Our next subject is the
Construction of Nouns Substantive.
Which is not quite so amusing as the construction of small boats, paper kites, pinwheels, crackers, or any other mode of displaying the faculty of “constructiveness”—though in one sense the construction of nouns substantive, is not unlike the construction of puzzles.
When two substantives of a different signification meet together, the latter is put in the genitive case, as
Ulysses lumen Cyclopis extinxit:
Ulysses doused the glim of the Cyclops.
This genitive case is sometimes changed into a dative, as
Urbi pater est, urbique maritus. —Gram. Eton.
He is the father of the city, and the husband of the city.
He must have been a pretty fellow, whoever he was.