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

OBS. 21.—The word a, when it does not denote one thing of a kind, is not an article, but a genuine preposition; being probably the same as the French à, signifying to, at, on, in, or of: as, "Who hath it? He that died a Wednesday."—Shak. That is, on Wednesday. So sometimes before plurals; as, "He carves a Sundays."—Swift. That is, on Sundays. "He is let out a nights."—Id. That is, on nights—like the following example: "A pack of rascals that walk the streets on nights."—Id. "He will knap the spears a pieces with his teeth."—More's Antid. That is, in pieces, or to pieces. So in the compound word now-a-days, where it means on; and in the proper names, Thomas à Becket, Thomas à Kempis, Anthony à Wood, where it means at or of.

   "Bot certainly the daisit blude now on dayis
    Waxis dolf and dull throw myne unwieldy age."—Douglas.

OBS. 22.—As a preposition, a has now most generally become a prefix, or what the grammarians call an inseparable preposition; as in abed, in bed; aboard, on board; abroad, at large; afire, on fire; afore, in front; afoul, in contact; aloft, on high; aloud, with loudness; amain, at main strength; amidst, in the midst; akin, of kin; ajar, unfastened; ahead, onward; afield, to the field; alee, to the leeward; anew, of new, with renewal. "A-nights, he was in the practice of sleeping, &c.; but a-days he kept looking on the barren ocean, shedding tears."—Dr. Murray's Hist. of Europ. Lang., Vol. ii, p. 162. Compounds of this kind, in most instances, follow verbs, and are consequently reckoned adverbs; as, To go astray,—To turn aside,—To soar aloft,—To fall asleep. But sometimes the antecedent term is a noun or a pronoun, and then they are as clearly adjectives; as, "Imagination is like to work better upon sleeping men, than men awake."—Lord Bacon. "Man alive, did you ever make a hornet afraid, or catch a weasel asleep?" And sometimes the compound governs a noun or a pronoun after it, and then it is a preposition; as, "A bridge is laid across a river."—Webster's Dict., "To break his bridge athwart the Hellespont."—Bacon's Essays.

   "Where Ufens glides along the lowly lands,
    Or the black water of Pomptina stands."—Dryden.

OBS. 23.—In several phrases, not yet to be accounted obsolete, this old preposition à still retains its place as a separate word; and none have been more perplexing to superficial grammarians, than those which are formed by using it before participles in ing; in which instances, the participles are in fact governed by it: for nothing is more common in our language, than for participles of this form to be governed by prepositions. For example, "You have set the cask a leaking," and, "You have set the cask to leaking," are exactly equivalent, both in meaning and construction. "Forty and six years was this temple in building."—John, ii, 20. Building is not here a noun, but a participle; and in is here better than a, only because the phrase, a building, might be taken for an article and a noun, meaning an edifice.[137] Yet, in almost all cases, other prepositions are, I think, to be preferred to à, if others equivalent to it can be found. Examples: "Lastly, they go about to apologize for the long time their book hath been a coming out:" i.e., in coming out.—Barclay's Works, Vol. iii, p. 179. "And, for want of reason, he falls a railing::" i.e., to railing.—Ib., iii, 357. "That the soul should be this moment busy a thinking:" i.e., at or in thinking.—Locke's Essay, p. 78. "Which, once set a going, continue in the same steps:" i.e., to going.—Ib., p. 284. "Those who contend for four per cent, have set men's mouths a watering for money:" i.e., to watering.—LOCKE: in Johnson's Dict. "An other falls a ringing a Pescennius Niger:" i.e., to ringing.—ADDISON: ib. "At least to set others a thinking upon the subject:" i.e., to thinking.—Johnson's Gram. Com., p. 300. "Every one that could reach it, cut off a piece, and fell a eating:" i.e., to eating.—Newspaper. "To go a mothering,[138] is to visit parents on Midlent Sunday."—Webster's Dict., w. Mothering. "Which we may find when we come a fishing here."—Wotton. "They go a begging to a bankrupt's door."—Dryden. "A hunting Chloë went."—Prior. "They burst out a laughing."—M. Edgeworth. In the last six sentences, a seems more suitable than any other preposition would be: all it needs, is an accent to distinguish it from the article; as, à.

OBS. 24.—Dr. Alexander Murray says, "To be a-seeking, is the relic of the Saxon to be on or an seeking. What are you a-seeking? is different from, What are you seeking? It means more fully the going on with the process."—Hist. Europ. Lang,, Vol. ii, p. 149. I disapprove of the hyphen in such terms as "à seeking," because it converts the preposition and participle into I know not what; and it may be observed, in passing, that the want of it, in such as "the going on," leaves us a loose and questionable word, which, by the conversion of the participle into a noun, becomes a nondescript in grammar. I dissent also from Dr. Murray, concerning the use of the preposition or prefix a, in examples like that which he has here chosen. After a neuter verb, this particle is unnecessary to the sense, and, I think, injurious to the construction. Except in poetry, which is measured by syllables, it may be omitted without any substitute; as, "I am a walking."—Johnson's Dict., w. A. "He had one only daughter, and she lay a dying."—Luke, viii, 42. "In the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing."—1 Pet., iii, 20. "Though his unattentive thoughts be elsewhere a wandering."—Locke's Essay, p. 284. Say—"be wandering elsewhere;" and omit the a, in all such cases.

   "And—when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
    His greatness is a ripening—nips his root."—Shak.

