[531] The word "imperfect" is not really necessary here; for the declaration is true of any phrase, as this name is commonly applied.—G. BROWN.
[532] A part of speech is a sort of words, and not one word only. We cannot say, that every pronoun, or every verb, is a part of speech, because the parts of speech are only ten. But every pronoun, verb, or other word, is a word; and, if we will refer to this genus, there is no difficulty in defining all the parts of speech in the singular, with an or a: as, "A pronoun is a word put for a noun." Murray and others say, "An Adverb is a part of speech," &c., "A Conjunction is a part of speech," &c., which is the same as to say, "One adverb is a sort of words," &c. This is a palpable absurdity.—G. BROWN.
[533] The propriety of this conjunction, "nor," is somewhat questionable: the reading in both the Vulgate and the Septuagint is—"they, and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters."
[534] All our lexicographers, and all accurate authors, spell this word with an o; but the gentleman who has furnished us with the last set of new terms for the science of grammar, writes it with an e, and applies it to the verb and the participle. With him, every verb or participle is an "asserter;" except when he forgets his creed, as he did in writing the preceding example about certain "verbs." As he changes the names of all the parts of speech, and denounces the entire technology of grammar, perhaps his innovation would have been sufficiently broad, had he for THE VERB, the most important class of all, adopted some name which he knew how to spell.—G. B.
[535] It would be better to omit the word "forth," or else to say—"whom I brought forth from the land of Egypt." The phrase, "forth out of," is neither a very common nor a very terse one.—G. BROWN.
[536] This doctrine, that participles divide and specify time, I have elsewhere shown to be erroneous.—G. BROWN.
[537] Perhaps it would be as well or better, in correcting these two examples, to say, "There are a generation." But the article a, as well as the literal form of the noun, is a sign of unity; and a complete uniformity of numbers is not here practicable.
[538] Though the pronoun thou is not much used in common discourse, it is as proper for the grammarian to consider and show, what form of the verb belongs to it when it is so used, as it is for him to determine what form is adapted to any other pronoun, when a difference of style affects the question.
[539] "Forgavest," as the reading is in our common Bible, appears to be wrong; because the relative that and its antecedent God are of the third person, and not of the second.
[540] All the corrections under this head are directly contrary to the teaching of William S. Cardell. Oliver B. Peirce, and perhaps some other such writers on grammar; and some of them are contrary also to Murray's late editions. But I am confident that these authors teach erroneously; that their use of indicative forms for mere suppositions that are contrary to the facts, is positively ungrammatical; and that the potential imperfect is less elegant, in such instances, than the simple subjunctive, which they reject or distort.