IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.
FALSE SYNTAX UNDER RULE XV.
UNDER THE RULE ITSELF.—THE IDEA OF PLURALITY.
"The gentry is punctilious in their etiquette."
[FORMULE.—Not proper, because the verb is is of the singular number, and does not correctly agree with its nominative gentry, which is a collective noun conveying rather the idea of plurality. But, according to Rule 15th, "When the nominative is a collective noun conveying the idea of plurality, the verb must agree with it in the plural number." Therefore, is should be are; thus, "The gentry are punctilious in their etiquette.">[
"In France the peasantry goes barefoot, and the middle sort makes use of wooden shoes."—HARVEY: Priestley's Gram., p. 188. "The people rejoices in that which should cause sorrow."—See Murray's Exercises, p. 49. "My people is foolish, they have not known me."—Jer., iv, 22; Lowth's Gram., p. 75. "For the people speaks, but does not write."—Philological Museum, i, 646. "So that all the people that was in the camp, trembled."—Exodus, xix, 16. "No company likes to confess that they are ignorant."—Student's Manual, p. 217. "Far the greater part of their captives was anciently sacrificed."—Robertson's America, i, 339. "Above one half of them was cut off before the return of spring."—Ib., ii, 419. "The other class, termed Figures of Thought, supposes the words to be used in their proper and literal meaning."—Blair's Rhet., p. 133; Murray's Gram., 337. "A multitude of words in their dialect approaches to the Teutonic form, and therefore afford excellent assistance."—Dr. Murray's Hist of Lang., i, 148. "A great majority of our authors is defective in manner."—James Brown's Crit. "The greater part of these new-coined words has been rejected."—Tooke's Diversions, ii, 445. "The greater part of the words it contains is subject to certain modifications and inflections."—The Friend, ii, 123. "While all our youth prefers her to the rest."—Waller's Poems, p. 17. "Mankind is appointed to live in a future state."—Butler's Analogy, p. 57. "The greater part of human kind speaks and acts wholly by imitation."—Wright's Gram., p. 169. "The greatest part of human gratifications approaches so nearly to vice."—Ibid.
"While still the busy world is treading o'er
The paths they trod five thousand years before."—Young.