[446] As a mere assertion, this example is here sufficiently corrected; but, as a definition, (for which the author probably intended it,) it is deficient; and consequently, in that sense, is still inaccurate. I would also observe that most of the subsequent examples under the present head, contain other errors than that for which they are here introduced; and, of some of them, the faults are, in my opinion, very many: for example, the several definitions of an adverb, cited below. Lindley Murray's definition of this part of speech is not inserted among these, because I had elsewhere criticised that. So too of his faulty definition of a conjunction. See the Introduction, Chap. X. paragraphs 26 and 28. See also Corrections in the Key, under Note 10th to Rule 1st.
[447] In his explanation of Ellipsis, Lindley Murray continually calls it "the ellipsis," and speaks of it as something that is "used,"—"made use of,"—"applied,"—"contained in" the examples; which expressions, referring, as they there do, to the mere absence of something, appear to me solecistical. The notion too, which this author and others have entertained of the figure itself, is in many respects erroneous; and nearly all their examples for its illustration are either questionable as to such an application, or obviously inappropriate. The absence of what is needless or unsuggested, is no ellipsis, though some grave men have not discerned this obvious fact. The nine solecisms here quoted concerning "the ellipsis," are all found in many other grammars. See Fisk's E. Gram., p. 144; Guy's, 91; Ingersoll's, 153; J. M. Putnam's, 137; R. C. Smith's, 180; Weld's, 190.
[448] Some of these examples do, in fact, contain more than two errors; for mistakes in punctuation, or in the use of capitals, are not here reckoned. This remark may also he applicable to some of the other lessons. The reader may likewise perceive, that where two, three, or more improprieties occur in one sentence, some one or more of them may happen to be such, as he can, if he choose, correct by some rule or note belonging to a previous chapter. Great labour has been bestowed on the selection and arrangement of these syntactical exercises; but to give to so great a variety of literary faults, a distribution perfectly distinct, and perfectly adapted to all the heads assumed in this digest, is a work not only of great labour, but of great difficulty. I have come as near to these two points of perfection in the arrangement, as I well could.—G. BROWN.
[449] In Murray's sixth chapter of Punctuation, from which this example, and eleven others that follow it, are taken, there is scarcely a single sentence that does not contain many errors; and yet the whole is literally copied in Ingersoll's Grammar, p. 293; in Fisk's, p. 159; in Abel Flint's, 116; and probably in some others. I have not always been careful to subjoin the great number of references which might be given for blunders selected from this hackneyed literature of the schools. For corrections, or improvements, see the Key.
[450] This example, or L. Murray's miserable modification of it, traced through the grammars of Alden, Alger, Bullions, Comly, Cooper, Flint, Hiley, Ingersoll, Jaudon, Merchant, Russell, Smith, and others, will be found to have a dozen different forms—all of them no less faulty than the original—all of them obscure, untrue, inconsistent, and almost incorrigible. It is plain, that "a comma," or one comma, cannot divide more than two "simple members;" and these, surely, cannot be connected by more than one relative, or by more than one "comparative;" if it be allowable to call than, as, or so, by this questionable name. Of the multitude of errors into which these pretended critics have so blindly fallen, I shall have space and time to point out only a very small part: this text, too justly, may be taken as a pretty fair sample of their scholarship!
[451] The "idea" which is here spoken of, Dr. Blair discovers in a passage of Addison's Spectator. It is, in fact, as here "brought out" by the critic, a bald and downright absurdity. Dr. Campbell has criticised, under the name of marvellous nonsense, a different display of the same "idea," cited from De Piles's Principles of Painting. The passage ends thus: "In this sense it may be asserted, that in Rubens' pieces, Art is above Nature, and Nature only a copy of that great master's works." Of this the critic says: "When the expression is stript of the absurd meaning, there remains nothing but balderdash."—Philosophy of Rhet., p, 278.
[452] All his rules for the comma, Fisk appears to have taken unjustly from Greenleaf. It is a double shame, for a grammarian to steal what is so badly written!—G. BROWN.
