THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
AND ENGLISH GRAMMAR
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THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
AND
ENGLISH GRAMMAR
AN HISTORICAL STUDY
OF THE
SOURCES, DEVELOPMENT, AND ANALOGIES OF THE LANGUAGE
AND OF THE
PRINCIPLES GOVERNING ITS USAGES
ILLUSTRATED BY COPIOUS EXAMPLES FROM WRITERS
OF ALL PERIODS
SAMUEL RAMSEY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK LONDON
37 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND
&t ^nichtrbotktr ^rws
1892
COPYRIGHT, 1892
BY
SAMUEL RAMSEY
Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by
Ubc Knickerbocker press, TAcw V?orfe
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
PREFACE.
MUCH of what is contained in the following pages was
first written for purposes of private instruction, and without
any view to publication ; but as one chapter was added after
another, it began to be thought that some portions might
interest a larger class of readers. There are many persons
who would be glad to know more about the English
language than can be gained from the formal routine of the
public schools, who, nevertheless, are unable to procure and
read the great number of valuable works on the subject that
have issued from the press within a period of fifty years.
Such persons are in a position to appreciate a work taking
a somewhat wider view than the common text-books, and
presenting some of the more familiar results of modern
philology.
There are two classes for whom this book is not intended.
The first are those who are already familiar with all the
results of past labors, and who, therefore, can find nothing
here to add to their present ample stores of knowledge, there
being no claim to original discovery or invention. The
second class are those who neither know or care anything
about the history or philology of their native tongue.
Between these extremes is the large and important class who
already know something and desire to know more.
There was a fable of the Rabbins that the first pair of
blacksmith's tongs were made during the six days of cre-
ation, because, without such primordial instrumentality, no
tool could ever have been fashioned. I cannot but think that
many have unconsciously imbibed a somewhat similar belief
in regard to English grammar. It may not be distinctly
taught, but everything tends to impress the learner with a
iv Preface.
vague idea that the rules laid down in his manual were
ordained " in the beginning," and have remained unchanged
and unchangeable ever since, and that in the fulness of time
the English language was made in obedience to them. The
reader of these pages will have an opportunity to become
acquainted with the opposite doctrine that language, so far
as we are acquainted with it, is a human product, subject like
others to evolution and mutation as liable to change as the
forms of our garments or our dwellings, and that the office of
grammar is not to go before and decree what men shall say,
but to follow after and describe what they do say.
S. R.
ERRATA.
Page 19, line 23, for acres, read races.
" " " " for Higdon, read Trevisa.
21 " iS,f0r ne spe, read nes fe.
" 63 " 6, for extradition, raz</ extrajudicial.
" 65 " ZZ,f or puine, raz</ puine.
71 " 4, for ac-ia, read at-ia.
73 4i t forfam t read far.
" 76 29, yi?r /zV, like, read ling.
" 134 " 2$, for fuss, read Fuss.
" 181 " 22,f0rt's,read/'s.
" 2 39 " 3 2 > Note, There was also a pural, cildra, or cildru.
" 242 " 29 if, for fit, gis, tit5, read fet, ges, teS.
" 2 93>f or t* 16 initial pa, rm^/-everywhere pa.
" 294, line 22, for preceded, r^dt^did not precede.
" 324 " 20, for ipsi, readipse.
" 347 " 21, for Ir J^, read\\se.
" " " 22, /0r Venir j^, r^a^ Venire.
" 359 " Zif or grafen, razd' grave.
" 364 " 28,y<9r sow, read saw.
" 375 " i8,for wollede and shullede, read wolde and sceolde.
" 412 " 2g,for levdeyr, read levy r.
" 428 " 29, /-<?^/ 1 did not hear it.
" 436 " 25, 28, y<?r ecrire, read ecrire.
" 440 " 4, /c?r thries, r^d!</ thrice.
" 445 " 1 9, /^ f and-e, r^^/ f und-e.
" 21, for fanth-um, /-^</ f unth-ura.
yi?r fand, r^^^/ fund-on.
" " " 22,/^rfanth-uth, rw? funth-uth.
/<?/ fund-e, r^</ fund-on.
" " 23, /(?/- fanth-un, raz</ funth-un.
for fand, r<?^/ fund-on.
" 463 u 1 9, for lie, read like.
11 467 " 9, /<?r gesoth, read geseoth.
" 480 22, for five, read lice.
" 504 " *, f r
CONTENTS.
PART FIRST.
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
Chapter I. THE INSTABILITY OF LANGUAGE ..... 3
Chapter II. THE SOURCES OF ENGLISH 12
Chapter III. THE PROVINCE OF GRAMMAR ..... 43
Chapter IV. WORD-MAKING 53
Chapter V. THE ALPHABET ........ 94
Chapter VI. GRIMM'S LAW 132
Chapter VII. PRONUNCIATION AND SPELLING ..... 138
PART SECOND.
ENGLISH GRAMMAR.
Chapter I. PRELIMINARY 217
Chapter II. NOUNS 225
Chapter III. ADJECTIVES ......... 288
Chapter IV. PRONOUNS ......... 307
Chapter V. VERB AND THEIRS SEVERAL KINDS .... 343
Chapter VI. AUXILIARY VERBS 372
Chapter VII. THE CONJUGATION OF VERBS 415
Chapter VIII. ADVERBS, PREPOSITIONS, AND CONJUNCTIONS . . 476
Chapter IX. SYNTAX ......... 506
Chapter X. SUGGESTIONS TO YOUNG WRITERS . . . .552
INDEX 569
PART FIRST.
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
CHAPTER I.
THE INSTABILITY OF LANGUAGE.
A LANGUAGE in common use is subject to continual change.
Old words sink into disuse, or become altered in sound or
signification ; and new ones are constructed or introduced.
Two principal causes accelerate this transformation the
commingling of diverse races, and a change of habits, ideas,
and pursuits. The vocabulary of a simple pastoral people
would entirely fail to meet the wants of modern civilization,
with its attendant arts and sciences, while the loss of any
art or body of ideas would be followed by the disuse of its
peculiar terms. Several causes also contribute to retard
change, among which are freedom from foreign influence ;
political, religious, or literary bonds of union among the
inhabitants of a considerable area ; and a continuance of the
same mode of life. The sanctuaries of Jerusalem and Mecca,
and the Olympic games at Elis brought together people of
kindred blood and faith ; and such great works as the He-
brew Bible, the poems of Homer, the Koran, and the author-
ized German and English versions of the Bible have had a
most powerful conservative influence on their respective
languages. Dr. Schliemann found the Iliad and Odyssey
still understood and appreciated by the villagers of Greece
two thousand five hundred years after the text was settled
by Pisistratus.
3
4 The English Language.
Change seems to be spontaneous and inevitable, beyond
all requirements of utility, as evidenced by the great variety
of pronunciations found in dictionaries and in common use,
and the frequent introduction of new words when the old
ones are equally good. The change, in small, undeveloped
communities, is sometimes surprisingly rapid. Waldeck,
who labored as a missionary in Central America, completed
a dictionary of one of the native languages in 1823. Re-
turning to the same tribe after an absence of ten years, he
found his dictionary already antiquated and useless. How
this is brought about is very graphically shown by Robert
Moffat, a missionary in Southern Africa. He says :
" The purity and harmony of language are kept up by their
pitches and public meetings, by their festivals and ceremonies,
as well as by their songs and their constant intercourse. With
the isolated villages of the desert it is far otherwise ; they have
no such meetings ; they are compelled to travel, often to a great
distance from their homes and native villages. On such occasions
fathers and mothers, and all who can bear a burden, often set out
for weeks at a time, and leave their children to the care of two or
three infirm old people. The infant progeny, some of whom are
beginning to lisp, while others can just master a whole sentence,
and those still further advanced, romping and playing together,
the children of nature, through the live-long day, become habitu-
ated to a language of their own. The more voluble condescend to
the less precocious ; and thus from this infant Babel proceeds a
dialect of a host of mongrel words and phrases, joined together
without rule, and in the course of one generation the entire character
of the language is changed" 1
In some such way were produced the countless languages
and dialects of the native American tribes. Even in Europe,
where some kind of national literature is rarely wanting, the
same tendency to separation has been at work with a force
proportioned to the prevailing ignorance and disorganization.
The early Celtic population of the British Islands became in
time separated into five mutually unintelligible branches ;
1 Mttller's " Lectures on Language," vol. i.
The Instability of Language. 5
the Basques in the adjoining provinces of France and Spain,
numbering little more than half a million, have their mother
tongue split into seven dialects ; and in Friesland the travel-
ler encounters a different form of speech in every village.
The gradual transformation of the English tongue may be
illustrated by a series of selections reaching back to a time
when the language becomes wholly unintelligible. The
words which would not be used now, at least in the same
sense, are distinguished by italics.
DAVID HUME, 1761.
" He promised that the present grandeur of Harold's family,
which supported itself with difficulty under the jealousy and
hatred of Edward, should receive new increase from a successor
who would be so greatly beholden to him for his advancement."
JOHN LOCKE, 1687.
" If we will disbelieve everything because we cannot certainly
know all things ; we shall do tnuchwhat as wisely as he who would
not use his legs, but sit still and perish because he had no wings
to fly."
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, 1580.
" There were hills which garnished their proud heights with
stately trees ; humble valleys whose base estate seemed comforted
with the refreshing of silver rivers ; meadows enamelled with all
sorts of eye-pleasing flowers ; thickets, which being lined with the
most pleasing shade, were witnessed so to by the cheerful dispo-
sition of many well-tuned birds ; each pasture stored with sheep,
feeding with sober security, while the pretty lambs, with bleating
oratory, craved the dam's comfort ; here a shepherd piping as
though he would never be old ; there a young shepherdess knit-
ting and withal singing ; and it seemed that her voice comforted
her hands to work, and her hands kept time to her voice music."
Although we are now too busy and business-like to indulge
in a style of such knightly and dainty elaboration, it will be
readily seen that the language itself has scarcely changed in
three hundred years.
6 The English Language.
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE, 1470.
" It hath ben often seen in England that iij or ij theves for
povertie hath sett upon vij or vj true men and robbed them al.
But it hath not been seen in France that vij or viij theves have
ben hardy to robbe iij or iv true men. Wherefore it is right seld
that Frenchmen be hangyed for robberye, for that they have no
hertys to do so terrible an acte. There be therefor mo men
hangyed in England in a jwr for robberye and manslaughter than
there & hangyd'vo. Fraunce for such cause of crime in vij yers"
SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE, ABOUT 1370.
" Theflrestes of that temple han alle here wrytynges, undre the
date of the /0#/ that is clept Fenix ; and there is non but on in
alle the world. And he comethe to brenne him self upon the
awtere of the temple, at the zafc of j" hundred 3<?<?r J . for so longe
he lyvethe. And at the jw Zeres ende, the prestes arrayen here
awtere honestly and putten thereupon spices and sulphur vif and
other thinges that wolen brenne lightly. And than the brid Fenix
comethe and brennethe him self to ashes. And the first day next
aftre, men fynden in the ashes a worm ; and the secunde day next
a//>v, men funden a r*tf ^2^^ and perfyt ; and the thridde day
next d//r*, he fleethe his ze/^y. And so there is no mo briddes of
that kynde in #//<? the world, but it allone. And treuly that is a
-r<?/ myracle of God. And men may well lykne that r>v/ unto
God, be cause that there nys no God but on, and, also, that oure
lord aroos fro dethe to lyve the thridde day."
PROCLAMATION OF HENRY III., 1258.
" Jfenr' thurl godes fultume King on Engleneloande. Lhoauerd
on Yrloand'. Duk on Norm* on Aquitain' and eorl on Aniow.
Send igretinge to alle hise halde ilarde and ileawede on Hunt-
endon 1 sehir' that witen 3<? wel alle that we -willen and vnnen
that, that vre radesmen alle other the moare dal of heom that
beoth ichosen thurf> us and thurZ that loandes folk on vre kun-
1 This character (3) here represents a modification of the Anglo-Saxon g much
in use from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, with a value varying from
jf to gh, the latter no longer recognized in English.
The Instability of Language. j
eriche. habbeth idon and schullen don in the worthnesse of gode
and on vre treowthe. for the freme' of the loande. thur~$, the
besi^te of than to foreniseide redesmen, beo stedefcest and ilestinde in
alle t hinge abut en cende." '
FROM THE "PETERBOROUGH CHRONICLE," 1150.
" And te ear I of Angau ward ded, and his sune Henri toe to the
rice. And te cuen of France to-dalde fra the king and sees com to
the iunge eorl Henri, and he toe hire to wive, and Peitou mid hire.
thafarde he mid micel far d into Engleland and m? castles and
te kingferde agenes him mid micel mare ferd, thothwathere fuhtten
he <?^/, oc fardon the arcebiscop and te wise men betwux heom, and
makede that .ra^te that te king &?/<& z lauerd and king //te he
/zz^dfe and #/ter his dai ware Henri, king."
^ELFRIC, ABOUT 980.
" Gif hwelc man hcefth hund sce'apa, and him losath dn of thdm,
hii, ne forldett he thd nigon and hundnigontig on thdm muntum, and
gdeth and secth thcet dn the forwarth ? And */" &V gelimpeth that
he hitfint, sothlice ic secge that he 1 swythor geblissath for //df//z */#z
thonne ofer //fo nigon and hund nigontig the na ne losodon."
MATTHEW xviii., 12-14.
KING ALFRED, ABOUT 890.
" That Edstland is swathe my eel, and /!&zr ^V/z swythe manig
burh, and <? celcere by rig byth cyninge ; and thtzr bith swythe my eel
1 This is often called the oldest extant specimen of English as distinguished
from Anglo-Saxon y but it probably represents nothing ever really spoken. Its
exaggerated rusticity is the clumsy attempt of a court scribe to render a French
original into the speech of the common people. In this and the following
examples I have used the modern th instead of the single letter thorn (>). The
passage may be read thus :
Henry, through God's help, King in England, Lord in Ireland, Duke in
Normandy, in Aquitain and Earl in Anjou, sends greeting to all his subjects,
learned and lay, in Huntingdonshire. This know ye well all, that we will and
grant that which our counsellors all or the more part of them that be chosen
through us and through the landfolk of our kingdom, have done and shall do to
the honor of God and our allegiance, for the good of the land, through the
determination of the aforesaid counsellors, be established and obeyed in all
things forever.
8 The English Language.
huntg, and fiscath j and se cyning and thd Hcostan men drincath
myran meolc and tha unsp<fdigan and thd thedwan drincath medo.
Thar bith swathe mycel gewinn betweonan him ; and ne bith thcer
nxnig edlo gebrowen mid Eastum, ac thcer bith medo genoh." *
THE VENERABLE BEDE, 735.
" Fore there neid-f&rae ncentg uuiurthet
thonc-snottura, than him tharf sie
to ymb-hycgganna, cer his hin-iongce
hucet his gastce, godces ceththa yflas
after deoth-dcege, darned uueorthce.'* *
GNOMON, A.D. 680.
" Nu sculun hergan Now we shall praise
he/an ricas uard heaven's kingdom's ward,
metudas macti the Creator's might,
end his mod gidanc and his mind's thought
uere uuldur fathur men's glorious Father !
sue he mtndra gihuas as of all wonders he
eci drictin eternal Lord ;
or astelidcs from the beginning
He arist scop He first made
elda barnum for earth's children
heben till hrofe heaven for a roof ;
haleg scepen holy Creator !
tha middum geard then mid-earth,
mon cynnas uard mankind's ward,
eci dryctin" s eternal Lord.
1 This Eastland is very large, and there are very many towns there, and
kings over the several towns ; and there is very much honey and fishing there ;
and the king and the richest men drink mares' milk, and the poor and the serfs
drink mead. There is very great strife between them ; and there is no ale
brewed there among the Esthonians, but there is mead enough.
* Before the inevitable journey no one becomes
More thought-prudent than he has need
To ponder ere his hence-going
What to his ghost, of good or of evil,
After death-day, adjudged shall be.
3 This is reckoned the oldest literary Anglo-Saxon.
The Instability of Language. 9
ULPHILAS, ABOUT A.D. 380.
" Yah hairdyos wesun in thamma samin landa, thairhwakandans
yah witandans wahtwom nahts ufaro hairdai seinai. Ith aggilus
Frauyins anaqam ins, yah wulthus Frauyins biskain ins ; yah
ohtedun agisa mikilamma. Yah qath du im sa aggilus, Ni ogeith ;
unte sat ! spillo izwis faheid mikila, set wairthith allai mana-
gein."* LUKE, ii., 8.
Our English tongue has thus been traced step by step to
a point where only a few particles remain unchanged. If
now the German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and Icelandic
were followed in the same manner, all would be found to
converge like meridians of longitude. Although the pole,
to continue the comparison, may never be reached, the
highest latitude thus far attained is the Moeso-Gothic of
Ulphilas. These collectively form the Teutonic or Gothic
subfamily of languages. Again, if the Armorican, Welsh,
Cornish, Manx, Irish, and Gaelic were subjected to a like
treatment, they would be found to point to a primitive, but
inaccessible Celtic. Fortunately the French, Provencal,
Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Wallachian can be traced
to a well-known source, designated by the ancient Romans
as the Latin Tongue. We can go one step farther, and dis-
cover that the Latin, Greek, Teutonic, Sclavonic, Lithu-
1 Ulfilas, a Goth and a zealous convert to Christianity, conducted a colony
across the Danube about A. D. 376, and obtained a settlement for them in the
Lower Moesia, the modern Bulgaria, whence they were sometimes called the
Mceso-Goths. He translated for their use the Old and New Testaments, with
the exception of the books of Samuel and Kings, which he omitted from a
belief that his people were sufficiently inclined to war already. This great
work, the first ever undertaken in their language, was preserved by the Visi-
goths as a sacred palladium until the gth century, when it disappeared. About
the end of the isth century, a part, containing nearly the whole of the four
Gospels, was discovered in an abbey in Werden, whence it was afterwards taken
to Prague. The Swedes captured it in 1648, and it is now preserved in the
University Library of Upsala, under the name of the Codex Argenteus or Silver
Book, the letters being of silver laid upon purple stained vellum. A fac-
simile may be seen in Bosworth's "Gothic and Anglo-Saxon Gospels/' London,
1865. A great part of the Epistles were also discovered in a monastery in
Lombardy in 1818.
io The English Language.
anian, Celtic, Old Persian, and the dialects of the Brahmanic
nations of India lead to a single unknown original, whose
oldest representative is the Sanskrit of the Vedas. This
very large group, the most important of all in a literary
point of view, has been variously designated as the Indo-
Germanic, or Indo-European, but is now best known as the
Aryan family of languages. No valuable results have been
obtained by any attempt to trace its genealogy farther, or
to combine it with other groups in a wider classification.
Yet among the innumerable dialects spoken over the globe,
several more or less distinct family groups have been dis-
covered. It is unnecessary here to speak of more than one
of these ; but that one ranking very high in the extent and
importance of its literature. To it may be assigned the
speech of the Babylonians, Syrians, Hebrews, Arabians,
Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Ethiopians. The whole is
known as the Semitic, or Shemitish, family, from a belief
that the several peoples named were descended from a
common ancestor named Sem or Shem. These people
occupied a comparatively small area, and were distinguished
by great tenacity and fixity of ideas and habits. Their
languages have changed less rapidly, and so resemble each
other more closely, than the Aryan ; and they have been of
the greatest service in disclosing the general principles of
language. When written, they have no vowels, as we
understand vowels ; but their place is sometimes supplied
by a system of marks called vowel points. As a general
rule, the words are conceived to be derived from verbs, and
from that particular form of the verb called the third person
singular, masculine, perfect tense, as that is the simplest,
or root form. It is generally composed of three consonants
with two vowels between, the first a long a and the second
a short a. There is indeed a considerable number of two-
letter roots ; and there has been considerable difference of
opinion as to whether the first class was developed from the
second, or the latter abbreviated from the former. The
verb has two tenses, but a full system of endings for the
different persons. It has also a number of derivative forms
The Instability of Language. 1 1
called conjugations, which bear to the original form some-
what the same relation that set does to sit, lay to lie, or fell
to fall. The declension of the noun, instead of being of a
house, to a house, etc., is my house, thy house, etc. ; and the
appended pronouns have been so far preserved that they
furnish a clue to the meaning and origin of declension and
conjugation in all other languages. The derivation of all
words from certain root forms, which could generally be
identified without difficulty, suggested to European scholars
the idea of tracing any other language whatever to a com-
paratively small number of roots.
CHAPTER II.
THE SOURCES OF ENGLISH.
THE groundwork of English is the language of those
Teutonic tribes who, in the fifth and sixth centuries, over-
ran a great part of Britain. From the dreary sandflats and
fens of Sleswick, Holstein, and Friesland, poured in succes-
sion the Jutes, the Angles, and the Saxons. The first
established themselves in the fertile fields of Kent, where
their memory perished ; the second possessed the North
and East, and gave their name to all England the land of
the Angles ; the last founded the kingdoms of Essex,
Wessex, and Sussex the East, West, and South Saxons.
There were doubtless differences of speech among them,
which will account in part for the variant dialects heard
among the rural population of England. There are slight
indications that the speech of the Angles was a little more
like modern English than was that of the Saxons ; and the
Kentish tongue sounded harsh and strange to Caxton after
nearly a thousand years. As the invasion involved the
almost total extinction or expulsion of the earlier inhabi-
tants from the districts occupied, but few British or Roman
words were adopted by the conquerors. A few great Roman
works for which the strangers had no names, caused the
retention of such words as street, port, Chester, wall, and
mile ; the few British women reserved as household drudges
taught their captors their homely names for crock and mug,
lor maggot and spigot, for clout and cradle and bogle. Upon
this foundation of Anglo-Saxon there was first laid a thin
stratum of Latin by the Christian missionaries of the seventh
century, words connected chiefly with religion and morals.
The Sources of English. 1 3
Next followed the inroads and conquests of the Northmen
and Danes, begun in the eighth century, and continued till
within twenty-four years of the Norman Conquest. As
these involved permanent settlements, and even a dynasty
of Danish kings of England, for twenty-five years, their
influence must have been very considerable. As these
northern nations were closely allied to the earlier conquerors,
especially to the Angles, upon whom they intruded them-
selves, their respective dialects would naturally melt together
and form an intermediate speech, smoothing down the
special peculiarities of each. And so it is found that for
several succeeding centuries, for which there are literary
remains, the dialect of the North differed considerably from
that of the Saxon South ; and something of that difference
is observable in the common speech of the people to this
day. The general effect of the Danish influence was to
shorten and simplify words that were long or of difficult
utterance, and dropping or shortening grammatical forms.
These are the natural results of combining several dialects.
The special results more particularly worth mentioning here
were :
1. The vowel-system was simplified. Saxon abounded in
compound vowels ae, ea, ei, ie, eo, ia, which were varied
by accents placed on one or another of the vowels. Especial
favorites were ea and eo, in which the sounds are supposed
to have been kept separate. I cannot but think that these
compound vowels added considerably to the labor and diffi-
culty of speech. The reader may practise upon geolewearte,
a nightingale, giving the letters any value he pleases that
will make the word easy to pronounce. The Devonshire
pronounciation of world, for example, weurld, and the
keow of rural New York are probably genuine Saxon
survivals.
2. The substitution of s for th comes instead of cometh
is due to the North country.
3. The present pronouns of the third person are northern,
and not the original Saxon words, as will be seen by the list
presently to be given.
The English Language.
4. Names of places ending in -by, a dwelling or settle-
ment ; -wick, or -vick, an inlet ; -ey, or -ay, an island ; -holm,
a small island ; -thwaite, a lot of ground ; -garth, an enclos-
ure ; -ness, a cape ; -thorpe, village ; -toft, a field ; -with, a
wood ; -wark, a fortress, are Scandinavian. Zell's maps of
England and Scotland show 142 such names ; and these are
known to be far from the whole.
The following are a few words from the Lindisfarne Gos-
pels, A.D. 950, which are nearer modern English than the
Saxon of the same period :
SAXON.
axode
breost
bryd
burh
cymth
deth
duru
eart
com
feor
fixas
hi
hyra
na mara
se
scalt
seoc
slsepth
sunu
synt
ANGLIAN.
ascade
brest
bird
burug
cymmes
does
dor
art
am
farra
fisces
tha
thaera
noht mara
the
salt
sek
slepes
sona
aro
MODERN.
asked
breast
bird
borough
comes
does
door
art
am
far
fishes
they
their
not more
the
salt
sick
sleeps
son
are
The Angles seem to have been superior intellectually to
the Saxons. In the seventh and eighth centuries they were
the first of Teutonic peoples in learning and civilization.
Their language had made the greatest advances towards
modern simplicity of structure ; and the compositions of
Caedmonand others were so highly esteemed that the Saxons
of the South were fain afterwards to call their language
The Sources of English. 15
English. Bede, the greatest scholar and most prolific writer
of the age, and Alcuin, invited to enlighten the court of
Charlemagne, were Angles of Northumberland. But the
heathen Danes and Northmen destroyed their monasteries
and burned their libraries ; and only fragments remain of
their venerable literature.
In the year 1066 the supremacy in England passed to the
Normans. They were originally of the same northern
stock that had kept England in tribulation two hundred and
fifty years ; but they had been settled long enough in the
north of France to acquire its language ; and in courtliness
of manners and the arts of war they surpassed all other
Teutonic peoples. Great as was the effect of this event, it
was probably less, and less direct, than is generally sup-
posed. French speech and manners were cultivated in
England before the Conquest, and the Saxon language con-
tinued long after it. Edward the Confessor had been
brought up in Normandy, and he bestowed the highest
places in the realm upon Norman favorites. Hume says of
this reign :
" The court of England was soon filled with Normans, who,
being distinguished both by the favor of Edward, and by a de-
gree of cultivation superior to that which was attained by the
English in those ages, soon rendered their language, customs,
and laws fashionable in the kingdom. The study of the French
tongue became general among the people. The courtiers
affected to imitate that nation in their dress, equipage, and
entertainments ; even the lawyers employed a foreign language
in their deeds and papers."
On the other hand, the Conquest did not exterminate the
Saxons, suppress their language, or abolish their customs.
For a conquered people their situation might have been
quite tolerable, if they had not risen in revolt against the
Conqueror. The body of the Saxon people, always very
greatly in the majority, were at least permitted to live, fol-
low their usual occupations, and speak their mother tongue.
The two languages were long kept distinct, as two streams
1 6 The English Language.
confined in one channel will sometimes flow for a distance
side by side, without mingling their waters, yet at last be-
come inseparably mixed. The Saxon Chronicle was kept
up till A.D. 1 1 54, and adopted only 14 foreign words in 88
years. The " Ormulum," written about the year 1200, is a
metrical paraphrase of the Gospels, containing 20,000
lines. It was 130 years after the Conquest, yet the author
admitted only five or six French words. Layamon's " Brut,"
written a few years later, is a metrical history of Britain,
largely mythical, containing 32,200 lines. Although in
the main a translation from the French, and so offering the
greatest inducement to borrow foreign phrases, it has only
104 French words, not counting repetitions. That is at a
rate of one to 309 lines. Scott's " Lady of the Lake " has
a ratio 400 times as great, so that the flood of French words
must have come into English long after the Conquest. Yet
we see that the " Brut " had eleven times as large a propor-
tion of foreign words as the earlier and more purely English
poem. If we then pass to the versified " Chronicle of Robert
of Gloucester," also a translation from the French, finished
about 1295, we shall find the foreign words six times as
numerous as in Layamon. Still they are sixty times less
numerous than in modern English. And yet the close of
the "Chronicle " comes almost to modern times. It is longer
after the conquest than from the accession of Charles II. to
the present time. Jerusalem had then been won and lost
by successive crusades, and Marco Polo was telling Europe
of the wonders of the farthest East.
Nevertheless, the Norman Conquest and the relentless
severity used in suppressing repeated insurrections influ-
enced deeply the language and institutions of England.
But the influence of the French was complicated with that
of the Latin tongue. Latin was the language of the Church
and of religion through all western Europe ; and as few
laymen were educated, reading and writing were mostly the
work of ecclesiastics, and in great part Latin. In England
Gildas, who had seen the Saxon invasion, wrote a short history
in Latin, and Bede, in the eighth century, composed forty-
The Sources of English. 17
one separate treatises in that language. Almost everything
of grave and solemn importance was written in Latin down
to the fifteenth century. This continual use of Latin by
the learned naturally prevented the cultivation of the native
tongue.
So long as Saxon and Norman remained ununited, Nor-
man-French was the language of the king and his court, of
the swarms of adventurers that came over seeking lucrative
places in England of the only society that possessed power
or influence and dictated the fashions. It was required to
be employed in all schools, and thus made the only medium
through which other learning could be acquired. The pro-
ceedings in Parliament and the courts of justice, all public
acts, charters, and documents from the Conquest to the
thirty-sixth year of Edward III., a period of 296 years, were
required to be in the same language. At that time Edward,
having good reason for desiring to make one united people
from the discordant races under his sceptre, had it enacted
that for the future all pleadings in courts should be in Eng-
lish, but the court records in Latin. Some think that these
records had always been in Latin. However that may be, the
records of the courts and the writs issued by them continued
to be in Latin until the fourth year of George II. It had
then become customary to attach to a writ a note in English
to explain what it was about. Notwithstanding the statute
of Edward III., the lawyers were so accustomed to their
old Norman-French that they continued to employ it in
making up their reports of cases adjudged ; and law reports
were so written until the reign of Charles II. And thus it
comes about that law books and proceedings are full of ob-
solete French and barbarous Latin. Nothing shows better
the small figure once made in English law by the English
language than legal maxims those gems of juridical wisdom
all compact, gathered by the industry, and polished by the
wit of eight centuries. Out of 2,169 given in Bouvier's " Law
Dictionary," 2,037 are ' m Latin 31 in French, and 101 in
English.
But, to return to the effects 01 the Conquest, the Saxon
1 8 The English Language.
language was depressed as much as Norman-French was
exalted. A great part of the native nobility and gentry per-
ished either in the first shock of battle or in the repeated
revolts and disturbances that followed ; or they were com-
pelled to go into exile. Nearly all positions of honor,
power, or profit were conferred upon Normans. The Saxons
were crushed, despised, and impoverished by taxes, fines,
and a sweeping confiscation of estates. To the exactions of
the early Norman kings were added the arrogance and out-
rages of the Norman barons. The " Anglo-Saxon Chronicle "
gives the following graphic account of the state of things in
the reign of Stephen. I preserve the quaint old phraseology
so far as it can be made intelligible :
" When the traitors understood that he was a mild man and
good and soft and executed not no justice, then did they all
wonders. They had made homage to him, and sworn oaths, and
they no truth held not. All they were forsworn, and their troths
forlost. For every mighty man made his castles and held against
him, and filled the land full of castles. They tasked sorely the
wretched men of the land with castle works. .When the castles were
made, then filled they them with devils.nd evil men. Then took
they the men that they weened had any goods, both by night and
by day, men and women, and did them in prison after gold and
silver, and pined them with unspeakable pining ; for there never
were no martyrs so pined as they were. They hanged men up by
the feet and smoked them with foul smoke. They hanged men
by the thumbs, and others by the head, and hung corselets on
their feet. They did knotted strings about their heads, and
writhed them together that it went to the brains. They did them
in prison wherein were adders, snakes, and paddocks, and killed
them so. Some they put in the torment-house, that is in a chest
that was short, narrow, and un-deep, and did sharp stones therein,
and squeezed the man therein and brake all his limbs. In many of
the castles were 'lof & grin ' that were rack-irons, that two or three
men had enough to carry one, that was so made, that is fastened to
abeam. And they did a sharp iron about the man's throat and
neck, that he might not nowhitherwards, nor sit, nor lie, nor sleep,
but bear all that iron. Many thousands they killed with hunger.
The Sources of English. 19
" I can not nor I may not tell all the wonders that they did
wretched men in this land. And that lasted the XIX winters
while Stephen was king ; and ever it was worse and worse. They
laid tributes on the towns every now and then and called it ten-
serie. When the wretched men had not nothing more to give,
then they reaved them and burned all the dwellings ; and well thou
mightest fare all a day's fare and shouldest thou never find man
abiding in a house, nor land tilled. Then was corn dear, and
flesh and cheese and butter, for none was not in the land.
Wretched men died of hunger. Some went on alms that erewhile
were rich men, and some fled out of the land."
No literature except a chronicle of horrors could thrive
amid such surroundings. Accordingly with the exception of
the above " Chronicle," the scanty remains of English litera-
ture are chiefly a few homilies in prose and verse, without vigor
of thought, elegance of expression, or elevation of sentiment.
The wisdom and the long reign of Henry II., did much to
advance England as a nation and prevent the oppression of
one race by another. Thenceforward each generation saw
the parting chasm closing up. Still in regard to language
French had everything in its favor, and was almost as indis-
pensable to a person of any ambitious aspirations as English
now is to the native acres of India. Higdon, writing in the
time of Richard II., shows the general eagerness to learn
French :
" Also gentlemen's children are taught to speak French from
the time that they are rocked in their cradles, or able to play with
a child's brooch ; and country people try to ape the gentry, and
eagerly desire to speak French, so as to be taken more account of.
This practice has lately somewhat changed. For John Cornewal,
a teacher of Grammar, changed the instruction in the Grammar
School from French to English ; and Richard Pencrych learned
that way of teaching from him, and other men from Pencrych ;
so that now, in the year of Our Lord one thousand three hundred
and eighty-five, the ninth of the second king Richard after the
conquest ; in all the Grammar Schools of En gland children leave
French and construe and learn in English."
2O The English Language.
All this time in the seclusion of the monasteries a con-
siderable number of historical and other works, sometimes
taking a very wide range, were written in Latin. Higdon
himself wrote in that language, and the names of Geoffrey
of Monmouth, Henry of Huntingdon, John of Salisbury,
Mathew of Paris, Roger of Wendover, and William of
Malmesbury may be instanced.
About the year 1200 were written two poems, widely dif-
ferent from each other, but far superior to anything of the
kind since the early Anglican Caedmon, and both of great
importance for the study of early English. A monk named
Ormin composed a long poem on the Jewish and Christian re-
ligions, and called it the " Ormulum," in imitation of his own
name. He must have been a man of very strongly marked
individuality, for he undertook not only to write in purely
Saxon English, but also to write phonetically, by doubling
the consonant after every short vowel. This was the last
considerable work that made any attempt to exclude French.
I give here a very short specimen.
" & nu ice wile shaewenn 3uw
summ-del wij>]> Godess hellpe
Off J>att Judisskenn follkess lac
]>att Drihhtin wass full cvveme,
& mikell hellpe to )>e follc,
to laeredd & to laewedd,
Biforenn fatt te Laferrd Crist
was borenn her to marine."
And now I will show you
Something, with God's help
Of that Jewish people's worship
That to the Lord was very acceptable
And much help to the people,
To learned and to unlearned,
Before that the Lord Christ
Was born here a man.
The other poem, entitled " The Brut," was by a priest
named Lasamon (pronunciation uncertain, oftener written
The Sources of English.
21
Layamon). It is a mythical history of Britain from the sack
of Troy to King Athelstan. Brut is a descendant of ^Eneas,
\vho after incredible adventures lands in Britain, to which
he gives its name. The poem is an amplified translation of
a Norman-French poem of the same name ; itself a transla-
tion from the Latin original by Geoffrey of Monmouth.
" pa 3et spaec Haengest :
Lauerd ich wulle fin iwil :
& don al mine dsede :
Nu ic wulle biliue :
& asfter mire dohter :
& sefter ohte mo#nen :
and J> u 3if me swa muchel lond :
swa wule anes bule hude :
feor from aelche castle :
*****
Of J>ere hude he kaerf enne
Jnvong :
ne sfe J> wong noht swiSe braed :
}>a al islit wes ]>e ]>ong :
a-buten he bilaede :
Then yet spoke Hengist :
Lord, I will thy pleasure :
And do all my deeds :
Now I will quickly :
And after my daughter :
And after brave men :
If thou give me so much land :
As will a bull's hide :
Far from each castle :
*****
Of the hide he cut a thong :
The thong was not very broad :
When slit was all the thong ;
And about it spread around :
cnihten alre hendest.
dri3e her & ouer-al.
sefter Jrine raede.
sende after mine wiue.
J>e me is swa deore.
fa bezste of mine cunne.
to stonden a mire a3ere hod.
aelches weies ouer-sprseden.
amidden ane ualde.
*****
swiSe smal & swifte long.
buten swulc a twines f raed,
he wes wunder ane long,
muche del of londe."
of all knights courtliest,
do here and everywhere,
after thy counsel,
send after my wife,
that to me is so dear,
the best of my kinsmen,
to stand in my holding,
each way overspread,
in midst of a wood.
*****
very small and very long,
but such as a thread of twine,
it then was wondrous long,
a mighty deal of ground.
From this time onward translations and imitations of
French works became more and more frequent, and have
22 The English Language.
never once ceased to this day. In the thirteenth century
French had become the literary language of Europe ; and
nearly all that was worth reading for amusement was derived
from that source. It is not from the Norman conquerors
but from seven centuries of contact with French literature
that we receive the greater part of the French words in our
language. Mr. Kington Oliphant says of the period from
1 220 to 1303:
" English was cast aside as something vulgar, and nearly every
cultivated writer in our island betook himself to French or Latin ;
our tongue almost lost its noble power of compounding, and
parted with thousands of old words. A very few translations
from French and Latin kept a feeble light burning during these
baleful years. In Age III., 1280-1303, English writers transla-
ted copiously from the French, though they gave birth to noth-
ing original ; they thus stopped the decay of our fast perishing
language, and French words in shoals were brought in to supply
the place of the English lost."
But it is not words alone that we have thus acquired.
French examples have influenced our pronunciation, spell-
ing, and grammatical and literary forms. The following are
a few of the most easily distinguishable features due in
whole or in part to French influence :
1. The prevalence of the hissing sound with which our
language is reproached the sounds which we represent by
sh, ch, and j, the sibilant sound of c, the almost universal
ending of the plural in s, the verbal ending in s goes and
speaks instead of goeth and speaketh.
2. The loss of the guttural sound represented in Saxon by
//, and in later English by gh.
3. The loss of a very useful character j>, and the substitu-
tion of two letters (tft) in its place.
4. Ownership expressed by of " the house of the planter,"
instead of " the planter's house."
5. Comparison of adjectives by more and most "the
most beautiful," instead of Carlyle's " beautifullest."
6. The placing of the adjective after the noun, or giving
Tfu Sources of English. 23
it a plural form sign manual, letters patent, courts martial,
Knights Templars.
7. You instead of thou.
8. The union of a verb and noun drawbridge, cutpurse.
They are not very numerous; and the latest coinages
know-nothing, push-cart, grip-sack, do not make us wish them
more plentiful.
9. The anomalous expressions ; " It is me" " That's him"
10. Rhyme and the modern system of versification. The
earliest English poetry depended neither on rhyme, accent,
nor measure, but on alliteration, that is, identity of initial
sounds. This was natural with the Saxons and Scandinavi-
ans, because, as a rule, all words were accented on the first
syllable. In an old poem on the deluge, God says to Noah :
dalles ther-inne, & ^alkes ful mony,
2?oth ^oskes & <5oures, & wel fcmnden penes ;
For I schal ze/aken up a water to ze/asch alle the worlde."
Two populations of kindred blood and a common worship,
and occupying the same country, could not remain separate
and hostile forever. Social and family ties began slowly to
draw together Saxon and Norman. The wisdom and vigor
of some of the Norman kings, the baseness and imbecility
of others the generosity, bravery, and wrongs of Richard,
the futile tyranny of John, the splendid victories of Crecy
and Poictiers and the sight of two captive kings in London
at once diverted the thoughts of men from the question of
race, and taught them to sympathize, resist, and feel a com-
mon pride together. It was during the fourteenth century
that the varied population of England became one people,
speaking one language, still easily understood by the intelli-
gent reader. In this age of rapid transit and sudden revo-
lution we are struck with the slowness of progress a few
centuries ago. It was two hundred and ninety-seven years
after the Conquest that Edward III., in his anger against
France and desire to unite all his subjects against that
nation, abolished the use of the French language in legal
pleadings and public acts. Still time was necessary to give
24 The English Language.
full effect to the law, and the oldest public document in
English preserved in Rymer's " Federa" is twenty-three years
later. We have seen, too, that English was not admitted
into the schools until the reign of Richard II.
What, then, was the character of this early English, and
of what elements was it composed ? As the great body of
the people were Anglo-Saxon, we may safely infer on a very
general principle that they furnished the framework of the
language. If a people whose principal intercourse is with
each other have occasion to borrow words from a second
people they will be chiefly names of things, especially of new
things for which they could have no native names, just as
we have picked up such words as caravan, indigo, chintz,
manna, alkali, bamboo, gorilla, jalap, canoe, moccasin. Next
they would adopt words expressing actions, especially pro-
cesses unknown before, and lastly words expressive of qualities.
The little words that express nothing by themselves, but
are of wondrous convenience the, he, it, any, what, why, in,
to, of, if, and, but, though, yet, the winged words that save
labor, the articles and particles that express time, number,
relations, and conditions there would be no need to borrow.
People are satisfied with what they have already. Of the
hundreds of words which our present English has borrowed
from extra-European sources, all but three are names, or
what grammarians call nouns. Of these three, two shampoo
and tattoo are verbs, that is, express actions. The third
taboo is an adjective, an expression of quality sacred or
devoted to the gods. So of 600 French words found in
" Robert of Gloucester," 386 are nouns, 140 verbs, 68 adjec-
tives, and 6 of all other kinds. The last six are all made of
nouns or nouns and particles ; and only two of them because
and piecemeal are still in use. This will give a fair idea of
the kind of words, grammatically, that were introduced from
French and Latin.
Another effect of commingling languages would take the
form of loss and not of acquisition. A word, while still re-
maining the same word, may have little appendages affixed to
the beginning or the end, or it may undergo internal changes.
The Sources of English. 25
boy boy-s ox ox-en
sing sing-s child children
love loved speak spoken
This phenomenon is known by the general name of inflexion ;
and some languages have much more of it than others. In
some a word may have several hundred or even a thousand
forms ; and in such cases a knowledge of them forms the
greatest part of what is called grammar. English has now
only remnants and traces of a system once much more
extensive. Both Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French had in-
flexional systems much more largely developed, but quite
unlike and incapable of combining to any great extent. The
greater part was dropped altogether. When people under-
stand each other imperfectly they cannot preserve a multi-
tude of niceties. The ear catches the essential part of the
word, and gives little heed to the ever changing termination.
This neglect was the more effective as the accent was gen-
erally near the beginning of each word and the termination
pronounced indistinctly. The colored race in this country
when first emancipated afforded an amusing illustration of
this. They could not be got to utter the parts of words
that preceded or were far from the accent. Ascription,
description, inscription, prescription, were all alike scription
and nothing more.
It is often questioned which is the best preserved part of
a language, and, consequently, the best evidence of ancient
relationship, the words or the grammatical forms. This
question, I think, does not admit of a general and absolute
answer. Much depends on circumstances. The principle
might be presented in the form of a supposed case. If people
of two races A and B, capable of friendly union, be placed
together on an island, a mixed language will result. Suppose
the people of A to outnumber those of B ten to one, but the
intelligence of B to be ten times the greatest ; and further
suppose them so far intermingled that the learned B's talk
chiefly with the ignorant A's ; then the grammatical system
of A will survive in a simplified form, and words will be bor-
26 The English Language.
rowed from B, according to necessity or fancy. Much de-
pends on the relative numbers brought into intimate contact.
There are instances of small numbers belonging to ancient
races, scattered among large populations, who retain more
or less of their ancestral words, which they use according to
the grammatical system of the country. The Armenians
scattered through Asia Minor are said to use native words
with a Turkish grammar. A German Jew will say to his
wife : " Ich habe noch haiyom lo ge-ackalt. " " I have not
eaten anything to-day yet." I distinguish the Hebrew por-
tions by italics, but the structure of the sentence is purely
German. A very interesting example is furnished by the
gypsies, who have a considerable vocabulary of their own,
but are too much scattered to maintain a grammatical ays-
tern. In Spain their grammar is Spanish. All their verbs
are of the first Spanish conjugation, which they follow in all
its great extent and complexity. In England they adopt the
very simple structure of the English language. The follow-
ing is from a song of the English gypsies given by George
Borrow :
" We jaws to the drab-engro ker,
Trin /ivrsevsorih there of drab we lels,
And when to the swety back we ivels,
We pens we '11 drab the baulo."
We goes to the poison-master's house,
Three pennyworth there of poison we buys,
And when to the folks back we comes,
We says we '11 poison the pig.
Here are merely single gypsy words in a setting of pure
English. The grammar is furnished by the majority ; the
words by those who know most. And again, words are
gathered by wide intercourse ; grammatical forrns are de-
veloped by isolation. People who go round the world in
sixty days will not wait to transform a single word into a
thousand shapes.
Having seen that the words adopted by the English were
chiefly significant ones, representing things, actions, and
The Sources of English. 2 7
qualities, we may next inquire, for what kind of things,
qualities, and actions they found it necessary to borrow
words from French and Latin these two being almost in-
separably connected. The necessity arose from two causes
the loss of native words, and the access of new objects
and ideas.
We may assume that any language, however limited and
threadbare, can, by combining, recombining, and modifying
its words, develop expressions for all human thoughts. Yet
all cannot do this equally well. We know the unlimited
copiousness of modern German ; and Anglo-Saxon, a sister
tongue, might, under favorable circumstances, have become
equally rich. There was a considerable literature before the
Conquest, and, by compounding the native words, writers
were able to say all that they had occasion for. They had
especially an ample stock of words for representing the
emotions and ethical ideas. I do not raise the question here
whether those words would always commend themselves to
our eyes or ears, but they served the purpose intended. But
after the Conquest, literature ceased almost wholly. Only a
very few cloistered monks read and wrote. Books and the
language of books were forgotten. The great body of the
Saxon people were in the condition of a low type of farm
laborers ; and it is but a small part of a language that such
people have occasion for. Marsh thinks that one half of the
language had disappeared before the year 1300.' Successive
literary specimens show an ever decreasing native vocabulary,
deficiencies being supplied at will from French or Latin. But
the condition of the Saxons left them at liberty to preserve
a multitude of words belonging to every-day rustic life, which
are still heard in every hamlet and rural district where the
English tongue is spoken. The names for the family rela-
tions and the domestic animals are Saxon. I give here some
examples of a more miscellaneous character, merely to show
1 "A careful examination of several letters of Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dic-
tionary gives, in 2,000 words (including derivatives and compounds, but excluding
orthographic variants), 535 which still exist as modern English words."
Encyclopaedia Britannica, viii., 390.
28
The English Language.
more distinctly the kind of words that serfs and rustic labor-
ers were in a condition to preserve :
land
tree
sickle
to hew
hill
grass
spade
to delve
dale
hay
rake
to sow
marsh
fodder
axe
to reap
field
thistle
hammer
to mow
meadow
nettle
nail
to thrash
sand
bramble
saw
to winnow
day
briar
loom
to live
loam
thorn
oats
to bake
dung
fern
wheat
to brew
furrow
dike
barley
to watch
ridge
ditch
straw
to wed
wood
stile
chaff
to spin
water
harrow
honey
to weave
well
scythe
wax
to sew
From the Norman-French and the early French romances
and songs were naturally derived a multitude of words such
as are used by the wealthy and governing classes, relating to
government, law, war, hunting, dress, furniture, and amuse-
ments. The following are a few of the words introduced
before A.D. 1300 :
amour
conquer
homage
palfrey
armor
countess
honor
park
arson
court
jest
parlor
ball
crown
jewel
parliament
banner
dame
judgment
pavilion
baron
dress
jugglery
peerage
battle
duke
lance
prison
castle
empire
madam
ransom
chamberlain
enemy
mantle
renown
champion
ermine
marshal
rent
chancellor
falcon
messenger
sable
charter
galley
miniver
scarlet
chess
gentleman
noble
tower
chivalry
governor
palace
venison
The Sources of English. 29
While the difference here exhibited is very general, we
need not expect anything in language to be carried out con-
sistently. Knighthood, the very crown and blossom of Nor-
man Chivalry, is Saxon, while the flail with which the rustic
thrashed his barley, was French-Latin.
It has often been pointed out that, while the names of the
domestic animals, ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, are Saxon, their
flesh, as an article of food, bears the French names, beef,
veal, mutton, and pork, with the apparent implication that the
Saxons merely raised their flocks and herds for others to eat.
While that may be true in part, I do not think it the imme-
diate or the principal reason. No doubt the Normans
called the animals, whether alive or dead, by French names,
and were most immediately interested in them when brought
to the table, but what did the Saxons call them in that
state ? If they had any special names, they were probably
oxna-flcssc, nedt-flcesc, cealf-flcesc, sceop-fl&sc, swin-flcesc, in
analogy with modern German ; but the men who knit
together the bones and sinews of the present English gener-
ally left out long Saxon compounds, not because they were
Saxon, but because they were clumsy. Or if the Saxons
had no distinctive terms for the flesh of the animals, the
greater was the necessity for preserving the French names
and restricting their meaning. We have here, as in so many
instances, words of similar signification, but from different
sources, preserved and assigned different duties.
Did space permit, the condition of the two peoples might
be outlined by naming their domestic surroundings. The
Norman baron dwelt in a castle,
" Hemmed in by battlement and fosse,
And many a darksome tower"
with its barbican and portcullis, its esplanade, court, chapel,
stables, and offices. Its central strength was the donjon keep
or dungeon, in which were the cellar and pantry, the parlors,
chambers, and closets. The beds were surrounded with cur-
tains, and the walls hung with tapestries. There the baron
and his guests sat on chairs and dined at a table.
30 The English Language.
The Saxon churl had still his house and home, hearth-stone,
and roof-tree ; but they were unpretentious. The poor man's
dwelling had but two apartments, the Scotch but and ben
by-out and by-in. It had neither parlor nor chamber, cellar
itor garret, closet nor recess, partition nor ceiling. It had not
even a chimney ; its roof was of thatch, and its windows were
without glass mere eyes, or openings for the wind. The
householder might learn from the Norsemen to put up a loft
under the roof, to be reached by a ladder. He had neither
chair nor table, but sat on a bench, a stool, or a settle, and ate
his meat from a board. Outside might be a wort-yard where
potherbs grew the parent of the modern orchard, and near
by were the barn, the byre, and the sty.
As Latin was especially employed for the graver purposes
of religion, philosophy, and diplomacy, the words taken
directly from it, and not passed through a French filter,
would naturally have a character of dignity all their own.
Words like abstract, belligerent, conscience, desolate, eternal,
formula, genius, hereditary, inviolate, jurist, lunar, millennium,
nominalist, omniscient, perpetual, will sufficiently illustrate
the character I refer to. It is observed, too, that when we
have words from other sources for a number of individuals,
we often have a Latin word that includes them all. Father,
mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, husband, wife, child, are
English, but fain ily is Latin. The distinctive name of every
well-known living thing, or weed of field or forest, has an
English name, but creature, animal, beast, plant, and herb
are Latin. So we run, walk, leap, hop, creep, swim, ride,
sail, turn, wheel and reel and totter and fall in plain Eng-
lish ; but every motion is Latin.
From a great variety of other sources we have acquired a
few words, sometimes in very roundabout ways ; thus the
name of the muscadine grape of the South is traced back
through French, Italian, Latin, and Persian to Sanskrit.
These are relatively trifles, but it remains to speak of
another source of English, as important as any yet men-
tioned, and that is Greek. As the New Testament was
written in Greek, a few words, such as alms, baptize, cate-
The Sources of English. 31
chism, Christ, heretic, hermit, have followed the Gospel
wherever preached. But with these scanty exceptions,
Greek was almost unknown throughout the Middle Ages,
outside of the ever-shrinking Byzantine empire. Learning
had forsaken its ancient seats, and when Pope Paul, in the
eighth century, sent Pepin a present of what books could
be found in Italy, the collection consisted of a Latin gram-
mar, a hymn-book, and the forged works attributed to
Dionysius the Areopagite. But while all real learning was
banished from the West, the successors of Mahomet, under
the guidance of the Jews and Nestorians, were eagerly
acquiring it in the East. While a French priest was cir-
culating a letter purporting to have been addressed to
mankind by Jesus Christ, and brought down by the
archangel Michael, Al Maimun at Bagdad was trans-
lating Euclid, measuring a degree on the meridian, and
determining the obliquity of the ecliptic. The Arabs
found useful and congenial employment in collecting and
translating the writings of the best ages of Greek literature ;
and it was through the schools of Seville, Cordova, and
Granada that these works found their first entrance into
western Europe. From Spain the revived learning spread
to the free cities of Italy, and from them was slowly dis-
seminated through Europe. Greek was first introduced into
the University of Oxford in 1500, eight years after the
discovery of America ; and it was still forty years later when
the first professorship was established at Cambridge. But
neither those early teachers nor the ancient Athenians could
have imagined the wide application to which the Greek
language was destined in naming the objects and operations
of modern thought. They could not have foreseen the
searching analysis that was to be applied to every substance
and movement in nature, to every tissue and function
disclosed by organic life, every process and product of art,
every operation and aberration of the human mind. He
who finds a new thing has a right to give it a new name;
and the consumption of Greek in giving names to things
remote from the daily thoughts of men is enormous. The
32 The English Language.
words of Greek origin, including all those belonging to special
subjects, probably outnumber those from any other source,
and in English exceed those from all other sources. The
exact number can only be approximated ; but the following
is such approximation :
Descriptive of the animal kingdom 72,000
Vegetable kingdom 13,000
Sciences connected with medicine 18,000
All other subjects, perhaps 10,000
Total ii 3,000
The practice of forming scientific terms from Greek is, no
doubt, in part a matter of habit and fashion, but, aside from
these frivolous reasons, no other source would serve so well.
It is not because Greek is a learned tongue, or that the
Greeks had the words we now use. They neither had the
words nor any use for them. We make them to order, just
as we might make such a word as switch-tender-stand, which
is an excellent example of the kind of words we should make
of native material long, inelegant, and cumbersome. Greek
has the advantage of combining with extraordinary facility
into pronounceable compounds. Its consonants and vowels
are not gathered into solid, insoluble lumps, but very evenly
distributed, and upon a page are almost equal in number.
This, I think, is the foundation of its excellence. The
languages of northern Europe abound in undistributed con-
sonants, strz, ntzsch, Idschm, krzyz. Hence, in combining
several words into a new compound, each part is apt to begin
and end with consonants, and the result is such a word as
Grundungsschwindeln. Compared with such an unwieldy
leviathan the longest term in Greek is a plaything. Skoro-
dopandokeutriartopolis ripples along as pleasantly as a sum-
mer brook on a pebbly bed ; and the farrago of Aristophanes,
that contains 169 letters, moves so trippingly on the tongue
that one might dance to it. We may illustrate this modern
use of Greek by the familiar word geography, from ge, earth,
and graph, write ; literally earth-writing. We see at once
The Sources of English. 33
that the word we actually use is much neater than its Saxon
equivalent. It is next observed that between the parts an o
is inserted, that belongs to neither. The privilege of inserting
at pleasure a connecting vowel facilitates greatly the making
of new compounds. In this way we form just as easily
geology, geodesy, geognosy, geogeny, geometry, geonomy, geo-
phagy, and about 140 others, easily distinguished, easily
pronounced, and to the learned of all nations disclosing
their meaning at sight. It is even an advantage that their
structure is seen only by the learned. They are thus kept
to the form and signification intended, and are not corrupted,
frittered away, and applied to whatever might happen.
Dinotherium is literally terrible beast ; but the English
equivalent could not possibly be kept as the name of a
particular animal.
There are patriotic persons who lament the loss of every
Saxon word, and deem it matter of deep regret that our
language ever admitted foreign elements. I do not, to any
great extent, share their grief. With words as with men,
present usefulness and good qualities far outweigh ancestral
pedigree. Sugar is not less sweet, nor is its name harsher
to tongue or ear, because it is a stranger from Arabia. We
cannot, indeed, be quite sure how a language would sound
that we never actually heard ; but, so far as I can judge
from its appearance, Saxon seems to have been a cumbrous
affair. While in no case more facile than modern English,
it was often far more unwieldy. Take a few examples of
the more unmanageable words :
daeghwamlican daily
leorning-cnihtas pupils, scholars
msegen-thrymnesse glory
modstatholnesse fortitude
onbesceawian oversee
unanbindendlicum inseparable
I do not question but that words of any desired power
might be constructed in this way, if only made sufficiently
3
34 The English Language.
long and unpronounceable. Russian and German show
what can be accomplished with native material. Here are
a single Russian word and half a dozen German :
Bolotnoperemezhdayushchagosya
Erschiitterungssphare
Geschwindigkeitsmesser
halbkreisformiges
Grubenschienenbahnwarter
Kriegsverpflichtungsamt
Verwandtschaftsnamen
The German comes as near as possible to making his word
a sentence and his sentence a metaphysical disquisition.
The German language is unquestionably an instrument of
great power ; but its power is a little like that of the bow of
Ulysses, which was chiefly famed for the difficulty of using
it, and was not half so effective as a Winchester rifle. Eng-
lish has been saved from such productions as those just
exhibited, and been made what it is by a thousand years of
living contact with other peoples and tongues.
If it be said that Saxon words might have been simplified
by time, as many of their modern representatives really are,
I answer that such a change was no doubt possible, but would
it have taken place without the constant presence and pres-
sure of foreign models? No such simplification has taken
place in Russian or German. And further our words of
Saxon origin are easy because they are short, and we have
given up making them into long combinations. Looking
then merely to the past and present qualities of the English
language, I cannot but regard the Norman conquest as a
great blessing.
The English language has profited by its multifarious
acquisitions because it has transformed them all after its own
image. All but a few of the simplest words have been recast,
and are no longer Saxon, Norse, Welsh, French, Latin, or
Greek, but English. Every language has a character of its
own a scale of sounds, an accentuation, a rhythm and
The Sources of English.
35
cadence, a set of beginnings and endings, and a whole
mechanism of speech peculiar to itself so that a good ear
may distinguish one language from another without knowing
a word of them. If our words had been preserved in their
native forms, we should have an unspeakable piebald jargon
instead of the harmonious unity seen in the Bible and the
works of Lord Macaulay. It is well that our fathers followed
the example of the diligent bees, that gather the juices of
every flower and combine them into a homogeneous whole,
sweet, nutritious, and wholesome. Our words are often so
transformed that their own mothers would not know them ;
and the average English speaker can no more distinguish
them according to origin than he can the children of the
Saxon and the Norman. Here are 60 words from 24 different
sources, and none but the scholar would know that they are
not all equally native-born :
barrel
chest
frolic
muslin
skunk
basket
cider
giant
myrtle
slag
bishop
clinker
ginger
paper
spigot
block
cradle
girl
peach
squirrel
blue
crease
gum
pepper
swindle
bonnet
dirt
hemp
queer
talk
boy
dish
hurricane
rose
tea
brindled
dog
husband
rum
trowel
candle
dog-cheap
jacket
sable
vampire
carpenter
elm
kale
sabre
viper
cedar
fellow
lamp
sack
vow
cheese
fog
measles
silk
whiskey
At present the disposition is to maintain foreign words
with all their foreign peculiarities unimpaired, as if it were
more important to preserve their original nationality than to
make them good citizens. The only reason of any perceptible
force is the desirability of preserving the pedigrees of words ;
but that is a matter that interests only the small number
who have no need of such aid. We can scarcely avoid
believing that the outlandish words are sprinkled in, and
their unfamiliar sounds imitated to display the elegant
36 The English Language.
acquirements of the writer or speaker. Far the greater
number are French, and so have the least possible harmony
with English. Why should such expressions as denouement,
couvre-pied, coup d'ceil, be forced upon the English reader or
hearer ? They are unnecessary, and jar upon a sensitive ear
like discords in music. They are the stock-in-trade of inferior
writers, and especially female novelists. The writer of " Robert
Elsmere " might have taught all she had to teach and more,
without introducing similar uncouth expressions 1 80 times in
one small volume.
Several estimates have been made of the relative number
of modern English words derived from different sources. In
the last century George Hickes estimated on the narrow basis
of the Lord's Prayer, that nine tenths of our words were still
Saxon. Widely different was the conclusion of Sharon
Turner, that the Norman were to the Saxon as four to six.
Dean Trench computes that 60 per cent, are Saxon, 30 per
cent. Latin, including those received through a French chan-
nel, 5 per cent. Greek, and 5 scattering. M. Thommerel, by
counting every word in the dictionaries of Robertson and
Webster, obtained the result that of a sum total of 43,566
words, 29,853 were of Greek or Latin origin, 13, 230 Teutonic,
and 483 from all other sources. These discordant computa-
tions seem to overlook the fact that many words that may be
conveniently called hybrids cannot properly be charged to
any particular source. They are of three classes. The first
and largest consists of compound words like penman, peacock,
pyroligneous, aldehyde, the parts of which are taken from dif-
ferent languages ; the words of the second are derived from
proper names, as Cartesian, Flemish, dahlia ; and a few are
of uncertain origin.
Skeat's Etymological Dictionary contains a little over
13,000 words, as it excludes generally obsolete and local
words, derivative forms, and the technical terms of the more
unfamiliar sciences. A classification of its contents, omitting
a few duplicate forms, will give a very fair idea of the sources
of the words employed in general literature and conversation.
They are :
The Sources of English. 37
Anglo-Saxon and English 2,863
Low German 1 16
Dutch of the Low Countries 187
Scandinavian 688
High German, of all periods 221
Teutonic, indeterminate 90
Celtic languages 351
Latin 2,094
Latin through French 3,545
Latin through other channels 341
French, not traceable farther 129
Proven9al (cJiarade) i
Italian 43
Spanish 25
Portuguese (cocoa, dodo, emu, yam) 4
Greek, adopted directly and indirectly ^388
Slavonic languages 14
Lithuanian (talk] i
Hungarian (hussar, sabre, shako, tokay] 4
Turkish 14
Persian 77
Sanskrit 39
Hebrew 72
Syriac 8
Chaldee (raca, talmud, targum) 3
Arabic 107
Other Asiatic languages 53
Oceanean 5
African languages 24
American languages 46
Hybrid words 419
Unknown . 21
Total 12,993
But a great part of these words are rarely met with, being
either obsolete or confined to some special art or science.
The vocabulary of almost any single author would show a
much larger native element.
The proportion of words from each of the principal
38 The English Language.
sources varies greatly, according to the subject and the
mental habit and associations of each speaker. Country
folk talk in Saxon of their farms, crops, and families ; ladies
of "society" prefer a liberal seasoning of real or supposed
French ; literary people and those who aim at being sarcas-
tic use a great many words derived from Latin ; and scientific
specialists abound in Greek.
Several methods have been proposed for analyzing the
styles of different writers, but chiefly with a view to showing
the extent of the native element, without further distin-
guishing the others. One method has been to select a pas-
sage, arrange the several words as in a dictionary, and count
each one once. It is objected to this plan that a word that
occurs only once, and so has little effect on the general
style, counts for as much as one repeated a hundred times.
It has therefore been proposed as a second method to count
each word as it stands on the page, making " the " perhaps
equal 30, and " flocculent," I. The results of these two meth-
ods would be very different. But the words of most fre-
quent occurrence are little ones that by themselves suggest
no idea ; and these are always native English and are always
present, whatever the style may be. They are a constant
element, and, if counted, disguise the actual differences of
style. There is therefore a third resource, to count only
the significant words those that represent things, actions,
and qualities, including those secondary qualities that de-
scribe actions and other qualities, as rapidly, slightly. To
make this clearer let us take a sentence and italicize the
significant words :
" Many cabals were formed, loud complaints were uttered, and
desperate resolutions taken ; but before they proceeded to extremi-
ties they appointed some of their number to examine the powers in
consequence of which the cardinal exercised acts of such high
authority"
ROBERTSON : " Charles V."
Here are 40 words, of which just one half are insignifi-
cant and such as have to be used by every one. Of the
The Sources of English. 39
other 20 cabal is Hebrew; loud, high, uttered, and taken
are native English, and the remainder derived from Latin,
either directly or through a French medium. According to
the second method of computation the native words are
60 per cent. ; by the third they are 20. The last method
is the one adopted in the following table, which is calcu-
lated on a basis of 200 significant words divided into
two classes, native and foreign. Proper names are passed
by altogether. The numbers give the percentage of native
words.
Kentish Sermon A.D., 1250, 92 '
Havelock the Dane " 1300, 87
Sir John Mandeville ' J356, 69
Chaucer, Prologue, Cant. Tales " 1390, 58
Wycliffe (Luke xx.) " 1389, 70
Tyndale (Luke xx.) " 1526, 63
Authorized Version (Luke xx.) " 1610, 64
Ghost's Story in Hamlet " 1600, 49
Bacon, Essay 29 " 1612, 30
Dryden (prose) " 1683, 29
Dr. Johnson " 1748, 24
Gibbon " 1776, 18
Hawthorne " 1853, 43
Macaulay (History) " 1848, 33
Dasent's Translation of the Gisli Saga. . " 1846, 81
The native English element underwent a pretty steady
decline from the age of Edward the Confessor to the close
of the last century, reaching the lowest point in the ponder-
ous sentences of Gibbon, in some of which every significant
word is Latin :
" From such laudable arts did the valor of the Imperial troops
receive a degree of firmness and docility unattainable by the impetu-
ous and irregular passions of barbarians"
In the present century there is a reaction against this
mlemn, labored style and in favor of a freer use of native
English. The result has been a style more crisp, fresh, and
40 The English Language.
direct. The writer who, so far as I know, has carried this
use of English furthest is Dr. Dasent, distinguished by his
illustrations of Icelandic literature. As a contrast to the
style of Gibbon I present a passage from his translation of
Njal's Saga, introducing a famous chief and warrior Gunnar
of Lithend :
" He was a tall man in growth, and a strong man best skilled
in arms of all men. He could cut or thrust or shoot if he chose
as well with his left as with his right hand, and he smote so
swiftly with his sword, that three seemed to flash through the air
at once. He was the best shot with the bow of all men, and never
missed his mark. He could leap more than his own height with
all his war-gear, and as far backwards as forwards. He could
swim like a seal, and there was no game in which it was any good
for any one to strive with him ; and so it has been said that no
man was his match. He was handsome of feature, and fair
skinned. His nose was straight, and a little turned up at the
end. He was blue-eyed and bright-eyed, and ruddy-cheeked.
His hair thick, and of good hue, and hanging down in comely
curls. The most courteous of men was he, of sturdy frame and
strong will, bountiful and gentle^ a fast friend, but hard to please
when making them."
The simpler the ideas are, and the nearer to every-day life,
the greater the share of English words that may be used.
Sentences made up wholly of native words are common
enough in conversation, but are rare in books, except in the
Bible. See as examples Job xxxi., 21, 22 ; John i., 1-4.
Sentences containing no native English words are still
rarer. Here is an attempt at constructing one :
" Injudiciously profuse eleemosynary aid, defeating benevolent
intentions, frequently stimulates voluntary pauperism."
The question how large a part of their native tongue most
people know is answered by Professor Max Miiller in his
usual clear and decisive manner :
" A well educated person in England, who has been at a public
school and at the university, who reads his Shakespeare, the
The Sources of English. 41
Times, and all the books of Mudie's Library, seldom uses more
than about 3,000 or 4,000 words in actual conversation. Accu-
rate thinkers and close reasoners, who avoid vague and general
expressions, and wait till they find the word that exactly fits their
meaning, employ a larger stock ; and eloquent speakers may rise
to a command of 10,000. The Hebrew Testament says all it has
to say with 5,642 words ; Milton's works are built up with 8,000 ;
and Shakespeare, who probably displayed a greater variety of
expression than any writer in any language, produced all his
plays with about 15,000 words."
" Lectures on Language," lee. vii.
This is not precisely saying how many words we know, but
as eloquent speakers may only rise to the command of 10,000,
it may be fairly presumed that common folk could not use so
many if they would. The qualifications of his lowest class
are so high, that most cultured Americans would certainly be
limited to not more than 4,000 words. Very few of us have
had the advantages enumerated. But approaching the ques-
tion from another side, we find Webster's Dictionary
edition of 1890 professing to contain over 1 1 8,000 words.
Joining these two points, we should reach the remarkable
conclusion that a moderately educated American is ac-
quainted with less than -fa of his mother tongue, which is
manifestly and widely erroneous. The term word is not
used in the same sense by both authors. The Oxford pro-
fessor is doubtless a better guide in this than the American
lexicographer. The enormous number of words stated in
the Dictionary gives a false impression. Some of these
words are completely obsolete, others are still entirely foreign
expressions, others again are restricted to particular arts
or sciences, and form no part of the language of ordinary life
or literature. Examples of these words which might prop-
erly be omitted are : qa ira, bedagat, cackiri, caimacan, cous-
cous, Davyt, dawm, dendrocolaptes, doand, couzeranite, Ich
dien, ad quod damnum, (Zgrotat,pulmonibranchiate, angiomono-
spermous. Many words are merely various spellings of the
same. Many are repeated as nouns, adjectives, verbs transi-
tive and verbs intransitive. Winter and water are each
42 The English Language.
counted as three words. The obsolete dogly is made to do
duty as two words, and the equally antiquated dorr as seven.
Words are drawn out in long array by means of suffixes and
combinations. The simple word delight counts for 16 ; 25
combinations are made with honey ; and water is an element
in 203. Some of these combinations are such as well-water,
well-borer, winter-apple, winter-wheat, which every one can
make for himself ad libitum and ad infinitum. Most of
these words may be very properly placed in the Dictionary,
but their reiteration gives an undue air of immensity to the
language. On 40 pages taken at random I find 2,741 words,
of which 357 may be reckoned as obsolete, foreign, or tech-
nical expressions. Of the remainder 1,635 are repetitions,
derivatives, or compounds, that retain the primitive significa-
tion, leaving 749 really distinct words. Then taking my own
knowledge, as the only measure of the general intelligence
that can be applied, I find 209 with which I am not ac-
quainted, which is less than one third () of the primary
words, or one eleventh (yV)> including the derivatives and
compounds. The outcome of all which is that instead of
knowing but an insignificant fraction of our language, we
are more or less familiar with over five sixths ($) of the words
and forms of words available for general literary purposes
and daily use ; also that with the above limitations Webster's
great Dictionary probably does not contain more than 30,000
independent words.
CHAPTER III.
THE PROVINCE OF GRAMMAR.
ENGLISH grammar has long been defined as the art of
speaking and writing the English language correctly. One
of the text-books used in the public schools of this city calls
it more ambitiously, " the science which teaches how to speak
and write the English language correctly." The claim is a
large one, and not to be conceded without inquiry. " Our
language," says Professor Whitney, " like every other, is
made up of words." Of these, Webster's Dictionary, edi-
tion of 1890, professes to contain "an aggregate of upward
of 118,000." One who knows all these thoroughly, or even
20,000 of the most necessary, and how to use them, possesses
the art of speaking and writing the English language cor-
rectly. The art should certainly include a knowledge of the
words themselves. Let us see : we may select almost any
word and inquire what the grammatical text-books have to
tell us about it. We may take the word theatfe, and inquire
its origin and history, its meaning, its form theatre or the-
ater, its pronunciation theatre or thedtre. As a mere word,
this is nearly all that we care to know about it. To all
these questions, a good dictionary will furnish answers; a
grammar will give none. From the grammatical text-books
we may infer one point as probable that when we speak
of more than one such establishment we should add an s.
But that simple fact is known about as well by the street
Arab as by the graduate of the highest schools. In justice,
however, it must be conceded that when such a distinction
is uniform, or nearly so, a considerable labor of search is
saved by assuming it to hold good, and taking the chances.
43
44 The English Language.
Unfortunately the assumption would fail us just where it is
most needed in unfamiliar words, as anas, amaryllis, incubus,
polyergus. No grammar will help us to distinguish the lum-
bar region from the lumber region, or discriminate between
the expressions, to differ from and to differ with, so that in
nearly all cases of difficulty we must have recourse to the
dictionary and not to the grammar. .
If lion were the name of the male of a certain species of
animal, and lioness were the female, and the same held good
universally, it would be quite convenient, as on learning one
form of the word we could readily infer the other. But this
relation is of so rare occurrence, that a knowledge of it is of
no practical value. Again, in Arabic for example, in words
of more than one syllable the last never has the accent ; if
the next to the last ends in a consonant or written long
vowel, it is accented ; otherwise, the second from the last.
Here the whole system of accentuation for the language may
be expressed in a single sentence. Icelandic is still simpler
in that respect, for there the first syllable is always accented,
be the word long or short. But no such absolute rules
obtain in English, where the accent of each word must be
learned by itself. In short, ours is a language of exceptions
and irregularities, in which the dictionary counts for every-
thing, the grammar, almost nothing. But if, from the irreg-
ularities of our language, grammatical rules are of narrower
scope than in some others, we shall find that we have less
use for them. It has been hinted above that plural names
names of more than one have generally an s added to dis-
tinguish them. There might well be other additions or
changes corresponding to modifications in the meaning of
words. In point of fact there are a few such in English.
The orderly presentation of these changes in names gram-
marians call declension ; in words expressing action of any
kind, it is called conjugation ; and these comprise the larger
part of grammar. Professor Max Miiller says rather abso-
lutely, " What is grammar after all but declension and con-
jugation ?" It is unquestionably true that they constitute
the greatest part of all that is of immediate practical value.
The Province of Grammar. 45
But some languages may be richer in varying forms and
require more declension and conjugation than others. In
English a name, or noun, as it is called, may assume four
forms, thus :
man men
man's men's
None present a fuller declension than this, and few are so
complete. If boy had been selected instead of man, while by
orthographic expedients four forms might have been pre-
sented to the eye boy, boys, boys, and boys', to the ear there
would have been but two. So in other languages some of
what are theoretically different forms are no longer dis-
tinguishable ; but, counting the full number, a Latin noun
has 12 variations, a Greek 15, a Hebrew 26, while a Hunga-
rian or Magyar, with its various affixes, admits of 1,154 com-
binations. Or, if we take such a qualifying word as earthen,
or English, which with us has only one form, its synonym in
Latin might have 36, and in Greek 45 variations. Again an
English verb never has more than 8 distinct forms, and sel-
dom more than half that number in actual use. Of the
entire system, as write, writest, writeth, writes, writing,
wrote, wrotest, written, three are practically obsolete ; while
far the greater number have in use only four forms, as sail,
sails, sailing, sailed. In contrast with this scanty stock, the
Spanish verb presents (theoretically) 120 variants ; the Latin
444; the Greek according to Kuehner's Grammar, 1,138, ac-
cording to Professor Miiller the round sum of 1,300; the
Hebrew 246; and the Arabic over 2,100; while Professor
Whitney cites the Rev. T. Hurlbut as saying that he had
ascertained by actual computation that an Algonkin verb
admits of 17,000,000 variations. If then grammar be merely
declension and conjugation, which is not far from the truth,
it plays comparatively a very insignificant part in English.
All the irregularities of our language are more than compen-
sated by the extreme paucity of its grammatical forms. It
is almost as grammarless as Chinese, in which no written
word is ever varied by a single stroke or dot, and when
46 The English Language.
spoken admits of only a change of tone. The weary hours
and years spent by our youth in parsing English sentences
according to forms borrowed from Greek and Latin are
worse than wasted useless for the avowed purpose of learn-
ing to speak and write, and leading to a misapprehension of
what our language is. Professor Whitney, in his " Essen-
tials of English Grammar " says, " Nor is the study of the
grammar of one's native tongue by any means necessary in
order to acquire correctness of speech. Most persons learn
good English in the same way that they learn English at all
namely, by hearing and reading." The same opinion is
probably held now by all competent persons who have given
the subject attention. We know, too, that many of the
masterpieces of human literature, in languages incomparably
more intricate than ours, are the work of men who had never
heard of grammar as either a science or an art. All that is
most prized in Greek literature was written before any book
on grammar had been seen west of the Euphrates. Only
two peoples of all the world, the Hindoos and the Greeks,
originated the idea of analyzing their languages and codifying
their peculiarities. The former had the priority in time, and
the superiority in analytical acuteness. To learn to write
and speak correctly was not the object of either. They
could do that already ; but both wished to preserve unaltered
their oldest and most revered writings. The Brahmin re-
garded the hymns of the Veda as no mere human composi-
tions, but only seen in vision and copied by the ancient
Rishis. To him the correct pronunciation and accent of a
syllable might determine his salvation. Hence immense
labor was spent in observing and noting the form of every
word and the recurrence of every change. In the fourth or
fifth century before Christ, and long before the invasion of
Alexander, the Hindoos had traced all the words of the
Sanskrit to 1,706 roots, and determined the particles and
affixes with which they were combined, and all the outlines
of grammar as now understood. The thought of grammar
had not yet occurred to the Greek. Plato, in his philosoph-
ical speculations and with no view to correctness of style,
The Province of Grammar. 47
divided words into nouns, onomata, and verbs, rhemata ;
although we are left in the dark as to what each class con-
tained. He was also acquainted with the distinction between
vowels and consonants. Aristotle, for merely rhetorical pur-
poses, added the classes of conjunctions and articles, but by
the latter he meant pronouns and relatives. This is as far as
Greek grammar advanced in its native country.
But before Hindoo or Greek had made the analysis of his
language the nations of Chaldea had compiled dictionaries
and grammars for the more practical purpose of learning a
language not their own. The great kingdoms of which we
read in the Bible had been preceded by a cultivated people
of wholly different speech a people devoted to science and
literature, who had left behind them considerable writings,
or rather printings. The speech of that early people was to
those who came after what Latin was to Europe for so many
ages, and text-books were prepared for learning it. Modern
explorers find fragments of those ancient grammars among
the ruins of the royal libraries of Sargon and Assur-bani-pal. 1
Early civilization had three chief, and perhaps independent,
centres of development, China, Chaldea, and Egypt. The
first two had but little influence on the rest of the world ;
but Egypt, lying on the Mediterranean, the great highway
of nations, was the mother of western science, whose cradle
was rocked by the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies.
In the new city of Alexandria men of all climes, from
India to Spain, and from Mount Atlas to Norway, met and
exchanged the products and ideas of their countries. The
halls of the great Museum were, thronged with more than
10,000 students. The director, Demetrius tPhalereus, had
orders to collect all the writings of the world for its
libraries. The copies of the old Greek classics were found to
1 Sargon I. looms in the dim distance like the figures of Haroun Al-Raschid,
Charlemagne, and Alfred. Assur-bani-pal is celebrated by Arrian and Nicolaus
of Damascus as ' ' Sardanapalus, King, and son of Anacyndaraxes, who built two
cities in one day, Anchialus and Tarsus." He was really the son of Essar-had-
don and grandson of Sennacherib II. (Kings xix., 37), the prototype of Louis
XIV., and among other things a munificent patron of learning.
48 The English Language.
contain various readings. Out of these the scholars of the
Museum undertook to publish critical editions. This neces-
sitated a minute study of the text. Zenodotus, the first
librarian, about B.C. 250, detected and pointed out the per-
sonal pronouns and the singular, dual, and plural numbers.
Nearly a century later Aristarchus discovered the preposi-
tions. In all this there was no thought of developing an
art to teach people how to use their mother-tongue. But
when it became the fashion for the young Roman gentry to
learn Greek, as the moderns do French, a necessity arose for
systematic analysis. How could the 1,138 parts of the
Greek verb be reconciled with the meagre ^/j/] of the Latin,
unless they were tabulated and explained. This work was
reserved for Dionysius Thrax, a pupil of Aristarchus, who
came to Rome as a professor of Greek in the century before
the Christian era. For convenience he reduced the sub-
stance of his lectures to book form the earliest European
treatise on grammar, and still extant. From this work the
distinctions and terminology of the Greek language were
afterwards, by translation and mistranslation, applied to the
Latin. The Latin language was stretched upon the iron
bedstead of the Greek, as the languages of modern Europe
have long been racked on that of the Latin.
The ideas of grammar were not applied to English until
about the time of the Tudors, and then under the impression
that every human dialect could be laced in the harness of
the Latin. The first text-books used in the schools were
written in that language, and designed, not so much to
teach English as grammar in the abstract, as applicable alike
to all. They of course taught only Latin. The most
famous of these early grammars was that of William Lily,
first printed in 1542 by express authority of Henry VIII.,
and long known as " King Henry's Grammar." Although
called simply " A Grammar," and not the grammar of any
particular language, it was not only written in, but related
exclusively to, Latin. And when the same author subse-
quently published a dense black-letter volume with the
deceptive title of " Lilie's English Grammar," it was but a
The Province of Grammar. 49
collection of the rules of the Latin strung on a thin thread
of English text. The first really English grammar was
claimed by William Bullokar, who published in 1586 "A
Bref Grammar for English/' which he said was " the first
Grammar for English that ever waz except my Grammar at
large." Since that time there have been English grammars
innumerable, not a few of them written in Latin, as those
of John Wallis and Charles Cooper, in the time of William
and Mary, and with rare exceptions ignoring the real source
and character of the grammar of the language.
Even so late as 1796 the greatly improved grammar of
Thomas Coar, published in London, filled its pages with
diagrams like the following:
SINGULAR PLURAL
NOM. a house NOM. houses
GEN. of a house GEN. of houses
DAT. to a house DAT. to houses
Ace. a house Ace. houses
Voc. O house Voc. O houses
ABL. with a house ABL. with houses
It would have been quite as easy and rational to have
added a dozen more prepositions, or to have omitted the
most of these, but that this was the scale recognized in
Latin. Eminent men, not the authors of systematic treatises
on grammar, have sometimes furnished valuable suggestions.
