“My people do not consider,”
“My people does not consider.”
This licence, however, as Priestley observes, is not entirely arbitrary. If the term immediately suggest the idea of number, the verb is preferably made plural; but, if it suggest the idea of a whole or unity, it should be singular. Thus it seems harsh and unnatural to say, “In France the peasantry goes barefoot, and the middle sort makes use of wooden shoes.” It would be better to say, “the peasantry go”—“the middle sort make;” because the idea is that of number. On the contrary, there is something incongruous and unnatural in these expressions: “The court of Rome were not without solicitude—The house of commons were of small weight—Stephen’s party were entirely broken up.”—Hume.
Rule V.—The adjectives this and that agree with their substantives in number, as,
| This man | These men |
| That woman | Those women. |
All other adjectives are inflexible, as,
| Good man | Good men. |
Note 1.—This rule is violated in such expressions as these, which too frequently occur, “These kind of people.” “Those sort of goods.”
Note 2.—The substantive, with which the adjective is connected, is ascertained by putting the question, who, or what? to the adjective, as, “a ripe apple.” What is ripe? Ans. “The apple.”
Note 3.—The inflexibility of the English adjective sometimes occasions ambiguity, rendering it doubtful to which of two or more substantives the adjective refers. The defect is sometimes supplied by the note termed hyphen. If, for example, we hear a person designated “an old bookseller,” we may be at a loss to know, whether the person intended be an old man who sells books, that is, “an old book-seller,” or one who sells old books, that is, “an old-book seller.” When we read the notice, “Lime, slate, and coal wharf,” we are indebted to the exercise of common sense, and not to the perspicuity of the diction, for understanding what is meant by attaching the term wharf to all the preceding nouns, while in strict grammatical construction the notice might bear a different signification.