Horace, Ep. I. Lib. 2.
[135] The Saxon word is awiht, contracted auht, aliquid.
[136] We have remarked the same violation of common sense, as occurring in Cicero, oftener than once. “Alium alio nequiorem.”—Ep. Fam. “Aliam alia jucundiorem.”—Att.
[137] Deprehendat, quæ barbara, quæ impropria, quæ contra legem loquendi composita.—Quintil. lib. i. cap. 5.
[138] In conformity to the example of most of our grammarians, I have employed the term etymology in the title of this work, and wherever else it occurs, as denoting that part of grammar, which teaches the inflection of words. In its primitive acceptation, it means an exposition of their derivation, and is still employed in that sense, as well as in the signification in which it is here used. Some writers have preferred the term analogy to express the doctrine of inflection. If the principle of analogy or similitude were confined to inflection, the designation might be proper; but, as this principle extends to the concord, the government, and the collocation, generally termed the syntax of words, it cannot be considered an appropriate name for that part of grammar, which teaches merely inflection or verbal termination. Analogy is the leading principle, on which every grammatical rule is founded; and those, who have employed the term for etymology, it would be easy to show, have not been observant of strict consistency.
[139] The reader is requested to observe, that under “solecism,” I have included several phraseologies, which, though not consistent with syntactical propriety, may be justly called by the softer name of “inaccuracies.”
[141] We perceive intuitively the error of Milton, when he calls Adam “the comeliest of men since born,” Eve also “the fairest of her daughters,” and we laugh, perhaps, when the Cork almanack-maker gravely tells us, “that the principal republics in Europe, are Venice, Holland, and America;” yet the error here reprehended is precisely of the same species, though it passes frequently unnoticed. See [p. 74].
[142] It has been already offered as the opinion of the writer, (see [p. 47],) that the English word other is the Saxon oðeꞃ, and that this word with the Arabic ahd, the Hebrew had or ahad, the Saxon oððe, the Teutonic odo, the Swedish udda, and probably the Latin aut, have all sprung from the same source, or that one of these is the parent of the rest, denoting unus or singulus, “one,” or “one by itself.” Of the origin of the Saxon other, Lye has hazarded no opinion. It appears to me to be a comparative from oððe. To those who have carefully examined, and have approved the theory of Mr. Tooke, it will furnish no valid objection against this opinion, that the word oððe is uniformly found in Saxon, signifying aut. Such can have little or no difficulty in perceiving, not only from the similarity of the elements, but from the affinity in point of sense, that had, ahd, aut, oððe, oðeꞃ, other, or, are all members of one and the same family.
[143] In French the article and the adjectives admitting a plural termination, the expression “les uns et les autres” joined to a plural verb is in perfect consistence with analogy. So also, in Latin, are utrique and alteri, referring to a plurality. But unus was never in this sense used as a plural.