Roger Bacon pointed out the folly of trying to explain
words by reference to some remote language with which
they had no connection. Locke expressed his conviction
that all words, if they could be traced to their sources,
would be found to have originally denoted visible objects,,
their sensible qualities and actions. Following up this hint,
John Home Tooke published in 1786 his famous " Epea
Pteroenta," or " The Diversions of Purley," a work of singu-
lar acuteness and ingenuity, designed to show that all our
little words of scarcely perceptible signification if, and,
but, although, etc. are the relics of once substantial nouns
and verbs, and that their source is to be sought, not in
4
50 The English Language.
Greek and Latin, but in the earlier forms of English and
the closely allied languages. Although from rashness and
imperfect knowledge, Home Tooke was often wrong in his
derivations, and would be a very unsafe guide, still he
pointed the way for all subsequent investigators.
The first grammarians, as Dionysius, undertook to teach
the signification, the spelling, and the pronunciation of
words; but that has long since been turned over to lexi-
cographers. This leads to consider again the distinction
between the two classes of books. The dictionary treats of
single words, and one at a time. When it has told us all it
has to say of any word, as almanac, boom, yacht, we are not
thereby helped to understand the next word that occurs.
The grammar, on the other hand, deals with classes of facts
or of words, and points out their distinctive agreements and
differences. In the sentence " The swallow flies about catch-
ing flies" the word flies occurs twice, presenting no differ-
ence to the eye or the ear. The grammarian sees a difference
in the meaning or application, and should at least try to
discover whence came the s that is common to both. By vary-
ing the above illustration we might say, " Two swallows
fly in pursuit of one^fj/." The curious question would then
be presented why the form that is singular for nouns is
plural for verbs, and the reverse. Whatever result the
grammarian might reach in this case would be equally appli-
cable in thousands of others, and would be recognized as a
general principle or rule. If the ed in march^ refers to the
past, so it does in other words, and if its history and signifi-
cance be discovered in one case, the discovery is equally
good for all. Grammar then treats of everything relating to a
language that can be reduced to general facts, principles, or
rules. It has to deal chiefly with the various forms assumed
by the same words. This is, in English, a very narrow field,
but extremely rocky.
Grammar, like botany or mineralogy, is a purely descrip-
tive science. The duty of the grammarian is not to invent
or create, but to state and classify the facts as he finds them.
What is true of nothing else is true of language, that whatever
The Province of Grammar. 5 1
is is right. Expressions may be intricate, awkward, incon-
sistent with other expressions, difficult for the tongue or
harsh to the ear, but so long as they are the unmistakable
symbols of certain ideas, they answer their purpose. But
there may be different and conflicting expressions for the
same idea. One class of speakers say them is, while another
say those are. The grammarian may indeed point out that
the latter phrase is the most consistent with general usage,
and is employed by the most careful speakers, and there-
fore preferable ; but if the former were the sole recognized
form, we should have to put up with it ; and it would be as
absurd to object that it was ungrammatical as to accuse
some wild-wood flower of being unbotanical.
But it may be objected, " If grammar does not make rules
for the government of language, and people can learn to
speak and read without it, what is its use?" I readily
admit that these considerations deprive it of a fictitious im-
portance long attached to it, but it still retains a real value
rarely thought of. That great body of knowledge known as
learning is valuable indirectly rather than directly. By it
are formed habits of calm, thoughtful observation and dis-
crimination that modify the whole character of man. If a
savage could be induced to give his attention for half an
hour to the drawing of a circle, to the equality of its radii,
its relation to the hexagon, the ratio of its inscribed and
circumscribed squares, he would be a little less of a savage
all his life after. All honest pursuit of knowledge has this
humanizing effect. The world has more faith to-day in
its men of science than in its princes, prelates, and states-
men ; and yet a great part of science has no practical appli-
cation. It requires but a small part of astronomy to find a
ship's place at sea, or locate a boundary, and that small
part is about all that touches his material interests. Minute
examinations of protoplasm, of annelids and bacteria, are
commended as science, even by men who would scout phi-
lology as a waste of time upon " mere words." Yet if man is
the highest of earthly creatures, and language his most dis-
tinctive attribute, that too may merit some attention. Sir
52 The English Language.
Samuel Baker thought he could distintinguish nine distinct
caJls a language in embryo used by the baboons of
Abyssinia ; and Dr. Charles A. Abbott claims to have
found twenty-seven separate caws among the American
crows. 1 The verification of these cries would be esteemed as
a valuable contribution to natural history, even if we should
never have occasion to converse with crows or baboons. A
much higher interest attaches to the study of language.
Like everything else in these days, it is the result of growth
and development under conditions and laws that can be in
part ascertained. Each word has a pedigree reaching back
to the times of the paleolithic cave-dwellers. The philolo-
gist may be compared to the geologist found poring over a
gravel bank or a ridge of disjointed stones, who explains to
the curious wayfarer that each pebble or block has a history
of its own a part of the history of our planet. Not one of
them is a native of this place, or has the form it once bore.
They have been torn from their distant beds by successive
convulsions or slow upheavals, rolled for ages in currents of
water until their angles are worn off, borne across seas by
drifting ice, or dragged snail-pace over the land by glaciers.
Here, side by side, lie fragments of granite and quartz, with
silurian slates and limestones, breccias, porphyry, and basalt.
We can trace the track of some ; and were our knowledge
complete we could find the distant source of each. From
the mould overlying some, their coming must have been
long ago. Somewhat similar is the position of language.
It has been intimated already that the chief part of gram-
mar is declension and conjugation, and that these in English
are scanty. Indeed, our language offers but the scattered
remains of an inflexional system. In this respect the inflec-
tional systems of Latin and Greek, for example, might be
likened to skeletons set up in a museum, bloodless and life-
less, indeed, but with every bone and joint in its place. On
the other hand, English presents only here and there a bone,
so broken and worn as to be identified with difficulty and
only by comparison with the appropriate skeleton.
1 Popular Science Monthly, vol. xxv., p. 475.
CHAPTER IV.
WORD MAKING.
THE reading public, at least of this country, owe much to
Professor Max Miiller. He has furnished them a great
amount of philological information in a very attractive form,
and he has given every one something that he can take
exception to. Among others is the dictum that " No man
ever invents an entirely new word." It is true, indeed, that
the scholar, with a wealth of words, ancient and modern, will
rarely contrive a new combination of sounds, which would
necessarily be unintelligible. But pure invention comes of
poverty rather than of riches, and those who have fewest
words have the greatest temptation to invent. Little chil-
dren often form new combinations, that become for a time
household words, while a few obtain a wider circulation.
The very illiterate are prone to do the same, and it is prob-
able that many low words, like bamboozle, cavort, doggerel,
splurge, scalliwag, and mulligrubs, originated in this way.
Mormon, now familiar to the whole world, is an entirely fac-
titious word. Persons with no lack of words occasionally
amuse themselves by contriving new ones. Opodeldoc is an
invention of Paracelsus, and Decandolle, the Swiss botanist,
devised sepal to designate a division of the calix of a flower.
The word quiz was introduced by the keeper of a Dublin
theatre named Daly, on a bet that a new word of no mean-
ing would become the town-talk in twenty-four hours. He
gained the wager by setting boys to chalk the word upon
walls. Van Helmont proposed two new words gas, to de-
note a form of matter then attracting attention, and bias for
a supposed influence of the stars. The world having use for
53
54 The English Language.
the word gas, and not for its fellow, the former has had uni-
versal acceptance, the latter total neglect. Darwin or Huxley
could not find a clearer case of survival of the fittest. Still,
with few exceptions, all the words we are likely to meet with
are made up of modifications or combinations of previous
words.
Doubtless there was a time when all the words of our early
ancestors were few and simple, each consisting of a single
vowel a, i, o a vowel preceded by a single consonant do,
be, go, no, say or a combination of the two, as ado, ego, era,
In many languages the words are still chiefly made up of
alternate consonants and vowels. In all the Polynesian
tongues no syllable ends with a consonant, and two conso-
nants never come together. The words are formed on the
pattern of ta-bu, Ta-hi-ti, la-ve-na, Ho-no-lu-lu. In many of
the native American languages this habit is quite observable.
In 50 pages of the Hidatsa Dictionary of Dr. Matthews I
find but 30 syllables that end with consonants. Many other
languages show a dislike to certain consonantal endings.
Every Chinese word is a single syllable, ending either with
a vowel or a nasal. Greek admitted no final consonants
except n, r, and s ; the French suppresses many in pronun-
ciation ; and modern German discards the sounds of final b,
d, g, v, and z. It is probable that wherever several conso-
nants come together intervening vowels have been suppressed.
In respect to signification, these earliest words were prob-
ably nouns, adjectives, or verbs that is, they represented
things, qualities, or actions indifferently as occasion might
require. If we say that a man brings a saw&nd a jaw-horse
to saw a load of wood, we employ the same word succes-
sively as noun, adjective, and verb. In English, this free-
and-easy way of playing at rights and lefts is very common
and very convenient, as when we say a bean-pole and a pole-
bean, a cart-horse and a horse-cart. In Chinese, which is the
most primitive form of human speech, and therefore one of
the most instructive, every word is of one syllable, and every
syllable a word, unchangeable except in the tone of utter-
ance ; and grammatical distinction is unknown. Thus ta, as
Word Making. 55
a noun, is greatness ; as an adjective, great ; as a verb, to
grow or be great ; and as an adverb, greatly. Of these
primary Chinese monosyllables there are reckoned 450, and
it is thought that no language has a much larger number of
ultimate elements.
These primitive syllables are often called roots, as many
of them have produced abundant crops of derived words.
We may get an idea of a root sufficient for our present pur-
pose by taking such a series as corn-pel, d\s-pel, ex.-pel, im-
pel, pro-pel, re-pel, and calling pel a root with the sense of
drive. The other syllables in this instance are termed pre-
fixes ; if they followed the root, they would be called suffixes.
The root itself may undergo changes, as in com-//-sory, im-
pul-s\vQ. As the same root may run through a large family
of languages, it can sometime^ be traced in several thou-
sand combinations. The same prefixes and suffixes may be
attached to many different roots : thus zw-tend, z'#-spire, in-
fliction.
While the earliest words, no doubt, represented material
visible things, their qualities and actions, one may see, by
turning over the leaves of a dictionary, how they become
freighted with secondary and figurative meanings. In this
way all terms for abstract and immaterial things are ob-
tained. The original meaning is often lost sight of, and the
derived alone remains. Thus spirit once meant only breath
in-spire and ex-pire, to breathe in and breathe out compre-
hend was to grasp and hold together, and disgust was a bad
taste in the mouth. At a very early period, too, a few roots
must have assumed a pronominal character. They became
hieroglyphic or short-hand expressions, denoting in them-
selves neither things, qualities, nor actions. They were in
signification such words as here, there, this, and that, accom-
panied no doubt with the act of pointing with the finger.
But while we should naturally expect our first ancestors to
have busied themselves like Adam in giving " names to all
cattle," it is remarkable to observe that the tendency of
research in the most developed languages the Aryan and
Shemitic is to show that the oldest words that can be
56 The English Language.
reached represented, not things, but qualities and actions.
Still we must remember on the other hand that the vedic
hymns and the martial ode of Debprah are relatively little
nearer the beginning of things than we are.
I have said that Chinese retains the most primitive char-
acter, consisting of single syllables, every one uttered sepa-
rately as a child begins to read. Most other peoples think
this too slow. Not content with learning to do a thing, they
want to do it quickly and with little labor. Let us take a
French sentence as an example " Tu as ce que il te faut"
No Frenchman utters this as seven separate words. What
he does say is something like, " Tua skeelt fo," and his whole
language is similarly compressed. The motive is to so great
an extent the saving of labor that laziness has been recog-
nized as one of the chief factors in the production and con-
fusion of tongues. Words that happen to be used often
together come to be combined and pronounced as one. This
is a gradual process in which we easily distinguish three
steps. In brick house we have two distinct words, but brick
has become an adjective descriptive of house ; in work-house
two words are treated as one, but to show that they are not
yet perfectly consolidated, a hyphen (-) is placed between
them. The first part is uttered forcibly, the second lightly.
The greater stress is called accent, and the two parts have
but one that is, they are accented as one word. When we
come to householder we are no longer notified that the parts
were ever separate. Under which of the three forms we
shall find any combination depends on length and frequency
of use. Turnspit is written without, and turn-table with, a
hyphen, because the English people have been much longer
used to roasting meat on a spit than to turning railroad cars
on a table.
But laziness will not rest here. Compound words must
next be shortened. The Danes have a pair that are very
handy faster, a father's sister, and moster, a mother's sister.
Comparable to these are the gaffer and gammer, for grand-
father and grandmother, that used to be commonly heard in
the West of England. To take a few more miscellaneous
Word Making. 57
examples, the Portuguese coin moidore is moeda de ouro ;
priest is reduced from presbuteros, bishop from episcopos, and
alms from eleemosune. Our simple word which once had an
/ in it, and the Saxons commonly called it hwilc, which was
itself an abbreviation, the fuller form being hwilic, what-like.
If we go back to the fourth century we shall find that the
Goths had a still fuller form, hweleiks. Our fathers in the
days of the great Alfred, in praying for their " daily bread,"
took time to call it daeghwamlican hldf. Let us see what
we have made of these two words. We will take the last
first. We have thrown away the initial h, turned the Saxon
long a according to our wont into a long 0, and now write
the word loaf. From the more formidable looking word we
have dropped the termination an, the g of daeg, a day, and
hwam, meaning each. We have also reduced lie, like, to the
now unmeaning ly. Taking these successive amputations in
the order named, we should see the word as daeghwamlican,
daeghwamlic, daehzvamlic, daelic, daely. These changes were
not all made in a day. The tendency here illustrated is not
exceptional. All languages that are at all developed are full
of it. In fact that is what development means. The effect
is sometimes curious. We will take as an example the
French aujourd'hui, meaning now, to-day. First separate
it into aujour d' hui ; next observe that au = a le = Latin
ad ilium, that jour is from the Latin diurnus, that d' = de,
and hui is Latin hodie = hoc die. Treated in this manner it
can be stretched out into the very low Latin of ad ilium
diurnum de hoc die. In like manner m$me is discovered to
be a desiccated preparation of semetipsissimus. But such
choice specimens are not confined to French. Old authors
give an English phrase of the seventeenth century which
they write muskiditti, meaning much good may it do you ; and
Shakespeare has godigode'n for God give you a good even. The
modern editions naturally give it quite incorrectly ; see
" Romeo and Juliet," Act iii., Scene 2. But the masterpiece
of all is the one most common. The final m of the house-
maid's hourly Yesm is all that remains of the once dignified
me a domina.
58 The English Language.
Languages differ greatly in their aptitude for forming
compound words. Chinese does not admit of them at all ;
Spanish has few of native growth ; French has less ability to
form them than English ; and this last has to a great extent
lost the habit. There are three European languages Ger-
man, Russian, and Greek that have almost unlimited capa-
bility of forming new verbal combinations. Owing to the
excess of consonants, German words are apt to be unwieldy,
like Einwanderungsgesellschaft and Unabhdngichkeitserkla-
rungen. In most instances each section begins and ends with
consonants, and, in the language of working mechanics, the
joints show. English labors under the same disadvantage,
but to a still greater extent. Milk-maid may as well be
deemed two words as one. It is not an indivisible whole,
like the Greek derivations astronomy and geology. It is
partly from this cause, and partly from the early acquired
habit of adopting French, Latin, and Greek terms, that for
the higher purposes of literature and science we rarely form
a new word from native material. English, as we know it, is
doubtless a very noble language ; but well it may be, for it
has at command all the resources of at least three. Confined
to the original Saxon, it would be very far from what it is.
By long use and attrition, words quite diverse in their
origin come to be written or pronounced alike. These
homonyms, as they are called, are quite numerous. The fol-
lowing, although less than a fiftieth part of them, will be
sufficient to make their character intelligible :
bay, i. Old French fai, Lat. badius, reddish brown.
2. Fr. bate, Lat. bacca^ a berry a kind of laurel tree.
3. Fr. bate, Lat. baia, an inlet of the sea.
4. Fr. abboyer, to bark.
cleave, i. Anglo-Saxon cleofan, to split.
2. A.-S. clifian, to adhere.
dock, i. Norse dockr, the tail to cut short.
2. A.-S. docce, a plant.
3. Old Dutch dokka, a place to lay ships.
fell, i. The past tense of fall.
2. A.-S. fellan, to cut or knock down.
Word Making. 59
3. A.-S. fel, fierce, destructive.
4. A.-S. fell, the skin.
5. Norse fjall, a mountain ridge.
gill-, i. Norse gjolnar, the breathing organs in fishes.
2. Norse gil, a ravine.
3. Old Fr. gille, the fourth part of a pint.
4. Lat. Julia, also the ground ivy, nepeta glechoma.
let-, i. A.-S. latan, to permit.
2. A.-S. lettan, to hinder.
In languages having short words homonyms abound, and
sometimes greatly embarrass the learner. In monosyllabic
Chinese they are his principal difficulty.
In words like wind-mill and horse-back the elements remain
as complete and distinguishable as in Chinese ; but in such a
word as un-kind-ness there are two parts that no longer exist
as separate expressions. Most persons would surmise that
the prefix un implied negation ; but many would be puzzled
to assign a meaning to the suffix ness. Language is full of
prefixes, suffixes, and interpolated syllables and letters that
have no longer any independent life of their own, but cling
like parasites to the more obviously significant parts of
words. In un-sym-metr-ic-al-ly the main root of the word
is metr, to which are attached two prefixes and three suffixes.
The origin and meaning of some of these affixes can be
traced, of some conjectured, and of others not even guessed.
The following are the principal prefixes that occur in
English :
a-, i. Greek , without acephalous, amorphous.
2. Lat. a, shortened from ab, from, by, with amanuensis,
avert.
3. Lat. ad, to ameliorate, astringent.
4. Lat. e for ex, from amend from emendare, through
Old Fr. amender.
5. Gothic us, ur, Norse or, forth arise, awake.
6. A.-S. of, from adown ; A.-S. of dune, from the hill.
7. A.-S. and, over against, like Gr. avrl along.
8. A.-S. on, on, in, at afoot, aground, asleep.
9. A.-S. dn, one apace, apiece.
60 The English Language.
10. K.-S.ge, without any appreciable signification aware ;
through gewaer, ywar oryewer, iwar, aware,
11. Norse at, to ado.
12. Fr. a, to achieve, from a chief, Lat. ad caput.
13. Fr. he, interjectional alas ; Fr. httas.
14. Dutch houd, hold avast, from houd vast, hold fast.
15. Dutch aan, to, towards aloof.
16. Arabic al, the apricot, introduced by the Portuguese.
ab-, i. Lat. ab, from abjure, aberration.
2. Lat. ad, to abbreviate.
abs-, Lat. abs, from abscond, abstract.
ao, Lat. ad, to access, accommodate.
ad-, i. Lat. ad admire, administer.
2. Lat. ab advance. The " d " is an interpolation of
about the year 1500. The word was previously
written avance, Fr. avancer, from Lat. ab ante.
adv-, Lat. ab advantage.
af-, Lat. ad affix, affidavit, affront.
ag-, Lat. ad aggregate, aggravate.
al-, i. Lat. ad alliteration, alluvium.
2. A.-S. eal, all alone, altogether, always.
3. Span, el, the alligator, i. e., el Jagarto.
4. Arab, al, the alcohol, algebra, alkali.
am-, i. Lat. ad ammunition.
2. Lat. in ambush.
3. Lat. am, shortened from ambi, around amputate, to
prune around.
amb-, Lat. ambi ambient, ambition.
ambi-, i. Lat. ambi ambiguous.
2. Lat. ambo, both ambidextrous.
amphi-, Gr. aftfpi, around, on both sides amphitheatre.
an-, i. Gr. av, Eng. un anarchy, anhydrous, anodyne.
2. Lat. ad annex, annul.
ana-, Gr. ava, up, back again, reverse anatomy, anagram.
ant-, Gr. avri, against antacid, antagonist.
ante Lat. ante, before antedate, antediluvian.
anti-, Gr. avri antidote, antichrist.
ap-, i. Gr. fX7ro f from apanthropy, aphelion.
2. Lat. ad appeal, append.
apo-, Gr. ano, apogee, apostate.
Word Making.
61
ar-,
as-,
at-,
aut-,
auto-,
be-,
bene-,
bi-,
bin-,
bis-,
by-,
cat-,
cata-,
circu-,
circum-,
cis-,
CO-,
col-,
com-,
comb-,
con-,
contra-,
contro-,
coun-,
counter-,
cu-,
cur-,
Lat. ad arrive, arrogant.
Lat. ad ascend, assist.
Arab, al assegay.
Lat. ad attend, attest.
A.-S. at, Eng. at atone, i. e., at one.
Gr. avro?) self authentic.
Gr. fxvro? autocrat, autograph.
A.-S. be, a shortened form of bi, a prefix of very
wide application. With verbs it intensifies or
applies the action to some object, as in bedew, be-
moan, benumb. With prepositions it has little
force ; perhaps defines location more exactly, as
in before, behind, beneath.
Lat. bene, well benefit, benevolent.
Gr. inij upon, over bishop from sniffKOTto'S.
Lat. bi = dui, from duo, two biennium, bifurcated.
Lat. binus, double binocular, binoxyde.
Lat. bis, twice bissextile, bistort.
Eng. by by-path, by-stander.
Dan. by, a town by-law ; Dan. bylov, Icel. boejar
log, local or municipal regulations.
Gr. Kara, down, by, confronting catacoustics, cate-
chise, catholic.
Gr. Hard catalepsy, catastrophe.
Lat. circum, around, about circuit, circulate.
Lat. circum circumference, circumnavigate.
Lat. cis, on this side cisalpine, cisatlantic.
Lat. co, for con, a form of cum, with, together co-
agulate.
Lat. con = cum collateral, collocate.
Lat. com = cum commingle, commotion.
Lat. com combustion.
Lat. con concatenation, concur.
Lat. contra, against contradict, contravene.
Lat. contro, against controvert.
Lat. con council, counsellor.
Fr. contre from Lat. contra countermand.
Lat. con custom, from consuetudo.
Lat. con curry, to work, or dress, i. e., hides, a
horse, etc. NOTE. To curry favor is a corrup-
62 The English Language.
tion of curry Fa-veil, that being an old English
proper name for a horse.
d-, Fr. de, of daffodil fieur d'asphodele.
de-, i. Lat. de, down, from decapitate, degrade.
2. Fr. de, Old Fr. des, Lat. dis, asunder ; sometimes
negative and oppositive, at other times intensive,
or with a variety of meanings scarcely perceptible
deform, defraud, desiccate, desolate, destroy.
3. Lat. dis defer, delay, deluge.
demi-, Lat. dimidius, half demigod, demilune.
des-, Fr. des, Lat. dis despatch, dessert.
di-, i. Gr. dia, through, apart diaeresis, dioptric.
2. Gr. 6fe, twice diphthong, diptych, distich.
3. Lat. dis digress, dijudicate.
4. Lat. de, down distil.
dia-, Gr. dia diameter, diaphanous.
dif-, Lat. dis differ, diffuse.
dis-, Lat. dis, often with an adversative signification dis-
honor.
dys-, Gr. 6v?j painful, difficult dyspepsia, dyspnoea.
C-, i. Lat. e, out of evade, evolve, edict.
2. Fr. prosthetic, without meaning esquire, from Lat.
scutum.
3. Du. ont, away elopement.
CC-, Gr. KJ out of eccentric, ecstasy.
ef-, Lat. ex, from, out of efflorescence, effrontery.
el-, i. Gr. fry in ellipse.
2. Arab, al or el, the elixir, Arab, el iksir, the philoso-
pher's stone.
em-, i. Gr. v emphasis, empiric.
2. Fr. em, from Lat. in embroider, emboss.
en-, i. Gr. ev encyclical, encyclopaedia, energy.
2. Fr. en, from Lat. in, negative = Eng. un enmity,
endo-, Gr. svdov, within endogenous.
enter-, Fr. entre, Lat. inter, among entertain.
ento-, Gr. SVTOS, within entoblast, entozoon.
ep-, Gr. snij upon ephemeral.
epi-, Gr. en i epigram, epitaph.
equ-, Lat. cequus equal, equanimity.
CSO-, Gr. effGo, within esoteric.
Word Making".
i.
eu-,
ev-,
ex-,
exo-,
extra-,
for-,
fore-,
gain-,
hemi-,
hetero-,
holo-,
homo-,
hyp-,
hyper-,
hypo-,
i-,
U-,
im-,
in-,
inter-,
intra-,
intro-,
iso-,
juxta-,
1-, i.
2,
mal-, i.
Gr. ev, well, pleasantly eulogy, euphony.
Gr. sv evangelist.
Gr. e, from exodus, exotic.
Lat. <?AT, out from exculpate, expel, expose.
Gr. H%c&, outside exogenous.
Lat. extra, beyond extraordinary, extradition.
A.-S. for, only found as a prefix, with the sense of
away from ; or it intensifies the verb. The com-
pounds are : forbear, forbid, forfend, forget, for-
give, forgo, forlet, forlorn, forsake, forswear.
Fr. for, Lat. foris, outdoors forfeit.
A.-S. for, as above forego, should have been forgo.
A..-S.fore, before forebode, forewarn.
Fr. for, Lat. foris foreclose, more correctly forclose.
A.-S. gegn, against gainsay.
Gr. rjfAi, half hemisphere.
Gr.-erspoSj other heterodox, heterogeneous.
Gr. o\o$, whole holocaust, holograph.
Gr. oftos, alike homogeneous, homologous.
Gr. vjtOj under hyp-hen under one.
Gr. VTtsp, over, beyond hyperborean, hypertrophy.
Gr. V7f6 hypogean, hyponitrous.
Lat. in, negative ignominy, ignorance.
Lat. in, in or into illuminate, illustrate. NOTE. In,
prefixed to verbs, is usually equal to Eng. in, into,
upon ; with adjectives = un.
Lat. in, negative illegal, illiterate.
Lat. in, with both significations implant, impure.
Lat. in infuse, intemperate.
A.-S. in inland, inlet.
Lat. inter, between interlude, intercostal.
Lat. intra, within intramural.
Lat. intro, into introduce, introspection.
Lat. in, as above irradiate, irrational.
Gr. fo?, equal isometric, isothermal.
Lat. juxta, near juxtaposition.
A.-S. eal, all lone, contracted from alone i. e., all one.
Arab, al, the lute.
Fr. mal, Lat. male, ill malpractice, malversation.
Ital. mala, bad malaria.
6 4
The English Language.
mis-,
mon-,
mono-,
multi-,
n-,
male-, Lat. male malediction, malevolence.
me-, Gr. fat, half megrim, from hemicrania.
medi-, Lat. medius, middle mediaeval.
meso-, Gr. jusffo?, middle mesocarp, mesogastric.
met-, Gr. ftsrai, with, after, altered metonomy, metempsy-
chosis.
meta-, Gr. jusra metaphor.
mid-, i. A.-S. mid, middle midnight, midrib.
2. A.-S. mid, with midwife.
A.-S. mis, wrong misdeed, mistake.
Old. Fr. mes, Lat. minus, less, imperfect misalliance,
miscount.
Gr. jtovo?, single monarch, monandria.
Gr. jtoroZ monogram, monomania.
Lat. multi, many multiform, multiply.
An n has been transferred to a few words, to which it
did not originally belong, from a preceding an, as
newt, for an ewt ; nugget, for an ingot. In the
phrase for the nonce the n was the dative end-
ing of the article for then ones. On the other
hand, an n has been transferred to the preceding
article from nadder, napron, nauger, norange, nouch,
and numpire.
2. A.-S. ne, negative prefix naught, none.
ne-, Lat. ne, negative nefarious, nescience.
neg-, Lat. nee, negative neglect.
neo-, Gr. VEO$, new neology, neozoic,
non-, Lat. non, not nondescript, nonsense.
ob-, Lat. ob, generally with the sense of against obdurate,
obstruct, obloquy.
OC-, Lat. ob occur, occasion.
of-, Lat. ob offend.
op-, Lat. ob oppose, opprobrium.
or-, i. A. S. or, out of, away from ordeal, i. e., or-deal.
2. Du. over, over orlop.
ortho-, Gr. opdot, right orthography, orthoclase.
OUtr-, Fr. outre, Lat. ultra outrage, i. e., outr-age, not out-
rage.
palim-, Gr. noikiv, again palimpsest,
palin-, Gr. noikiv palinode, palindrome.
Word Making.
pan-,
panto-,
par-, i.
2.
3-
4-
para-,
pan-,
pea-, i.
pel-,
pen-,
per-,
peri-,
pil-,
pol-,
poly-,
por-,
pos-,
post-,
prse-,
prseter-,
pre-,
preter-,
prim-,
primo-,
pro-, i
pros-,
proto-,
pui-,
pur-,
Ram-,
re-,
red-,
retro-,
5
Gr. itav, all panacea, panoply.
Gr. Ttavro, crude form of not?, all pantomime.
Gr. Ttapoc, alongside parallel, parhelion.
Lat. parum, little paraffine.
Ifr.par, ~Lai.per, through paramour, pardon.
Fr. parer, to parry parasol, parachute.
Gr. Ttapa paragraph, parameter.
Lat. far, equal parity, parisyllable.
Lat. pavo peacock.
Du./^', a coat pea-jacket.
Lat. per, through, thoroughly pellucid.
Lat. pene, almost peninsula, penumbra.
Lat. per perambulate, percolate, permutation.
Gr. Ttspi, around perihelion, perimeter.
Lat. per pilgrim.
Lat./^r, or fort, towards pollute.
Gr. TtoXvS, many polygon, polypus.
Lat. for, or port portent.
Lat. por, or port possess.
Lat. potis, able possible.
~Lat.post, after postpone, postscript.
Lat. prce, before praemunire.
Lat. prater, past, beyond prseterist.
Lat./?r, for pra preamble, prejudge.
Lat. preter, for pratei preternatural.
~Lzt. primus, first primeval, primordial.
Lat. primus primogeniture.
Gr. Ttpo, before program, propyleum.
Lat. pro, forward, forth, from procrastinate, pro-
V gress.
GrS&po?, towards proselyte, prosody.
Gr. TtpaJTo? , first protosulphate, protozoic.
Lat. post, after Fr. puine, Old Fr. puisne, Lat. post
natus.
Lat. per purlieu.
Lat. pro purloin.
Fr. rem, from Lat. re and in rampart.
Lat. re or red back, again refund, relapse.
Lat. re or red redolent, redemption.
Lat. retro, backwards retrograde, retrospect.
66
The English Language.
S-, Lat. se or sed, apart sure, from securus.
SC-, Lat. se or j^/ secede, segregate.
sed-, Lat. se or sed sedition.
semi-, Lat. semi, half semiannual, semicircle,
sempi-, Lat. semper, ever, forever sempiternal.
sesqui-, Lat. sesqui, one and a half sesquisulphide.
sim-, Lat. radical sim, single simplicity.
simul-, Lat. simul, at the same time simultaneous.
SO-, i. Lat. se, apart solve.
2. Lat. sub, under sojourn.
Soli-, Lat. solus, alone soliloquy, solitary.
SU-, Lat. sub suspect.
sub-, Lat. sub subscribe, subterranean.
Slibter-, Lat. subter, under subterfuge.
SUC-, Lat. sub succumb, succor,
suf-, Lat. sub suffer, suffuse.
SUg-, Lat. sub suggest
sup-, Lat. sub support, supposition.
super-, Lat. super, over superfluous, supernatural.
Supra-, Lat. supra, over, above supralapsarian.
SUr-, i. Lat. sub surreptitious.
2. Lat. super surface, survive.
3. Fr. se, self surrender.
SUS-, Lat. sub suspend, sustain.
syl-, Gr. ffvr, with, together syllable, syllogism.
sym-, Gr. ffw symmetry, sympathy.
Syn-, Gr. 6w synchronous, synthesis.
t-, i. A.-S. at, to or at twit A.-S. atwitan, to blame.
2. Eng. Saint tawdry. NOTE. Cheap, showy finery
bought at the fair of St. Awdry, held on St.
Awdry's day, Oct. i7th, in the Isle of Ely, and
other places.
tauto-, Gr. TO avro, the same tautology.
to-, i. A.-S. to, to or for to-day, towards.
2. A.-S. to, intensive to-break. Judg. ix., 53, "And a
certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon
Abimelech's head, and all to brake his skull," i. e.,
shattered it : formerly written, to-brake.
tra-, Lat. trans, across, beyond trajectory, tramontane.
trans-, Lat. trans transfer, transgress, transit.
Word Making. 67
tres-, Old. Fr. tres, Lat. trans trespass.
ultra-, Lat. ultra, beyond ultramontane.
tin-, i. A.-S. un, a negative prefixed to adjectives untrue.
2. A.-S. un, reverses the action of verbs unbind, un-
dress.
3. A.-S, on, in unless.
4. Goth, und, as far as unto.
lit-, A.-S. ut,yte, out utmost.
utt-, A.-S. ut uttermost.
vice-, Lat. vice, in the place of viceroy, vice-president.
with-, A.-S. with, away from, against withdraw, withstand.
NOTE. In common use with has now usurped
the place of mid, with, no longer found but in
midwife.
The terminal particles, or suffixes, are considerably more
numerous, and present greater difficulties. Of a great part
of them nothing further is known than that they change
nouns into adjectives, or adjectives into nouns, verbs, or ad-
verbs, etc. Although admitted to have been once separate,
independent words, they are often reduced to single letters,
which may have undergone several transformations. Parti-
cles, quite distinct in their origin, assume the same form,
while the same particle may appear under various forms.
The termination il-is, of which the essential part is //, recurs
in gent-/<?, gent-^r/, and gent-z/?/ and et-us furnishes repl-ete,
discr-^, and secr-^/. The suffix is often joined to the radi-
cal part of the word variously termed the stem, theme, or
crude form by a connecting vowel, usually a, i, or o. Ge-0-
metry and ge-0-logy are familiar examples ; but it is not
always easy to determine whether the intervening vowel be-
longs to the theme or the suffix, or is mere padding inter-
posed between them. Several suffixes are often added, one
after another. I will give here a few examples of the way in
which affixes no longer living words are strung together
around a significant root, reminding us of a magnet support-
ing a pendulous series of iron tacks and filings. The last
atom seems as capable as the first of attracting and holding
others. In the Greek mythology there was a bevy of semi-
68 The English Language.
divine blue-stockings called Muses. It was quite according
to rule to add ik, or, as we should put it, ic, to this designa-
tion, and thus make an adjective of, or relating to, the
Muses our English word music. But in process of time
the Italians, French, and others seem to have forgotten that
mus-ic was an adjective, and to have taken it for the name of
an art or branch of culture ; and in order to form an adjec-
tive, added a/, making mus-ic-al. Next, the Germans, who
make a great deal of music, added a third adjective ending,
bringing the series up to mus-ik-al-isch ; and the requirements
of their grammar may even induce them to say mus-ik-al-
isch-er. Or we may select the syllable voc as a starting-point.
In this form it is neither noun, adjective, verb, nor adverb,
but, with some slight additions, may easily become either.
First attach to it the syllable re, and it will become re-voc.
If written revoke, to suit our peculiar views of spelling, it
would now be a familiar word. Without such change, we
may append the syllable bit ; but re-voc-bil would be too
harsh without the cushion of a connecting vowel, and an a
may be interposed. We have now re-voc-a-bil ; but again
the habits of English spelling require us to write so much of
the word re-voc-a-ble. Or at this point we might add the
suffix tat, which we should be obliged to change to ty. At
almost any stage of our progress the negative prefix in might
have been added, which would entirely reverse the meaning
of the word. But as n and r are rather difficult to utter
together, the former letter is assimilated to the latter. The
whole may be exhibited thus :
ORIGINAL FORMS ENGLISH FORMS
VOC
re-voc revoke verb
re-voc-a-bil re-voc-a-ble adjective
ir-re-voc-a-bil ir-re-voc-a-ble adjective
ir-re-voc-a-bil-i-tat ir-re-voc-a-bil-i-ty noun
The following list exhibits the principal English suffixes,
but by no means their entire number. The explanations
given are not to be received as complete definitions, but as
Word Making. 69
illustrating the central or original idea of each. There is
scarcely a more important principle in the formation of
language than this, that every word or usage is at first of
very limited and obvious application, but may be gradually
extended, by virtue of analogies, real and fanciful, to such
a variety of cases, that it is difficult to see the principle that
pervades them all. This may be made clearer by a familiar
example. The word post is remotely derived from the Latin
pono, to place or set, and has been used with the following
significations :
1. A piece of timber, set upright, and immovable.
2. A place where persons or things are stationed, as a
military post.
3. One of a series of stations for accommodating travellers,
and receiving and delivering goods, letters, etc.
4. The person in charge of such a station.
" He held the office of postmaster, or, as it was then called, of
post, for several years."
5. A position of trust or profit.
" For neither pension, post, nor place,
Am I your humble debtor." BURNS.
6. A letter carrier.
7. The public establishment for carrying letters and
parcels.
8. A kind of paper used for writing letters.
9. To fasten to a post or wall ; to post bills.
10. To expose to public reproach.
11. To assign to a station.
12. To transfer accounts to a ledger.
13. To inform, to keep one posted.
14. To put off, or delay.
15. To deposit letters in the post-office.
1 6. To travel with the public conveyance for letters.
17. To travel rapidly.
1 8. Rapidly adverb as to travel post or post-haste.
Thus the word varies in meaning from immovable fixity
70 The English Language.
to rapid motion. Now if the first and ninth significations
were to go out of use, there would be nothing in the others
to suggest the original idea of an upright piece of timber.
In this way words may lose all trace of their original mean-
ing. It is the same with suffixes, of which one of the most
common and best understood is ly, which is most frequently
attached to adjectives to form adverbs, thus :
He was walking slow-/^,
She sang sweet-/y.
Originally the particle was, and meant, like ; and God-like
arid god-/j/ are the same in origin, although now differ-
entiated. Hence we may suppose that such words as god-ly,
king-ly, lord-ly, knight-ly, were the earliest adjectives de-
rived from nouns. The process was next extended to form
adverbs from adjectives. Yet there are several words, as
elderly, goodly, sickly, likely, lonely, that remain adjectives
after the addition of ly. Comely and seemly are adjectives
formed from verbs ; and ear-ly is a double adverbial form.
Holy and silly are formed by the addition of y from ig, and
not ly from like or lice. In short, we cannot reason with any
certainty as to what a word must necessarily be. Such a
proportion as :
bring : brought : : sing : sought,
has a very limited application in philology.
LIST OF SUFFIXES.
-able, Lat. bil-is, with connecting vowel a, adj. from verb
teachable, capable of being taught.
-EC, Gr. x-o?, Lat. c-us, with connecting vowel a, adj. from
nouns. Syriac, elegiac, maniac.
-ace, i. Lat. at-ium, nouns preface, palace, solace, space.
2. Lat. ax furnace.
3. Fr. ace and asse terrace, pinnace.
-aceous, Lat. a-c-e-us, double adjectives arenaceous, cre-
taceous.
-acious, Lat. a-c-i-os-us, a double adj. form tenacious.
-acity, Lat. a-c-i-tat-, turns the adj. into an abstract noun
tenacity, loquacity, sagacity.
Word Making.
acle,
-acular,
-aculous,
acy,
-ad,
-ada,
-ade,
-age,
ago,
-ain,
-al,
alia,
-ality,
-an,
-ance,
-ancy,
-and,
-andum,
-anda,
-ane,
-aneous,
-ant,
-ar,
-ard,
Lat. a-cul-um, nouns from verbs miracle, oracle.
Lat. a-cul-ar, adds an adj. termination oracular.
Fr. acul-eux miraculous.
Gr. ax-eia, Lat. ac-ia, abstract nouns from adjectives
pharmacy, obstinacy.
Gr. a*S, adoG, nouns dryad, monad, chiliad.
Span, ada, past participle armada.
Span, ado, past participle brocade.
Fr. ade arcade, brigade, promenade.
Fr. age from Lat. aticum savage, voyage, passage.
Lat. ago, nouns from other nouns with the sense of
like plumbago, like lead ; virago, like a man.
Fr. ain. fr. Lat. a-n-us captain, fountain.
Lat. a-l-is, adjectives from nouns, astral, vocal.
Canal was originally an adjective of the same
class. In nouns formed from verbs, like trial,
proposal, refusal, al is a modern factitious ending.
In bridal it stands for ale, once a common name
for a feast.
neuter plural of the preceding regalia.
Lat. a-l-i-tat, a nominal added to an adjective ending
formality, legality.
Gr. a-v-oZ. and Lat. a-n-us, adj. from nouns or other
adj. Augustan, orphan, human, veteran. It is
often used to form adj. from names of countries.
Persian, Roman, Russian.
Lat. antia, made by adding the fern, termination a to
the present participle abundantia.
the same as ance elegancy, repugnancy.
Lat. a-nd-us, ending of the future passive participle
multiplicand, a number that is to be multiplied,
the same as the preceding,
plural of andum.
the same as an in humane, mundane.
Lat. a-n-e-us, a double adj. ending cutaneous.
Lat. a-n-s, a-nt-is, ending of the present participle,
one who (does) assistant, occupant.
Lat. ar-is, adj. from nouns solar, secular.
Fr. of Old High German origin, allied to the English
hard drunkard, sluggard.
72 The English Language.
-arious, Lat. ar-i-us, a double adj. ending gregarious.
-arity, Lat. ar-i-tat, nouns from adj. similarity.
-arium, the neuter of the preceding used as a noun aquarium.
-ary, Lat. ar-i-us forms adj. ar-i-um, nouns military,
sanctuary.
-ast, Gr. affrrjS, nouns from verbs encomiast, enthusiast.
-aster, Ital. astro, from Lat. is-ter in magt'ster, minister, a
double comparative poetaster, pilaster.
-astic, adds the adj. ending i-c to ast enthusiastic.
-ate, i. Lat. a-t-us, ending of the past passive participle
ornate, duplicate ; extended to nouns, as magis-
trate ; used also as verbs circulate, tabulate.
2. a class of chemical salts nitrate, sulphate.
-bility, Lat. bil-i-tat, abstract nouns flexibility. See able.
-bund, Lat. bund-us moribund.
-CC, A.-S. or early English s, adverbial once, twice, since.
-cle, Lat. cul-us, diminutive nouns article, particle.
-cule, the same as cle animalcule, reticule.
-cund, Lat. c-und-us j adj. having a tendency to rubicund.
-cy, Lat. tia and Gr. reia, nouns policy, potency, fancy.
Some are formed in imitation of Fr. in cie from
Lat. in tia chaplaincy, captaincy, conspiracy.
-der, denoting the doer spider for spinther, the spinner.
-do, i. Gr. dcav, nouns teredo.
2. Lat. do, nouns, torpedo, uredo.
3. Span. See ado.
-dom, A.-S. ddm, judgment, authority kingdom, wisdom.
-ed, This termination of the English past participle has
been extended to a quite different class of expres-
sions, as left-handed, quick-witted, and other
adjectives denoting possession.
-ee, i. Fr. /, /<?, a participle used as a noun, one who does, or
to whom anything is done trustee, legatee, com-
mittee. Grantor, one who grants ; grants?, one to
whom anything is granted.
2. after names of peoples or countries, forms adjectives
Bengalee, Parsee, Hindustanee ; written also
Bengali, etc.
-eel, an irregular formation, genteel, from Lat. gentilis.
gentile, or gentle, belonging to one of the [first]
families.
Word Making.
73
-eer,
-el,
-en,
ence,
-ency,
-end,
endo,
endous,
ene,
enger,
ent,
eous, i.
2.
-er, i.
2.
-ern,
-esce,
-escent,
-escence,
-ese,
-esque,
-ess,
-et,
-etta,
-ette,
-etto,
-eur,
-ey,
-fare,
mostly from the French ier and aire, a noun denoting
profession or occupation muleteer, musketeer,
mountaineer, volunteer.
Heb. El, God, in early Scripture names Israel, Ariel.
A.-S. el, diminutive kernel, laurel.
A.-S. en, adjectives from names of materials earthen,
leaden, wooden.
Old Eng. en in verbs of causing fatten, harden,
lengthen.
Lat. entia, nouns from pres. part. patience, violence.
same as the foregoing.
see and.
Lat. innuendo, i.e. by nodding or pointing.
Lat. adds the ending ous to end tremendous, of a
nature to be trembled at.
Lat. e-n-us, adj. from nouns Damascene, terrene.
Fr. ager messenger, passenger.
Lat., see ant.
Lat. e-us, adj. from nouns igneous, ligneous.
A.-S. wis righteous from rihtwis.
A.-S. ere, nouns from verbs lover, writer, robber.
forms a class of secondary verbs, with no other spe-
cial characteristic in common batter, clamber
slumber, chatter, whisper, sputter.
A.-S. ern, adjectives eastern, western, northern.
Lat. ese-o, verbs denoting the beginning and progress
of an action convalesce, deliquesce.
a participial and adjective form of the preceding.
the corresponding termination for a noun.
Fr. is, ois, ais, from the Lat. ensis Chinese, Maltese.
Fr. esque, equal to the Eng. ish Arabesque, pict-
uresque.
Gr. *?, tffffac, Lat. tssa, Fr. esse, feminines empress,
heiress.
Fr. et, diminutive bullet, pallet, pullet.
Ital. etta, diminutive burletta.
Fr., the same palette, lunette.
Ital., the same cavetto, stiletto.
Fr. equivalent to er and or or tor amateur.
see y clayey, skyey.
A.-S. farn, a journey welfare, homefare.
74
The English Language.
-fer, Lat. fer-Oy bear, carry conifer, lucifer.
-ferous, the preceding with ending ous added auriferous.
-fic, Lat. fa, from fac-i-o, to make or do pacific, terrific.
-fice, Lat. fic-i-um, a thing done or made artifice, edifice.
-fill, A.-S. /#/, adj. from nouns fruitful, painful.
-fy, Fr. fiery from Lat. fay fac-i-o fortify, solidify.
-gerous, Lat. ger-o, to bear or carry, with ending ous added
armigerous, lanigerous.
-head, A.-S. had, state, rank, or condition Godhead.
-hood, another form of the same childhood, knighthood.
-ia, i. Lat. ia, a frequent ending of the names of coun-
tries.
2. Lat. ia, neuter plural of adjectives regalia, pene-
tralia.
3. Gr. ia. ambrosia, paronomasia. See_y.
-ible, Latin i-bil-is. See able.
-ic, i. Gr. IKO?, adjectives conic, graphic, logic.
2. Lat. i-c-uSy adj. from nouns historic, public much
employed by chemists to form the names of cer-
tain acids.
-ice, i. Gr. irsia, Lat, itia, itiumy ities, nouns police, service,
justice, malice, notice.
-ician, Lat. a double adj. ending, formed of ic and an with
connecting vowel ; chiefly used to denote a pro-
fession, as musician, physician.
-icious, Lat. double adjective ending.
-icular, formed from ic, ul, and ar reticular.
-iculate, Lat. composed of ic, the dim. ul, and ate ; at first
properly a participle, but often used as a new
verb.
-iculation, a noun formed from iculate.
-iculous, equivalent lo icular ridiculous.
-id, i. Gr. sidr'fi ; see oid orchid.
2. Lat. id-us , adjective ending humid, rigid, solid.
-ide, a primary chemical compound chloride, sulphide.
-ile, Lat. i-l-is, like a-l-is, adjectives from nouns and verbs
puerile, hostile, fragile, missile.
-im, i. Heb. im, a masc. plur. ending of Scripture names of
peoples, as Rodanim, Anakim.
2. Lat. im, in adverbial endings interim, verbatim.
Word Making.
75
-ine, i. Gr. z-y-Os, adj. cedrine, petrine.
2. Lat. t'-n-us, adj. from nouns aquiline, canine. In
this sense it terminates four chemical elements,
chlorine, bromine, iodine, and fluorine. Also
the medicinally active principle of certain plants,
as quinine, santonine, morphine.
-ing, i. A.-S. t'ng, added to the name of a person, like the
Greek idr}?, distinguished his descendants ; ap-
plied next to the people of a particular town or
district. Towns and districts were also named
from families. The names Billings, Isl-ing-ton,
Wall-ing-ford, Wals-ing-ham, are relics of this
usage.
2. A.-S. ing, forms nouns with something of the charac-
ter of adjectives hearing, shilling, whiting.
3. A.-S. ung, verbal nouns morning, evening, building,
wedding, writing, reckoning.
4. In modern English the ending of the present partici-
ple which had already begun to supplant the
participial endings a-nde, i-nde, by A.D. 1200.
The verbal noun and the participle, originally
quite separate, are now indistinguishable, friend
andjfe#</are relics of the original participle.
-ion, Lat. ion-is, forms abstract nouns from verbs ques-
tion, contagion, derision, dominion, vision.
-ious, Lat., a secondary adjective formation, mostly from
adj. ax or ix audacious, sagacious.
-isation, see ize.
-ise, see ize.
-ish, i. terminations of certain verbs from Fr. verbs in ir,
and Lat. in ire banish, finish, polish, punish.
2. A.-S. fsc, forms, i, patronymics, as English, Spanish ;
2, adj. from nouns, bookish, sheepish, waspish ;
3, adj. from adj. greenish, sweetish.
-isk, Gr. iffx-oS, IGK-^J iffx-i-ov, diminutive asterisk,
basilisk.
-ism, Gr. ztfju-oS, condition, characteristic, idiom, doctrine,
barbarism, Gallicism, mesmerism, Methodism,
-ist, Gr. i<JT-r)S anatomist, organist, florist, spiritualist.
-ister, a double nominal ending barrister, chorister.
7 6
The English Language.
-istic, combination of ist and ic linguistic, sophistic.
-ite, i. Gr. trr)?, designates classes of persons anchorite,
hypocrite.
2. in Scripture forms patronymics Edomite, Levite.
3. Lat. i-t-us a termination of the past participle, form-
ing Eng. adj. contrite, erudite.
4. forms the names of certain salts nitrite, sulphite.
5. forms names of minerals Arragonite, calcite, selenite.
-itious, Lat. i-t-i-us, an adj. added to a participial ending
nutritious.
-itis, Gr. in?, names for inflammatory diseases arthritis,
pleuritis, meningitis.
-ive, Lat. iv-us, adj. added to participial ending delusive.
-ival, Lat. second adj. ending added to the preceding
estival, festival.
-ize, Gr. zCctf, a frequent termination of derivative verbs
apologize, baptize, symbolize. There are many
imitations, which some write with s and others
with z, as humanize or humanise, patronize or
patronise.
-kin, Old Du. ken, diminutives gherkin, lambkin, catkin.
-ledge, Norse leikr, game, play, occupation ; used like ness to
form abstract nouns knowledge.
-less, A.-S. leds, loose or free from stainless, painless ; not
connected with, little, less, least.
-let, Old Fr. /-<?/, a double diminutive chaplet, cutlet,
brooklet.
-ling, i. A.-S. l-ing, a double diminutive darling, duckling.
2. A.-S. /if, like darkling, sideling.
-logy, Gr. Xoyos, word, speech, story, doctrine, often pre-
ceded by a connecting vowel, o or / geology,
meteorology.
-long, a variant of ling 2. headlong, sidelong.
-ly, A.-S. /if, like forms, i, adj. from nouns friendly,
lovely, manly ; 2. adj. from other adj. goodly,
elderly, sickly ; 3. adv. from adj., a very numer-
ous class nobly.
-mancy, Gr. fuwr/r, divination cheiromancy, necromancy.
-menon, plural mena, Gr. participial ending phenomenon,
appearing, that which appears ; prolegomena,
prefatory remarks.
Word Making.
77
-ment,
-mony,
-monious,
-monial,
-nal,
-ness,
-o,
-ock,
-oid,
-or,
-ory,
ose,
-ot,
otic,
our,
ous,
Pie,
plicate,
-red,
-nc,
-ry,
-ship,
-sis,
-some,
Lat. mentum, of participial origin, forms nouns from
verbs fragment, segment, argument.
Lat. mon-i-a, mon-i-um ceremony, matrimony.
adds the adj. ending ous to the preceding.
equivalent to monious.
Lat. n-al-is, double adj. ending diurnal, paternal.
A.--S. nesse, nes, nis, nys, Gothic nassus, forms abstract
nouns from adjectives goodness, darkness, sweet-
ness.
Latin o, ablative folio, quarto, octavo.
common ending of nouns and adj. from Italian or
Spanish alto, solo, studio, embargo, negro.
A.-S. uca, diminutives hillock, hummock.
Gr. o-isdrjS, fr. eiSoZ, form, appearance spheroid,
conoid, deltoid.
Lat. or, added to the stem of the supine, and so al-
ways preceded by s or / ; denotes the doer act-
or, orator, inspector, assessor, confessor.
Lat. orius, oria, orium, nouns and adj. formed from
supines dilatory, victory, promontory, posses-
sory.
Lat. os-us, adj. jocose, lachrymose, morose.
Gr. orr}$ and oyrrj? idiot, patriot, zealot.
i-c added to the preceding.
Fr. eur fr. Lat. or (see or) which is now restored in
nearly all words except Saviour.
Lat. us and os-us, adj. arduous, devious, pious.
Lat.///V, fold triple, quadruple, multiple.
~Lz.\..plic-at-us, folded duplicate, triplicate.
A.-S. raden, condition hatred, kindred ; originally
kinrede or kinred. The first d is interpolated as
it is in thunder, or the b in number.
A.-S. rice, dominion, jurisdiction bishopric.
ery or j, an act, trade or the collective body of those
employed in it cavalry, cookery, surgery.
A.-S. scipe from a verb signifying to shave or to
shape and make, in any case denoting activity,
duty, labor clerkship, friendship, horsemanship.
Gr. fft?, primarily, the act of doing anything, second-
arily, the thing done synopsis, thesis.
A.-S. sum, Norse samr, Eng. same fulsome, irksome.
The English Language.
Ster, A.-S. es-tre, signified originally the doer or actor, but
became restricted to females spinster, tapster.
-Stress, a second feminine ending added to the preceding
seamstress, songstress.
-sy, an Anglicised form of sis heresy, hypocrisy.
ter, Gr. T/7p, ending of some nouns crater, character.
tery, Gr. rrjpiov, names of instruments cautery, psaltery.
-th, A.-S. dh, equivalent in force to ty from the Lat. tat-s,
forms abstract nouns from adjectives and verbs
health, truth, worth, birth, stealth. After /, s,
or gh, th becomes / theft, thirst, weight. It is
used also to form the ordinal numbers after the
third.
Lat. t-r-ix, a feminine termination corresponding to
t-or directrix, executrix.
Lat. tu-d-o, a double suffix forming abstract nouns
from adjectives, equivalent, therefore, to ness
from A.-S. attitude, solitude, rectitude.
Lat. tur-us, ending of the future participle future,
adventure, sepulture.
Lat. tat-s, abstract nouns from adj., equivalent to ness
or tude equity, liberty, plenty.
A.-S. tig, meaning ten twenty, thirty, forty.
-tlble, Lat. u-bil-is, see able soluble, voluble.
-ula, ule, ulum, Lat. diminutives nebula, pendulum.
-ulent, Lat. u-lent-us, with the general sense of abounding
in, corpulent, fraudulent, succulent, virulent.
-ulous, Lat. ul-us, nearly the same in sense as the preceding
garrulous, tremulous.
-und, Lat. und-us jocund, rotund, rubicund.
-ure, Lat. ur-a, added to past participles, forming nouns
figure, nature, picture, structure.
-uret, a term formerly used for a certain chemical com-
pound cyanuret, sulphuret. See ide.
-ward(s), A.-S. weard(es), denotes direction forward, upward.
-way(s), A.-S. meaning road or direction always, straight-
way.
wise, A.-S. wise, manner likewise, otherwise.
-y, i. Gr. la or ezor antipathy, astronomy, irony.
2. Gr. fiov mystery, trophy.
trix,
-tude,
-ture,
ty,
i.
2.
Word Making. 79
3. Lat. atus deputy.
4. Lat. turn ceremony, remedy, study.
5. Fr. ie from Lat. t'a, denotes condition, faculty, etc.
misery, memory, modesty.
6. A.-S. ig y forms adj. from nouns horny, silvery, rainy,
windy.
There are many other words ending in y which prop-
erly fall under neither of these heads.
Thus the English language has an ample apparatus of
prefixes and suffixes, by the aid of which, from almost any
given word, a small family of derivations may be developed.
We import the Latin word radix (stem radic\ for example,
and from this we form :
1. radic-a/ n. radic-ation
2. radically 12. <?-radic ate
3. radic-alism 13. e-radic-ati0n
4. radic-ality 14. e-radic-ative
5. Tadic-a/ness 15. e-radic-able
6. radic-^/ 16. e-rad\c-ability
7. radic-/<? 17. ine-iadicable
8. radic-ule 18. ine-rad\c-ably
9. radic-ate 19. ir ra.dic.-ate
10. radic-anf 20. ir-radic-ation
In forming compound words of any kind it is considered
good usage to obtain all the parts from the same language.
Words thus formed have a neatness and harmony that
hybrids cannot always attain. Cablegram is an extremely
harsh word compared with telegram. Incorruptibility is
faultless, but incorruptibleness would be stiff and awkward. 1
1 We sometimes witness acrobatic feats of word-making, as in aldehyde, the
first syllable of which is Arabic, the second, Latin, the third, Greek ; or the
names of new towns, like Copperopolis and West Las Animas. The first
founders of Cincinnati performed a greater exploit in calling their embryo city
Losantiville. L was for Licking Creek, that entered on the other side of the
river ; os, for mouth, anti, for opposite, and ville, for town. The first part was
English, if anything ; the second, Latin ; the third, Greek ; the fourth, French.
There is a practice growing up at present, especially among the learned in
8o The English Language.
In the same way durability ', fatality, voracity, and valor are
preferable to durableness, fatalness, voraciousness, and val-
iantness. Still there are thousands of hybrid words fully
established in use ; and practically some of them serve their
purpose well. This is especially so where the heterogeneous
part is merely a suffix. We are quite satisfied with tender-
ness, although, had we been used to it, tenerity might have
seemed a more elegant word. In regard to the largest class
of suffixes, conformity to the rule indicated would be hope-
less. We form adverbs by adding ly to adjectives, no
matter from what source the latter are derived. But ly is
Anglo-Saxon, while a great part of our adjectives are Latin.
The corresponding adverbial terminations in Latin are e and
iter ; of which we have not a single instance in our language.
We must perforce say modestly and morally instead of modeste
and moraliter. The most that can be said then is that, so
far as practicable, words should be homogeneous.
There is yet another mode of developing words, and that
is by declension of nouns and conjugation of verbs. If in
illustrating this I occasionally refer to languages remote and
little known, it is not because they have always a special
connection with English, but from a belief that the growth
of language has been, in its essential features, everywhere the
same, as resulting from approximately the same human
faculties and wants. And as spoken language is never at
rest, but continuously growing and decaying, like the trees
of the wood, a particular phase of development wanting in
one place may be found in another. The principal words in
any language, and therefore the chief subjects of inflexion,
are those that denote things, qualities, and actions : in other
Germany, of fabricating words that shall be self-explaining, and tell their own
story, however long it may take them. Thus Schleicher, in his " Compendium
of Comparative Grammar," employs such words as ariogrcecoitalokeltische. But
perhaps the most unwieldy combination, since Aristophanes constructed one of
169 letters, is azoc&boxylbcnzolmethadimelhylamidocarboxylbenzol, which may be
found on page 393 of the " General Register zum Chemischen Centralblatt, "
iSyo-'Si. This may be good in chemistry, but is bad in language. It is
about on a par with calling a house a bricklimesandtimber, etc. , or naming an
ox by enumerating every bone and tissue in his body.
Word Making. 81
words, nouns, adjectives, and verbs. The pronouns, being
substitutes for nouns, are here reckoned along with them.
Inflexion does not change the class or meaning of a word,
but only indicates a change of relation. If a certain word is
a noun, it continues so ; and if it denotes a horse, it repre-
sents that animal throughout, and no other. The same
holds good of the adjective and verb. As has been said
already, the inflexional system of English is meagre. The
Latin words btpenni secatur may be rendered he is getting cut
with an axe, in which each word of the original is represented
by at least three. Roughly speaking, with an stands for the
termination i, and he is for tur. These two terminations are
not known as words in Latin. They are not even intelli-
gible fragments with recognized meanings. They are mere
forms of ending of which the Roman could give no more
account than the average Englishman can of the n in blown.
The principal transition type between such a form as he is
cut and one of a single word, as secatur, is one that prevails
very widely one in which the chief element, cut for example,
stands unaltered, with as many suffixes as may be necessary
appended one after another. These suffixes may be no
longer in use as independent words ; but it is essential that
they be readily recognized and their meaning perfectly
understood. In that respect the compound will be some-
what like our word fear-less-ness. This, which is called
agglutination, or sticking together, is the characteristic of
the language of nomads. It must be intelligible to many
who seldom meet. It must consist of words like good-for-
nothing that can be put together in an instant and under-
stood at a glance. Nearly all the native languages westward
from the Wall of China, and including in Europe Turkish,
Finnish, Magyar, and Basque, are of this character, and have
received the general appellation of Turanian, from a word
signifying to roam, and indicative of the supposed original
nomadic state of these peoples. The following example of
agglutination has often been presented, in one form or other.
In Turkish, sev means love ; not as a noun or verb, but the
germ of either. With the suffix mek, it becomes sev-mek, to
82 The English Language.
love. But a number of other suffixes might be interposed,
forming a long series of derived verbs :
1. sev-mek, to love.
2. sev-me-mek, not to love.
3. sev-e-mek, to be able to love.
4. sev-e-me-mek, not to be able to love.
5. sev-dir-mek, to make to love.
6. sev-dir-me-mek, not to make to love.
7. sev-dir-e-me-mek, not to be able to make to love.
8. sev-ish-mek, to love one another.
9. sev-ish-dir-mek, to cause to love one another.
10. sev-ish-dir-me-mek, not to cause to love one another.
11. sev-ish-dir-e-me-mek, not to be able to cause to love one
another.
The series might be continued up to the number of thirty
or more, in each of which the root holds its place and is un-
changed, and all the suffixes are distinct and intelligible.
Each one of the series becomes a new verb, to be conjugated
throughout by person, number, mood, and time. Thus, if
er be added to the primary root sev, it becomes sev-er, liter-
ally loving. Next attach the pronoun ?';, and we have sev-
er-im, loving /, or / love, thus :
PRESENT. ' PAST.
{ist person sever-im sever-di-m
2d person sever-sen sever-di-n
3d person sever sever-di 1
{ist person sever-iz sever-di-k (miz)
2d person sever-sez sever-di-niz
3d person sever-ler sever-di-ler
These suffixes are not the personal pronouns, as found
separate but evidently derived from the same originals. It
1 The absence of any suffix to the third person singular is a feature observed
in languages having as little visible connection as Hebrew, Turkish, Hungarian,
and the Basque of the Pyrenees. It is also a curious fact that substantially the
same particle, di, d, or /, is used to form the past tense in Turkish, Magyar, and
the Teutonic family of languages.
Word Making.
is very rarely that they are alike. The verbal suffixes
resemble more closely the possessive pronouns attached to
nouns. This will be made clearer by exhibiting first the
Magyar pronouns alone, and next combined with nouns and
verbs.
engem me
teged thee
6t, or olet him
j minket )
( benunket J
titeket you
oket them
to
en
I
nek-em
to me
te
thou
nek-ed
to thee
6
he
nek-i
to him
mi
we
nek-iink
to us
ti
6k
you
they
nek-tek
nek-ik
to you
to them
us
Nak, or nek, here =
DEFINITE FORM. INDEFINITE FORM.
kis-em
my knife
var-om
var-ok
I sow
kis-ed
thy knife
var-od
var-sz
thou sowest
kis-e
his knife
var-ja
var
he sows
kis-iink
our knife
var-juk
var-unk
we sow
kis-tek
your knife
var-jatok
var-tok
ye sow
kis-ok
their knife
var-jak
var-nak
they sow
In the Hungarian, or Magyar, another class of suffixes,
corresponding to what we call prepositions, may be placed
after these pronominal endings. Every suffix may assume
two forms, as its vowel may be changed if necessary to har-
monize it with the vowel of the leading element of the
compound. We thus have :
haz-am-ban
haz-ad-an
haz-a-nal
haz-unk-ba
hdz-atok-ra
haz-ok-haz
haz-am-bol
hdz-ad-rol
haz-a-tol
hdz-unk-ig
hdz-atok-e"rt
in my house
on thy house
at his house
into our house
up to our house
unto their house
out of my house
down from thy house
away from his house
as far as our house
for your house
84 The English Language.
hdz-ok-mal by means of their house
haz-am-ma made into a house for me
haz-ad-iil for use as thy house
The list might be extended to several hundreds. If the
first vowel were different an e, for example those that
follow would also be different. This change of letters, by a
kind of induction to use a phrase of the electricians
through mere proximity to other letters is an important
part of grammar to which it will be necessary to recur
again.
In the foregoing example there are two distinct classes of
suffixes fragments of pronouns, and particles expressing
such relations as for, in, by, with, etc. The Aryan languages
use exclusively the latter class with their nouns, with the
single exception of the modern Persian, in which pronominal
suffixes are a late innovation derived from contact with
Arabs. The Shemitic languages employ the former class.
A Sanskrit noun is declined with three numbers singular,
dual, and plural and eight cases the Nominative for the
doer ; the Vocative for the person addressed ; Accusative,
object of the action of a verb ; Instrumental for that with
which anything is done ; Dative, the relation to or for ;
Ablative, expressing the relation from ; Genitive, denoting
possession, and Locative, the place where. Then deva, a
god, is thus declined in the singular, dual, and plural :
N. devas deva-u deva-s
V. deva deva-u deva-s
A. deva-m deva-u deva-n
I. deve-na deva-bhyam deva-is
D. deva-ya deva-bhyam deve-bhyas
Ab. deva-t deva-bhyam deve-bhyas
G. deva-sya deva-yos deva-nam
L. deve deva-yos deve-shu
It would be in vain now to inquire the meaning of all
these endings when they were yet separate words, as they
no doubt once were. In Magyar we have seen them pre-
served with tolerable distinctness ; here they are considerably
Word Making. 85
more reduced. A noun in Hebrew would be declined upon
an entirely different principle, thus :
Sus a horse
sus-i my horse
sus-cha thy horse (masc.)
sus-ech thy horse (fern.)
sus-o his horse
sus-ah her horse
sus-enu our horse
sus-chem your horse (masc.)
sus-chen your horse (fern.)
sus-am their horse (masc.)
sus-an their horse (fern.)
sus-im horses
sus-ai my horses
sus-eicha thy horses (masc.)
sus-ayich thy horses (fern.)
sus-aiv his horses
sus-eiha her horses
sus-einu our horses
sus-eichem your horses (masc.)
sus-eichen your horses (fern.)
sus-eihem their horses (masc.)
sus-eihen their horses (fern.)
As we have seen, the Turanian languages use both classes
of suffixes with their nouns. All languages necessarily con-
nect personal pronouns with their verbs ; although they may
sometimes be so disguised as not to be apparent. The
Shemitic languages have preserved the pronominal affixes
better than most others, as will be seen by exhibiting, in
Arabic and Hebrew: (i) the personal pronouns; (2) the
prefixed, (3) the suffixed, fragments of the same ; (4) the
perfect tense, (5) the imperfect, of the verb katal, to kill.
The reader will not fail to observe how close is the resem-
blance between these two sister languages. There are indi-
cations that the Arabic is the elder of the two. It has a
well preserved dual number, which has almost vanished
already from the Hebrew of the Scriptures, being restricted
to natural pairs, as the eyes and ears, and two or three words
where its use cannot now be accounted for. The pronouns
of the 1st and 2d persons are held to contain a prefixed
demonstrative, an = here or there perhaps originally accom-
panied by pointing. It is wanting in the 3d person, possibly
because the 3d person was not generally present to be
pointed at. The ancient Egyptian had it throughout, and
the Arabic retains it in the 2d person, where it has been
phonetically reduced to at in Hebrew. The final a in the
3d person singular has in Hebrew dwindled to a silent
letter and at last disappeared.
86
The English Language.
ARABIC.
I
ana
a-
-tu
katal-tu
a-ktul-u
thou (mas.)
anta
t-
-ta
katal-ta
ta-ktul-u
thou (fern.)
anti
t-
-ti-ina
katal-ti
ta-ktul-ina
he
huwa
i- (y-)
-a
katal-a
ia-ktul-u
she
hiya
t-
-at
katal-at
ta-ktul-u
you two
antuma
t-
J -ani )
( -tuma j
katal-tuma
ta-ktul-ani
they two (mas.)
huma
i-(y-)
i-"- \
}-am f
katal-a
ia-ktul-ani
they two (fern.)
huna
t-
<-ata )
\ -am f
katal-ata
ta-ktul-ani
we
nahnu
n-
-na
katal-na
na-ktul-u
you (mas.)
antum
t-
j -turn )
( -una J
katal-tum
ta-ktul-una
you (fern.)
antunna
t-
j -tunna )
(-na J
katal-tunna
ta-ktul-na
they (mas.)
j humu |
( hum f
i- (y-)
j-u )
( -una J
katal-u
ia-ktul-una
they (fern.)
Jumna
i- (y-)
-na
katal-na
ia-ktul-na
The fragments employed as affixes cannot all be deduced
from the existing pronouns, but must have been derived from
earlier forms. This is equally true of the suffixes of verbs
in other languages.
Words may also be developed by internal change, without
the addition of anything. This is one of the leading charac-
teristics of the Shemitic languages. Thus the Arabic makes
from the same root :
katala
kattala
katala
aktala
takattala
takatala
inkatala
iktatala
iktalla
istaktala
iktalla
he killed
he massacred
he tried to kill
he set on some one to kill
he slew himself
he pretended to be killed
he got himself killed
he committed suicide
he set some one to kill for him
Word Making.
HEBREW.
Anokhi, ani
a-
-ti
katal-ti
a-ktol
attah, atta
t-
-ta
katal-ta
ti-ktol
atti, at
hu
t
i- (y-)
-t, -i
katal-t
katal
ti-ktl-i
yi ktol
hi
t-
-ah
katl-ah
ti-ktol
anakhnu, anu )
nakhnu )
n-
-nu
katal-nu
ni-ktol
attem
t-
-tern, -u
ktal-tem
ti-ktl-u
atten, attenah
t-
j -ten )
\ -nah \
ktal-ten
ti-ktol-nah
hem, hemmah
i
u
katl-u
yi-ktl-u
hen, lien 71 ah
t-
-u, -nah
katl-u
ti-ktol-nah
Each one of these now becomes a separate verb, to be con-
jugated throughout.
In respect to signification, we have in English a mere
trace of this usage, in such pairs of words as drink and
drench, fall and fell, lie and lay, rise and raise, sit and set.
These couplets were more numerous in the earlier period of
the language than now. Something apparently similar is
one of the marked peculiarities of the Teutonic group of
languages. It is the formation of what are commonly called
the irregular verbs which foreigners must find one of the
great difficulties of English. A few examples will show how
hard it is to guess the past from the present, or the present
from the past.
eat
sing
bring
slay
fly
seethe
ate
eaten
sang
brought
slew
sung
brought
slain
flew
flown
sothe, sod
sodden
88
The English Language.
Again, we have :
teach taught
buy bought
seek sought
think
work
bring
thought
wrought
brought
where six entirely different presents have almost the same
past tense.
Although our language has little of declension and con-
jugation now, yet it was not always so. In that earlier form
known as Anglo-Saxon the inflexional system was fuller
than in modern literary German, but less complete than in
the still older Gothic. Thus the adjective blindh^ in Saxon
the following declension :
Singular
MASC.
FEM.
NEUT.
NOM.
blind
blind-u
blind
GEN.
blind-es
blind-re
blind-es
DAT.
blind-um
blind-re
blind-um
Accus.
blind-ne
blind-e
blind
^ INSTR.
blind-6
blind-e
I NOM.
blind-e
blind-e
blind-u
GEN.
blind-ra
blind-ra
blind-ra
DAT.
blind-um
blind-um
blind-um
Accus.
blind-e
blind-e
blind-u
Plural
The change that such a word has undergone consists of
omitting the terminations entirely, and perhaps altering the
pronunciation. How was this brought about ? Evidently
to use all these various forms correctly requires care and the
skill that comes of long and constant use. Such a type of
language could be developed and maintained only in a
closely united and isolated community. Immigration, con-
quest, and the commingling of races would be fatal to it.
Those who, without sufficient knowledge, should attempt to
use these inflexions would blunder perpetually ; and their
only safe course would be to drop them altogether. In this
they would be determined somewhat by the place of the
accent. Some languages, as the Hebrew, the Greek, and
the Latin, reckon it from the end of the word ; Saxon and
Word Making. 89
Icelandic from the beginning, while Sanskrit and Russian
seem to have no preference. The accented syllables are
longest and best preserved, while those farthest from the
accent, like outlying provinces, are exposed to waste and
destruction. Now as the Anglo-Saxon generally placed the
accent near the beginning of each word, the terminal portions
were readily worn off. It is known that this wasting process
had begun long before the Norman conquest, especially in
the north of England settled by the Angles and exposed to
the inroads of the Picts and the Danes. And when long
after the conquest Normans and Saxons united to form one
people the inflexional system was fated to disappear.
Every student must be struck with the amount of irregu-
larity in all inflected languages. Turn to the imperfect active
of the Latin verb and see how beautifully regular it is how
easy to learn and to use. Why cannot all paradigms be as
plain ? But as they are we encounter at every step either
forms so worn down and altered as to be scarcely recogniza-
ble, or forms obviously of different origins. The words first
and second are not derived from one and two, nor are eleven
and twelve constructed on the same pattern as thirteen and
fourteen. Better and worse are not akin to good and bad. In
such cases we must suppose the original native word to have
been ousted by some intruder. Fortunately we know of at
least two instances where that has been done. Within the
memory of living men mariners very consistently called the
right and left sides of the ship starboard and larboard, but
as these were not easily distinguished in the tumult of a
storm, port was arbitrarily substituted for the latter. Go and
went are another mismatched pair. Go had once a past
tense which is well preserved in the Scotch gaed ' :
" Then I gaed hame at crowdie-time
And soon I made me ready."
BURNS: "Holy Fair."
Scott, in the third canto of " Marmion," employs a form
yode, which follows closely the A.-S. eode ; but as early as
the time of Wycliffe and Chaucer, went had completely
90 The English Language.
usurped the place of this old word. On the other hand,
wend is now scarcely ever used seriously, so that we have
only the present tense of the one and the past tense of the
other.
There is reason to believe that languages in their more
primitive stages are less irregular that, as change is inces-
sant, irregularity is a constantly growing quantity. In the
Sanskrit verb we have found slight traces, and in Arabic and
Hebrew considerable remains, of the personal pronouns.
The same could not be detected in the languages of modern
Europe. This point may be illustrated by two or three mis-
cellaneous examples. The first shall be the three series of
Sanskrit adverbs, viz., of time, place, and cause or source.
The first series corresponds to our now, then, when, when ?
always.
adhuna tada yada kadi sarvada
atra tatra yatra kutra sarvatra
atah tatah yatah kutah sarvatah
Yet notwithstanding this remarkable uniformity, one anom-
aly has crept into each line. Again, the English personal
pronouns, 1st, /, 2d, thou, 3d, he, she, or it, have no simi-
larity ; and the plurals are not in the least like each other or
like their singulars.
It is quite otherwise in the language of the Dakota Indians :
ish he ish-pi they
n-ish thou n-ish-pi ye
tn-ish I unk-ish we two m-ish-pi we
They have a possessive pronoun from a different root, but
equally regular in itself :
tawa tawa-pi
ni-tawa ni-tawa-pi
mi-tawa unki-tawa mi-tawa-pi
In the language of the Hidatsas, an allied tribe, these
pronouns are :
Word Making. 91
i he hi-do they
d-i thou di-do ye
m-i I mi-do we
It is a curious fact that in many languages, the most
diverse geographically and in character, the forms for the
third person are simpler than any of the others.
Finally there are words that are mere mistakes. Of these
there are two kinds. One class, relating chiefly to animals
and plants, are errors of fact ignorance of natural history.
Toads do not sit on toad-stools any more than they carry
jewels in their heads. The cuckoo does not expectorate
cuckoo-spit, nor do the stars drop star-jelly. The other class
are merely verbal errors, due to catching at the sound of
strange words and turning them into something familiar in
sound but different in sense. Thus there is a parish in
Derbyshire called Sandy Acre originally Saint Diacre ; and
in Oxfordshire there is Shotover Hill (French, Chateau vert],
and ever-ready tradition tells how Robin Hood's lieutenant,
Little John (so-called from his great stature), shot an arrow
over it. The English sailors used to call the ship of war
Bellerophon, Bully Ruffian ; as the soldiers pronounced the
name of Surajah Dowlah, Sir Roger Dowley. I suspect that
Cinderella's glass slipper is a mistake of a word, for a glass
slipper is too absurd even for a nursery tale. But let us
suppose that the story took its present form in France about
the thirteenth century, when vair was a common name for
gray fur or anything trimmed therewith. Suppose further
the ill-used maiden had furred slippers des pantoufles de vair
and that ages after, when the word was no longer in com-
mon use, they were mistaken for des pantoufles de verre
slippers of glass. Legends, mythology, and superstitions owe
much to a misapprehension of words. The following are
some of the principal English words originating in this
manner :
Alewives (from aloof , an Indian name for the fish) are not
married, and confine themselves to cold water.
92 The English Language.
" When the ground is bad and worn-out, the Indians used to
put two or three of the fishes called Aloof es under or adjacent to
each Corn Hill, where they had many a Crop double to what the
Ground would have otherwise produced."
Philos. Trans., London, 1700, xii., 1665.
Belly-bone, or belly-bound, a variety of pear, Fr. belle et
bonne.
Benjamin, benzoin, a gum.
Blue Peter, blue repeater, a marine signal flag.
Charter House (Fr. Chartreuse], a Carthusian monastery in
London converted into a charity school and asylum.
Condog", a ridiculous word for concur, on the basis that a cur
is a dog.
Country-dance, for contra-dance.
Cow-itch is a corruption of an Eastern word which as a word
has no connection with either cow or itch.
Crawfish is not a fish. Tracing backwards we have crawfish,
crayfish. Fr. tcrevisse j Ger. Krebis or Krebs, a crab.
Cudbear, a purple dye introduced by Dr. Cuthbert Gordon.
Demijohn, Half John ; Fr. Dame Jeanne, Lady Jane ; said
to be named after the place of its invention, Damaghan in Central
Asia.
Dear me, not a simple expression of self-love, but the Italian
Dio mio, My God.
Fiddle-wood, ^v.fidele, faithful, for its durability.
Fistinut, pistachio nut ; Arab, fustak.
Godown, Malay godong, a warehouse.
Gooseberry, gorseberry, has no connection with geese.
Hammercloth, a hybrid Dutch and English word meaning a
covering cloth.
Handsaw, heronshaw, " Hamlet," Act ii., Sc. 2.
Isinglass, Dutch huizenblas, sturgeon's air-bladder.
Jerusalem artichoke has no connection with the holy city
Ital. girarsole, turning to the sun.
John Dory, Fr.jaune doree, a gold-colored fish.
Johnny-cake. Nothing but the cake is now known of this
particular Johnny. The early settlers of Pennsylvania and
Virginia used to prepare journey-cake to take with them when
going a great distance.
Word Making. 93
Maul-Stick, Ger. Mahlstock, is not a stick to maul with, but to
support the hand in painting.
Niger auger, low for Nicaragua logwood.
Nightmare. The incubus here is not the female of the
horse but A.-S. mara, oppression in sleep.
No-cake, worse fare than Johnny-cake, only a kind of
porridge, Indian nookhik.
Rosemary, not a rose or specially pertaining to Mary, but
rather ros marinus, sea dew.
Rotten Row in London is not especially a scene of decay or
decomposition, but a celebrated thoroughfare in Hyde Park,
where people of wealth and fashion disport on foot and on horse-
back. Long ago it was le route du roi, the king's route, or road.
Saunders blue, Fr. cendres bleues, blue ashes.
Shuttlecock, originally a piece of cork batted to and fro.
Sirloin for surloin, a misspelling backed by a silly story that
James I. conferred knighthood on a roast of beef.
Summerset, somerset, somersault. Fr. soubresaut, soubresault,
Ital. sopra salto, Lat. supra and saltus, a leap over.
Sparrow-grass, asparagus.
Stave's-acre, Gr. ffTaqnS aypia, wild grape.
Tennant-saw for tenon-saw.
Wormwood has nothing to do with either worms or wood.
It is from the A.-S. iver-mod, the name of the plant absin-
thium.
Yellow-hammer is not a hammer, and in Europe is not even
a woodpecker but a small bird, the yellow bunting. Ger. Gelb-
ammer or Gold-ammer.
CHAPTER V.
THE ALPHABET.
THE invention of an alphabet to represent the single
sounds of vocal speech requires such a power of analysis
that it is doubtful if it has ever been accomplished but once
in the whole history of mankind, and then only by the labors
of many ages and diverse peoples. Like everything great, it
is the product of slow development and not of sudden crea-
tion. The man who had no hint of an alphabet could not
devise it ; and he who had once seen one could produce only
an imitation.
