his own idea."—WOTTON: ib. "I will marry a wife as beautiful as the houries, and as wise as Zobeide."—Murray's E. Reader, p. 148. "I will marry a wife, beautiful as the Houries."—Wilcox's Gram., p. 65. "The words in italics are all in the imperative mood."—Maltby's Gram., p. 71. "Words Italicised, are emphatick, in various degrees."—Kirkham's Elocution, p. 173. "Wherever two gg's come together, they are both hard."—Buchanan's Gram., p. 5. "But these are rather silent (o)'s than obscure (u)'s."—Brightland's Gram., p. 19. "That can be Guest at by us, only from the Consequences."—Right of Tythes, p. viii. "He says he was glad that he had Baptized so few; And asks them, Were ye Baptised in the Name of Paul?"—Ib., p. ix. "Therefor he Charg'd the Clergy with the Name of Hirelings."—Ib., p. viii. "On the fourth day before the first second day in each month."—The Friend, Vol. vii, p. 230. "We are not bound to adhere for ever to the terms, or to the meaning of terms, which were established by our ancestors."—Murray's Gram., p. 140. "O! learn from him to station quick eyed Prudence at the helm."—Frosts El. of Gram., p. 104. "It pourtrays the serene landscape of a retired village."—Music of Nature, p. 421. "By stating the fact, in a circumlocutary manner."—Booth's Introd. to Dict., p. 33. "Time as an abstract being is a non-entity."—Ib., p. 29. "From the difficulty of analysing the multiplied combinations of words."—Ib., p. 19. "Drop those letters that are superfluous, as: handful, foretel."—Cooper's Plain & Pract. Gram., p. 10. "Shall, in the first person, simply foretells."—Ib., p. 51. "And the latter must evidently be so too, or, at least, cotemporary, with the act."—Ib., p. 60. "The man has been traveling for five years."—Ib., p. 77. "I shall not take up time in combatting their scruples."—Blair's Rhet., p. 320. "In several of the chorusses of Euripides and Sophocles, we have the same kind of lyric poetry as in Pindar."—Ib., p. 398. "Until the Statesman and Divine shall unite their efforts in forming the human mind, rather than in loping its excressences, after it has been neglected."—Webster's Essays, p. 26. "Where conviction could be followed only by a bigotted persistence in error."—Ib., p. 78. "All the barons were entitled to a seet in the national council, in right of their baronys."—Ib., p. 260. "Some knowledge of arithmetic is necessary for every lady."—Ib., p. 29. "Upon this, [the system of chivalry,] were founded those romances of night-errantry."—Blair's Rhet., p. 374. "The subject is, the atchievements of Charlemagne and his Peers, or Paladins."—Ib., p. 374. "Aye, aye; this slice to be sure outweighs the other."—Blair's Reader, p. 31. "In the common phrase, good-bye, bye signifies passing, going. The phrase signifies, a good going, a prosperous passage, and is equivalent to farewell."—Webster's Dict. "Good-by, adv.—a contraction of good be with you—a familiar way of bidding farewell."—See Chalmers's Dict. "Off he sprung, and did not so much as stop to say good bye to you."—Blair's Reader, p. 16. "It no longer recals the notion of the action."—Barnard's Gram., p. 69.

   "Good-nature and good-sense must ever join;
    To err, is human; to forgive, divine."—Pope, Ess. on Crit.

EXERCISE XI.—MIXED ERRORS.

"The practices in the art of carpentry are called planeing, sawing, mortising, scribing, moulding, &c."—Blair's Reader, p. 118. "With her left hand, she guides the thread round the spindle, or rather round a spole which goes on the spindle."—Ib., p. 134. "Much suff'ring heroes next their honours claim."—POPE: Johnson's Dict., w. Much. "Vein healing verven, and head purging dill."—SPENSER: ib., w. Head. "An, in old English, signifies if; as, 'an it please your honor.'"—Webster's Dict. "What, then, was the moral worth of these renouned leaders?"—M'Ilvaine's Lect., p. 460. "Behold how every form of human misery is met by the self denying diligence of the benevolent."—Ib., p. 411. "Reptiles, bats, and doleful creatures—jackalls, hyenas, and lions—inhabit the holes, and caverns, and marshes of the desolate city."—Ib., p. 270. "ADAYS, adv. On or in days; as, in the phrase, now adays."—Webster's Dict. "REFEREE, one to whom a thing is referred; TRANSFERREE, the person to whom a transfer is made."—Ib. "The Hospitallers were an order of knights who built a hospital at Jerusalem for pilgrims."—Ib. "GERARD, Tom, or Tung, was the institutor and first grand master of the knights hospitalers: he died in 1120."—Biog. Dict. "I had a purpose now to lead our many to the holy land."—SHAK.: in Johnson's Dict. "He turned their heart to hate his people, to deal subtilly with his servants."—Psalms, cv, 25. "In Dryden's ode of Alexander's Feast, the line, 'Faln, faln, faln, faln,' represents a gradual sinking of the mind."—Kames, El. of Crit., Vol. ii, p. 71. "The first of these lines is marvelously nonsensical."—Jamieson's Rhet., p. 117. "We have the nicely chiseled forms of an Apollo and a Venus, but it is the same cold marble still."—Christian Spect., Vol. viii, p. 201. "Death waves his mighty wand and paralyses all."—Bucke's Gram., p. 35. "Fear God. Honor the patriot. Respect virtue."—Kirkham's Gram., p. 216. "Pontius Pilate being Governour of Judea, and Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee."—Ib., p. 189. See Luke, iii, 1. "AUCTIONEER, n. s. The person that manages an auction."—Johnson's Dict. "The earth put forth her primroses and days-eyes, to behold him."—HOWEL: ib. "Musselman, not being a compound of man, is musselmans in the plural."—Lennie's Gram., p. 9. "The absurdity of fatigueing them with a needless heap of grammar rules."—Burgh's Dignity, Vol. i, p. 147. "John was forced to sit with his arms a kimbo, to keep them asunder."—ARBUTHNOT: Joh. Dict. "To set the arms a kimbo, is to set the hands on the hips, with the elbows projecting outward."—Webster's Dict. "We almost uniformly confine the inflexion to the last or the latter noun."—Maunder's Gram., p. 2. "This is all souls day, fellows! Is it not?"—SHAK.: in Joh. Dict. "The english physicians make use of troy-weight."—Johnson's Dict. "There is a certain number of ranks allowed to dukes, marquisses, and earls."—PEACHAM: ib., w. Marquis.