[453] Bad definitions may have other faults than to include or exclude what they should not, but this is their great and peculiar vice. For example: "Person is that property of nouns and pronouns which distinguishes the speaker, the person or thing addressed, and the person or thing spoken of."—Wells's School Gram., 1st Ed., p. 51; 113th Ed., p. 57. See nearly the same words, in Weld's English Gram., p. 67; and in his Abridgement, p. 49. The three persons of verbs are all improperly excluded from this definition; which absurdly takes "person" to be one property that has all the effect of all the persons; so that each person, in its turn, since each cannot have all this effect, is seen to be excluded also: that is, it is not such a property as is described! Again: "An intransitive verb is a verb which does not have a noun or pronoun for its object."—Wells, 1st Ed., p. 76. According to Dr. Johnson, "does not have," is not a scholarly phrase; but the adoption of a puerile expression is a trifling fault, compared with that of including here all passive verbs, and some transitives, which the author meant to exclude; to say nothing of the inconsistency of excluding here the two classes of verbs which he absurdly calls "intransitive," though he finds them "followed by objectives depending upon them!"—Id., p. 145. Weld imitates these errors too, on pp. 70 and 153.
[454] S. R. Hall thinks it necessary to recognize "four distinctions" of "the distinction occasioned by sex." In general, the other authors here quoted, suppose that we have only "three distinctions" of "the distinction of sex." And, as no philosopher has yet discovered more than two sexes, some have thence stoutly argued, that it is absurd to speak of more than two genders. Lily makes it out, that in Latin there are seven: yet, with no great consistency, he will have a gender to be a or the distinction of sex. "GENUS est sexus discretio. Et sunt genera numero septem."—Lilii Gram., p. 10. That is, "GENDER is the distinction of sex. And the genders are seven in number." Ruddiman says, "GENUS est, discrimen nominis secundum sexum, vel ejus in structurâ grammaticâ imitatio. Genera nominum sunt tria."—Ruddimanni Gram., p. 4. That is, "GENDER is the diversity of the noun according to sex, or [it is] the imitation of it in grammatical structure. The genders of nouns are three." These old definitions are no better than the newer ones cited above. All of them are miserable failures, full of faults and absurdities. Both the nature and the cause of their defects are in some degree explained near the close of the tenth chapter of my Introduction. Their most prominent errors are these: 1. They all assume, that gender, taken as one thing, is in fact two, three, or more, genders, 2. Nearly all of them seem to say or imply, that words differ from one an other in sex, like animals. 3. Many of them expressly confine gender, or the genders, to nouns only. 4. Many of them confessedly exclude the neuter gender, though their authors afterwards admit this gender. 5. That of Dr. Webster supposes, that words differing in gender never have the same "termination." The absurdity of this may be shown by a multitude of examples: as, man and woman, male and female, father and mother, brother and sister. This is better, but still not free from some other faults which I have mentioned. For the correction of all this great batch of errors, I shall simply substitute in the Key one short definition, which appears to me to be exempt from each of these inaccuracies.
[455] Walker states this differently, and even repeats his remark, thus: "But y preceded by a vowel is never changed: as coy, coyly, gay, gayly."—Walker's Rhyming Dict., p.x. "Y preceded by a vowel is never changed, as boy, boys, I cloy, he cloys, etc."—Ib., p viii. Walker's twelve "Orthographical Aphorisms," which Murray and others republish as their "Rules for Spelling," and which in stead of amending they merely corrupt, happened through some carelessness to contain two which should have been condensed into one. For "words ending with y preceded by a consonant," he has not only the absurd rule or assertion above recited, but an other which is better, with an exception or remark under each, respecting "y preceded by a vowel." The grammarians follow him in his errors, and add to their number: hence the repetition, or similarity, in the absurdities here quoted. By the term "verbal nouns," Walker meant nouns denoting agents, as carrier from carry; but Kirkham understood him to mean "participial nouns," as the carrying. Or rather, he so mistook "that able philologist" Murray; for he probably knew nothing of Walker in the matter; and accordingly changed the word "verbal" to "participial;" thus teaching, through all his hundred editions, except a few of the first, that participial nouns from verbs ending in y preceded by a consonant, are formed by merely "changing the y into i." But he seems to have known, that this is not the way to form the participle; though he did not know, that "coyless" is not a proper English word.