The first attempts at recording were undoubtedly pictures,
and were confined to no race or country. Yet picture writ-
ing and monumental markings had certain centres of special
interest, of which the most important were Mexico, (includ-
ing Central America), China, Babylon, and Egypt. The
American art was cut off before maturity, the greater part
of its monuments destroyed, and no key left to the myste-
ries of the remainder. The three other systems yielded very
notable results.
The attempt to convey intelligence by pictures soon dis-
closes the imperfections of the medium. It is bulky and la-
borious requires too much time and space to say a little.
This may be obviated in part by abridging and abbreviating.
A few footprints may represent a journey ; a sword or a
handful of arrows, war ; a ladder leaned against a wall, a
siege ; or the head and horns of a deer may stand for the
whole animal. Again, no picture tells its own story, but
must be supplemented by other knowledge. The most per-
fect painting of the Last Supper or the death of Socrates
would be unintelligible to one who was not familiar with the
story. Admitting that a wall and ladder may represent a
94
The Alphabet 95
siege, they cannot alone tell us what siege, and still less its
cause, history, and results. For this purpose a secondary set
of figures, often quite arbitrary in form, must be added as
keys, headings, inscriptions, or letter-press ; and these latter
may ultimately be so perfected as to dispense with the pic-
tures altogether.
Pictures, too, can represent only visible objects, and not
abstract ideas. How can a picture be designed that will
convey to every beholder the sentiment, " Love thy neigh-
bor as thyself " ? A rude attempt is made to solve this
problem by means of that exhaustless fancy that sees a figu-
rative or symbolical meaning in everything a metaphorical
likeness in things the most unlike. A pair of scales might
indicate justice ; wisdom might be represented by the head
of an owl ; cunning, by a fox ; and the act of forgetting, by
a sieve that retains no water. Among the Egyptians an
ostrich feather was the symbol of justice, from a belief that
all the feathers of that bird are of equal length ; a bee was
the emblem of royal authority, as bees were supposed to live
under a perfect monarchy ; and a roll of papyrus aptly rep-
resented knowledge.
The Mexicans painted a serpent with head and tail joined
for eternity, and also for the divine power ; while the plain
practical Chinese drew a pair of clam shells for friendship,
and for the conjunction and, a bunch of roots bound together.
But there are cases where all such contrivances fail. For
names, especially of foreign persons or places, mere sounds
must be expressed. Every system of writing must perform
this feat or utterly fail. So far as I am aware all attempts
to do this have been essentially the same in principle, which
is that of the rebus, so common in popular publications for
the young. A group or series of objects is depicted whose
united names give the required articulations. Such names
as those of the Indian chiefs, Cornstalk, Black Hawk, Red
Cloud, Sitting Bull, present no difficulty ; but it would some-
times be necessary to use only parts of words, as it will
generally be possible to find some word either beginning or
ending with any desired sound. In this way the Mexicans
96
The English Language.
expressed the name of their king Itzcoatl by an arrow pointed
with obsidian, itstli, a water jar, comitl, and a symbol for
water, atl. By combining the initial syllables, they formed
the name required. The Chinese and Assyrians varied this
method by combining the initial syllable of the first word
with the final syllable of the last.
Many peoples have claimed for their arts and institutions
a divine origin or a fabulous antiquity ; and remote dates in
general are to be accepted only as approximations. The
Chinese assign a date of 2278 (2278 before the Christian
era) to a rock inscription of one of their early kings record-
ing the completion of an outlet for the floods of the
Hoang-ho. However uncertain, the date is not in itself
improbable. Like every other people, they began with rude
outlines of objects, which have been altered and abbreviated
so many times that little of the original likeness is left. An
obvious resemblance can sometimes be traced in the oldest
texts, which is lost in the modern characters, as. will be seen
by a few examples :
the sun
H the moon
m mountains
/ a dog
/ i a fish
MH
iK: a tree
1$
^ a child
a man
F| the eye
ran
raj
high 1
to shoot
We have already seen that all languages began with
monosyllables, and that the Chinese never advanced beyond
that stage. This perpetual fixity is perhaps due to the fact
that it was committed to writing in that primitive form, and
so remains a conspicuous example of arrested development.
Every word at first was a little picture, representing at once
a visible object and a spoken monosyllable. As the language
Three mountains piled upon each other with trees on the top.
The Alphabet. 97
has no grammatical distinctions, the same figure, as noun,
adjective, and verb, represented an object, its most conspic-
uous quality, or its most characteristic action, as the case
might require. By an extensive system of secondary and
metaphorical significations, all the purposes of more artistic
languages are attained in a manner that, though bald and
stiff is perfectly intelligible. As the written characters are
ideographic, like the signs in our almanacs and mathematical
books, they convey their meaning directly in all parts of the
empire, whatever may be the spoken dialect. The Chinese
are so wedded to their system that they not only have never
invented or adopted an alphabet, but they find it difficult to
conceive how other nations can fill libraries with some two
dozen letters not one of which means anything.
But the number of pronounceable monosyllables is limited.
Chinese has 450 some rate them as high as 500. Each
spoken word therefore stands on an average for 100 quite
separate ideas. The written characters far outnumber the
uttered sounds ; and in discourse at all important or recon-
dite the tongue must be aided by the hand and pencil. The
Chinese grammarians divide their written words into the fol-
lowing classes :
First. There are 600 characters so pictorial as to need no
explanation.
Second. Characters that vary in meaning according to
position, as the figure of the sun above or below a horizontal
bar, distinguishing dawn from sunset.
Third. There are some 700 compound characters originally
made up of two or more.
The fourth class numbers 372 which change their significa-
tion when either the form or the sound is inverted.
The fifth class comprises 600 that are used in metaphorical
senses.
But as all these elaborate devices must fail in the end, the
Chinese had recourse to an ingenious system. They under-
took to distribute all possible conceptions into 214 classes.
Each of these divisions is distinguished by a character taken,
with few exceptions, from the class first above mentioned.
7
98 The English Language.
These characters, when so used, are called keys, and are not
pronounced. They are combined with characters repre-
senting the 450 monosyllabic sounds, and show in what sense
these latter are to be understood. Thus the character to be
pronounced fie, combined with the key-word muh, meaning
wood or tree, to distinguish it from every other pe, is pro-
nounced merely pe and not pe muh, and is then understood
to mean a wooden spoon. The word ngo, united with 27
different keys, represents as many wholly dissimilar ideas,
but still pronounced the same. In this way the written is
vastly more copious and precise than the spoken language,
which haa, as a substitute, a very inadequate system of tones
that give it a sing-song character.
About the year 39 contemporary with the preaching of
Saint Paul in the West Buddhist missionaries from India
first entered China, bringing with them the Devanagari
alphabet and some of their religious books. Their teachings
exerted a wide influence, and by the end of the fifth century
it was computed that more than 5,000 of their books had
been translated into Chinese. The foreign alphabet never
superseded the native mode of writing, yet for certain pur-
poses it was imitated. For expressing foreign names and
unfamiliar words 36 characters were selected, representing
the initial consonants of the language, and 38 others for the
final sounds. One of the former followed by one of the
latter will form a word beginning with the one and ending
with the other. This system has been in use in dictionaries
since the year 543.
Intimate relations existed from an early period between
China and Corea; and thither the Buddhist missionaries
penetrated in the fourth century. As they were not there
confronted with a system of writing so deeply rooted as in
China, the Coreans, profiting by their example, constructed
an ingenious and very simple alphabet of 27 letters,
adapted to the sounds of their language. It is important
to observe that this alphabet has not the slightest resem-
blance to the one that suggested it, but rather reminds us of
modern short-hand. All that an ingenious people require is
The Alphabet. 99
to see and understand that vocal speech can be resolved
into its elements and then represented by visible symbols.
All European alphabets are unquestionably derivations of
the earliest Phoenician, but the liveliest imagination cannot
detect a resemblance in more than two or three of the letters
used by us ; and that resemblance is wanting in the Hebrew
and the Arabic, which are next of kin to the original. One
set of symbols may be derived from another, and yet the
two may look wholly unlike, as our stenographic and common
printed characters.
The Japanese learned Chinese through the medium of
Corea. The sovereign of Japan, having learned that an art
of writing was known there, sent an embassy in 285 and
brought a Chinese professor with books and writing materials
from Corea. Those apt and ingenuous islanders learned
readily, and in later ages honored the memory of their
teacher as of an apostle and tutelary saint. What they
learned, however, was the Chinese language and mode of
writing. Some centuries later, when intercourse with China
became more common, discrepancies were discovered that
had been at first unobserved. The language they had
learned was getting obsolete. Their pronunciation was
peculiar. The Chinese, for example, could pronounce no r ;
the Japanese, no /. The one people employed many nasals;
the other, none. Hence mutual understanding was not
easy. At the same time, to express their own language in
Chinese characters was impracticable. They were thus
driven to attempt an analysis of their speech, and resolved
it into 47 elementary syllables. They represented each by a
single character Chinese much simplified, some of which
were modified by diacritic points, making 73 in all. This
syllabary was devised in the eighth century by a Buddhist
priest, a native of Japan, who had spent many years in
China, and was acquainted with the Devanagari character.
He too became a justly canonized saint. His system is
known by the name of Catacanna, and is really very simple
and practical. Thus neither the Corean alphabet nor the
Japanese syllabary was a purely original invention. Both
ioo The English Language.
were due to the influence of Buddhists acquainted with a
real alphabet.
What, then, and whence was this real alphabet the De-
vanagari ? It is the especial alphabet of the Sanskrit lan-
guage. The name signifies, pertaining to the city of the
gods the holy city that is, Benares. It might therefore be
called the Benares alphabet, to distinguish it from many
others. It has contained at different times from 45 to 50
letters, which we may suppose to have represented perfectly
the sounds of the spoken language : but its aspirated letters
and duplicate series of consonants are difficult for a European
to distinguish. It has not the slightest trace of having been
derived from pictures or hieroglyphics. The oldest charac-
ters, occurring on monuments and coins, are simple ; but, as
now found in books the letters have the appearance of being
devised to make reading and writing as difficult as possible.
But as a means of preserving literary compositions they are
not of great antiquity. We read in Exodus xxiv., 7, that
Moses " took the book of the covenant and read in the
audience of the people " ; and Job xix., 23, " Oh that my
words were now written ! Oh that they were printed (?) in
a book ; that they were graven with an iron pen, and with
lead in the rock forever ! " It is clear that the authors of
these passages were familiar with the art of writing, both lit-
erary and monumental; but in all the 1,017 hymns of the
Rig Veda, which may reach a date as low as 800, there
is no allusion to writing or writing materials. The Greek
historian Megasthenes, who, as minister of Seleucus Nicator,
spent eight years at the court of Chandragupta, King of Ma-
gadha or Behar, reported that the Indians were ignorant of
letters, and preserved their laws by memory, but set up in-
scribed milestones along their roads. Nearchus, the admiral
of Alexander's fleet, declared that they wrote letters
(fTrrffroAa?) on cotton well beaten together that is, on cot-
ton paper ; but he also admitted that their laws were un-
written. Unless there be a contradiction between two
perfectly competent witnesses, the Indians, by the time of
Alexander 327, had learned some art of writing, and used
The Alphabet. 101
it for inscriptions but not for literary compositions. Such a
state of things would be curiously paralleled by the case of
our Teutonic ancestors who employed their runic characters
for inscriptions, charms, and secret messages, but not to pre-
serve their laws, songs, or sagas. The oldest extant speci-
mens of writing in India are the rock and pillar inscriptions
of King Asoka, the grandson of Chandragupta, and great
patron of Buddhism, about 250. They are in two dif-
ferent alphabets, the early Devanagari, written like ours
from left to right ; the other, a Semitic alphabet, then in use
in the northern provinces of India, and written from right to
left. How the Devanagari came into existence alongside of
the other cannot now be proved, but to suppose that it
sprang into full-blown existence at once, without leaving a
trace of development, is contrary to all analogy. It is more
natural to suppose that it was an improvement on the hint
furnished by an imported pattern. As has been already
urged, such an imitation would not necessarily have much
resemblance to the original. 1 In a canonical life of the
Buddha, which must be old as 250, it is related how the
young prince is sent to school and asks his teacher what
writing he is to learn. The pedagogue enumerates 64 alpha-
bets or styles of writing, and among them the Deva, or De-
vanagari, which last is the one studied. It is thus a curious
circumstance that, while the Brahmans imprecated the direst
curses on one who should convey or acquire their doctrines
through a written medium, Buddhists carried everywhere the
knowledge of letters. A Buddhist book is the first in the
remote East to mention writing as a part of education, and
1 A striking example of an elaborate system developed out of a mere hint is
the syllabary invented in 1824 for the Cherokees by the half-breed Sequoia,
otherwise called George Guest. He was in possession of English books, but
had never learned to read them, and he devised a scheme of 84 characters, to
represent all the single syllables of the language. In form they were as far as
practicable imitations and modifications of the English capital letters and
numerals. Nearly every syllable began with a single consonant and ended with
a vowel ; and they were arranged in the manner of ba, be, bi, bo, bu. The
scheme is still considered well adapted to the Cherokee, but is not equally suited
to other Indian tongues.
IO2 The English Language.
a Buddhist prince leaves the earliest specimens of the art.
Was there a Western impulse at the bottom of it all ? In
view of the perplexing coincidences of Buddhism and
Christianity, the question might be asked : Was it some
stranger from Western Asia perchance some wandering
Jew that first stirred the soul of Siddharta Gotama? and
did Buddhism, after seven centuries, react upon the early
types of Christianity ?
Among the earliest seats of civilization was the rich allu-
vial plain at the head of the Persian Gulf, where wheat and
barley grew wild beneath the shade of the date-palm, and
yielded the cultivator two-hundred-fold. Two distinct peo-
ples occupied those sea marshes and river bottoms. The
one was the so-called race of Shem, that overspread Arabia
and all the plain of the 'two rivers the ancient Aram
Naharaiim as far as the highlands of Assyria and the
mountains of Armenia. But earlier than they were the
people who bore the generic name of Accad, who seem to
have descended from the mountains of Susiana, on the east.
From the exhumed relics of their ancient cities, the language
and character of this people are now known in part. Their
language was allied in general structure to those of the
Turks, Tartars, and Magyars ; and special affinities have
been suggested between them and the Finns of Northern
Europe. But structural resemblance of language, when
of a low and simple type, does not prove affinity of blood,
but only a particular stage of development.
On those fertile plains were cities of the hoariest antiquity.
There was that " Ur of the Chaldees," whence Abraham
and doubtless other enterprising young men " moved west,"
seeking homes less crowded, and wider freedom. There were
the Erech and Calneh of Genesis, and others less known,
and, at a later date, the mightier Babylon, " the glory of the
Chaldees' excellency.'
From a date that can scarcely be guessed at, the Accad
had a peculiar art of writing. The extant remains show
mere traces of derivation from pictures or hieroglyphs, but
in general the appearance is that of perfectly arbitrary
The Alphabet. 103
marks. Specimens, regarded as especially archaic, exhibit
combinations of straight strokes, but by far the most common
are groups of six to a dozen slender isosceles triangles, like
wedges or spear-points, whence the writing has received the
name of cuneiform or arrow-headed. If there were any docu-
ments of fragile material, they have perished, and only stone,
burnt clay, and metal remain. From Babylon downward to
the sea stone was scarce, and the use of brick universal. The
singular expedient was adopted of impressing words upon
plastic clay with the end of a slender three-sided stick. The
clay was then dried and baked, usually in the form of bricks,
tablets, or cylinders. Bricks were often printed on all sides ;
a tablet might contain several hundred lines ; the cylinder
had a projection at each end, by which it could be held and
slowly turned as the reading progressed. As the writing
material was bulky, space was economized by printing close.
The characters, although very distinct, were sometimes so
minute as to require a magnifying glass to read them ; and
that such may have been used is evidenced by the quartz
lens discovered by Layard in the ruins of Nineveh. In the
last-named city, stone, especially alabaster, was largely used
for records. The early and extensive use of this kind of
writing is shown by the fact that Sargon the first of that
name established a library which, from the catalogue, would
seem to have been a public one, some say as early as 2000.
The Assyrian kings declared their anxiety to make learning
accessible to the people. The literature was varied, and, for
that time, extensive, especially in astronomy, history, and
poetry. As the Semitic race obtained the supremacy, the Ac-
cadians disappeared as a distinct people, but their influence
long remained. Their tablets were copied, commented on,
and translated. Dictionaries and grammars were made for
their language ; and it came to be studied as a dead and
learned tongue, as Latin is now in Europe.
The cuneiform characters doubtless originating as pictures
at first represented things or ideas, and not mere sounds.
They continued to do so in part in the hands of the Baby-
lonians and Assyrians ; but at the same time they were em-
104 The English Language.
ployed for the sounds of syllables, without regard to meaning.
They were never used as an alphabet of single sounds. A
word might be expressed either by a single character, or
spelled by the combinations that formed its successive sylla-
bles. To distinguish the former use, it was either preceded
by an unpronounced character, like the Chinese keys, or
followed by a grammatical termination. While Chinese and
Japanese are written vertically downwards, and the lines
succeed each other from right to left, the cuneiform was
written from left to right.
When the characters of Accad were adopted by the Shem-
ites, the identities both of sound and sense could not be
preserved. The learners might accept the signification, and
express it by a word of their own, as when we write Ib. and
pronounce it pound ; or they might adopt an opposite course. 1
In point of fact, they tried to do both the former in writing
holographically, the latter in spelling. This was liable to
cause misunderstanding, which was greatly increased by the
circumstance that even in Accadian the same character gen-
erally stood for several different words. The effect may be
illustrated in this way : Suppose the Latin " anser," a goose,
to be represented by a single hieroglyphic, which we adopted
and pronounced sometimes answer and at other times goose.
Suppose further that there were local pronunciations, such
as anther and anker ; we should then have the two families
of derivatives :
a reply a fowl
to reply a tailor's smoothing-iron
a part of a flower a game of chance
a measure of 10 gallons a simpleton
a ship's anchor the source of nursery rhymes
Hope
If the original figure stood for other words besides anser,
the number might be indefinitely increased. The first char-
acter in the vocabulary of Sayce's Elementary Assyrian
1 I remember to have heard, when very young, old persons call the character
&, eppershand, an expression to which they attached no meaning. Subsequent
reflection led me to suppose that the term was et per se = and.
The Alphabet. 105
Grammar, consisting of a single horizontal wedge, had in
Accadian five phonetic values. When adopted into Assyrian
it acquired thirteen more, and represented Assyria, heaven,
the deep, a memorial, obedient, happy, to produce, to give, one,
in, etc. Every transfer to another dialect swelled the num-
ber, and helped to fill the Land of Shinar with a veritable
" confusions of tongues."
The Persians, before the time of Cyrus and Darius Hys-
taspes, seem to have been ignorant of letters. The Zend
Avesta lays great stress on the correct recitation of the
liturgy, but never alludes to reading or writing. In adopt-
ing the cuneiform, the Persians completely transformed it.
The change was so thorough that it must have been made
at once, and systematically. The redactor accepted little
more than a mere hint. He retained the ultimate wedge-
shaped element, but rejected the greater part of the groups,
retaining only some forty or fifty. These he altered and
simplified in form, and stripped of all their primary signifi-
cance, so that, like our letters, they expressed only sounds.
The sounds, however, as in Japanese, were syllables, and not
letters. Still, as some syllables are only single vowels, and
the vowels of others are fleeting and ill-defined, the new
syllabary made a near approach to a real alphabet. That
one with views so radical should have undertaken to work
over material so unpromising, proves conclusively that no
real alphabet was commonly known at that time 530 B.C.
in Persia or Mesopotamia.
The date of the founding of the Egyptian monarchy has been
variously estimated Champollion-Figeac giving 5867,
and Wilkinson 2330. These are near the extremes, but the
computations" of twenty-five modern Egyptologists give a
mean of 4180, from all which it results that Egypt has a
fair claim to priority over all known establishments. A well-
developed system of pictorial writing was in use there from
the earliest known dates, and continued with little change
to the second or third Christian century, the last word found
written being the name of the Emperor Decius. The char-
acters consisted mostly of the figures of men and animals
106 The English Language.
in whole or in part celestial bodies, trees, plants, implements,
and familiar objects. They became world-famous as the
Egyptian hieroglyphics a word signifying sacred carvings,
were used chiefly for monumental inscriptions, and re-
tained their pictorial appearance to the last. They were in
the possession of the priesthood, not so much because the
hierarchy treasured or fostered learning as because in those
ages all art and thought took a religious form, and so fell to
the lot of the clergy. Few strangers ever penetrated the
secret of their meaning ; and until the present century they
were as much a mystery as the fountains of the Nile. About
the time when they passed out of use, Horapollo, whose
name, half Egyptian and half Greek, denoted one of mixed
blood, wrote a little book, still extant, explaining one hun-
dred and eighty of the hieroglyphs. The work was almost
entirely misleading. It treated them solely as ideographs,
embodying the most strained and fanciful ideas. As an
example, he taught that 1,095, the number of days in three
years, denoted mutism, because if a child did not speak
within that time he was given up as dumb. Still, modern
research has sustained some of his renderings. A few fanci-
ful attempts were made at long intervals, but all on the same
principle, although Clement of Alexandria and Porphyry
had declared that they represented sounds as well as ideas.
Zoega, in 1787, ventured the conjecture that the royal names
occurring in inscriptions must be written phonetically.
Thus the case stood when in 1799, during the French
occupation of Egypt, a slab of basalt was found at Rosetta,
bearing a triple inscription of some length in hieroglyphics,
in the demotic character a kind of short-hand hieroglyphic
and Greek, by means of which Dr. Young in 1818 effected
the first breach in the hitherto impenetrable lines. The
inscriptions were naturally assumed to be three versions of
the same. Yet that did not avail much, for we might have,
for example, the Lord's prayer in Chinese, and yet our famili-
arity with the subject might not enable us to identify the
sound or the sense of a single character. But in one part of
the Greek text he found the name Ptolemaios, and in a corre-
The Alphabet. 107
spending place of the hieroglyphic the enclosed group,
which he assumed to be its equivalent. He next conjectured
that this should be read from right to left. The upper right-
hand character was presumed to stand for P, and the one
beneath it for T, without a vowel between. The last, on the
left, was supposed to be 5. Five characters remained to take
the place somehow of seven Greek letters. This, which was
only conjectural, was about all that was gained in twenty-two
years from the famous Rosetta Stone. In 1822 an obelisk at
Philae was discovered to bear a hieroglyphic and Greek in-
scription, from which J. F. Champollion made out the name
of Cleopatra, and confirmed in part, and in part corrected,
the results obtained by Dr. Young. In the succeeding eight
or ten years the names of several native and foreign princes
were deciphered and a foundation prepared for reading the
hieroglyphics.
The Egyptian writing did not differ essentially from the
Chinese or the Babylonian. Originating as pictures, the
characters might be used in at least four different ways. We
might draw a picture of a lion and intend to express by it
either, I, the animal itself; or, 2, strength, courage, or roy-
alty ; or, 3, the syllable li; or, 4, the letter /. So the hiero-
glyphs were used as syllables, as single articulations, or as
ideographs. These several usages were mixed together in
the same document. One of the most important uses of the
ideograph was exactly that of the Chinese " key." A cer-
tain number of them, of which about one hundred have
been ascertained, were employed to designate classes of
things, and when so used were not pronounced. Thus a
figure meant to suggest a pond, accompanied any word sig-
nifying wafers, seas, lakes, rivers, canals, irrigation, cultiva-
tion, etc. Signs so used have been called determinatives.
They generally followed the word as otherwise expressed ;
but any number of the letters or syllables might either precede
io8
The English Language.
or follow the determinative. They were even attached to
holographs that seemed to need no explanation. A well
executed figure of a goat might be followed by a symbol
denoting an animal, an example followed by the artist who
deemed it necessary to attach to his picture the words " This
is a horse."
As words are originally of one syllable, and in some lan-
guages most of them continue so, symbols that represent
words necessarily represent syllables ; and thus the transition
to syllables is easy. Again, open syllables, if the vowels be
indistinct, become mere single or double consonants. In
Egyptian the vowels seem to have been little differentiated
merely divided into three indistinct groups which might be
roughly represented by the a in man, the i in machine, and
u in rule. When there was no danger of a mistake they
might be left unwritten. In this way an actual alphabet was
reached, but never used as a separate mode of writing. The
alphabetic remained inextricably mixed with all the other
uses of hieroglyphs.
The Egyptians wrote either vertically downwards, from
left to right, or from right to left. The last was the most
common.
HIEROGLYPHIC.
HIERATIC.
HIEROGLYPHIC.
HIERATIC.
U-*
ft
A.
2
The Alphabet. 109
The mode of writing thus described was extremely labo-
rious, was adapted to inscriptions on stone, and limited to
grave and solemn subjects. Specimens have indeed been
found written on papyrus ; but with the freer use of that
material an abbreviated script was gradually introduced.
This is known as the hieratic, is the one chiefly found
on papyrus rolls, and is supposed to have been fairly
in use about 2,000. The original pictures were here
greatly abridged and simplified, as will be seen by a few
examples (see opposite page).
A second modification, called the demotic, by which the
hieratic was still further simplified, came into use at a
later date, and was employed for the secular purposes of
the common people.
While the nations of the East are carving arrow-heads,
and the priests of Thebes executing miniatures of men and
animals, somewhere in the midland between, as early as the
tenth or eleventh century before our era, real alphabetic
writing all at once appears. It is in possession of the Phoe-
nicians and of the Hebrew-speaking peoples of Palestine.
How, when, or where it originated is not yet established
beyond a doubt, but we will first see what light the alphabet
itself sheds on the question. It consists of twenty two let-
ters all consonants each bearing the name of some object,
whether they resemble those objects or not. The objects
thus named must have been at least known and familiar.
Seven are parts of the human body, and therefore common
to all ages and countries. Aleph, an ox; gimel, a camel;
hheth, a fence or hedge ; lamed, an ox-goad ; tsade, a sickle ;
tan, a cross-mark branded on cattle, denote a settled agri-
cultural and pastoral life. Beth, a house ; daleth, a door ;
he, a window ; van, a nail ; samekh, a post, show a people
who no longer dwelt in tents, but in fixed habitations.
Mem, waters ; and nun, a fish, imply the presence of bodies
of water sufficiently large to make fishing an object. There
is no allusion to trade or navigation ; hence the alphabet
probably did not originate among the Phoenicians after they
became a seafaring people, distinct from the other inhabi-
1 10 The English Language.
tants of Canaan. The other conditions might be satisfied
by the coast of the Mediterranean, by Egypt, or by the Jor-
dan and its lakes.
The origin of this art of writing must be referred to a
pretty early date. The books of Joshua and Judges ' rep-
resent that Debir was called, before the conquest of Canaan,
Kirjath-sepher, the City of the Book, or, as the Chaldee
paraphrast renders it, the City of Records.
The general belief of antiquity was that the art arose
among the Phoenicians, who derived the idea from the
Egyptians. Such was the opinion of Philo of Byblus, the
most considerable Phoenician writer of whom any remains
have reached us. The same belief was shared by Diodorus
Siculus," Tacitus," and others. But here it will be safest to
consider the Phoenicians as merely the best-known represen-
tative of a family group of tribes, closely allied in tongue
and lineage, dwelling between the Euphrates and the west-
ern sea. The most that can be said against this view is its
want of complete proof. Equal probability has not been
adduced in favor of any other origin.
Sometime about 1854 the French Academy of Inscrip-
tions and Belles-Lettres proposed, as the subjects of two
essays, the Origin and the Diffusion of the Phoenician Al-
phabet. The first was undertaken by the distinguished
Egyptologist, the Vicompte de Rouge, whose essay was
read and accepted in 1859. The question of the Diffusion
was discussed by Fr. Lenormant f whose long and elaborate
report was not presented until 1872. These two essays are
regarded as having settled, at least provisionally, the ques-
tion of the origin of alphabetic writing.
They agree in deriving the alphabet from the Egyptian
hieratic. Their success cannot fairly be considered com-
plete ; but then we are to bear in mind that one set of char-
acters may be known to be derived from another, and yet
show little resemblance. A few single characters may pre-
1 Joshua, xv., 15 ; Judges, i., n.
8 Hist., i., 69.
* Annals, xi., 14.
The Alphabet. in
serve a striking resemblance to their parents, as in the case
of the letter representing the sound of sh in ship, thus :
Hieroglyphic (Shn$, a J.J.T Old Hebrew W
bed of plants) ^^
Square Hebrew
Hieratic ^L
Demotic V/ Arabic
Coptic
Phoenician W ^ - . /,
Russian (from Cop-
tic)
In Greek and old Latin inscriptions the character, as
acquired from the Phoenicians, is found turned in various
positions : M M S2E . In one it is still easily recognized as the
Greek 2. It is sometimes found without the bottom stroke
^ In the continuous curve lines that distinguish hand-
writing from inscriptions it becomes S, 5, 8, and by the
atrophy of the upper loop we get the small s of our every-
day writing, @f<*. But the family likeness is seldom pre-
served so long and so well.
M. Lenormant holds that the alphabet is derived from a
rather old style of hieratic earlier than the XVIII dynasty,
to which Lepsius assigned the date 1591, and the more
recent Egyptologist Mariette 1703. This would place it
during or before the invasion of the Hykshos, or Shepherds.
That pastoral Shemitic tribes about that time entered Egypt
from Canaan and dominated for a long period admits of no
doubt, or that their rule made the memory of Shepherds
" an abomination to the Egyptians." The latter identified
these invaders with the inhabitants of Canaan. There is a
very attractive hypothesis, advanced or cited approvingly by
Ewald, Boetticher, Longerke, Renan, and Lenormant, that
these Canaanites developed the alphabet during their stay
in Egypt ; yet, however plausible, it is only conjecture. Be
that as it may, among them it first comes to light ; and the
examples of the Japanese and the Persians make it prob-
112 The English Language. '
able that the first idea was derived from some older system.
They occupied the same vantage-ground as the last-named
peoples. The foreign characters would not represent to
them both the original sounds and significations. Unlike
the natives, they were not withheld by any national pride,
priesthood, or piety from handling them as best suited their
own purposes. Like the Japanese and Persians, they disre-
garded the meaning altogether, caring only for the sounds,
and preserving at first something of the original forms. Part
of the Egyptian characters already represented single articu-
lations, while a larger part expressed syllables. The Canaan-
ites were led to reject the latter by the peculiar circumstance
that their language almost ignored vowel sounds, and re-
garded them as too unstable to be expressed. With them
ba, be, bi, bo, bu, were alike merely b ; and they wrote Leba-
non, Ibnn. It is true that after a time certain consonants
came to be associated with their respective groups of vowel
sounds, and were sometimes used to show their location, for
the sake of emphasis or distinction. As only single articulate
sounds were to be expressed, but a small number of charac-
ters were required.
New names were given to the letters without any refer-
ence to the old ones or to any principle of selection that we
can discover. Perhaps some light may be thrown on the
naming of letters by the Old Norse Runic alphabet in
which the objects and order selected were : money, a bull, a
thorn, the mouth of a river, riding, a boil, hail, need, ice, a year,
the sun, the god of war, the birch, man, law, the yew tree. It
is pretty clear that these names were not chosen because of
their meaning but because they were convenient words of
one syllable that could be woven into some kind of mne-
monic jingle.
When letters have once been imbedded in acrostic verses
they continue to be learned and repeated in a particular
order. There is reason to believe this was the case with the
primitive alphabet from a very early period. Psalms in,
112, 119, Proverbs xxxi., 10 to the end, Lam. i., are acrostics
in the Hebrew text, as are also Psalms 25, 34, 37, 145, and
The Alphabet. 113
Lamentations ii., Hi., iv., although with some irregulari-
ties. The alphabetical order of the letters, too, determined
their value as numerals, and so formed the basis of that
strangely fanciful system of rabbinical interpretation called
gamatria, of which Rev. xiii., 18, is the most famous ex-
ample. Several tablets in the British Museum from the
Library of Assurbanipal the Sardanapalus of the Greeks
give the Phoenician letters with their mystic numeral powers
explained in cuneiform, thus showing that the alphabetic
order was established before the fall of the Assyrian empire.
Mariette has discovered acrostic hymns on the walls of Egyp-
tian temples, but the order of the characters is wholly differ-
ent from that of the Hebrew. The order of the letters does
not seem to have been determined by any rational and con-
sistent principle, yet, as the three grave mutes, B, G, D, are
placed in one group and the three liquids, L, M, N, in
another, it does not seem to have been left entirely to
chance.
The landmarks and outlines of an alphabet must be the
work of a single hand. It would be left to successors only
to distinguish the fainter shades of sound. The scheme
must be in some measure complete before it can be of any
use. An alphabet, like a parliamentary body, requires a
quorum for the transaction of business.
The forms of the earliest letters are learned from inscrip-
tions on durable material, and from papyrus rolls found in
ancient tombs in the dry climate of Egypt. The table given
on page 114 exhibits some of the principal examples.
The first column is the Egyptian hieratic, prior to the
XVIII. dynasty, given by Fr. Lenormant as the basis of the
Phoenician. The reader can form his own opinion as to the
degree of likeness, and the probability of the derivation.
No. 2 is a short inscription around the rim of a bronze
patera, or dish, obtained in 1877 from a junk-dealer in the
island of Cyprus. The inscription is a dedication of the ves-
sel to the temple of Baal-Lebanon, in the neighborhood of
Sidon. The giver styles himself a servant of King Hiram.
If this prince could be proved to be the king of Tyre who
The English Language.
Names of
Letters
i
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Aleph....
a
<
f
f/
*r
^P
A, A
A
s
Beth
4
<3
&
9?
^
J
^^
&
n
Gimel
^
1
A
7
A^lC
<C
i
Daleth...
*
A
^
/ o
^
<l
-A P
D
T
He
ITT
^
g x
A
-x x*
rt
Uv
**
1 <\
^
A A^
v
1 1
Vav
^
f
1
^f
1
i
<*\ f^
\ /*
F
1
Zayin. . . .
F
I
I
^ i
V
^7
r.z
T
Kheth . . .
H
^
#
^
B
H
n
Teth
^
9
ID
Yod
y
"
A
y
/,//> ^
H
3
Z
T
,
t
*V t* L
c.
+
L
Caph
<^
1
1
r
J/
^1 K
K
^
Lamed. . .
L
t
u
ti
z,
^
/
L
h
Mem ....
l
*J
9
\*\J
V
}
^I/A
M M
to
Nun
1
V
L
5
L
VI A/
*
^7
;
7
/
7
/
1 A
N
j
Samech . .
^
f
^
\
ty
f H
D
Ayin
,
o
o
Ou)
o
O
O
y
Pe
-M
^
^
L
j
n p
n p
j.
"
\J
'
'
/
1 1
1 K
Tsade
s*
r
A
A
\
^
5?
Koph....
&,
<p
f
?
^
?
Q
Q
p
Resh
9
i
^
^/
A
^
4? P
R R
"
Shin
%
w
iv
w
w
W
/v\^
* S
^
Tav
6
t
X
f
/
t
1-
T
n
The Alphabet. . 115
was the friend of David and Solomon, it would carry the in-
scription back to the eleventh century before the Christian
era, and would make it the oldest yet known.
No. 3. The Moabite Stone. 1 This highly interesting
monument first came to the knowledge of Europeans in
1868-9. It was then a piece of black basalt, about 3 ft. 10 in.
X 2 ft. X 14 in., bearing an inscription of thirty-four lines on
1 The following is a translation of so much as remains of this important
monument :
' ' I am Mesha the son of Chemosh . . . the Dibonite, King of Moab.
My father reigned over Moab thirty years, and I reigned after my father ; and
I have built this altar to Chemosh in the plain in ... because he has
helped us in all our straits, and has caused me to see the downfall of all my
enemies. Omri, King of Israel, arose and oppressed Moab many days, when
Chemosh was angry against his land. And his son followed him and said like-
wise : I will oppress Moab. He said this in my days ; and I have seen the
downfall of him and of his house, and Israel is utterly undone forever. And
Omri took, the . . . Medeba and placed a garrison therein . . . his
son forty years. And Chemosh restored it in my days, and I built Baal-Meon
and placed . . . therein ; and I ... Kirjathaim. Now the men of
Gad had dwelt in the land from of old ; and the King of Israel built .
and I fought against the fortress and took it, and devoted all that were therein
to Chemosh and to Moab ; and I brought back the . . . before Chemosh
in Kirjath. And I brought thither the men of Sharon [?] and the men of the
East [?].
" And Chemosh said to me : Go take Nebo from Israel . . . went in the
night and I fought against them from the morning light until mid-day, and I
slew them all, seven thousand, as a sacrifice to Ashtar-Chemosh. And I took
thence all that belonged to Jehovah and . . . them before Chemosh.
"And the King of Israel built Jahaz and put a garrison therein in the war
against me, but Chemosh drove him out before me. And I took two hundred
men out of Moab, all of them chief men, and led them up against Jahaz and
took it ... unto Dibon, and I built the defences of the city, and I built
the gates and the towers thereof, and I built the King's house, and I made
lodgings for men within the wall and storehouses for corn in the plain. And I
said to all the people : Let each man make a cistern in his house. And I digged
again the water courses digged by Israel for the plain ; and I built Aroer ; and
I made the causeway over the Arnon ; and I built the mountain temple, that had
been laid waste ; and I built Bezer, for . . . fifty of the men of Dibon, for
all Dibon was obedient. And I ... the cattle that I brought into the
land ; and I built . . . and the temple of Diblathaim and the temple of
Baal-Meon ; and I brought thither . . . the land, and Horonaim, and I
returned thither in ... and Chemosh said unto me : Go fight against
Horonaim, and . . ."
1 1 6 The English Language.
its principal face, and lying amidst the ruins of the ancient
city of Dibon, east of the Dead Sea. Many efforts to obtain
copies, impressions, or the stone itself, were made with vary-
ing success, especially by Ch. Clermont Ganneau, a zealous
young scholar attached to the French consulate at Jerusalem.
These, with the high prices offered, excited the cupidity of
the Bedouins and the local authorities, who quarrelled
among themselves, and, by the alternate application of fire
and cold water, broke the stone in pieces, and carried off the
smaller fragments. Happily the larger pieces were event-
ually secured, and are now in the Louvre in Paris; and,
with the various imperfect copies that had been taken, give
the greater part of the legend. It was found to be nearly
pure Hebrew what Isaiah (xix., 18) calls "the language of
Canaan " and by that Mesha mentioned 2 Kings, iii., 4,
therefore about the date of 890.
No. 4. Mr. Layard found in the ruins of Nimroud, the
ancient Nineveh, sixteen bronze lions, evidently intended for
a set of weights, and ranging from forty pounds to an ounce
and a half. They were found to bear inscriptions in Phoeni-
cian and Assyrian characters, and to be marked with the
name of Shalmanassur IV., which fixes their age at about
825. These three agree in presenting an archaic style
of the letters quite distinguishable from that of the next
specimen.
No. 5 is the inscription of Eshmunazar, discovered in
January, 1855. Some natives then digging for buried treas-
ure in the necropolis of old Sidon came upon a tomb con-
taining a basaltic sarcophagus, in Egyptian style, bearing
upon the cover a Phoenician inscription in twenty-two lines.
This proved to be the grave of a king named Eshmunazar,
son of Tabnith and grandson of Eshmunazar all otherwise
unknown. Here was the first Phoenician inscription found
in the mother country, and the most considerable yet found
anywhere. According to a custom common in the East, the
monarch prepares his own grave and writes his own epitaph.
He says little that is of strictly historical interest, as he
mentions no person or event that can be identified, yet, as
The Alphabet. 117
he acknowledges to have received from the Lord of Kings
adn mlckm, a term known to apply to the Persian monarch
Dor and Joppa, in the plain of Sharon, it is presumable that
he lived, died, and was buried between 538 and 334.
Treasure-seeking in the East is as old as the Book of Job,
and the unfortunate king, aware of that fact, and bereaved
of all his sons, pours forth abundant curses against the
grave-robber or treasure-seeker who should remove his coffin
or violate the place of his rest, declaring that there is no
treasure there. But vain are curses ; the sarcophagus is now
in the Louvre in Paris, and when found had been already
empty for unknown ages.
No. 6 is Old Hebrew as found on engraved seals and
trinkets of various dates before and after 600. The Gimel
and Hheth are from ancient shekels, supposed to have been
struck soon after the return from the captivity.
Thus far all the specimens were written from right to left.
No. 7. Early Greek. This is from various inscriptions
dating from 616 downwards. The story repeated by Pliny
(vii.-56) that Cadmus brought sixteen letters from Phoenicia
to Greece, and that eight others were afterwards invented by
Palamedes and Simonides, is only an idle tale inconsistent
with the facts. The Greeks at first naturally wrote from
right to left, like their instructors ; next backwards and for-
wards, like the movement of a plough, and hence called
boustrophedon ; and at last only from left to right. The
alphabet, like the language, of Greece was broken into
several dialects, the most prolific of which was the Chalcid-
ian, which was introduced into the Greek trading towns of
the Italian coast, and became the parent of all the alphabets
of Western Europe.
No. 8. Old Latin.
No. 9. Square Hebrew. This peculiar character came into
use after the return from the captivity, together with the
language to which it belonged Aramaic, or the language of
the region north of Palestine, from the Mediterranean to the
Tigris. Jewish tradition ascribes its introduction to Ezra.
It is likely that it came into use later and gradually. The
n8
The English Language.
oldest known inscription in this character is of the date of
176.
In adopting the alphabet the Greeks retained with little
change the names and order of the letters ; and the order is
still substantially that of all our text-books.
HEBREW.
GREEK. ENGLISH.
HEBREW.
GREEK.
ENGLISH.
Aleph
Beth
Alpha
Beta
A
B
Lamed
Mem
Lambda
Mu
L
M
Gimel
Gamma
Nun
Nu
N
Daleth
Delta
D
Samekh
Xi
He
Vau
Zain
E psilon
(Digamma)
Zeta
E
F
Ain
Pe
Tsade
O mikron
Pi
O
P
Hheth
Teth
Eta
Theta
Koph
Resh
(Koppa)
Ro
Q
R
lod
Caph
Iota
Kappa
I
K
Shin
Tau
San, Sigma
Tau
S
T
Thus the arrangement of the letters now learned by every
child is as old as the days of Jeremiah.
The application of an Eastern alphabet to the radically
different language of Hellas involved many changes. The
Greeks, in altering the direction of their writing, turned also
their letters round. The nations of Canaan had omitted all
vowels, but inserted signs for a number of more or less for-
cible breathings ; the Greeks considered the former indis-
pensable, the latter almost useless. Hence they ingeniously
turned Aleph into A, He into E, and Ain to O. Hheth was
retained for a time as an h, but eventually transformed into
a vowel, probably with the power of the Spanish ey. This
left the alphabet without an H. Its place was poorly
supplied by the spiritus asper, while the zero power of Aleph
was represented by the spiritus lenis. For a time Vau kept
its place and the power of our w. It obtained the name of
Digamma, which referred to its form and not to its sound,
but was at last abandoned altogether. Yod lost the semi-
vocal power of y, and became the vowel i. The Shemitic
alphabet had four letters, Zain, Tsade, Samekh and Shin,
The Alphabet. 119
having sibilant or hissing sounds. The Greeks reduced the
first two of these to one, having the form and place of Zain,
the name of Zeta, and the power of dz. Samekh was trans-
formed into H. Its original power was retained by a letter
having the sound of Samekh and the place of Shin, while its
Dorian name of San resembled the latter, and the Ionic
Sigma is suggestive of the former. Teth became Theta.
Koph, as a second k, was entirely superfluous, but it kept its
place as a numeral, with the value of 90 and the name of
Koppa. The Dorians, ever unwilling to learn or forget,
retained it as a letter, and carried it into Italy. Five letters
were added at the end of the alphabet. When or by whom
T was introduced is unknown. It had probably nearly the
sound of the French u or the German u. 0, with X and @,
formed a triad of so-called aspirates, with the powers, ap-
proximately, oip'h, k'h, fh, somewhat as in uphold, pack-horse,
pot-hook. W, a quite unnecessary compound letter, is said to
have been introduced by Epicharmus about 500. D. is a
modification of O due to the need of distinguishing the long
sounds of the vowel from the short. We are not to suppose
that all these changes were effected at once, or that they
obtained equal currency in all the discordant states of Greece.
The Chalcidian alphabet, introduced into Cumae and some
other Greek colonies in Italy, had certain peculiarities. The
Gamma became a semicircle, open towards the right. Rho,
which was liable to be mistaken for some forms of Pi, had a
stroke added, giving it the form R. Sigma had three forms
the old zigzag figure of four strokes, but turned half-way
round ; second, the same with one of the strokes omitted ;
and third a serpentine curve, somewhat like .S. To distin-
guish Iota from Sigma, the former was reduced to a single
vertical stroke. The figure X had been adopted to indicate
the sound of kh. This character followed by s had been used
for ks, and eventually retained that value when the s was
omitted. Finally V-was used for kk, the same figure which
survived in Greek as the representative of ps.
The alphabet was brought into Italy while writing was
still directed from right to left. The literary remains of all
1 20 The English Language.
the Italian nations except the Romans have that direction.
The application of letters to the Latin tongue necessitated
still further changes. Zeta and Theta were entirely
dropped. Gamma, written in the semicircular form, gradu-
ually lost the sound of g, and acquired that of k, indicating
that the two sounds were not clearly distinguished. At the
same time Kappa became unnecessary, and was retained
only in the peculiar word kalendce, and as an abbreviation
for a few words and proper names otherwise written with C.
After a time it was found necessary to restore the lost
sound, when a heavy stroke was added to the lower ex-
tremity of the semicircle, and it was assigned, as the letter
G, to the place once occupied by Zeta. The Vau of the
Phoenicians, soon dropped by the Greeks as a letter, was
retained by the Latins for the sound of f. H was retained
with the value of h, and not of ey. The short stem of
Koppa was turned obliquely to the right, and it became Q,
with the value of kw, a favorite combination in Latin, where
it was followed by a superfluous u, or was itself a supernu-
merary k. The Roman grammarians were not agreed as to
which was the true explanation. U, written with the form of
V, had as a vowel the long sound of u in rule, and a shorter
sound, probably like the German u. The Latin alphabet
ended with X as late as the time of Augustus, 1 when Y and
Z were added in writing words borrowed from the Greek.
The Romans, after a time, dropped the long Greek names
of the letters, which were becoming more absurd and un-
meaning at every step, and called them ah, bay, cay, day,
etc., combining a single vowel with each consonant. Where
the consonant represented a merely momentary sound, it
was placed before the vowel ; one of continuous sound, as
/, m, n, r, s, was put after the vowel."
1 Suetonius, Octav., 88.
* I cannot but think that the lines of Juvenal
" Unde habeas, quaerit nemo ; sedoportet habere.
Hoc monstrant vetulae pueris repentibus assse :
Hoc discunt omnes ante alpha et beta puellae."
(SAT., xiv., 207)
imply that in the second century the letters were still known by the Greek
The Alphabet.' 121
Thus far we have been considering characters such as we
should call capitals, distinguished by large size, straight
lines, and angles, such as would be made by a chisel upon
wood or stone. Writing with a pen or pencil tends to run
in curves and link the letters together. Gradually there
grew up, both in Greek and Latin, a style termed uncial
a word of uncertain origin and meaning, which we owe to
Saint Jerome. The characteristics of this style are, some-
what reduced size, curved lines, and part of the letters
extending above or below the others. Specimens of this
style have been met with as old as the middle of the second
century B.C., and it continued in use until the ninth century.
The most celebrated specimens are certain old copies of the
Scriptures, as the Vatican Manuscript, the Alexandrian
Codex, and the Sinaitic Codex.
But the uncial letters were only a transition to the minus-
cules, which we familiarly call small letters. This kind of
character, like all others, came into use gradually ; and
capitals, uncials, and minuscules were long used together,
according to the taste of the writer or the impulse of the
moment. By the eighth century, when Latin was the prin-
cipal written language throughout Europe, great confusion
prevailed from local peculiarities of penmanship and spell-
ing. Then Charlemagne, by an ordinance of the year 789,
required the books of the Church to be revised and cor-
rected. The result was a beautiful and regular minuscule
style, which became the basis of the written and printed
character of all Europeans and their descendants, except
those of the Greek Church.
The style of letters called italics, commonly used to
express emphasis or antithesis, was introduced about the
year 1500 by Aldus Manutius, a publisher of Venice, from
whose press were issued the celebrated Aldine classics.
Italics are employed in the Bible to render more intelligible
names. On the other hand it is perfectly clear from Ausonius (Technopseg-
nion 348, London ed., 1823) and Terentianus Maurus (De Litteris), that by
the fourth century these had been completely displaced by the simpler
appellations.
122 The English Language.
the elliptical expressions of the original, and, occasion-
ally, as in 2 Sam., xxi., 19, to give a more acceptable
version.
The nations of northern Europe, who possessed the runic
characters, did not employ them for writing books, and no
trace of them remains now in use except in Icelandic. On
the other hand, the Romans carried their alphabet into
Britain where it was learned by the Celtic inhabitants. The
Saxons learned to read and write from the vanquished
Britons. But during the five centuries of Roman dominion
and Saxon invasion several differences of usage had grown
up. The letters d, f, g, r, s, t, were not written and pro-
nounced as on the Continent. C had exclusively the hard
sound and, with the addition of w, rendered both k and q
unnecessary. Z was not used. The sounds which we repre-
sent by th in thin and by w were indicated by the runes
thorn and wen, ]> and J? ; that of th in thine by a d crossed, $.
After the Norman Conquest the Saxon peculiarities gradually
disappeared. Wen was replaced by two z/s, whence its
modern name of double-u. The stricken d gave place either to
a plain d, or to the runic thorn, which continued to hold its
place until the middle of the fifteenth century. Its loss a
really serious one was probably due to the early printers,
whose types made for Latin and continental languages had no
representative for this peculiar English sound. The art of
making books by machinery introduced disorder in two
other instances. The old Saxon g, besides the sound in go
had, in middle English, two others, one of which is now
entirely lost to the language, leading to further confusion.
Sometimes alone, and always when combined with h, it had
the value of the German g in Burg ; at other times it had
the sound nearly of our initial y. For these two sounds the
Saxon form had been preserved. The printers having no
types for this character took others that seemed nearest in ap-
pearance, not in value. They selected y to represent th, and
z for either g or th. Thus it comes about that the people
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are represented in
old books as if they said zour for your, zou for you, and ye,
The Alphabet. 123
yat, yem instead of the, that, them, whereas they really spoke
much as we do. 1
Every language requires an alphabet adapted to its own
special system of sounds. Such alphabet, to be perfect,
should have a separate character for every single sound, or
shade of sound worth distinguishing, while no character
should represent more than one. The letters should be
easy to distinguish, and in writing should be easy to make ;
and, combined in words, they should present a neat and ele-
gant appearance. It may be safely affirmed that all these
requirements have never yet been met. Our own alphabet
offers little ground for complaint in regard to the last three,
but in respect of the first two is sadly at fault. It is both
defective and redundant. Each of the vowels represents
several sounds. Ears and speakers differ, but a considerable
number are easily distinguished.
A has distinct sounds in amaranth, far, fall, wander, fare,
and fame.
E is variously pronounced in met, meet, there, and perfect,
while in such words as permit and suffer it has an obscure
sound scarcely distinguishable from a very short u.
I has three well defined sounds, in pin, pine, and pique, to
which some add pirn, girl, and alienate.
O has four distinct sounds, in dot, dome, done, do, and a
fifth tolerably distinct in wolf, to which some add a sixth in
form.
U is variously heard in rust, rule, full, mule, busy, and
burial, to which some add turn.
Y differs in pyx, pyet, myrtle, plenty, and yet, and some say
in hyrse.
W is treated as interchangeably vowel or consonant. I am
unable to perceive in it anything but the sound of u in rule
pronounced with varying degrees of quickness and force. To
my ear the difference between the short sound of a vowel
1 This curious spelling was retained in a few words in Scotland as long as the
Scottish dialect was spoken. As an example, spulzie or spuilzie (Scott's " Wa-
verley," chap. 48.) was pronounced spool-ye. The late Saxon character for g had,
however, begun to be mistaken for z by the middle of the fourteenth century.
124 The English Language.
and the prolongation induced by a succeeding r between
then and there, or but and burn is only one of duration. I
see no greater difference than between the s in sun and that
in hiss, or the / in pale and in pull. At the same time I dis-
tinguish two shades of the long i or y in fine and in fire in
fiy and in try.
There is a kind of personal equation in this matter, as I
sometimes detect differences unperceived by many others,
and still oftener fail to perceive distinctions generally recog-
nized.
C performs triple duty in case, cease, and chess, to which
we may add its use in spacious and machine.
F is pronounced differently in ^and of.
G is said to be hard in get, and soft in gem.
H is employed in producing six sounds or combinations
in hair, share, chair, sphere, there, and thorn.
L and N, when combined with i, as in salient and lenient,
yield peculiar sounds that may be attributed either to the
consonant or the vowel.
Pis employed to produce two different sounds in periphery.
S stands for two sounds in dose and rose, and combined
with i it yields two others really simple sounds in mission
and fusion, the former of which is also produced by sh.
T performs fourfold duties in time, thin, thine, and nation.
Z in azimuth differs from the same letter in azure.
Our alphabet is further defective in having no single char-
acters for the sounds which we represent by sh, by th, and
by the z in azure.
It is redundant in that c, q, and x are superfluous. In call
and cell, c could be replaced by k and s. In chair the ch is
indeed a compound, but it is wrongly compounded, the real
elements being / and the sound which we usually express by
sh. It is obvious that q might always be replaced by either
k or kw, and x by ks or gs.
J is not redundant, since we have nothing to take its place,
but it is a malformation. It should be d, followed by some
character having the value of the French /, or the zhivete of
the Russians.
The Alphabet. 125
A great number of anomalies, as ph, ew in sew, eau in
beauty, are not defects of the alphabet, but irrational
spelling.
Speech is produced by a mechanism combining the lead-
ing features of the reed organ and the bagpipe. The lungs
are the reservoir from which the air is urged through the
flexible trachea, or windpipe, by the muscles of the chest
and abdomen. The larynx and mouth, with their great
powers of modulation, roughly correspond to the chanter of
the Highland pipes, and the nasal passages may represent
the accompanying drones. On the upper extremity of the
windpipe is placed the valved box called the larynx the
special organ of voice. It is composed essentially of
four cartilages, four ligamentous bands, the lid called the
epiglottis, and an exceedingly delicate arrangement of mus-
cular and other tissues, too intricate to be described here.
The lowest cartilage, forming the base of the larynx, is
called the cricoid, meaning ring-shaped. It is but little modi-
fied from the rings that compose the trachea. It is con-
siderably higher behind than in front. Upon this rests the
thyroid, or shield-shaped cartilage, composed of two plates,
united at an acute angle in front, so that a horizontal section
would resemble the letter v. The angle makes a carinate
projection in front, easily felt by the hand in the upper part
of the throat, and is popularly called Adam's apple, from a
conceit that the forbidden fruit not only stuck in the throat
of our first parent, but still inheres in all his descendants.
The thyroid forms the greater part of the front and lateral
walls of the larynx, but its ends do not meet posteriorly.
Each extremity has two projections, termed horns, the one
extending upward, the other downward. The lower ones
articulate with the cricoid, leaving between the two carti-
lages an open space in front and considerable freedom of
motion. Upon the posterior part of the upper edge of the
cricoid, articulate two small bodies called the arytcnoid, or
ladle-shaped cartilages. By means of their controlling nerves
and muscles, they admit of great celerity and delicacy of
movement. From the last-named cartilages to the angle of
126 The English Language.
the thyroid extend two pairs of ligamentous bands, one pair
at a little distance above the other. The lower are known
as the inferior or true vocal cords. They serve the same
purpose as the reed or tongue in an organ pipe, and are the
immediate determinants of the tone or pitch of the voice.
When they are quiescent, the space between them, called
the glottis, rima glottidis, or chink of the glottis, forms a
slender triangle, from the angle of the thyroid to the two
arytenoid cartilages ; but when they are tightened in pro-
ducing the higher notes, there remains but a mere seam, not
wider than the thickness of writing paper. In elocutionists,
and still more in accomplished singers, these cords are ad-
justed with marvellous quickness and delicacy to produce
the various tones. Without them there is no voice. In
whispering they do not vibrate. That is breath made articu-
late, but not vocal, and may be imitated without allowing
any air to pass through the glottis. M. Deleau illustrated
this by passing a current of air through the nose into the
pharynx by means of a rubber tube. If then the mouth
assumed the successive positions necessary for articulation,
whispering was heard without any action of the lungs or
larynx. If at the same time vocal sound was uttered,
speech and whispering were heard simultaneously from the
same mouth. A little above the true are the false vocal
cords, which do no not approach closely, or in themselves
produce sound. Between them and the true there is on
each side a concavity known as a pocket or ventricle of the
larynx Morgagms ventricles, which seem to augment the
voice by reverberation, as sound is intensified by partial
inclosure in the fiddle or the drum. The piercing cries of
the howling monkeys are due to extensions of these ven-
tricles.
At the superior margin of the larynx, held erect as a sen-
tinel by elastic ligaments, stands the cartilaginous valve or
cover called the epiglottis, which falls like an automatic draw-
bridge when anything is to be swallowed.
Above the larynx, the pharynx extends about four inches
toward the base of the skull. It is a muscular sac, serving
The Alphabet. 127
somewhat the same purpose as the air reservoir in a forcing
pump, as well as that of the reverberating pipe of a wind in-
strument. It is the common meeting-place of seven passages
the aesophagus and windpipe below, the mouth anteriorly,
and at its upper part the nostrils and Eustachian tubes that
lead to the ears. From its extent and situation, its muscular
structure and power of distention and contraction, the phar-
ynx is of prime importance in giving character and volume
to the voice.
Separating the cavity of the pharynx from the mouth is
the pendent curtain known as the soft palate, or velum palati.
It is terminated below by the heart-shaped point called the
uvula (little grape), is movable in speaking and swallowing,
and does not at any time form a perfect closure. It rises and
sinks in passing from one vocal sound to another, and
aids in closing the passage to the nostrils. The more
accessible parts that contribute to articulate speech the
lips, teeth, tongue, roof of the mouth, and nose need not
be described.
Some writers discuss with great particularity positions
assumed by the several organs in speaking, and even en-
deavor to teach in that way the pronunciation of remote and
unknown languages. But such directions, although sound in
principle, are apt, in practice, to become unintelligible as
soon as they become necessary, for the reason that a great
part of these positions are out of sight and unknown. The
reader will readily admit that the different articulations do
depend upon the movements and positions of the organs
above enumerated ; and can illustrate this to himself by
pronouncing leisurely and carefully syllables beginning or
ending with 0, oo, p, b, f, v, m, t, d, n, k, I, r, s, and th, and
watching the positions assumed, so far as they can be
observed.
If now the mouth be opened moderately wide, and the
tongue allowed to lie flat, so that the passage for the voice
shall be unobstructed, and a vocal sound be uttered, it will
be that of the a in far, or as I should prefer to say in alarm or
Alabama. This may be regarded as the fundamental sound
128 The English Language.
of human speech. It is the first utterance of infants, and
abounds in the most primitive languages. It occurs twice in
the simplest or ground form of most Hebrew verbs, and in
Sanskrit is employed about half as often as all other sounds
together. Next pronounce the word stop, allowing the pres-
sure of the breath to cease before parting the lips ; otherwise
it will be pronounced, stop-ih. The lips will be firmly closed
and all utterance cut off. A opens the mouth wide ; / closes
it completely. It might seem at first sight that all possible
articulate sounds must lie between these extremes, and
might be arranged in a series. And as every space is infi-
nitely divisible, if only the divisions be infinitesimal, there
is theoretically no limit to the number of intermediate
sounds. The greater the number, however, the less dis-
tinguishable. The number really found in different lan-
guages and dialects, and in local and personal peculiarities of
utterance, is very great. Mr. A. J. Ellis has devised an
alphabet which he thinks capable of representing the
sounds of all known languages. It consists of 270 letters ;
and the Standard Alphabet of Lepsius contains 172
besides the tones of the Chinese and the clicks of the
Hottentots.
But may there rrot be other closures of the outlet for the
voice besides the one above described ? In point of fact
there are in English two others, observable in pronouncing
pit and pick. One free passage, therefore, is contrasted with
three complete closures, and articulate sounds might be
exhibited in three lines diverging from a point in common.
Such an arrangement is by no means new, and has been
veiy fully presented by Professor Whitney in his Sanskrit
Grammar, and other publications, and in a manner not
widely different from the following.
The letters within brackets represent sounds not now in
the English language.
The diacritic marks attached to the vowels are those used
in Webster's Dictionary.
The prolongation of a vowel is not regarded as a difference
of sound.
The Alphabet.
X
2
3
4
vocal *
5
e
6
y
7
. ni >g
8
voiceless h
9
vocal zh
10
voiceless sh
ii
vocal [gh]
12
voiceless [ch]
13
vocal g
14
voiceless k
palatals
a a
e a 6 a
u
e
W
rl
n
z
s
dh
th
d
t
linguals
vowels
w semi- vowels
m nasals
breathing
) sibilants
v )
> spirants
mutes
conso-
> nants
P )
labials
Words that will illustrate the sounds represented in the
several lines are :
1 alarm
2 let, care, not, awe
3 bane, bun, bone
4 bit, bird, bull
5 be, German iiber, rule
6 yet, ray, lay, way
7 onion, singing, nun, mum
8 heigh-ho
9 azure, ooze
10 hashish, sister
11 Arabic Ghizeh, thy, vow
12 German noch, thin, fife
13 grog, deed, babe
14 kick, tight, peep
The u in mule and the i in fire have been omitted because
both are composite sounds. The former = yu, and the latter
is composed of the first vowels on the first and fifth lines.
It will be seen that the sounds of u in bun and i in bird
occupy the centre of the triangle of vowels. They are indis-
tinct sounds that have been compared to the gray among
colors. All short, unaccented vowels tend to degenerate into
these obscure sounds. Observe what there is of vowel sound
9
130 The English Language.
in the last syllables of circular, paper, pallor, pillar, or the
second of atrophy, harmony.
As this is the first instance where a classification has been
necessary, it may be as well to remark once for all that in
nearly every attempt to classify a number of things some will
be found to have claims on more than one class. The claims
may be so nearly equal that to locate them anywhere will be
an arbitrary sacrifice of principle to convenience. The oldest
and most familiar division of letters is into vowels and
consonants, but then come the semi-vowels between. F is
properly enough classed with the labials. It is produced by
emitting the breath through the slight chink left in bringing
together the lower lip and the upper teeth. It is therefore
nearly as much due to the teeth as to the lips. So the nasals
are not produced by the nose, but only with its assistance.
Indeed, very few are formed without the combined action of
two or more organs. R may be pronounced as a pure
lingual when the tongue is raised and made to vibrate with
the passing vocal breath but does not touch the teeth or
palate.
The vowels are uninterrupted emissions of voice. The
passage varies in form with each, but is unobstructed.
The experiments made by Helmholtz and Koenig with
graduated tuning-forks show that the vowels, as uttered by
the same voice, are separated by regular musical intervals.
As pronounced in North Germany, Koenig found the num-
ber of vibrations to be approximately :
u o a e i
450 900 i, 800 3,600 7,200.
It is interesting to note that the old grammarians of India
regarded o as a union of a and u, and e as a combination of
a and i. (See Comptes Rendus, April 25, 1870.)
The term consonant signifies sounding along with, as if in-
capable of utterance without vowels ; but the sibilants cer-
tainly need none, and scarcely do the spirants, and / and r
are in some languages treated as vowels. We might say,
then, generally that consonants are the result of arresting or
The Alphabet. 131
obstructing the voice or breath ; but in that case what should
we say of h, which is voiceless, and in the formation of which
the breath is neither stopped nor impeded ? Still, it is true
of all other consonants, and they naturally divide themselves
into those in which there is complete closure and those that
require only various degrees of obstruction. This is there-
fore a division into momentary and continuous sounds, the
former of which are sometimes called explosives, and some-
times mutes. They are further distinguished into those
requiring the exercise of the voice and those produced by
mere voiceless breath. The former are often termed sonants
and the latter surds. Strong and weak would seem to be
more expressive. This distinction, in the case of the mutes,
is that with the weak the closure is made or broken instan-
taneously without any accompanying vocal murmur, while
an initial strong mute is preceded, and a final one followed,
by a brief resonance of the voice in the closed cavity of the
mouth and pharynx.
The want of a uniform alphabet has long been felt by mis-
sionaries, travellers, and all who have to deal with languages
that differ widely from common European standards.
Among many attempts at a uniform system of writing
second in importance only to a universal language that of
A. J. Ellis, called paleotype, and the Standard Alphabet
of Professor Lepsius of Berlin, seem at present to be re-
garded with most favor. The former is used to exhibit the
pronunciation in the great dictionary now in progress under
the auspices of the English Philological Society, and the
latter is employed by the latest edition of the " Encyclo-
paedia Britannica" in transliterating foreign names. Both
are chargeable with excessive refinement and hair-splitting,
and neither of them has been made at all intelligible to the
general reader. For these reasons, and because neither of
them has yet obtained, or is at all certain to obtain, general
acceptance, I shall not try to introduce either in this place,
although aware that it is very annoying for a reader to find
his page filled with marks to which he has no key.
CHAPTER VI.
GRIMM'S LAW.
WHEN languages closely related are compared, many
words are found in all that are much alike, both in form and
meaning, yet seldom quite the same. The following is a
very simple example :
ITALIAN
SPANISH.
PORTUGUESE.
FRENCH.
uomo
hombre
homem
homme
cavallo
caballo
cavallo
cheval
terra
tierra
terra
terre
mano
mano
mao
main.
No one of these is an imitation of another. They are
the common offspring of the Latin homo, a man ; caballus,
a pack-horse ; terra, the earth ; and manus, a hand. There
is sometimes a kind of method observable in this diversity,
Thus we have
GERMAN.
ENGLISH.
GERMAN.
ENGLISH.
Dorn
thorn
Thier
deer
Ding
dick
thing
thick
theuer
Thiir
dear
door
dun
thin
Thai
dale
durch
through
Theil
deal
Daum thumb Thau dew.
In these and a multitude of similar examples, d in either
language corresponds to th in the other.
A somewhat similar mode of comparison has been applied
to the whole Aryan family of languages, and especially in
132
Grimms Law. 133
their treatment of the instantaneous, or mute, consonants
of the three series ending in k, t, and /. (See page 128),
To these correspond the sonants g, d, b. Each of these six
may be aspirated ; but all the aspirates are seldom found in
any one language. The complete series would stand thus :
k kh g gh
t th d dh
p ph b bh
in which kh would be pronounced somewhat as in bulkhead,
gh as in big-horn, etc. Of the members now known, Sanskrit
alone has all the twelve sounds, but makes comparatively
little use of the lighter aspirates kh, th, ph, while the graver
gh, dh, and bh occur very often. Ancient Greek had the
lighter set, x> ^ Pi Latin and the other members generally
were without any. As Sanskrit is the best preserved, we
may suppose that the common mother tongue of all had
these twelve consonants. If now words containing all of
these were inherited by each of the descendants, what were
they to do with them, when they had dropped or forgotten
part of the constituent sounds. Their case would not be
very unlike the problem of placing twelve guests in eight or
nine single beds. In fact, they would often put two in a
bed, and perhaps sometimes on the principle of first come
first served. The Greek, the second best appointed, would
use x f r ^ an d g^, S f r th and dh, and cp tor ph and bh.
Latin, having no aspirates, replaced them imperfectly by
h and f, and occasionally by d and b. As an illustration of
the effect we may take a word, or rather words, very familiar
to the Latin scholar do, dare, dedi, datum, and its real or
apparent compounds, ab-do, ad-do, circum-do, con-do, sub-do, etc.
In the simple word do signifies give ; in the compounds
cited, put or place. To all appearance they are the same
word, and have been generally so regarded ; but they are
really different, and correspond to the Sanskrit da, give, and
dha, place. The Greek, though unable to preserve them
perfectly, could still keep them distinct as didomi and
tithemi.
134 The English Language.
We may now do as the Greeks did, reduce the twelve
consonants to nine, bearing in mind that the aspirates,
kk, th, ph, were comparatively little used in Sanskrit, while
gh, dh, and bh were very common. We will also premise
that Gothic will be cited as the oldest representative of a
numerous secondary family, embracing Frisian, Norse, Ice-
landic, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Saxon, English. The gen-
eral system of corresponding sounds may then be represented
in tabular form. The first line gives the sounds as spoken
by the ancient Hindoos, the second those uttered by the
Greeks in derivatives from the same words, the third those
of the Latin tongue, etc.
This table exhibits in condensed form what is known as
Grimm's Law, which may be further illustrated by tracing a
few words through their principal transformations.
Sanskrit kal, to cover or hide ; Greek kalia, a shelter ;
Latin celare, to conceal ; Irish calla, a hood ; Anglo-Saxon
helan, to hide ; English hell, hole, heal, hull.
Sansk. tan, to stretch ; Gr. tein-ein, to stretch ; Lat.
ten-uis, stretched thin; Ir. tan-aigh ; Goth, than-jan ; Eng.
thin ; Old High German diinni ; Modern H. G. diinn.
Sansk. pad, go ; Gr. pod-, Lat. ped, a foot ; Goth.
fot-u ; A.-S. fdt ; Eng. foot ; O. H. G. Vuoss ; Mod. Ger.
fuss.
Sansk. gan, to generate ; Gr. gen-os, kind ; gen-esis, origin ;
gyn-e, a woman; Lat. gen-itor ; Irish gean ; Welsh gen-i ;
Goth, kwens, kwein-s, kwin-o, a woman ; Icel. kon-a ; A.-S.
cwe"n ; Eng. queen and quean ; also Eng. kin, kin-dred, kin-d ;
O. H. G. khind, a child ; Mod. H. G. Kin-d.
Sansk. dant, a tooth ; Gr. o-dont ; Lat. dent ; Welsh
dant ; Goth, tunth ; Lithuanian dantis ; Old Saxon, Dutch,
Dan., Swed., tand ; Icel. tonn, for tannr = tand-r ; A.-S.
tdth ; Eng. tooth ; H. G. zahn.
Few words in Sanskrit begin with b ; few in Saxon and
none in Gothic, with the corresponding/.
Sansk. ghama, the earth ; Gr. cham-ai, Lat. humi, on
the ground ; Rus. zemlia, land ; Lat. homo, Goth, guma, a
man, a son of earth ; A.-S. bryd-guma, a bridegroom.
Grimms Law. 135
T3
bfl bo
bjo bJD
o k (X -^ a
43 43
4-1 V>
45 'rt
i i *~
4- >^> 4-> -4-> 4" ^
4-"
4* X
CT "J _V _V - v< n
'^-^ *~^ *"^ h/} DJD
<? ^ *
43
& 43 43 43 43 CX
M-T
a.
^
0-
TD
4->
^S " " " ^ *"
e
bX N N
"S *
bXI . . bJJ 44
v^- ao b/3
45
45
rt "1
.a 'S : e
c 5 o w
45 g J *
tyl t^l
in i)
S 5 * M
.S ^ ^ 45 *
C 4J
rt -
Jo O
JJ *O T3 T3 -g T3
j O O O
136 The English Language.
Sansk. dkran, to sound ; Gr. thren-os ; Goth, drun-yas ;
Icel. dryn-ja ; A.-S. drdn ; Eng. drone.
Sansk. bku, to exist ; Gr. e-phu, he was ; Lat. fu-i, I was ;
Welsh bu ; Irish bi ; Lith. bu-ti, to be; Goth, bau-an, to
dwell ; A.-S. bed-n ; Eng. be ; Germ. bi-n.
If we now take a somewhat narrower view of the subject,
and confine ourselves a moment to the Teutonic sub-family,
we shall find that it naturally falls into either two or three
divisions, as we may regard them. High German ; Low
German, Low Dutch or Platt Deutsch ; and Scandinavian.
The Scandinavian branch comprises the Old Norse, as the
pa-rent of the others, and the modern Icelandic, Danish, and
Swedish. Their most marked peculiarities are a suffixed
article and a reflexive form of the verb. The definite arti-
cle is attached to the noun. Thus in Icelandic :
madhr a man madhr-inn the man
sonr
a son
sonr-inn
the son
vetr
winter
vetr-inn
the winter
hridh
a storm
hridh-in
the storm
holt
a copsewood
holt-itt
the coppice
The reflexive, or passive, form of the verb is made by
appending a fragment of a pronoun signifying self Icel.
gremja, to vex ; gremja-sk, to vex one's self, to be angry. In
Danish nothing remains of the pronoun except the letter s.
at give to give at give-s to be given
at elske to love at elske-s to be loved
at finde to find at finde-s to be found
at faae to get at faae-s to be gotten
at drive to drive at drive- s to be driven
In other respects these languages belong to the Low Ger-
man branch, and High German that is, the language of the
interior, remote from the sea-coast, represented by the mod-
ern literary German stands alone in the transmutation of
sounds. This will be shown by exhibiting a few words in
ist, Gothic; 2d, Danish; 3d, Swedish; 4th, Dutch; 5th,
English ; 6th, German.
Grimms Law.
137
I.
2.
3-
4-
5-
6.
taihun
ti
tio
tien
ten
zehn
timr
timmer
timmer
timmer
timber
Zimmer
tindan
tender
tindra
tender
tinder
ziinden
tungo
tunthus
tunge
tand
tunga
tand
tong
tand
tongue
tooth
Zunge
Zahn
tvai
to
twa
twee
two
zwei
taikns
tairan
tegn
taere
tecken
tara
teeken
tornen
token
tear
Zeichen
zerren
threis
thata
thu
thaursti
than
(Icel.) thrir
" that
" thu
" thyrstr
" thann
(The sounds of th are
wanting in all but Eng-
lish and Icelandic.
three
that
thou
thirst
than, then
drei
das
Du
Durst
dann, denn
thagks
dags
dails
" thakkir
dag (Dan.)
deel
dag
del
day
deel
thanks
day
deal
Dank
Tag
Teil
dal
dal
dal
dal
dale
Thai
dauhtar
daur
datter
dor
dotter
d6rr
dochter
deur
daughter
door
Tochter
Tiire
dragen
dreiban
drage
drive
draga
drefva
dreggen
drijven
drag
drive
tragen
treiben
It follows that of all the languages of this sub-family the
literary German of to-day is the most remote from our own.
The shifting of consonants is not confined to the initial
sounds, as will be seen by the following additional exam-
ples confined to the English and German.
crib
double
stubble
lead
Krippe
doppel
Stoppel
leiten
ladder
Leiter
leaf
Laub
life
Leben
calf
Kalb
bridge
ridge
Briicke
Rticken
ship
sweep
water
Schiff
schweifen
Wasser
cat
Katze
malt
Maltz
salt
Saltz
earth
Erde
wether
Widder
give
love
geben
Liebe
CHAPTER VII.
PRONUNCIATION AND SPELLING.
IT is not the intention here to show how all words should
be written and spoken. For information on these points, as
on many others, the reader is referred to the dictionaries ;
but as our spelling is admitted to abound in anomalies it is
my purpose to make these a little more intelligible, by show-
ing how some of them arose.
This chapter has been headed advisedly, Pronunciation
and Spelling, thus giving the spoken word precedence over
the written, contrary to what I suppose to be the popular
judgment. Languages are spoken long before they are writ-
ten. Very few are written yet to any considerable extent.
Were it possible to take an account of the words spoken
and written on any one day, I doubt not the former would
outnumber the latter a hundred to one. Writing is to
speech as a portrait to the living face an attempt to repre-
sent and perpetuate a perishable original. A man may not
look like his portrait, but in that case which is correct ? Our
aim should be not to pronounce as we spell, but to spell as
we pronounce.
Pronunciation and spelling agree and are consistent when
the same written signs no matter what they may be al-
ways represent the same sounds. They disagree when the
same characters are assigned to different sounds, or different
characters by turns to the same sounds. The English c and
g represent at least two unlike sounds each, while f, ff, gh t
and ph are used for the same sound. Twelve different com-
binations are put for the vowel sound heard in peel, and eleven
138
Pronunciation and Spelling. 1 39
for that in no. In though half the word is in the position of
a representative without a constituency, and the g in gaol
is a peculiar and solitary exception. There is not a single
letter in our alphabet that always stands for the same sound.
R comes the nearest to it ; but in regard to that letter there
is considerable diversity both in theory and practice, and it
seems in danger of being entirely lost.
In looking for the cause of these divergences we observe
that people do not all pronounce alike, even when brought
up amid the same surroundings. Minute peculiarities of
organization combine with diversities of tastes, associations,
and pursuits to produce dialectic differences of localities,
families, classes, and trades. Webster's Dictionary gives
a list of 1,275 words in the pronunciation of which
authorities are not agreed ; and the differences among these
experts are sometimes quite considerable. Again, our ears
agree about as little as our tongues. If a foreigner were to
recite to a hundred persons a sentence of say twenty words
in his native tongue and manner, to which all were strangers,
and they were to take the words down from his dictation,
they would undoubtedly make a hundred discordant reports.
In the third place, with a system of writing like ours, persons
left to their own unaided judgment will differ much in their
application of letters to express sounds. In examining many
letters from various parts of Europe and America some of
them wonderfully spelled, I have had the curiosity to note
in how many ways the same word would be written, and I
have found 210 variant attempts to write the single word com-
mutation, all in good faith and under circumstances to put
the writers on their best behavior.
Moreover, when words are once committed to writing they
remain in that form to be read for centuries, while living
speech moves away, leaving them behind like old water-
marks, showing the former course of an ever-shifting stream.
And this is the principal cause of the divergence between
pronunciation and spelling. When Butler celebrates the
linguistic acquirements of Hudibras he represents that his
hero
140 The English Language.
" made some think when he did gabble,
Th' had heard three laborers of Babel,
Or Cerberus himself pronounce
A leash of languages at once."
These now seem poor rhymes ; but when men said Bab-el
and pronunce they were perfect.
Finally, if a set of characters were invented expressly for
one language of few and simple sounds, the adaptation might
be perfect till the language changed. This temporary suc-
cess was probably attained by the Devanagari and Arabic
alphabets and the Japanese and Cherokee syllabaries. An
Indian chief is said to have written a letter in the last-named
characters the day he first saw them, so easy it is to learn
a system at once simple and self-consistent. But a bor-
rowed alphabet, like a borrowed coat, is very apt to be a
misfit.
Now to apply these general considerations to our mother
tongue, we learn that in Saxon England considerable diver-
sities of speech prevailed, whence probably originated the
present rustic dialects. Among these, through the political
ascendancy of Wessex and the learning and patriotic labors
of King Alfred, West-Saxon attained a temporary suprem-
acy and has been regarded as the typical Anglo-Saxon. The
Angles and Saxons had come from the shores of the North
Sea as unlettered pagans. The religion and civilization of
the Mediterranean coasts were brought to them by Christian
missionaries. Their runes and beechen tablets where ex-
changed for Roman letters, parchment, pens, and ink. In
adapting the new alphabet to their wants they rejected k,
q, and z, and they did not distinguish j from i or v from u.
They retained an old rune to represent the sound of th in
thin, and crossed a d (i$) for the th in then, as the Romans
had no way of expressing these sounds. They introduced w
with the same power as at present. Setting aside minor
distinctions of different writers, the Anglo-Saxon alphabet
represented the following sounds :
Pronunciation and Spelling. 141
A, as in hart ; never as in hate or hare ; d, as in hall, or as in
far.
B, as in babe.
C, " " case ; never as in cease or cheese.
D, " " deed.
E, " " men ; /, as a in mane ; indistinct when final, but not
silent.
F, as nearly v as possible.
G, as in go, not as in gin ; like y before e and /.
H, " " home, when initial ; in the middle or end of a syllable,
like the German or Scotch ch the lost sound of
English.
I, as in tin ; t, as in machine.
L, M, N, as at present.
O, d, as in Soho ' !
P, as in puppet, but rarely beginning native words.
R, trilled, or fully sounded.
S, as s, when double, or when preceded or followed by c, p, or
t ; otherwise like z.
T, as at present.
U, like the vowels in cuckoo.
W, as at present never silent.
X, seldom used, and then as a monogram for hs, or an ana-
gram for sc.
Y, y, as the French u and the German ii.
Th (a single character) acquired the two values of ih in thin
and in thine.
D = th in thy.
The chief diphthongs were :
ae = a in care ; a, the same prolonged.
ail, aw, ow = ow in now.
ie, the same as / followed by a faint e.
ea, ea, eo, /<?, the vowels pronounced separately, with the prin-
cipal stress on the first.
As a scheme of sounds, this alphabet had one represented
by h, now lost. On the other hand there is no indication of
the sounds which we represent by J, ch, sh, oi, i in pine, u
in mule, II in million, n in pinion, z in azure ; and we have
142 The English Language.
many delicate distinctions which might be sought for in vain
in the primitive language, at least at this distance of time.
Some of the relations between pronunciation and spelling
that strike us now as most characteristic are these :
1. Every letter was sounded, although e final, or following
i, had a tendency to become indistinct and faint. Initial w
was pronounced before r in such words as writan, to write ;
zvreccan, to avenge ; so also c before , as in cnif, a knife ;
cnedan, to knead.