   "How could you chide the young good natur'd prince,
    And drive him from you with so stern an air."
             —ADDISON: ib., w. Good, 25.

EXERCISE XII.—MIXED ERRORS.

"In reading, every appearance of sing-song should be avoided."—Sanborn's Gram., p. 75. "If you are thoroughly acquainted with the inflexions of the verb."—Ib., p. 53. "The preterite of read is pronounced red."—Ib., p. 48. "Humility opens a high way to dignity."—Ib., p. 15. "What is intricate must be unraveled."—Ib., p. 275. "Roger Bacon invented gun powder, A. D. 1280."—Ib., p. 277. "On which ever word we lay the emphasis."—Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 243; 12mo, p. 195. "Each of the leaders was apprized of the Roman invasion."—Nixon's Parser, p. 123. "If I say, 'I gallopped from Islington to Holloway;' the verb is intransitive: if, 'I gallopped my horse from Islington to Holloway;' it is transitive."—Churchill's Gram., p. 238. "The reasonableness of setting a part one day in seven."—The Friend, Vol. iv, p. 240. "The promoters of paper money making reprobated this act."—Webster's Essays, p. 196. "There are five compound personal pronouns, which are derived from the five simple personal pronouns by adding to some of their cases the syllable self; as, my-self, thy-self, him-self, her-self, it-self."—Perley's Gram., p. 16. "Possessives, my-own, thy-own, his-own, her-own, its-own, our-own, your-own, their-own."—Ib., Declensions. "Thy man servant and thy maid servant may rest, as well as thou."—Sanborn's Gram., p. 160. "How many right angles has an acute angled triangle?"—Ib., p. 220. "In the days of Jorum, king of Israel, flourished the prophet Elisha."—Ib., p. 148. "In the days of Jorum, king of Israel, Elisha, the prophet flourished."—Ib., p. 133. "Lodgable, a. Capable of affording a temporary abode."—Webster's Octavo Dict.—"Win me into the easy hearted man."—Johnson's Quarto Dict. "And then to end life, is the same as to dye."—Milnes's Greek Gram., p. 176. "Those usurping hectors who pretend to honour without religion, think the charge of a lie a blot not to be washed out but by blood."—SOUTH: Joh. Dict. "His gallies attending him, he pursues the unfortunate."—Nixon's Parser, p. 91. "This cannot fail to make us shyer of yielding our assent."—Campbell's Rhet., p. 117. "When he comes to the Italicised word, he should give it such a definition as its connection with the sentence may require."—Claggett's Expositor, p. vii. "Learn to distil from your lips all the honies of persuasion."—Adams's Rhetoric, Vol. i, p. 31. "To instill ideas of disgust and abhorrence against the Americans."—Ib., ii, 300. "Where prejudice has not acquired an uncontroled ascendency."—Ib., i, 31. "The uncontrolable propensity of his mind was undoubtedly to oratory."—Ib., i, 100. "The Brutus is a practical commentary upon the dialogues and the orator."—Ib., i, 120. "The oratorical partitions are a short elementary compendium."—Ib., i, 130. "You shall find hundreds of persons able to produce a crowd of good ideas upon any subject, for one that can marshall them to the best advantage."—Ib., i, 169. "In this lecture, you have the outline of all that the whole course will comprize."—Ib., i, 182. "He would have been stopped by a hint from the bench, that he was traveling out of the record."—Ib., i, 289. "To tell them that which should befal them in the last days."—Ib., ii, 308. "Where all is present, there is nothing past to recal."—Ib., ii, 358. "Whose due it is to drink the brimfull cup of God's eternal vengeance."—Law and Grace, p. 36.

   "There, from the dead, centurions see him rise,
    See, but struck down with horrible surprize!"—Savage.

"With seed of woes my heart brimful is charged."—SIDNEY: Joh. Dict.

"Our legions are brimful, our cause is ripe."—SHAKSPEARE: ib.

PART II. ETYMOLOGY.

ETYMOLOGY treats of the different parts of speech, with their classes and modifications.

The Parts of Speech are the several kinds, or principal classes, into which words are divided by grammarians.

Classes, under the parts of speech, are the particular sorts into which the several kinds of words are subdivided.

Modifications are inflections, or changes, in the terminations, forms, or senses, of some kinds of words.

CHAPTER I.—PARTS OF SPEECH.

The Parts of Speech, or sorts of words, in English, are ten; namely, the Article, the Noun, the Adjective, the Pronoun, the Verb, the Participle, the Adverb, the Conjunction, the Preposition, and the Interjection.

1. THE ARTICLE.

An