THE KEY.—PART II.—ETYMOLOGY.
CHAPTER I.—PARTS OF SPEECH.
The first chapter of Etymology, as it exhibits only the distribution of words into the ten Parts of Speech, contains no false grammar for correction. And it may be here observed, that as mistakes concerning the forms, classes, or modifications of words, are chiefly to be found in sentences, rather than in any separate exhibition of the terms; the quotations of this kind, with which I have illustrated the principles of etymology, are many of them such as might perhaps with more propriety be denominated false syntax. But, having examples enough at hand to show the ignorance and carelessness of authors in every part of grammar, I have thought it most advisable, so to distribute them as to leave no part destitute of this most impressive kind of illustration. The examples exhibited as false etymology, are as distinct from those which are called false syntax, as the nature of the case will admit.
CHAPTER II.—ARTICLES.
CORRECTIONS RESPECTING A, AN, AND THE.
LESSON I.—ARTICLES ADAPTED.
"Honour is a useful distinction in life."—Milnes cor. "No writer, therefore, ought to foment a humour of innovation."—Jamieson cor. "Conjunctions [generally] require a situation between the things of which they form a union."—Id. "Nothing is more easy than to mistake a u for an a."—Tooke cor. "From making so ill a use of our innocent expressions."—Penn cor. "To grant thee a heavenly and incorruptible crown of glory."—Sewel cor. "It in no wise follows, that such a one was able to predict."—Id. "With a harmless patience, they have borne most heavy oppressions."—Id. "My attendance was to make me a happier man."—Spect. cor. "On the wonderful nature of a human mind."—Id. "I have got a hussy of a maid, who is most craftily given to this."—Id. "Argus is said to have had a hundred eyes, some of which were always awake."—Stories cor. "Centiped, having a hundred feet; centennial, consisting of a hundred years."—Town cor. "No good man, he thought, could be a heretic."—Gilpin cor. "As, a Christian, an infidel, a heathen."—Ash cor. "Of two or more words, usually joined by a hyphen."—Blair cor. "We may consider the whole space of a hundred years as time present."—Ingersoll's Gram., p. 138. "In guarding against such a use of meats and drinks."—Ash cor. "Worship is a homage due from man to his Creator."—Monitor cor. "Then a eulogium on the deceased was pronounced."—Grimshaw cor. "But for Adam there was not found a help meet for him."—Bible cor. "My days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as a hearth."—Id. "A foreigner and a hired servant shall not eat thereof."—Id. "The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan; a high hill, as the hill of Bashan."—Id. "But I do declare it to have been a holy offering, and such a one too as was to be once for all."—Penn cor. "A hope that does not make ashamed those that have it."—Barclay cor. "Where there is not a unity, we may exercise true charity."—Id. "Tell me, if in any of these such a union can be found?"—Dr. Brown cor.
"Such holy drops her tresses steeped,
Though 'twas a hero's eye that weeped."—Sir W. Scott cor.
LESSON II.—ARTICLES INSERTED.
"This veil of flesh parts the visible and the invisible world."—Sherlock cor. "The copulative and the disjunctive conjunctions operate differently on the verb."—L. Murray cor. "Every combination of a preposition and an article with the noun."—Id. "Either signifies, 'the one or the other:' neither imports, 'not either;' that is, 'not the one nor the other.'"—Id. "A noun of multitude may have a pronoun or a verb agreeing with it, either of the singular number or of the plural."—Bucke cor. "The principal copulative conjunctions are, and, as, both, because, for, if, that, then, since."—Id. "The two real genders are the masculine and the feminine."—Id. "In which a mute and a liquid are represented by the same character, th."—Gardiner cor. "They said, John the Baptist hath sent us unto thee."—Bible cor. "They indeed remember the names of an abundance of places."—Spect. cor. "Which created a great dispute between the young and the old men."—Goldsmith cor. "Then shall be read the Apostles' or the Nicene Creed."—Com. Prayer cor. "The rules concerning the perfect tenses and the supines of verbs are Lily's."—K. Henry's Gr. cor. "It was read by the high and the low, the learned and the illiterate."—Dr. Johnson cor. "Most commonly, both the pronoun and the verb are understood."—Buchanan cor. "To signify the thick and the slender enunciation of tone."—Knight cor. "The difference between a palatial and a guttural aspirate is very small."—Id. "Leaving it to waver between the figurative and the literal sense."—Jamieson cor. "Whatever verb will not admit of both an active and a passive signification."—Alex. Murray cor. "The is often set before adverbs in the comparative or the superlative degree."—Id. and Kirkham cor. "Lest any should fear the effect of such a change, upon the present or the succeeding age of writers."—Fowle cor. "In all these measures, the accents are to be placed on the even syllables; and every line is, in general, the more melodious, as this rule is the more strictly observed."—L. Murray et al. cor. "How many numbers do nouns appear to have? Two: the singular and the plural."—R. C. Smith cor. "How many persons? Three; the first, the second, and the third."—Id. "How many cases? Three; the nominative, the possessive, and the objective."—Id.