2. An initial h, of which there is now no trace left, often
preceded /, n, or r, as in hldf, bread, a loaf ; hltid, loud ;
hnappian, to nap, to slumber ; hrdf, a roof.
"Tha hnappodon hie ealle, and slepon." 1 SAXON GOSPELS.
3. Cw was written where we now put qu cwic, quick,
alive ; cwealm, a qualm, sickness.
4. Our ancestors wrote Jnv where we absurdly write wh
hwd, who ; hwcet, what ; hwczther, whether.
From Saxon times to ours there has been incessant change
now rapid, now slow, but always change. The general
tendency of the change, as shown in the chapter on the
formation of words, has been to shorten and simplify to
make speech easier. It has been said that the words used
by the older nations were a great deal too long. In these
busy ages we have had to shorten many of them. Take the
following as examples :
andswarian
aeghvvsether
setspeornan
aheardian
to answer
either
to spurn
to harden
gegadrian
cyning
butan
betweonan
to gather
a king
but
between
beheafdian
to behead
hlaford 9
lord
afhreowan
nase-thyrel
to rue
nostril
hlafdige *
wif-man
lady
woman
1 Then they all napped and slept.
2 The derivation of these two interesting words is uncertain. The first part
is clearly filaf, bread ; ord is probably a contraction for weard, a guard ; and
dige may be allied to the Gothic digan, to knead, prepare bread. On this sup-
position lady would have meant once, bread-maker, and lord bread-protector.
Pronunciation and Spelling. 143
For ages spelling was quite irregular. The Saxon word
to ask is found in the forms : ascian, ahsian, acsian, axian,
acsigan, axigean. In the absence of all authoritative stand-
ards, each writer made his own spelling as he went along.
It was quite common to write the same word differently even
in the same sentence. Some words had at least two pro-
nunciations, and a still greater number of spellings a con-
siderable convenience in versification. This fluctuating
orthography continued till the sixteenth century, and has
not yet entirely disappeared. Edmund Paston, writing to
his wife in the year of the discovery of America, called her
indifferently his wyve, ivyffe, ivyveffe, or wyffve; while the
good dame subscribes herself with phonetic brevity : " Your
yf, M. P." Personal names have been the most cruelly
treated. The acts of their martyrdom test the power of
believing. The editors of " Webster's Dictionary " assert
that the name of Mainwaring is written 131 different ways
in the family documents. But for the last three hundred
years spelling has been becoming both more simple and more
uniform. The uniformity at least has been greatly pro-
moted by the printers, and the wide distribution of standard
works precisely alike in every letter. There is no doubt
much to be accomplished yet, for in addition to the varying
pronunciation of many words, and the want of a constant
agreement between the written and spoken language, there
are many words Webster gives a list of 1,550 whose
orthography is unsettled.
In regard to changes in pronunciation and spelling, four
cases may be distinguished :
1st. Both may remain unchanged.
2d. Pronunciation may hold its place, while the spelling
changes.
3d. The opposite may take place.
4th. Both may change together, or in diverse directions.
Of these the first two are very rare, the last two very
common. Land was written and no doubt spoken fifteen
centuries ago as it is now ; so too crisp, den, fox, hand, sand,
timber, and winter have come down from our Saxon fathers
144 The English Language.
with scarcely a shade of change. Under the second head,
the Saxons pronounced door and drink as we do, but wrote
them otherwise. As to the third, we find, for example, in a
credo of the thirteenth century the word grace written as at
the present time, but its pronunciation we would be apt to
represent as grassy, also maiden (the Virgin) pronounced
miden, and Pilate, Peelahty. The great body of the words
do not remain the same, either to the eye or the ear.
But before going further we must adopt for the nonce some
system for representing spoken sounds. For the remainder
of this chapter, therefore, the following characters, when
placed in parentheses, will be used to indicate pronunciation,
not as being highly consistent or scientific, but because they
seem as little likely as any to be misunderstood. Mere pro-
longation, or the time occupied in utterance, will not be
distinguished into long and short when the sound is the same.
aa, for the vowel in arm, parameter.
a, as in man, fat.
ae, " " care, fair, there,
ai, " " fain, fane,
aw, " " law, fall, thought.
ch, " " church,
dh, like th in this, that,
ee, as in meet, receive.
e, " " met.
e, " person neither purson, parson, nor pairson.
f, " " fluffy.
g, " " grog, not gin.
h, when alone, as in high, hill, but representing different sounds
when combined, as in ch, dh, gh, kh, sh, th, zh.
ii, as in fire, dry, aye.
w, " fine, rhyme,
i, " " tin.
kh, the lost sound of English Scotch and German ch.
gh : kh : : g : k.
oa, the vowel in moan, loan, lone, lo, low, though,
o, " " " not.
oe, " " " girl, pearl, berth.
Pronunciation and Spelling. 145
oi, as in toil, toy.
ow, ' " house, owl, bough.
r, distinctly sounded, not reduced to h, w, or nothing,
sh, as in shallowish.
th, " " thin,
uu, " " rule, food, two, through.
u, " " but, flood.
, " " full, put, foot,
ue, the French #, or the German '.
yu, the u in mule, use, few.
y, as in yoke ; when final and unaccented, as in penny,
zh, like the s in pleasure, the z in azure.
This is but a rough scale of sounds easily distinguished.
Those who have made a life-study of orthoepy discover a
great number of intermediate shades that elude the common
sense and sometimes perplex the professional ear. The most
laborious investigator, Mr. A. J. Ellis, thus recapitulates the
results of analyses of long i, as represented by different
authors :
" Sheridan and Knowles Ai
Haldeman a\
Walker and Melville Bell ai accented
Melville Bell ahi unaccented
Londoners aei
Scotch e\, ei, Ei, a\, ahi
Wilkins and Franklin ai
Wallis and Smart aoi '
Now this being the sound of the personal pronoun, is heard every
day, and constantly ; but after competent orthoepists have care-
fully examined it, they are unable to agree as to its analysis."
The meaning of the analysis is not important to our
present purpose. The point to notice is the failure to agree
as to the best way to
" distinguish and divide
A hair 'twixt south and south-west side."
1 Intended to represent twelve different pronunciations.
146 The English Language.
The letters b, d, f, I, m, n, p, r, s, t, w, x have continued
to represent the same sounds for a thousand years, with this
qualification, that originally f was often v, a value that it
now has only in of; that s once had the sound of z more
frequently than now ; and that s and / now combine with h
and i to express peculiar sounds. K, q, and z have remained
unchanged since they came into the language, except in
the termination que from the French. The vowels are the
unstable elements.
Many letters are retained in positions where they repre-
sent no sounds. They are then called silent letters, and are
analogous to the rudimentary organs known to comparative
anatomy surviving traces of parts that once performed real
duties. They could have become thus mute and inglorious
only through decay and phonetic degradation.
A final b has become silent after m in bomb, climb, comb,
crumb, dumb, lamb, limb, jamb, numb, plumb, thumb, tomb,
and womb. It is still sounded in corymb, dithyramb, and
rhomb, from the Greek.
Final e is silent in modern English except in a few words
borrowed from the Greek. It is also silent when followed
only by s, as in blades, hides, mines, except when preceded
by a sibilant sound passes, wishes, watches, wages, foxes.
This silent e arises in several ways, through degradation of
some fuller sound, as a result of inflexion ; or it may be
a part of the original word. In the earlier forms of the lan-
guage it was always heard, as it still is in German. But the
German poets omit it wherever such omission suits their
verse, marking its place by a (') as is often done in English :
" Heav'n never took a pleasure or a pride
In starving stomachs."
PETER PINDAR.
But our early poets wrote the words in full, omitting the
superfluous letters in reading. This practice can be dis-
tinctly traced as far back as the thirteenth century. In the
following specimen from that period the silent letters are
italicized :
Pronunciation and Spelling. 147
" If man him bithocte,
Inderlik<? and ofte,
Wu ard<? is te fore
Fro bedde te flore,
Wu reuful is te flitte
Fro flore te pitte
Fro pitte te pine
That neure sal fine
I wene non sinne
Suld<? his herte winnen."
The same usage is observable in the " Prisoner's Prayer "
and Layamon's " Brut " assigned to the earlier part of the
same century. The plural termination es was treated sub-
stantially in the same manner as final e. Chaucer (end of
the fourteenth century) made "wyves" rhyme with "live
is." Mr. Ellis, from an examination of the prologue to the
" Canterbury Tales," found final e pronounced before a conso-
nant or at the end of a line 658 times, elided, principally
before a vowel or h, 622 times. Es was fully pronounced
124 times, reduced to s 18 times. That is, the versification
required these letters to be so treated. By the time when
Spenser wrote the final e was mute, and only the ed of the
past tense or participle was heard as a separate syllable.
G and k before n in the same syllable are now silent, as in
gnaw and know. G is in like manner silent before m. There
was once a g in flail, hail, nail, rail, sail, tail, main, rain,
wain, day, say, way, draw, law, saw, buy? and many others,
where there is no longer a trace of it left even in writing.
It is silent in sign, but heard in signature ; and similar pairs
may be made of benign, benignant, paradigm, paradigmatic,
etc.
Seven words heir, herb, honest, honor, hostler, hour, and
humor that come to us through the French, begin with
silent h. It is not heard after ex, as in exhaust, exhort.
In ck, one letter is as good as both, and k may generally
be regarded as the intruder.
1 It is preserved in bought.
148 The English Language.
In an earlier stage of the language there was an / in as,
bag, each, suck, which, foumart, hawser, jasmine, and savage.
It is written but not pronounced in balm, calm, qualm, calf,
half, talk, walk, salmon, salve ; still sounded in film, helm,
realm, whelm, solder, soldier, and talc. In the old word
salver, a quack, it is silent, but heard in salver, a dish. Its
position is insecure in haulm, solder, and soldier ; so that we
have here a letter in all stages of decay. There are fading
letters also in gimblct, handsel, castle, pestle, trestle, pumpkin,
raspberry, rundlct, and others.
M is silent only in mnemonics and allied words from the
Greek juvj/jsr/, memory. The Greeks, although notably well
supplied with vowels, admitted combinations of consonants
that seem to us unpronounceable. In adopting Greek
words we generally write a representation of all the letters
and the aspirate, but sometimes have to leave part of them
unspoken, of which an extreme example is phthisis.
N is now silent in damn, hymn, kiln, 1 solemn.
Initial/ is silent before n, s, and /, from the Greek pneu-
monia, psalm, ptyalism. In ptarmigan from the Gaelic, it is
intruded by mistake, but not pronounced.
The suppression of r is seriously threatened, and some of
us may live to see and not hear it.
5 is silent in aisle and island. It properly belongs in neither.
Letters have often been intruded and after a time dropped.
Aisle is from the French aile, from the Latin ala ; island \s
from the Middle English Hand, A.-S. ig-land, in which ig
alone means an island, like the Icelandic ey compare
Aldern-rj/ Angles-^j, Guerns-^j', Orkn-^y, Rams-^y. The
error arose from supposing the word indentical with isle^ a
form ground down from the Latin insula.
7 is silent in many situations ; between g and a vowel
guard, guess, guide, guy ; in the digraph ou, sounded as o,
and the terminations^-/^ and que, imitated from the French.
W\s now silent before r, as in wrack, wren, wring, wrong,
wrung; although I was accustomed in youth to hear it
1 A.-S. cyln from the I .at. culina.
Pronunciation and Spelling. 149
pronounced in such words. It is also silent before h in who,
whole, whoop, and whore. The w was foisted upon the three
latter words in the sixteenth century, and who is from A.-S.
hwd. When final w follows a, it merely determines the
sound of that letter, as in draw and law. After o it
either forms a perfect diphthong, as in now, or is very faintly
heard, as in know.
Intruded letters that is, not belonging to the earlier
forms of words are the converse of silent letters. In the
latter case a part of the old is dropped, in the former some-
thing foreign is added. When they arise without effort,
while the organs of speech are changing from one articulating
position to another, they are called excrescent. Such are
the b after m and the d after n. B is excrescent in chamber,
clamber, cucumber, limber, (of a cannon), number, lumber
(the verb), remember, timber, assemble, bramble, dissemble,
crumble, fumble, gamble, grumble, humble, mumble, nimble,
ramble, resemble, rumble, stumble ; crumb, numb, thumb, limb
(of a tree). The limb of the sun or of a sextant is from the
Latin limbus, a border. Part of these are sounds introduced
to round out words to goodlier proportions, and after a
time abandoned. D is excrescent in tender, thunder, and
yonder. Pis excrescent in swamp, and /is intruded m fault
and vault, and c into scythe, through misunderstanding.
We come next to sounds that have not ceased but changed.
A, primarily (aa), then passing to (aw) on the one hand
and (ae) on the other ; in time filling up the spaces between
a and u, and between a and e, with two indeterminate series
of intermediate sounds. The general tendency, still more
marked in French than in English, is to narrow the aperture
of the mouth, and utter what might not inaptly be called
thin, slender, weak sounds. As these seem especially
adapted to the female voice, the tendency is often called
effeminacy. It comes under the more general head of
economy of exertion, in short, laziness, the dry-nurse of
language. One of the greatest changes has been the exten-
sive reduction of a from (aa) to (ai), begun about the close
of the sixteenth century, and brought to nearly its present
150 The English Language.
point in the eighteenth century. So great a change could
not have been effected suddenly. In passing from (aa) to
(ai), the pronunciation must have been successively (a) and
(ae), which almost entirely supplanted the original sound in
the seventeenth century. In the middle of the sixteenth
century ale was pronounced (aal), face (faas), able (aab'l),
bake (baak) ; and we see what they have come to now. The
several sounds now represented by a are exemplified by
far, fan, fare, fane on the one hand, and wharf, fall on the
other. Our dictionaries represent wharf as equivalent to
whorf, which to my ear would be a faulty pronunciation.
I should reckon the word intermediate between /#//" and hall.
Ae was common in Anglo-Saxon with a range of sound
iroTd fan to fare. In the thirteenth century it went out of
use, being replaced by a and e. This digraph was reintroduced
in the seventeenth century to represent the Latin ae and the
Greek ai. It is found in no native English word, and has
always the value of the long e of the period.
Ai and ay == (ii), until the latter part of the sixteenth
century, since which time the value (ai) has spread to all
accented syllables except aye, meaning yes. In the termi-
nations of captain, bargain, etc., it is obscure and = (i).
The point of Shakespeare's pun (" Henry IV.," part i., act.
2, sc. 4.) depended on adopting a pronunciation then new.
He did not, as some have supposed, call raisins (reezins),
but reasons (raizins). The Scotch word plaid, which does
not mean a kind of cloth, but a kind of garment, is incor-
rectly pronounced plad in England and America.
" If they hae twenty thousand blades
And we twice ten times ten,
Yet they hae but their tartan plaids
And we are mail-clad men."
SCOTT'S "Antiquary."
Ao is never recognized as a genuine English combination,
and is found representing a single sound only in gaol, extra-
ordinary, and Pharaoh, the sound being different in each.
The order of derivation of gaol is : Lat. cavea, a coop or
Pronunciation and Spelling. 151
cage ; Low Lat. gabia, gabiola ; Old French gayole, gaole ;
Eng. of the thirteenth century gayole and gayhol. The
modern Fr. is gedle, from which the present pronunciation
may have come. Jail has been used as an alternate form
since the first part of the sixteenth century, taking the place
of an earlier gail and gay I. Jay, the name of a bird, has
passed through changes similar to those of jail. In extra-
ordinary, two vowels that originally belonged to different
syllables are now run together. The same is true of Pharaoh.
Ail = (ow) up to the end of the sixteenth century, since
which it has passed through various shades of transforma-
tion, ending for the most part in (aw). There are exceptions,
however. In aunt, avaunt, daunt, flaunt, gauge, gaunt, gaunt-
let, haunch, haunt, jaundice, jaunt, jaunty, laugh, launce,
launch, staunch, stauncheon, taunt, vaunt the u is not heard.
The au in hautboy and hauteur still retains the French value
(oa). Meerschaum, a recent German importation, is variously
pronounced (mairshowm, meershawm, meershum).
Aw was little used in early times, the preference being
given to au. The value has always been the same as that of
au, except that in modern times it is exclusively (aw).
C in the Saxon period = k, as now in call, close, etc. By
the twelfth century it began to = s before e and i. An
Ave Maria of that period runs :
" Moder of milce ' and Maiden Mari
Help us at ure hending for thi merci."
The combination ch was rare and late. There is in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford a manuscript referred to the
tenth century, containing a transliteration of parts of the
Greek Scriptures into Anglo-Saxon letters. Ch occurs there
with the value (kh), which it continued occasionally to
represent until the loss of that sound. By the twelfth
century, if not earlier, it had become also (ch), as in the
ballad of " King Horn."
The transformation of (k) to (ch) is one of the great
changes of our language. Much the largest part of the
1 A.-S. milts, compassion.
152 The English Language.
words containing the latter sound are from the French.
The next greatest part are native, the result of imitation.
The remainder are from the most various sources, as chert,
chimpanzee, china, and chocolate words from the four quar-
ters of the globe. In the Saxon words that have undergone
this change, the c was followed by e, z, or y. The sound (ee),
represented in most languages by i, is produced by raising
the front part of the tongue close to the palate, leaving but
a narrow seam for the emission of the voice. The effect
upon a preceding consonant is like the injection of the semi-
vowel y. In one form or other this palatalization is wide-
spread in our language, and still more prevalent in some
others, notably Icelandic.
Icelandic bjalla pronounced byalla a bell
djup dyuup deep
gjald gyald payment
Scotch heuk hyuuk a hook
pock pyok a small bag
Virginian card kyard
garden gyarden
Italian figlio filyo a son
magno manyo great
English few, dew, demure, enure, sure.
The letter e in Anglo-Saxon must have produced some-
what the same effect, as may be aptly shown by comparing
a few Icelandic and Saxon words.
Icelandic fjon A.-S. fe6n hate
fjandi " feond fiend
kjaptr ceaftas (Scotch) chafts
kjosa " ceosan to choose
kjuklingr " cicen chicken
mjolk " meolc milk
skjota " sceotan to shoot
41 skjalf " scylfe a shelf .
" ceaf chaff
" ceorl churl
Pronunciation and Spelling.
153
Thus the palatalization of c resulted in ch, a change not
at all confined to English. The Sanskrit cha andja are held
to have been thus derived from ka and ga, and in Italian c,
before e and i, is pronounced (ch). The change is the most
sweeping in French, where the c of the Latin ca becomes
regularly ch, pronounced (sh).
Campus becomes champ
canis chien
caput chef
castellum chateau
causa " chose
bucca becomes bouche
furca fourche
perca perche
peccare pecher
vacca " vache
The transformation, supposed to have been accomplished
before the eighth century, can only be understood as effected
gradually and in the direction of (k), (kh), (ky), (ch), (sh).
The influence of the Norman French was doubtless one of
the principal causes of the similar change in English.
The same palatalizing tendency transformed ci, si, and ti,
when followed by a vowel and not accented into (sh)
ancient, pension, action. But this process was not com-
pleted till near the close of the seventeenth century.
When c became ch, sc naturally followed as sch, from
which c was after a time dropped, leaving sh, as now.
When words containing ch are borrowed from French, and
it is thought worth while to keep their foreign origin in view,
the ch is pronounced (sh) as in chaise, charade, machine.
In a few Saxon words ce or ci occurs twice, leaving the
option to change either pair, or both, or neither. Of cicen we
have made chicken ; of cicene we make kitchen; and from
circe, or cirice, with the Icelandic kirkja, come the Scot-
tish kirk, Chaucer's chirche and the modern church.
In words derived from Greek, either directly or through
the Latin, ch is very generally (k), but there are such excep-
tions as chart, schism, schist. We are reminded at every
step that human speech is not laid down once for all by the
line and the square. What words will yield to any fashion
or usage and what will escape no one can foresee.
154 The English Language.
The palatalization of the c gave occasion for the doctrine,
more prevalent in the last century than now, that it cannot
end any English word. If in combination or inflexion it
should come to be followed by e or i, how should it be pro-
nounced ? If, like our Saxon ancestors, we were to write
cwic instead of quick, ought we not also to write cwicer and
cwicest ? as I saw a short time ago the people of the prov-
ince of Quebec called Quebecers without knowing how to
pronounce the word. Indeed the rule in question is still
substantially in force. Words of one syllable, the most apt
to add cr and est, as black, slack, thick, retain the k. The
only monosyllables ending in c are arc, disc, fisc, lac, marc,
ore, ploc, roc, sac, soc, talc, tic, and zinc, which scarcely admit
of inflexion, and are not very often used. Finally, as a last
resort, the k can be restored, as in rollicking and frolicking.
E. The so-called short sounds of the vowels, a, e, i, o,
have undergone little change in a thousand years, while the
long values of the first three are the most unstable elements
in the language. There has been a shifting of places among
the first three vowels. There was originally a series of sounds
represented by a, e, i, ai, now represented by ah, a, e, i.
E then was originally like (ai) in pain, the short sound, as in
pen, having been always the same. Doubling of the letter
made no difference but to show its length. By the middle of
the sixteenth century the sound began to be attenuated, and
the, be, bee, me, we, he, she were among the first words to give
way and be pronounced as at present. The prevailing value
is now (ee), heard in all cases of the doubled e, of the single
in an open syllable, or followed by a silent e, except a few
words, as ere, e'er, there, were, where, containing the disturb-
ing letter r. To these may be added most syllables contain-
ing ea, ei, and ie a vast number of words in which (ai) has
given place to the thinner, sharper sound (ee).
Ea had been occasionally written by Chaucer without dif-
fering in value from e ; but in the middle of the sixteenth
century, when the single vowel was fast yielding to the new
fashion, ea was adopted as an orthographical expedient to
distinguish those words that still retained the sound of (ai).
Pronunciation and Spelling. 155
It was thus set up as a fragile bulwark against the tide of
innovation, only to be swept away in its turn in a wreck of
fragments as various as beam, bread, break, dearth, and heart.
But this took two hundred years, during which each succes-
sive chronicler of the language recorded fresh encroach-
ments. The Scotch and English colonists planted in
Ireland by James I. carried with them their respective
pronunciations of the end of the sixteenth century, and
whoever listens to an intelligent Irishman fresh from the sod
may haply hear some of the following illustrations of the
Elizabethan era :
preach Irish praich bold Irish bowld
receive resaiv soul sowl
mean main roll rowl
supreme shupraim chair chiir
The tendency to thin and palatal sounds was carried so
far that before the middle of the eighteenth century many
words had acquired the sound of (ee) from which custom has
receded. A chair was commonly pronounced cheer ; a
steak, steek ; great, greet ; and oblige, obleej ; some of which
may perhaps still be heard from old persons.
E has the sound of (ae) when followed by r in there, were,
and a few others ; but (ee) is more common even in such
situations as mere, sere, persevere.
In syllables like ber, her, mer,per, ser, when accented, e has
a delicate and peculiar sound that can best be learned from
a lady born to the use of the English tongue. ^"hus perfect
is neither par feet, r\or paerfect, nor purfect ; yet there are a
few words in which the people of England pronounce er as
ar, saying Darby, dark, sarjeant. It is a seventeenth-cen-
tury usage which clings chiefly to a few local and aristocratic
family names.
Eau is from the French, and with two exceptions is still
imperfectly assimilated to our language and retains the value
(oa). The exceptions are beaufin, a variety of apple, pro-
nounced biffin, and beauty. The first word has been treated
as French names of fruits now are by our nurserymen and
156 The English Language.
farmers. Beauty has long been domiciled among us, from
Old French and must have been called byowty, a pronuncia-
tion that I heard from old people in my childhood. Tyn-
dale and Sir Thomas More wrote bewty, which fixes its
pronunciation for the first part of the sixteenth century.
Ei was in use as early as the thirteenth century, and for
more than three hundred years represented (ii). The sound
then began to pass into (ae'ee), somewhat as we should pro-
nounce they, in attempting to give each vowel distinctly.
Next the second vowel was slurred over entirely, and tow-
ard the close of the seventeenth century deceive, receive,
conceit, either, heifer, leisure, purveigh, seize were all pro-
nounced with the sound (ai). So late as 1704, Dr. John
Jones could declare (perhaps rashly) that ei never repre-
sented what is now its value in seize. The eighteenth cen-
tury made the digraph what it is now prevailingly (ee). Still
it represents the various shades in heifer, heir, feign, forfeit,
height, deceive. Thus in less than two hundred years a single
pronunciation is split into six. Herbert Spencer's doctrine
of the differentiation of the homogeneous finds nowhere
apter illustrations than in language.
To the question which is preferable, iither or eether, it may
be answered that there is no principle on which it can be
decided. The former was once the only pronunciation ;
the latter is now the prevalent one ; but which may fall
to the lot of any word is as much a matter of chance as
cases of snake-bite or hydrophobia. The party of (ii) has a
respectable following in height, sleight, heighho, and a number
of late importations from the Greek, as kaleidopJione, ophi-
cleide, pleiocene, and pleistocene. Still the natural tendency
of the language is towards (ee). We might indeed com-
promise, as Dr. Johnson, when asked whether he would
say eether or iither, is related to have answered, " Naither,
Sir."
Eo is a combination of vowels inherited from the Anglo-
Saxon, in which they were pronounced separately, with a
little more stress on the one than the other. When the
accent was on the first the tendency was to become merely
Pronunciation and Spelling. 157
e ; if on the second, to become yo. Eo occurs in George,
leopard, people, and in the rare or obsolete words feod, feoff,
jeopardy, and yeoman, with five different values. It is also
found in the termination eon in bludgeon, pigeon, surgeon, etc.,
where it degenerates into the common obscure (#). The e,
however, may be considered as serving no other purpose
than to give the value of j to g. People comes to us from
the Latin populus, through the Old French pueple. The
English spellings are imitations. Poeple occurs in the " Vision
of Piers Plowman," and Chaucer wrote peple, peeple, and poe-
ple. Whichever vowel was placed first, the two were equiva-
lent to e alone, which was the general value of eo in Middle
English. Yeoman is a word of obscure origin, variously
written, but most frequently yeman.
" A lytle boy among them asked,
What meaned that gallow-tre ?
They sayde to hange a good yeman,
Called Wyllyam of Cloudesle." '
Jeopardy is from the Old French jcu parti, a game of
chance in which the chances were equal, which was therefore
risky on both sides spelling and pronunciation various like
the last. Feoff is likewise Old French, with similar uncer-
tainty of spelling, but always spoken fef. Feod is perhaps
remotely from the Icelandic/?VMtf/, a heritable estate. The
dictionaries give the absurd pronunciation feud, which suits
the Low Latin and French forms of the word. Leopard is
of course Latin. A consistent pronunciation of these two
words would have been /"/-#</ and le"-o-pard, but would be too
much labor.
Eu and Eiv. In most instances we find one original sound
dividing into several, but here are two sounds coalescing
into one. In the fourteenth century there were two classes
of words, respectively of Saxon and French origin, but
written alike, indifferently with eu, ue, ew, ewe, the sound
of the former class being that heard in certain rural pro-
nunciations in New England, as keozv, teown, neow ; the
1 " Adam Bell, dim of the Clough and William of Cloudeslee."
"158 The English Language.
latter (ue). During the sixteenth century the distinction
became forgotten and unheeded ; and now, with two or
three exceptions, we call them all (yu). But as we can no
longer utter that sound after r, we say run and thruu. Shew
is now pronounced (shoa), and in this country is generally
and consistently written show. Shrew is now pronounced
(shruu), although the readers of Shakespeare will recall the
lines :
" Hor. Now go thy ways ; thou hast tam'd a curst shrew.
Luc. 'T is a wonder, by your leave, she will be tam'd so."
" Taming of the Shrew."
Sewer was, until lately, often written and pronounced
shore. Compare Shore-ditch, London. Strew is regular in
pronunciation. It is recent ; the older forms, straw and
strow, running back side by side to Saxon times.
Sew stands alone in the perfect antagonism between the
written and the spoken word.
Ewe may be construed as ew with the addition of a final
silent e, which applies equally to all such words as tie, toe,
rue, dye, etc.
Ey. What has been said of ei applies equally to ey ; as *
and y were used interchangeably from the middle of the
thirteenth to the end of the sixteenth century. Ey has
passed through the same transitions as ei, eye being a solitary
relic of the oldest usage, sley, convey, obey, abeyance of the
seventeenth-century pronunciation, and key (Irish kay) the
later attenuation. As a termination ey is equivalent to y
and fluctuates between (ai) and (ee), as in alley, valley, pulley.
F has always had the same pronunciation in English,
except in the modern of = (ov).
G, initial before everything but e, i, and y was always g, as
at present ; before these vowels it was (y) until the sound
passed gradually into the modern (j). Often in the middle,
and always at the end of words, except after n, it was (gh)
not easily distinguished from (kh). In modern usage the
primary sound (g) has gained on the others, and we have
Pronunciation and Spelling. 159
get, gild, give instead of jet, jild, jive. This is not actual
etymology, but only an indication of the change in the value
of the letters. G combines with a preceding n and with a
following h (which see below). Judgement is now almost uni-
versally written judgment. Abridgment and lodgment are
also common, a violation of general usage poorly compen-
sated by the economy of a single letter. But the practice is
not new. Sir J. Finett wrote in 1656:
" At the furthest end of the town eastward, the ambassador's
house was appointed, but not yet lodgable"
King James's Bible, Ed. 1613 and Shakespeare, Ed. 1623,
have the full form judgement.
Many words which in Saxon began with g are now written
with y, as yard, yell, year, young, the sound having never
changed.
H represents a jerked emission of voiceless breath, the
organs of speech being generally, but not necessarily, in
the position for uttering the succeeding sound. This has
always been its character at the beginning of a syllable.
Uncombined it ends no English word except a few exclama-
tions. It combines with c, g, p, s, and t to represent a
variety of sounds, all of which except the first are simple,
and should be expressed by single letters. H is pronounced
with some difficulty before or after a consonant, although
the Saxons seem to have found it easy enough before /, n,
and r ; and the escape of a little breath after consonants
produced the Sanskrit and Greek aspirates. The present
Irish occasionally aspirate perfectly. I remember to have
listened with wonder when a child to a travelling Hibernian
(modern tramp) who thus set forth his own erudition :
" I was once in the cap'haacity of a t'haicher, an' I cud t'haich
aanything that iver was t'haicht be man Haibra, Aljaibra,
Matthamaatics, or aanything at haal."
What is called Cockneyism originates in the slight diffi-
culty of uttering two successive vowels, or an h after a
160 The English Language.
consonant. One who should try to say " a ass and an
horse" would be very liable to say " a hass and an *orse."
In the middle and end of syllables, in Saxon, h was (kh).
As ^was (gh), the two became confused. In the " Ormu-
lum," referred to the beginning of the thirteenth century,
the two are used, generally with the above distinction. After
that time the g began to take the place of both. A further
advance was made by writing the two letters together.
" Kityghtes in her conisantes, clad for the nones."
" Piers Plowman."
Layamon in 1205 had written cnihten, and Robert of
Gloucester in 1300, knigtes. Gh then always represented
(gh) or (kh), a sound that waxed ever fainter until by the
close of the sixteenth century it had vanished entirely from
the speech of the most polished society in the South of
England. It lingered long in the North, and in Scotland
and Ireland, where it was still common within the memory
of living men, and perhaps may yet be heard in secluded
valleys. Since English organs are now too dainty for the
sound, the spelling gh has become the special opprobrium
of our orthography, and gives rise to a number of futile
substitutes. If a German teacher were to require a class of
American youths to say nicht, some would pronounce it nikt,
a part would answer nisht, while the greater number would
content themselves with nit. So of ninety-four words and
their derivatives containing gh, the digraph = p in hic-
cough ; k in hough and lough ; g in aghast, burgher, ghastly,
ghost, gherkin, ghoul, nylghau ; f in chough, dough, cough,
draught, enough, laugh, rough, slough, sough, tough, and
trough ; and is silent in seventy-three. This digraph, when
not beginning a syllable, follows only i or u. 1 The i may be
preceded by a or e ; the u must follow a or o. The loss of
the sound is to be regretted. The Germans, Spaniards, and
Russians do not find it difficult or inelegant. I, who heard
it every day for twenty years, can testify to the emphatic
1 Burgher is an exception.
Pronunciation and Spelling. 161
strength it imparts. How feeble and foisonless must be the
speech that does not distinguish the might of nations or of
the Deity from the -mite of old cheese !
I. The primary sounds represented by i are heard in
pippin and pierce. The former, called the short sound, has
held its place from the earliest times ; the latter is now never
represented by / in English, except in a few words of foreign
origin, as magazine. Yet that was the long sound until the
sixteenth century. It is held by the most competent author-
ity that Chaucer and Gower, and all before them pronounced
even the pronoun / as (ee). The change took place in the
sixteenth century, and doubtless spread gradually from
word to word. Shakespeare (edition of 1623) treated /, aye,
and eye as identical in Juliet's frantic outburst on the reported
suicide of Romeo:
" Hath Romeo slaine himselfe ? say thou but /,
And that bare vowell / shall poyson more
Than the death darting eye of cockatrice,
I am not I, if there be such an /."
The long sound at present expressed by i is clearly a
diphthong, but its elements are not so clear. Two sounds
may be distinguished in fire and in fine. The first = ai,
that is (aa'ee) run together very rapidly ; the second is
more doubtful, but to my ear is nearest the rapid utterance
of (u'ee).
There are a series of intermediate sounds represented by
i, ranging from (i) to (u), firth, girl, squirrel, birth, first, bird.
An unaccented i between a consonant and a following
vowel has a palatalizing effect, becoming equal to initial y,
or even transforming the consonant. Examples are labial,
radiant, ruffian, region, retaliate, abstemious, opinion, incipient,
interior, envious. The d in soldier is converted intoy, and the
sound of sh is produced in spcciotis, revulsion, potion, anxious,
etc. the order of transformation being (see'us), (s'yus),
(shus).
Ie. The Saxons pronounced this digraph nearly as we do
in the words mischief and mischievous. In the fourteenth
ii
1 62 The English Language.
and fifteenth centuries it was used for the sound (ai), of
which we have relics in the Irish thaif for thief, and belaive
for believe. Again I may repeat that the essential point is
not that the people of those ages pronounced these letters
differently from us ; but that they pronounced certain words
differently, no matter how they might be written, which was
a quite secondary consideration. The following examples
will illustrate the pronunciation and writing of the fifteenth
and seventeenth centuries :
FIFTEENTH SEVENTEENTH
Written Pronounced Written Pronounced
beleve belaiv believe beleev
bere bair bier beer
brefe braif brief breef
chefe chaif chief cheef
fende faind fiend feend
frende fraind, frend friend freend
lege laij liege leej
pece pais piece pees
priest praist priest preest
sege saij siege seej
thefe thaif thief theef
The change to (ee) took place in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries, which is still the prevailing value of ie,
but proved not to be permanent for the two words friend
and sieve. Friend and fiend, correlative in their origin,
kept together from Saxon times till the seventeenth century
as freend and feend, fraind and faind, freend and feend ;
and at last parted company.
Ie was generally used in the middle ages as a termination,
where we now write y, or ey.
leu is French and equal to (yuu)
lew is a more anglicized form of the preceding, found
only in view and its compounds.
J has always the same sound, with the single exception
that it is (y) in the Hebrew phrase Hallelujah.
It is not found in any word of known Saxon origin. It
came into the language from the French when Saxons and
Pronunciation and Spelling. 163
Normans began to unite into one people. It probably had
from the first the same sound as now, although it has
ceased to have that value in French. Although not fojund
in the extant remains of Anglo-Saxon, jar, to be discordant,
jaw, jerk, jingle, jolt, and jowl, occur early in English, and
are not traceable to any other source.
L must have been always essentially the same. In utter-
ing the sound the tip of the tongue touches the front part
of the palate, while the voice passes on each side, slightly
vibrating the edges. The sound is thus like a vowel in
being continuous through an aperture of a certain conforma-
tion, and like a consonant in that the voice is obstructed.
In Sanskrit /, like r, was treated as either a vowel or a
consonant, but possibly with a distinction between the vowel
and consonant values. Owing to this vocal character, / and
r, with final silent e, may follow an instantaneous consonant,
as in simple and centre. The final e in such words serves no
purpose, and would be no better if placed before the / or r,
as the pronunciation is really simpl and sentr.
In uttering one articulate sound the anticipation of others
immediately following often modifies the first. This phe-
nomenon has played a large and important part in determin-
ing the forms of words, and will be adverted to again in
treating of the numbers of nouns. If then an / follows an a,
there is generally a tendency to modify the a into (aw), as
ball, call, fall, salt, balsam. This is carried to such an ex-
tent as completely to suppress the / in chalk, talk, walk.
On the other hand, when followed by i and another vowel,
the / is palatalized by anticipation, as in salient, valiant,
million, postilion. In French and the Spanish of Mexico
the palatalization, which is somewhat differently indicated,
leaves no perceptible trace of the /, and travailler and tor-
tillas are heard as tra-va-yai and tor-tee-yas.
N. Besides its plain sound in noon, n is subject to two
modifications : the one when it is followed by (g) or (k), the
other when followed by / or e and another vowel. We have
examples of the former in ink, cincture, cinque, minx, ring,
and finger. If the (g) or (k) be in the same syllable with the
164 The English Language.
, the latter is always modified. When they are in different
syllables, the result is less uniform. If the syllable begin-
ning with (g) or (k) has the accent, the n remains unaltered ;
if the syllable ending in n be accented, the n is generally
modified ; but there are a number of exceptions, among
which are ancony, penguin, concrete. The n remains unaf-
fected in the prefixes en, in, un, and generally in con and
syn. It may be questioned whether the n itself is ever (ng)
or if the sound always requires both letters. If all the words
were like sing and singer, there would be a showing for the
latter alternative ; but in a word like languid pronounced
lang-gwid the n alone in the first syllable expresses the full
sound.
N in accented syllables, followed by i or e and another
vowel, is palatalized, as in Albanian, opinion. The alphabet
of the Sanskrit has four 's, two of which are the palatalized
and the n before k, thus recognizing them as distinct
sounds. In Spanish the palatalized / and n are counted as
distinct letters ; the former written //, and the latter ;/. The
mark, called tilde over the n is said by the Spanish Academy
to have been originally a second n.
O is used at present to represent at least five vowel sounds,
easily distinguished in cold, hot, wonder, wolf, who. Exces-
sive refinement enlarges the number considerably. Mr. A.
J. Ellis makes fifteen heard in English alone. The first and
second of the above five are the most liable to division, the
first into three, heard in no, know, which is supposed to fade
away into (uu), and thirdly a sound allied to (aw) fawm for
form. One of the distinctions between speech at present
in England and the United States is the growing tendency
in the former country to assimilate long o to (aw), especially
before r, and say glawry, ^mpa^vrtant, memawrial. So
humorists represent gentlemen of the Dundreary type as
saying dorg or dawg for dog, and prefacing their oracular
utterances with Aw ! where an American would use O ! if
anything.
It is possible that this English sound may be the original,
and that the present fashion, like many other fashions, is a
Pronunciation and Spelling. 165
reversion to an earlier form. In that case the long and short
0's would have been once an exact pair, differing only in
duration. To this point I shall advert again. Such a sup-
position is strengthened, among other evidence, by the spell-
ing of the word land. Henry III. writes it loand ; before
his time it was written, as now, land, but afterwards for
more than a century it was usually written lond. All would
be reconciled by supposing it pronounced for several ages
lawnd. So. many words were written sometimes with an a
and sometimes with o.
Many words once pronounced with the full long sound of
o have fallen away, generally towards u ; such are do, who,
shoe, two.
" And lay an apple upon hys head,
And go syxe score paces hym/rt?,
And I my selfe with a brode arow
Shall cleave that apple in two." 1
One, which is now pronounced wun, was generally written
oon, but pronounced (oan), a sound still retained in alone,
atone, and only (when not called urily).
" None save only a little foot-page
Crept forth at a window of stone :
And he had two armes when he came in,
And he went back with one." 3
Oa. As o is intermediate between a and u, and liable to
oscillate between these two extremes. When it was thought
necessary to distinguish the long sound of <?, it was some-
times written oo, which I observe first in Sir John Mande-
ville, middle of the fourteenth century. In two hundred
years that had declined sensibly towards u, when a further
distinction was adopted. Words that were tending towards
u were written with oo, and oa was chosen to represent and
preserve the long sound of o, a distinction that has been well
1 " Adam Bell, Clem of the Clough and William of Cloudeslee."
* " Old Robin of Portingale," Percy's " Reliques," page 209.
1 66 The English Language.
maintained. Oa is uniform except in broad, which is perhaps
the persistence of the older sound of o. Its occurrence in the
proclamation of Henry III. is temporary and exceptional.
Oe. As already remarked, I have preferred to treat the e
in doe, foe, roe, sloe, toe as a silent final e, indicating the length
of the preceding vowel. Shoe was formerly pronounced shoa :
" For though a widewe hadde but oo schoo,
So pleasaunt was his In prindpio,
Yet wolde he haue a ferthing or he wente."
CHAUCER.
A few words derived from the Latin are at the present
time generally written with az, as fcetid, foetus.
Oeu. Manoeuvre is a word adopted from the French in
the present century.
Oi is the most perfect of diphthongs, both vowels retain-
ing their earliest sounds. It came into our language from
the French, and Mr. Ellis is of opinion that it must have
been at first nearly (uu'ee). By the middle of the sixteenth
century, however, it had acquired its present sound. In the
seventeenth century, when slender sounds were in fashion,
oi took the sound of (zY) in many words ; and we still occa-
sionally hear laboring people say biil,piizin,piint,jiint, which
we complacently regard as vulgarisms. They are merely
old-fashioned.
The diphthong oi is a prolonged, distinct sound which
cannot be fully preserved except under the protection of the
accent. Otherwise it is liable to fall away into some indis-
tinct sound, as in av<?zrdupois, conn^sseur, tortoise, porp<?zse.
Patois, soiree, and some others are still treated as foreign
words.
Oo, as already observed, was first introduced to mark the
long sound of o, as in go. When o in many words was fast
declining towards u, oa was introduced to secure the old
sound, and oo was left to indicate the downward tendency.
It now represents only sounds that are also indicated by u;
and good, rude ; foot, put ; blood, bud are perfect pairs.
Pronunciation and Spelling. 167
Ou is a form first employed about the close of the thir-
teenth century, when it = (uu), as in French. The design
seems to have been to fix and define that sound when u
itself showed a tendency to become (ue). It was next em-
ployed to express the sound of o in soul, in which some
think they hear both vowels a distinct o, followed by a
very faint (u). That value of ou which is now the most com-
mon in loud, doubt, out, came into use in the sixteenth
century, when a large number of words changed their vowel
sounds from (uu) to (ow).
Ow represents three sounds, in cow, flow, and knowledge.
The first may be considered its normal power ; the third is a
single exception. In the earlier ages of English, ow = ou,
and represented the same sounds. Palsgrave, writing in
1530, compared the French ou to the vowel sound in " a cowe,
a mowe, a sowe " that is, a cow, a hay-mow, a sow which
would make these kuu, muu, suu, as in Lowland Scotch.
The transition, word by word, from (uu) to (ow) went on
through the whole of the sixteenth century, and in the
seventeenth the last of (uu) disappeared. At the same time
there were a large class of words, chiefly from A.-S. dw and
6w, that have always had the sound (oa), and the boy who
bent a bow to shoot a crow "
might belong to any age.
Oy = oi.
P, in our language, when not combined with h, appears to
have been always and everywhere the same.
Ph = f except in Stephen, and generally in nephew in
England. It is used chiefly in words derived from the Greek,
where it is now believed to have had the" value of ph in
uphold. The Romans who were accustomed to hear Greek
as a living tongue did not render tp by their f, but always
by ph. On the other hand, the Greeks had no other means
for expressing the f in Roman names. Ph is also employed
in the same manner in transliterating Semitic words, as
ephod, seraph, naphtha, sapphire. P is silent before ph.
1 68 The English Language.
Q is inseparably followed by , and = ku, or rather kw.
Let the tongue be pressed against the palate so as to pre-
vent the utterance of sound ; the release of that contact and
consequent issue of the voice is initial k. W, or (uu) is
formed by protruding the lips and narrowing their aperture.
These positions of the tongue and lips may be assumed at
the same time ; the result when the voice is released is ku ;
if there be instant transition to another vowel, it will be kw,
followed by that other vowel. Qu in European alphabets
is always derived from the Latin ; hence the Greek and
Russian have nothing equivalent. Our Saxon ancestors
employed in its place cw, which dispensed with an unneces-
sary letter. Even in Saxon times qu began to creep in, and
now there is not a cw in our language.
R has overtaxed the discriminating powers of orthoepists,
who are far from agreed as to its varieties, or the manner of
their production. Ben Jonson, 1640, says: " R is the Dog's
letter, and hurreth in the sound the tongue striking the inner
palate, with a trembling about the teeth. It is sounded
firmer in the beginning of words, and more liquid in the
middle and ends, as in rarer, viper." Exception may be
taken to the words which I have italicized ; but the fact
remains that two and a half centuries ago, as now, initial r
was pronounced more distinctly than the medial or final.
The point of the tongue is brought near to the anterior part
of the palate, without touching, and vibrates slightly under
the passing vocal breath. With most persons there is no
vibration, and consequently no r at all. Mr. Ellis says : " In
English at the present day r has at least two sounds, the
first, when preceding a vowel, is a scarcely perceptible trill
with the tip of the tongue, which in Scotland, and with
some English speakers, as always in Italy, becomes a clear
and strong trill. * * * The second English r is always
final or precedes a consonant. It is a vocal murmur differ-
ing very slightly from (u). * * * After (a, aw, u) the
effect is rather to lengthen the preceding vowel than to pro-
duce a distinct diphthong. Thus farther, lord, scarcely
differ from father, laud, * * * That a distinction is made,
Pronunciation and Spelling. 1 69
by more perhaps than are aware of it, is certain, but it is
also certain that in the mouths of by far the greater number
of speakers in the South of England, the absorption of the r
is as complete as the absorption of the / in talk, walk, psalm,
where it has also left its mark on the preceding vowel."
This may be taken to be the present state of the case in
England ; and many in this country are entirely incapable
of uttering the sound of r except after a pause or a con-
sonant. As it is, or was, the most sonorous of the consonants,
its disappearance, like that of (kh), is a further weakening
of the language much to be deplored. Of course, like all
phonetic degradation, it is economy, or parsimony, of exer-
tion. But parsimony in speech does not differ in principle
from parsimony in food, clothing, or in any application of
labor or material. The first object is to do the work re-
quired, and do it well, and next to retrench needless ex-
penditure. But retrenchment may be carried so far as to
render the product worthless. So language may be trimmed
down until it becomes weak and feckless, unfit for the work
of strong, manly speech.
As r is so nearly allied to the vowels, it has generally the
effect of prolonging or modifying a preceding vowel, which
will be perceived by comparing
fan with far fin with fir
fane " fare bolt " borne
pen " per lost " born
feet " fear bulk " burn
fine " fire house " hour
It will be observed that after a long vowel or diphthong,
a short faint sound of u is interpolated.
R is apt to change places with an adjacent vowel, being
sometimes before and sometimes after it. In older speci-
mens of the language we find
arn for ran girdle for griddle
brid bird kers " cress
brunt " burnt fersh " fresh
gers " grass
1 70 The English Language.
In consequence of its vowel character, r final after certain
consonants, however written, is pronounced without an
intervening vowel, or with a scarcely perceptible vocal
glide. Compare :
sombre somber sombr
sundry sunder sundr
offer offr
eagre eager eagr
whisper whispr
centre center centr
The same is true, even to a greater extent, of /, as in
stubble, sickle, idle, eagle, shuffle, maple, whistle, brittle, driz-
zle. Among the spelling reforms undertaken by Dr. Web-
ster was the substitution of the ending er for re after b and
/. This particular reform was not one of his happiest
inspirations, as in either case the e is not pronounced ; as
the same rule is not applied to /, and both immediate and
remote etymology is disregarded in center, meter, and
theater, the three words specially cited in illustration. The
English, French, Latin, Greek, and the English derived
adjectives of these words are :
centre centre centrum kentron central
metre metre metrum metron metrical
theatre theatre theatrum theatron theatrical
the r in each case following the t. The change is not
generally adopted in England, nor universally in this
country.
The Greeks always, and the Norsemen and our Saxon
ancestors often, indicated an aspiration or sound of Ji before
r at the beginning of a word. It has been customary in
transliterating Greek to write h after the aspirated r, and for
the other two languages either to do the same or omit the
h altogether.
I find no difficulty in pronouncing Ji before r, but great
difficulty in pronouncing it after; and I venture the opinion
Pronunciation and Spelling. 171
that the three peoples named understood themselves and
wrote as they spoke, and that the Greeks, for example,
did not say Rhode and Arrhias, but Hrode and Arhrias.
S, alone or combined with h, represents the four sounds
heard in sister, rose, fashion, and pleasure. The first
two have been the same from the earliest times ; the
other two came into use in the seventeenth century.
(Sh) had previously been represented by sch> as it still
is in German. That century was filled with disorders
and civil wars, political and religious. It saw the acces-
sion and expulsion of the House of Stuart, of which
one king perished on the scaffold and another was
driven with his sons forever from the inheritance of his
fathers. It saw London twice desolated by plague and
once by fire, a parliament turned out-of-doors by armed
force, a commonwealth established and overthrown. It
witnessed the rebellions of Montrose and Monmouth, the
landing of a second William the Conqueror, and the fruit-
less attempt of James to array the Irish against England
and Scotland. So many great events had never before
been crowded into a single century ; and the constant
popular ferment had its effect upon the language of the
people. The changes were so great that in many instances
usage has receded from the extreme water-marks of that
period. Among these were the sound of (sh), once heard
in consume, pursue, sew, suit, supreme, but now met with
only occasionally in Scotland and Ireland. There is an
illustrative anecdote of a Scotch shopkeeper, who, worn
out of patience, replied to a higgling customer : " Weel,
weel, just shoot [suit] yersel, an' Al shoot mysel."
To tell concisely the sound that s represents in each
instance is very difficult. We are reminded again that
usage is unconscious of any rule or principle, and that the
systematizer can at best give but a semblance of regularity
to the chaos of flying atoms. However, s initial is always
(s) ; also when immediately before or after a weak consonant
f, h, k,p, t, th in thin whiffs, goshawk, skips, speaks, starts,
faiths ; in the prefix mis and the terminations ss and us
172 The English Language.
mislay, darkness, circus, genius, famous. It is generally so in
the prefix dis ; but usage is not quite uniform. I have been
accustomed to except only disaster, discern, disease, dismal,
dissolve. Even in these few the dis is not always from the
same original. To these may be added, 1st, final as, except
as, whereas, has, was, and a few foreign plurals; 2d, yes;
3d, final is, except is and his. Final s in all other connec-
tions is generally (z) ; in a few words from the French it
is silent. A following e sometimes preserves the sound
of (s), which would otherwise be (z), as in asperse, expense.
The final e does not generally save the (s) after a vowel
lose, dispose, please, fuse, amuse (all verbs), but has that effect
in base, dose, geese, lease, loose. We have thus a distinction,
often but not always observed, that nouns or adjectives
present a weak consonant where corresponding verbs have
the strong.
WEAK STRONG
advice advise
bath bathe
belief believe
brass braze
calf calve
close close
device devise
grass graze
WEAK STRONG
house house
life live
loss lose
mouse mouse
price prize
rise rise
thief thieve
use use
S = (sh) when preceded by a consonant and followed by
ion, the i palatalizing the combination, as in diversion, expul-
sion, mission, passion ; also when thus followed by a palatal-
ized u sugar, censure, tonsure, sensual, fissure, pressure,
impressure, sure, sumach ; and in the words nauseate, nause-
ous, osseous, where the e following s has the palatalizing
effect. When the termination sion, sure, etc., is preceded
by an accented vowel, the s is (zh) instead of (sh) cohesion,
contusion, explosion, disclosure, exposure, measure, pleasure,
treasure. It has also the same value in combinations that
are similar though not identical as crosier, osier, hosier,
brasier, ambrosia, elysian, scission, abscission.
Pronunciation and Spelling. 1 73
T when not modified by the following letter must have
been always (t). But when a palatal vowel (u) or, what is
the same thing, the semivowel y or (yu) follows, there is a
tendency to palatalize the /, like c and s in the same situa-
tion, to (sh). It never becomes (zh). This palatalization
must have taken place as early as the fourteenth century,
since Chaucer wrote indifferently discrecioun, discressioun,
and discretions.. In regard to the termination ture, usage and
opinion both differ, varying all the way from (naichuur) to
(naitr). The first extreme is heard only from pedants on
exhibition, the second from rustics. The admissible means
are (naichur) and (naityur) of which I should prefer the
latter ; but would say (temperatyuur) and (sepultyuur).
From a want of suitable single characters, th is now in use
for (th) and (dh) in thin and thine. This spelling superseded
the Saxon thorn and crossed d in the fourteenth century.
U and V are originally the same letter. From the Greek
transcription of Roman names, it seems to have had in
Latin the three values (uu, v, w). The first of these seems
to have been the uniform Saxon sound, varied only by its
greater or less duration. The Conquest, and prolonged
intercourse with France introduced a great number of
French words in which u was (ue). Out of these grew our
present (yu), the vowel heard in use, unity, mule, pure.
There are only three words in the language having this
value of u that do not come to us through the French or
the Latin. Of these hue and puke are native English, and
emu, of unknown origin, was introduced into Europe by the
Portuguese.
It was when the long u had come generally to signify (ue)
that the digraph ou was introduced to distinguish and pre-
serve (uu). The change from (ue) to (yu) may be referred
to the seventeenth century.
U has now the six values, (yu) in mule, (uu) in rule, (u) in
put, (u) in but, (i) in busy, and (w) in anguish, (u) and (i)
may be termed the vanishing points to which all indistinct
vocal sounds tend, for which compare the last syllables of
ocean, further, kingdom, simpleton, captious, and the first
1 74 The English Language.
syllables of perform, hirsute, congratulation. Even when not
recognized as a separate vowel sound, it probably exists as a
kind of residual product in many languages, and in my
opinion is more frequent in French than in English, (u) has
probably existed time out of mind along side of (uu), they
being respectively the short and the long of the vowel,
(ue) has gone entirely out of use in English. Persons in
this country who try to learn German are apt to mistake it
for (u) or (i). A trace of short (ue) remains in bury and
busy, written in A.-S. with y, in early, middle, and modern
English with u, but probably always with nearly the same
sound, (u) was not recognized by orthoepists as an English
sound until the middle of the seventeenth century, when it
extended to many places now occupied by (u).
V, as a consonant, seems to have been from a very early
period always the same. There was originally only one form
for u and v ; and when two simultaneous forms came into
use in the twelfth or thirteenth century, it was not to dis-
tinguish the vowel from the consonant. With some irregu-
larity v was written at the beginning of a word, and u
everywhere else. This usage continued into the seventeenth
century, and was followed in King James's Bible. Sam
Weller is a type of a class who find it difficult to pronounce
an initial v. When I was young, there was in the neighbor-
hood a man of that class from the old country whom the
boys used to banter to say rapidly, " Veal, wine, vinegar,
very good victuals, I vow." When thoroughly roused, the
old man would run off in a string : " Yes, I can say ' weal,
wine, winegar, wery good wit ties, I wow,' as fas' as any
of ye."
It can be little better than a superstition that prevents any
word from ending with the letter v. The avoidance of cer-
tain endings is curious. No word in English ends with /,
except the names of a few foreign animals ; none in j, q, or
v. Few native words end in o, still fewer in u, and none
in a.
As u is the last of the independent vowels, w being never
used alone, and y only as the equivalent of i, this may be a
Pronunciation and Spelling. 175
proper place to remark on the distinction of long and short
vowels. In languages having simple scales of sounds the
distinction might be merely one of duration, the sounds
remaining the same, like musical notes differing only in
time ; but in English the long and the short of any vowel
are entirely different sounds. This will be seen by placing
them in pairs, the long below the short.
hat met bit not us
hate mete bite note use
Of most of our vowel sounds exact pairs cannot be made,
unless by taking accented and unaccented syllables, as in
notorious, in which we may call the first o short and the
second long. The following are nearer making pairs,
although as generally heard they are only approximations :
LONG SHORT
far fat
mare met
pane pa(ternal)
fall folly
LONG SHORT
feel fill
file fi(duciary)
foal fo(ment)
rule full
but
W. If the lips be protruded and brought near together,
the vocal sound that can be produced is (uu), usually repre-
sented by oo. If the lips be brought a little closer still, and
if, on the instant that the voice issues, the organs of speech
move to another position, the initial and instantaneous
sound heard is w as a consonant. It has no perceptible
duration, but is a mere starting-point, like/ in part. In our
language it must be followed by a vowel. It is certainly
possible, but not easy, to pronounce r after it, on ac-
count of the vocal character of that letter. L is still more
difficult.
Wh has been the subject of much dispute. In my judg-
ment it is (hw). Bearing in mind that h is not a vocal sound
but a mere breathing, try this experiment. Pronounce sep-
arately, with intervals between, h oo en ; then diminish the
1 76 The English Language.
intervals until they disappear, and you will have a fair
approximation to when. Next try the order, oo h en.
Thirdly, place the lips in the position of w, and say when
slowly and carefully. You will find that there is first the
voiceless breathing, which ceases the instant the vocal w, or
(uu), is reached ; that passes instantly into e, followed by n.
To speak of wh as a simple but peculiar consonant partaking
of the properties of w and h seems to me little better than to
call it a univocal compound of sound and silence.
As a vowel w = (uu), and as such it occurs alone in
Welsh, but never in English, where it is always preceded by
a, e, or o. After a it merely indicates one sound of that
vowel. After e, omitting the exceptions cited under that
letter, it is (uu). I thus construe ewe. The last letter is
final silent e ; the first gives the palatal sound expressed by
y, leaving w = (uu).
Latin and the languages derived from it are without the
letter w, but have the sound, which most of them express,
as in English, by u, as in the Latin anguis, Italian guado,
Spanish igual, English languish, assuage.
There is a pronunciation remarked on in England as pecul-
iarly American, which culminates in, but is not confined to,
the word whole. It consists in making the o " long " in
sound but short in time, and dwelling upon the / as if it were
doubled, thus differing from hole in making the o shorter and
doubling the /. The word then insensibly becomes hull. It
ought to differ from hole only in having the o longer. A
still worse pronunciation is appearing among some of those
who insist on speaking as they spell, in trying to make the w
audible. This produces a most uncouth and barbarous
vocable for sake of a written letter that is no part of the
original word. In all the equivalents except the English the
w is wanting. It appears to have crept in from some local
dialect about the year 1500, and attached itself to a number
of words in the manner of the cockney h. In some words,
as whole, whore, and whoop, it has been retained in the writ-
ten but not in the spoken language. One and once present
the w to the ear but not to the eye ; and from hoot and hot,
Pronunciation and Spelling. 177
hoary and holy, it has disappeared altogether. As to wholly,
which Walker very justly thought should be written wholely
to correspond with solely, I have always been accustomed
so to pronounce it.
X is a compound equivalent to ks or gs. It begins no
English word, and is followed only by c, ch, h, /, q, s, t, or a
vowel. It is (ks) when final, when accented, or when fol-
lowed by any of the consonants named except h. As x =
ks, the element s becomes (sh) in situations where a single s
would undergo the same change anxious, fluxion.
Y originated, as we have f seen, among the Greeks, with
whom it probably had nearly the value of (ue), which is
peculiarly liable to pass into (ii, i), When the Romans be-
gan to study Greek as a polite language, they distinguished
this letter from all their own vowels by introducing it as a
new character ; and the French and Spaniards still call it the
Greek i. As a vowel its various shades of sound have ranged
between the extremes i and u. The sound (ue) is one that
the English early sought to avoid. It seems to have disap-
peared in the thirteenth century, to have returned again with
the influx of French words in the fourteenth, written u or
eu, only to disappear and become unpronounceable in the
seventeenth. In Scotland, at least near the Border, floor
may perhaps still be called (fluer), but farther north will be
found various substitutes as (fluur, flyuur, fleer). But when
the sound first died out it parted company forever with the
letter y, which then became indistinguishable from i.
" I schal ryse, and I schal go to my fadir, and I schal seie to
him, Fadir, I have synned agens heuene, and bifore thee ; Now
I am not worthi to be clepid thi sone, make me as oon of thi
hyrid men." LUKE xv., 18, by WYCLIFFE.
Gradually custom assigned y to certain places and i to
others, so that they are never interchangeable.
F" is a vowel equal to i except when initial, in which latter
case it has always the force of a consonant, and is to (ee) as
w to (uu).
1 78 The English Language.
PRINCIPLES OF SPELLING.
1. Every word of considerable length can easily be divided
into a number of parts, as cir-cum-loc-u-to-ry. Each of these
parts is called a syllable, from a Greek original signifying
taken together, and consists of a single vowel sound, together
with such letters as are pronounced along with it, without
the aid of any other vowel sound. It may be a single vowel
alone, or a vowel sound represented by several written char-
acters, preceded or followed by consonants, or even by vowel
characters not sounded. A, an, no, now, stone, view, thieves,
are examples.
2. An open syllable is one ending with a vowel, one that
ends with a consonant is called a closed syllable. Under the
head of word-making I have shown reasons for believing
that all syllables were originally open, and that a closed syl-
lable is the remnant of a dissyllable that has lost the last vowel.
3. Our language, like many others, has a decided prefer-
ence still only a preference for open syllables. Any Eng-
lish-speaking person seeing for the first time the words
carat, pater, would naturally divide them ca-rat, pa-ter,
and not as they should be, car-at, pat-er.
4. The tendency is to give a prolonged, slender sound to
the vowel of an open syllable. To this there are many
exceptions and limitations. A final a is always short, hence
the article a is never what is called long. / and a end no
native English word, unless they can be said to do so when
standing alone.
5. The vowel of a closed syllable is preferably short. It
is uniformly so only when a single vowel is followed by a
single consonant. The vowels of closed syllables are pro-
longed in a great variety of ways, many of which are mere
contrivances for showing that the vowel sound is long. Of
these the first in rank is the silent final e, which makes the
difference of bat and bate, bit and bite. Then combinations
of vowels, whether pronounced in whole or only in part, are
generally, but not universally, long. There are also a few
instances where i and o followed by two, or even three, con-
sonants are long bind, blind, behind, find, grind, hind, kind,
Pronunciation and Spelling. 1 79
mind, wind, pint, bolt, colt, dolt, jolt, molt, bold, cold, fold, gold,
hold, mold, old, sold, told, wold, fort, port. Finally i followed
by gk silent is long sigh, fight, lights. The lengthening of
the i is a compensation for the loss of gh.
6. The termination ed of verbs is written in full, however
pronounced, as in landed, stamped, hushed, snuffed, sighed.
There are, as usual, a few exceptions. We write heard, not
heared, and laid, paid, said, and sometimes staid instead of
layed, payed, sayed, and stayed. Made, shortened from
maked, is disguised almost beyond recognition. When a
verb already ends with an e, one e is omitted live, lived,
smile, smiled. One e is also omitted with the termination er,
and generally before ing. It is retained in dyeing, singeing,
swingeing, tingeing, to distinguish them from dying, singing,
swinging, tinging, and in hoeing corn, shoeing horses, and
toeing a mark. In general, a silent final e is dropped be-
fore all suffixes beginning with a vowel :
Fine, fined, finer, finery, finest, fining, finish, finable j bride,
bridal; guide, guidance; plume, plumage; grieve, grievance;
move, movable ; force, forcible ; ice, icy ; true, truism.
7. A silent final e is generally retained before a suffix
beginning with a consonant, or when necessary to preserve
the sound of the original word peaceful, peaceable, change-
able, courageous, mortgageor. It is sometimes omitted when
it immediately follows the main vowel due, duly, duty, and,
contrary to the soundest analogy in such words as judgment
and lodgment. Truly, like truth and trust, is consistent,
being older than the present spelling of true. Wisdom is
not from the modern word wise. It is Saxon unchanged.
8. Any monosyllable or accented final syllable, having a
single vowel and closed by a single consonant, doubles that
consonant before a suffix beginning with a vowel :
Fit, fitted, fitter, fittest, fitting.
Red, redden, redder, reddest, reddish.
Rid, riddance, ridder.
pi g, Pigged, pigging, piggery, piggish.
Confer, conferred, conferree, conferrer, conf errant, conferring.
i8o The English Language.
If the consonant were not doubled, the preference for
open syllables would cause the first line of this example to
be read : fit, fi-ted, fi-ter, fi-test, fi-ting.
9. When the last syllable is not accented usage ceases to
be uniform.
a. The termination ly in civilly, morally, etc., is not a
doubling of the last letter, but the same ly as in comely.
b. Final c adds a k, and g a second g, to preserve the hard
sound before suffixes beginning with e, i, or y.
c. As an accent on the last syllable causes a doubling, so
if a word consists of two nearly equal syllables, the final
consonant is doubled hob-nobbing, kid-napping. This is the
only reason that can be assigned for doubling the/ in wor-
shipper, as is most frequently done. If such words as hard-
ship, flag-ship, war-ship, could admit of these terminations,
the last letter would probably be doubled. It remains
single in filliped, galloped, and walloped. We can only sug-
gest that lip and lop are elements of less volume than ship.
d. The following list contains most of the words of two
syllables that are written sometimes with and sometimes
without doubling the last letter before the suffixes ed, er,
est, ing, ish, ist :
anvil
cudgel
hatchel
pencil
snivel
apparel
dial
hovel
peril
stencil
barrel
dishevel
jewel
pistol
swivel
bevel
dowel
kennel
pommel
tassel
bias
drivel
kernel
postil
teasel
bowel
duel
label
pupil
tinsel
brothel
enamel
laurel
quarrel
tonsil
bushel
equal
level
ravel
towel
cancel
flannel
libel
revel
trammel
carol
focus
marshal
rival
travel
cavil
fuel
marvel
rowel
trowel
channel
funnel
medal
sandal
tunnel
chapel
gambol
metal
shovel
vial
chisel
gravel
model
shrivel
victual
counsel
grovel
panel
sibyl
crenel-
handsel
parcel
signal
Pronunciation and Spelling. 1 8 1
Dishevel and enamel, although trisyllables, having the
accent on the second syllable, follow the analogy of dissyl-
lables. Of the whole number 76 end in / and 2 in s,
letters very apt to be doubled at the end of words. More-
over a single s is liable to be pronounced as z. Other suf-
fixes, not originally English, often follow the analogy of
the original words from which these are derived, but not
with entire regularity. Perry in England and Webster in
America are the principal advocates of the single letter. In
this country probably the majority follow them in most
instances, while the opposite practice prevails in England ;
but no one seems to be entirely uniform and consistent.
10. Trisyllables of similar endings, accented on the first
syllable, and having a consequent secondary accent on the
last, should, according to the widest analogy, double the
last letter, but only a few of them, as handicap, manumit,
ricochet, having the second accent well marked, do so in-
variably. Reason and analogy are allowed to count for
little. A few are variously spelled by different writers, of
which carburet, sulphuret, pedicel, sentinel, and hospital, need
no special remark. Parallel scarcely ever doubles the final
letter for no other visible reason than to avoid four z's.
Bishop Hall has even unparallelable. Most authors write
compromised and benefited. As mere English words there
is no reason for the difference. One may possibly be found
in their derivation from the Fr. compromettre and bienfait.
11. A word ending with a doubled consonant, other than
/, retains both letters before suffixes, ebb-ing, add-ed, odd-ly,
stiff-ness, embarrass-ment. Usage is not uniform in regard
to a doubled / before a consonant :
dull-ness
dul-ness
enthrall-ment
enthral-ment
enroll-ment
enrol-ment
thrall-dom
thral-dom
full-ness
ful-ness
skill-ful
skil-ful
fulfill-ment
fulfil-ment
will-ful
wil-ful
install-ment
instal-ment
The shorter form prevails in England ; the longer among
those Americans who accept Webster as an authority,
1 82 The English Language.
holding that two /'s are necessary to preserve the sound
after a and o. Full and fill are especially liable to be cur-
tailed. In general full retains both /'s in compound words
as full-blown, full-sailed, but is liable to drop one before
consonantal suffixes. Some write fulfill and others fulfil.
but no one writes fullfill.
12. Words ending in a doubled consonant generally retain
it when they are lengthened by prefixes.
boss emboss sell undersell
buff rebuff tell foretell
fall befall thrall enthrall
roll enroll staff tipstaff
It is the practice in England, and to some extent in
America, to omit the last / in such cases, especially in distil
and instil. Many words compounded with all, well, and
mass omit the last of the two consonants : almighty, almost,
alone, already, also, although, altogether, always, withal, where-
withal, welcome, welfare, Candlemas, Christmas, Lammas,
Michaelmas. All compounds of which full is the last part
drop the last /, artful, hopeful, etc. We also write until, not
untill. Mas is really a shortening, but the reason of the
others is that the old spellings were al, ful, til, and wel, and
the compound words were formed before the adoption of the
modern spellings of all, full, till, and well.
13. Some combinations of letters are avoided. A, i,j, k,
u, v, x, and y are never doubled, and w and h only in glow-
worm, slow-worm, with-hold, and a few imperfect combina-
tions not yet fairly consolidated into words rough-hew,
high-heeled, etc. Q never occurs without being followed by
u. /never precedes the closely allied letters/ and y. Some
combinations are preserved that cannot be pronounced in
full as phthisic, giaour, caoutchouc, but then we skip the hard
parts.
14. Up to the fifteenth century i and y were used indis-
criminately, and there are a few remains of their tenancy in
common, in which we sometimes meet with the one and
Pronunciation and Spelling. 183
sometimes the other hythe or hithe, tryst or trist, gyves or
gives, mystery or mistery? syllabub or sillabub, cypher or cipher
all old words except the last, and seldom met with. Y
retains sole possession in scythe and byre. At present this
letter has its position defined with more than usual regu-
larity.
a. As a consonant it is the first letter of a word, or of a
part elsewhere independent be-yond, hal-yard, steel-yard.
b. As a vowel it is final, with or without a preceding e, and
takes the place of a number of terminations, Latin ius, ia,
turn, as, as in amatory, controversy, estuary, civility ; Fr. and
Eng. e, ee, i, ie, in ditty, dainty, majesty, cony ; A.-S. ic and
ig in homely, happy. As a final too it is a diminutive express-
ing affection, chicky, birdy, kitty, pussy, Bobby, returning to
ie in Annie, Jennie, Nellie.
c. Y forms a digraph or a diphthong after a, e, o, and rarely
u, in any part of a word defraying, abeyance, employ,
buying.
d. It is vjery common as a vowel in words derived from the
Greek symbol, amethyst, baryta.
e. The following words, although not of Greek origin, are
written with y from having passed through, or from being
supposed to be in some way connected with, that language
beryl, gypsey, gypsum, hyssop, lachrymal, lymph, papyrus, syca-
mine, sylvan.
f. The spelling of dye and lye serve to distinguish them
from die and lie. The y in rye has remained since Saxon
times.
g. The y in nylgau and typhoon is due to the whim of
those who transliterated these Eastern words into European
characters.
h. Words of more than one syllable, ending in y without
another vowel before it, change it to i before suffixes begin-
ning with a, e, or a consonant, but retain it before i to avoid
the doubling of that letter holy, holier, holiest ; carry, car-
1 Meaning an art, trade, dramatic performance, from Lat. minisierium, and
erroneously supposed to be the same as the Greek mystery, an esoteric or secret
doctrine.
184 The English Language.
riage, carries, carried, carrier, carrying ; bury, burial. In the
few words of one syllable usage is much at sea. Verbs fol-
low the analogy of dissyllables try, tries, tried, trial, trying.
Nouns from these verbs, denoting the doer, admit of both
forms crier and cryer, drier and dryer, flier and flyer, pliers
and plyers with a preference in this country for i. Other
nouns are regular. The adjectives shy, sly, spry, and wry
retain the^ throughout. On the other hand, monosyllables
in ie necessarily change the i into y before i, die, dies, died,
dying.
15. There are now about 1,000 adjectives in the language
ending in -able or -idle, and a very few in -eble, -oble and -uble.
The primary meaning in this class is capability of undergo-
ing some action. Movable, fordable, fusible signify suscepti-
ble of being moved, forded, or fused. They are either from
Latin verbal adjectives in -abilis, -ebilis, -ibilis, -obilis, -ubilis,
or imitations of such. To the question which vowel to use
the following is an answer in part.
a. The termination when applied to words not derived
directly or indirectly from Latin is -able answer-able, bear-
able, drink-able, eat-able, fore know-able, unquench-able. As this
implies a knowledge of Latin it is rather a reason than a rule
of practice.
b. Words, from whatever source, that have been long and
commonly used in the language take -able agree-able, bail-
able, comfort-able, service-able, unconquer-able. This leaves
room for doubt and irregularity, as it is a question of degree
how long and how much a word has been in use. Some are
written in two ways, as add-able and add-ible, convers-able
and convers-ible, refer-able and referr-ible, the first forms
following a direct English, and the latter an indirect Latin,
analogy. In a few instances there are two different words
from the same source defend-able and defens-ible.
c. When a Latin original is kept in view, the verbal ad-
jectives in -abilis and -ibilis, if there be any, are followed.
Latin verbs are divided into four classes according to the
last letter of the essential part of the word. If that be a,
the derived adjective ends in -abilis ; if anything else, in
Pronunciation and Spelling. 185
-ibilis. If there be no such Latin adjective, then the Eng-
lish one follows the characteristic of the verb. About two
thirds of the entire class end in -able.
1 6. There are a number of words ending in -nee and -nt,
preceded by a or e, and there is sometimes an uncertainty
which of the two should be used. These terminations be-
long properly to Latin participles and verbal nouns, and
come to us either directly or through the French. If the
characteristic of the Latin verb be a, the result is -ance and
-ant, the first of which makes a noun, the second an adjective.
Thus from the Latin abund-a-re, to abound, are formed :
Latin, abundantia English, abundance
abundant-s abundant
So verbs whose characteristics are e or / yield forms that are
regular :
sil-e-re silence, silent
sal-i-re salience, salient
conven-i-re convenience, convenient
The still greater number characterized by consonants
ought regularly to furnish -ence and -ent :
string-'-re stringence, stringent
solv-'-re solvency, solvent
resid-'-re residence, resident
but usage, formerly very unsettled, is still by no means con-
sistent. We have from consonant verbs affiance, affiant,
ascendant, defendant, attendance, attendant, repentance, re-
pentant, and many others. This irregularity is due to the
passage of these words through the French language. A
few words have both forms, as confidence, confident, and con-
fidant ; dependence, dependent, and dependant. In such cases
the form in -ant is treated as a noun, and that in -ent as an
adjective.
17. A number of verbs ending in -ize are formed either
from or in imitation of Greek verbs in -izo. Agonize, baptize,
1 86 The English Language.
dogmatize, ostracize, syllogize, are examples of those from
similar Greek words. Eulogize, analyze, paralyze, are from
Greek originals not ending in -izo. Civilize, detonize,judaize,
mesmerize, naturalize, realize, spiritualize, are various imita-
tions. The manner of writing these words has never been
uniform. We generally find catechise and exorcise, although
from Greek originals in -izo. In this country the greater
part are written with -ize ; the following are the principal
exceptions, of which only two are from the Greek :
advertise comprise divertise misprise
advise criticise emprise premise
affranchise compromise enfranchise reprise
apprise demise enterprise revise
catechise despise exercise supervise
chastise devise exorcise surmise
circumcise disguise improvise surprise
In England the tendency is to write them all with -ise.
1 8. Words introduced into the language from any source
are treated for a time as strangers, and allowed to retain
something of their foreign look and sound. This is particu-
larly true of the Italian terms relating to music and painting
and the French phrases used by people of fashion. Although
these foreign features are gradually effaced by long and
common use, they are still one of the two principal causes
of the discordance between pronunciation and spelling, of
which asthma, bayou, Bootes, Canaanite, catsup, chapeau,
cognac, corps, ret, schorl, are examples.
When a word comes through one language, from another,
it is sometimes a question which of the two should deter-
mine its form. The largest element in our language is
Latin, that has reached us through a transforming French
medium. In general the French is followed, especially in
England ; but in this country there is sometimes a disposi-
tion to revert to the earlier type. One class o'f more than a
hundred words begin with French en or Latin in, like enclose,
or inclose, enquire or inquire. They seem to be the sport of
chance, yet in most instances a preference is shown for one
Pronunciation and Spelling. 187
form rather than the other, favoring e in England, and in
this country inclining to i.
There is another class with numerous imitations, the origi-
nal members of which ended in Latin in -or, changed to -eur
in French, adopted into English as -our, and now in America
reverting to the orginal -or.
FRENCH ENGLISH AMERICAN
candeur candour candor
coleur colour color
doleur dolour dolor
erreur errour error
facteur factour factor
faveur favour favor
ferveur fervour fervor
honneur honour honor
odeur odour odor
19. In all cases of doubt consult the dictionaries. If they
be hopelessly at variance, the only resource left to the stu-
dent is to observe the spelling of the best recent writers, and
exercise his own judgment.
ACCENT.
In a word of more than one syllable some one is uttered
more forcibly than the others. That additional force or
stress is what is here called accent. It is much more marked
in some languages than in others. In those that are faintly
accented the words and syllables ripple along in what seems
to us a lazy droning fashion without spirit or force. It matters
not how long the words may be, as the oral speech seems
scarcely divisible into words, but to be drawn along before
us like the successive links of a chain, or a string of uniform
beads. On the other hand, our language is very strongly
accented, and seems to foreigners irregular, jerky, sputtering,
and quarrelsome. We think that the strength of our lan-
guage, as the emphasis of earnest speech, is laid on the
accented syllables.
1 88 The English Language.
In many languages the accent is always near the end of
the word, in others near the beginning, while a few, like
ours, seem to distribute it with a show of impartiality. All
attempts to assign rules for the place of the accent in Eng-
lish only serve to render the subject hopelessly intricate and
confused. Still some leading tendencies may be discovered,
and where the confusion is inextricable the cause of that
confusion may be found. The principal cause is the compo-
site character of the language. There is first what may be
called the native element either Anglo-Saxon in origin, or
developed in English at an early period. About the pro-
nunciation of this portion all are agreed. Then there are the
multitude of words from Greek, Latin, and foreign languages,
altogether strange at first to the body of the people.
Let us then in the first place see if we can discover any
principle regulating the accent in the native part of the lan-
guage. I remark in passing that the place of the accent is
usually denoted in English books by the mark (') thus
ty'rant, embit'ter, require' ; that its place is reckoned from
the last, or ultimate, syllable ; that the one next to the last
is called the penultimate, or, for shortness, penult ; the sec-
ond from the last, antepenult, and the one before that,/raz#-
tepenultimate. Beginning then with native words of two
syllables, as the simplest, we readily discover three tenden-
cies, quite independent, and sometimes competing with each
other. The first is to accent the principal syllable, where
there is much disparity. It could scarcely be otherwise.
Awake, at hirst, bestride must be accented on the second
syllable, if at all, and stranger, proudly, on the first. The
second tendency is to accent the first syllable, if there be no
marked inequality. Thus pairs of syllables that are mere
variants of each other, as hob-nob, criss-cross, hodge-podge,
hum-drum, pic-nic, see-saw, are all accented on the first sylla-
ble. So are chaffinch, chilblain, distaff, daylight, foresight,
larboard, starboard, lukewarm, mermaid, nothing, onslaught,
and many others, in which the second syllable by itself
requires the most effort to articulate. I have before me a
list of the principal independent native dissyllables in the
Pronunciation and Spelling. 1 89
language, amounting to 955, of which 763 are accented on
the first syllable. If the derivatives formed by the suffixes
ed, er, es, esf, ish, ist, ly, etc., were counted, several thousands
would be added to the list of penultimate accents, and not
one to the ultimate. As it is, of the 192 words accented on
the last syllable, 104 are made with the weak prefixes a and
be abide, become, etc. The third tendency is to accent verbs
on the last syllable. This will be best shown by contrasting
nouns and verbs in which the first syllable is the same :
fore'-foot fore-go' out'-break out-bid'
fore'-ground fore-know' out'-come out-do'
fore'-hand fore-arm' out'-let out-go'
fore'-head fore-cast' out'-look out-grow'
fore'-land fore-show' out'-house out-live'
fore'man fore-stall' out'-law out-run'
fore'-sight fore-tell' out'-works out-wit'
This last tendency sufficiently accounts for our meeting with
words of foreign origin, like contract, which when used as
nouns are accented on the first syllable, and on the last
when they are verbs. The final accents are nearly all due to
weak prefixes or the use of the words as verbs.
Passing next to native English trisyllables, I find in Skeat's
Dictionary 125. The number in the largest American dic-
tionaries is much greater by including those formed by
adding suffixes, which have the effect, as before, of throw-
ing the accent back towards the beginning. Of the 125,
inasmuch, insomuch, and upsidedown may be left out, as
being phrases rather than words. There would then remain
58 accented on the first syllable, 22 on the second, and 42
on the last. Of this last division, 36 are verbs ; overworn,
overwrought, and unaneled are participles, with ultimate
accent because of their verbal character. The remaining
three words, overhead, overmuch, and overivise, have the
character of composite phrases. There is not a noun in the
list of 42. Of the 22 accented on the middle syllable, 10
are verbs, 7 have the weak first syllables a-, be-, to-. The
other 5, like almighty, already, are as easily explained, with
190 The English Language*
the exception, perhaps, of newfangled. There is but one
noun in the class. Of the 58 accented on the first or ante-
penultimate syllable, there is but one verb caterwaul, in
which the balance is nearly even between the first and last.