OBS. 25.—"A has a peculiar signification, denoting the proportion of one thing to an other. Thus we say, The landlord hath a hundred a year; the ship's crew gained a thousand pounds a man."—Johnson's Dict. "After the rate of twenty leagues a day."—Addison. "And corn was at two sesterces a bushel."—Duncan's Cicero, p. 82. Whether a in this construction is the article or the preposition, seems to be questionable. Merchants are very much in the habit of supplying its place by the Latin preposition per, by; as, "Board, at $2 per week."—Preston's Book-Keeping, p. 44. "Long lawn, at $12 per piece."—Dilworth's, p. 63. "Cotton, at 2s. 6d. per pound."—Morrison's, p. 75. "Exchange, at 12d. per livre."—Jackson's, p. 73. It is to be observed that an, as well as a, is used in this manner; as, "The price is one dollar an ounce." Hence, I think, we may infer, that this is not the old preposition a, but the article an or a, used in the distributive sense of each or every, and that the noun is governed by a preposition understood; as, "He demands a dollar an hour;" i. e., a dollar for each hour.—"He comes twice a year:" i. e., twice in every year.—"He sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses:" (1 Kings, v, 14:) i. e., ten thousand, monthly; or, as our merchants say, "per month." Some grammarians have also remarked, that, "In mercantile accounts, we frequently see a put for to, in a very odd sort of way; as, 'Six bales marked 1 a 6.' The merchant means, 'marked from 1 to 6.' This is taken to be a relic of the Norman French, which was once the law and mercantile language of England; for, in French, a, with an accent, signifies to or at."—Emmons's Gram., p. 73. Modern merchants, in stead of accenting the a, commonly turn the end of it back; as, @.

OBS. 26.—Sometimes a numeral word with the indefinite article—as a few, a great many, a dozen, a hundred, a thousand—denotes an aggregate of several or many taken collectively, and yet is followed by a plural noun, denoting the sort or species of which this particular aggregate is a part: as, "A few small fishes,"—"A great many mistakes,"—"A dozen bottles of wine,"—"A hundred lighted candles,"—"A thousand miles off." Respecting the proper manner of explaining these phrases, grammarians differ in opinion. That the article relates not to the plural noun, but to the numerical word only, is very evident; but whether, in these instances, the words few, many, dozen, hundred, and thousand, are to be called nouns or adjectives, is matter of dispute. Lowth, Murray, and many others, call them adjectives, and suppose a peculiarity of construction in the article;—like that of the singular adjectives every and one in the phrases, "Every ten days,"—"One seven times more."—Dan., iii, 19. Churchill and others call them nouns, and suppose the plurals which follow, to be always in the objective case governed by of, understood: as, "A few [of] years,"—"A thousand [of] doors;"—like the phrases, "A couple of fowls,"—"A score of fat bullocks."—Churchill's Gram., p. 279. Neither solution is free from difficulty. For example: "There are a great many adjectives."—Dr. Adam. Now, if many is here a singular nominative, and the only subject of the verb, what shall we do with are? and if it is a plural adjective, what shall we do with a and great? Taken in either of these ways, the construction is anomalous. One can hardly think the word "adjectives" to be here in the objective case, because the supposed ellipsis of the word of cannot be proved; and if many is a noun, the two words are perhaps in apposition, in the nominative. If I say, "A thousand men are on their way," the men are the thousand, and the thousand is nothing but the men; so that I see not why the relation of the terms may not be that of apposition. But if authorities are to decide the question, doubtless we must yield it to those who suppose the whole numeral phrase to be taken adjectively; as, "Most young Christians have, in the course of half a dozen years, time to read a great many pages."—Young Christian, p. 6.

   "For harbour at a thousand doors they knock'd;
    Not one of all the thousand but was lock'd."—Dryden.

OBS. 27.—The numeral words considered above, seem to have been originally adjectives, and such may be their most proper construction now; but all of them are susceptible of being construed as nouns, even if they are not such in the examples which have been cited. Dozen, or hundred, or thousand, when taken abstractly, is unquestionably a noun; for we often speak of dozens, hundreds, and thousands. Few and many never assume the plural form, because they have naturally a plural signification; and a few or a great many is not a collection so definite that we can well conceive of fews and manies; but both are sometimes construed substantively, though in modern English[139] it seems to be mostly by ellipsis of the noun. Example: "The praise of the judicious few is an ample compensation for the neglect of the illiterate many."—Churchill's Gram., p. 278. Dr. Johnson says, the word many is remarkable in Saxon for its frequent use. The following are some of the examples in which he calls it a substantive, or noun: "After him the rascal many ran."—Spenser. "O thou fond many."—Shakspeare. "A care-craz'd mother of a many children."—Id. "And for thy sake have I shed many a tear."—Id. "The vulgar and the many are fit only to be led or driven."—South. "He is liable to a great many inconveniences every moment of his life."—Tillotson. "Seeing a great many in rich gowns, he was amazed."—Addison.

   "There parting from the king, the chiefs divide,
    And wheeling east and west, before their many ride."—Dryden.

OBS. 28.—"On the principle here laid down, we may account for a peculiar use of the article with the adjective few, and some other diminutives. In saying, 'A few of his adherents remained with him;' we insinuate, that they constituted a number sufficiently important to be formed into an aggregate: while, if the article be omitted, as, 'Few of his adherents remained with him;' this implies, that he was nearly deserted, by representing them as individuals not worth reckoning up. A similar difference occurs between the phrases: 'He exhibited a little regard for his character;' and 'He exhibited little regard for his character.'"—Churchill's Gram., p. 279. The word little, in its most proper construction, is an adjective, signifying small; as, "He was little of stature."—Luke. "Is it not a little one?"—Genesis. And in sentences like