The Grammar of English Grammars

by Goold Brown

NOTES TO RULE V.

NOTE I.—Those verbs or participles which require a regimen, or which signify action that must terminate transitively, should not be used without an object; as, "She affects [kindness,] in order to ingratiate [herself] with you."—"I must caution [you], at the same time, against a servile imitation of any author whatever."—Blair's Rhet., p. 192.

NOTE II.—Those verbs and participles which do not admit an object, or which express action that terminates in themselves, or with the doer, should not be used transitively; as, "The planters grow cotton." Say raise, produce, or cultivate. "Dare you speak lightly of the law, or move that, in a criminal trial, judges should advance one step beyond what it permits them to go?"—Blair's Rhet., p. 278. Say,—"beyond the point to which it permits them to go."

NOTE III.—No transitive verb or participle should assume a government to which its own meaning is not adapted; as, "Thou is a pronoun, a word used instead of a noun—personal, it personates 'man.'"—Kirkham's Gram., p. 131. Say, "It represents man." "Where a string of such sentences succeed each other."—Blair's Rhet., p. 168. Say, "Where many such sentences come in succession."

NOTE IV.—The passive verb should always take for its subject or nominative the direct object of the active-transitive verb from which it is derived; as, (Active,) "They denied me this privilege." (Passive,) "This privilege was denied me;" not, "I was denied this privilege:" for me may be governed by to understood, but privilege cannot, nor can any other regimen be found for it.

NOTE V.—Passive verbs should never be made to govern the objective case, because the receiving of an action supposes it to terminate on the subject or nominative.[356] Errors: "Sometimes it is made use of to give a small degree of emphasis."—L. Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 197. Say, "Sometimes it is used," &c. "His female characters have been found fault with as insipid."—Hazlitt's Lect., p. 111. Say,—"have been censured;" or,—"have been blamed, decried, dispraised, or condemned."

NOTE VI.—The perfect participle, as such, should never be made to govern any objective term; because, without an active auxiliary, its signification is almost always passive: as, "We shall set down the characters made use of to represent all the elementary sounds."—L. Murray's Gram., p. 5; Fisk's, 34. Say,—"the characters employed, or used."

NOTE VII.—As the different cases in English are not always distinguished by their form, care must be taken lest their construction be found equivocal, or ambiguous; as, "And we shall always find our sentences acquire more vigour and energy when thus retrenched."—Blair's Rhet., p. 111. Say, "We shall always find that our sentences acquire more vigour," &c.; or, "We shall always find our sentences to acquire more vigour and energy when thus retrenched."

NOTE VIII.—In the language of our Bible, rightly quoted or printed, ye is not found in the objective case, nor you in the nominative; scriptural texts that preserve not this distinction of cases, are consequently to be considered inaccurate.