By general analogy, it should be ultimate. That an excess
of volume in the first syllable is not essential, will be evident
from such words as alderman, bedridden, didapper, emberdays,
forefather, godmother, honeycomb, indwelling, offscouring.
The tendencies of English pronunciation then are such that,
of words of three nearly equal syllables, all verbs would be
accented on the last syllable and all the others on the first.
Of native words of more than three syllables, those
accented on the first are about three times as numerous
as those accented on the second, and these latter bear the
same ratio to those having the accent on the third, while
ultimate accent is limited to a very small number of verbs.
This tendency to accent the first syllable produces some
curious results, both in native and adopted words. The
following are found in the dictionaries accented on the first
syllable :
almainrivets caterpillar-catcher ganglionary
alveolary disciplinableness lachrymatory
bluestockingness disputableness mainpernable
calculatory excellency
calipercompasses explicableness
In very long words, or words having two syllables of con-
siderable volume with a faint one between them, there is a
secondary accent, or even two or more, besides the principal
one hy'drocyan'ic, im' mate' rial' ity.
Besides the three tendencies above described, there is a
fourth, affecting words from learned and foreign languages.
So long as they are used only by scholars and specialists,
there is an effort to keep up their foreign pronunciation.
But they gradually percolate through the masses, who
naturally tend to assimilate them to their native speech. In
this way there may be two pronunciations current at the
same time. There is a drug much used in the South and
Pronunciation and Spelling. 191
West that fashionable people call kin-een' , but which the
dictionaries and common folks call qui'nine or quin'ine. So
scholars say abdo'men and opponent, but the majority are
strongly inclined to say ab'domen and opponent. The battle
is fought over every dubious word separately, with victory
in the long run generally with the majority. It is obvious
that the result, even when reached, must be very irregular.
Words that have been long in common use are accented like
original English. Armor, equal, rapid, prophet are accented
on the first syllable because that is the general habit ; attend,
impend, combine are accented on the last, for the double rea-
son that they are verbs and the last syllable is the heaviest.
The English tendency to accent the first syllable has sub-
stituted an antepenult accent for a penult in many words,
and in others the change is in progress, there being one
pronunciation by scholars and another by people in general.
ora'tor or'ator lyce'um ly'ceum
sena'tor sen'ator anemo'ne anem'one
cica'trix cic'atrix elegi'ac ele'giac
abdo'men ab'domen eurocly'don euroc'lydon
minis'ter minister charac'ter char'acter
pletho'ra pleth'ora dysen'tery dys'entery
cogno'men cog'nomen panthe'on pan'theon
muse'um mu'seum thea'tre the'atre
umbili'cus umbil'icus
An example of this gradual naturalization is furnished by
a group of very recent botanical terms ending in phyllum or
phyllous Greek <pv\\ov, a leaf, about which the authorities
are much at variance :
adenophyllous epiphyllous microphyllous
anthophyllous exophyllous monophyllous
aphyllous gamophyllous myriaphyllous
caryophyllum heptaphyllous pentaphyllous
coleophyllous heterophyllous podophyllum
decaphyllous hypophyllous polyphyllous
endecaphyllous hexaphyllous rhizophyllous
endophyllous macrophyllous tetraphyllous, etc.
192 The English Language.
From the double / near the termination they ought all to
have the penult accent, but probably more people say
caryoph'yllum than caryophyl'lum.
As most words derived from Greek and Latin have lost
the final syllable in the process of adoption, the original
accent is often displaced by that means. The accentuation
is then left to be determined chiefly by the last two sylla-
bles. When they have sufficient volume and weight, if we
may use such an expression, they retain the accent on the
penult, as in effulgence, embrasure, indulgence, inconclusive,
superstructure, hermeneutic, pazdobaptism, otherwise it will be
drawn towards the beginning of the word. Elaborate rules
are sometimes given for determining the place of the accent,
which are well exemplified by the terminal analysis of Greek,
Latin, and Scripture proper names given by Walker and
Worcester. The latter gives 558 divisions, or rules, exhibit-
ing no principle, useless for reference, and impossible to re-
member. Sixty of the classes contain each only one word.
It was of such wasted labor that Dr. Latham said : " The
voice of a ruler of rules is a sound to flee from."
A native word, no matter how long, \\ViQcaterpillarcatcker,
retains all its original syllables unbroken, so that it is in-
stantly recognized ; but a word from Latin, Greek, or Hebrew
is often taken to pieces and put together again in a quite
different manner, and that too generally for the purpose of
moving the accent towards the beginning. From kalendiz
and grapho, a hybrid word, kal-en-dog 'raph-er was once made,
the most important syllable of which was dog, that did not
appear in the original. This practice is very common.
Ab melech
anti phrasis
anti strophe
anthropo phago
carni voro
A-&V'-e-lech
aiWzjM'-ra-sis
an-ftV-tro-phe
an-thro-j^/z'-a-gi
car-wzV-o-rous
equa anima e-qua-mW-i-ty
di pteron dip'-t&ca.
grandi loquor gran-aW -o-quent
Jeho shaphat Je-/w,rA'-a-phat
therme metron ther-TW/w'-e-ter
The accented syllable of such compound words therefore is
made up of the last letters of the first part and the first
letters of the second.
Pronunciation and Spelling. 193
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN USAGES.
There are at present a few points of difference between
the spellings current in England and in this country, which,
although not uniform, are tolerably well maintained. Web-
ster's Dictionary, and those who follow its guidance, diverge
the most widely from English usage, while some of the dif-
ferences are due to changes now in progress in the older
country. The points in question may be each illustrated by
two words as well as by many.
English ise, American ize,
dogmatise
dogmatize
ostracise
ostracize
x " rf
connexion
connection
u <
inflexion
inflection
" our " ^r
ardour
ardor
< u <
favour
favor
" / " //
enrolment
enrollment
" " " "
fulfil
fulfill
< 77 < 7
traveller
traveler
" " " "
jewellery
jewelry
In regard to the first it does not appear on what principle
one should write baptize with z, and dogmatise with s, since
both are from Greek verbs ending in izo. If verbs so de-
rived were written with z and all the others with s, it would
be intelligible. The second pair of words are from the
Latin connexio and inflexio ; and in regard to all words so
derived the English practice is correct. Those in our are so
written to show that they come from the Latin or, through
the French eur ; but English usage is not uniform on this
point. Richardson, like most others, gives the preference to
errour, but in the authorities he cites it occurs five times as
err our and four times as error. Skeat (1884) writes error
and says that the spelling has been changed to make it
more like the Latin ; and that is just what we in America
are doing with that whole class of words. Jewellery and
jewelry are the most divergent, but the American form
follows the analogy of chivalry, rivalry, devilry, chapelry,
194 The English Language.
and, what is more to the point, revelry, for I suppose no
Englishman writes revellery. The aim of educated Ameri-
cans is to make the language more simple, consistent, and
easy to use.
It is a question how far Americans are under obliga-
tion to adopt new forms of expression originating in Eng-
land, or even to retain old ones. We are generally prone
enough to imitate, even in things so little deserving of imita-
tion as the ever-changing styles of arranging our clothing,
hair, and beards ; and there are even Anglomaniacs who
assert that no amount or unanimity of mere American usage
can render a word or expression legitimate. But from be-
fore the dawn of history families have been separating, send-
ing out colonizing swarms eastward and westward to conquer
and settle strange lands ; and these in their new homes have
developed new languages, laws, and institutions, and new
types of character. In this way have been formed all the
languages spoken on the globe. It is the way of all the
world, and the fear of criticasters will not alter it. Our
ancestors brought, with the language and laws, the general
physical and spiritual make-up of English and Scottish men
and women of the useful classes, and were for a time a mere
appendage to the parent country. We rightfully inherit all
that was prior to the separation. Whatever date may be
assigned for that event, it is clear that by this time we have
emerged from the state of marsupial nutrition. If the
highest European culture is rarely or never reached in
this country, there are probably more persons in America
who can appreciate and enjoy good English than in all the
British Islands. Whatever commends itself to our judg-
ment and taste, and is suited to our wants, should be wel-
comed, from whatever source it may emanate ; all else can
be left to those to whose different circumstances it may
be adapted. It is not apparent why the example of an
English writer should be more binding upon us than the
decision of an English judge. Deserving of careful and
respectful consideration both may be, but obligatory they
are not.
Pronunciation and Spelling. 195
ANOMALIES OF PRONUNCIATION AND SPELLING.
After all that can be said in the way of general principles,
tendencies, or rules, there is still outstanding a considerable
amount of irregularity, especially in proper names, that can
only be treated item by item. Some are words written
according to pronunciations long abandoned, and others are
foreign importations not yet assimilated. We should natu-
rally look in the dictionaries for them, but as no one will
make a general search, a very inadequate idea will be formed
of the amount of the irregularity. Some would not be found
by seeking, and of others the treatment is very unsatisfac-
tory. Webster gives Da-el', and Worcester De-el' , as the
pronunciation of Dalzell ; and Webster has the following :
" Strath'-spey, n. [Denominated from the county of Strath-
spey, in Scotland, as having been first used there]." On this
last example, I remark, first, that, as given, it is nearly un-
pronounceable ; secondly, that it is incorrect ; and thirdly,
that Strathspey is not a county, but merely the valley of the
river Spey, extending through or into Elgin, Banff, and
Inverness shires. Strath, like glen, signifies merely a valley,
and prefixed to the local name is never accented. There
are more than a dozen such in Scotland. The th is pro-
nounced before vowels, as, Strathallan, Stratfi-aven, Strath-
earn, but is not heard before consonants in Strathbogie,
Strathdon, Strathmore, Strathspey. The ey in Spey is nearly
but not quite the ay in day. It is the Spanish ey in rey,
which may be attained by sounding both vowels separately.
I omit here the Italian terms learned as a part of educa-
tion in music and painting, and also the numerous French
phrases daily met with and involving the whole subject of
French pronunciation, to be learned only from a living
teacher.
It will be necessary here to add a little to the notation on
page 144. A smaller type or a curved mark will denote the
short, faint, obscure sound of the vowels a, e, i, o, u. Ob-
scure e is equal to a faint /, and the others incline to the
obscure neutral u.
196
The English Language.
There are a considerable number of Greek words in which
a final e is sounded diastole, epitome, strophe hyperbole, syn-
cope, and others. There are also a few from the Latin dele,
finale, optime, rationale, secale, vice, etc.
The termination es in English = s after f, k, p, t, th, = s or
ez in all other cases, in Spanish words = es ; but in words that
retain an original Greek or Latin form it is commonly, though
not with entire correctness, pronounced eez.
Words containing any form of the Greek GOOV, an animal,
separate the vowels epi-zo-ot-ic, not ep-i-zoot-ic.
The abbreviation cor. in the following list denotes a pro-
nunciation correct but not common.
accompt, pron. account.
aches, aiks.
aggerate,gg = j.
Aino, iino, a man of the Kurile
Islands.
aisle, HI.
answer, w silent.
apophthegm, ap-5-thetn.
assoilzie, as-soil'-ye, to ab-
solve.
asthma, as'-ma or az'-ma.
avoirdupois, voir = vtir. ,
aye.
bagnio, ban'-yo.
balmoral, bal-mor'-al.
bass, bais.
bayou, bii'-uu.
beaufin, bif'-in.
bechamel, besh'-a-mel, a kind
of broth.
beguine, beg'-in, a nun of a
certain order.
bijou, bl-zhuu'.
boatswain, boa'-sm.
Bootes, Bo-o'-teez.
bowls, bowls, a game. English.
brevier, bre-veer, a size of
type.
Canaanite.
caoutchouc, kuu'-chuuk.
cap-er-cail-zie, * = y.
cascalho, kas-kal-yo, gravel.
catechise.
cateran,lcai-ter-an, or kait-r^n,
a Highland outlaw.
caviare, ka-veer', ka-vee-ar'.
cento, chento, medley of verses,
challis, shal'-ly, a fine woollen
fabric,
chamber,
chapeau, shap-o.
charpie, sharp-y, picked lint.
choir, kwiir.
chose, shoaz, a legal term.
chough, chuf.
Christ,
chute, shuut.
cicerone, chee-che'-ro'-ny.
cicesbeo, chee-ches-bai'-o.
cinchona, cor. sin-choa'-na.
cinquecento, chink-wai-chent-
o, abbreviation of (A.D.) 1500.
Pronunciation and Spelling.
197
circuit, cult = cut.
cocagne, kok-ain',LubberlancL
COgnac, koan-yak, brandy.
colander, kul'-en-der.
colewort, kol-ard, Southern
U. S.
colonel, kur-nel.
color, kul'-ur.
comptroller, comp = con.
concetto, kon-chet'-o, a con-
ceit.
conch, konk.
concierge, kon-sarj', a janitor.
conduit, kon'-dit.
condyle, kon-dil.
consigne, kon-seen', a coun-
tersign.
conversazione, kon-ver-sat-
see-o'-nai.
COquina, ko-kee-na, a cockle.
Cordillera, kor-deel-yai'-ra.
corps, koar.
cortege, kor-taizh.
Cortes, Kor'-tes, Spanish par-
liament.
cotillon, ko-til'-yun.
counterfeit, feit = fit.
coyote, koi-oa'-tai, prairie
wolf.
creux, kru, cor. krti, intaglio.
cuirass, kwee'-ras.
cuish, kwis, and kwish, armor
for the thigh.
cupboard, kub'-urd.
Curasao, kuu-ra-so', name of
a cordial.
Cymric, kim'-rik. Welsh.
5y pres, see prai, a legal term.
Czar, cor. tsar.
Czarina, cor. tsar-ee'-na.
dengue, deng'-gai, a rheumatic
fever.
disciple, would be better ac-
cented on the first syllable,
discompt, dis-kownt'.
does, duz.
door, floor, etc.
eclegm, and many others,
with g silent before m ; all
Greek.
enfeoff, en-fef, a legal term.
English, e = i.
estramacon, es-tram'-a-son,
a small sword, a sax.
extraordinary, aor = or.
eyas, //'-as, an unfledged
hawk.
fa9ade, c = s.
feod, fyuud, a legal term.
ferrule, fer'-il.
fiord, or fjord, fyoard, a nar-
row inlet of the sea.
flysch, fbVsh, a certain series
of rocks.
forehead, for'-ed
foreign, for'-m.
forfeit, for'-flt.
fuchsia, commonly fyuu'-
shee-a, cor. fuux'-ee-a, from
which fuchsine.
fyst, fs, a little dog. South.
U.S.
gaberlunzie, gab-er-luun'-ye,
a beggar's wallet
gaol, jail.
gaucho, gow'-cho, a native of
the pampas.
gauge, gaij.
geyser, g/V'-ser.
giaour, jowr.
198
The English Language.
glamour, cor. glam'-ur. In
the 35th chapter of the Gret-
tis Saga it is related how
Grettir fought with and over-
came the ghost of an un-
believing heathen named
Glam. The hero never re-
covered from the effects of
the contest, but ever after
saw ghosts at night, and it
become a common saying
that Glam had cast a glamour
over any one who saw what
was not to be seen. This
was written about A.D. 1300.
groschen, gro'-shen, a small
German coin.
guanaco, gwa-naa'-ko, a
species of llama.
guano, gwaa'-no.
guava, gwaa'-va.
guerdon, ger-don, a reward.
guerillero, ger-eel-yai'-ro.
guinea.
guitar, gee-tar'.
gunwale, gun'-el.
halfpenny, hap'-eny or hai-'
pen-y.
halser, haw'-sr
han't, hant, or haint.
hautboy, hoa'-boy.
Hawaiian, hawii-yan, cor.
Haa-waa-ee-yan.
heather, hedh-er.
heifer, hef-er.
hiccough.
hidalgo-, ee-dal'-go.
hornito, or-nee'-to.
hough, hok.
housewife, huz'-if.
humor, yuu-mtir.
hussy, huz-y.
imbroglio, im-broal'-yoa.
improvisatore, final e sound-
ed.
improvisatrice, -tree-chy.
indict, in-d//t.
intaglio, in-tal'-yoa, engrav-
ing cut in, as of a seal.
ipecacuanha, cor. ip-ai-kak-
uu-an-ya.
iron, i-urn.
island, isle, s silent.
isocheim, '-so-kzVm.
isosceles, w-sos'-el-eez.
jaquima, ha-kee'-ma, a head-
stall for breaking horses,
West. U. S.
jarl, yarl, Norse for earl.
judgment, etc.,g =J before m.
keelson, kel-sSn, the interior
counterpart of a ship's keel.
kilo, kee'-lo, contraction for
kilogram.
knowledge, knowl = nol.
kreutzer, kroit-zer, a Ger.coin.
lammergeyer, -g-er.
laugh, laf.
lazzarone, lad-zar-oa'-ny, a
ragamuffin.
leeward, luu-ard.
ley = lye.
Leyden, hV-den.
lieutenant, liv-. Eng.
Limoges-ware, lim-oazh-
llano, lyaa'-no, a grassy plain.
lot'o, name of a game.
Lucchese, Luk'-keez, people
of Lucca.
machairodus, Ma-kii'-ro-dus,
a fossil animal allied to the
bear.
Pronunciation and Spelling.
199
machine, ma-sheen',
macigno, ma-cheen'-yoa.
magazine, -zeen.
maguey, ma-gwai, great Mex.
aloe.
Magyar, mad'-yar.
Maharajah, ma-ha-raa'-jah, a
prince of India.
mahout, ma-howt', an ele-
phant driver.
maleic, mai-lee'-ik, a form of
malic acid.
manada, ma-naa'-da, a herd
of mares.
manoeuvre, ma-nuu'-ver.
mantua-maker, tua = tu.
maraschino, ma-ras-kee'-no,
a cherry cordial.
marine.
marline, mar'-lin.
mascagnin, mas-kan'-yin,
name of a mineral,
mate, maa'-tai, Paraguay tea.
matico, ma-tee'-ko, a medici-
nal plant of Peru.
meerschaum, mair'-showm,
likely to become meer'-shum
or mur-shum.
mesa, mes'-a, an elevated plain,
West. U. S.
mesne, meen, a legal term.
mesquite, mes-kee'-tai, or
mes-keet', a species of tree,
also of grass, Texas.
a cross be-
mestino, -tee-no
mestizo, -tee-zo
tween a
Creole
and an
Indian.
mezzorilievo, med-zoa-ree-
lee-ai'-voa.
mezzotinto, med-zoa-tint'-oa.
mirage, mee-raazh'.
mise, meez, a legal term.
misle, mizl, a fine rain.
mistle, mizl, a fine rain.
mochila, moa-chee'-la, a sad-
dle-flap, West. U. S.
monte, mon'-tai, name of a
game.
morne, mor-nai, a term in
heraldry.
mortgagor, mor-ga-jor'.
mosquito,
muezzin, mwed-zin, one who
calls to prayer among the
Moslems.
muscle, mus-H.
nephew, Eng. nev'-yuu.
neve, nai-vai, upper part of a
glacier.
nowed, nuud, knotted. Her-
aldry.
oboe, oa'-boa-ee, a wind in-
strument.
often, soften, etc., / silent.
Oglio, olla, oal'-ya, a stew, lit.
a pot.
olla podrida, poa-dree-da.
pachisi, pa-chee'-zy, an Indian
game.
pali, paa'-lee, an ancient Hin-
doo language.
pall-mall, pel-mel.
paradigm, g silent.
paradis, -dee, a wet dock.
parapegm, g silent, an ancient
form of placard.
parasceve, pa-ra-see'-vee, the
eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
paraselene, final e sounded,
a mock moon.
2OO
The English Language.
parliament, a silent.
patois, pat'-wa, a dialect or
brogue.
peirameter, \ . _,
peirastic, j-ei--i.
peso, pai'-so, a Spanish dollar.
petate, pai-taa'-tai, a palm
mat.
petit, pet-y.
Pharaoh, aoh = o.
phlegm, g silent.
phosphenes, fos'-fee-nez, the
lights seen under pressure on
the eyeball.
pibroch, cor. pee'-brukh, the
war-tune of a Highland clan.
picarisque, )
picturesque, f que == '
pico, pee-ko, a mountain peak.
pise, pee'-zai, a wall of rammed
earth,
pita, pee'-ta, fibre of the Mex.
aloe.
playa, plaa-zha, the sea-shore.
plaza, plaa-tha, a public
square.
pluries, pluu'-ri-eez, many
times.
poe, poa'-ee, root of the taro
plant.
polemarch, pol'-em-ark, Athe-
nian minister of war.
police, po-lees'.
pomegranate, pome = pum.
porpoise, portoise, tortoise,
poise, toise = pus, tiz or tis.
pose, poa-zai, attitude. Her-
aldry.
pozzulana, pod-zuu-laa'-na,
a hydraulic cement.
precis, prai-see, an abstract.
projet, proa-zhai, a scheme or
plan.
provost, proa-voa, title of an
officer.
pueblo, pweb'-lo, a Span.-
Amer. village.
puisne, pyuu-ny, cor. pwee-
nai.
pulque, puul'-kai, a Mexican
drink.
quaich, cor. kwaikh, a wooden
drinking cup.
quay, kee.
queue, kyuu.
quipu, kee'-puu, a knotted
cord to remember by.
realm, relm.
reata, rai-aa'-ta, a lasso, Cali-
fornia.
rei, e as in there, / as in ma-
chine, a Portuguese coin.
reiter, r/V-ter, Ger. a horse-
man.
rendezvous, ran-dai-vuu.
resume, rai-zuu-mai, a sum-
ming up.
rilievo, ree-lee-ai'-vo, relief in
engraving.
rodeo, roa-dai'-o, a gathering
of cattle, Western U. S.
sacrifice, ce = z.
sauerkraut, au = ow.
Schiedam, skee'-dam.
schism, sizm.
schlich, shlik, a pulverized ore.
schnapps.
schorl, a mineral.
schottische.
schreight, skreet, a fish.
SCirrhous, skir'-us, a hard
cancerous growth.
Pronunciation and Spelling.
201
lio, sai-ral'-yo.
serai, sai-raa'-ee, an Eastern
palace or lodging.
Scrape, sai-raa'-pai, a Mexican
blanket or shawl.
seven-night, sen'-n/Vt.
sew and shew.
sheol, shee-oal, the old Hebrew
place of departed spirits.
shiite, a Mahometan sectary.
sierra, see-er-a, a mountain
range.
siesta, see-, a nap at noon.
signora, Senora, see-nyoa-
ra, sai-nyoa-ra.
soften, / silent.
soiree, swa-rai, an evening
entertainment.
spa, spaa, a medicinal spring.
spahi, spaa'-hee, a Turkish
trooper.
sprechery, sprek-er-y, cor.
sprekh, miscellaneous plun-
der.
spuilzie, spuul-ye, spoil, plun-
der.
Stiacciato, stee-ach-aa'-to, a
very low relief in sculp-
ture.
stomacace, sto-mak'-a-see, a
foul breath.
Stone, 14 Ibs., called in Eng-
land stun.
Storge, stor'-jee, parental af-
fection.
sugar, shuu'-gar.
Tagliacotian, Tal-ya-koa'-
she-an, Tagliacozzi's opera-
tion.
tailzie, tail-ye, a Scotch deed
of entail.
tazza, tat-sa, a kind of vase.
terzarima, ter-tsa-ree'-ma, a
kind of versification.
thaler, taa'-ler, a German
dollar.
threepence, thrip'-ens.
tongue, tung.
tortilla, tor-tee-ya, a griddle-
cake.
travail, trav'-el.
treenail, tren-el, a wooden pin
in ship-building.
tuyere, tweer, the blast-nozzle
in a furnace.
two-pence, tup-ens.
urao, uu-raa'-o, natron.
vaquero, va-kai'-ro, a cow-
boy.
verdigris, ver-di-grees.
vice, v//'-see.
victuals, vit-als.
vicuna, vee-kuun-ya, a species
of llama.
vidame, vee-dam', a feudal
dignitary.
vide, v"-dee, see.
viscount, vii-kownt, a title of
nobility.
visne, veen, vicinity.
vomito, vo-mee'-to, malignant
yellow fever.
waistcoat, commonly wes-kut.
weigelia, wii-jeel-ya, name
of a flowering shrub.
who, huu.
women, o = i.
yacht, yot.
zollverein, tsoal-fer-/m, an
agreement among the Ger-
man states in regard to cus-
toms duties.
2O2
The English Language.
This list will give an idea of the extent and character of
these anomalies.
No class of words present greater irregularities than do
proper names. The following list contains a good number
of those met with in Great Britain and the United States,
the pronunciation of which is liable to be mistaken. They
may be presumed to be English, Scotch, or Irish, unless
marked Am. In a few instances an English and an Ameri-
can pronunciation are distinguished. To avoid repetition it
may be observed that in England the termination -borough is
usually heard as -bro y -ham as -am, or rather -um, for the vowel
is very obscure, that stone, in any situation, is stun, and that
ell does not control the accent Par'nell, not Par-nell'.
Names having no other peculiarities than these are omitted.
Aberdeen, Ae-ber-deen.
Abergavenny,
Ae-ber-gen'-ny.
Abernethy, Ae-ber-neth'-y.
Albuquerque, Al-buu-ker'-ky.
Annesley, Anz'-ly.
Ascough, Ask'-yuu.
Bagehot, Baj'-ut.
Balguy, Baw'-gy.
Barham, Bar'-am.
Beaconsfield, Bek'-onz-.
Beall, Bel. Am.
Beauchamp, Beech'-am.
Beauclerc, ) Boa . klair ^
Beauclerk, )
Bedel, Bid!
Beham, Bai'-am.
Belknap, Bel'-nap. Am.
Belvoir, Bee'-ver.
Berkeley, Bark-ly.
Betham, Beth'-am.
Bethune, Bee'-ton.
Bewick, Byuu'-ik.
Bicester, Bis-ter.
Blw.
Bligh, )
Blythe, f
Blount, Blunt.
Boisseau, Bushel. Am. low.
Boleyn, B^l'-en.
Bolingbroke, Bol'-ing-bruuk.
Boscawen, Bos'-ka-wen.
Bourke, Burk.
Bourne, Burn.
Bowdoin, Boa-din. Am.
Bowles, Boalz.
Bowring, Bow-ring.
Brougham, Bruum.
Broune, Bruun.
Buchan, Buk'-an,cor.Bukh-an.
Bur'nett.
Bury, Ber-y.
Calderon, Cal'dron.
Castlereagh, Kasl'-rai.
Cavendish, Kon'-dish.
Charteris, Charterz.
Chisholm, Chiz-um.
Cholmeley,
Cholmondeley, )
[ Chum-ly.
Pronunciation and Spelling.
203
Cirencester, Sis'-is-ter.
Clanric arde.
Clough, Kluf.
Cluverius, Klev'-erz. Am.
Cockburn, Koa-burn.
Coggeshall, Kogz-all.
Coke, Kuuk.
Colquhoun, Kuu-huun.
Compton, Kum-ton
Conyngham, Kun'-ing-am.
Coutts, Kuuts.
Cowper, Kuu-per.
Creighton, Krai-tSn.
Crichton, KnV-ton.
Dalhousie, Dal-huu-zy.
Dalzell, Dal-yel'.
Dampier, Dam '-peer.
Daviess, Dai'-vis. Am.
Derby, Dar'-by.
Derwent, Dar'-went.
Des Vaux, Dai'-voa.
Devereux, Dev'-er-uu.
Dillwyn, Dil'-un.
Douce, Dows.
Duchesne, Eng. Duu-kaan,
Am. Duu-shan.
Dumaresque, Dim'-er-ik.
Du Plat, Duu Plaa'.
Duyckink, Dii'-kink.
Eachard, Ech'-ard.
Eadmer, Ed'-mer.
Elgin, not Eljin.
Eyre, Aer.
Falconer, ) Fawk . ner
Faulkner, )
Farquhar,
Far'-kwar, or Far'-hwar.
Fiennes, Fee-enz'.
Fildes, Feel'-dez.
Foljambe, Ful'-jam.
Forbes, For'-bis. Scotch.
Freind, Frend.
Frelinghuysen,
Freling-h-zen.
Froude, Fruud.
Gayarre, Gii-ar'-ai.
Geoghegan, Gai'-gan.
Gifford, Jif'-urd.
Gill, not Jill
Gill'ott, not Jil-.
Glamis, Glaamz.
Gleig, Gleg.
Gould, Goald.
Gower, Goar,
Grosvener, Groav-ner.
Hague, ) Hai
Haigh, )
Halstead, Hoisted.
Hansard.
Harcourt, Har-kut.
Hardinge, Harding.
Haughton, Haw-ton.
Hem'ans.
Herries, Har-is.
Herthford, Har'furd.
Hobart, Hub-ert.
Holmes, Hoamz. Am.
Holyoke, Hoal'-yoak. Am.
Hotham, Huthm.
Hough, Huf.
Houghton, Hoa-tun. Am.
Houston, Hyuus-ton. "
Hoveden, Huv-den.
Huger, Yuu'-jee. Am.
Hughes, Hyuuz.
Ingelow, In'-je-loa.
Ingraham, Ing'-gram.
Iz'ard. Am.
Jacobi, Jl-koa'-by.
Johnstone, Jon'-s6n.
2O4
The English Language.
Jervaulx,) Jar ,_ vis
Jervis, )
Kearney, Kar'-nee. Am.
Keightley, Keet-ly.
Keill, Keel.
Keith, Keeth.
Kennaird'.
Kennard'.
Kerr, Kar.
Kirkaldy, Kir-kaw'-dy.
Knollys, Noal'-iz.
Laing, Lang.
Layard, Laird.
Leathes, Leeths.
Leavitt, Lev-it.
Leconfield, Lek'-on-field.
Ledyard, Lej-urd.
Lefevre, Le-fai-vur.
Legare, Le-gree". Am.
Leicester, Les-ter.
Leigh, Lee.
Leighton, Lai-tun.
Leland, Lel'-and, or Lee'-land.
Leveson-Gower, Luu-sSn-
goar.
Lewes, Luu-is.
Leyden, Lw'-den.
Lid'dell.
Lindsay, Lin'-zy.
Ling'ard.
Lockhart, Lok'-art.
Lough, Luf.
Lovat, Luv'-at.
Lucado, Luk-a-duu'. Am. low.
Mackay, Mak-y.
Mahon, Mai-6n.
Mainwaring, Man'-er-ing.
Majoribanks, Marsh-banks.
Marion, Mar'-ee-o"n.
Mather, Madh'-er. Am.
McKenzie, cor. M5k-en'-ye.
McLeod, Mak-lowd'.
Meagher, Mar. Irish.
Meigs, Megz. Am.
Melbourne, -burn.
Menzies, Men-yeez.
Meredith, Mere = merry.
Mereweather, Mere = merry.
Meux, Myuuz.
Millais, Mil-ai.
Milnes, Milz.
Molyneux, Mol-in-yuuks'.
Monck, Munk.
Monckton, Munk-ton.
Monmouth, Mon'-muth.
Monson, Mun-son.
Montefiore,
Mon-tai-fee-oa'-ry.
Montgomery, Mun-gum'-ry.
Moray, Mur'-ai.
Moultrie, Muu-tree, now
Moal-tree. Am.
Mowbray, Moa'-bry.
Murchison, as written.
Ogilvie, Oa'-gil-vy.
Olmstead, Um'-sted. Am.
O'Shaughnessy, Oa-Shaw'-
nes-y.
Ouless, Uu'-les.
Ouseley, Uuz'-ly.
Outram, Uut'-ram.
Paget, Paj'-it.
Palmerston, Paam'-er-stun,
Pole, Puul.
Polk, Poak. Am.
Ponsonby, Pun-son-by, Punz-
by.
Pontefract, Pom-fret.
Pouleston, Pil'-stun.
Powlett, Poa'-let.
Pronunciation and Spelling.
205
Prideaux, Prid'-o.
Pugh(e), Pyuu.
Pulteney, Pult-ny.
Raleigh, Raw-ly.
Rantoul, Ran'-tuul. Am.
Reay, Rai.
Rives, Reevz. Am.
Rolleston, Roal'-stun.
Romilly, Rom'-il-y.
Rothschild, cor. Roat-sheelt.
Rouse, Ruus.
Ruthven, Riv-en.
Saint Clair, Sink-ler.
Saint John, Sin'-jin.
Saint Leger, Sil'-in-jer.
Salisbury, Sawlz'-ber-y.
Sandys, Sand-iz.
Savile, Sav'-il.
Schenck, Skenk. Am.
Schurz, Shuurts. "
Schuyler, Sk/V-ler. "
Sewall, Suu'-al.
Seward, Suu'-ard. Am.
Seymour, See-mur.
Sneyd, Sneed.
Somers, Sum-erz.
Sothern, Sudh'-ern.
Southey, Sow-dhy.
Stanhope, Stan'-6p.
Strachan, Strawn.
Stuyvesant, St/V'-ve-sant. Am.
Tad'ema.
Taliaferro, Tul-i-ver. Am.
Tallmadge, TaT-mij.
Tighe, T//.
Tilghman, Til'-man. Am.
Timberlake, Tim-lik. "
Tirrwhit, Tir'-it.
Tollemache, Tol-mash.
Trafalgar, Traf-al-gar'.
Trenholm, Tren'-um.
Troughton, Trow'-ton.
Tuomey, Tuu-my.
Urquhart, Urk'-ert.
Vaughan, Vawn.
Vaux, Vawks.
Villiers, Villers.
Waldegrave, Wal'-graiv.
Walmesley, Wamz-ly.
Walsingham, Wal-si-kum.
Warwick, War'-ik.
Wellesley, Welz'-ly.
Wemyss, Weemz.
Wolesley,) Wal ,
Woolsey, )
Worcester, "WW-ter.
Wrottesley, Rots'-ly.
Wycliffe, Wik'-lif.
Wykeham, Wik'-am.
Wythe, With.
Yonge, Yung.
PHONETIC SPELLING.
The foregoing examples will have prepared us to appre-
ciate the advantages of phonetic writing that is, of any
system in which the relation between the audible sound and
the visible symbol is always the same. No doubt there have
been such modes of writing, at least temporarily, until the
spoken language changed. The language of the Spanish
206 The English Language.
Academy is now so far regular that the reader is never at
a loss except for the place of the accent, if left unmarked.
So German presents but little difficulty, and is now under-
going a pretty vigorous pruning of redundant material. The
present English pronunciation and spelling are probably
the most discordant ever known, and many have been the
efforts to harmonize them. The first attempt of which we
have any knowledge was the Ormulum, a metrical paraphrase
of the Scripture lessons of the Church, written by a priest
named Ormin, about the year 1200. His phonetic system
was limited to the doubling of the consonant after a short
vowel, as we write summer instead of sumer ; but to this he
attached great importance, imitating the author of the
Apocalypse in anxiety for the purity of his text.
" & whase wilenn shall thiss boc
Efft otherr sithe writenn,
Himm bidde ice thatt het write rihht
Swa sum thiss boc himm tsechethth,
All thwerrt ut affterr thatt itt iss
Uppo thiss firrste bisne ;
Withth all swillc rime alls herr iss sett,
Withth all se fele wordess ;
& tatt he loke wel thatt he
An bocstaff write twiggess,
Eggwhser thser itt uppo this boc
Iss writenn o thatt wise."
The object of the principal reformers has been more
comprehensive to devise either a universal alphabet or a
universal language. Conspicuous among them was John
Wilkins, Bishop of Ripon, one of the founders of the Royal
Society, who in 1668 published a small folio with the title,
"An Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical
Language." The work showed much ability, acuteness, and
industry, and was thought by the Brothers Chambers worth
republishing ; but no one has thought it worthy of adoption.
About 1854 many "Alphabetic Conferences" of learned
men were held in London under the presidency of the Cheva-
Pronunciation and Spelling. 207
Her Bunsen, the Prussian Ambassador, for the purpose of
devising a system of written characters capable of represent-
ing all human utterances. It is sufficient here to say that
these laudable efforts were unsuccessful. Prof. Max Mtiller
then undertook a universal Missionary Alphabet, which also
has not met with general acceptance. The next in order
was Lepsius' " Standard Alphabet," which was published
for the second time in London in 1863, and which has been
adopted in some works for representing foreign names. In
1867 Prof. Alexander Melville Bell published his " Visible
Speech or Universal Alphabetics," the first attempt, so far
as I am aware, to reduce the sounds and signs of language
to a scientific system. The arrangement, the forms, and
even the names of the characters are designed to correspond
with the various positions of the organs of speech. A letter,
instead of being called Alpha or A, may be named " High-
Back Wide Round." The total number of characters, with
similar names, exhibited on page 37 of the work, is 129.
Wonderful results are said to have been accomplished by
this system, in enabling adepts to reproduce at sight the
most strange and difficult kinds and combinations of sounds ;
but it seems to me that most persons would be utterly una-
ble to learn it, that it would be unwieldy, and that either the
printed or the manuscript character recommended would
present to the eye a most uninviting page. Lastly, there is
the palaeotypeof Mr. A. J. Ellis, comprising 267 letters, and
36 additional guides to pronunciation, in all 303. It is no
wonder that he was unable to apply an apparatus so cumber-
some to the very purpose for which it seems more especially
to have been invented. The inventor frankly admits its
unfitness for general use. Mr. Ellis is also the author of a
much simpler system which he calls " Glossic," in which
none but the letters in common use are employed. It fails
to show any nice distinctions of sound. The following is an
example :
" Glosik reiting iz akweird in dhi proases ov glosik reeding.
Eni wun hoo kan reed glosik kan reit eni werd az wel az hee kan
208 The English Language.
speek it, and dhi proper moad ov specking iz lernt bei reeding
glosik bucks. But oaing too its pikeu'lier konstruk'shen, glosik
speling iz imee'dietli intel'ijibl, widhou't a kee too eni nomik
reader. Hens a glosik reiter'kan komeu'nikait widh aul reederz,
whedher glosik aur noraik, and haz dhairfoar noa need too bikum
a nomik reiter. But hee 'kan bikum *wun, if serkemstensez ren-
der it dezei'rabl, wedh les trubl than thoaz hoo hav not lernt
glosik."
This specimen contains 455 letters and u dots that have
no perceptible use 466 in all. In our common spelling
there would be 472 letters. The saving therefore would be
about 3^ per cent., a point of some importance, as one of
the arguments insisted upon is the great economy of time
from omitting the silent letters. And were it not for the
dots this would probably be the simplest plan yet proposed.
Its poverty is seen in the employment of the same letter e
for a, e, i, 0, and u in " word" " render," and " circum-
stances"
There are also various schemes, more or less known in
England and America, that use the common alphabet as a
basis, and supplement its deficiencies with additional letters.
In opposition to any kind of spelling reform, one Ameri-
can critic has written at considerable length, arguing, rather
inconsistently, that the present system presents no difficulty,
and that, even if it did, it is not desirable that it should be
easy. A more weighty defence of our anomalous spelling,
is that the origin and history of words are treasured in its
antiquated forms. But this argument, sound though it be,
has less weight than might be supposed. In general, it ap-
plies only to words that retain an Italian or a French form, or
have come pretty directly from Greek or Latin. For nearly
all words of Teutonic, Slavic, Asiatic, African or American
origin, the spelling is no guide ; for, in not a few, like bride-
groom, woman and hiccough, it is a blunder, and misleading.
Again, many words have passed through several languages,
and the spelling reveals only one stage in their progress.
What reader of the morning papers sees, or cares to see,
that his comb and pifc/ier, "his bottle and cards, his pantaloons
Pronunciation and Spelling. 209
and galoches are Greek, his lemons and gherkins Persian, or
that the sugar that mollifies the rancor of his coffee has
come from the far Sanskrit, through Persian, Arabic, Span-
ish, and French, and is like none of its ancestors? Etymol-
ogy is not illustrated by writing move, shove, drove, nor does
the spelling teach the common reader anything of the history
of such forms as taught, thought, and bought. Nearly all that
etymology would lose by a reform would be a few silent
letters in words from the Greek. It is only words whose
spelling is regular that carry their etymology on their face.
Again the great body of readers neither know nor care any-
thing about etymology. They are willing to take their words
at their present face value, without questioning whence they
came. Not one in ten thousand of those who think them-
selves educated can tell without a dictionary the derivation of
words not of Greek or Latin origin ; and the relative number
of Greek and Latin scholars is becoming less every year.
But while the desirability of phonetic writing does not
admit of a reasonable doubt, there are reasons for believing
that its attainment is not at hand. In the first place, man-
kind are averse to radical changes. Their greatest reforms
are at best, not from bad to good, but from bad to something
not quite so bad. The new departures and radical reforms
so often clamored for, are generally but a reversion to some
shallow expedient that has been tried a hundred times, and
found wanting. The multitude has often been called fickle
and fond of change ; but their mobility is on hinges and not
on wheels oscillating backward and forward between points
that are near together. Were the ground at once clear and
fertile, how pleasant to plant, and watch the growth ! Were
the human mind a blank, how easy to write upon it ! But
we are like the medieval monks, who, in order to pen their
saintly homilies, had to erase painfully, odes of Tibullus and
hymns to the heathen gods. And the erasure was never
complete. With all but mere children it is not learning but
unlearning that is the rub. I believe that no people having
a religion embodied in sacred books ever accepted a new
one. Christianity and Buddhism were both driven from
2io The English Language.
their native places to seek converts among races of men who
had no Bibles, Vedas, or Puranas. Just as little are bodies
of men inclined to change their languages or modes of
writing them. We have seen that the Egyptians kept up
their hieroglyphic systems until the times of the Roman
Empire, although the civilized nations around them had
been using neat and convenient alphabets for ages ; that the
ancient races of Mesopotamia never abandoned their arrow-
head writing ; and that the Chinese still persist in the use
of their excessively difficult character. There is therefore
an almost insuperable difficulty in the general conservatism
of mankind.
In the second place, those who have any voice or influence
in the matter are not generally conscious of suffering any
inconvenience, and so have no direct motive for change.
Those who can read and write do so with little difficulty,
and those who cannot may be counted out. Reading, in-
deed, presents no difficulty, except in new and strange words
and names, and is learned by children without much labor.
As to writing, we have seen that the saving in time and space
would probably not exceed three or four per cent. ; and it is
by no means certain that any system would be on the whole
easier than the present. It might be thought that phonetic
writing would at least save us from the mortification of mis-
spelling, but when we think of Mr. Ellis' " serkemstensez,"
it is not clear that even that would be diminished. It may
be said that each one should spell as he pronounces that is,
express his peculiarities of utterance in his own peculiar way;
but that would be the utter confusion of the fifteenth century,
which might be brought about without any radical reform.
With so little to attract them, every person at all advanced
in years, all who are busy, and all who have much to do
with books would rather keep on as they are than learn
anything very different. Besides, the world is now full of
books, whose pages seem to us fair and familiar and smiling
as the face of a friend. The ability to read them and make
literal extracts must be kept up for a hundred years, no
matter what system prevails. We cannot afford either to
Pronunciation and Spelling. 211
destroy or transform our literature ; and were the transfor-
mation considerable, our favorite authors would be no more
lovely than a mother's face in a paper mask. To impose a
radically different spelling or pronunciation upon the author-
ized version of the Scriptures, would be a more serious shock
to the piety of those who speak the English tongue than all
the assaults of the unbeliever.
A third consideration that has much weight with me is,
that a thing may be highly desirable and yet so difficult as
to be impracticable. Now to represent to the eye all the
sounds of our vastly copious and heterogeneous language
would not be easy, even with the zealous co-operation of
everybody. With some languages it would be easy. Span-
ish is very regular, but its sounds are few and simple.
There are Polynesian tongues built up of only about twenty
different syllables, all of the simplest kind. We have seen
that Japanese has but 73 syllables in all, and Cherokee 85,
while English, counting names of persons and places, con-
tains more than 9,000. Among them are such syllables
as frounced, glimpsed, knurled, smoothed, sixths, twelfths,
shrives, thoughts, thwarts. A still greater difficulty is found
in the fleeting, uncertain character of some of the sounds.
No two persons ever agree throughout as to what they are.
People differ in hearing and in utterance, and in their
attempts to represent what they hear and utter. We have
seen that Mr. Ellis, who has doubtless given the subject
more attention than any other person ever did, writes werd
for word, and agrees with our American lexicographers
in representing the familiar word what as whot. To my indi-
vidual judgment this is a bad rendering. The vowel is neither
the a in hat nor the o in hot, but something between ; and of
the two I should think the former the best approximation.
The guesses at the intermediate sounds heard in such words
as girl and pearl strike some on one side and some on
the other, and mislead by a show of precision. No ap-
proach to precision is possible without adding considerably
to our alphabet. It now consists of 26 letters, but q and x
add nothing to its compass, so that it is no better than 24.
212 The English Language.
Webster admits 43 simple sounds, to which the diphthongs
oi and ow might be added. This would certainly not be too
many, and yet would almost double the present number.
He who will invent 19 new letters that shall harmonize per-
fectly in style with those already in use, and add nothing to
the trouble of either reading or writing, will have gained an
idea of one of the difficulties to be overcome.
The great caravan routes of the East may be traced across
the deserts by the lines of bleaching bones, and the path-
way of human progress is strewn with the mortuary remains
of schemes for the sudden improvement of the lot of man.
Healthy progress is slow and noiseless, as the growth of the
forest and the herbage is not by thunder and proclamation.
" The kingdom of heaven cometh not with observation,"
but, " as if a man should cast seed into the ground ; and
should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should
spring, and grow up, he knoweth not how." (Luke xvii. 20.
Mark iv. 26.) The treasures of the mind are gathered slowly
atom by atom ; and our 26 letters are the imperceptible
growth of 5,000 years. We might take a lesson from the
Spaniards and the Germans and reduce the chaos of our
dictionary by numerous reforms, singly so small as to shock
no prejudices. Just what these reforms should be I am in
no better position to say than any one else. I may, how-
ever, suggest a few, merely to show that some improvement
is possible without making either reading or writing in the
least degree more difficult.
i. We might omit all those letters that in the present
state of the language have no influence on the pronunciation.
This would give, for example :
beuty for beauty ful for full
lam " lamb kil " kiln
spek " speck peple " people
giv " give salmist " psalmist
puf " puff diarea " diarrhoea
agregate " aggregate demene " demesne
eg " egg depo " depot
rime " rhyme buz " buzz
seze " seize
Pronunciation and Spelling. 2 1 3
A good part of the reforms of this character would be
merely a return to an earlier and simpler spelling. It may
be objected here that this would sometimes destroy the
distinction between words that sound alike but are written
differently, as wright, write, right, and rite. The objection
is sound in principle, but its force may be considerably
weakened. The above is the best example of the kind and
is often adduced, but as the gh has an influence on the pro-
nunciation, the four words would be reduced to two, not
to one ; and the effect would be offset by all pairs of
words now written alike but pronounced differently. Aye,
yes and aye, ever ; bass, in music and bass, a fish ; the bow
of an archer and the bow of a ship are examples. Moreover,
as words are addressed to the ear much oftener than to the
eye, the present ambiguity would be but little increased.
The following sentence too will show how little danger there
is of misunderstanding even an extreme case, which is not
in the least helped by the present spelling.
"I had just tied my bay horse to a bay tree and seated myself
in the recess of the bay window, when presently I heard the
hounds bay on the other side of the bay, where they had brought
a deer to bay"
2. We might confine g to what is commonly called its hard
sound, and write a/z'// of brandy instead of a. gill.
3. Substitute f for ph, as is done in Italian and Spanish ;
also lor gh wherever the pronunciation is/".
4. Confine s to its sharp hissing sound and let z represent
its value in muse.
5. Relieve q of all its present duties and turn them over
to k. Some other use might be found for this spare letter,
and it has even been suggested that it be put for the n in
finger.
6. Regulate the duties of a, e, ea, ee, ei, and ie so that no
one of them should conflict with another.
7. Do the same for o, oo, ou, and u.
8. Gaining courage as we advance, we might relegate to k
a part of the work of c, and to s another part, so as to let it
214 The English Language.
stand for the English and Spanish ch in church, or the Ital-
ian c in cielo.
9. Restore the two characters used for th in thin and thine
until the middle of the fourteenth century.
10. Restore the long s of the last century with the value
of sh, and let z be differentiated thus, size, azure.
We might still have x left for whatever might be needed.
Some idea of the results may be gathered from the fol-
lowing few examples ;
fosforus for phosphorus kac for catch
jinjer ' ginger cure " church
laf " laugh flem " phlegm
use, a noun sizm " schism
uze, " verb flud " flood
kwik for quick muve " move
sak ' sacque duv " dove
cu " chew
It is not to be supposed that all these changes could be
introduced at once and made successful. Those that would
arouse the least opposition should be tried first, until the
idea of eternal unchangeableness be overcome. Any influ-
ential publication might introduce some of the least startling
almost without criticism. The old and new spellings might
subsist side by side until one supplanted the other, as there
are now hundreds of words, like gaol and jail, pedlar and
peddler, jewellery and jewelry, having two or more spellings.
To try to carry through an entire revolution at once would
ensure defeat ; and it is better to undertake little and suc-
ceed, than to attempt much and fail. Professional politicians
are especially familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of
masses of men, and they are wiser in their generation than
the children of light. They suit their wares to the market.
They never seriously undertake any reform wide-reaching
and deep, well knowing that to do so would arouse an oppo-
sition somewhere that would cover them with defeat if not
with ridicule.
PART SECOND.
ENGLISH GRAMMAR.
ENGLISH GRAMMAR.
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY.
WRITERS on English grammar have occupied themselves
chiefly with two questions :
1st. What various forms does any English word assume?
2d. What form is to be used in any given instance ?
The answer to the first has been commonly called Etymol-
ogy, that to the second Syntax.
The first application of words was doubtless to material,
visible, tangible things ; but from such words men have had
to select, as each one best could, under the influence of
fanciful and misleading analogies, terms to express all the con-
ceptions of the mind. The selections have not always been
happy ; and grammarians have been no more successful than
others. Thus the sounds of speech have been called hard,
soft, broad, slender, round, full, empty, thick, thin, flat, fat,
sticky words aptly descriptive of butternuts and building
materials, but vocal sounds might as well have been called
blue, alkaline, or rhombohedral. So, too, a class of words
have been labelled as adjectives meaning thrown to that is,
words or things thrown to some other words or things. A
second important class have been designated zsverbs that is,
merely words. The title of a third class is prepositions
meaning placed before as if all words except the last were
not placed before some others. So etymology properly signi-
217
2i8 English Grammar.
fies the science of the derivation of words, and is so employed
by a class of scholars, but in the majority of English Gram-
mars has the peculiar signification given above. This point
may be illustrated by supposing an etymologist and a gram-
marian to give their respective views of the word daughter.
ETYMOL. A native word occurring in Middle English as dohter,
doghter, daughter, douhter, dowter, of which the plurals dohtren,
dehtren, and degter are found ; from Anglo-Saxon dohtor, pi. doh-
tor, dohtra, dohtru, and ddhter ; Dutch, dochter ; IceL, ddttir ;
Swed., dotler j Dan. dotter and datter ; Goth., dauhtar ; Old High
German, tohter j Mod. H. G., tochter ; Rus., dock ; Greek,
dvyactrjp $ Sansk., duhtri. Lassen and Curtius suppose the ety-
mology to be Sansk., duh or dhugh, to milk the milker and so
allied to the English dug.
GRAM. A common noun, feminine gender, singular number.
Syntax is primarily a military term, signifying the proper
arrangement of troops, on the march or in the field. It is
not inaptly applied to the marshalling of words, but should
include the order in which they are placed, a point that
receives little attention in works on English grammar.
Grammatical etymology and syntax might very well have
been denoted by the words analysis and synthesis, that is,
separating or sorting, and putting together ; for they are
not unlike the operations of the printer, who at one time
picks to pieces a page of types, putting each in its proper
compartment, and again re-collects and combines them into
a story or sermon. But when words are once fairly estab-
lished in use we are generally obliged to take them as
they are, whether they be admirably adapted to their pur-
pose or not.
All this pre-supposes that some words admit of differences
of form, as eagle, eagles ; swift, swifter, swiftest ; come, came,
coming, with corresponding differences of use. In this re-
spect languages differ greatly, ranging from Chinese, in which
every word remains invariably the same, to Arabic, in which
a word may assume some two thousand forms. English is
very poor in grammatical forms, so that only a person of the
Preliminary. 2 1 9
most acute analytical genius would ever think of searching
for them and arranging them systematically, without previ-
ously seeing some similar analysis. But a language that
should present the following among other forms might easily
suggest the idea of reducing them to a system :
ama-ba-m ama-re-m
ama-ba-s ama-re-s
ama-ba-t ama-re-t
ama-ba-mus ama-re-mus
ama-ba-tis ama-re-tis
ama-ba-nt ama-re-nt
Interest would be increased by finding another set having
no resemblance to the former, as :
serv-us serv-um
serv-i serv-orum
serv-o serv-is
serv-e serv-os
It might easily be observed that each of these sets of
forms, or something like them, was common to hundreds
of words, that the one set was peculiar to words denoting
some kind of action, and that the other characterized names
of things. Whenever so much should be observed, the
grammatical analysis of the language would be fairly begun.
Yet the Romans, who had these very forms, seem never to
have undertaken such analysis until obliged to compare
them with another system of forms equally extensive but
different in every detail.
Here is, perhaps, the fittest place for a few general con-
siderations, which should never be lost sight of in any study
relating to language.
A language is not made once for all according to a set of
pre-existing rules. Taken at any particular time, it is the
work of untold generations who have made, unmade, and
altered words and phrases, according to their wants, con-
venience, tastes, and whims, provided always that there was
a general tacit consent among the speakers. Some rude
22O English Grammar.
uniformity would always result from the imitative nature of
man and his readiness to acquiesce in things as they are,
from the common character and circumstances of any people,
and the necessity for being mutually understood ; but we
may as well abandon the idea that any language was ever
wholly regular, systematic, and consistent. On this point,
however, there are great differences, the most primitive
tongues being apparently the most regular.
Every word or combination of words must have been
once used for the first time, and by a single person. If no
one liked the expression, it died there and then ; if it took
the popular fancy, it was like the seed that fell upon good
ground and multiplied a hundred-fold. Thousands of such
words have now gone round the world. Grave authors have
related, that Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, used a new
word, starvation, in a speech in the House of Commons. It
seemed to those who heard it so strange and barbarous that
they gave him the nickname of Starvation Dundas, but the
word has lived.
Not only do words and phrases spread till they are heard
from millions of mouths, but they spread to applications
and meanings not dreamed of by the first introducers. No
doubt each innovator sees, or fancies, an analogy with some
previous usage, but the ramifications become so numerous
and diverse that the point of departure is often wholly lost
sight of. A perfect exposition would trace the expression
step by step like the genealogy of a family. If this can
seldom be done, it still remains as the ideal to be aimed at.
Rules of speech are an after-thought, an attempt to arrange
a body of material already existing. Some of this material
is apt to defy all but the most arbitrary classification. If
one should come into possession of an old and vast pawn-
broker's shop and depository of second-hand goods, he
might find it desirable to put articles of the same kind
together. He might find it easy to separate watches and
firearms, but a piece of a meteorite, the urim and thummim
with which the Book of Mormon was deciphered, and
Barnum's Feejee mermaid might well give him pause. Or
Prelim inary. 221
if one should undertake to classify the occupations of a
great city, there would be a considerable residuum to be
marked " uncertain," " various," or " all others." Precisely
this difficulty confronts the grammarian. He too has his
irreducible remainder, which, instead of labelling as above,
he usually calls " adjective pronouns," " conjunctions," or
more frequently " adverbs," throwing together words as dis-
similar as twice, where, very, yesterday, yes, and amen. At
the same time an entire class of words is generally made up
of two monosyllables of quite dissimilar origin, but used
precisely like another class of words, so that they do not
properly form a class either by their origin or their use.
There are certain purposes which every language must
fulfil or fail entirely. It must be able to name, or in some
way distinguish things. It must have the power to desig-
nate their various actions to tell whether they run, fly,
swim, strike, bite, or scream. It is necessary to be able to
show whether an action is going on now or ceased some
time ago. In using such words as man, bear, killed, there
must be some way of indicating which of the two killed the
other. There must be some way of denoting number, at
the very least the difference between one and many. Of
things that are at all connected, a mode of expressing the sim-
pler relations is necessary of telling, for example, whether
an animal is in or under or behind a tree. If not indispen-
sable, it is at least highly desirable to be able to distinguish
the qualities of things, and say whether they are big, little,
black, red, hard, or sour. Lastly, contrivances are needed
shortening many of the first expressions, or substituting
others like yes and no that have the brevity of algebraic
symbols. Now, although this is substantially the work to
be done by every language, their ways of doing it are in-
finitely varied in detail. The variety is so great that there
can scarcely be said to be any natural system from which
the others are deviations. There is nothing more natural
than that two words closely connected in their application
should be placed together. If one has to speak of a black
horse, a number of other words ought not to intervene
222 English Grammar.
between black and horse ; yet this obvious requirement is
habitually disregarded. I have even met with instances
where two parts of the same word were separated by the
distance of half a page ; and if a principle so self-evident
in its propriety is neglected, we need not expect any other
to be faithfully followed. As every one has an equal right
to invent and alter words and their uses, so long as imitators
can be found, and all work without concert, and generally
with little knowledge, the result is a large amount of irregu-
larity and confusion ; and the irregularities of any one
people are quite unlike those of their neighbors. It follows
that there cannot be a science of grammar of universal
application. All that is possible is an exhibition of the
usages of some one language, or of a few compared together.
If every word had one invariable form, grammar would be
limited to the order of the words, and we should be spared
a great deal of labor. That is nearly, but not quite, the
condition of the English. Yet, however full and elaborate
the forms of any language may be, they would be easy to
handle if they were complete, regular, and consistent. It is
the irregularities and deficiencies that make the trouble and
make the grammars. There are professions that thrive on
the errors of mankind. The priest lives by our sins, the
doctor by our vices, and the lawyer by our quarrels. So the
grammarian is maintained by the absurdities of our speech.
When we speak of several things, we generally add s to the
name of one boys, horses, houses, trees, birds. Nothing
could be simpler. Yet, although that expedient will serve
for by far the greater number of the names met with in our
literature, the small remainder form their plurals in more
than sixty different ways, besides those that do not dis-
tinguish the plural from the singular in any way. He who
will faithfully try to unravel these and similar complications
will not be likely to say that English is a grammarless
language.
If the principal part of grammar has relation to the various
forms that words may assume, it is first necessary to learn
what those forms are. But as the variations are not the
Preliminary. 223
same for all words, and some have none such as now, and,
before, yonder, all the words in a language are divided into
classes on the basis of these grammatical distinctions. The
words of these several classes are frequently called PARTS
OF SPEECH. Between these, speaking roughly, there will
generally be found not only differences of form, but also
differences in the kind of meaning conveyed. As to the
number and character of these classes, or parts of speech,
authorities are far from being agreed. I here abbreviate a
passage from Tooke's " Diversions of Purley," the most acute,
though not the most accurate, work on the subject.
" H. I thought I had laid down in the beginning the principles
upon which we were to proceed in our inquiry into the manner
of signification of words.
" B. Which do you mean ?
" H. The same which Mr. Locke employs in his inquiry into
the Force of words : viz. The two great purposes of speech.
" B. And to what distribution do they lead you ?
" H. i. To words necessary for the communication of our
Thoughts. And 2. To Abbreviations employed for the sake of
despatch.
" B. And how many do you reckon of each ? And what are
they? * * *
" H. In English, and in all Languages, there are only two
sorts of words which are necessary for the communication of our
thoughts.
"B. And they are?
" H. i. Noun, and 2. Verb.
" B. These are the common names. *\ * *
" H. * * * And I use them according to their common
acceptation.
" B. But you have not all this while informed me how many
parts of speech you intend to lay down.
" H. That shall be as you please. Either Two, or Twenty,
or more."
These parts of speech have been variously estimated from
three to ten, but the greater number of grammarians have
reckoned either eight or nine, while differing considerably
224 English Grammar.
as to the elements that make up either number. I propose
to treat of seven namely, Noun, Adjective, Pronoun, Verb,
Adverb, Preposition, and Conjunction. It has been very com-
mon to make a class of the two little words the and an
(abbreviated into a), but I shall include them in the sub-
division called adjective pronouns. Still more frequently
have oh, ah, umph, pshaw, and the like been marshalled
among the parts of speech. If it be too severe a judgment
to say that they are no better than the cries of animals,
expressive of feeling and not of thought the mere raw
material from which words might be made, still they are at
their best independent of all rules and principles of gram-
mar, and need not be investigated. Yet, if any one chooses
to erect these two little groups, or a dozen others, into
separate classes, he has a perfect right to do so.
CHAPTER II.
NOUNS.
A NOUN is merely a name, and might as well have been
called so. The word is Old French, introduced in the four-
teenth century, when all learning was supposed to be either
French or Latin. The first names must have been those of
things that could be seen, felt, or otherwise perceived by the
senses, as the ground, trees, beasts, rivers, the sun and moon.
But gradually names were given to a vast number of merely
imaginary entities spirits of the air, the earth, and the
waters, to the relations of things, and conceptions of the
mind. For the human mind has a strange and marked ten-
dency to treat its creations as real things, and express by
names such abstractions as whiteness, difference, proximity,
futurity, age, freedom, forget fulness. The question has some-
times been raised : Of what kind were the first words ever
used ? There is a tendency among philologists to answer in
favor of verbs words expressive of action, for the reason
that in Hebrew or Arabic and in Sanskrit most words can be
traced to simple forms termed roots, the most direct out-
growth of which is verbs. But it should be remembered
that those languages are already, in their oldest monuments,
highly developed, and not perceptibly nearer the beginnings
of things than we are. It is among very rude and primitive
tribes that we should be most likely to find the earliest forms
of language and the arts, and they are quite apt to use the
same words as nouns, verbs, or anything else. Professor
Whitney says that the great Malayo-Polynesian family of
languages have scarcely any grammatical distinctions, and
nothing that can properly be called a verb ; that their so-called
15 225
226 English Grammar.
verbs are only a special use of their nouns. 1 If this broad
fact were clearly established it would be much more conclu-
sive in favor of nouns than Shemitic and Aryan philology
can be in favor of verbs. It is said that the language of
Ancient Egypt, as recovered from the monuments, was with-
out distinction into parts of speech, and the same is to some
extent true of English. Very many English words are
used indifferently as two parts of speech ; and not a few are
alternately nouns, adjectives, or verbs, as calm, light, slight,
level, plane, square, salt. Now if one were to see snow for
the first time, and coin a word to represent roughly the gen-
eral phenomenon, what would probably be the principal
element in his complex conception the substance, coldness,
whiteness, or the act of falling ? There is one thing that,
being a daily necessity of organic life, must have been famil-
iar to the first speaking men ; and yet it presents to the
senses neither color, taste, nor smell, and usually little sound
or movement. It is difficult to conceive that our early
ancestors had no name for water until they adopted one
from some previous abstract word expressive of action. The
same may be said of many other things. Again, to name
any object from a characteristic property or action implies
comparison of several things possessing that characteristic,
generalizing them and abstracting that special feature. Sup-
pose a naturalist of the Stone age to observe a conspkuous
action in ten different animals, for none of which he had yet
any name. Let us suppose too that his first step is to invent
a verb to denote this action, and from this verb he forms a
noun or name. If he then applies this name to the whole
ten perhaps mammals, birds, and insects they would be
to him but a single species, with a single name. But it is
well known that the language and habits of primitive peo-
ples are the very reverse ; they abound in particular names
and trivial distinctions, but are wanting in general terms.
The Delawares had ten names for various ages and stages of
bearhood, but none for a bear in general. Or if our old
naturalist should confine his carefully elaborated name to
1 " Language and the Study of Language," p. 338.
Nouns. 22 7
one animal, what was he to do with the other nine ? Are
we to suppose him guilty of the labor of studying ten ani-
mals to find a name for one ? I conclude rather that the
earliest uses of speech must have been to distinguish one
thing from another, as the first linguistic exercise of Adam
is represented to have been in giving " names to all cattle,
and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field."
Nouns have been divided into classes on several different
principles, quite independent of each other. They need not
all be enumerated. One division is into concrete and abstract
nouns. The former relate to what are regarded as substan-
tial entities, the latter to their properties and relations, or to
mental conceptions. Man, ox, sparrow, stone, house, water,
air, gas, comet are concrete nouns ; joy, fever, solemnity, sin-
gularity, whiteness, solidity are abstract. Concrete things
might often remain if many of the abstract conceptions were
not, but the abstract can seldom be without the concrete.
When a man suffers pain and disappointment, he would not
perish by their removal, but they would certainly cease on
his death. This possibility of separate existence is in gen-
eral the distinction. A fiddle and cornet may exist quite
independent of each other, and without emitting any sounds ;
and, indeed, we cannot but suppose that they might remain
entire if all the rest of the universe were annihilated. But
let two players sound them, the sounds would be abstract,
the concrete things being the players, the instruments, and
the conducting air. The harmony or discord of the notes
would be an abstraction of the second degree. A great
amount of confused and inaccurate thought and speech would
be avoided by habitually bearing in mind this distinction.
Nouns are divided into common and proper, the term
proper being used in its original sense of pertaining to some
one in particular. A common name applies alike to a whole
species or class, a proper name to an individual. Man is a
term for millions, Rurel Vantarel distinguishes a single per-
son. Proper names are not confined to human beings, but
extended to domesticated animals, countries, towns, lakes,
rivers, mountains, ships, books, periodicals, stars and groups
228 English Grammar.
of stars, and in former ages to swords and battle-axes.
When the same name has been given to several who are
spoken of collectively, it is treated as a common noun, as
when we speak of the C&sars, the Ptolemies, the four Georges,
the four Maries, the two Carolinas.
Collective nouns include a number of individuals under one
designation, treating them sometimes as one, at other times
as many. Examples are mankind, the army, the regiment,
the meeting, the mob, the convention, society.
Nouns have four attributes which are exclusively the sub-
ject of grammar, and they are GENDER, NUMBER, CASE, and
PERSON.
GENDER.
Gender is based on the distinction of male and female, but
does not always adhere to it, in some languages spreading
out in the most capricious manner. But let us see what the
distinction means. We might say in Latin :
Ille equus albus Yonder white horse
Ilia equa alba Yonder white mare
Observe that in English the names of the animals in the two
sentences are entirely different, the other words precisely
alike. In Latin all the corresponding words are identical,
but their endings are changed. And if one should continue
to speak of the two animals in Latin, a large part of the
words directly relating to them would differ in the same
manner. Now it is this modification of the associated words
that constitutes the distinction of gender. Mere difference
of names would not do it. If it went no farther than the
names, boy and girl would be no more a grammatical distinc-
tion than boy and man. We have seen that in English the
gender does not change the descriptive words. What then
does it amount to ? Answer : We have a few words yet
that bind us to the observance of this distinction. If two
little words and their variant forms five monosyllables in
all she, her, hers, it, its were dropped, gender would be
thereby wiped from the language.
Nouns. 229
Most of the languages spoken in the world are without this
distinction of gender. It is limited to the two leading fami-
lies the Aryan and Shemitic and a few African tongues
allied to the latter ; and Professor Lepsius regarded it as a
marked evidence of mental superiority. To distinguish by
special names the sexes of the larger animals is natural
enough, but how the distinction came to be forced upon
other words not names is difficult to discover. We can see,
however, that an additional vowel sound was often added to
female names, and in some way became attached to other
words used in speaking of them. Moreover, words expres-
sive of qualities were very generally regarded as names ; and
some grammarians to this day call such words nouns. They
divide nouns into nouns substantive and nouns adjective.
The former are looked on as representing substantial enti-
ties, the latter as something added or thrown in ; and the
elaborately inflected languages, from Arabic and Sanskrit
down, give nouns and adjectives the same endings. But
when animals had been divided into males and females,
what was to be done with the rocks and clouds, trees and
bushes ? Why, they were divided also, for, along with a
tendency to treat mental conceptions as things, primitive
men had the strange habit of regarding inanimate things as
having life, feeling, and intelligence. Some were called
male or female from some real or fancied characteristic, and
some because the endings of their names resembled those of
the one or the other class.
At this point the case rested with the Shemitic peoples,
but the Aryans went a step farther. They divided their
male names into two portions, and set aside a part as neither
male nor female. They thus had three genders, now for
several ages known as masculine, feminine, and neuter. The
idea was excellent, but not carried out in a way to be of
any benefit, for the female names seem to have been left un-
divided, and the others so imperfectly distributed as to leave
still a large number of inanimate things masculine, while in
some languages many male and female beings are made
neuter. In the grammar of our Saxon fathers a woman was
230 English Grammar.
masculine, and our German brethren call a stick and a stone
masculine, a body of horsemen feminine, and a horse, a
woman, and a girl neuter.
Other races of men, though they have words distinctive of
age, sex, and condition, do not make them the ground of
similar differences in other words.
Some of the American Indians have systems in some
degree analogous, but much more extensive. Prof. J. W.
Powell says that in Indian tongues genders are usually and
primarily classifications into animate and inanimate. The
animate may be again divided into male and female ; but
this is rarely done. Objects are classified according to their
attributes, or supposed constitution. Thus there are ani-
mate and inanimate, of which one or both may be divided
into the standing, the sitting, and the lying, or into the
watery, the mushy, the earthy, the stony, the woody, and
the fleshy. All this may be expressed by pronouns, often
compound, incorporated into the body of the verb. Some-
times these pronouns are separated into their elements and
distributed in different parts of the verb. "A Ponca Indian,
in saying that a man killed a rabbit, would have to say the
man, he, one, animate, standing, in the nominative case,
purposely, killed, by shooting an arrow, the rabbit, he, the
one, animate, sitting, objective case."
The distinction of gender, as originally established by the
ancestors of the Aryan races, has not remained everywhere
unchanged. The Persians have abandoned it altogether, the
languages of Southern Europe have dropped the third or
neuter gender, and the English have discarded it from all
words used as adjectives, retaining it only in the singular of
the personal pronoun of the third person. In Danish and
Swedish the masculine and feminine have been merged in
one, in contradistinction to the neuter, making thus an ani-
mate and an inanimate gender ; but the division of words
does not always coincide with the distinction of things, and,
as in English, the personal pronouns bear witness to a for-
mer threefold division. With us the interrogative and rela-
tive pronouns make a still different discrimination : who is
used for rational beings and which for all else.
Nouns. 231
English stands entirely alone in making gender a rational
and intelligible distinction. Males are masculine ; females,
feminine ; and inanimate things, neuter. Most birds and
small animals, including the very young of all species, even
the human, are generally treated as neuter, the sex either
not being known or not thought worth distinguishing.
Sometimes however a gender is arbitrarily assigned.
" Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be
wise." PROV. vi., 6.
" Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings
toward the south ? " JOB xxxix., 26.'
At other times even the most considerable animals are
spoken of as if they were sexless.
"The hare sleeps with its eyes open." BARBAULD.
" The leopard in its chace of prey spares neither man nor
beast." BLAIR'S " Rhetoric."
" It is the war-horse that carries grandeur in its idea." Id.
" If a man shall steal an ox or a sheep, and kill it or sell //, he
shall restore," etc. EXOD. xxii., i.
Here, as in many other cases, we experience the want of
another pronoun that, like / and thou, would have no refer-
ence to gender.
By a kind of make-believe we speak of the sun as mascu-
line, the moon and ships as feminine. Sometimes, but very
rarely, except in scientific discussions, we treat them as
neuter. The reason of the following instance is quite
obvious :
" When Cleopatra fled, Antony pursued her in a five-oared
galley ; and coming alongside of her ship, entered it without
being seen by her" GOLDSMITH'S " Rome."
1 Quotations from Scripture, unless otherwise indicated, will be from the
common authorized version. It will be often cited for the twofold reason that
it is, or ought to be, familiarly known, and that in point of language it is the
most important and generally admired of English classics. Shakespeare was ig-
norant, careless, and inconsistent, but the translators of the Bible were scholars,
who did their work with scrupulous care. The spelling of the later editions has
been modernized, and when it is deemed necessary to give the exact version of
the translators it will be cited as King James's Bible.
232 English Grammar.
By a still further exercise of fancy the earth, countries,
cities, the Church, religion, the virtues, and some other
idealized conceptions are spoken of as if feminine.
A considerable number of words necessarily relate to male
or female beings, but do not show which. Such are friend,
neighbor, cousin, servant, tenant, informant, artist, teacher,
elephant, bear, eagle, elk. It sometimes becomes necessary to
employ a pronoun, when a gender, if unknown, has to be as-
sumed for the nonce, or we must use the awkward expression,
" he or she," or " he, she, or they," which so often increases
the tedious wordiness of statute law. In all such cases we
experience the want of a pronoun of the common gender
that is, including both masculine and feminine.
Names of males and females of the same species are dis-
tinguished in several different ways.
1. Quite distinct words are used, as :
brother sister husband wife
hart roe ram ewe
In the present composite state of the language the two
words may be of quite diverse origins, as earl and countess,
bachelor and maid. Many terms are restricted to one or the
other sex, as clown, judge, knave, knight, satyr, squire, trib-
une, amazon, dowager, milliner, virago, witch.
2. Feminines were anciently made by adding the termina-
tion -ster, which continued till the end of the seventeenth
century, when it began to give place to the Norman-French
-ess. Not one of these early feminines now remains with
its mediaeval signification. Spinster may still be met with,
but only as a legal designation of an unmarried woman,
or in burlesque, and not as meaning a woman who spins.
Songster is no longer understood as feminine, but requires
for that purpose a second termination, making songster-ess
shortened songstress. So seamster is made into the double
feminine seamstress. Huckster and tapster have long ceased
to be thought feminine ; deemster, even as a masculine, is
confined to the Isle of Man ; and Baxter and Webster, in-
stead of denoting a female baker and weaver, figure merely
Nouns. 233
as family names. When the meaning of the termination
-ster had been forgotten, and it was only remembered as
marking the doer of something, a number of imitations
sprang up, such as hackster, roadster, rhymester, teamster, and
finally a derogatory sense was attached to such words, dab-
ster, gamester, punster, trickster, whipster.
3. In the oldest English -en was a common feminine
termination, masculine fox, feminine fixen ; in the modern
form, vixen is the sole survivor in English. Carlin, feminine
of carl, may be found in Scotch.
" There were five carlins in the South
That fell upon a scheme,
To sen' a lad to Lunnon toun,
To bring them tidings hame."
BURNS.
Allied to this form are two or three feminines in -ine, from
the German -inn landgravine, margravine.
4. Masculines in -tor, taken directly from Latin, form
feminines by dropping out the o, and adding -ix.
administrator administratrix
executor executrix
testator testatrix
5. Far the greatest number of feminines are made by
adding to the masculine -ess, from the French -esse and -ice
Latin -issa and -ix. If the word can be easily pronounced
with this termination, it usually undergoes no change, as
lion, lioness ; otherwise it is shortened or modified in some
one of a number of ways.
abbot abbess dauphin dauphiness
actor actress deacon deaconess
adulterer adultress duke duchess
arbiter arbitress elector electress
benefactor benefactress emperor empress
caterer cateress founder foundress
chanter chantress giant giantess
conductor conductress governor governess
234 English Grammar.
heir heiress negro negress
hunter huntress master mistress
host hostess tiger tigress
instructor instructress tyrant tyranness
Jew Jewess votary votress
marquis marchioness
Duke and duchess were much more alike in their French
forms, due and duc-esse. Master and mistress were maister
and maisteress. Marquis and marchioness are both from Low
Latin marchio, a prefect of the marches, or borders, but they
have undergone different degrees of modification. As usual,
what appears the most irregular is the least changed. So
tyranness is from an older form of the word than tyrant. If
we had occasion now to form a feminine noun from a mascu-
line, we should do it by adding -ess. All other modes are
either obsolete or still foreign too old or too new.
Hero and heroine are from the Greek, and as independent
of landgrave and landgravine as two languages of the same
general family can be.
A few words from the south of Europe take feminines in
a signor, signora ; sultan, sultana.
Czarina seems to be a Polish formation ; the Russian is
Tsaritsa.
Widower from widow is entirely anomalous.
Lastly, sex is distinguished by adding some descriptive
noun or pronoun.
man-servant maid-servant
male child female child
ram-lamb ewe-lamb
cock-sparrow hen-sparrow
peacock peahen
he-goat she-goat
bridegroom
tom-cat
The Elizabethan writers employed many more of these
feminine forms than we deem necessary. Such were cham-
pioness, butler ess, vassaless, waggoness, warriouress. It may
Nouns. 235
well be doubted if there are not still too many. In a multi-
tude of instances it is not necessary to distinguish whether
the relation referred to is held by a man or a woman.
NUMBER.
A noun may represent one thing, or several, and generally,
but not always, shows which is intended. If I say : " Cook
the shad for dinner," it is left uncertain how many I want.
A noun signifying one thing is said to be singular, or in the
singular number ; if more than one, it is called plural. The
distinction might have been carried farther. Several old
languages, among which were Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit,
Greek, and Gothic, had forms for two, called the dual
number. But it seems to have been everywhere either a
new form never fully established or else, what is more likely,
an old one dying out by the time we see it. Its forms are
nowhere so fully developed as those of the plural, which in
turn is generally more scanty than the singular. Hebrew
has little more than a trace of the dual, which is confined to
things that belong in pairs, such as eyes, ears, hands, tongs.
Ancient Greek carried the distinction into all classes of in-
flected words, but gave the option of using the plural in all
cases, while modern Greek drops the dual altogether: The
Gothic of the fourth century had but scanty remains of the
dual, and when we next get sight of the Teutonic languages
it is found only in the personal pronouns of the first and
second persons forms for we two and you two in Old High
German, Saxon, and Norse. From two of these even that
scanty remnant has disappeared, and is now to be found only
in Iceland.
Some Polynesian languages are said to have separate
forms for a number three.
Some words are always singular because they express
ideas that scarcely admit of duplication. Such are anni-
hilation, chaos, eternity, omniscience ; also some arts and
sciences, as eloquence, oratory, poetry, astronomy, pharmacy,
dialling. Names of substances, or kinds of material, con-
236 English Grammar.
sidered merely as such, are mostly singular, as gold, silver,
zinc, granite, tar, asphalt, gypsum, hemp, flax, wool. Of many
of these the plural is sometimes used for articles made of
such material, or different varieties or specimens irons, tins,
brasses, marbles, parchments, slates. But when a substance is
rare and not yet made into familiar articles bearing its name,
it remains singular, as atropia, phosphorus, lanthanum, zeolite.
On the other hand some nouns are always plural in form.
A considerable class, denoting arts, sciences, and pursuits,
end in -ics acoustics, hermeneutics, mathematics, optics, poli-
tics, physics. These were primarily Greek adjectives: thus,
physics meant physical facts or principles ; hydraulics, prin-
ciples and devices relating to water-pipes. Of this class,
arithmetic, logic, and rhetoric have remained singular. A few
nouns are plural as denoting things composed of pairs of
similar parts, as trowsers, breeches, scissors, pincers, tongs.
Finally there are nouns that are used only, or almost
exclusively in the plural form for no obvious reason
ashes, gallows, news, lees, shorts (a kind of meal), dregs,
molasses, suds, some of which may be more particularly
referred to hereafter.
Some words are the same in the singular and plural
sheep, swine, deer, fish, and the names of several species of
deer and fish a shoal of mackerel, a dozen perch, a herd of
fallow deer, of red deer, or elk.
By far the greatest number of English nouns form their
plurals by adding s to the singular ; and now for several cen-
turies none have been formed in any other way ; yet we have
introduced from abroad a great variety having the forms
prescribed by the several languages from which they are
taken. The Anglo-Saxon had several plural endings as, n,
or an, a, o, and u. After the Norman Conquest these became
reduced first to es, en, and e, next to es and en, and finally to
es or s. The termination es continued for a long time to
form a separate syllable, as has been shown at page 147.
" The knight-^ all in their arm-<?j went."
HAWES' " Pastime of Pleasure," 1554.
Nouns. 237
Occasional instances are found down to the middle of the
seventeenth century.
" Can by their pains and ach-es find
All turns and changes of the wind."
BUTLER'S " Hudibras."
At present if a noun ends with a sibilant sound, that is s,
sh, z, zh, an e is interposed between the final consonant and
the s of the plural, to make the word pronounceable :
circus circus-es morass morass-es fox fox-es
dish dish-es bench bench-es chintz chintz-es
When the singular ends with a silent e, it is not necessary
to put in another :
lease lease-s piece piece-s breeze breeze-s
bridge bridge-s crevasse crevasse-s
A few native words ending in the sound of /"change it to
v in the plural. They are calf, half, staff, wharf, elf, self,
shelf, leaf, sheaf, thief, knife, life, wife, loaf, wolf. An e
always intervenes between the v and the s of the plural, not
for sake of pronunciation, but from the habit of the language
not to write a v without a vowel after it. We sometimes
meet with hooves, prooves, dwarves, turves, etc., but they are
not reckoned good English now. In earlier stages of the lan-
guage words like the above were written with /"throughout,
but the/" was pronounced like v. The singular has retained
the old spelling, the plural the pronunciation. In dove,
glove, grave, helve, love, nave, reeve, stave, wave, the original
spelling of the singular has been overcome.
The plural of staff, when it means a set of executive
officers, is staffs.
Wharfs may sometimes be met with, but rarely in America.
Beef is French from Latin, and means originally a bull,
ox, or cow :
"A herd of beeves, fair oxen and fair kine."
MILTON.
238 English Grammar.
In this sense it is seldom used. Its plural is beeves, in imita-
tion of Middle English. Different qualities or varieties of
the flesh of cattle would undoubtedly be called beefs.
Nouns that end in the single vowel y have their plurals in
-ies berries, daisies, lilies. If the y be preceded by another
vowel, the mere addition of s is sufficient days, journeys,
boys, guys. U after q is a consonant, the two being equal to
kw hence colloquies, obsequies. The termination -ies is con-
formable to the original form of the singular, which is in
most instances from a French ending -ie. This form of the
singular, once very common, continued to be used occa-
sionally down to the time of Milton.
" Now storming furie rose,
And clamour such as heard in heaven till now
Was never." " Paradise Lost."
Some nouns ending in o add es, and others only s, and the
distinction is far from uniform. The principle or habit
roughly followed seems to be to add es to words that have
been long and familiarly used in the language, and s to those
that are comparatively new and strange, and especially to
words imported from Italian and Spanish ; thus the plural
of the familiar word negro is negroes, but that of the recent
word negrito is negritos.
Bilboes, calicoes, cargoes, echoes, gambadoes, grottoes, heroes,
potatoes, torpedoes, tyroes, -vetoes, volcanoes.
Albinos, bambinos, cameos, cantos, drongos, embryos, folios,
halos, hidalgos, intaglios, pianos, pongos, pueblos, ridottos, salvos,
solos, sombreros, studios.
Although no really English word ends with i, yet several
of quite foreign origin are met with in English books. Of
these, alkali has become so fully naturalized as to have a
recognized plural, alkalies. Rabbi is in a transition state,
and just at this time admits of rabbies and rabbis. The
following rare words add only s: agouti, ai, coati, maki,
maori, moholi, mufti, peri, sat, saki, sofi, vari.
A very few foreign words ending in u also form plurals in
s emu, gnu, mitu, quipu.
Nouns. 239
Particles are sometimes treated for the moment as nouns,
and then they admit of plurals formed on the general
principles. We read of the "pros and cons " of a question,
and the counting of the "ayes and noes" in which the
uncertainty recurs as to the plurals of words ending in o.
The letters of the alphabet are designated in several ways,
one of which is to spell their names. That, however, is
applicable to only a few, whereas they may all be conven-
iently called so many as, &'s, c's, x's.
Vestiges still remain of the old Saxon plural in an or en,
of which the most familiarly known is oxen, the only one
that has retained its original place unchanged in universal
usage, the only change in a thousand years being from an to
en. Brethren and children are not so well preserved. The
Anglo-Saxon plural of brother was like the singular, brothor,
but brothers taken collectively, even if not more than two
in number, were usually designated by a collective term,
gebrothru, like the modern High German Gcbriider.
" And dha dha tyn leorning-cnihtas gebulgon widh dha twegen
gebrodhru." MATT, xx., 24.
The A.-S. dative case singular for brother was brether ; and
in the long period of confusion between written Saxon
and written English, the several forms and significations
seem to have become intermixed. The final outcome was
brothers for the children of the same natural parents, and
brethren for persons bound together by some solemn or
mystic obligation. Of the two, brethren is the oldest, and
occurs in the " Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester," in the
form bretheren, toward the close of the thirteenth century.
Its age is no doubt the reason why it is employed exclusively
in the Bible.
In Anglo-Saxon child and children were alike did :
" and he [Herod] a sende dha and of sloh ealle dha cild dhe in
Bethleem waeron." MATT, ii., 16.
In the period of transition a plural childer was developed,
which Robert de Brunne wrote childir in the beginning of
240 English Grammar.
the fourteenth century. This plural has lingered in
localities till the present day, and is often heard from natives
of Ireland. By the end of the century en had been added,
making a double plural, already shortened into children. In
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there were the simi-
lar double plurals calvern, lambern, eyren. Doughtren and
sistren were as common as brethren, and perhaps the latter
of the two may still be heard in devotional meetings among
the long-leaved pines fanned by the soft winds of the South.
Chickens and kittens are not double plurals. The en is a
diminutive, and not a plural termination a little cock,
a little cat.
Hose and pease are primarily singular, of which the old
plurals were hosen and peasen.
" Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and
their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst
of the burning fiery furnace." DANIEL in., 12.
" Next twenty yeomen, two and two,
In hosen black and jerkins blue."
SCOTT'S " Marmion," canto i.
" All men might well dispraise
My wit and enterprise,
If I esteemed a pease
Above a pearl of price."
LORD SURREY, 1540.
" Tickle treasure, abhorred of reason,
Dangerous to deal with, vain, of none avail,
Costly in keeping, past not worth two Reason,
Slipper in sliding, as an eeles tail." Id.
It is the singulars of nouns that are used as adjectives,
hence pease is singular in the following examples :
" Racket and Coppinger, as the story tells, got into a pease-cart
and harangued the people." DRYDEN'S " Religio Laid."
" Pease-porridge hot, pease-porridge cold,
Pease-porridge in the pot, and nine days old."
Nouns. 241
The s in the word pease is not plural but inherent, it being
from the Latin pisum. When the plural termination en had
almost entirely disappeared, it began to be thought that
pease was the same in both numbers, and next that it was
exclusively plural, of which the singular must be pea ; and
now for all practical purposes we have/m and/mj or pease,
the last of which is fast disappearing. At the present
moment hose is the same in both numbers, but is not certain
to remain so. A few years ago, when I was one day look-
ing for stockings, the gentlemanly vender held up an elegant
specimen and declared it to be a very fine hoe.
Grilse and grouse are like hose.
A class of words, originally adjectives, but used indiffer-
ently as adjectives or nouns, are in the same situation,
Siamese, Japanese, Portuguese. Milton, who was familiar
with the singulars hose and pease, wrote
" The barren plains
Of Sericana, where Chineses drive
With sails and wind their cany waggons light."
" Paradise Lost," iii., 437.
On the other hand Americans, long familiar with the black-
eyed pea, and now learning to wear a " hoe " on each
" limb," have made the world acquainted with the " Heathen
Chinee."
Cherry is a product similar to pea. The final s of cherries,
or cherris the Old French cerise, Latin cerasus was mis-
taken for a sign of plurality, and the singular assumed to be
cherri. Cheesen and housen may still be heard in some
districts of England.
The Scotch een and shoon Chaucer's eyen and Shake-
speare's shooen are relics of the termination en. Jack Cade
charges his followers :
" We will not leave one Lord, one Gentleman ;
Spare none but such as go in clouted shooen"
2 "Henry VI.," 4,2, 178.
16
242 English Grammar.
At first sight the proportion seems correct ;
swine : sow : : kyne : cow,
but it is only plausible. Swine is a modern form of the
Anglo-Saxon swin, which was the same in the singular and
plural, while sow A.-S. su was a different word, as Schwein
and Sau are in modern German. The singular of cow was cii,
the plural ky, well preserved in the Scotch kye.
" When new ca'd kye rout at the stake,
And pownies reek in sheuch an' brake." BURNS.
In kine an unnecessary n is added, as if to make kyen. It
is therefore a double plural, while swine is not a plural at all.
We have just seen that the plural of the Anglo-Saxon cii
was ky, and of this once common method of forming the
plural, by merely changing a vowel, several familiar ex-
amples still survive. They are :
foot feet man men
goose geese louse lice
tooth teeth mouse mice
The last two have suffered under French influence, having
been originally Ms, pi. lys ; miis, pi. m$s, precisely as in the
case of cii, ky. It is readily seen that the difference between
the singular and the plural was at first the same in each
instance. The ample sound of the singular was reduced to
what we may call a thin or slender one in the plural. It
remains to discover the principle that governed this modifi-
cation. It can scarcely be gathered from the Anglo-Saxon,
which, like the present English, shows in these words only
a change of vowel.
f6t fit mann menn
gos gis lus lys
t&8 titS mus mys
There is reason to believe that in all the Aryan languages
the plural was once generally made by the addition of as,
which in course of time coalesced in various ways with the
preceding elements, became altered, or even completely lost.
Nouns. 243
In Latin we become accustomed early to the fact that when
a word gains in length it often loses in breadth, and that the
addition of a syllable in many instances has the effect of
rendering the vowel of the original more slender. It is
observed, too, that in some languages the vowels of succes-
sive syllables are required to harmonize according to some
peculiar classifications of sounds, and if they do not this
originally the one is changed to suit the other. This is
especially the case in the Magyar. In the remains of the
Gothic we find masculine and feminine nouns lengthened in
the plural, and ending in s, the main part of the word re-
maining unchanged. In this it is followed by the Dutch :
voet, a foot voet-en, feet
tand, tooth tand-en, teeth
In the Norse, the most outlying of the Low German part of
the family, the terminal s becomes r a phenomenon called
rhotacism and in the words under consideration the vowel
of the root is changed, as in Saxon and English, without
any further addition than doubling a final s. Yet this lan-
guage affords abundant examples of the modification of a
vowel by a syllable following as b(5c, book ; back-r, books. A
followed by a syllable containing u was changed to o of
which the declension of hjarta, the heart, will be a sufficient
example :
PLURAL
SINGULAR NOM. hjort-u
All cases hjarta GEN. hjart-na
DAT. hjort-ura
Ace. hjort-u
A clearer light is yielded by the Old High German, in which
occur such forms as :
kelb-ir calves
hels-ir necks
pelk-i skins
enst-i favors
This is well maintained by the Modern High German :
244 English Grammar.
Fuss Fiiss-e Mann Mann-er
Gans Gans-e Laus Laus-e
Zahn Zahn-e Maus Maus-e
Indeed we have examples in still living English :
brother brethren cat kitten
child children cock chicken
There is no doubt then that such forms as feet and teeth are
due to the influence of terminal syllables that had dis-
appeared before the era of Saxon literature.
A considerable number of nouns, adopted from Hebrew,
Greek, Latin, French, and Italian, retain the plurals of the
original tongues, while there is yet a constant tendency to
assimilate them to English forms. Hence a considerable
number of them are used either with the original or an Eng-
lish plural, according to individual taste, the only principle
approximately followed being that the English ending s is
apt to be given to words that have been long and familiarly
used, while those that may still be considered the property
of the learned more frequently retain a foreign dress. The
Greek and Latin words that find their way into our literature
are very numerous, and present examples of most of the
plural forms of those languages. It would require a con-
siderable volume in itself to exhibit all such Greek and
Latin nouns ; the object here is merely to present examples
that will give the English reader some idea how he comes to
meet with so many strange ways of forming the plural. He
will observe that the body of the plural often appears to be
lengthened in some way, but that is because an original ele-
ment has been crowded out of the singular. Most of the
Greek words have suffered from the assumption often quite
groundless that they have reached us through a Latin
medium. Many of them too take forms, either in the
singular, in the plural, or both, that are neither Latin nor
Greek, but may be regarded as English. Thus we may
have the Greek forms orchis, ore/tides, or the English forms
orchid, orchids. It is well to preserve this distinction, and
not get such pairs of words mismatched. Wherever the
Nouns. 245
singular is formed at variance with Greek or Latin usage, I
think it should be treated as English. Unfortunately the
form of the singular is sometimes such that it might belong
to either of two languages. Still worse there are many
words rarely or never used in both numbers, and if we
attempt to supply the missing one according to analogy, we
may find ourselves at variance with some one who has
adopted a different form. The whole subject is in a very
confused and unsettled state, and lexicographers would ren-
der a valuable service by determining, as far as possible, the
plurals of doubtful nouns, instead of giving only those that
are already well known. I shall divide these nouns into
three classes : (i) Latin ; (2) Greek ; (3) Greek Latinized or
Anglicized. The letter s after a plural will indicate that it is
also formed by adding that letter. This addition of s is a
practice on the increase, and is objectionable chiefly when a
word already contains a repetition of that sound. Censuses,
susurruses, synizesises contain altogether too much sibilation.
Latin Nouns.
1st. Singular -#, plural -a :
alga algae facula faculae
antenna antennae formula formulae, s
catena catenae nebula nebulae
corona coronae vertebra vertebrae
2d. Singular -us, -er, -ir, plural -i :
alumnus alumni puer pueri
cactus, cacti, s liber libri
calculus calculi centumvir centumviri, s
focus . foci, s decemvir decemviri, s
radius radii triumvir triumviri, s
3d. Singular and plural -us mostly from verbs :
afflatus crepitus hiatus singultus
apparatus, s excursus ictus sinus, s
census, s fetus, s inflatus
conatus gradus meatus, s
246 English Grammar.
4th. Singular -us, plural -era :
genus onus opus viscus
5th. Lepus, lepores.
6th. Corpus, corpora.
7th. Crus, crura.
8th. Grus, grues.
9th. Incus, incudes.
loth. Singular -urn, plural -a often originally adjectives
or participles :
amentum
datum
medium, s
addendum
emporium, s
menstruum, s
candelabrum
flagellum
ovum
cilium
frustum
spectrum
erratum
infusorium
speculum
cranium
labium
stratum, s
congeries
facies
sanies
series
soboles
nth. Singular and plural alike, ~es
colluvies lues
manes
ingluvies
1 2th. Singular -es, plural -ites :
antistes antistites termes
1 3th. Singular -ies, plural -ietes :
aries arietes paries
I4th. Singular stapes, plural, stapedes.
1 5th. Singular -is, plural -es :
sordes
species
superficies
termites
parietes
avis
classis
naris
piscis
axis
amanuensis
natis
unguis
canis
fascis
oasis
vectis
caulis
ignis
orbis
vermis
1 6th. Singular lapis, plural lapides.
i/th. Glis, glires; vis, vires.
1 8th. Lis, lites ; quiris, quirites.
I9th. Anas, anates ; penas, penates.
Nouns.
247
20th. Singular -o, plural -ines
albugo albugines
imago imagines
virgo virgines
2 1 st. Singular -o, plural -ones .
comedo septentrio
caligo
virago
testudo
turio
caligines
viragines
testudines
vibrio
22d. Gustos, custodes.
23d. Os, the mouth, pi. ora.
24th. Os, a bone, pi. ossa.
25th. Singular -x, plural -ces :
Apex, appendix, s, aruspex, calx, carex, cicatrix, codex, cortex,
crux, directrix, falx, faux, frutex, helix, matrix, nux, radix,
rectrix, varix, vertex, vortex, s.
26th. Singular -x, plural -ges : rex, interrex, remex, the
plural of which last is remiges.
27th. Sors, sortes.
28th. Singular -men, plural -mina :
Cognomen, culmen, dictamen, foramen, gravamen, legumen,
prsenomen, putamen, tegmen, tormen.
29th. Add -es to the singular anser, lar, passer, ren.
3Oth. Venter, ventres ; accipiter, accipitres.
3 1 st. Singular -r, or -re, plural -ria, mostly adjectives, of
which the En'glish in -ar and Latin in -aria are the most
common talaria.
32d. Singular in -/ or -le, plural lia, like the preceding :
Bacchinalia, crealia, lupercalia, memorabilia, marginalia, quin-
quinalia, regalia, saturnalia, semipedalia.
33d. Singular -ne, plural -nia, like the foregoing insigne,
insignia.
34th. Singular, -or, plural -ores, and therefore like 2Qth, but
in English books chiefly used in the plural, classifying birds
and insects according to their habits.
fossores, diggers grallatores, waders
insessores, roosters scansores, climbers
248 English Grammar.
35th. Femur, femora.
36th. Glans, glandes ; f rons, frondes.
37th. Frons, f rentes ; quadrans, quadrantes ; vagans, va-
gantes.
38th. Ruminans, ruminantia.
39th. Caput, capita.
4Oth. Hyems, hyemes.
Greek Nouns that Retain the Greek Forms.
1st. Singular -ma, plural -mata :
aroma enchondroma plasma
asthma exanthema programma
atheroma glaucoma regma
bema gyroma rhizoma
blastema lemma, s sarcoma
carcinoma magma, s steatoma
dogma, s melasma zeugma
drama, s miasma, s zygoma
enema, s neuroma
enigma, s pedioma
A considerable number are so far Anglicized as sometimes
to drop the a of the singular, as miasm for miasma, and a
still greater number, like aneurism, paradigm, problem, use
the shorter form exclusively.
2d. Singular -on, plural -a :
aphelion epiploon paralipomenon
(apocryphon) etymon, s parhelion
automaton, s ganglion, s phenomenon, s
criterion, s liriodendron, s phytozoon
entozoon lithobiblion prolegomenon
eozoon lithodendron, s propylon
epizoon noumenon rhododendron, s
3d. Singular -on, plural -ones :
antichthon autochthon telamon
4th. Singular -as, plural -ades :
dipsas dryas (hyas) hyades monas (pleias) pleiades.
Nouns. 249
5th. Singular -as, plural -antes :
atlas, s anabas
6th. Singular -is, plural ides :
amaryllis cantharis glottis proboscis
(anteris) caryatis hesperis parotis
aphis chrysalis lepis pyramis
apsis ephemeris nereis raphis
oscaris epinyctis orchis
7th. Herpes, herpetes ; magnes, magnetes ; litotes, lito-
tetes.
8th. Cacoethes, cacoethea.
9th. Singular -os, plural -ea :
epos (epea) bathos (bathea) meros pathos (pathea).
loth. Singular -os, plural -otes :
Rhinoceros rhinocerotes, s megaceros monoceros.
nth. Singular -ys, plural -yes :
Erinys, didelphys, helamys, lagomys, pterichthys.
1 2th. Singular -s, plural -thes :
Dinornis, enthelmins, epiornis, ichthyornis, megalornis.
1 3th. Singular -s, plural -es :
Cyclops, elops, myops, nyctalops, ops, seps, thrips.
1 4th. Singular -x, plural -ces :
Climax, donax, dropax, hyrax, labrax, narthex, pinax, spadix.
1 5th. Singular -x, plural ges :
Apterix, archseopterix, coccyx, larynx, meninx, pharynx, salpinx.
Greek Nouns, Latinized or Anglicized.
The greater number of Greek nouns have become so
thoroughly at home in the language that we seldom think
of their being Greek. Apology, baptism, creosote, dynasty,
euphony, hydrogen, iodine, lexicon, myth, nomad, octagon,
panic, skeleton, telescope, are examples. To any of this large
250 English Grammar.
class that admit of plurality, we merely add s in the same
manner as if they were native words.
A considerable number take a Latin form in the plural.
Some of these have a form in the singular, identical with a
Latin termination ; some change the termination of the sin-
gular to conform to the Latin; and others have a Greek
ending in the singular and Latin plurals. Thus -os and -ous
are changed to -us in the singular, and, so far as I am aware,
have their plurals in -i. On becomes um, with plural in a ;
ai becomes a ; and eis, es. This Latinizing and Anglicizing
has been carried out in a very haphazard way. This is well
shown by the names compounded with odons, a tooth, or
pous, a foot, for which the following are various substitutes.
anodon
mylodon
bradypus
melampode
chsetodon
pleurodont
gasteropod
platypod
diphyodont
prionodon
heteropod
platypus
gyrodus
pycnodont
hexapod
polypus
labyrinthodont
rhizodont
lagopus
rhizopod
machairodus
toxodon
macropod
mastodon
antipode
macropus
megalodon
apode
megalapode
Most of these words are scarcely to be found in the plural.
Polypus is a word in common use with the Latin and English
plurals polypi and polypuses. The most consistent course
would be to give the plural in i to all that end in us, and
treat the others as English. In that case our kindred on
the other side of the globe would have only three syllables.
1st. Singular -a, plural -<#, not numerous :
cotyla, or cotyle glama parusia
epiphora lyssa synalepha
exedra ozena trachea
exorhiza paronychia trichina
2d. Singular -e, plural -ce the greater part of these either
do not admit of plurals or take -s :
Anagoge, apocope, apotome, diacope, diastole, epitrope, glene,
hyperbole, metope, paraselene, parembole, pericope, perone,
ploce, raphe, systole.
Nouns. 251
3d. Singular -es, plural -<z :
Cerastes, ascetes, Hermes, kolpodes, mycetes, sorites, thera-
peutes, troglodytes.
4th. Singular -is, plural -es a very numerous class :
Acropolis, anaesthesis, analysis, antithesis, aphairesis, apodosis,
crisis, diagnosis, emphasis, enarthrosis, epanadiplosis, epiphysis,
exegesis, hypostasis, hypothesis, mantis, metamorphosis, metemp-
sychosis, phasis, prognosis, prytanis, symphasis, synthesis.
Hebrew Nouns.
Words from the Hebrew are few, and drawn mostly from
the Bible. The masculine plural ends in -im ; cherubim, ser-
aphim, teraphim, purim, urim, and thummim. Feminines
end in -oth ; behemoth, mazzaroth, sabbaoth, and Succoth-Be-
noth. The dual number ends in -aim, but is found only in
proper names, as Mizraim for Egypt that is, the " two dis-
tricts," of Upper and Lower Egypt ; Diblathaim, the two
Diblahs. The form cherubims in the Bible is a double
plural.
French Nouns.
Nouns still retaining a French character occur so often
both in literature and conversation that it is desirable to
know something of the principles on which their plurals are
formed. As in English, the plurals generally end in s ; but
when the singular ends in a sibilant s, x, or z it is not
necessary to add another.
fils, a son, plural fils
choix, a choice, choix
nez, the nose, nez
Nouns ending in au, eau, eu, or a?u, add not merely s, but x,
Esquimau, plural Esquimaux.
bandeau feu rondeau
beau, s flambeau tableau
bureau, s morceau trousseau
chapeau plateau voeu
chateau radeau
252 English Grammar.
There is of course a general tendency to assimilate all
these words to the English usage. Bureau is the oftenest
used, and perhaps the most unsettled. It is oftener written
with s than with x. The United States statutes, and the
acts of the executive government generally, give bureaus,
but the Adjutant-General of the Army, one of the fountain-
heads of ancestral etiquette, writes bureaux.
Six nouns ending in -ou add -x in the plural.
bijou, a jewel genou, the knee
caillou, a pebble hibou, an owl
chou, a cabbage joujou, a plaything
Other nouns in -ou take s.
Twenty-one nouns change -al to -aux.
amiral fanal mineral
animal g^n^ral quintal
arsenal hopital rival
canal madrigal signal
capital mal total
cheval mar^chal tribunal
cristal metal vassal
The others merely add s.
Eleven change the singular termination -ail to -aux. The
others generally take s.
ail, garlic
bail, a lease sous-bail, underlease
corail, coral travail, work
email, enamel van tail, a folding door
soupirail, a vent
Betail, an animal of the cattle kind, has a plural bestiaux.
Nouns of one syllable ending in -ant or -ent add s gant, a
glove, plural, gants ; dent, a tooth, dents. Those of more
than one syllable generally omit the / enfant, a child,
enfans.
Italian Nouns.
The Italian nouns met with in English books form their
plurals mostly in a very simple and regular manner. Mascu-
Nouns. 253
lines, whatever their terminations may be, change the final
vowel of the singular to i in the plural.
profeta a prophet profeti
padre a father padri
fratello a brother fratelli
zio an uncle zii
desio desire desii
When the final vowel is preceded by an unaccented /, a
second / is not added tempio, a temple, plural, tempi.
There are also the following irregularities :
hue an ox buoi
Dio God dei and dii
uomo man uomini
All masculines ending in -ca t and most of more than one
syllable ending in -co add h after the c in the plural, to pre-
serve the sound.
duca
a duke
duchi
monarca
a monarch
monarchi
banco
a bank
banchi
imbarco
amico
medico
embarcation
a friend
aphysician
imbarqui
amici
medici
Those ending in -go, except some words of more than two
syllables, in which the g follows a vowel, insert an h in the
plural for the same reason.
sugo sugar sughi
luogo a place luoghi
Feminines in a change it to e in the plural.
casa a house case
strada a street strade
Those ending in e or o, change it to i in the plural.
madre a mother madri
nube a cloud nubi
mano a hand mani
254 English Grammar.
Nouns ending in an accented vowel, and feminines in -ie,
are alike in the singular and plural, except moglie, a woman
of which the plural is moglL
There are as usual some exceptions, but they are not
likely to fall in the way of one whose reading is confined to
English books.
Compound Nouns.
A great number of English nouns are formed by uniting
two or more into one. The closeness of the union varies in
every degree. Codfish, cowslip, and shepherd we scarcely
think of as compounds ; dairy-farm and dead-reckoning are
held together by feeble and transitory ties. The general
principle is that the last element is the essential one, and all
that precedes it is only descriptive, and of the nature of an
adjective. A cart-horse is a horse, and a horse-cart is a cart,
the first syllable in each instance serving as an adjective.
And as adjectives in our language do not express number,
the sign of plurality is added only to the last part. Thus
we have cart-horses and horse-carts ; and those who speak of
handsful and spoonsful are ignorant of the best established
principles of the language. It matters not that the first
element may represent a great number. A hundred cows
grazing in a field may make it a ^w-pasture, but never a
cows-pasture ; and a team of twenty oxen is only an 0.*r-team.
Three or more nouns may be combined into one. Dog-
tooth-spar is a spar, or crystalline mineral, that is not only
shaped like a tooth, but like the tooth of a dog : still the
plural would never be dogs-teeth-vpzx.
The principle here laid down is fundamental and general,
but subject to some real or apparent exceptions. In arms-
length, beadsman, bondsman, gownsman, headsman, oars-man,
swordsman, etc., the s is not plural but possessive, and the
plurals are regularly formed. When the elements of a com-
pound are so combined as to show in any way which is the
essential one, that is the one to take the sign of plurality.
A brother-in-law is not a law, but a brother in, by, or accord-
Nouns. 255
ing to law, and the plural is brothers-in-law, just as the plural
of a barrel of flour is barrels of flour, and not barrel of flours.
The hyphen joining the two parts does not affect their rela-
tion to each other. A few expressions have the noun before
the adjective, in imitation of the French, cousin-german,
falcon-gentil. The plurals are cousins-german, falcons-gentil,
formerly written entirely in the French manner, with an s
added to each part. Chaucer, in the " Tale of Melibeus,"
wrote cousins-germans ; and letters-patents occurs in a state
paper dated July 25, 1400, preserved in Rymer's " Federa."
Some compounds, survivals from the Middle Ages, still add
s to both parts.
Knights bachelors Knights companions
bannerets Knights hospitallers
banneret Knights grand crosses
Knights commanders Knights Templars
o
Knights j
It is not uncommon to hear people speak of a well-known
benevolent organization as the knight templars ; and the
War Department, in a circular of September 27, 1886, and
several newspapers of the period, called the order knights
templar, whether from ignorance or with intent to improve
the language, I do not know. Nothing, however, is better
established in our literature than the form Knights Templars,
etc., for which the general reader may consult Burke's
" Book of Knighthood," the works of Sir Walter Scott, and
the recent and respectable authority of the Encyclopedia
Britannica, article " Knighthood."
The formation of such double plurals is not confined to
the orders of knighthood. We also read of the "Lords
Marchers," "the Lords High Admirals," "the Lords Jus-
tices" "the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury." We
might reconcile these expressions with our ideas of propriety
by supposing the words, " who are," to be understood be-
tween the plural words. We might suppose the gentlemen
last indicated to be primarily and essentially Lords, who,
for the time being, are Commissioners of the Treasury.
But this will probably not hold good throughout ; and the
256 English Grammar.
learner has to be often reminded that language is full of
inconsistencies.
On the other hand, we may suppose that the " Lord
Chancellors," the " Lord Lieutenants," and the " Lord
Mayors " are not necessarily Lords in their own right. The
" Lord" is only a part of the title.
Some titles made up of two or more words illustrate the
general principle that the leading word is the noun, and
alone takes the sign of plurality. There are Envoys Extra-
ordinary, Ministers Plenipotentiary, and Consuls General.
General was primarily an adjective, but in time certain gen-
eral officers dropped their distinctive titles, were called
merely generals, and so the word came to be sometimes an
adjective and sometimes a noun. I have before me a book
entitled "Opinions of the Attorneys General" ; and Post-
masters General, Adjutants General, Paymasters General, are
pretty well established both by official and common usage ;
yet there are occasional dissenting voices. The American
Medical Association, in a memorial to Congress, in 1874,
speaks of Surgeon Generals ; and " Inspector Generals " occurs
in an act of Congress dated March 19, 1862.
When signifying a military officer of a certain grade, gen-
eral is a noun, and the class is differentiated into brigadier
generals, major generals, etc. ; for a major general is a general
and not a major. But, unfortunately, the major is an un-
stable element in the compound, for sergeant-majors (the
expression is a bad one) are sergeants and not majors ; and
drum-majors are neither majors nor drums. The British Army
Regulations recognize Sergeant Majors, Drum Majors, Bugle
Majors, and Trumpet Majors ; and in the American armies
I have met with jife-majors that were quite plain fifers.
There are a great number of appellations, each consisting
of two or more words, the plurals of which are in an unsettled
and unsatisfactory state. The principle above laid down,
however sound, is not followed consistently. Moreover, It
is not always obvious which word of a number is the essential
one ; but we can generally analyze an expression and dis-
cover what would accord with the fundamental analogies of
Nouns. 257
the language. It may save the reader some trouble to
restate the principle that applies here.
The essential name or noun alone bears the mark of
plurality. It is regularly placed last, and all qualifying or
descriptive words precede it.
In the further discussion of this subject, all examples
marked as quotations are taken from printed books or publi-
cations, and when important the sources will be given. The
opinions of writers upon grammar are very conflicting, and
but little importance is attached to them, as they are gener-
ally mere individual judgments given without the support of
any reason or principle. Still, so far as I have been able to
glean, the majority agree with what here follows relative to
compounds of which one part is an individual proper name.
In our modern life we may treat the name of a person as
consisting of two parts Thomas Osborne. It is common to
call the first of these the Christian name, and the other the
surname. But the expressions are very ill chosen. Our
Hebrew friend, Moses Rosengarten, cannot properly be
said to have a Christian name ; and surname ought to mean
a name super-added a nickname like Longshanks, or Red-
beard. More properly, the second name is the family name,
the first the personal name. Our personal names are
largely borrowed from the Jews ; our system of naming
from the Romans. Our family name, corresponding to the
Latin nomen and cognomen united, is the principal name.
We speak of Bacon, Shakespeare, Milton, Newton, Wash-
ington ; not Francis, William, John, Isaac, or George.
These latter would be as good as no names at all, little
more distinctive than the pronouns he and they. The
personal names of even distinguished men are seldom heard,
and many persons could not tell those of Descartes, Goethe,
and Wordsworth. According, therefore, to the soundest
analogy, the family name is to be placed last, and should
bear the s of plurality. If any other word makes such a
claim, it should be required to show its grounds of title. If
there were two cousins bearing in common the name Mary
Brent, I think it would be proper to speak of them as the
258 English Grammar.
two Mary Brents, and not the two Maries Brent. The last
is the essential name, to which the other stands related as
an adjective. This holds good where both personal and
family names agree.
Suppose now we have Mary Brent and Sarah Brent, can
we unite them into a plural ? Only imperfectly, and by
ellipsis, Mary and Sarah Brent. Mary and Sarah Brents
would be no better than a two-story and a three-story houses.
Or let there be Mary Brent and Mary Barnet ; then, although
I cannot prove the position, I think the Maries Brent and
Barnet would not be good, but we should name each in full.
" Yestreen the queen had four Maries,
To-night she has but three.
There were Mary Seatoun and Mary Beatoun,
And Mary Carmichael and me."
Sometimes the first part of a composite designation is not
a personal name but merely a designation of rank, office,
position, or occupation, as King, Duke, Lord, Judge, Doc-
tor, Professor ; or it may be a mere title of courtesy, in
itself signifying nothing : Sir, Mr., Mrs., Miss. Let w and
x represent terms belonging to these two classes respec-
tively. Again the several persons may have the same or
different names. There are then four possible combinations :
ist, w . a -j- b + c zd, w .a + a + # = ' . Z a
3d, x . a + b -\- c 4th, x ,a-\- a + a = x .30
I do not press the circumstance that in the second and
fourth cases the family name naturally becomes plural.
The reasons bearing upon the subject do not apply equally
to these four cases.
Case ist. The title may be repeated with each name.
" lord Livingston, lord Boyd, lord Herris."
ROBERTSON : " Hist, of Scotland."
This is always safe and correct, and is preferred by those
who wish to be both courteous and exact. As the title is
significant it is sometimes the most important part, the
names being added merely by way of explanation.
Nouns. 259
" The two potent earls, Edwin and Morcar, had fled to
London." HUME : " Hist, of England."
" All this was managed by three or four aspiring bishops,
Maxwell, Sidserfe, Whitford, and Bannantine."
Bp. BURNET : " Hist."
This is perhaps the starting-point of the usage, and is
aided by the circumstance that feudal nobles were lords of
certain estates.
"the bishop of Orkney, the earls of Rothes and Casilis, lord
Fleming, lord Seton, the Prior of St. Andrews.
ROBERTSON : " Hist."
But the general practice is now to make the first factor
plural.
" Drs. Whitcot, Cudworth, Wilkins, More, and Worthington."
Bp. BURNET.
This can be reconciled with the analogies of the language
only by assuming the title to be the essential part, to which
the name is subordinate. The only permissible alternatives
are wa -f- wb -\- we and 3 w (a -\- b -J- c\
Case 2d. The most eminent writers on grammar, including
Matzner and Dr. Priestley, agree that the mark of plurality
should be attached to the name and not to the title. Dr.
Priestley says : " When a name has a title prefixed, as Doctor,
Miss, Master, etc., the plural affects only the latter of the
two words; as the two Doctor Nettletons, the two Miss
Thompsons " ; and Goldsmith mentions : " The two Doctor
Thomsons," following the example of Shakespeare's " three
Doctor Faustuses " in the " Merry Wives," v., 5.
" Whence hapless Monsieur much complains at Paris
Of wrongs from Duchesses and Lady Maries."
POPE'S " Dunciad," book ii., i., 135.
Dr. Latham gives the great weight of his authority in
favor of
" the two King Williams." " English Language," p. 399.
It must be admitted that the opposite mode of expres-
sion is quite as common. Carlyle speaks of the " Kings
260 English Grammar.
John " (" Life of Frederick the Great," book ii., chap, xi.) ;
but Carlyle is a writer often to be admired, but seldom to
be imitated. We also read of " Dukes Hamilton " and
" Lords Grey."
Case 3d. The title is trivial, never the principal word, and
therefore ought not to bear the mark of plurality. There
may be an illustrious king, a great general, an eminent
judge ; but we never meet with a great Sir, an eminent
Mr., or an illustrious Mrs. The only unquestionable course
is to give each title and name in full. No cultivated Eng-
lishman would say : Sirs W'illiam and Robert, or Sirs Wil-
liam Graham and Robert Sands.
" Sir Edward Parry, Sir James Ross, Sir John Rickardson, Sir
George Back." Edinb. Review, Oct., 1853.
But a few years ago the daily papers of Washington filled
columns with matter like the following :
" Sirs James R. F. Appleby, John C. Athey, J. H. Barbarin,
H. C. Craig, W. B. Easton."
The editors probably did not feel called upon to re-write
the matter sent to them for publication.
Strictly speaking, Mr., or Mister, has no plural. The sub-
stitute, Messrs., or Messieurs, remains French with no per-
ceptible tendency to become English. Messrs. Box, Cox,
Fox, & Co. is a concession to the hurry and urgency of
trade, but is felt not to belong to a high type of speech.
If we must have a common title for all men, in which case it
ceases to mean anything, it is a pity that it could not be
English, either native or adopted.
Mrs. is in a still worse plight than Mr. It is unfortunately-
pronounced Missis, and we do not often hear of Missises.
In English publications we find Mesdames, which, as a word,
has no connection with Mistress. It is not even the plural
of Madam, but of Madame. In collecting " Society " no-
tices for several years in the city of Washington, I have met
with the word only once, and then applied to strangers and
foreigners. It is habitually said that Mrs. A, Mrs. B, and
Nouns. 261
Mrs. C, were present. So there is a depth of bad taste that
we have not yet sunk to. If the people of London refuse to
say "Sirs," those of Washington avoid " Mesdames," and so
may call the matter even. But then we often encounter in
" Society " the Misses Hop, Skip, and Jump, or other young
ladies of equal distinction. I should prefer to allow each a
repetition of the title, in the same manner as the matrons
just mentioned.
Still worse than any of the examples here given, is the
case where an adjective is reduced to a mere fragment, and
then treated as the principal word and made plural.
" They were as follows : Revs. R. Johnson, Dr. Faunce, Hez.
Swem, T. Cutwater, G. W. McCullough," etc.
Reverend and honorable are adjectives, and properly have
no plural forms.
Case 4th. If there were two knights or baronets, each
bearing the name of William Thompson, I do not think
that any correct speaker would call them the Sirs William
Thompson, or the Sir Williams Thompson. The point is in-
susceptible of proof ; I can only express my own decided
preference for the Sir William Thompsons. We cannot as
in other cases repeat the title with each name, as there is
only one name.
" if hee were twenty Sir John Falstoffs he shall not abuse Rob-
ert Shallow, Esquire." " Merry Wives of Windsor."
" May there not be Sir Isaac Newtons in every science ? "
Dr. WATTS.
" 2nd July. I went from Wotton to Godstone (the residence of
Sir John Evelyn), where was also Sir John Evelyn of Wilts, when
I took leave of both Sir Johns and their ladies."
" Evelyn's Diary," 1649.
The genius of a language is best preserved by the rural
gentry and yeomanry, who live remote from foreign influ-
ence. On revisiting the home of my childhood after an ab-
sence of twenty-seven years, I met on the road and accosted
an old neighbor. He looked up a moment and said : " It
262 English Grammar.
is one of the Mister Rarnseys, is it not?" The reader may
think this poor authority ; I think it the very highest. And
what else should he have said ? There is no plural of Mister
in use ; and an intelligent farmer, guiltless of aping French
fashions, is not to be held to say Messieurs.
" Both the Mr. Bludyers of Mincing Lane have settled their
fortunes on Fanny Bludyer's little boy."
THACKERAY : " Vanity Fair."
After what has been said under Case 3d, we may con-
clude that the wives of two brothers named Brown may
properly be called the Mrs. Browns. But the young ladies
give more trouble. We are continually meeting with such
groups as, " Misses Ada Bond, Bruden, Coleman, Aiken, Cox,
Henning, Morsell." " Misses Schmidt," " the Misses Baker,"
and " the Misses Grouse." When one tells us of " Mrs. Con-
dit Smith and the Misses Condit Smith," and another of
" Mrs. and the Misses Preston," or " Misses and Mrs. John-
son," the identity of sound is at least confusing. Although
this way of designating young ladies is not the only one, it
has been for a good many years the most common.
Miss is a contraction or corruption of Mistress, which last
was applied to women irrespective of age or domestic rela-
tions down to the time of Addison. The earliest use of
Miss, so far as I am aware, occurs in " Evelyn's Diary " under
date of January 9, 1662.
" In this * * * acted the fair and famous comedian called
Roxalana, from the part she performed ; and I think it was the
last, she being taken to be the Earl of Oxford's Miss (as at this
time they began to call lewd women)."
The word continued to be used occasionally as a disreputable
term down to the present century ; and in early life I sev-
eral times heard it so employed. It appears as a title dec-
orating Miss Prue in Congreve's " Love for Love" in 1695.
When applied to more than one person it does not appear
to have been pluralized at first.
Goldsmith makes us acquainted with "the Miss Flam-
boroughs " and " the Miss Wrinkles " in the " Vicar of
Nouns. 263
Wakefield," and "the Miss Hoggs" in "She Stoops to
Conquer." " The two Miss Montagues," " Miss Charlotte
and Miss Patty Montague," appear in Richardson's " Clarissa
Harlowe," in 1748.
" Mrs. Maplesone and the Miss Maplesones, * * * the two
Miss Crumptons. * * * The four Miss Willises."
DICKENS : " Sketches."
"What tricks Theodore and I used to play on our Miss
Wilsons." CHARLOTTE BRONTE : " Jane Eyre."
" Don't you remember the two Miss Scratchleys ? * * * I
wish you could have seen the faces of the two Miss Blackbrooks.
* * * Lady Mcbeth and (2) Miss Mcbeths."
THACKERAY : " Vanity Fair."
" She would naturally desire that the Miss Guests should behave
kindly to this cousin." GEORGE ELIOT : "Mill on the Floss."
" Tell me about the Miss Leyburns." " The two Miss Bate-
sons."" Robert Elsmere."
It is scarcely necessary to say that I prefer the style of
these last quotations.
Some expressions borrowed unchanged from more inflected
languages add the sign of plurality to both parts :
SINGULAR PLURAL
compos mentis compotes mentium
ignis fatuus ignes fatui
latus rectum latera recta
Others are foreign phrases analogous to the English brother-
in-law. Lusus nature, a sport of nature, is the same in both
numbers, because the letters of lusus are so.
aide-de-camp aides-de-camp
chevar-de-frise chevaux-de-frise
fleur-de-lis fleurs-de-lis
Cheval-de-frise is literally a horse of Friesland, and obviously
the plural is not horses of Frieslands. But when the expres-
sion ceases to be true to the original, and becomes a mere
English phrase, an s should be added only at the end.
264 English Grammar.
flower-de-luce flower-de-luces
aid-de-camp aid-de-camps
" Nine hundred Pater nosters every day,
And thrice nine hundred Aves she was wont to say."
SPENSER'S " Faerie Queene."
Some words are plural only in appearance, as if by a kind
of mimicry. The following are the principal :
Arras, a kind of tapestry made at Arras in France.
Cypers, fine muslin named from Cyprus.
Dolichos, name of a leguminous plant.
Guills, the corn marigold.
Gules, the red color in heraldry.
Nems, an animal like the ichneumon.
Psoas, a muscle in the loin.
Quickens, dog-grass.
Sanhedrim has the appearance of a Hebrew plural, but is
really a Greek singular.
Schnapps, spirituous liquor, especially gin.
Summons, not plural of a singular summon, but from an old
legal French term semonse.
Thrips, an insect destructive to vines.
W^OOS, a kind of sea-weed.
If words like these mimic plurality, there are others that
may be said to mimic humanity. Compounds whose last
part is man, meaning a human being, change it to -men in the
plural. Such are horseman, leman, seaman, yeoman, woman,
Welshman; but others, having altogether the same appear-
ance, are not so formed. The principal words that have the
semblance of being compounds of man are :
ataman dolmen Ottoman
brahman dragoman shaman
cayman hetman Turcoman
desman Mussulman all of which add s
dollman norman, a short wooden bar
But, as it is extremely rare to find anything in language
consistent throughout, while the plural of Northman is
Nouns. 265
Northmen, that of Norman essentially the same word is
Normans. The probable reason is that the latter reached us
not as a native Teutonic but as a French word.
There are also expressions often used as nouns, but which
are so only by a kind of mimicry. They occur chiefly in
accounts of legal or religious proceedings, and have oftenest
the appearance of being Latin nouns, but those I refer to
are never nominative singulars, and so do not admit of Latin
plurality. When used as plurals they are to be taken as
single phrases, and s added, as if they -were English words.
aborigine, ab origine Kyrie quid nunc
aegrotat levari facias qui tarn
alias magnificat quorum
alibi mandamus quota
ave memento quo warranto
benedicite miserere rebus
capias mittimus recipe
certiorari nunc dimittis retraxit
credo omnibus scire facias
de profundis omnium sederunt
dirige pater noster subpoena
fiat pluries supersedeas
fieri facias postea Te Deum
gaudeamus praecipe veni Spiritus
habeas corpus proemunire venire facias
ignoramus procedendo venite
inspexhnus propaganda
These are conspicuous words in certain formulas, and so
have gained currency as their names.
A few nouns remain with peculiarities that do not admit
of classification.
Acquaintance. One person with whom we are intimate
is an acquaintance ; two or more are acquaintances ; but,
again, the collective body of such are our acquaintance.
" And they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance."
LUKE ii., 44.
266 English Grammar.
Alms. Originally and properly singular ; Greek,
fAOffvrrf} ecclesiastical Latin, eleemosyna ; A.-S., celmcesse, in
three syllables. Robert of Gloucester, A.D. 1303, wrote it
almesse, still three syllables. Next the final syllable was
dropped. Wycliffe, Sir Thomas More, and the Bible of
1513 make it almes. Lastly the e was elided and the original
six syllables reduced to one. The most familiar evidence
that the word is properly singular is the passage, Acts iii., 3,
where the lame man asks " an alms " of Peter and John.
Steele also in the beginning of the last century spoke of " a
plentiful alms." The many compound words, too, in which
alms serves as an adjective alms-basket, alms-deed, alms-
house show that the word is properly singular ; still it is
now treated oftenest as a plural.
Aloes. Is the word singular or plural ? two syllables or
three ? In any case the word has been applied to two
entirely different things. First there is lignaloes, which I
know only as a rendering of the Hebrew ahalim in the proph-
ecy of Balaam, Num. xxiv., 6, although the same article is
mentioned, Psalm xlv., 9 (Hebrew text), Prov. vii., 17, and
Canticles iv., 14, where our version has merely aloes. In the
four passages of the Hebrew text the word is twice mascu-
line and twice feminine, but always plural. As the Greeks
heard the word spoken by Phoenician traders J they picked
it up as aloe, and they and the Romans treated it as a sin-
gular. The name lignaloes is the Latin lignum-aloes wood
of the aloe- slightly anglicized. The last part of the name
is not plural but a Greek singular genitive ; and I suspect
that this unusual Latin form may have led to the treatment
of the word in English as a plural in short that like several
others it is a plural through mistake. The article denoted
by the name is a sweet-smelling Indian wood, allied to san-
dal-wood, still an article of commerce under the name of
eagle-wood, and the resin obtained from the same. Botanists
call the tree agallochum, or aquilaria. This is the only aloes
1 Bochart long ago observed (Phaleg, ii., 31) that all the names of spices
among the Greeks were Shemitic and received from the Phoenicians. Compare
Gen. xxxvii., 25.
Nouns. 267
known to Scripture, and has no connection with medicinal
aloes. The name is most correctly pronounced as three
syllables, as in the metrical version of the Psalms used in
the Church of Scotland.
" Of cassia, myrrh and aloes
A smell thy garments had."
PSALM xlv.
The drug known as aloes is the dried juice of several
species of large tropical plants. How the name came to be
transferred from the one vegetable product to the other is
not clear. Possibly the dried juice of the plant had a re-
semblance to the resin of the tree. Our Saxon forefathers
adopted the word as a plural under the form alewan.
"And Nichodemus * * * brohte wyrt-gemang and alewan"
JOHN xiii., 39.
Through all changes the word has kept the plural form in
English, but it is used as singular or plural almost indif-
ferently. Lexicographers incline to treat it as singular,
while medical men generally use it as a plural.
Amends has had the plural form since the early part of
the fourteenth century, but is used with a singular verb.
Bellows A.-S. baelg, baelig, bylig, belg, a bag, the belly :
used in the plural, bean-belgas, for bean-pods ; spelled bely by
Chaucer, of which the plural was belies. The present form is
clearly plural like tongs, pincers, and other implements com-
posed of corresponding halves ; yet it is generally treated as
singular.
" flattery is the bellows bl<nvs up sin."
SHAKES?.: "Pericles," i., 2.
" They watched the laboring bellows,
And as its panting ceased."
LONGFELLOW.
Breeches a double plural. A.-S. brdc, plural br/c, like
the plurals of book, foot, goose, tooth, etc., or rather of their
A.-S. originals. Middle English plural breke or breche.
268 English Grammar.
When men began to forget that breche or breech was plural
they added es.
Cattle Middle English catel and chatel, identical with the
old French catel and chatel, derived remotely from the Latin
caput, the head, through capitalis, capitate, pi. capitalia, capi-
tal. At first property of any kind, but chiefly domestic
animals. Of the two forms one became cattle, expressing
plurality in the form of a singular, and the other became
chattel, oftenest used in the plural.
Cloth signified originally either a garment or the material
from which it might be made. We have now an old plural,
clothes a very unusual form meaning garments, and a new
plural, cloths, for material not made up.
Coal. As an article of common use it is mostly called
coal in America and coals in England.
Die, from Old French det, later de", pi. dez, des. Chaucer
has a plural dys, but some copies give dees, which is etymo-
logically more correct, and is the form used by " Piers Plow-
man." Shakespeare makes the singular dye and the plural
dice (" Winter's Tale," i., 2, 133). Bulwer Lytton, in " Pel-
ham," wrote one dice, an example not to be recommended.
What is curious about this word is that its compounds and
derivatives are made from the plural dice, and not from the
singular die dice-box, dice-player.
" There is such dicing-houses also, they say, as had not been
wont to be, where young gentlemen dice away their thrift, and
where dicing is there are other follies also."
Bp. LATIMER : Sermon v., before King Edward.
The probable reason is the necessity for distinguishing the
three words, dying, dyeing and dicing.
Die, as an instrument for stamping, has the plural dies.
Eaves A.-S. efese, edge or brink, is etymologically singu-
lar ; and so, like alms, plural through mistake. As the/" was
sounded like v, one of the first changes was to substitute the
latter. It was still a singular with the plural written eveses
by Robert Manning, otherwise called Robert de Brunne,
I337> and " Piers Plowman," 1362. After that time eves was
Nouns. 269
mistaken for a plural without a singular. The original form
is shown by the compounds, which are made with eaves and
not eave eaves-board, eaves-dropper.
Folk a common collective word for an indefinite number
of persons, for the community in general. Used with a
plural verb. In England it is more common to say folk
are, and in America folks are ; but the usage is not uniform
in either country. Here folk seems rather affected, and folks
is no novelty in England.
" Yet merry folks who want by chance
A pair to make a country dance,
Call the old house-keeper and get her
To fill a place for want of better."
SWIFT : " Stella's Birth Day."
" Necessity and a little common sense produced all the com-
mon arts, which the plain folks who practised them were not idle
enough to record."
WALPOLE'S " Anecdotes of Painting," chap. 5.
Gallows strictly plural of a singular gallow, in use down
to the middle of the sixteenth century. Kington Oliphant
("New English," chap. 2) quotes, "4 payre of galowys"
from the early part of the fifteenth century. This instru-
ment of execution was next called simply the gallows, and
on the supposition that the name was singular a duplicate
plural, gallowses, was formed.
" The fear of gallowses and ropes
Before their eyes might reconcile
Their animosities a while."
" Hudibras," part in., ii., 716.
I have also met with gallowses in the Spectator, but have
mislaid the reference. All the extant compounds are made
with gallows none with gallow.
Genius has a Latin pluralgenn for the creatures of Eastern
fable and story, and English geniuses for persons of rare
mental gifts.
Horse. We use horse for one animal, horses for several,
and again horse for a body of cavalry or troops on horseback.
270 English Grammar.
Horse and foot, a phrase that came into use in the early part
of the seventeenth century, may be an abbreviation for
horsemen and footmen. The collective singular, horse, is not
generally applied to animals without riders, yet Byron's
" Mazeppa " was met by
" A thousand horse, and none to ride."
Index has a Latin plural, indices, for the characters that
distinguish algebraic powers and roots, and the English
indexes, when the word is employed otherwise.
Madam, Fr. Madame, ma dame, Latin mea domina, Eng.
my lady. At present no other plural is in use than Mesdames,
which is sadly out of tune with our mother tongue. As
Madam is no longer pure French, I think Madams not only
permissible but preferable.
Means Old French meien, Mod. Fr. moyen, Latin me-
dium from medius, middle ; used as a noun or an adjective
in reference to a point between extremes, as mean time,
mean annual temperature, a safe mean between extremes.
It next gets the sense of an intermediate agency by the aid
of which anything is done.
" The virtuous conversation of Christians was a mean to work
the conversion of the heathen." HOOKER.
But in this sense it generally takes the plural form. The
word occurs thirty-two times in the Bible, but always as
means. It takes singular or plural verbs and pronouns
indifferently.
"By this means thou shalt have no part on this side the river."
EZRA iv., 16.
"By these means, the queen had collected an army twenty
thousand strong." HUME'S " Hist, of England," chap. xxi.
Memorandum has two plurals, Lat. and Eng. memoranda
and memorandums. A useful distinction is sometimes made
by confining the former to a number of notes taken collec-
tively, and the latter to notes that are separate and inde-
pendent. For example : " He shewed me a paper containing
Nouns. 271
memoranda relating to," etc. " He drew from his pocket a
number of memorandums"
Mister a thin and meagre degradation of Master, sup-
posed to be formed in imitation of Mistress, which latter is
from maister-ess. It is rarely, if at all, met with in the
plural, for which the French Messieurs is commonly used.
Mister is bad, Madam worse, but Mesdames and Messieurs,
set among English words, are utterly execrable.
Molasses. The older form melasses was more correct,
being a regular plural of the Fr. melasse, from the Portu-
guese melac.0. The word is a true plural, and was formerly
so used :
" The molasses will find their own outlets."
BECKFORD'S "Account of Jamaica," 1790, vol. ii., p. 79.
See also Encyclopedia Britannica, Art. " Sugar." It is now
very commonly treated as a singular.
News and tidings, plurals in form construed as singulars.
Odds, meaning odd things, came into use about A.D. 1 500.
It soon took the sense of difference or inequality, and in a
hundred years began to be used as a singular :
" I cannot speake
Any beginning to this peevish oddes"
" Othello," ii., iii., 185.
and is now treated indifferently as singular or plural.
Penny has two plurals. Six coins of that denomination
are six pennies ; their value is sixpence, which admits of a
plural of the second order, in a handful of silver sixpences.
Pox, the only plural in x, standing tor pocks, the plural of
pock, meaning the disease now commonly called small-pox.
" Yes, I have known a lady sick of the small pocks, only to
keep her from pit-holes, take cold, strike them in again, kick up
her heels, and vanish."
BEAUM. & FLETCH., " Fair Maid of the Inn."
That pock is the true singular appears from its use as an
adjective in pock-mark, pock-pitted, etc. ; yet pox is now used
entirely as a singular.
272 English Grammar.
Pulse. There are two quite different words. The one
now in common use is from the Lat. pulsus, a stroke, a beat-
ing, a throbbing. Curiously enough, it was often mistaken
for a plural about the beginning of th'e present century, when
doctors were wont to say : " Your pulse are weak to-day."
The other word is rarely met with, but is an old collective
term for peas, or, if any one prefer, pease, singular in form
but construed as a plural.
" And Barzillai the Gileadite of Rogelim brought beds, and
basins, and earthen vessels, and wheat, and barley, and flour, and
parched corn, and beans, and lentiles, and parched pulse" 2
SAM. xvii., 28.
Riches Fr. richesse, richness, wealth an original singu-
lar, converted into a plural through misapprehension as early
as Chaucer's time.
Sixpence see penny.
Summons from Old Fr. semonse, a warning, is, and
always was, a singular, although it has the appearance of
a plural.
Twelvemonth, a curious singular form for the plural
twelve months. Like it but more reduced is fortnight for
fourteen nights.
Wages, from the singular wage, payment, used mostly in
the plural form since the beginning of the fourteenth
century.
" The wages of labor, however, are much higher in North
America than in any part of England."
SMITH'S " Wealth of Nations."
The old singular is often seen in these days in compound
words in news-articles relating to wage-workers.
After the plural forms have been ascertained, many ques-
tions arise as to whether certain words are to be treated as
singular or plural. If the form alone were conclusive there
could be no question ; but singular nouns are often treated
as plurals, and plural nouns as singular. The distinction
depends in part on the form of the word, and partly on the
Nouns. 273
nature of the thing or aggregate signified ; and we need not
expect strict consistency in adjusting conflicting claims.
Cattle, singular in form, is always treated as plural, while
game, meaning wild animals hunted for food or amusement,
however numerous, is singular. So is stock, which is nearly
equivalent to cattle. Poultry, birds domesticated for eco-
nomic reasons, and craft, a marine term, are either singular
or plural.
Nouns singular in form, denoting collective bodies of per-
sons, are sometimes treated as singular, and at other times
as plural. The only rational principle of distinction applica-
ble here is, that when the aggregate acts as a unified body it
is singular ; where the action or passion is individual the
whole is to be treated as plural. This may be made clearer
by a few examples, and first by three that I deem incorrect.
" The prisoners taken in this action had their right foot cut
off." HUME : " Hist, of England," chap. iv.
The amputation could apply to the prisoners only as indi-
viduals, and they must have had more than one right foot
among them.
" The circle of men was talking indiscriminately to both."
" Robert Elsmere."
Better, were talking.
" There was a score of candles sparkling round the mantle-
piece."" Vanity Fair."
It was the individual candles that sparkled.
We may properly say that a mob crosses a bridge, advances
upon the city, fills and obstructs the streets ; but the mob
shout, throw stones, and break into stores, for these are the
acts of individuals, those of a collective mass. So a political
party is singular in favoring or opposing a public measure,
but plural in voting. We may say that an army marches at
daybreak, and encamps on the bank of a river ; but we never
say that it eats breakfast, puts on its shoes, or washes its face.
Again a class of persons is generally plural ; an organized
body, acting as such, is singular.
18
274 English Grammar.
The clergy are exempt from military duty.
The Senate is in session.
Branches of science whose names end in -ics acoustics,
hydrostatics, mathematics, optics, therapeutics are treated
as singular.
" Physics regulates more completely our social life than does
his acquaintance with surrounding bodies regulate that of the
savage." HERBERT SPENCER.
A proper name, plural in form, is correctly used as a
singular.
" The Three Sisters (name of a brig) was spoken off Cape
Hatteras."
" ' The Hundred Wives ' is to be acted to-night."
" ' English Bards and Scotch Reviewers ' is more bitter than
witty."
The national designation of this country, covering, as it
now does, forty-four commonwealths, is sometimes used as
a singular, and sometimes as a plural. Unquestionably it
was regarded at first as plural. It is plural in the Constitu-
tion, in President Washington's proclamation of April 22,
1793, and in the letters of " Pacificus " and " Helvidius "
(Hamilton and Madison) ; but lately it is beginning to be
used as a singular.
The name is treated as a singular in the treaty with Corea,
ratified May 22, 1882 ; in Elaine's reply to Gladstone in the
North American Review for January, 1890, and in the article
" United States," written for the Encyclopedia Britannica
by Prof. Johnston. The change thus begun is as much
political as grammatical. In the early days of the Republic
the plurality of origin was kept more before men's minds
than the unity of result. They emphasized the pluribus of
the common motto rather than the unum ; but since 1865
there has been a greater feeling of nationality.
Numbers expressing value, magnitude, distance, etc., and
not individual entities, are properly treated as singular;
yet usage, which is much divided, inclines to plurality. It
will be readily seen how harsh and strained the following ex-
amples are as plurals.
Nouns. 275
Two hours are not long to wait.
Forty degrees below zero are extremely cold.
Seven feet are a great height for a man.
Ten dollars are too much for these boots.
The best writers very generally speak of a sum of money
as a singular unit.
" 6oo,oool, which was enough to procure a peace."
BP. BURNET.
" A thousand a year was thought a large revenue for a barris-
ter." MACAULAY : " Hist.," chap. iii.
" Moreover this forty millions does not * * * represent the
whole amount to be expended under the Government bill."
ARTHUR J. BALFOUR.
But how little this is adhered to will be seen by three in-
stances Sumner's " History of American Currency," and
the reports of the Secretary of the Treasury and the Direc-
tor of the Mint for 1889. The first treats a sum of money,
stated in figures or words, as plural ; in the second it is seven-
teen times plural and six times singular, in the last seventeen
times plural and five times singular. The distinction does
not seem to depend upon any principle.
A case belongs here that involves the question of what is
a plurality. Authorities usually give two definitions as if
they were synonymous, which they are not, viz., " more
than one," and " two or more." Now i comes under the
first, but not under the second. Is it then singular or plural ?
The short-hand style of trade adopts \\ cents, which is not
according to sound analogy. One and a half loaves is equiv-
alent to a whole and a half loaves, which certainly would
not be good. The correct expression is a loaf and a half =
a whole loaf and a half loaf, which would then be plural.
THE CASES OF NOUNS.
Number and gender are inherent and permanent. So long
as they live, three men never become more or less than
three ; nor do they ever change their gender and become
women. But their relations to other persons and things may
276 English Grammar.
change at any time, and to an indefinite extent. If I say,
" The man is riding a bay horse," the man is the principal
thing spoken of, and he is represented as doing something.
But if I say, " The mans horse has run away," the horse
becomes the chief actor, and the man is named only on
account of his relation of ownership to the animal. Rela-
tions between things may be expressed in several ways, of
which four are quite common.
First, as in this instance, a change in or addition to the
word.
Second, by little words whose office is to express the
relations of one thing to others. Such are, of, to, by, from,
with, which, from being very often placed before nouns, are
called prepositions that is, placings-before.
Third. Another class of relations are expressed by such
words as my, your, his, etc.
Fourth. Certain relations are expressed by words repre-
senting action of some kind. In " The dog chased a wolf,"
and " A wolf chased the dog," the relation of pursuer and
pursued is reversed.
The first and third of these modes usually express but a
small number of relations ; the fourth is limited to the one
general relation of the actor and the thing acted upon, un-
less we take into account the meaning of every separate
verb. The second is co-extensive with the number of prepo-
sitions.
Although there is not entire agreement as to the definition
of case, it is very generally limited to the first above model.
I shall use the term to denote a modification in the form of
a noun or pronoun to express a relation, not anything inher-
ent in the subject of the noun or pronoun.
The lively fancy of the Greeks represented that form of
the noun which denoted the doer as standing upright, and
all the others as falling away from it at varying angles of
declination or " declension," These slanting forms they
called ptoseis, or fallings. It was a foolish whim, as ground-
less as it was useless. In the Greek word for a woman the
essential part \s gunaik, but that form which represents her
Nouns. 277
as being or doing anything is gune, a wider departure than
the most prostrate of the fallen cases. The Romans trans-
lated literally the ptoseis of the Greeks, and called them
casus, fallings, our modern cases ; but they applied the name
equally to what the latter supposed to stand upright. They
called it the casus rectus, upright case, and the others casus
obliqui, oblique or slanting. To their practical minds the
terms denoted merely certain variations in the forms of
words. There have been persons capable of arguing that
what stood upright could not be falling, and that therefore
what Cicero called the casus rectus was not a case at all. I
am not sure that this race of subtle dialecticians is extinct
yet.
We come next to the question, how many cases we should
reckon. To answer this the definition above given requires
to be further guarded. If it should so happen that any
word had two case forms that might be used interchange-
ably throughout, having no difference of signification, we
might properly say that there was but one case variously
expressed. Again, if a certain noun had but one form to
express two relations, while other nouns in the language
had two forms, we should conclude that the exceptional
word had two of its cases alike. It is difficult to find apt
examples in English, although they are abundant in other
languages, but the following will give an approximate idea.
" Moses' law " and " Moses's law " are the same thing, while
" sheep's wool " may mean the wool of one sheep or of
several. Moreover, if the same case form be used through-
out the language for three different relations, that will not
make three cases, but only one ; and it matters not that its
place is taken by three in some other language. What is
called the ablative case in Latin expresses the place where
anything is, the instrumentality with which a thing is done,
and the source from which anything is obtained ; still it is
only one case, and is uninfluenced by the circumstance that
in Sanskrit there are three separate cases for these purposes.
Hence the absurdity, so long persisted in, of assigning to
English nouns precisely the cases claimed for Latin. If an
278 English Grammar.
algebraic expression may be permitted, to make n cases
there must be n forms with at least n corresponding func-
tions. It will not matter that in some particular words a
part of what are supposed to have been once separate forms
have become indistinguishable. If they be preserved in some
other words of the same class, they are to be recognized.
In the following examples " The man is waiting, A dog
bit the man, Man ! wait a moment, That is the track of a
man, I gave the letter to the man, The horse was stopped
by the man, Go with the man, It was taken from the man,"
the word man remains unchanged, and any noun in the
language would yield a like result. How many cases then
are here exhibited ? I think there is only one, and as it is
used in so many different relations, I shall call it the common
case. The term common has often been used for an an-
alogous purpose in reference to the gender of mice, spar-
rows, and the like, not easily distinguishable. There is one
other form, that seen in the sentence, " This is the mans
house," and as this always expresses possession or ownership,
I shall call it by the usual name of the possessive case.
Although most grammarians have recognized at least three
distinctions, there is no novelty in thus limiting them to two.
The same thing has been done by Ben Jonson, Charles
Butler (1633), Fowle ("True English Grammar"), Web-
ber, Jamieson (Rhetoric), Priestley, Ash, Bicknell, Dalton,
Hyde, Clarke (London, 1853), Webster (" Imperial
Grammar," 1831), Latham, Maetzner, and, at one time, by
Lindley Murray.
For reasons similar to those exhibited in the chapter on
Word-Making, it is now generally held that case endings
were originally separate words pronouns, prepositions, etc.,
that they became by frequent repetition closely associated
with nouns, that by rapid and careless utterance they
gradually lost part of their articulate sounds and ceased to
be recognizable as separate words. Nay, they became in
time so far reduced that often they were not distinguishable
from each other, and in many instances not a vestige of
them was left. But at their best, as known to us, they have
Nouns. 2 79
generally failed to indicate all the relations required to be
expressed. The Hebrew language has eleven terminations
for nouns, which I think might, without overstraining the
term, be called case endings, and Magyar has twenty-four ;
but both have recourse to separate words to express many
relations. Latin has six cases, but employs besides forty-
three prepositions. Often the prepositions render the case
endings unnecessary. In languages as we now know them,
separate words can often do all the work ; case endings never
can. But where the latter are competent, they are the
.neatest, " The parson's house " is in that respect better than
" The house of the parson," two syllables shorter. Cases
may thus become matter of taste rather than necessity of
ornament than use. They will be prized by the scholar who
cultivates elegance, not by the illiterate who need great
plainness. So there is a constant tendency to lose case end-
ings. The illustration (p. 280) of their gradual decrease
within the Aryan family of languages will be of interest.
The Sanskrit alone appears to have all the cases complete ;
yet that apparent completeness is deceptive. But few words
have separate forms for all the cases in the singular, and
none have them in the dual and plural. Moreover, if it were
possible to go back a thousand years farther into the dawn
of time, we might find that the extant Sanskrit had lost a
number of cases before it came within the range of vision.
No noun in any of these languages, except in the almost un-
inflected English and French classes, has all the forms to
which it is theoretically entitled. One case, the vocative, is
especially defective. When it differs from the nominative it
is shorter adapted to shouts and exclamations. It is never
found but in the singular. In Latin it is confined to the
singulars of a not very large class of words ; and in Russian
to a few archaic terms of the Church service. We see here
how the number of cases has dwindled till Italian, Spanish,
and French nouns have no trace of them. In English the
accusative or objective case is found only in the seven mono-
syllables me, thee, him, her, us, them, and whom ; and in
order to follow the analogy of these pronouns a majority of
280
English Grammar.
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Nouns. 281
writers on grammar assign an objective case to all nouns by
a kind of legal fiction. In confining the distinction of cases,
however, to those for which there are distinct forms, we
should have the countenance of the French, Spaniards, and
Italians, who do not attribute cases to their nouns merely
because pronouns have them. Moreover, when English
writers treat of the Anglo-Saxon stage of our language, they
assign only two numbers to nouns, although the personal
pronouns had three ; and we never speak of the number,
gender, or case of adjectives because nouns are thus dis-
tinguished.
If then nouns have two case forms, one denoting posses-
sion, and the other used in common in all other relations,
this distinction may, and does, hold good for both the singu-
lar and the plural. We have already seen the various forms
of the common case, and it remains only to consider the
possessive in both numbers. In Anglo-Saxon the most dis-
tinctive, and one of the most common endings of the posses-
sive singular was -es, and gradually all the other forms gave
way to this one, so that there is not now a noun in the
language that forms its possessive on any other pattern. At
the same time a considerable number of nouns had plurals
in -as ; and, as we have seen, all but a very few eventually
adopted that style. The common plural, therefore, and pos-
sessive singular were a good deal alike ; and in the very lax
spelling that prevailed up to the age of Elizabeth, and even
later, both were indiscriminately made with -es, -is, -ys, and -s
alone. All through the sixteenth century the declension of
an English noun was :
Sing. garden Plur. gardenes
gardenes gardenes
except that instead of -es, there might be -is, -ys, or -*-.
When the common case ended with a hissing sound the ear
could seldom distinguish -es or -is from his, and that crept
into use as a fifth form of the possessive. This form is quite
old, being found a number of times in the second manuscript
of Layamon's " Brut," second half of the thirteenth century :
282 English Grammar.
"he was Vther his sone."
" his brode sweord he vt droh
and vppe Colgrim his helm smot."
It continued in use down to the eighteenth century, chiefly
with sibilants : " Hercules his club," " Orpheus his lyre,"
" Ulysses his dog," " Phalaris his bull." It was even believed
that his was the original, of which the shorter forms were
only corruptions. In the I35th Spectator Addison undertook
to tell what he knew about English, which seems to have
been but little ; and he says of the possessive s :
"I might here observe that the same single letter on many
occasions does the office of a whole word and expresses the his
and her of our forefathers."
In the absence of direct evidence, it would be a strange
derivation to suppose s a substitute for her ; and the same
reasoning would derive it from their in " children's play."
Even admitting these to be blundering imitations of his, the
question remains : Is not his formed from he by adding a
possessive s ? The truth is that throughout the Aryan
family s, with or without modifying vowels, is one of the
most common possessive endings.
In Versification it is convenient to be able to vary the
length of a word by adding or omitting a syllable. The
omission is the most common, and syllables already feebly
pronounced are the victims. Our early poets wrote in full,
and trusted to the ear and intelligence of the reader to leave
some letters and syllables unpronounced. The rhythm might
require " landes," for example, to be read in one place as
two syllables, and in another as one. At length writers fell
upon the expedient of omitting silent letters and marking
their place with the sign ( ' ) which now occurs so often in
our poetry.
" But I must leave the proofs to those who 've seen 'em."
BYRON.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century these abbre-
viations were employed, but not especially to denote the
Nouns. 283
possessive case, but rather more frequently for other pur-
poses :
" and for the rest o' th' fleet."
SHAKESP. : "Tempest."
"Your Son 's my Father's friend."
" Cymbeline."
" Loves Labour 's Lost."
" thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides, and left nothing i' th'
middle. " Lear."
The following examples from Sir Walter Raleigh will show
how the plural and the possessive singular were expressed
in prose : " the last of Jehu's house " ; " Zachariahs death " ;
" Uzziah's life " ; " Uzziah his reign " ; " Menahem his
Raigne " ; " the Painters wives Island " ; " Jesus the son
of Sirach his book " ; " Cato his family " ; " The Scipio's
marched into Thessaly " ; " The ingratitude of Rome to the
two Scipio's " ; " Sibyls verses " ; " in Ahaz time " ; " Ahaz
his fourteenth year " ; " Apolloes priests " ; " the three Ara-
bia's " ; " then were the negro's not men." This way of ex-
pressing the plurals of words ending in vowels continued for
a long time. Sir Thomas Browne, in his " Pseudodoxia "
(1650), speaks of " Several sorts of torpedo's " ; " Hyaena's "
etc., of " feathers brought from the Molucca's " ; of " Halo's "
and " Hydra's." A single sentence relative to the standards
of the Twelve Tribes will illustrate his manner of expressing
the possessive singular :
" But Abenezra and others, beside the colours of the field, do
set down other charges, in Reubens the form of a man or man-
drake, in that of Judah a Lyon, in Ephraims an Ox, in Dan's the
figure of an Aigle."
I have observed but one other instance of the modern
possessive in the whole work.
The wits of Queen Anne's time wrote of " extraordinary
genio's " (Tatler, l/io); "Voluptuous concerts of Venus's
and Adonis's (Censor, April 20, 1/15); and of the" Hilpa's
and Nilpa's that lived before the flood " (Spectator, No. 609).
284 English Grammar.
In the Philosophical Transactions for 1780 may be read:
" Vesuvius does not exhibit any lava's irregularly crystal-
ized, and forming what are vulgarly called Giants Cause-
ways." Let the reader here observe the word Giants. The
last instance of this kind that I shall cite is from Gordon's
" History of American Independence " (London, 1788) : " It
was projected and brought on by Messrs. Otis's, father and
son." Thus it took two hundred years to settle the single
point, that Johns should mean belonging to John, and
should mean nothing else.
When a word ends with any sound of s, the addition of
another will sometimes produce an excessive and unpleasant
hissing. Most readers will agree with me that " Moses's
serpent " " and Caucasus's hard rock " (Spectator, Nos. 14
and 6 1 1), Ulysses's shipwreck and righteousness's sake, are
far too sibilant ; but there is a wide diversity of opinion
as to the proper limit. Usage differs ; and in such a case
usage is the law. The Bible has " Moses' hands," " Jesus'
disciple," for " righteousness' sake," " asking no questions
for conscience' sake " ; the Spectator (135) speaks of " Hudi-
bras doggrel expressions," and " St. James* Garden Hill
Church." In Oliphant's " New English " we find such
phrases as " Stubbes' remarks," " Erasmus Greek Testa-
ment," " Ellis' Letters," and " Monkbarns' lykewake." On
the other hand I have met with " Jesus's " in two quite
respectable and very recent publications.
Out of the chaos we may deduce the following general
conclusions :
1. As 's is now the sign of the possessive, presumption is
always in its favor, until a reason can be shown for its omis-
sion. That reason can only be that too many sibilants are
difficult to utter or unpleasant to hear.
2. The longer the word the more cumbersome the addition
is felt to be.
3. Add the 'j to all words of one syllable.
" The vera topmost tow'ring height
O Miss's bonnet."
BURNS.
Nouns. 285
" Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the
choice vine." BIBLE.
4. To words of more than one syllable do not add 'j, if it
would make three sibilants close together.
5. In no case add 's to words of more than three syllables,
so as to make Semiramis's or Telemachus's.
6. Most words of two syllables, not having two sibilants near
the end, will bear the addition of 's Thomas, Morris, Ellis,
Peters, Sickles. If the last syllable be accented it will bear
the addition Hortense, Delmas, Dundas, Fordyce, Laplace,
Maclise, Pelouze. If the last syllable be of considerable vol-
ume, but unaccented Greatrakes, Helmholtz, Leibnitz, Monk-
barns the 's will generally be omitted.
7. Words of three syllables will rarely bear 's, unless the
last have a principal or secondary accent Boniface, Espi-
nasse, Halifax, Palafox.
8. The termination will often be added to words that end
in -ce or -x when it would be omitted if the terminal sound
were represented by s.
9. The above principles apply when both the possessor
and the thing possessed are named ; but if only the former,
the termination is added or the expression changed This is
Carrothers* house, whose is that ? It is Quackenbos's.
Compound terms form their plurals by adding s to the
principal part, but their possessives by adding it to the
last part plural, sons-in-law, possessive, son-in-law s. This is
admissible even when the expression is of considerable
length, as, the postmaster of Columbia, South Carolina s son.
When that becomes too unwieldy, the only resource, as in
many other cases, is to change the expression. When to a
first noun a second, meaning the same person or thing,
is added, as if to make identification sure, both should have
the possessive sign.
"A small and old spaniel, which had been Don pose's, his
father's." BYRON.
When several different persons or things sustain the pos-
sessive relation, it should be shown equally for all.
286 English Grammar.
" For honour's, pride's, religion's, virtue's sake." Id.
But conflicting and less correct examples are not wanting.
Captain Smith called Pocahontas " the Kings daughter of
Virginia" We also read :
" The king's daughter of the south shall come to the king of
the north to make an agreement." DANIEL xi., 6. " I left the
parcel at Mr. Johnson's the bookseller." Crombie's Grammar.
" The psalms are David's, the king, priest, and prophet of the
Jewish people." LINDLEY MURRAY.
" And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare's art
Had stamped her image in me." "Childe Harold," iv., 18.
Yet when two or more names are closely associated, as
in a business firm, they require but one possessive sign
Call at Smith & Ward 's office.
A substitute for the possessive case may be formed with
the preposition of. His father s house and the house of his
father are the same in fact but not the same grammatically.
The latter is not a case or we should with equal reason have
as many cases as we can find prepositions. The possessive
case is commonly, not invariably, used in speaking of human
beings, the preposition when we speak of inanimate things
the boys skates, the judge s carriage, the bend of the river,
the shade of the oak. The two forms are used of animals
with almost equal frequency.
Thus far I have spoken only of the possessive singular.
The plural baffled the ingenuity of grammarians for a con-
siderable time. Where the plural did not end in s there
was little difficulty ; men's work and children's play afforded
an easy solution. But when the plural was formed by affix-
ing an s, it was not deemed desirable to add another. John
Wallis suggested "the Lord's House" and "the Common's
House " for the two Houses of Parliament, explaining that
these were intended as abbreviations for " the Lords s House "
and the Commons's House" ; but the absurdity of these forms,
which were precisely like singulars, prevented their general
acceptance. Yet something of the kind may be met with
Nouns. 287
occasionally. Thus an article on the cuckoo, in the Philo-
sophical Transactions for 1788, speaks of the eggs "found
in Titlark's nests " ; yet in general usage and in treatises on
grammar the plural was left without distinction of case.
Gordon's " History of American Independence," above
cited, has the following :
" They retired from their own to neighbours houses. * * *
The troops began landing under cover of the ships cannons.
* * * It was with no small indignation that the people beheld
the representatives chamber, court-house and Faneuil-hall occu-
pied by troops."
The "British Grammar" (1784) says that the plural in s
has no genitive ; and a " Grammar of the English Tongue,"
by Thomas Coar, so late as 1796, has still no way of distin-
guishing the genitive case. Yet it is certain that before the
last-named date the present method of distinguishing the
possessive plural, by putting (') after the s had been
devised. The earliest instances I have met with are two
passages in the Gentleman s Magazine for January, 1788 :
" I should be very glad of some of your correspondents' opinion."
" and consequently instead of being circulated through all the
learned part of Europe, must be confined to the perusal of feeble
amateurs, or ladies' maids."
If the common plural ends with s, place an apostrophe (')
after it sartors' rights ; if the plural does not end in s, add
V freemen's rights.
PERSON.
The distinction of person is threefold. The first person is
the speaker ; the second the person spoken to ; the third any
one else. The distinction is better shown by the personal
pronouns, to which the reader is referred. All nouns are of
the third person, except when associated with the pronoun
of the first person or are appellations of persons directly
addressed.
CHAPTER III.
ADJECTIVES.
THE name, from the Latin adjectivus, added or thrown to,
gives no idea of the nature and use of the words so desig-
nated ; but, being well established, it has become a conven-
ient term. We may suppose that the first generations of
speaking men began by distinguishing things animals, trees,
plants, and the conspicuous actions of some. They might
next observe qualities in which one differed from another.
Animals were large or small, swift or slow ; grass was green,
while some blossoms were white and others red ; some fruits
were sweet, more were sour, and a few bitter. Whether
derived from the more essential parts of speech or wholly
original sounds we cannot possibly know, but the former is
the more natural supposition.
These words are of only secondary importance. While
we can scarcely express any meaning without nouns and
verbs, much may be said without mentioning qualities, good
or bad. The first chapter of Matthew contains 474 words,
of which, at the utmost, only five quite as properly only
three are adjectives. If that be thought an extreme case,
in the first twenty-two verses of John's Gospel 393 words
there is only one adjective, and that a monosyllable. Again,
if I utter the word horse, some conception or picture of the
animal rises at once in the active mind of the hearer ; but if
I say tall, no mental picture is formed, for the word may be
applied equally to grass, a man, a tree, or a steeple to one
thing, or to many.
We have often seen already that every usage in language
begins at a certain point, from which it spreads, and that in
288
Adjectives. 289
its diffusion the point of departure is apt to be lost sight of.
Words expressing no quality, but relations of time, place,
origin, order daily, annual, recent, adjacent, distant, Irish,
foremost, central, hindmost are used with nouns, like the
primitive adjectives, and are classified with them. As adjec-
tives have so little independent existence, they are pecul-
iarly apt to be derived from words of other classes. In this
respect they may be distinguished somewhat in the following
manner :
1. Primary adjectives, native, or of foreign origin, which
are not obviously traceable to any other words acute, bold,
cruel, deaf, early, free, good, hard, idle, etc.
2. Adjectives derived from nouns.
a. From nouns, mostly English, by adding the native
suffixes, -ed, -en, -fast, -ful, -ish, -less, -ly, -some, -ward, -y or
-ey horned, ragged, tented, earthen, leaden, wooden, earth-
fast, shamefast, steadfast, shameful, tearful, truth/ill, child-
ish, English, waspish, fatherless, homeless, shoeless, godly,
motherly, shapely, handsome, toilsome, homeward, wayward,
windward, clayey, sandy, stony, woody.
NOTE. Adjectives in -ed seem to be formed in imitation
of participles. A man who has learned is a learned man,
and one who has been armed, or furnished with arms, is an
armed man. Next, a beast furnished by nature with horns
is a horned beast, and finally we have such words as long-
haired, four-footed, left-handed, tongue-tied, evidently not
participles of any verbs. It is impossible to draw the line
accurately between adjectives and participles, but we can
come near it by calling those adjectives that cannot be
traced to verbs.
The ending -some has no connection with the adjective-
pronoun some, but is related to same, expressing identity
or likeness : German langsam, Scotch langsome, slow ; Ice-
landic frith-samr, peaceful.
b. Adjectives formed from nouns by means of suffixes,
changed or unchanged, from French, Latin, or Greek
-able or -ible, -aceous, -al, -alian, -an, -ar, -arian, -ary, -ate, -eel,
-eous, ese, -esque, -tan, -ic, -//, -He, ine, -ive, -le, -lent, -oid, -ory,
19
290 English Grammar.
-ose, -ous marketable, peaceable, contemptible, responsible,
amylaceous, sebaceous, moral, mortal, radical, bacchanalian,
Episcopalian, diocesan, Franciscan, columnar, ocular, parlia-
mentarian, vegetarian, Trinitarian, Unitarian, military, tribu-
tary, ovate, palmate, genteel, igneous, vitreous, Chinese, Maltese,
picturesque, Romanesque, Christian, Darwinian, Parisian,
angelic, volcanic, civil, gentile, hostile, servile, canine, feminine,
sanguine, festive, plaintive, gentle, corpulent, turbulent, fungoid,
pithecoid, sphenoid, mandatory, migratory, globose, operose,
varicose, disastrous, necessitous.
NOTE. The ending -arian is really a double adjective
ending. Although we have not the simple forms trinitary
and vegetary, unitary is met with, and parliamentary is
quite common. The same is true of -alian, and there are
several other double endings, as in merit-ori-ous,paradox-ic-al,
sym metr-ic-al.
3. Adjectives are formed upon other adjectives old-en,
hard-y, clean-ly, good-ly, kind-ly, dark-some, lone-some, weari-
some, whole-some, robust-ioiis. This last word is not com-
mendable, but is sanctioned by " Hamlet," and Benton's
" Thirty Years in the Senate."
4. Adjectives are made from verbs by adding -able, -ant,
-ary, -astic, -ate, -atory, -bund, -ent, -ible, -tie, -ite, -ive, -ory,
-uble blamable, pardonable, jubilant, rampant, intercalary,
sedentary, drastic, spastic, considerate, moderate, derogatory,
migratory, moribund, dependent, deficient, pertinent, fusible,
legible, ductile, facile, pensile, erudite, recondite, cursive, mis-
sive, persuasive, accessory, promissory, soluble, voluble.
NOTE. Those that end in -ant, -ent, -ate, and -ite are modifi-
cations of participles.
5. A few are formed from adverbs and prepositions, such
as aftermost, anterior, contrary, exterior, former, foremost,
further, hinder, inferior, inner, interior, nether, outer or utter,
prior, superior, thorough, upper.
6. Nearly every verb in the language furnishes two parti-
ciples that may be used as adjectives running water, a
graven image, a ploughed field.
Adjectives. 291
7. Some adverbs, especially those ending in ward back-
ward, forvvard, downward, homeward may be used as
adjectives.
8. The greater number of adjectives may have their sig-
nification reversed by prefixing the negative dis-, un-, in-, or
non-, thus nearly doubling their number.
9. Expressions having the force of adjectives are formed
by combining two or more words water-proof, star-spangled
rock-ribbed, pepper-and-salt-colored. There is no limit to the
descriptive phrases that may be made in this way, and some
are of considerable length, as much-to-be-lamented, never-to-be-
forgotten. They are equally adjective phrases whether the
parts be united by hyphens or not. The German language
is capable of using descriptions containing a dozen words or
more in the manner of adjectives ; but in English such com-
binations have a burlesque appearance :
" and there
With an I-turn-the-crank-of-the- Universe air,
And a tone which, at least to my fancy, appears
To be not so much entering as boxing your ears."
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
10. Lastly almost any noun may, without alteration, be
used as an adjective a stone wall, a gold watch, an iron
chain. Two or more nouns may be used together for this
purpose a bear-skin cap, a birch-bark canoe. In the office
of the Register of the Treasury in Washington is a paper,
pertaining to accounts of the Garfield Memorial Hospital
in which is an item of a " hand hole cover bolt. Each
word except the last serves as an adjective to the one
that follows.
Thus our language has an unlimited power of producing a
class of words that careful persons use but sparingly. When-
ever it becomes necessary to employ several adjectives,
variety of expression can be secured by drawing from the
various sources here enumerated.
29 2 English Grammar.
The adjective is often equivalent to the genitive or pos-
sessive case, denoting possession or derivation :
a mother's love maternal affection
cares of a household domestic cares
the armies of France the French armies
the election of a President the Presidential election
In most languages adjectives have the same apparatus as
nouns of terminations to denote gender, number, and case.
It is not easy to see any sufficient reason for this. We are
left to conjecture that, being used mostly along with nouns,
the terminations of the one class were extended to the other,
as (speaking metaphorically) electricity or magnetism is im-
parted by induction, or as high-colored flowers impart some-
thing of their bright dyes to pale ones. This machinery,
wanting in English, renders adjectives more available for
use in the place of nouns. The only trace we have of this
declension is the plural forms of a few when used as nouns :
1. National, tribal, or partisan designations Greeks,
Romans, Spartans, Italians, Americans, Christians, Ma-
hometans, Arians, Socinians, Puritans, Republicans, Stoics,
vegetarians.
NOTE. If the word end with a sibilant, s is not added.
2. Various designations of classes of persons ancients,
'moderns, innocents, mortals, natives, nobles, sages, criminals,
heathens, pagans, blacks, whites.
To these may be added a number used as nouns only in
what is called the comparative degree of which hereafter
betters, elders, inferiors, superiors, seniors, juniors.
3. Collective terms for various pursuits, studies, or
branches of science ethics, acoustics, metaphysics, mne-
monics, hydrostatics, quadratics, politics.
4. Terms descriptive of large classes or groups of things
combustibles, eatables, goods, narcotics, opiates, sudorifics,
bitters, woollens, greens, canonicals, vitals.
The reader who cares to see how an adjective may be
spread out according to number, gender, and case, can
glance at the following Sanskrit declension :
Adjectives.
SINGULAR
293
Masculine.
Feminine.
Neuter.
VOCATIVE
papa
pape
papa
NOMINATIVE
papas
papa
papam
ACCUSATIVE
papam
papam
papam
INSTRUMENTAL
papena
papaya
papena
DATIVE
papaya
papayai
papaya
ABLATIVE
papat
papayas
papat
GENITIVE
papasya
papayas
papasya
LOCATIVE
pipe
papayam
pap6
DUAL
Voc.
papau
pape"
pape
NOM.
papau
pape".
pape
Ace.
papau
pape"
pape
INST.
papabhyam
papabhyam
papabhyam
DAT.
papabhyam
papabhyam
papabhyam
ABL.
papabhyam
papabhyam
papabhyam
GEN.
papayos
papayos
papayos
Loc.
papayos
papayos
papayos
PLURAL
Voc.
papas
papas
papani
NOM.
papas
papas
papani
Ace.
papan
papas
papani
INST.
papais
papabhis
papais
DAT.
papebhyas
papabhyas
papebhyas
ABL.
papebhyas
papabhyas
papebhyas
GEN.
papanam
papanam
papanam
Loc.
papeshu
papasu
papeshu
All that we have as the equivalent of this array is the small
unchanging word bad. It will be observed too that while
there are seventy-two distinctions in the combinations of
number, gender, and case, there are only twenty-six separate
forms ; and this holds good of all inflected languages.
They never have forms enough to go round. From an
inflectional table of seventy-two places we are not to sup-
294 English Grammar.
pose that the change to one simple monosyllable was made
at a single step ; but to attempt to trace the gradual wear-
ing down would be too tedious. Only one intermediate
point shall be noticed. Our Anglo-Saxon fathers declined
the adjective good thus :
SINGULAR
Masculine. Feminine. Neuter
NOM. goda g6de gode
GEN. godan godan godan
DAT. godan g6dan godan
Ace. godan godan gode
PLURAL
NOM. gddan gddan g6dan
GEN. g6dena g6dena g6dena
DAT. gddum godum godum
Ace. g6dan godan godan
The seventy-two places are here reduced to twenty-four,
and the forms that are to occupy them are only five. In
the Sanskrit example the inflectional forms were thirty-six
per cent, of those theoretically required, in the Saxon less
than twenty-one. The Saxon declension took another
pattern, slightly fuller when the definite article preceded
the adjective.
Although our adjectives dispense with distinctions of
gender, number, and case, they need and have distinctions
of a different kind. As they primarily express qualities it is
often necessary to show which of two or more possess a
quality in the highest degree. One man may be strong,
another strong-er, and yet another the strong-est of the three.
These distinctions are called degrees. The first is called the
positive, the second the comparative, and the last the super-
lative. The orderly exhibition of these three degrees is
called comparison.
When an adjective ends with e, one vowel can be
dropped.
Adjectives. 295
free free-r free-st
white white-r white-st
able able-r able-st
It is not meant to indicate here whether it is the last
letter of the positive or the first of the suffix that is
omitted. It is a point of no practical importance, but
the earlier usages of the language countenance the division
given here.
All adjectives of one syllable are compared in this man-
ner; also dissyllables with ultimate accent, or whose last
syllable has no other vowel than a final y or a final e
preceded by /. The final y of course becomes /'.
genteel genteel-er genteel-est
complete complete-r complete-st
gentle gentle-r gentle-st
worthy worthi-er worthi-est
All other adjectives may take these terminations so long as
the result is easy for the tongue and pleasing to the ear,
which in all such cases is the ultimate test. More than a
law, it is the reason of the law. Soberest and honester will
do very well, but soberer and honestest are inadmissible.
Writers of the present day are far from agreed as to what
words admit of this comparison, and our ancestors indulged
in still greater latitude. Such words as fitting-est, cunning-
est, certain-er, tender-er, faithfull-est, de light full-est, wonder-
full-est, may be found in authors of the highest repute ; and
the readers of Carlyle will recall his favorite word of praise,
beautifullest. When these terminations would render the
word unwieldy, substitutes are found in the adverbs, more
and most, in imitation of the French :
eloquent more eloquent most eloquent
The use of -er and -est may be called the native or Anglo-
Saxon comparison, and has a pedigree longer than any
princely house. In Sanskrit there were two regular modes
of comparison. One added -lyas for the comparative and
296 English Grammar.
-ishta for the superlative : the other added -tara and -tama.
We may call the first the old comparison. In the oldest
remains it was unfrequent and on the decrease. The latter
and more common we may call the new comparison. All
the other Aryan families exhibit remains of these termina-
tions more or less fragmentary and mismatched. The Zend
is said to have had them nearly as in Sanskrit ; but of that
I do not know. Greek retains representatives of both
systems :
kalos kail-ion kall-isto-s
leptos lepto-tero-s lepto-tato-s
In the last a / is found in the place of m, the original com-
mon to both languages having probably been mt. Latin
did not preserve these suffixes so well ; and retained the old
comparative and new superlative in a much altered con-
dition.
viridis virid-ius virid-issimus
longus long-ius long-issimus
Here I take the termination -ius, or rather -ios to be more
primitive than -tor, as an earlier s is well known to be often
converted into a later r. I can only conjecture the ss of the
superlative to have taken the place of t, a substitution of
which there are many examples. The superlative termina-
tion is rather better preserved in such forms as opt-imu-s,
ult-imu-s, from which, however, one / has still been dropped.
As representatives of the Slavonic branch Russian and Polish
are almost entirely without separate terminations for the
superlative, but form comparatives on the older pattern, the
former adding ai-ishii aishii, or merely shii, and the latter
jejszy, which are nearly the same to the ear. There are
only four Russian superlatives :
COMP. SUPERL.
velikii (great) bol-shii velicha-ishii
malwi (little) men-shii mal-aishii
vwisokii (high) vis-shii vwisocha-ishii
nizkii (low) niz-shii nizha-ishii
Adjectives. 297
in which the endings are clearly the same, and the superla-
tives are developed from the comparatives. All other
superlatives are made by placing vsakh (of all) before the
positive. Lithuanian has only a comparative formed on the
older pattern. The Irish, the best preserved of the Celtic
stock, has a comparative ending in -nws, and no separate
superlative.
Coming now to our own more immediate kindred, the
Goths distinguished the comparative by adding -is or -os,
according to the other elements with which they were asso-
ciated. This termination was evidently akin to the Sanskrit
-lyas and the Latin -is in mag-is. When a termination was
added to denote number, gender, etc., s became z. The
Sansk. superlative -ish-ta was represented in Gothic by -is-ta
or -os-ta ; and here the s held its place by the help of the t
Hence an adjective ran thus :
COMP. SUPERL.
blind-s (blind) blind-oz-a blind-os-ta
haugh-s (high) haugh-iz-a haugh-is-ta
Now the tendency called rhotacism turned the z into r in
all the other Teutonic languages ; and that is how we come
to say blind-er, blind-est instead of blind-ez, blind-est.
Grimm, Bopp, and others hold that the superlative is
always formed by adding to the comparative, and conse-
quently is later in time, and that, if in any language one of
the two is wanting, it is the superlative.
Putting these fragmentary hints together, we may, from
the mere comparison of adjectives, infer that the Aryans of
Europe left their ancestral homes on the streams that supply
the Caspian at different times ; that the Celts and Lithua-
nians set out before the comparison in -tara and -tama had
come into common use, or any form for the superlative ;
that the Slavic emigration came next ; and that our Teutonic
ancestors learned only the pattern that was falling into dis-
use when the literature of India began. What we call the
ancient Greeks, then, seem to be comparatively late arrivals,
while our brethren of Tipperary belong to the oldest branch
298 English Grammar.
of the family, and those who had conquered and colonized
India before Solomon sent forth his navies for algum-trees,
ivory, apes, and peacocks, are the youngest.
The terminations -tara and -tama have reached Western
Europe in connection with pronouns and prepositions rather
than adjectives of quality. Bopp holds that -tama is a
contraction from -tara-ma on the general principle that the
superlative is always a further development of the compara-
tive. It is held with still more confidence that -tara signifies
of two, and -tama, of several. Thus from the Sanskrit inter-
rogative ka were formed ka-tara-s, which of the two ? and
ka-tama-s, which of several ? In like manner, from the rela-
tive^ were made ya-tara-s, and ya-tama-s, and so of several
others. Taking ka, ka-tara-s, ka-tama-s as an example of all
words formed in this manner, I observe that k is represented
in Greek by k, p, in Latin by c, qu, in Gothic and Anglo-
Saxon by h, hw, in English by h, wh. We have then, cor-
responding to the Sansk. ka-tara-s, Gr. Tro-rspo-?, which of
the two ? Sansk. e-ka-tara-s, Gr. f-xd-repo-S, each of the two ;
Lat. uter (initial wanting); Lith. ka-tra-s ; Russ. ko-torw-i,
which ; Goth, hwa-thar ; A.-S. hwae-ther ; Eng. whether :
"The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the
twain will ye that I release unto you?" MATT, xxvii., 21.
There are many other words in the different European
languages formed by affixing these terminations to pronouns,
prepositions, or adverbs, and all including the idea of duality.
We may instance in English either, neither, other, dexter,
sinister. Interior, exterior, ulterior are double comparatives.
Extreme Lat. extremus adds a superlative to a compara-
tive ending, and is an apt illustration of Bopp's conjecture
cited above. When Addison wrote of " the sea's extremest
borders" he probably did not know that he had heaped
three terminations together.
In words like ul-tima-te there is a relic of the ancient
-tama, or at least of the latter part of it, that comes to us
through the Latin ; but there -are many traces of it not thus
borrowed. These further strengthen the supposition that
the superlative -ma was a separate element. The Gothic
Adjectives. 299
-*#, first or foremost, afte-ma, last ; and Anglo-Saxon
had:
for-ma fore-most nithe-ma neth-most or nether-
hinde-ma hind-most most
inne-ma in-most ufe-ma up-most, upper-most
mide-ma mid-most ute-ma ut-most
A double superlative ending -st was added while Anglo-
Saxon was yet in use, which gradually led to the belief that
these words were made up by adding the adverb most.
Even triple endings are not wanting :
" and behold we are in Kadesh, a city in the ut-ter-mo-st of thy
borders." NUM. xx., 16.
A few adjectives are marked by certain irregularities of
comparison. Especially are there a number of superlatives
made by adding most and originating in the misapprehension
just noticed.
aft after aftermost
far farther farthest
fore further furthest, furthermost
fore former foremost, first
hind hinder hindmost
late later, latter latest, last
The irregularity of farther and farthest is the inserting of
th in imitation of further and furthest.
A few comparatives and superlatives have nouns, prepo-
sitions, or adverbs as their positives.
in inner inmost, innermost
out outer, utter utmost, uttermost, outermost
up upper uppermost
stern sternmost
head headmost
top topmost
north northmost
south southmost, etc., etc.
Some are made up from fragments of different adjectives,
d&good, better, best, bad, worse, worst ; but it will be well to
treat these and remaining irregularities singly.
300 English Grammar.
Bad a word of rather uncertain origin. It stands quite
alone, and the comparative and superlative, worse and worst,
are from a different source. Worse is one of the most per-
plexing words in our language, the doubt being whether it
is a positive, a comparative, or a double comparative. The
most plausible explanation is that it is originally and strictly
a positive, from a Teutonic root wars, to distort, throw into
confusion, from which was made the Gothic comparative
wairs-iz-a, and the corresponding Old High German wirs-ir-o.
If this be so, one sibilant had dropped out before the Norman
Conquest, and the Anglo-Saxon adjective had become wear,
wyr-se, wyr-st. A comparative, however, formed by means
of s is very unusual. Less is the only other example of which
I am aware. To confuse the matter still more, comparatives
like wer, werre, warre, waur came into use in England, and
still more in Scotland, as Scandinavian influence assimilated
the s of worse to r.
" The world is much war than it was woont." SPENSER.
A comparative wors-er came into use in the sixteenth
century :
" A dreadful quiet felt, and worser far
Than arms, a sullen interval of war."
DRYDEN.
But it can scarcely have been based upon any philological
reason.
Evil from the earliest times both noun and adjective ; in
the latter use equal to bad, and borrowing the same com-
parative and superlative. It has also been used as an adverb.
" The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated
our fathers." ACTS vii., 19.
But that part of its duty is now transferred to ill. Evil
is now almost exclusively used as a noun.
Good The comp. and superl., better and best, are from a
different root, bat, meaning good. The Goth, was bat-iz-a for
the comp., superl. bat-is-ta. Our best is obviously a shorten-
ing of bet-est.
Adjectives. 301
111 a duplicate and Scandinavian form of evil, due to the
settlement of the Danes.
Little a lengthened form of A.-S. lyt, still to be met with
in England as a dialectic form ; from a root lut, to stoop or
be low ; compare Eng. lout and Scot. lout. The comp. and
superl. are from a root las, to be feeble. The A.-S. Ices and
last, shortened forms for Ices-sa and Ices-ast, in which the sa
is by assimilation for ra. A double comparative is common :
" The more my prayer the lesser is my grace."
" Midsummer Night's Dream," act ii.
" The greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule
the night." GENESIS.
A regular superlative littlest is sometimes met with :
" Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear."" Hamlet,"
iii., 2. (Late edition.)
Many from an Aryan root mag, to prevail or be great,
spring a large family of kindred words. Sometimes the
sound of n was intruded, making mank or mang, at others
-el was added, as in the case of little, and again the guttural
was softened into ch. Among the best-known members of
this family are: Gr. meg-as, meg-al-e, meg-a ; Lat. mag-nus,
mag-us, mag-is-ter ; Goth, manag-s ; O. H. Ger. manac ; A.-S.
manig ; Eng. many ; I eel. magn, main strength, margr, many,
mik-ill, large, mjok, much ; A.-S. md, more, mag-an, may,
mag-en, main, myc-el, great, many, much ; Scot, mae, mair,
maist , mickle or muckle ; Middle Eng. muck-el ; TLng.mag-ic,
majes-ty, mag-is-trate, maj-or, main, may, many, much, more,
most, and even Mr. Many is applied to numbers, and much
to quantity. Anglo-Saxon and English until the seventeenth
century had correspondingly separate comparatives :
" Many mo unto the nombre of ten thousande and moo."
CAXTON, cited by MAETZNER.
Alexander Gill, a grammarian of 1619, gave the two com-
parisons thus :
many mo most
much more most
302 English Grammar.
Since that time mo has gone wholly out of use. A or an
is often put after many :
" Of gallant Gordons many a one,
And many a stubborn Highlandman
And many a rugged border clan,
With Huntley and with Home."
SCOTT : " Marmion," canto vi.
This curious idiom dates from the beginning of the thir-
teenth century. The many sometimes regarded as a noun
is from a derivative form, A.-S. menigeo, a throng, a multi-
tude ; but that it is not equivalent to a noun will be seen
by comparing it with multitude :
a great many men :
a great multitude of men.
Together with few, it rather belongs to the large hybrid
class of adjective pronouns.
Much See many.
Near Originally, and in its form, this is a comparative :
A.-S. Adj. neah nearra nyhst
Adv. neah near, nyr nehst
When the comparative was mistaken for a positive in the
fifteenth century, the redundant forms near-er and near-est
were added ; but the old superlative is still preserved in next.
Nigh A variant form from A.-S. neah, used adverbially.
Nether a comp. for which no positive remains ; A.-S.
comp. nith-er-a, superl. nithe-ma, nithe-me-sta. The last is a
double superlative. The Scotch say neth-most, but the
English sometimes attach an additional syllable :
" The neth-er-most chamber was five cubits broad."
i KINGS vi., 6.
This is formed on the common but false analogy of adding
the adverb most.
Old has two models of comparison, an earlier old, elder,
eldest, and a later, old, older, oldest. The vowel change in
the former is similar to that in men, feet, etc. This is the
only remaining example of such change in adjectives, but
Adjectives. 303
formerly it applied to broad, long, strong, and others, and has
left a trace in eld, breadth, length, and strength. Elder and
eldest are now archaic forms, confined to persons. An
antique structure is not the eldest but the oldest house in
town. They do not imply great age, but only priority in
age. The eldest may be the senior of a group of children ;
the oldest is more likely to be the senior in a conclave of
aged men. It would be unusual now to place than after
elder. But these are modern distinctions, and even now
not strictly observed.
" I have * * * a son * * * some years elder than
this." SHAKESP.
" With us are both the gray-headed and very aged men, much
elder than thy father." JOB xv., 10.
Longfellow speaks of " the elder days of art," and the
" faded fancies of an elder world " ; but then poets write
in the oldest dialect that people will put up with.
Rather Of the full comparison, rath, rath-er, rath-est
soon or early, etc. only the second term remains, and that
has lost an initial h, and is used only as an adverb.
Although grammarians reckon only three degrees of
quality, they might with almost equal propriety have in-
cluded a fourth, making the full comparison :
green-ish green green-er green-est
Several other shades are expressed by the aid of such words
as slightly, somewhat, rather, very, highly, sadly, or exceedingly.
Some adjectives, chiefly derived from nouns, do not admit
of comparison. They are :
I. Adjectives that denote material, origin, source, author-
ship, time, place, constitution :
alcoholic
diluvial
annual
rhombic.
calcareous
oceanic
vernal
oval
woollen
solar
stellar
volcanic
American
Parisian
daily
hourly
subterranean
lamellar
metallic
fluid
atmospheric
alluvial
Mosaic
Cartesian
terraqueous
circular
gaseous
crystalline
304 English Grammar.
2. Words that in themselves express an extreme degree :
empty, void, eternal, infinite, perfect, perpetual, universal.
3. A miscellaneous class of adjectives, mostly expressing
relations rather than qualities : baptismal, false, filial, lawful,
natural, parental, royal, true.
Thus far the double comparatives and superlatives that
have been noticed are single words that do not always
openly betray their cumulative character. Duplicate or trip-
licate expressions, like more superior, most handsomest, are
not according to the present usage of the language, but
down to the seventeenth century such redundancy was com-
mon enough.
" Most dennest flesh of briddes." " Piers Plowman," 8992.
" These poore informall women, are no more
But instruments of some more mightier member
That sets them on." " Meas. for Meas.," act v.
" more fairer then fair, beautifull then beautious."
" Love's Labor 's Lost," act iv.
" This was the most unkindest cut of all."
" Julius Caesar," ii., 2.
" After the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee."
ACTS xxvi., 5.
The last point that I shall consider here, touching adjec-
tives, is the question whether in speaking of two things
that are good in different degrees, we ought to say " the
better of the two," or " the best of the two," or may properly
say either. The particular adjective used makes no differ-
ence. Expressions like " the better of the two " are so com-
mon, at least in literary English, that there remains no
question of their admissibility. Still I think that plain
intelligent people, who are neither finical nor coarse, are
more apt, in their conversation, to say " the best of the two."
And the spoken language of such people is generally truer,
purer, more idiomatic English than what they write with
the help of stilts, spectacles, dictionary, and grammar.
If languages were more amenable to reason than they
are, the question might be analyzed in the manner follow-
Adjectives. 305
ing; The comparative treats of two, quite apart from and
in a manner contrasted with, each other, of which the one
exceeds the other. The superlative treats of a group, aggre-
gate, or class, and singles out one as the leader, who must
always be a member of the class. There is no contrast.
The oldest member of the senate is not contrasted in any
way with the other senators. Ranged in a line according to
age some one must be at one extremity of the line, and
some one else at the other, but all are alike parts of the
continuous line. The question then resolves itself into
this : Can a group, aggregate, or class that is, for purposes
of speech consist of only two ? If it can, then one may
be the best of the two. Indeed, if I mistake not, there are
some cases in which we would nearly all use the superlative.
Most persons would be apt to say : " The first half of the
day was rainy, but the last half was quite clear." Yet there
are but two halves. To say the former half and the latter
half would be stiff, pedantic, and redolent of a bad quality
of midnight oil. Or in speaking of the arrival of two per-
sons, with a short interval between, should we say the first
comer and the last comer, or the former comer and the
latter comer ? To say the first and the second would be
shirking the question, as second is neither comparative nor
superlative. Or would it improve the matter to say the
former and the second? Or again, in speaking of two en-
gaged in a race, are they respectively the foremost and the
hindmost, or the former and the hinder ?
While I admit that the written language shows a prefer-
ence for the comparative, as applied to two, yet the super-
lative is also used, and, I think, with more logical consist-
ency. Sir John Mandeville, speaking of two brothers, says,
" So that his eldest sone was chosen aftre him, Melchemader ; the
whiche his brother leet sle prevely."
" Hadde tuo sones * * * of which the eldest hight Algarsif."
CHAUCER : " C. T.," 10,343.
" I would haue put my wealth into Donation.
And the best halfe should haue return' d to him."
SHAKESP. : " Timon," iii., 2.
306 English Grammar.
"Your eldest Doughters haue foredone themselves."
" Lear," v., 3.
In this instance the comparison is between two parties, the
eldest sisters on one side and the youngest on the other.
" The question is not whether a good Indian or a bad English-
man be most happy, but which state is most desirable."
JOHNSON : " Life of Sir F. Drake."
So, numerous examples, from the beginning of the thir-
teenth century to the present time, might be found ; but let
the following suffice.
" Tha answerede the other, [Hengist]
that wes the aldesie brother." LAYAMON.
" One of the greatest questions of moral philosophy : whether
the enjoying of outward things, or the contemning of them be the
greatest" BACON : "Advancement of Learning."
" Master Simon and the general, who have become great cronies.
As the former is the youngest by many years," etc.
IRVING : " Bracebridge Hall."
" I rather apprehend that the latter would be the likeliest of the
two to speak the fitting word."
HAWTHORNE : " Blithedale Romance," xvi.
"many women would have deemed you the worthier conquest
of the two, you are certainly much the handsomest man. Id., xxvi.
"the swiftest runner of the two."
" the strongest person of the two."
"the likeliest interpretation of the two."
"which could run the fastest of the two."
WILKIE COLLINS : " Man and Wife."
"These two sections do not progress at the same rate. The
smallest in area is still the smallest in population, but it is gaining
fast upon the other." North Am. Review^ Jan., 1889.
CHAPTER IV.
PRONOUNS.
WE now come upon a distinction that goes deep into the
structure of language. It is the distinction between words
that, even standing alone, are significant, or suggestive, and
words that by themselves express nothing. If the word rose
be uttered, it calls up in the mind a tolerably distinct image.
So does, in a less degree, the word red ; and if we join the
two, making red rose, the mental image is complete. Again,
in the words -mother comes, nothing is wanting to a complete
statement of fact. On the other hand, we may take nine
words that may properly enough come together, yet if there
should ever be any, even the, and no meaning is expressed,
or remotely hinted at. No number or combination of such
words could tell anything. They are the mere pins and
couplings of discourse. The most substantial of them are
like the a, b, c of the algebraist, that must have new values
assigned every time they are used, having none of their
own. Chief among them is the capital /, which is at one
time, /, Alexander IL, Tsar of all the Russias ; and at
another, /, little Johnny Tims.
It has been made pretty clear already that I regard the
subject of discourse to be things, their qualities and actions,
expressed by nouns, adjectives, and verbs. This enumeration
requires an addition, more apparent than real. A quality
that characterizes a thing is called an adjective, but when it
describes an action it is called an adverb. Fierce and fiercely
express the same characteristic. The difference is merely
grammatical. Adjectives used as adverbs, with or without
the addition of -ly, belong to the division of self-significant
307
308 English Grammar.
words. I shall distinguish these two great divisions as
independent and dependent words, observing, however, that
no classification can be carried out strictly. It seems prob-
able that all were originally self-significant, but that in the
lapse of ages many have gradually lost their individuality
and become mere attendants on the more substantial words,
indicating their relations and conditions. And this process
is constantly going on, and examples may be found illus-
trating every stage in its progress. To trace these words
to their independent sources was the task which John Home
Tooke assumed in his " Diversions of Purley " ; but, owing to
the imperfect knowledge of his time, his success was very in-
complete. He merely showed others in what direction to look.
Among the most important of these words that have no
individuality now are the Pronouns. The name means stand-
ing for or representing nouns ; and there is no possible noun
for which some of them may not be used. Hence a pronoun
has been termed a name for everything. Associated with
them are some words which, not in signification, but in
grammatical use, partake of the character of adjectives.
They sometimes take the place of nouns, and sometimes
accompany them. But here, as we might expect, there is
an insensible gradation from words that never go with nouns
to others never found without them. Those that partake of
the adjective character are sometimes called adjective pro-
nouns, and sometimes pronominal adjectives. I shall use
the former appellation, and include under it a larger number
than is usual.
Pronouns are commonly grouped under several subdivi-
sions, not always the same, or including the same words. It
will be sufficient here to designate them as Personal, Inter-
rogative, Relative, Adjective, and Indefinite Pronouns. These
subdivisions are all very small, except the fourth, which is
very large indeed, unlimited.
PERSONAL PRONOUNS.
These generally represent nouns, and do not, like adjec-
tives, accompany them. They are three in number, with
Pronouns. 309
their respective inflections and combinations. They are
called personal because they introduce a distinction of the
speaker, the person spoken to, and a third, who is neither.
They are /, thou, he, and their variations. / tell you that he
is at home.
While nouns have only two forms to indicate case, personal
pronouns have three, Nominative, Possessive, and Objective.
The last also serves the purpose of a Dative, for which there
is now no separate form. All have two numbers, singular
and plural. In old books remains of a dual may be found.
The first and second persons have no distinction of gender
in any Aryan tongue. The third has separate forms for the
masculine, feminine, and neuter.
The Pronoun of the First Person.
The pronoun of the first person is thus declined :
SINGULAR
PLURAL
NOMINATIVE
I
we
POSSESSIVE
mine
ours
OBJECTIVE
me
us
It is evident that these can scarcely be inflectional modifi-
cations of a single original, but are rather water-worn chips
from several quarries, but how many ultimate sources, all
inaccessible, it were hard to determine. Bopp supposes
four, ah, ak or ag, ma, as and ve. There cannot be less
than the first and second of these ; but the number is uncer-
tain, and to us here unimportant. These personal pronouns
are similarly worn down and irregular in all Aryan languages,
and are as inexplicable in the earliest literary monuments as
in the latest. The h, k, or g is an essential part of the
singular nominative, and has kept its place in most of the
allied languages. Its disappearance from literary English is
comparatively recent, and traces of it may still be found in
rustic dialects. The following are some of the principal
forms assumed by this pronoun :
Sing. Nom. Sansk. ah-am ; Gr. ey-ouv , ey-aa ; Lat. eg-o ;
Old High German ih ; Mod. H. Ger. ich ; Goth, ik ; Norse
3io English Grammar.
and Icelandic ek,jak, eg,jeg; Swedish // Dan. /<?/ Old-
and Anglo-Sax, ic ; English (A. D. 1000 to 1600) ih, ihe, ic,
ice, ich, ych, uch, 'ch, y, I.
Sing. Pos. Sansk. ma-ma; Gr. fyov, pov$ Lat. mei, or
wanting; Goth, meina ; High Ger., Norse, Old Sax. A.-S.
min ; Eng. mine, myn, -mi, my.
Sing. Obj. Sansk. mdm, md; Gr. eju, )ii ; Lat. me ; Goth,
and Norse mik ; H. G. mich; A.-S. mec, me ; Eng. me, mee.
Plur. Nom. Sansk. v ay-am ; Gr. ap/MS, fast? ; Lat. nos ;
Goth, veis ; H. G. wir ; Norse ver ; A.-S. and Eng. we, wee.
Plur. Pos. Sansk. as-md-kam ; Gr. awecov, rfp&v $ Lat.
nostri, or wanting ; Goth, unsara ; H. Ger. unser ; A.-S. and
O. S. ztor, z/;v / Norse wz>, z/^r / Eng. ure, ur, hure, our,
ourn, ours.
Plur. Obj. Sansk. as-md-n, nas ; Gr. /i/ief, 7/urf; Lat. <?j/
Goth. w^w, j/ O. H. G. unsih ; Mod. H. G. .?/ Norse
<?jj/ O. S. us ; A.-S. ^JzV, ^f/ Eng. us.
Sanskrit and Greek had a dual number, we two, etc. We
two and you two were preserved in all the early Teutonic
languages as relics of a dual number, once probably of wide
extent. The A.-S. was wet, we two ; uncer, of us two ; unc,
to or for us two ; unc, or uncit, us two. These forms sur-
vived till the last half of the thirteenth century.
" Unk schal i-tide harm and chonde."
(Harm and shame shall betide us twain.}
"Owl and Nightingale," A. D. 1250.
" Whi neltu fleon into the bare,
And schewi whether unker beo
Of bri3ter heowe, of vairur bleo ? "
(Why won't you fly into the clear,
And show whether of us two be
Of brighter hue, of fairer blue ? ) Id.
Me and us follow old datives in form and accusatives in
signification ; and the same is true of thee, you, him, her, them.
In such expressions as give me, tell us, like him, the dative
signification is preserved. It is not uncommon now to say
Pronouns. 311
that in such cases to is understood ; but that is misleading.
It is true that in modern speech we may, and often do, insert
to; but it was not so from the beginning. There is no
original to dropped. In methinks, it seems to me, me is
dative in sense, and thinks is impersonal, from thyncan, to
seem ; quite a different word from thencan, to think. The
two parts were sometimes written separately :
" Al hali kirk, as thine me,
May by this schippe takened be."
(All holy Church, as thinketh me,
May by this ship betokened be.)
" Cursor Mundi," A. D. 1320.
As methinks dies out, expressions arise, like thinks I to
myself, that never had grammatical or any other consistency.
Languages are full of such. But to return. There are
expressions like the following:
" Woe is me, for I am undone." ISAIAH vi., 5.
" Wei is thee" COVERDALE'S Bible.
" Woe is us that we weren born." " Havelok, the Dane."
This dative pronoun was often used without any visible need :
"leape me ouer this Stoole, and runne away."
SHAKESP. : " Henry VI.," part ii., 2, i.
Shakespeare makes this usage the basis of some of his
interminable punning :
" Petr. Knocke, I say.
" Gru. Knocke, sir ? Whom should I knocke ? Is there any
man ha's rebus'd your worship ?
" Petr. Villaine, I say, knocke me heere soundly.
" Gru. Knocke you heere, sir ? Why, sir ? What am I, sir,
that I should knocke you heere, sir ?
"Petr. Villaine, I say, knocke me at this gate, and rap me
well, or I '11 knocke your knave's pate. *
" Hor. How, now ; what 's the matter ? * * *
312 English Grammar.
" Gru. * * * He bid me knocke him, and rap him soundly,
sir. Well, was it fit for a servant to use his master so ? "
" Taming of the Shrew," i., 2.
It was probably due to French influence that the Saxon
ic became early English ich (pronounced like modern itch).
This ich often united with the following word making icham,
I am ; ichabbe and ichave, I have ; icholle and ichulle, I will ;
ichot, I wot, etc. Next the / was dropped, leaving cham,
chulle, etc. When Edgar, in " King Lear," is personating a
Kentish fool, he says :
" Chill not let go, zir,
Without vurther 'casion."
A shrinking from self-assertion, a real or assumed modesty,
sometimes leads to an avoidance of the obtrusive /. So
kings and editors say we the speaker hiding his personality
in the collective body of the government or of the editorial
staff. Such, I opine, is the source of what may be called the
pronoun not of majesty, but of modesty. But the editors
carry it out the most consistently. They say, ourselves,
where a monarch would say ourself.
There is a curious anomaly, that seems also due to French
influence, in the phrase it is me. The Saxons rendered
Matt, xiv., 27, ic hyt eom, I it am. Wycliffe, following the
original tongues, wrote briefly / am. Tyndale expressed
the same by, it is Y, and is as usual closely followed by the
authorized version. The " Harrowing of Hell," A.D. 1280,
agrees with the Saxon ich it am. Those who wish to be
precise now follow the Scripture and say it is I ; but nine-
teen persons in twenty imitate the French, cest moi, it is me;
and bad as that is it is likely to prevail. Not only so, but,
it is him, that is them, are pretty sure to follow the French
c'est lui. Better would it have been to keep to the analogies
of our mother tongue, / am it, thou art it, I am he, John
ix., 9. German version, Ich bin es.
" Who koude ryme in English properly
His martirdom ; for sothe it am noght /."
CHAUCER : " Knight's Tale."
Pronouns. 3 1 3
The Pronoun of the Second Person.
SINGULAR
NOMINATIVE thou
POSSESSIVE thine
OBJECTIVE thee
It has been thought that these forms may be all from one
original, and that y may result from a softening of th.
Singular Nom. Sansk. tvam ; Gr. av$ Lat. tu ; Goth.
thu ; A.-S. thu ; Eng. thou.
Sing. Pos. Sansk. tava, te ; Gr. GOV ; Lat. tut, or wanting;
Goth, theina ; A.-S. thin ; Eng. thin, thine, thy.
Sing. Obj. Sansk. tvdm, tva ; Gr. GS ; Lat. te; Goth, thik ;
A.-S. the ; Eng. the, thee.
Plur. Nom. Sansk. yu-yam ; Gr. v-pjASS, v-j*iS; Lat. m?/
Goth, yu-s ; A.-S. ge ; Eng. ye, you.
Plur. Pos. Sansk. yu-shma-kam ; Gr.v-fjjufGov, v-pajv ,- Lat.
vestri, or wanting; Goth, iz-vara ; A.-S. eower ; Eng. your.
Plur. Obj. Sansk. yushmdn, vas ; Gr. v-jta$; Lat. WJ/
Goth, izvis ; A.-S. edwic, edw ; Eng. j<?#.
The singular of this pronoun has gone almost out of use,
being now confined to prayer and a serious style of poetry ;
as religion and poetry cling to what is old. The same cause
that prevents many from blurting out / do thus and so, leads
them to find some substitute for thou ; and several devices
have been adopted. The English, French, and Dutch say
you, the Germans and Danes they, the Italians she and her,
the Spaniards your worship, and the Swedes the master. So
thou came to express great familiarity, or inferiority in the
person addressed, or both. Away back in the times of the
Plantagenets thou and ye were signs of an assumed difference
in dignity. Robert de Brunne A.D. 1303 gives a long
conversation between a husband and wife, in which she
addresses her lord as ye ; and he accepts the homage by
saying thou to her. That was in the age of chivalry and
before the present Women's Rights agitation. To thou a
person was often an insult, that might lead to consequences.
In " Blind Harry the Minstrel " young Wallace says thou to an
314 English Grammar.
Englishman, \yho indignantly retorts : " Quham thowis thou,
Scot ? " So Sir Edward Coke showed the insolence of office
and the malignity of the man when he addressed Raleigh
from the Bench :
" All that Lord Cobham did was at thy instigation, thou viper !
for I thou thee thou traitor ! "
At length, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the
Quakers protested against this and other sinful vanities.
Charles Fox wrote in 1648 :
" When the Lord sent me forth into the world, I was required
to thee and thou all men and women, without any respect to rich
or poor, great or small. But, ah ! the rage that then was in
priests, magistrates, and people of all sorts, but especially in
priests and professors ; for though thou to a single person, was
according to their own learning, their accidence, and their gram-
mar rules, they could not bear it."
Thirteen years later he wrote :
" The book called the ' Battle-door ' came forth, written to
show that, in all languages, thou and thee is the proper and usual
speech to a single person, and you to more than one. This was
set forth in examples taken from the Scriptures, and out of books
of teaching in about thirty languages. When the book was fin-
ished, some of the copies were presented to the king and his
council, to the bishops of Canterbury, and to the two universities,
one apiece. The king said it was proper language for all nations ;
and the Bishop of London being asked what he thought of it,
was so at a stand that he could not tell what to say ; for it did
so inform and convince people that few afterwards were so rug-
ged toward us for saying thou and thee to a single person, which
before they were exceeding fierce against us for."
As a matter of grammar nothing could be more correct,
but correctness alone is not a thing to win acceptance. At
the present time we do not thou any one, and there is no
longer any ground for a difference or peculiarity of address.
But strangely enough the Quakers, who used to say thou art,
and might now with a clear conscience say you are, really say
Pronouns. 315
thee is, an absurdity in speech that has no justification. It
is one of a few rather harmless oddities unworthy of a body
of people in many respects so estimable.
Thou, like the pronoun of the first person, had formerly a
dual number, the cases of which were in A. -S.,git, incer, inc,
incit.
" Either of ow havith his stunde to speokene, ne nis incker
nothres tale to schunien in his time."
(Either of you hath his turn to speak, nor isn't neither of you
two to shun talk in his time.)
"The Soul's Ward," A.D., 1210.
The last appearance of this dual was in the " Lay of Have-
lok," A.D. 1300, by which time it had become confounded
with the dual of the first person.
" Gripeth ether unker a god tree."
(Grip either of you two a good tree.)
The distinction between the Nom. ye and the Obj. you is
preserved in the older English writers. It is well maintained
in the Bible throughout.
" No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with
you." JOB xii., 2.
At present ye is properly used only to impart solemnity and
grandeur to poetry, as in the following from Coleridge.
" Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost !
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest !
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm !
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds !
Ye signs and wonders of the element !
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise."
But poets are apt to think that they have a license to defy
both rhyme and reason, and finding that ye, used legitimately
as a nominative, serves a good purpose, think to attain the
same by using it as an objective, whereby nothing is
gained.
316 English Grammar.
"A south-west blow Q^yee." SHAKESP. : "Tempest."
"I fearer not, I know ye." BYRON.
"Bethink^, before ye make answer." LONGFELLOW.
In the last example " Bethink you " would have made better
English and better poetry.
The Pronoun of the Third Person.
This is the only word in the language now that expresses
the distinction of gender ; and it does so only in the singu-
lar number. It is declined thus :
SINGULAR.
Masculine. Feminine. Neuter.
NOM. he she it
Poss. his hers its
OBJECT. him her it
PLURAL, ALL GENDERS.
NOMINATIVE, they ; POSSESSIVE, theirs ; OBJECTIVE, them.
This is not so strictly a personal pronoun as the other two.
Its connection with what are called demonstrative pronouns
is evident. The singular is from the same root with here,
hither, hence ; and the plural is similarly akin to the, this,
that, these, those, then, there, thither, thence, thus and an obso-
lete thy. Its genealogy has been wonderfully preserved.
Sansk., sa, sa, tat.
Gr., 6) 77, TO, where o represents regularly a Sansk. a, and
the aspirate replaces a Sansk. and Lat. s. Homer uses this
word indifferently as a demonstrative, an article, or a per-
sonal pronoun, unconscious of any difference.
Goth., sa, so, that-a.
Anglo-Saxon had three pronouns corresponding to our
he, this, and that, each having three genders and four cases,
two of them having occasional traces of a fifth case, the In-
strumental, denoting that with which anything is done. I
shall call them here Nos. i, 2, and 3.
Pronouns.
317
No. i.
NOM.
GEN.
DAT.
Ace us.
SINGULAR.
Masculine. Feminine. Neuter.
he heo hit
his hire his
heom, him hire heom, him
hine hi, heo, hig hit
PLURAL, ALL GENDERS.
NOM. hi, hie, hig
GEN. hira, heora
DAT. heom, him
Accus. hi, hie, heo, hig
Observe that the neuter singular is hit, and its genitive or
possessive his.
No. 2 is the demonstrative pronoun that.
NOM.
GEN.
DAT.
Ace.
INSTR.
NOM. tha
SINGULAR.
Masculine. Feminine.
seo
thaere
thaere
tha
se
thaes
tham
thone
thy
thaere
PLURAL, ALL GENDERS.
GEN. thara DAT. tham
No. 3. The demonstrative this.
NOM.
GEN.
DAT.
Accus.
INSTR.
SINGULAR.
Masculine. Feminine.
thes theos
thisses thisse
thissum
thisne
thys
thisse
thas
PLURAL, ALL GENDERS.
NOM. and Ace. thas GEN. thissa, thisse-ra
Neuter.
thaet
thaes
tham
thset
thy
Ace. tha.
Neuter.
this
thisses
thissum
this
thys
DAT. thissum
318 English Grammar.
Nos. 2 and 3 are obviously from the same source, but
were already distinct in the times of our Anglo-Saxon an-
cestors. No. 3 is supposed to have been formed by com-
bining the two roots of No. 2, while the latter was oftenest
used for what is now commonly called the article the, and is
its source.
Between the Norman Conquest and the age of Elizabeth
great confusion prevailed in the use of these pronouns, and
they assumed more shapes than can be easily imagined.
When they settled down, like ale that has passed its fer-
mentation, it was found that No. 2 and No. 3 had lost all
distinction of gender and case ; that No. I had lost the
feminine singular nominative and all its plurals, and taken
those of No. 2, which in turn had helped itself from No. 3.
And so the last-named plural became split into these and
those, similarly to the differentiations than and then, bind
and bend, band and bond. Of No. 2 nothing remains in its
original place but the neuter singular that. In this inter-
necine war of words, lasting five hundred years, the main
tide of fight ebbed and flowed between the Anglo-Scan-
dinavian dialect of York and Northumberland on the one
side and the Saxon of Southern England on the other. The
northern dialect had for the modern she, they, their, them,
sco or scho, thai, thair, thaim, while the southern long re-
tained the older heo, hie, or hi, here, hire, or heore, and hem.
The older forms are still to be found in Spenser ; but he
professed to use an archaic style. The nominatives were
the first to be exchanged. Along with the Nom. she we still
retain the more original her, and it is quite common to find
in old authors they associated with her and hem.
" The fader his doughters and her husbandes
Loued fulle wele, and had hem leef and dere ;
Tyme and tyme he yafe hem with his handes
Of his goode passingly, and they such chere
Hym made, and were of so pleasaunt manere,
That he ne wist how to be better at ese,
They coude him so well cheresshe and plese."
OCCLEVE, A.D. 1420.
Pronouns. 3 1 9
The colloquial 'em is an abbreviation of hem, not of them.
" Summon 'em, Assemble 'em j I will come forth and shew
Myself among 'em" TH. SOUTHERN.
From No. I are formed he, it, his, her, him, its. Here,
hence, etc., from the same source, have become allied in
meaning to No. 3. One evidence of the great age of No. I
is that it has lost all trace of a demonstrative or adjective
meaning, and has become a mere abstract, colorless pronoun.
From No. 2 we have she, they, their, them, that, and the
adverbs there, then, etc. ; from No. 3 this, these, those.
It may be noticed that hit has lost its initial h and become
it, thus obscuring its connection with he. The accusatives of
the pronouns are lost, and their places are taken by datives.
One step is made towards understanding why her is two
cases.
The final t of it, that, and what is a sign of the neuter
gender, and corresponds to the terminal consonant in
Sansk., tat, yat ; Lat., id, quid, quod, illud, istud.
The instrumental or ablative cases of Nos. 2 and 3 are
entirely lost ; but why, the corresponding case of the inter-
rogative pronoun, is still in use.
" And thy ilcan geare sende Aethelwulf cyning Aelfred his
sunne to Rome."
(And in that same year King Ethelwulf sent Alfred his son to
Rome.)
" Ac thaes wundredan men, na forthi thaet hit mare wundor
wsere, ac forthi thaet hit wses ungewunelic."
(But men wondered at this, not for this that it was more won-
der, but for this that it was uncommon.)
'S " Homily on the Loaves and the Fishes."
"For thy great Mammon fayrely he besought."
" For thy the first did in the forepart sit."
" Faerie Queene," book ii.
We still have a representative of this old word in such
phrases as the sooner the better, the longer here the later
there.
320 English Grammar.
" I love not man the less but Nature more."
In these instances the differs from the so-called article,
and is equivalent to the Latin eo in eo magis, eo melius, by
so much more, better, etc.
The forms with a superadded s ours, yours, theirs, hers
its are relatively modern. Of these its is the youngest,
not used by Spenser or recognized in the grammars of Ben
Jonson and Alexander Gill. Until well into the seven,
teenth century his was still in common use.
" Learning hath his infancy when it is beginning, and almost
childish ; then his youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile
then his strength of years, when it is solid and reduced ; and
lastly his old age." BACON : " Essay," 58.
Spenser sometimes has her :
" For every substance is conditioned
To chaunge her hew, and sundry forms to don,
Meet for her temper and complexion."
" Faerie Queene," iii., 6, 38.
The Bible avoids the new word by means of his and
thereof " the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind ; " the
laver and his foot " ; "a cubit shall be the length thereof,
and a cubit the breadth thereof" In King James's Bible,
Leviticus xxv., 5 reads thus :
" That which groweth of it owne accord of thy haruest, thou
shalt not reape, neither gather the grapes of thy Vine vndressed ;
for it is a yeare of rest vnto the land."
There was an opportunity for a precisely similar expres-
sion in Acts xii., 10 :
" they came unto the iron gate that leadeth unto the city ;
which opened to them of his own accord."
This is curiously like a passage in the " Faerie Queene,"
book ii., canto 2 :
" they came unto an yron dore,
Which to them opened of his own accord."
Pronouns. 321
The coincidence, however, becomes less striking when we
find that both are imitations of Tyndale.
Hit or it as a possessive, although not very common, is less
exceptional than one might suppose.
" hit is demed euer-more,
For hit dede3 of dethe duren there 3et."
(it is doomed evermore,
For its deeds of death endure there yet.)
" Alliterative Poems," 1360.
" and that there thou leave it,
(Without more mercy) to it owne protection."
SHAKES?. : " Winter's Tale," 2, 3.
" It hath it originall from much griefe." " Henry IV.," i, 3.
" Of // owne fall."" Timon," act 2.
" The Coarse they follow, did with desperate hand
Fore do it owne life." " Hamlet," 5, i.
" Of it owne colour and mooues with // owne organs."
" Ant. and Cleop.," 2, 7.
" The Hedge Sparrow fed the Cuckoo so long that it 's had it
head bit off by it young." " Lear," i, 4.
Rare instances of this kind are to be found down to the
time of Addison and Steele.
" unless a young wood spring up from // roots."
Spectator \ No. 584.
It was not uncommon in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries to write it's instead of its ; and that is the form
sanctioned by the authors of the Constitution of the United
States, art. i., sec. 10, par. 2.
He and she being the principal signs of gender in the
language are employed as adjectives to denote the sex,
especially of animals :
" behold an ^-goat came from the west on the face of the
whole earth."
" And there came forth two she-bears out of the wood and tare
forty and two children of them.'
322 English Grammar.
There is a careless usage, not at all to be commended, of
employing a personal pronoun as a noun, admitting of
adjectives and adjective pronouns.
" I have seen more eloquence in a look from one of these
despicable creatures, than in the eye of the fairest she I ever
saw." Spectator ; No. 6n.
The English language is not rich in pronouns, and there
are few careful writers or speakers who have not felt the
want of more. One of these wants is a pronoun of the third
person, as destitute of number and gender as who or which.
Our Saxon fathers, like the Germans, used man as a pro-
noun, just as the French use on, which is a residual of
homme, a man. The Germans have Man sagt, just as the
French have on dit, where our modern phrase is they say,
people say, or it is said. In earlier stages of our language
man often became mon, men, or me.
"for with pouerte and with wa schal mon wele buggen."
(for with poverty and with woe shall any one buy bliss.)
"Wooing of our Lord," A.D., 1210.
" For me hi halt lothlich and fule."
(For folk hold it loathsome and foul.)
"Owl and Nightingale," 1250.
Shakespeare often uses a as a substitute for he, she, etc.
"You '11 nere be friends with him, a kild your sister."
" Who ere a was a shew'd a mounting minde."
" Loves Labour 's Lost," 4, i.
At present we employ a number of substitutes for a com-
mon pronoun, of which the principal are we, you, they, and
one, in such sentences as :
We are likely to have frost to-night.
You cannot expect the wisdom of age from one so young.
They say that gold has been found on Mill Brook.
Here the pronouns do not refer to any particular persons.
Pronouns. 323
But the greatest need for a common pronoun is in re-
ferring back to some indefinite person already mentioned.
Take a sentence like the following.
If the purchaser of a house should find a hidden treasure in it,
would it belong to him ?
Obviously the purchaser might be a woman or a corporation,
in which case him would be inapplicable. Hence arise such
inelegant verbosities as he or she, to him, her, or them, or either
of them. In such cases Addison would have used a plural
pronoun, although referring only to a singular. Some one
finds a handkerchief and goes about " asking everybody if
they had dropped it." And again : " I do not think any one
to blame for taking care of their health." Spectator, No. 25.
So also Hume: "As he had now reached the twenty-third
year of his age, it was natural to think of choosing him a
queen ; and each party was ambitious of having him receive
one from their hand." In the stricter language of the present
day these sentences would be incorrect.
It is often used indefinitely, and apparently without mean-
ing or necessity.
77 is a pity that so many young persons are growing up without
acquiring the means of earning a living.
What does it represent here ? What is a pity ? Why, it
is the fact or state of things described.
It is all over with him.
Query. What is all over with him ?
Ans. Everything in this world is over with him. He is dead.
// is raining. It is going to snow.
We do not imagine any particular thing that is raining or
going to snow. It is merely a habit of language that has
become a necessity. The ancient Romans appeared to say
such things in single words pluit, ningit but the appear-
ance was deceptive. The final t is the equivalent of our it.
English has no separate reflexive pronoun that is, one
placed after the verb when the actor and the person or thing
324 English Grammar.
acted on are the same. The word suicide may be divided into
two parts sui-cide of which the first is the Latin reflexive
pronoun and the second the verb to strike or kill self-killing.
The slayer and the slain are one. Sanskrit had no true re-
flexive pronoun, but employed a noun instead. It had,
however, an emphatic or intensive pronoun, sva-yam, of
which the first half is the essential part, when it was in-
tended to mark out a person very prominently. This sva
became the Greek oi, e, and the Latin sui, se. It found its
way into most of the Teutonic tongues, but was wanting in
Anglo-Saxon from an early period, and consequently in
English. Everywhere it is without the nominative ; for
when one betrays himself, this little word represents him,
not as the betrayer, but as the betrayed. It is represented
in modern High German by sich, in Dutch by zich, and in
Danish and Swedish by sig. Our substitute for this word is
self, always combined with the personal pronouns. This
compound performs double duty, as will be readily under-
stood by one who knows the difference between the Lat. se
and ipsi. If I say I fell and hurt myself, the word is used
reflexively, the action coming back upon the actor. But in
the sentence, I saw it myself, the word corresponds to ipse
and reinforces the nominative /. The true reflexive pronoun,
where found, is confined to the third person, and has no
distinction of number or gender.
The want of the reflexive deprives us of a very convenient
adjective pronoun that might have been derived from it. In
place of our single word his, Latin has illius, istius, ipsius,
hujus, ejus, and suus, all somewhat different, the last being
reflexive. It is some compensation, however, that with our
slender stock we are able to distinguish between his and hers,
which would have puzzled Cicero and Quintilian, with all
their wealth of words.
The absence of a reflexive is also one reason why our lan-
guage has never developed a passive voice for any of its
verbs. French, Spanish, and Italian make their verbs reflex-
ive and then passive by preposing or appending the pronoun
se. The characteristic of the Latin passive is r, which is held
Pronouns. 325
to be the initial letter of the same se, changed to r, as so
often occurs. The Russian language does the same by ap-
pending to the verb sya, an abbreviation of the pronoun
sebya compare the Sanskrit sva govarit, he says ; gova-
ritsya, it is said. So the Norse or Icelandic forms a reflexive
by adding sk, a shortening of sik frelsa, to free ; frelsask,
to escape.
Myself, yourself, etc., are everywhere made by combining
a personal or a possessive pronoun with the emphatic ele-
ment self. The origin of this word is uncertain. Clearly it
is the same with the Gothic silba or selba, possibly made up
of the se, just considered, and lib, or liba, having the sense
of life or living body. It has also been a matter of question
whether the word should be reckoned a noun, an adjective,
a pronoun, or an adverb, a question of really little import-
ance as words pass insensibly from one class to another. It
is a noun when used singly or preceded by an adjective.
" Selfvs> an eloquent advocate." MACLIN.
" personal identity can by us be placed in nothing but conscious-
ness (which is that alone which makes what we call self)"
LOCKE : " Human Understanding."
" Agis who saw
Even Sparta's self to servile avarice sunk."
THOMPSON.
" The ministers for the purpose hurried thence
Me, and thy crying selfe."
SHAKESPEARE : " Tempest."
Self is an adjective when it precedes a noun.
" In all service and execution, he showed the self boldness and
courage that Hannibal did." NORTH'S " Plutarch."
" Love did us both with one self arrow strike."
It is an adverb when it precedes an adjective.
" The j^" same authors do affirm." HOLLAND'S " Plinie."
" In the .y^same day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and
Japheth." GEN. vii., 13.
326 English Grammar.
It is a pronoun only in combination with pronouns. The
set/was long written separately from the personal pronoun,
and began to be joined to it in the fourteenth century.
During the five hundred years when English underwent its
greatest changes these compound pronouns took a great
variety of forms, among which were : me sylf, my selve, us
seolf, us self, ourself, ouszelves, you self, he seolf, hemself,
himselven, their self es, their selves, them selfe, themselfe. Out
of this confusion emerged a compromise like most com-
promises inconsistent, but for the present fairly well estab-
lished.
SINGULAR PLURAL
ist person, myself ourselves
2d person, thyself, yourself yourselves
( himself \
3d person, < herself V themselves
( itself )
Five of these forms, being those of the ist and 2d persons,
unite a possessive pronoun with self, as with a noun. Himself
and themselves attach the second part to what is now called the
objective, formerly a dative case. This may be due in part
to an imitation of French expressions like lui m$me. Her-
self and itself are ambiguous, but may be considered as
formed on the model of himself. The prevailing construc-
tion then of self is as a noun preceded by an adjective or a
possessive. The two exceptions would be overcome by
rendering the expressions still more emphatic. We might
say :
his own great self, not him own great self ;
their wise selves, not them wise selves.
The admission of a plural makes self 'a noun and not an
adjective. We also admit of whose self and ones self. No-
body ventures on whomself ; and although oneself is met
with, it is against the analogy and prevailing usage of the
language.
Kings and their representatives alone employ the peculiar
form ourself.
Pronouns. 327
There is no separate objective case, but a possessive is
formed by substituting own for self or selves, in which case
the pronominal part is always possessive my own, his own,
their own. This own, is a past participle of owe, 1 to possess,
for which we now use exclusively the strengthened form
own.
THE INTERROGATIVE PRONOUN.
The root of the interrogative pronoun is in Sanskrit ka,
which becomes in Greek HO and no ; Latin, quo ; Goth, and
A.-S., kva; Eng., wha and who. The distinction of gender
began to fail in Gothic ; Saxon and English do not distin-
guish between masculine and feminine. T is throughout
a sign of the neuter. The A.-S. declension was :
MASC. AND FEM. NEUTER.
NOM. hwa hwset
GEN. hwaes hwaes
DAT. hwdm hwam
Accus. hwone hwaet
INSTR. hwy hwy
Of these forms we have now entirely dropped the Accus.
hwone, and all the others have been more or less changed or
disguised. We place the w before, but still pronounce it
after the h. For hwd we write who and say hu, although I
have many a time heard it pronounced hwo ; and in the
straths and glens of Scotland it is still called hwa. For
hwas we write whose, disguising its possessive character by
adding e after s, and we call it hooz. As usual with pro-
nouns, we substitute the dative for the accusative, write
whom and pronounce it hoom. These are never used as
adjectives with nouns, and they apply only to persons.
What from kwcet without a noun retains its neuter char-
acter, but used adjectively is applicable to either persons or
things.
" What light is that ? "
" or what king, going to war against another king," etc.
1 The sense of indebtedness comes from the possession of a thing not paid for.
328 English Grammar.
The instrumental hwy, by what, or by what means, becomes
the adverb why.
From the interrogative we have two derivative pronouns,
whether and which, also the adverbs how, when, where,
whither, whence. Whether, having the old dual termination
er, is which of the two. Which was originally formed by
adding He, like, to the instrumental hwy, or hwi, and was
thus equivalent to the Latin qualis, of what kind. It be-
came in A.-S. hwilc or hwelc ; and in the course of its trans-
formation h and w changed places, / was dropped out, and
c became ch. The ancient word may perhaps still be heard
in Scotland.
" Whilk cause is the best I cannot say." SCOTT.
Which has but one form for all occasions, is either singu-
lar or plural, and is used with or without a noun. While
who implies no knowledge of the person inquired about,
which refers to the undetermined member of an aggregate
known collectively.
" and he said, I have an errand to thee, O captain. And
Jehu said, Unto which of all of us ? And he said, To thee, O
captain." 2 KINGS ix., 5.
RELATIVE PRONOUNS.
Interrogative pronouns may pass imperceptibly into a
usage in which there is no trace of an interrogation. In
conversing about a picture, for example, the very same
words in the same order may occur in several sentences,
shading off from a distinct question to no question at all :
Who painted it }
I wish to know who painted it.
I do not know -who painted it.
Here is the son of the artist -who painted it.
In the last example who is said to be a relative pronoun
and to relate to the preceding noun, artist, which is called
the antecedent that which goes before. Who, what, which
Pronouns. 329
were interrogatives before they were relatives, and began
to assume the latter character in the twelfth century. There
were, however, other and older relatives.
The nature of a relative pronoun can be made clearer by
a few examples than by any definition :
1. " There was a man in our town
And he was wondrous wise."
Here are two distinct statements connected by and, two
subjects, man and he, and the verb was repeated.
2. " There was a man in our town
Who was wondrous wise."
In this instance, as in most, who = and he.
3. " There was a wondrous wise man in our town."
Only one proposition, subject, and verb. Many relative
clauses, but not all, can be put into the first form, but if we
had sufficient adjective power, all could be expressed in the
third.
" He was the only candidate who was accepted,"
is not the same as
" He was the only candidate, and he was accepted."
It is equivalent to
" He was the only candidate accepted"
Again :
" There was no one there who could swim,"
cannot be put into the form :
" There was no one there, and he could swim " ;
but we might say :
" There was no one there able to swim."
But relative clauses, put into the form of adjectives, would
sometimes be lengthy and cumbrous, and placed after the
noun, and so contrary to the genius of the language. The
330 English Grammar.
Germans have a habit of making up long adjective phrases,
which may be illustrated by a close translation of Apart of
a sentence from Friedrich Schlegel, combining the parts of
each phrase by hyphens :
" The harmonious majesty of the opposite-standing Magdalen,
whose consummate beauty in the toward-thc-beholder-turned feat-
ures, is strikingly like to the Dresden Madonna, reminds us of
the sweet harmony of the in-eternal-beatilude-blessed spirits, which
in the magic tones of earthly music,"
and so on to the end of the sentence, that is, of the page.
Now if we had this habit, we might dispense at will with
relative pronouns, although it is not clear that our style
would be thereby improved. Thus instead of saying :
" There are still traces of the canal which was cut by Xerxes
across Mount Athos,"
we could say :
" There still are traces of the by-Xerxes-across-Mount-Athos-eut
canal."
Relative pronouns save us from such lumbering expressions,
and, with the help of a second verb, dexterously turn a sen-
tence into a new direption, from which it may be again
deflected into a third.
What and which as relatives differ a little from the same
words as interrogatives. By a kind of poetic license which
takes the possessive whose,
" that sweet bird whose music was a storm."
SHELLEY.
" The sunken glen whose sunless shrubs must weep."
BYRON.
What has the peculiarity of being both antecedent and rela-
tive equal to that which. Which and what are sometimes
used with nouns, but oftenest without.
" What books he wished, he read :
What sage to hear, he heard ; what scenes to see,
He saw." POLLOCK'S " Course of Time."
Pronouns. 331
The quaint old phrase, what time, meaning at that time when,
is found only in poetry :
" What time the mighty moon was gathering light,
Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise."
TENNYSON.
Which was often preceded by the :
" In the which ye also walked sometime." COL. in., 7.
More curious was the practice of requiring the three words
the which that to make a single relative pronoun.
" And the monstre answerde him, and seyde, he was a dedly
creature, suche as God hadde formed, and dwelled in the des-
ertes, in purchasynge his sustynance ; and besoughte the here-
myte, that he wolde preye God for him, the whiche that cam from
hevene for to saven all mankynde, and was born of a mayden,
and suffred passioun and dethe (as we well knowen)." Sir JOHN
MANDEVILLE.
It has been already said that the interrogatives were not
employed as relatives until the twelfth century. What and
which came first, and Dr. Morris assures us that who was not
so used until the fourteenth, nor common before the six-
teenth. This priority of which explains its occurrence in old
books where we should now use who. There are probably
persons still living who can remember the first sentence of
the Lord's Prayer neither an error nor an exception.
"But Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus."
ACTS xxi., 39.
The older relatives were : first, an indeclinable the ; second,
the pronoun of the third person distinguished (page 329) as
No. 2, se, seo, thaet ; third, these latter combined with the ;
fourth, swa, equal to so or as. In the Saxon Chronicle
King Henry acts
"be thaere rede the him abuton waeron."
(by their rede that were about him.)
" Man waes fram Gode asend thces nama waes Johannes."
(There was a man sent from God whose name was John.)
JOHN i., 6.
33 2 English Grammar.
" Ne geseah naefre nan man God, buton se ancenneda Sunu hit
cythde, se ys on hys Faeder bearme."
(Not saw never no man God, unless the only begotten Son
manifested it, who is in his Father's bosom.)
JOHN i., 18.
" He toe the recless & te blod,
& 3ede upp to thatt allterr,
Thatt was withthinnenn wa3herifft."
(He took the incense and the blood,
And went up to that altar,
That was within the veil.)
"Ormulum," 1200.
In the "Lives of the Saints" (1295) occurs,
" thulke hous as he was inne ibore,"
(the same house which he was born in) ;
and Bishop Bonner (1538) complains of Hooper for mis-
quoting him making him say : " the same as was hanged,"
instead of, "the same that was hanged." As was then
beginning to go out of fashion. Still it sometimes found a
place in literature as late as the age of Queen Anne.
" he marches up and attacks their main body, but are opposed
again by a party of men as lay,".etc. Tatler, 1709.
Steele, in the Spectator, with the ignorance of English
philology so common in that age, presents the " Humble
Petition of Who and Which against the upstart Jack Sprat,
That, now trying to supplant them." The truth was, they
were supplanting That. Perhaps he was not acquainted
with the English Psalter of 1380.
" Blesse thou, my soule, to the Lord ! and wile thou not forSete
all the Seldingus of him.
That hath mercy to alle thi wickednessis ; that helith alle thin
infirmyties.
That a3en-bieth fro deth thi lif ; that crowneth thee in mercy
and mercy-doingis.
That fulfilleth in goode thingus thy deseyr."
Pronouns. 333
In all ages of the English tongue that has been the standard
relative of the body of the people, and to this day which is
stiff and formal, suggestive of the student's lamp or the
pedagogue's birch. Here is an excellent example :
" This is the cock that crew in the morn,
Unto the farmer sowing his corn,
That met the priest with his pen and ink-horn,
That married the man so tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog, that worried the cat,
That killed the rat, that ate the malt,
Ttiatlzy in the house, that Jack built."
This familiar word occurs here eleven times ; and to replace
it by which and zvho would destroy the rippling rhythm that
has delighted the young ears of so many generations.
ADJECTIVE PRONOUNS.
If all be included that may with propriety be placed in
this class, it becomes a very large one. Its limits are as
usual rather arbitrary ; for its members are not used exclu-
sively as adjectives, nor are they the only ones so employed.
Several of those already treated of are often associated with
nouns in the manner of adjectives. Indeed, who is the only
pronoun never associated with a noun. The pronouns of
the first and second persons are never adjectives. When
followed by nouns, the former is the leading word to which
the latter is added. It is not the pronoun that is set to help .
out the noun. But the words of the present class are
habitually, and some of them exclusively, employed with
nouns. I shall include two groups not very generally
treated as adjective pronouns, and shall make five sub-
divisions.
I. What are commonly called demonstrative pronouns, as
if the speaker pointed with the finger at the thing spoken
of. They are three in number this, with its plural these;
that, with its plural those; and yon w yonder. The first two
334 English Grammar.
have been spoken of under the head of the pronoun
of the third person. Strictly, this refers to what is
near the speaker ; that, to what is near the hearer ; and
yon to something remote from both. The words are applied
also to ideas, opinions, actions, sayings, etc. When two
things have just been named in contrast, the first is referred
to as that, the last as this.
" What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do,
This, teach me more than hell to shun,
That, more than heaven pursue."
POPE.
Often we refer to something we are going to say as this,
and to what we have just said as that.
" Never break a bridge you yourself -may have to cross : re-
member that"
" Store this among your treasures of wisdom : If you cannot
keep your own secret, do not expect another to do it."
Like the Latin iste, this is sometimes employed to impart
a shade of contempt :
" There will be no end of such fantastical writers as this Mr.
Harris, who takes fustian for philosophy."
TOOKE'S " Diversions of Purley."
" this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, heaven bestows on thee."
POPE : " Essay on Man," i., 233.
On the other hand that is used to magnify :
" When languishing with love-sick eyes,
That great, that charming man you see."
ADDISON : " Rosamond," ii., 6.
" There Charles confronted the High Court of Justice with that
placid courage which has half redeemed his fame."
MACAULAY : " Warren Hastings."
Yon is now out of use in prose, and rare in poetry. The
later form yonder is frequent in prose as an adverb of place :
Pronoims. 335
"And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow."
COLERIDGE'S " Hymn."
" Near yonder copse, where once a garden smiled."
GOLDSMITH'S " Deserted Village."
Like many other old genuine words, yon is more common
in Scotland :
" There 's auld Rob Morris that wins vs\yon glen,
He 's the king o' guid fellows, the wale o' auld men."
BURNS.
II. Two little words that have not much in common are
usually made into a class by themselves and called Articles.
They are an, abbreviated to a before a consonant sound, and
the, to which Dr. Latham would add no. An is the Saxon
numeral dn, one, fairly well preserved, and, as remarked,
sometimes drops the n. " I have caught a fox," and " I
have caught one fox," state precisely the same fact ; but the
latter carries an implication that there was some thought of
catching more than one, and thus lays stress on the number.
It is very clear then why an or a precedes only a singular
noun.
Down to the close of the last century the final n was com-
monly retained before the sound of h ; and we read of an
house, an high day, an hen, an hog, an heap. At present the
practice is to drop it before all consonant sounds, including
h,y, and w ; excepting, however, words beginning with h and
accented on the second syllable. In such cases the h is
scarcely heard.
The adjective pronoun no is merely the negative of the
preceding. One of the forms taken by the first numeral in
the middle ages was o :
" Anon he let two cofres make,
Of o semblance and o make."
GOWER.
Adding to this the n of the negative particle ne, makes the
compound no. A fuller form is none, but now slightly differ-
ent grammatically. Formerly none, like an, was used before
a vowel.
336 English Grammar.
" He maketh the devices of the people of none effect."
PSALM xxxiii., 10.
but such a distinction is no longer observed.
The is from the same source as that. Our Saxon ances-
tors occasionally employed an indeclinable form the, but
oftener the pronoun se, sea, thcet, varied in gender, number,
and case to suit the noun to which it was applied. An, or a,
no, and the are thus weakened substitutes for one, no one, and
that or those. An does not indicate any particular one, while
the relates to something so well understood that its identity
is not likely to be mistaken.
" I hear a dog barking "; " I hear the dog barking."
The first may be any dog ; the second is a particular animal
well understood between us.
" There was a man with a monkey here yesterday."
" There is the man with the monkey again."
Having once seen and spoken of him he is now familiar.
III. My, thy, her, our, your, their, are called possessive pro-
nouns, as distinguished from the possessive cases of the per-
sonal pronouns. They are of course originally the same.
My and thy are shortened forms of mine and thine, in the
same manner as a is a clipped an. The Bible says " mine
house," " thine head." The possessive pronouns that end in
r are original, and their former places have been taken by
forms with an added s. fits remains the same for both pur-
poses, as it does not readily admit of a second s. Its is now
almost exclusively used as an adjective pronoun. Speaking
of a bird we might say : " That is its nest " ; we should
scarcely ever say : " That nest is its " ; yet that is the way
in which Shakespeare used the word :
" Each following day
Became the next dayes master, till the last
Made former Wonders it's"
" Henry VIII.," i, x.
Pronouns. 337
The words of this and the preceding subdivision are used
only before nouns. We may say, " This is our house," but
not, " This house is our'
IV. Numerals. Words denoting number are commonly
classed among adjectives, but with a misgiving that their
position is insecure, like that of the bats among the birds
and beasts. They express no quality or characteristic, ad-
mit of no degrees of comparison, and, like pronouns, are
" names for everything."
It is not necessary to give a series of numerals, as they
are equally well known to everybody. They offer an ex-
ample of forms remarkably well preserved in the main, yet
occasionally suffering great changes, as will be seen by the
table on page 338, of the first twelve in several languages
of the Aryan family. The first column is a conjectural
original from which all the others may be supposed to be
derived.
The Sanskrit and Gypsy words for one are evidently not
from the source common to all the others.
The s or cs, added to several of the first numerals, is an
inflectional termination, and no part of the original words.
The same is true of final r, or the doubled consonant, in
Norse or Icelandic.
The d in the Russian od-in is excrescent.
Two, three, and six a multiple of two and three are the
numbers best preserved. Whether or not this has any con-
nection with the mystic character often attributed to the
number three I cannot say. The cipher 3 is still the same
in Sanskrit and in European books.
Eleven and twelve are generally one-ten, two-ten ; but are
constructed on a different principle in Lithuanian and the
Teutonic dialects. This is most readily seen in Gothic.
Bopp is no doubt correct in his conjecture that the -/if is
akin to the English leave, left. The line of thought would
thus be ten-and-one-left, ten-and-tzvo-left, shortened to one-
left, two-left.
In third, thirteen, and thirty r has changed places, as it
often does, with the adjacent vowel.
338
English Grammar.
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Pronouns. 339
The ty in twenty, thirty, forty, is allied to the Gothic tigjus,
a modified form of taihun, ten.
Our native tongue has no numeral larger than thousand ;
million, billion, etc., are of Latin origin.
The numerals here considered, whether great or small, are
called cardinal numbers, from the Latin cardo, or better
cardin, a hinge, because on them depend and turn several
other series in which number is the chief element. Of these
derived series there are three, one of which properly belongs
here first, second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. They are called
ordinals, because they show only the order of succession or
arrangement. It will be seen at once that first and second
are not derivations of one and two. First is a superlative
from fore, and second is from the Latin sequor, to follow.
The second derivative series single, double, triple, quadru-
ple are adjectives, and need not be further considered here,
The third are adverbs -once, twice, thrice, etc.
There are many other words, nouns and adjectives, in-
volving the consideration of number, such as hexagon, pen-
tagonal, dodecahedron, but they do not belong here.
V. Miscellaneous adjective pronouns :
all either ilk same
any else latter several
both enough many some
certain every neither such
divers few only sundry
each former other
Most of these are used either with nouns or without, but
every and sundry accompany either other adjective pronouns
or nouns. Only never occurs alone as a pronoun, but it may
precede or follow either noun or pronoun. When joined
with a noun enough generally follows it. Certain is now
scarcely ever used alone, but formerly was less confined :
" But before that certain came from James, he did eat with the
Gentiles." GAL. ii., 12.
The same is true of divers, now nearly obsolete :
34-O English Grammar.
" for divers of them came from far." MARK via., 3.
" The Gospel is everywhere one, though it be preached of
divers." TYNDALE.
Ilk, when met with at all, is without a noun. It meant
the same. It is used now only rarely and half in jest. A
man is said to be of that ilk when his name and that of his
home are the same, as Kinloch of Kinloch.
MISCELLANEOUS SUBSTANTIVE PRONOUNS.
Any, every, no, and some, united with body, one, and thing,
yield twelve pronouns used as nouns anybody, everybody,
etc. There are also ought and its negative nought equiva-
lents of anything and nothing. It is not uncommon now to
prefer the spelling aught and naught, on the ground that
they represent the A.-S. dwiht and ndwiht, and that such
was the prevalent spelling for some centuries after the lan-
guage had become what we should now recognize as English.
But, on the other hand, A.-S. d is most commonly represented
by o in the language of our time, thus :
an one cald cold ham home
ar ore crdw crow mal mole
ath oath dran drone mar more
bald bold laid fold na no
ban bone gd go ra roe
bat boat gdt goat sla sloe
Moreover, ought is spelled with o in the very careful or-
thography of the " Ormulum," A.D. 1200, and in the " Proverbs
of Hending," about a century later. Nought occurs in the
Bible thirty-six times and naught three times, but always
with the distinction that the former has the meaning of
nothing, and the latter of bad or worthless.
" Ye have sold yourselves for nought, and ye shall be redeemed
without money." ISA. lii., 3.
" The situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth ; but
the water is naught, and the ground barren." 2 KINGS ii., 19.
Pronouns. 341
" It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer ; but when he is gone
his way, then he boasteth." PROV. xx.,i4.
Pronouns are nearly all native words ; the exceptions
being certain, divers, several, and a few of the numerals.
Many of the foregoing words are not universally regarded
as pronouns. Indeed, I am not aware that all have ever
been so grouped before. If, as I believe, words are all the
time undergoing changes, so slow that it may take centuries
to make the change clear and conspicuous, there must be
many in an intermediate and doubtful state, so that it is
easier to say what they were, or what they will be, than to
determine what they are. I hope that to loan is not good
English yet, although very common, but I have little doubt
that within a hundred years loan will completely displace
lend.
" Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard carried away certain
of the poor of the land * * * } e f t certain of the poor of the
land for vinedressers and for husbandmen." JEREMIAH lii.
Nothing could be left more uncertain than who the respective
poor persons were. Certain is here precisely equivalent to
some ; and the word must have sunk gradually from the sense
of certitude, as an adjective, to that of entire indefiniteness
as a pronoun. There are no doubt words now losing their
individuality, and sinking into the condition of being
"names for everything." As an example of this kind,
Professor Earle instances the word thing. There is certainly
no object now in nature or art, to which it is more appro-
priate than to another. Originally it signified a public
assembly bearing some analogy to a town meeting. We
may read of such Things in the old Norse Sagas, and find
vestiges of them in the name of Thingvalla, in Iceland, and
the Tynwald, in the Isle of Man. But among our Saxon
ancestors, even before the Conquest, it had obtained a
wider range of indefiniteness than it has now.
Another of these half pronominal words is body, not only
in the compounds anybody, nobody, etc., but also alone.
34 2 English Grammar.
Like who, it is confined to persons. It is more generally
used by the Scotch than by the rest of our kindred. If the
following example were translated into Latin, a body would
be everywhere represented by a pronoun.
" Gin a body meet a body
Comin' through the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry ? "
CHAPTER V.
VERBS AND THEIR SEVERAL KINDS.
VERBS express actions. It is true that after many thousand
years of growth and decay, we can find a few verbs that do
not readily suggest to us any form of bodily or mental
activity. Such are forget, neglect, lose, omit, lie, sleep ; but
nearly all such words can be traced back to more active
ancestors. We shall hereafter find reason to believe that
to be the most colorless and inexpressive of all verbs once
conveyed the idea of doing something. Professor Whitney
says of the remotest accessible verbal roots of the Aryan
tongues, " that they are limited in signification to a single
class of ideas, the physical or sensual, the phenomenal, out
of which the intellectual and moral develop themselves." 1
That is, every verb at first denoted the perceptible action of
some material body. So we shall most readily reach a clear
idea by taking action to be the essential characteristic of a
verb ; and we need not be surprised to find, what is found
everywhere else, that some of the farthest developments lose
sight of the original conception.
It is often said that the essence of a verb is to assert or
declare, but this seems to me a less permanent and essential
feature than the other. We can find hundreds of assertions
without verbs, and verbs that assert nothing. A snatch from
an old song of the Buccaneers of the Spanish Main ran :
" Up with the black flag, down with the blue ;
Fire on the main-top, fire on the bow,
Fire on the gun-deck, fire down below."
1 " Language and the Study of Language," page 265.
343
344 English Grammar.
These spirited lines make no assertion, but suggest a good
deal of action. So questions and many other expressions
do not assert.
" Oh ! that the desert were my dwelling-place,
With one fair spirit for my minister."
BYRON'S " Childe Harold."
This is the expression of a wish without any verb of wish-
ing, were being the only one present, which does not assert
that anything is or was or will be. In the sentence, The
rose is red, the adjective red is a more important part of the
assertion than the verb is. Many languages are without a
word signifying merely to be, to exist ; and others, like the
Hebrew and Arabic, use it very sparingly. " Every beast of
the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills" is a
very large assertion, but the only verb in it is a European
interpolation. There is a passage well known to the friends
of temperance and prohibition, that in the original is with-
out a verb :
"Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions?
who hath babbling ? who hath wounds without cause ? who hath
redness of eyes ?
" They that tarry long at the wine."
The essential idea of a verb is sometimes put into the
form of a noun. Some of these are grammatically mere
nouns like stealth, flattery, forgiveness, emulation, blandish-
ment. Although derived from verbs, they are not verbs in
any sense, and may be summarily dismissed. There is one,
however, ending in -ing, so directly formed from the verb
that it may be regarded as almost a part of it at least a
true verbal noun : " the writings, of the Fathers "; " from the
rising of the sun unto forgoing down of the same." What
is very commonly called the infinitive of the verb, to run, to
ride, to speak, is often equivalent to a verbal noun, as will be
easily seen in the familiar quotation,
" To err is human, to forgive divine."
Verbs and Their Several Kinds. 345
" for to will is present with me ; but to perform that which is good
I find not."
There are thus two verbal nouns.
Again the verbal idea may assume the form of an ad-
jective, or of a word partaking in various degrees of the
adjective character. Solicitous, from solicit, responsive, from
respond, are mere adjectives, and not verbal forms ; but our
language has two real hybrids. The first invariably ends in
ing, and being an adjective admits of no plural " a running
stream," " the lark was singing," " the birds are singing," " the
girls were singing ' Old Folks at Home,' " In the first of these
examples running has the effect only of an adjective ; in the
others singing has all the force of a verb. This form is
called a participle, as partaking of the characters of the verb
and the adjective. It will be seen at once that this parti-
ciple is identical in form with the verbal noun in -ing. Of
this more will be said hereafter. Let it suffice for the
present that, so far as form goes, the noun is the original
and the participle a mistaken imitation. There is another
participle whose ending is not uniform, but is in a majority
of instances -ed roasted chestnuts, painted ceilings, frozen
lakes, bound volumes. Of these two participles the first is
connected with the actor or doer, represents the action as in
progress, going on, and consequently incomplete ; the sec-
ond connects the action with the person or thing acted
upon, and represents it as finished. The first is commonly
said to be present and active, the latter past, or perfect and
passive. Perfect, in grammar, signifies completed action,
and passive suffering or undergoing. In " The boy is stoning
the robins," the actor is put forward and made conspicuous ;
but if we say, " The robins are stoned by the boy," promi-
nence is given to the sufferers. This is the difference be-
tween the active and the passive forms of verbs. Besides
the two simple participles, there are several compound parti-
cipial expressions, such as, being writing, being about to write,
having been writing, having written, having been written, etc.
To the number and variety of these there is no precise limit.
346 English Grammar.
Verbs are divided into several classes upon a variety of
grounds quite independent of each other, sometimes from
their meaning and sometimes with sole reference to their
forms. And first, as to signification. The leading distinc-
tion is between verbs expressing actions which begin and
end with the actor and those that directly involve another.
The actor is called in grammatical language the subject ; the
person or thing he acts upon, the object. In the sentence,
" The hunter killed a bear," the hunter is subject and the
bear object. To sleep, to smile, to shudder, to yawn, and
many others take no object. Those that take an object are
called transitive a word that means passing over. When a
bad boy pelts a homeless cat, the act of pelting is conceived
of as passing from the little barbarian to the friendless ani-
mal. But when the young savage lies down and sleeps,
these actions are confined to himself, and do not pass over
to another. Verbs that thus have no object are called
intransitive. Transitive verbs have an active and a passive
side ; intransitives have only the forms of the active. A
great number of verbs generally intransitive may, by one
or another contrivance, be used transitively. One may walk,
run, or sit a horse, fly a kite, or sweat coin. The Lord
rained bread from heaven (Exod. xvi., 4), and a tree may
snow its fragrant blossoms on the ground. While a few
verbs remain exclusively transitive or intransitive, the greater
number may be either. A few verbs originally single have,
by a change of vowel, been split into pairs, each pair con-
taining usually a transitive and an intransitive.
brood breed rise raise
deem doom sit set
fall fell stoop steep
lie lay drink drench
Besides the direct, verbs often have an indirect object, to
or for whom a thing is done. Sing me a song. Tell him the
story. Show Ada the pictures. It is sometimes said that
the little word to is understood before the words here
italicized ; but what are we to understand by its being
Verbs and Their Several Kinds. 347
so understood ? In languages that have a considerable
supply of cases, one is chiefly set apart for the indirect
object. The above words would have been in the dative
case, so long as we had one, but without any to. Now,
when that case is lost we often indicate the same relation by
to, that we may avoid ambiguity. In the usual expressions
there is not an original to omitted ; but in the amended
phrases a particle is inserted.
Some languages abound in verbs whose action returns
upon the actor, as the boomerang is fabled to do. These
are called reflexive, or backward-turning verbs. Such are the
probable originals of the Sanskrit and Greek middle voice,
and of all passive forms. With the help of well-preserved
pronouns, the Italian, Spanish, and French employ a great
number of reflexive expressions.
Dar a far qualche cosa To undertake something
Intenderw della pittura To understand painting
Ribellaro To rebel
Se lo ban comido los mosquitos The mosquitoes have eaten him
up
Ir se To go away
Venir se To come away
Se promener To take a walk
Se servir To make use of
S' enrhumer To take cold
English has no reflexive forms, for reasons suggested under
the head of personal pronouns. It is true that one can
do but few things to others that he cannot do to himself ;
he can hurt, deceive, or give himself away, but we have
few words to express what one can do only to himself. Be-
think, betake, and behave make up the list. The last is some-
times used as an intransitive, but the older and prevailing
usage is reflexive :
" thou behaued'st thy selfe, as if thou hadst beene in thine
owne Slaughter-house." SHAKESP. : 2 " Henry VI.," iv., 3.
In the Bible it is reflexive twelve times, and four times
intransitive.
348 English Grammar.
There is an old word, hight, now scarcely used in serious
speech, which, when signifying to be called or named, has
all the force of a passive :
" This grizy beast (which Lyon hight by name.) "
" Midsummer Night's Dream," v., 140.
" Ne liuing man like words did neuer heare,
As she to me deliuered all that night ;
And at her parting said shee Queene of Faeries hight"
SPENSER : " Faerie Queene," i., 9.
There are verbs that have no real subject, that express
actions performed by nobody. These are called impersonal
verbs. For form's sake they have generally an apparent
subject, it, but the it does not denote anything in particular:
It had rained all night.
May it please the Honorable Court, we shall first undertake to
prove, etc.
This it is often repeated and expanded into a long phrase,
of which the essential part is that form of the verb which is
a verbal noun. I shall here enclose the phrase subject in a
parenthesis, and italicize the verbal noun :
" O it offends mee to the Soule, (to see a robustious
Pery-wig-pated Fellow tear a Passion to tatters to verie ragges).
SHAKESP. : " Hamlet."
The impersonal form of expression was once much more
common than it is now. Verbs that can dispense with even
the formal subject it are confined to the archaic language
of poetry :
" Theresa's form
Methinks 1 it glides before me now,
Between me and yon chestnut bough."
BYRON: "Mazeppa."
" And ambling palfrey when, at need,
Him listed ease his battle steed,"
SCOTT'S "Marmion," canto i.
1 Here me is a survival of the dative case, and thinks from A.-S. thincan, to
seem, not the same word as thencan, to think. The meaning therefore is : //
seems to me.
Verbs and Their Several Kinds. 349
There is no precise limit to the number of verbs that may
occasionally be used impersonally.
Lastly, there are a few verbs that in the course of ages
have fallen so low as to lose their independence entirely, and
become slaves of other verbs. They are called auxiliary or
helping verbs. They are can, let, may, must, shall, and will,
which are never allowed to go without the conscious
presence of some more substantial verb. Be, dare, do, and
have are on the downward road, and have lost their inde-
pendence in part, and there is at present an effort to
reduce help in the same manner. Thus we can, as usual, see
the process in all its stages from shall at one end of the
scale to help at the other.
The division of verbs according to their forms is a much
more extensive subject than that depending on their signifi-
cations. A hundred years ago the good Lindley Murray
could divide all verbs into regular, irregular, and defective.
As the defectives, so far as they went, were necessarily
either regular or irregular, there were essentially but two
kinds. The regulars added -d or -ed to indicate that the
action was past ; the others did not. The distinction was
not profound or particularly useful, but it had the merit of
being very easy to perceive and remember.
To make the point clearer, we may revert to what was
said (page 345) of participles, that one of them, expressing
the effect of an action past and completed, very often ended
in -ed. There is also an active form of the verb, referring to
past action, and called the past, imperfect, or preterit tense,
which also often ends in -ed.
plant he plant-ed it was plant-ed
plough he plough-ed it was plough-ed
urge he urge-d it was urge-d
These are perfect specimens that have not been worn down,
like had for have-d. The verb undergoes no change except
the addition, and the past tense and past participle are alike.
But there is a class of verbs that differ very essentially from
these. In the best specimens there is an interior change of
350 English Grammar.
vowel, nothing is added except to the participle, and the
preterit and participle are unlike.
sing he sang it was sung
begin he began it was begun
fly he flew it had flow-n
We saw in the chapter on word-making that the inflec-
tional system of the Shemitic nations was carried out largely
by vowel changes. This resource was familiar to the Hindoos,
not altogether unknown to the Greeks and Romans, and
has been largely employed by the Teutonic nations from
times of which there is no memory. To indicate that an
action is past and finished, one obvious way would be to
repeat the verb, as if one should say run-run he, meaning
he ran, or has run. But as the most constant tendency of
language is to shorten cumbrous compounds, this would
after a time become ru-run he. It would then be exactly
analogous to the Latin cu-curr-it, he or it ran. In Sanskrit
the practice was, as in the last example, to diminish the first
half of the compound by omitting the final consonant, and
substituting where possible a fainter vowel, and to double
or strengthen the vowel of the last part.
budh know bu-bodh-a he knew
m lead ni-nay-a he lead
tan stretch ta-tan-a he stretched
So the Latin has :
pedo pe-ped-it morde-o mo-mord-it
pend-o pe-pend-it curr-o cu-curr-it
tend-o te-tend-it sponde-o spo-pond-it
tund-o tu-tud-it parc-o pe-perc-it
In Greek the first part of the doubled verb dwindled to the
faintest form that the initial consonant could assume, and a
faint <?.
graph-o ge-graph-a thall-o te-thel-a
deir-o de-dark-a phraz-o pe-phrak-a
Verbs and Their Several Kinds. 351
The Gothic, in repeating, or as it is called reduplicating,
the verb, preserves a greater part than any of the sister
languages.
slep-an to sleep sai-zlep I slept
gret-an to weep gai-grot I wept
hait-a lo call hai-hait I called
hlaup-an to run hlai-laup I ran
skaid-an to separate skai-skaid I separated
Yet although once so common, there are now only two
words in the language that show distinct traces of reduplica-
tion did and hight, and of these the last is absolete. But
as the first half of the doubled verb slowly disappears, some
part of the force of its vowel is apt to be transferred and
added to that of the second part ; and thus a vowel change
is effected. Dr. Morris gives a list of twenty-seven English
verbs whose past tenses, he thinks, have very evidently been
affected by reduplication. He cites held, the past tense of
hold, as a particular illustration Goth, hai-hald, O. H. Ger.
hialt (for hei-halt) Mod. H. G. hielt, A.-S. heold, which, by
allowing the stress to fall upon the first of the two vowels,
gradually sank into held. The Doctor even goes so far as to
hold that : " All strong verbs in the Aryan languages origi-
nally formed their perfect tense by reduplication."
Another way to mark an action as past was to prefix
a particle originally a, perhaps meaning then. This prefix,
called an augment, was especially common in Sanskrit and
Greek, but unknown elsewhere among Aryan languages. A
third method was, as shown above, to change the root vowel
of the verb, and we need not undertake to determine how far
that was the result of reduplication. Lastly a particle might
be added at the end of the verb. The last two are the
methods employed in English.
The orderly presentation of all the forms that a verb can
assume is usually called its conjugation. The word signifies
literally yo king-together, that is uniting the verb with the
various words and particles that modify its application.
Those that follow the same pattern are said to be of the
35 2 English Grammar.
same conjugation. Hence it would seem at first sight that
English has just two conjugations. But these two contain
so many varieties that the term so applied would cover a
much wider and less defined area than it does in Greek
or Latin. On the other hand, to apply that term to each
variety would make an indefinite number a dozen or twenty
conjugations. For the present I shall speak of them as
two classes, premising, however, that none of the names
thus far found for these classes and their subdivisions have
proved entirely satisfactory. Grimm and the German phi-
lologists called those that change the vowel strong verbs, and
those that add -d or -ed, weak ; but the nature of the weak-
ness or strength is not very apparent. It often happens that
when a word loses a letter or syllable in one part, a vowel or
consonant is inserted in another. The syllable thus increased
is said to be strengthened, and the forms that contain such
syllables are called strong forms, while others, unchanged,
or reduced in volume, are known as weak forms. Let there
be a word find the i as in fin and let this word, through
some unknown witchcraft, be changed into found, it would
take but a moderate stretch of fancy to call the former
a weak and the latter a strong form. Or, let lip be a root or
simplest possible form of a word signifying to anoint, limp,
leip, leiph, loiph, might be called strengthened forrrls of the
same. In this sense the terms strong and weak are quite
common in philology, yet I suspect that verbs were first
classified as strong and weak for reasons still more recondite
and fanciful. The same two classes of verbs have been called
by some the old and the new conjugations, but as both
are equally found in the oldest literary monument of the
Teutonic nations the Gospels of Ulfilas it does not ap-
pear at first sight how the one can be proved to be older
than the other. The truth is both these distinctions have
to seek their justification by going far beyond the bounds of
the English tongue. As nothing analogous to the addition
of -ed is found in any but one branch of the Aryan family, it
is assumed to have arisen among our Gothic or Teutonic
ancestors after their separation from the other branches, and
Verbs and TTieir Several Kinds. 353
therefore later than forms that are common to all. In the
present English the past tense is not always stronger than
the present in the sense above explained :
bite bit shoot shot
slide slid fall fell
This, however, is due to successive changes.
As regards the past or passive participle the common ter-
mination in Sanskrit was -ana, in Goth., O. H. Ger., and Old
Saxon, -an, to which terminations for number, gender, and
case might be added. The Norse changed this to -in, the
other Teutonic tongues to -en, in which form it still survives
in English in spok-en, wov-en, driv-en, and a few others. From
some words e has been pressed out blown, drawn, flown,
hewn, born from others the entire en has been dropped
burst, flung, fought, spun. Past participles of both classes
often had the particle go- prefixed in Gothic and Old High
German, ge- in A.-S. and Modern H. G., in which last it
is still very common :
ge-geben given ge-schrieben written
This particle was prefixed to both nouns and verbs. In
many instances it had no perceptible significance ; in others
it seemed to add the idea of completeness or collectiveness.
Grimm conjectured that it was allied to the Latin cum or
con. In A.-S. it came to be pronounced^- and then, through
the gradations y- and i-, passed from the living speech of
men, leaving only a single vestige in e-nough, Ger. ge-nug.
Although never used now but in burlesque or drollery, it
was once quite common :
" The wrathful winter preaching on a-pace,
With blustering blastes had &\ybared the treen."
" Mirror for Magistrates," A.D. 1563.
" But come thou goddess fair and free,
In heaven ycleped Euphrocyne."
MILTON.
354 English Grammar.
More expressive terms might have been found for the
two great divisions of verbs. Botanists employ two words
that would very nearly express the distinction. They are
endogenous, growing internally, and exogenous, growing ex-
ternally. I would suggest endotropic and epithetic as express-
ing exactly the ideas of internal change and external
addition. They may be thought rather lengthy, and for
the rest I shall use the words strong and weak, not because
they are appropriate but because they are short and pretty
generally known.
The strong verbs are among the most original, characteris-
tic, and expressive words in the language. All but one or
two are indigenous. Rive is Scandinavian, but had gained a
residence before the thirteenth century ; plead came from the
Norman-French but a little later, and many do not consider
it a strong verb. All the others are natives ; all are primary
that is, not derived from any other known words ; and all
are monosyllables, or the verbal part is such, with an added
prefix, like a-, be-, for-, fore-, over-, under-, or with-. Their
most constant characteristic is that the vowel sound in the
past tense differs from that of the present, and they never add
-d or its substitue -t to either the past tense or participle.
Their number has been decreasing for a thousand years.
These relics of hoary eld succumb one by one to the rule of
an encroaching majority, relinquish the change of vowel and
accept an added -ed, as the Chinese did the pig-tail. It will
be seen by the lists given below that, out of 1 18, forms in -ed
are encroaching upon 29, and that 69 have gone over bodily
to the other class. In a very correct sense these so-called
strong verbs are of all words the weakest. Secondary verbs,
those derived from other verbs or from nouns, and all verbs
acquired from external sources, take -ed that is, belong to
the weak class, except a few that have passed from the weak
to the strong class in relatively modern times.
Even if it were possible it would require too much space
to show the causes that produced all the varying forms of
these verbs, but I may indicate one or two lines of transfor-
mation ; and doubtless there was an intelligible cause for
Verbs and Their Several Kinds. 355
nearly every change. The past participle is seen to differ
very often, but not always, from the past tense. Now we
may go back to the Anglo-Saxon, and take sing-an, to sing,
as a sample of a considerable class. The first person singu-
lar and all the plural of the present indicative, the whole
present subjunctive, the imperative, infinitive, and present
participle have the same vowel, i. In the past tense the
first and third persons singular were sang, the second person
singular sung-e, and all the plural sung-on. The past parti-
ciple was sung-en, following the plural and not the singular
of the past tense. Of 184 verbs found in the remains of
Saxon literature with sufficient fulness of their several parts,
the vowel of the first person singular past is like that of the
present in only one instance, and that a doubtful variant. In
a similar doubtful instance the participle follows the singular
past. In all other cases the past tense is peculiar. In 47
the participle follows the present tense ; in 27 others there is
only a difference in the length of the vowel. In 52 the par-
ticiple follows the plural of the past tense, and in 57 others
it deviates only by having o instead of u. The participle
had o or u in 99 words more than half, and always had the
termination -en. Long i in the present takes long a in the
past with only one exception, and of 58 words having i in
the present 50 have a in the past. It will be seen by the list
presented below how persistently this a held its place against
the pressure of o and u. Like most old usages, it held its
ground best in Scotland, of which an old comic song, " The
Auld Wife wi' the Wee Pickle Tow," affords an excellent
example :
" She sat an' she gral an' she fiat an' she flang,
She chochert, she byochert, she wrigglet, she wrang."
While the u of the past plural is thus supplanting the a of
the singular, some hold that we ought to say : he sang, and
they sung ; but such a distinction is not generally observed
now nor sustained by the usage of the past two centuries.
The Bible uses the two forms interchangeably, having sang
English Grammar.
nine times as a plural and sung three times. Chaucer writes
song (modern sung} indifferently as singular or plural. So
Dryden :
" War, he sung, is toil and trouble,
Honour but an empty bubble."
" Alexander's Feast."
The following list contains nearly all that can now be
reckoned as strong verbs, including some that hold their
places by a very insecure tenure. The word has been ad-
mitted when either the past tense or past participle is strong
in usage that is, at all recent. When a verb is found both
single and with a prefix, as hold and behold, only one is
given. Forms in italics are obsolete ; those in small capitals
are Saxon, given to show that the word once had family
connections :
PRESENT
PAST
PARTICIPLE
I
abide
abode
abidden, abode 1
2
awake
awoke, awaked
awaked
3
bake
book, baked
baken, baked*
4
be
been
5
bear
bare, bore
born, borne s
6
beat
bet, beat
beaten *
7
begin
began
begun
8
bid
bade, bid
bidden, bid
9
bind
band, bound
bounden, bound
1 " Eumenes could not have abidden."
RALEIGH'S "Hist, of the World."
5 " Behold a cake was baken on the coals."
i KINGS xix., 6.
" A firlot of good cakes my Elspa beuk,
And a good ham is hingin in the nook."
ALLAN RAMSAY'S " Gentle Shepherd," ii., 4.
* " And Solomon thad threescore and ten thousand that bare burdens."
i KINGS v., 15.
4 " Persand the sabill barmkyn nocturnall,
Bet down the skyes clowdy mantill wall. "
GAWIN DOUGLAS, A.D. 1513.
Verbs and Their Several Kinds. 357
PRESENT PAST PARTICIPLE
10 bite bate, bote, bit bitten, bit *
11 bleed bled bled 1
12 blow blew blown
13 break brake, broke broken*
14 breed bred bred
15 chide chode, chid chidden, chid *
1 6 choose chose chosen
1 7 cleave (adhere) cleaved, clave cleaved *
1 8 cleave (split) clave, clove, cleft cloven, cleaved, cleft*
19 climb clamb, clomb, climbed clotnben, climbed T
20 cling dang, clung clung
21 come came comen, come 8
22 crow crew crowed
23 CWETHAN qUOth GE-CWETHEN
1 " His Bodi was Boiled, for wraththe he hot his lippes."
" Piers the Plowman," 1362.
" Yet there the steel stayd not, but inly bate"
SPENSER'S " Faerie Queene," ii., 5-7.
8 Bleed, breed, feed, lead, meet, plead, and read are not generally reckoned
among strong verbs because they were not so anciently ; but now they have the
two essentials that they change the vowel and add nothing.
3 ' ' And all the people of the land went into the house of Baal, and brake it
down." 2 KINGS xi., 18.
4 " Jacob was wroth and chode with Laban."
5 " he smote iill his hand clave to the sword. "
2 SAM. xxiii., 10.
" their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth."
JOB xxix., io.
"if any blot hath cleaved to mine hands." JOB. xxxi., 7.
' "Abraham * * * clave the wood for the burnt offering."
GEN. xxii., 3.
T ' ' For hit clam vche a clyffe cubites fyftene,
Ouer the hy3est hylle."
"Alliterative Poems," A.D. 1360.
" We forded the river and clomb the high hill ;
Never our steeds for a day stood still."
BYRON'S " Siege of Corinth."
8 " The day is comen of her departyng."
CHAUCER : " Man of Lawes Tale."
358
English Grammar.
PRESENT
PAST
PARTICIPLE
24 dig
digged, dug
digged, dug '
25 do
did
done
26 draw
drew
drawn
27 drink
drank
drunken, drunk
28 drive
drove, drove
driven *
29 eat
ate
eaten
30 fall
fell
fallen
31 feed
fed
fed
32 fight
fought
foughten, fought *
33 find
fand, found
founden, found *
34 fling
flang, flung
flung 6
35 fly
flew
flown
36 forsake
forsook
forsaken
37 freeze
froze
frozen
38 get
gat, got
gotten, got*
39 give
gave
given
40 gnaw
gnew, gnawed
gnawn, gnawed T
1 Dug is modern. Digged occurs thirty-seven times in the Bible, but dug
never.
8 " And he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain." JUDGES i., 19.
3 " on the foughten field
Michael and his angels prevalent
Encamping."
" Paradise Lost," vi., 410.
4 " And he shal han Custance in manage,
And certein gold, I not what (juantitie,
And herto founden suffisant seurtie."
CHAUCER : " Man of Lawes Tale."
' ' Donald Caird finds orra things
Whar Allan Gregor fand the tangs."
Scotch Song.
5 " To tell how Maggie lap and Jiang,
A supple jade she was and strang."
" Tarn o' Shanter."
6 " And David gat him a name when he returned from smiting the Syrians in
the valley of salt." 2 SAM. viii., 13.
7 " he laye downe to slepe, for to put ye commaundement, which so gnew and
freated his conscience, out of mind." TYNDALE : " Prologue to the Book of
Jonah."
"stark spoyl'd with the Staggers, begnawne with the Bots." SHAKESP. :
" Taming of the Shrew," iii., 2.
Verbs and Their Several Kinds. 359
PRESENT
PAST
PARTICIPLE
41 go
42 grafen
43 grind
gaed, yode
S ro ft graved
ground
gone 1
graven, graved *
ground
44 grow
45 king* han g
46 heave
47 help
grew
hang, hung, hanged
hove, heaved
holp, helped
grown
hung, hanged s
heaved *
holpen, helped *
1 ' ' Then I gaed hame a crowdie-time
And soon I made me ready."
BURNS.
" Thair scrippes, quer thai rade or yode
Tham failed neuer o drince ne fode."
" Cursor Mundi," 1320.
* " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image."
3 ' ' Nae mair by Babel's streams we '11 weep
To think upon our Zion,
And king our fiddles up to sleep,
Like baby-clouts a-drying."
BURNS : " Ordination."
There are here two verbs, an original and a derivative. The original had in
A.-S. a shortened form, htfn, to hang, ic hd, thu he"hst, he he"hth, I hang, etc.
The past tense was king, participle hangen, from which the lineal descendant is
our hung. It was intransitive, so that we should consistently say : " His hair
hangs loose " ; " The fruit hung thick on the trees " ; " The sword had hung
there for years." At an early age, it is said in the year 1137, and in the North
of England, a transitive verb was developed, like set from sit, and raise from
rise, which took the form hang, hanged, hanged. The Bible adheres to these
later forms, even where we should not do so now. It has only hanged, and
never hung ; but the sense is always transitive. " We hanged our harps upon
the willows." PSA. 137.
"If he be not borne to bee hang'd our case is miserable." SHAKESP. :
" Tempest," i., i.
In modern times we have got the two verbs intermixed. We would not say :
" He hanged liis hat on a peg," but " He hung." We reserve hanged for death
by hanging. ' ' He was hung " would be incorrect on any ground.
* ' ' the icy island hove in sight
Like a city lost at sea. "
H. MILNOR CLAPP.
5 " Sir Robert never holpe to make this legge."
SHAKESP. : " King John," i., i.
" He hath holpen his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy." LUKE
i., 45-
360 English Grammar.
PRESENT
PAST
PARTICIPLE
48 hew
hewed
hewn, hewed
49 hide
hid
hidden
50 hold
held
holden, held *
51 know
knew
known
52 lade
lod, laded
loden, laden 4
53 lead
lod, led
led 3
54 He
lay
lien, lain
55 meet
met
met
56 melt
malt, melted
molten, melted 4
57 mow
mew, mowed
mown, mowed 6
58 plead
pleaded, pled
pleaded, pled
59 read
read
read
60 ride
rade, rode
ridden '
61 ring
rang
rungen, rung
62 rinne, rin t run
ran
ronnen, run T
63 rise
rase, rose
risen "
64 rive
rove, rived
riven*
65 rot
rotted
rotted, rotten
66 see
saw
seen
67 seeth
sod, seethed
sodden, seethen 10
68 shake
shook
shaken
1 " I have long holden my peace."
ISA. xlii., 14.
s " Loaden " was sanctioned by the writers of the Spectator.
3 " bi biholding upon ymagis or upon such peinting, his witt schal be dressid
& lad forth evener & more sabili." REGINALD PECOCK.
4 " And the metalle be the hete of the fire malt"
CAPGRAVE.
6 " Mew " a Yorkshire word. 8 See 41.
1 "som fresh othe, that is not stale, but will rin round in the mouth."
ROGER ASCHAM.
8 ' ' And Southron rase and coost their claes,
Behind him in a raw, man."
BURNS.
9 " And with his sword she rove her to the heart."
CHAUCER : " Legend of Dido."
10 "Jacob sod pottage, and Esau came from the field and he was faint."
GEN. xxv., 29.
Verbs and TJieir Several Kinds.
361
PRESENT
PAST
PARTICIPLE
6g shape
shope, shaped
shapen,
shaped l
70 shave
shaved
shaven,
shaved
71 shear
shar, shore,
sheared
shorn,
sheared "
72 shine
shone,
shined
shone,
shined
73 shoot
shot
shotten,
shot'
74 show
showed
shown
75 shrink
shrank,
shrunk
shrunken,
shrunk
76 shrive
shrove,
shrived
shriven
77 sing
sang,
sung
sung
78 sink
sank
sunken,
sunk
79 sit
sate,
sat
sitten,
sat 4
80 slay
slew
slain
8 1 slide
slod,
slid
slidden,
slid*
82 sling
slang,
slung
slung *
83 slink
slank,
slunk
slunk,
84 smite
smat,
smote
smitten 7
85 sow
sew,
sowed
sown 8
1 " God, that shape both se and sand,
Saue Edward King of Ingland."
LAWRENCE MINOT : " Political Songs of 1352."
s ' ' And with no craft of combes brode
They might his hore lockes shode,
And she ne wolde not be shore"
GOWER : " Confessio."
The original past tense was lost before the year 1300.
3 " And shotten ageyns him with shot."
" Piers Plowman."
4 ' ' Beneath its shade, the place of state,
On oaken settle Marmion sate"
SCOTT.
" After these grants the parliament was dissolved, which had sitten near two
years and a half." HUME : " History of England," chap. xxii.
* " In hys goynge out of hys schyp a slod wy th hys o voot & styckede in the
sond." JOHN OF TREVISA, 1387.
6 ' ' And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone and slang
it." i SAM. xvii., 49.
7 " The sarazins he smatte,
That his blod hatte."
" Ballad of King Horn."
8 " The pt. t. now in use is sowed, but the correct form is sew ; the like is
true for the verb to mow." SKEAT'S " Etymological Dictionary."
362
English Grammar.
PRESENT
PAST
PARTICIPLE
86 speak
spake, spoke
spoken
87 speed
speeded, sped
speeded, sped *
88 spin
span, spun
spun"
89 spring
sprang, sprung
sprung
90 stand
stood
stonden, standen, stood
91 steal
stal, stole
stolen 3
92 stick
sticked, stack, stuck
sticked, stuck 4
93 sting
stang, stung
stongen, stung 6
94 stink
stank, stunk
stunk
95 strew
strewed
strewn
96 stride
strode
stridden
97 strike
strack, strake, struck
stroken, stricken, struck 8
98 string
strang, strung
strung
99 strive
strove
striven
1 Originally a weak verb and derived from the noun speed.
3 " She, them saluting there, by them sate still,
Beholding how the thrids of life they span."
SPENSER : " Faerie Queene," iv., 2.
3 " Bot stall abak 3ond in hys regioun far
Behind the circulat warld of Jupiter."
GAWIN DOUGLAS.
4 " Then he stac up the stange3 sloped the welle3."
" Alliterative Poems," 1360.
" The sowdan and the cristen everichone
Ben al taken and stiked at the bord."
CHAUCER : " Man of Lawes Tale."
Two verbs became confused at an early age ; an early English steken, stak,
stoken, to pierce, and a weak A.-S. stician, sticode, to adhere. See under 81.
5 " And therwithal he blent and cried A !
As though he stongen were unto the herte."
CHAUCER : " The Knightes Tale."
' " Then Jocky strack and Jenny strack
Till the sweat did blind their een."
" Scottish Song of Harvest."
" And fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so
were driven." ACTS xxvii., 17.
" How like a Deere, stroken by many princes,
Dost thou heere lye ? "
SHAKESP : " Julius Caesar," Act iii.
Verbs and Their Several Kinds.
363
PRESENT
PAST
PARTICIPLE
joo swell
101 swear
swal, swelled
sware, swore
swollen, swelled 1
sworn "
102 swim
swam
swum
103 swing
104 take
105 tear
1 06 thrive
swang, swung
took
tare, tore
throve
swung
taken
torn 8
thriven
107 throw
1 08 tread
threw
trod
thrown
trodden
109 wash
no wax
in wear
wesh, wiish, washed
wex, wox, waxed
ware, wore
washen, washed*
waxen, waxed *
worn*
112 weave
wove
woven
113 WESAN
114 win
was
wan, won
Ger. ge-wesen
wonnen, won T
1 " And aither a 3 en other swal
And let that vule mod ut al."
(And each against the other swelled,
And let out all its evil temper.)
" Owl and Nightingale," 1250.
' And they rose up betimes in the morning and sware one to another.
GEN. xxvi., 31.
3 " And there came forth two she bears out of the wood and tare forty and
two children of them." 2 KINGS ii., 24.
4 " the blod that bohte, the water that te world wesh. of sake and of
sunne." " The Wooing of Our Lord," 1210.
Wush is Scotch, sometimes pronounced weesh,
5 ' ' Hunger wex in land chanaan.
" Genesis and Exodus," 1250.
" Anon ther sprong vp flour and gras,
Where as the drope falle was
And wax anonal medwe-grene."
GOWER : " Confessio."
And it came to pass that when the children of Israel were waxen strong, that
they put the Canaanites to tribute." JOSHUA xvii., 13.
6 " There met him out of the city a man which had devils long time, and
ware no clothes." LUKE viii., 27.
7 " So that the king in such manere suluer wan ynou." ROBERT OF
GLOUCESTER, 1298.
364 English Grammar.
PRESENT PAST PARTICIPLE
115 wind wand, wond, wound wonden, wound
116 wring wrang, wrung wrung 1
117 wit or wot wist wist
118 write wrat, wrote written*
When there -is a surviving participle in -en and a more
modern one, the former is apt to sink into a mere adjective,
and the verbal character is left to the latter. Such retired
participles are bounden, cloven, drunken, hewn, molten, mown,
rotten, sodden, shapen, shaven, shrunken, stricken, sunken,
swollen, washen.
I have omitted the Scotch formula " not proven," which
seems to be gaining favor now along with other absurdities.
Prove is a Latin word, and has no claim to a participle in
-en. I do not know what the corresponding past tense
would be.
It has been already remarked that the strong verbs are a
small and diminishing class. There are few accessions.
Dr. Latham goes so far as to say :
" Many strong verbs become weak, whilst no weak verb ever
becomes strong." " English Language," p. 333.
This assertion is too absolute. In the present state of the
language I think the following, once weak, have the essen-
tial features of strong verbs :
bleed feed read speed
breed hide rot stick
cleave (adhere) lead show string
dig plead sow strive
1 " They called the porter to counsell,
And wrang his necke in two,
And caste hym in a depe dungeon,
And toke hys keys hym fro."
" Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough," etc.
' " And, her before, the vile Enchanter sate,
Figuring straunge characters of his art :
With living blood he those characters wrate"
SPENSER : " Faerie Queene," iii., 12.
Verbs and Their Several Kinds.
365
It is irrelevant to say that a few centuries ago these were
all weak verbs and therefore are so still. The question is
not what they were, but what they are. At the same time,
language used by a whole people never is or was self-con-
sistant, and scattered examples are to be found of strong
verbs used as weak, and weak as strong, notwithstanding
the prevailing usage. There are persons, not without edu-
cation, especially in the southern part of the United States,
who habitually say : " I seen it," and " I done so." Contrari-
wise it has been but too common to use the past tense, like
fell, hid, drove, shook, took, stole, wrote, instead of the appro-
priate participles. There is a good deal of that in Shakes-
peare, but much more in the age of Queen Anne. The
Spectator abounds with such truncated forms as rid and writ
doing double duty as rode, wrote, ridden and written.
The principal strong verbs that have become weak are
the following :
ache
bequeath
bereave
betide
bow
braid
brew
brook
burn
burst
carve
cast
chew
creep
dare
delve
dive
dread
fare
float
flow
fold
fret
glide
glow
gripe
knead
laugh
leap
let
lie
lock
lose
low
mete
mourn
owe
quail
reek
row
rue
scathe
shed
shove
sigh
sleep
slit
smoke
span
spew
sprout
spurn
starve
step
suck
sup
sweat
sweep
tease
thrash
throng
tow
wade
walk
weep
weigh
well
wheeze
wink
wreak
writhe
yell
yield
With all their irregularities the strong verbs have two
points that are constant. They form the past tense by
366 English Grammar.
internal change, and they never add -d or -t to it. On the
other hand the so-called weak have two equally constant
features. The past tense and past participle are always
alike, and always end in -d or its weaker representative -/.
These characteristics are not quite the opposites of each
other, yet the difference between the best preserver?
examples of each is very apparent :
sing sang sung
employ employ-ed employ-ed
The one changes the vowel and adds nothing ; the other
adds ~ed and changes nothing. In the one the past tense
and participle differ ; in the other they are identical.
What then is this -ed that is added to the weak verbs ?
To avoid prolixity, let it suffice to say that it is now held to
be the past auxiliary verb did, so that / employ-ed is as good
as to say / employ did, or / did employ. Apd, as every one
knows, we say so now when very positive, and always use
do or did when we deny, forbid, or ask a question. But
this did has been so worn down in all modern Teutonic
languages that it would probably never have been recognized
but that happily it has been better preserved in the Gothic.
Even there it is only in the dual and plural that it remains
tolerably unbroken. The singular and plural of the Gothir
haban, to have, were :
SINGULAR, PAST PLURAL, PAST
ist Person habai-da habai-ded-um
2d Person habai-de-s habai-ded-uths
3d Person habai-da habai-ded-un
The last d is lost from the singular. The further ter-
minations are personal endings. And as this did is itself a
reduplication of do, if Dr. Morris is correct in supposing
that the same thing has taken place in the history of all
strong verbs, it follows that every simple past tense is a
more or less remote result of reduplication. What is here
said, however, applies only to the past tense, and not at all
to the participle. If they are alike now it is because the
verb has been worn down to the form of the participle.
Verbs and TTieir Several Kinds. 367
The termination of the participle is a suffix that in Sanskrit
assumed the form -ta, in Greek * and Latin the corresponding
form -to, in Gothic -da, in Anglo-Saxon -od, -ad, -ed, -d, -f.
To these were added other suffixes distinguishing number,
gender, and case, according to the inflectional system of each
language.
The termination -ed has suffered so much wear and under-
gone such a variety of modifications that it is not always
easily recognized. This process of attrition was in full
activity long before the Norman Conquest, and Anglo-Saxon
Grammars give numerous rules under which the usual ter-
minations -ode, -ede become -de, and -te or -d and -t, and let-
ters are altered or suppressed in the radical portions of
verbs, rules which all depend upon the more general natural
principle of avoiding difficult combinations of sounds. But
instead of discussing ancient abbreviations, let us consider
those of the present.
Although -ed may be regarded as the termination of the
past tense and past participle, it is never found in full force
except when appended to verbs that end in -d or -t, and not
after all of them. In most cases writing and pronunciation
are at variance.
We write exalt-ed We read exalt-ed
surround-ed surround-ed
support-ed " " support-ed
" " absorb-ed " " absorbd
" " begg-ed " " begd
" " fill-ed " " fild
" " disarm-ed " " disarmd
" " display-ed " " displaid
When the verb ends with a light or surd mute consonant,
-ed is pronounced as /.
puff-ed puft hiss-ed hist
look-ed lookt quench-ed quensht
stopp-ed stopt preach-ed preacht
To verbs ending in e a second e is not added.
1 Found in what are now reckoned as verbal adjectives
SEXTOS, etc.
368
English Grammar.
The less obvious modifications will be best understood
after exhibiting a list of the verbs in which they are found.
The very peculiar and important group of auxiliary verbs
will be reserved for particular consideration in the next
chapter. Where two forms are given in the following list
the one in most common use is placed first.
bend
bent
lay
laid
bereave
bereaved, bereft
lean
leaned, leant
beseech
besought
leap
leaped, leapt
beset
beset
learn
learned, learnt
bet
bet
leave
left
blend
blended, blent
lend
lent
bless
blessed, blest
let
let
bring
brought
light
lighted, lit
build
built
light
lighted, lit
burn
burned, burnt
lose
lost
burst
burst
make
made
buy
bought
mean
meant
cast
cast
pay
paid
catch
caught
pen
penned, pent
clothe
clothed, clad
put
put
cost
cost
quit
quit, quitted
creep
crept
rend
rent
cut
cut
rid
rid
deal
dealt
say
said
dream
dreamed, dreamt
seek
sought
dwell
dwelt
sell
sold
feel
felt
send
sent
flee
fled
set
set
gild
gilded, gilt
shed
shed
gird
girt, girded
shoe
shod
have
had
shut
shut
hear
heard
sleep
slept
hit
hit
slit
slit
hurt
hurt
smell
smelled, smelt
keep
kept
spell
spelled, spelt
kneel
knelt
spend
spent
knit
knit, knitted
spill
spilt
Verbs and Their Several Kinds. 369
spit spit tell told
split split think thought
spread spread thrust thrust
stay stayed, staid weep wept
sweat sweated, sweat wend went
sweep swept wet wet
teach taught work worked, wrought
These words have the primitive monosyllabic character of
the strong verbs. Sixty-three of the seventy-eight are native
Saxon, and all the others have been long naturalized in the
language. Build, cast, hit, split, and thrust are Scandinavian,
due to intercourse with the Norsemen and Danes. Cut,
hurt, and put were received by the Saxons from the Britons.
Keep, pen, and spend came from the Latin so long ago that
they found a place in Saxon literature. Catch, bet, cost, and
quit were received from the French before the year 1400.
It is only old words that are so deeply modified. Changes
were much more rapid in ages when words were not fixed,
and in a manner fossilized by habits of writing and printing.
The process was no doubt always a natural one, and ap-
peared quite so to the several speakers, however strange
some of the changes may seem to us. Let us see if the
present confusion cannot be somewhat reduced.
The seeming irregularity of laid y paid, said, and staid is
only one of spelling.
Had and made are shortened from fcavedand maked, which
are found in old authors.
While -ed is fully written and pronounced only after d or
t, there is a tendency even there to reduce it to mere -d or -t,
in which case it becomes unpronounceable. So long as the
termination was -de or -te it could be sounded, but when all
final e 's were dropped from oral speech, -dde or -tie passed
quickly into mere t. Especially was this so when a final -d
was preceded by /, n, or r. We thus account in some degree
for bent, blent, built, gilt, girt, lent, rent, sent, spent, went.
A slight modification of the same usage produced blest,
burnt, dwelt, pent, smelt, spelt, and spilt.
370 English Grammar.
When the vowel of the verb is long, it is sometimes short-
ened in adding -d or -/. In such cases -d is added after r or a
vowel ; otherwise it is -t, to suit which s takes a sharp sound
and v becomes/ bereft, crept, dealt, dreamt, felt, fled, heard,
kept, knelt, leant, leapt, left, lost, meant, shod, slept, swept,
wept.
But change of vowel is the leading characteristic of the
strong verbs, and there are a considerable number partaking
of the characteristics of both. Such hybridity is of three
kinds. The same verb may have strong and weak forms, as
showed and shown ; or the same form may both change the
vowel and add d, as sold and told ; or there may be forms,
like fed and led, that can be construed either way. Such
verbs may with nearly equal propriety be placed in either
class.
When a verb already ends in d or t, and does not add an-
other, it only remains for it to shorten the vowel, if long.
Regarding merely present form, light, lit is in precisely the
same position as bite, bit, only that it has reached it by a
different process. To light might have been placed among
strong verbs, if lit were a well-established form.
If the verb ending in d or t have already a short vowel,
there is no change to be made, and it remains the same
throughout beset, bet, burst, cast, cost, cut, hit, hurt, knit, let,
put, quit, rid, set, shed, shut, slit, spit, split, spread, sweat,
thrust, wet.
Eight have augh or ough in the past tense. The gh was
fully sounded until modern times, and was developed from
a consonant closely allied. The verbal part of beseech is the
same as to seek, and the ch, like that in teach, is due to French
influence. We have then :
Anglo-Saxon
bring-an
brohte
to bring
bycg-an
b6hte
to buy
se'c-an
s6hte
to seek
tsec-an
tsehte
to teach
thenc-an
th6hte
to think
wyrc-an
worhte
to work
Verbs and Their Several Kinds. 371
In the more modern wrought r has changed places with the
vowel, as it often does. Catch is a French word, and, when
introduced, no doubt took a preterit in imitation of such
words as se'can and t&can.
Clothe is an English verb developed from the A.-S. cldth,
cloth, and is found in early authors in the forms clathen,
clethen, clot ken. From the first of these clad is formed by
gradually suppressing th.
There remain only sell and tell with their past tenses sold
and told. Of these I can only say that they are veritable
hybrids that, from the time of the Saxons, have shared
equally in the characteristics of the strong and the weak
verbs.
CHAPTER VI.
AUXILIARY VERBS.
WE come now to the contrivances by which verbs repre-
sent not only actions, but also many of their attendant cir-
cumstances. In our language these modifications are only
to a small extent embodied in the verbs themselves. They
are mostly indicated by a host of little attendant words.
Chief among these are certain verbs that have in various de-
grees lost the power of expressing anything when alone, and
have become mere servile attendants upon others. May,
will, shall, can, must, let, and ought are always attached to
other verbs, and are called auxiliaries, or helping verbs.
But then dare, do, have, and be also afford indispensable help
when not employed on their own account. Besides their
use as auxiliaries, most of these verbs have something pecul-
iar and exceptional in their formation. At present must
admits of no change of form under any circumstances. All
the others have special, though obsolescent, forms for the
second person singular. Ought has no other variation than
that. May, shall, can, dare, and ought do not add s to form
the third person singular, for the reason that in their origin
they are past tenses of earlier verbs, and past tenses admit
of no variation for person or number, except for the second
person singular. All but must, ought, and let have separate
forms for the past tense as now in use, combining the
characteristics of the strong and weak verbs :
may might dare durst
will would do did
shall should have had
can could
Be is quite peculiar.
372
Auxiliary Verbs. 373
MAY.
This word is from a root Magh, which accounts for the gh
in the past tense might. The meaning is to be able, power-
ful, mighty. From this source are derived a large number
of words in several languages, among which are might, main,
magnate, magnitude, magnificent, magistrate, master, mistress,
miss, maid, maxim, mayor, major, megatherium. Gothic
had for the present tense ic mag, past tense ic mahta ; A-S.,
ic mcEg and ic mihte. Throughout both languages, and
English down to the sixteenth century, the word was equiva-
lent to our can. Jesus having asked the sons of Zebedee if
they were able to partake of the cup and the baptism soon
to be presented to him, their answer was, in the Gothic
version, " Magu "/ in A-S., " Wyt magon "/ in the English
of Wycliffe, " We mowen." Indeed the usual word for can
in that early English translation is, in the singular, may,
plural mowe, mowen, or mown. This use of may will further
appear from the following examples :
" And thus he fleeth as fast as ever he may"
CHAUCER : " Knight's Tale."
" ye woot yourself sche may not wedde two
At oones.
That is to say, she may nought have bothe." Id.
" be my feth sayd the doughete doglas agayn, I wyll let that
hontyng yf that I may" " Ancient Ballad of Chevy Chase."
A trace of this usage lingers here and there in the Bible.
So great was the ferocity of the maniac, or maniacs, that
lodged in the tombs of Gadara, " that no man might pass by
that way." The revised version substitutes could.
All idea of power has now departed from the word, and
left it to express : 1st, permission ; 2d, supposed possibility ;
3d, a somewhat varying sense, always containing an unde-
termined element.
" May I open the window a little ? You may"
This may be taken at present as the primary meaning of
the word. The secondary may be found in such sentences
374- English Grammar.
as : " It may rain before night "; " He may recover yet ";
" I may draw a prize in the lottery." Mrs. Toodles thought
that she might yet have a daughter ; and that daughter might
grow up, and might marry a man named Thompson, who
might write his name with a /, in which event a particular
old door-plate would just suit. In short, a thing that may
happen is one that is looked upon as not absolutely
impossible.
In the third class of cases no doubt is felt but that some-
thing will occur ; it is only its precise character or extent
that is uncertain :
" The past is safe, whatever the future may be."
" Notice ! To all whom it may concern."
Here it is not questioned that there is to be a future, or
that some will be concerned ; the details alone are indeter-
minate :
" and it shall be its duty to make arrangements, * * *
And for the purpose of defraying the expenses of said joint com-
mittee, and of carrying out the arrangements which it may make,
three thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary."
U. S. Statutes, 25, 980.
In such connections shall is sometimes used instead of
may ; but the fundamental meaning of shall is widely differ-
ent, and there is an inconvenience in having two words of
the same length with an uncertainty which of them ought
to be employed.
WILL and SHALL.
These two words are so interlaced in usage that they can
best be considered together. If has been often said that no
Englishman ever mistakes will and shall. I think it would
be much nearer the truth to say that none ever used these
two words consistently throughout.
Another wise saw, put forth quite as often and as confi-
dently, is to the effect that the prevailing error lies in putting
will in the place of shall. So too I think that the great
Auxiliary Verbs. 375
abuse is the undue frequency of shall. I scarcely open a
book or paper without finding it sprinkled with shaft's, as if
they had been dispensed from a pepper-box. Grammarians
tell a merry tale of a mythical Frenchman who fell into the
water and exclaimed : " I will be drowned ; no one shall
help me "; yet whatever error there is in this sentence can
be found equally with many who are not Frenchmen.
" I will be ill, will be very ill, if I cannot hear you are better
before I go." RICHARDSON : " Clarissa Harlowe."
" However small a society may be if it is a human one jealousy
shall creep in."
CHARLES READE : " Never too Late to Mend," ch. lii.
" there is no creature loves me,
and if I die, no soule shall pittie me."
SHAKESP. : Richard II., v., 2.
In regard to form, it is only necessary to say that would
and should are obtained by successive reductions of the
older forms wollede and shullede. Of these two important
auxiliaries will has been much the best preserved and most
consistently employed. The original meaning, so far as we
need inquire, is voluntary choice, intention, or consent. It
expresses generally not a mere idle wish, but a resolution
taken with the consciousness of power to give it effect. But
such a resolution is likely to be carried out, and to announce
it is to predict the event. It thus naturally passes into an
expression of the future ; and in good English is to this day
the most positive declaration of a future event certain to
take place.
" I view it as a student of political economy ; and * * * apply
to it the principles which I know will have their way, no matter
how formidable the attempt to defeat their operation." '
As will expresses a determination of the mind, and every
one ought to know his own mind best, it is naturally asso-
ciated with the first person. This has at some periods been
the usage in a very marked degree, while at other times /
1 North Amer. Rev., February, 1889. The italics are the author's.
376 English Grammar.
will has been intentionally avoided. Notwithstanding the
great prevalence of shall in the Bible, / shall is of rare occur-
rence, as will be seen hereafter.
Will, in Gothic, and generally in Anglo-Saxon, expressed
volition, not futurity. There was always an element of free
action. It is very rare to find in the Anglo-Saxon Gospels
future action indicated by will. Shall is still more rare.
The probable reason is that an archaic style is chosen for
religious writings ; for before pure Saxon ceased to be writ-
ten will was employed to express the future ; but it was the
future of free, unconstrained action, and generally took the
form of " / will." In translating the following passage from
^Elfric's " Homily on the Good Shepherd " I shall mark the
word by italics.
" Wherefore I will require the sheep at your hands, and I make
you depart from the fold, and I will rid my flock of you. I my-
self will gather my sheep that were scattered, and I will keep
them in rich pasture : those that were lost will I seek and lead
back ; those that were lamed I heal ; the weak I will strengthen,
and restrain the strong."
Observe that the present is twice used without any aux-
iliary for the future, as was the common usage at a still
earlier date. Elsewhere the expression is " / will" never
/ shall; and the idea to be conveyed is that of voluntary
resolve to be carried out in the future. So will has con-
tinued to express volition and futurity combined in all
possible proportions, like a parallelogram divided into two
triangles, the one end being occupied exclusively by the one
and the opposite extremity by the other :
Volition
Futurity
Often in the Bible it has no reference to the future, but ex-
presses purpose or willingness.
Auxiliary Verbs. 377
" And behold there came a leper and worshipped him, saying,
Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put
forth his hand and touched him, saying, I will ; be thou clean."
"' I will " obviously means in this case, " I am willing,"
and it will be seen that it is not an auxiliary verb. As an
independent verb it formerly expressed a desire, and even a
command.
" I will that thou give me by and by in a charger the head of
John the Baptist." MATT, vi., 24.
" And with that word she gave him kisse ;
And prayed him rise and saide she woulde
His welfare."
CHAUCER'S " Dream," 650.
But would, expressive of desire, was also used as if it were
a present of secondary growth.
" Sorrow would sollace, and mine Age would ease."
SHAKESP. : " Henry VI.," part ii., ii., 3.
" I would thou wert cold or hot." REV. iii., 15.
" His legions he committed unto Cn. Octavius whom he willed
to meet him there by land."
" He willed them to consider what they had deserved."
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
This modern past tense, willed, is still preserved where
the verb is independent and employed in a peculiar sense
" He willed the farm to his youngest son." Indeed one
will may be auxiliary to another " I will will the dwelling-
house to you."
Even as an auxiliary will had at times scarcely a trace of
futurity.
" Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life."
It was not the future action, but the then present unwilling-
ness, of the Jews that was reprehended. We have seen,
however, that will was an auxiliary, expressing futurity, with
more or less of voluntary choice, long before the Norman
378 English Grammar.
Conquest. It has continued so to the present day, but has
sometimes had a hard fight to hold its own against shall. I
here introduce a very few illustrations out of many to show
how nearly the very early usage agreed with the very
modern, giving a close translation where the original might
be unintelligible to the general reader
" He will make a judgment day with his chosen."
" Homily on Easter," A.D. 1200.
" Now I will give him peace,
And let him speak with me.
I will not slay nor hang him,
What he asketh I will do.
Hostages I will have,
Of his highest men."
LAYAMON, 1205.
" Be a child never so dear,
Naughty tricks it will learn,
Beat it sometimes ;
Might it have all its will,
Willy nilly it will spoil,
And become a fool."
" Tell never thy foeman
Thy loss or thy shame,
Thy care or thy woe ;
He will strive, if he may,
By night and by day,
Of one to make two."
" Proverbs of Hending," 1307.
" But I swear now truly that sin will I hinder."
"Piers the Plowman," 1362.
Shall forms in several respects a contrast to will. The
latter has a participle, willing, serving as an adjective and
an infinitive. St. Paul could say, " to will is present with
me " ; but shalling, or to shall, has scarcely been heard
within a thousand years. Thus will has still a trace of in-
dependence, but shall is reduced to complete servitude.
Auxiliary Verbs. 379
Will started from a germ of free volition ; it was automatic,
originating in the conscious choice of the actor. Shall ex-
pressed an external compulsion, authority, necessity, or
obligation. And, strange to say, an American writer of our
time, in advocating a larger use of shall, has insisted
that there is quite too much exercise of the will among us,
as if it were not becoming a free people to act voluntarily,
rather than from constraint.
For the meaning of shall it is not necessary to seek farther
than the Teutonic root, skal, to owe a debt. The practice
of requiring a pecuniary compensation for offences led to a
widespread confusion of the distinct ideas of crime and
debt. Whichever had the priority, both were embodied in
this word. It is not ennobled by its pedigree. As relics of
the criminal side there remain the German Schuld, a crime,
schuldig, guilty, and Unschuld, innocence. There were in
Gothic three shades of meaning easily distinguished.
First, to owe a debt :
GOTH. " ains skalda skatte fimf hunda, ith anthar fimf tiguns."
A.-S. " an sceolde fif hund penega, and other fiftig."
ENG. "the one owed fat hundred pence, and the other fifty."
LUKE vii., 41.
GOTH. " Whan filu skalt frauyin meinamma ? "
A.-S. " Hu mycel scealt thu minum hlaforde ? "
ENG. " How much owest thou unto my lord ? "
LUKE xvi., 5.
From the same source were derived the words for debt
and debtor.
Second : It had the indefinite sense of obligation which
we express by ought and should.
Goth. " Yah yus skuluth izwis misso thwahan fotuns."
A.-S. " Ge sceolen eac thwean selc others fet."
ENG. " Ye also ought to wash one another's feet."
JOHN xiii., 14.
Third, and closely allied, is the sense of the inevitable
which we usually express by must :
380 English Gram-mar.
Goth. " Yains skal wahsyan, ith ik minznan."
ENG. " He must increase, but I must decrease."
JOHN iii., 30.
It is the verb employed in such passages as :
"Wist ye not that I musfbe about my Father's business?"
" I must preach the gospel in other cities also."
" The Son of Man must suffer many things."
" It was meet that we should make merry."
Beyond this the word gradually loses its distinctive char-
acter and passes insensibly and in a few instances into little
more, that we can see, than a mere sign of future time :
" Seimon, skal thus wha qithan."
" Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee." LUKE vii., 40.
" Wha skuli thata barn wairthan ? "
" What manner of child shall this be " LUKE i., 66.
" Whadre sa skuli gaggan ? "
" Whither will he go ? " JOHN vii., 35.
In Anglo-Saxon shall had nearly the same shades of
meaning as in Gothic, starting from the idea of a debt grow-
ing out of either a contract or a crime. It expressed also the
idea of rightfully belonging or pertaining. And as that right-
fulness was often declared or even established by royal or
other authority, it grew to be the regular formula for ex-
pressing such authority in short, a phrase of enactment.
" Gif se thuma bith of aslegen, tham sceal xxx scill. to bote."
" If the thumb be chopped off, 30 shillings shall the compen-
sation therefor" not shall be. " Laws of King Alfred."
" Thys Godspel sceal on Cilda Maesse Dseg."
" This Gospel shall on Childermas Day." " Alfred's Gospels."
" Thissynt tha domas the thu him settan scealt."
" These are the judgments which thou shall set them."
" Alfred's Decrees."
As mere signs of future time wzY/and shall are exceptional
both in Gothic and Saxon, both of which were generally con-
Auxiliary Verbs. 381
tent with the present tense. Still both words came in time
to be used to form a future previously wanting : with this
difference, however, that our Saxon, and still more our
Anglish, ancestors favored will in preference to shall more
than the other branches of the Teutonic stock. For a long
time the distinction was very strongly marked, will express-
ing free volition and shall authority, compulsion, obliga-
tion. Here is an example from A. D. 1200, with modern-
ized spelling, in which the distinction is well preserved :
"And left all that they should to, and did what they would"*
" I will teach them
I can be either, if I shall [must], healer of body or soul."
From the same.
Authority, Threatening.
" ye sinned as long as ye lived, and ye shall burn as long as I
live." "Old English Homily," A. D. 1150.
Authority of Law.
" On whom the lot falleth
He shall go from the land.
The five shall remain,
The sixth shall go forth,
Away from his people." LAYAMON.
Necessity.
" for fare leuer he hadde wende,
And bidde ys mete, 3ef he schulde in a strange land."
ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER, 1298.
This is like the example given by Professor Earle, who
heard an English yeoman remark, on setting up a land-
mark :
" There, that one '11 stand for twenty years, if he should"
meaning, if there be need for it.
Desire and Necessity.
" He who will have full power, shall first take heed that he
have power over his own temper.*' "King Alfred's Boethius."
1 Morris : " Specimens of Early English," i., 213. *
382 English Grammar.
But shall gained ground rapidly, and by the middle of the
fourteenth century had become the common sign of the
future, and confined will almost entirely to the expression
of desire or intention. Thenceforward the latter kept slowly
and irregularly regaining and enlarging its original domain
until the end of the eighteenth century. At present two
tendencies are visible, that of some to revert to the use of
shall, of others to extend still further the use of will, which
latter seems to me the normal trend of the English language.
In a published extract from a letter of President Harrison to
Mr. Elaine the writer says three times " I will" but nowhere
" I shall" This is only one of many instances ; and one
who should accuse the President of not knowing his mother
tongue must be unaware that languages are moving, chan-
ging things, that, as in that instance, a movement may be in
one direction for five hundred years, and one may be at the
head or tail of it.
Here follow some of the exploits of shall in the heyday of
its power, when it aspired to universal dominion in the
language :
" And so dide they before him, that weren his Auncestres :
and so shulle thei that comen aftre him."
SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE, 1356.
" If the Kyng be poer, he schal of necessity make his Gyfts
and Rewards by Assignements, for which he schal have but little
thanke." SIR JOHN FORTESCUE, 1480.
"Loo ! myn herte swete, this ylle dyet shuld make you pale &
wan." "The Nut-Brown Maid," 1500.
Sir Thomas More declares six times in one sentence that
Christ shall presently do certain things.
" Whosoever will practise physike, not having these aforesaid
sciences shall kill more than he shall save."
"Breviary of Health," 1575.
" Or if they aborce not, yet they shall be deliuered with great
paine, and the birth shall be very weake and sickly, so that it
shall dye streight ; or if it dye not by and by, it shall prove but
very slenderly." tt Birth of Mankind," 1604.
Auxiliary Verbs. 383
" Cassia. I will aske him for my Place againe, he shall tell
me I am a drunkard." "Othello," ii., 3.
In the majority of instances Shakespeare's shall expresses
merely futurity ; yet it is sometimes a word of authority :
" Sicin. It is a minde that shall remain a poison where it is,
not poyson any further.
" Corio. Shall remaine ?
" Hear you this Triton of the Minnowes ? Marke you His abso-
lute Shall? " " Coriolanus," iii., i.
" Mar. He must be buried with his brethren.
" Titus' Sons. And shall, or him we will accompany.
" Titus. And shall! What villaine was it spake that word ? "
" Titus Andronicus," i., 2.
" He must be told on 't, and he shall."
" Winter's Tale," i., 2.
We thus see that shall is an imperious word, and much
stronger than must.
"These stars arise in the 16 degree of Taurus ; but in the lati-
tude 50, they ascend in the eleventh degree of the same, that is 5
dayes sooner ; so shall it be summer unto London before it be
unto Toledo." SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S " Pseudodoxia."
" an unskilful author shall run these metaphors so absurdly into
one another that there shall \>Q no simile." Spectator, No. 595.
" One man shall ask how you do * * * another shall beg a
pinch of snuff." Id., April 29, 1715.
If the last two examples are, as they seem to be, due to
affectation of an antiquated style, what are we to think of
the following, committed to print in the year of grace 1884?
" You shall see a lovely bright creature, with all the external
evidences of culture * * * so long as she is silent ; but let
her open her pretty lips, and she shall pierce your ear with a
mean, thin, nasal, rasping tone." *
1 " Every-Day English," by Richard Grant White, page 93.
384
English Grammar.
Shall pierce ? " Hear you this Triton of the Minnowes ? "
It has not been my lot to hear anything of the kind from
" lovely bright creatures."
The varying prevalence of will and shall may be roughly
shown, as in the following table, by taking one hundred con-
secutive future tenses in any author, and showing how many
are made with these auxiliaries respectively. In regard to
versions of the Scriptures, in order to have a broader basis
I have taken the whole four Gospels, and have omitted
the forms would and should, taking only the direct will and
shall. Will, when not an auxiliary, has been excluded
throughout.
WILL.
SHALL.
I WILL.
I SHALL.
Layamon
A.D. 1205
72
28
31
3
Robert of Gloucester
1298
53
42
6
9
Robert Manning
i33
40
60
Dan Michel
1340
36
6 4
5
Sir John Mandeville
i35 6
35
65
12
Gospels by Wycliffe
1389
23
1,506
5
114
Reginald Pecock
1449
i?
83
Sir John Fortescue
1470
3 1
6 9
William Tyndale
1528
4i
59
Gospels by Tyndale
236
964
97
24
Sir Thomas More
!53 2
42
58
6
6
Nicholas Udall
1553
57
43
2 9
Sir Philip Sidney
1580
48
52
3
5
Bacon's " Advancement
of Learning "
1605
60
40
12
12
Authorized Gospels
1611
244
962
94
II
John Locke
1687
77
23
8
Samuel Johnson
175
70
30
i
19
Edmund Burke
1780
64
36
3
J 9
The Federalist
1788
76
24
3
3
George Washington
83
17
3
12
The fate of " / will" under which may be included " we
will" has been curious. At first the obvious propriety of
each one's knowing and declaring his own will was admitted.
After a time, that form of expression for a mere future was
Auxiliary Verbs. 385
swept away by the flood-tide of shall. By the fifteenth cen-
tury people began again to see the logical consistency of
saying " / will "; but three hundred years later the excessive
and affected modesty of modern times forbade any one to
assert his own will, except under extraordinary circum-
stances, and so we generally say " / shall." By using this
expression I seem to shirk all responsibility, and pretend
that some external force or influence constrains me.
We are now prepared to consider the frequency of shall
in the Bible. It has been attributed to the authoritative
character of the utterances. That is no doubt true to a cer-
tain extent, precisely as it is true of the " Statutes of New
York" or the "Articles of War"; but very little searching
of the Scriptures will satisfy any one that this principle does
not cover the whole ground. Shall is properly used only by
one in authority ; but in the Bible it is in the mouths of all
alike. The servant of him who owned the barren fig-tree says :
" Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and
dung it : and if it bear fruit, well : and if not, then after that
thou shalt cut it down." LUKE xiii., 8.
A modern servant would not say to his master, "You shall
cut it down," but " You can" Again, one having authority
does not command or threaten anything at variance with his
own character and sentiments.
" For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ ; and
shall deceive many. * * * For nation shall rise against nation
and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and
pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places.
" All these are the beginning of sorrows.
" Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill
you ; and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.
" And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one
another, and shall hate one another.
" And many false prophets shall arise and shall deceive many."
MATT, xxiv., 511.
It would be inconsistent with all ideas ever entertained of
Jesus to think these calamities and wrongs ordered, intended
386 English Grammar.
or desired by him, or to look on the words as any other than
a most sorrowful prediction. Evidently shall was merely
an expression of futurity. Very generally, but not always as
consistently, will, in the Bible, expressed volition. The
distinction is sometimes finely preserved :
Voluntary Future : " I will arise and go to my father, and will
say unto him," etc. LUKE xv., 18.
Involuntary future : " But now he is dead, wherefore should I
fast ? Can I bring him back again ? I shall go to him, but he
shall not return to me." 2 SAMUEL xii., 23.
Will and shall : " And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with
me, then I will go ; but if thou wilt not go with me, then I
will not go.
" And she said, I will surely go with thee : notwithstanding the
journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honor ; for the
Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman."
JUDGES iv., 8, 9.
This prevailing use of shall to express the future can be,
to some extent, accounted for. The first translation of the
Scriptures into what people of the present day could recog-
nize as English was that begun by Wycliffe, 1360, and
finished by Purvey about 1390. It was at a time when the
use of shall was at its height ; and we have seen that in that
version shall was to will as 65 to I. As Wycliffe was in
his time a heretic, and as the later translations were made
by Protestants, this one must naturally have had considera-
ble influence on that of Tyndale, which was next in order of
time. That, too, was made while the use of shall was pre-
ponderant, as will be seen by our table. Tyndale's transla-
tion was so happy in its selection of pure English, and in
rendering for the first time the original texts into the ver-
nacular, that it has done more to preserve our mother tongue
than the work of any other man ; and if it were read in our
churches to-day, it would sound to most hearers perfectly
familiar. All succeeding translators and editors have made
but little change. King James's translators were instructed
Auxiliary Verbs.
387
to deviate from the former editions as little as the duty
of faithful translation would permit. With that religious
instinct that clings to the old, the recent revisers of the text
took special pains to preserve the antique phraseology ; so
that the English-speaking Protestant everywhere has before
him a style of speech that is three hundred and fifty years
old.
The next point to be presented is that writers are not
generally consistent in using will and shall, and often employ
them alternately merely to vary the expression. In the fol-
lowing examples I shall place the two on opposite sides of
the page, and the reader can amuse himself in finding reasons
for the distinction.
" Where shall he go ? "
JOHN vii., 35, according
to the Gothic.
" Also there is a pond, the
water there hath wonderwork-
ing ; for though a whole host
stood by the pond and turned
the face thitherward, the water
would draw them violently tow-
ard the pond and wet all her
clothes ;
" This charge woll alway be
gret ; and so inestimable gret,
that in some yere a gret Lords
" The Time will come
(thus did he follow it)
" We foreknow that the Sunne
will rise and that after the
winter
" Where will he go ? "
A nglo- Saxon.
so should horses be drawn in
the same wise."
JOHN OF TREVISA.
Lyvelood schall not suffice to
beere it."
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE.
The Time shall come that foule
Sinne gathering head,
Shall break into corruption."
SHAKESP. : 2 " Henry iv.,'*
iii., i.
the spring shall come."
RALEIGH.
3 88
English Grammar.
" Neither shall it be needful it will be enough to relate "
to set down apart the several etc. Id.
authorities * * *
" A metaphysician will bring an alchemist, on the contrary,
ploughing and gardening imme- shall reduce divinity to the
diately to abstract notions, maxims of his laboratory."
LOCKE " On the Understand-
ing."
" Howbeit when he, the spirit for he shall not speak of him-
of truth is come, he will guide self ; but whatsoever he shall
you into all truth : hear, that shall he speak."
and he will show you things to JOHN xvi., 13.
come
" And he will shew you a " And he shall shew you" a
large upper room furnished." large upper room furnished."
MATT, xiv., 15.
LUKE xxii., 12.
" If any author shall trans- if any literary anecdote * * *
mit a summary of his works, be communicated to us, we will
we shall willingly receive it ; carefully insert it."
JOHNSON.
" This will be a busy ses- shall you prepare for it ? "
sion ; BULWER LYTTON, in " Pel-
ham."
" Will you recognize your " Shall you lack clothes, or a
kinsman if he passes in this roof to shelter you between this
crowd ? " point and the grave ? "
HAWTHORNE.
" Shall you be late ?
Will he be late, Cousin
Hortense ? " CHARLOTTE
BRONTE, in " Shirley."
" He will talk to you of a which you shall not under-
host of matters
stand."
PROF. WHITNEY.
" Rose said very decidedly Lady Charlotte said she would
she should be in town for the have an evening specially for
winter.
her."
" Robert Elsmere."
Auxiliary Verbs. 389
" Three fourths of all money the remaining one fourth shall
thus secured will be added to be distributed," etc.
the * * * the hospital fund ; " Decision of the Sec'y of
War," Nov. 14, 1888.
The regulations of the Military School at Fort Leaven-
worth, issued by the War Department, March 27, 1888,
convey the behests of authority by the use of 90 shalls
and 15 wills. No distinction between them is maintained,
and the latter seem to be employed merely to vary the
expression.
Such examples might be multiplied to any extent. Hence
one is surprised to find Professor Earle saying :
" that large numbers of our English-speaking fellow subjects
cannot seize the distinction between shall, should and will, would.
Here is a distinction which is unerringly observed by the most
rustic people in the purely English counties, while the most care-
fully educated persons who have grown up on Keltic soil cannot
seize it. This Kelticism is by no means rare in Sir Walter Scott's
works. 1
It would have been a real gratification to have the distinc-
tion stated by one so competent, and to learn whether it is
known to any besides " the most rustic people."
We are now prepared to ask, and in part to answer, the
question : When are will and shall respectively to be used ?
I shall lay down no rule or definition for things so vagrant.
One might as well undertake to define geometrically the
figure of Celebes. I shall start from fixed points that are
safe from dispute, and try to develop thence the use of the
words. Owing to the modesty or sensitiveness that shrinks
from saying " I " and " thou," the first and second persons
are not what they would be were there no disturbing influ-
ence, and therefore are not proper to begin with. The third
person, especially if not a person at all, but a mere idea or a
thing inanimate, may be spoken of without fear or favor, in
undistorted words. One further general remark is proper :
1 " Philology of the English Tongue," 239.
390 English Grammar.
the choice of the auxiliary never depends on the circum-
stance that the subject is singular or plural.
I. Although will expressed originally an act of volition,
in the present age, when no conditions are expressed or
implied, and all disturbing influences are eliminated, it is
the normal and explicit expression of futurity. Presump-
tion is in favor of will, and any other claimant for its place
should be required to show title. Of course there may be
periphrastic substitutes, but they do not grammatically take
its place.
To-morrow will (not shall) be Friday.
There will be an occultation of Mars on the 2oth.
There will be a light crop of peaches this year.
The ipth term of the series will be 39.
The insurance will expire to-morrow.
In these sentences will is imponderable, without color,
taste, or smell to offend even a morbid sensibility. It is
precisely equal to -bo in the Latin, ama-bo, or -ai in the
French aimer-ai.
II. Shall is a word of authority and command. It ex-
presses no sense of duty. Thou shalt and thou shalt not
are the language of law-givers and commanders. Shall is
found 231 times in the Constitution of the United States
and Amendments, and will only three times, and then is
used indirectly.
III. Shall is properly used only by the power that can
enforce it. I have no right to say that a felon shall be
hanged. I may have a conviction that he ought to be, or a
belief that he will be, but it is for the court to say that he
shall.
IV. Hence shall is a harsh word, and at best requires a
deal of sweetening. So, instead of saying " You shall,"
persons in authority are now much in the habit of saying
" You will please," do such a thing, as if venturing a pre-
diction that you will be pleased to do it of your own free
will and accord. But words, however chosen, soon come to
mean just what they are used for, and the " will please " is
Auxiliary Verbs. 391
but the glove that thinly covers, without concealing, the
hand of power. Let us not be churlish, however, but thank-
ful that princes and potentates are willing to take pains to
make the exercise of their authority as little offensive as
possible ; but for ourselves, let us never utter the word
shall when we can find a better.
V. You shall ! Bearing in mind that shall belongs only
to him who can and will enforce it, if I say : " You shall
stay home," that is equivalent to saying: "I will exercise
sufficient power and care to make you stay." Although we
sometimes meet at the present time with the expression,
"You shall" it seems to be only an affected imitation of
past ages ; and perhaps no one will seriously justify it as
the proper language of the nineteenth century, except
where one intends compulsion or grants a request. If one
asks me for the loan of my boat, he is not offended at my
saying " You shall have it " that is, " I will take all needful
means to see that you get it."
VI. What is the difference, if any, between " I will" and
"I shall" ? Assigning to will its lowest power, that of
mere futurity, nothing can be more natural than to say " I
will" I have a better opportunity of foreseeing my own
actions than those of any one else ; and if desire, determina-
tion, or consent be included, I alone have immediate knowl-
edge. Hence " I will" is held to be more explicit than " I
shall" and generally to contain a tinge of volition. But,
what is " I shall" ? Remembering that shall expresses com-
pulsion emanating from the speaker, if the natural sense of
the words be regarded, they mean, " I will compel myself"
But it is only the unwilling who need compulsion ; and if
unwilling, whence comes the motive power to compel ? The
expression, like several others, is an absurdity. But in
habitual phrases the meaning of words is little thought of ;
and there is a general impression that " I shall " is less ex-
plicit and self-asserting hence more modest than " I will"
The distinction is not one of grammar but of politeness.
Otherwise there is no difference in effect between them. The
old maxim that will promises and shall only predicts is good
392 English Grammar.
neither in law nor morals, and would avail one little who
should seek its cover to evade an engagement. As has been
already noticed, there seems to be a tendency to return to
the more frank and direct phrase, " I will" ; and perhaps
persons now young may live to see it for the third time the
prevailing expression.
VII. In any assertion or command the authority is the
speaker; but in questions the person addressed is the au-
thority appealed to. It is for him to answer whether a
thing is, or will, or shall be. If I ask " Shall /" or " Shall
he do this work?" it is in effect asking whether you will
compel or require one or other of us to do it. So far is clear ;
but if I say " Shall you do this work ? " then I ask whether
you will compel yourself to do it, and reach the same absur-
dity as in "I shall" but without even the excuse of politeness.
As shall subordinates the person to whom it is applied, in
saying " I shall" I affect an appearance of belittling myself,
but " Shall you ? " if it has any meaning, belittles you. It is
to my ear one of the most harsh and unpleasant expressions
consistent with the Decalogue. What are we to say then ?
Say almost anything else " Will you f" Do you intend? ex-
pect ? or a dozen other things. Especially you can say :
" Are you going to do this ? " The phrase, like many others,
is indeed a French one ; but it was domiciled in the language
before the discovery of America, and so has had time
to become what is called naturalized, and is the prevailing
expression of plain, honest folks. It is doubtful if any one
ever says " Shall you ? " without a consciousness of putting
on an extra touch of style. Still " Shall you ? " has been
used occasionally for at least sixty years by writers other-
wise respectable. Some excuse may be found in the circum-
stance that " Will you ? " is a common form of request or
appeal. If I say " Will you go to the meeting to-night,"
I shall be generally understood to ask it as a favor, or urge
it as a duty. Such an objection does not always apply, as
there are many cases where it is evident that no request or
appeal is intended. The proper idiomatic expression, how-
ever, is: "Are you going to the meeting to-night? "
Auxiliary Verbs. 393
VIII. Will is used in stating the condition on which
something desirable is to be attained ; shall is used where
the result is indifferent or undesirable. The form of the
result is governed by the principles applicable to the simple
future.
" If this will serve your purpose, you are welcome to it."
" If he will accept these terms that will end all difficulty."
" If he shall persist in his opposition, the case will be hope-
less."
" Whoever shall now compare the country round Rome with
the country round Edinburgh, will be able to form some judg-
ment," etc. MACAULAY : " Hist, of Eng.," chap. i.
The distinction is not a constant one, but is better pre-
served between would and should.
IX. In stating conditions, shall is often used unneces-
sarily, because, as will be seen hereafter, the present tense
may be extensively used as a future.
" When the city shall attain (or shall have attained) a popula-
tion of 100,000, new sources of supply will be required."
It would serve every useful purpose to say : " When the
city attains" etc.
" When I find evidences of a deposit of copper."
This fragment of an incomplete sentence may be either
present or future, and may be finished in either of two
ways :
" I always make a note of it,"
or,
" I will let you know."
These endings determine the time, and leave no uncertainty.
So a great many expressions would be improved by shorten-
ing, thus :
Whoever shall find Whoever finds
Although he shall take every precaution Although he take
If it shall rain before night If it rain
394 English Grammar.
This excessive use of shall belongs to a harsh, stiff, ungrace-
ful style.
X. We foresee, expect, hope, fear, believe, think, that a
thing will be ; demand, order, require, provide, that it shall
be. Thus thought, perception, feeling, is followed by will;
the intentional exercise of power or authority over another,
by shall. The distinction is sometimes very fine, if not
invisible.
" In the cathedral glass the surface is rendered wavy and un-
even, so that the transmission of light shall be correspondingly
irregular."
Shall shows the intention in making the surface wavy and
uneven.
" it is possible, without a single arbitrary conjecture, to con-
struct a continuous narrative which shall simply follow the
indications of our authorities without doing violence to them in
any instance." " Encycl. Brit.," xiii., 663.
XI. Poets, following the examples of the Middle Ages,
use shall where it would not be admissible in prose :
" But ne'er shall Hassan's Age repose
Along the brink at twilight's close ;
And here no more shall human voice
Be heard to rage, regret, rejoice.
*******
To-morrow's night shall be more dark."
BYRON : " The Giaour."
XII. There is a curious use of will which may be con-
sidered provincial. It does not point to the future, but
indicates a cautious conjecture. It used to be common
in Scotland : " Ye '11 be frae E'nbro I reckon." That is :
" I venture to guess that you are from Edinburgh." It is
very common in Spanish, and is sometimes, but not often,
met with in English literature.
" Hence there is much plausibility in the view that the first
speech-signs will have been of this phonetic form." " Encycl.
Brit.," xviii., 770.
Auxiliary Verbs. 395
XIII. Would and should do not always follow closely
will and shall, either as past tenses or subjunctives. They
retain more of the values of five hundred years ago. Some
sentences consist of two parts a condition stated, and some-
thing following naturally as a consequence : " If ye love
me, keep my commandments." The first part is often
called the protasis ; and the second the apodosis. These
terms are more strictly applicable when the condition is
a mere supposition, not assumed to be true. Then would
and should, in the apodosis, preserve the distinction observed
between will and .$ > &2//when these latter form future tenses.
I should (or would), you would, he would.
If the sky were to fall I should (or would), you would, he would
have a chance to catch larks.
XIV. But in the protasis, would is used when the con-
dition is a thing desired or requested ; should, when it is a
mere supposition of something undesirable or indifferent.
If you would give me a little help and encouragment, I think
I should succeed.
If it would rain gently all night, it would revive the crops
greatly.
If the wind would only moderate a little, etc.
If this rumor should prove to be true, you would lose heavily.
If you should see Mr. S. you might ask him when he is to sail.
XV. Should no longer serves as the past tense of shall,
but would is still an expression of past time. It is rather
old, and not very common, but may be used of actions that
were repeated from time to time as a habit. " He would sit
silent for hours " that is, he often sat so.
" His listless length at noontide would he stretch
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
" Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Mutt'ring his wayward fancies, he would rove."
GRAY'S "Elegy."
396 English Grammar.
In times when shall was everywhere, it was employed in
this way:
" And therewithalle his body sholde sterte,
And with the sterte alle sodeynliche awake,
And swiche a tremour fele aboute his hearte,
That of the fere his body sholden quake :
And therewithal he sholde a noyse make."
CHAUCER : " Troylus and Creseyde."
Would followed by not is also sometimes a past tense, and
expresses strongly an action of the will.
A pressing invitation was sent to him, but he would not come.
Otherwise than here shown would and should do not indi-
cate past time. In applying them to the past we have to
say would have and should have.
XVI. Should occurs as the equivalent of ought, retaining
the old sense of duty or obligation.
He should send the boy to school.
Here it is not a past tense, nor a subjunctive. It may be
regarded as a secondary growth from shall, just as ought,
originally a past tense of owe, has become practically a new
verb. This is the only sense in which should has any defi-
nite meaning. In other cases it only increases the doubt
and uncertainty of a supposition.
XVII. The lines that separate Shall from May, Will,
Can, and Ought are devious and indistinct. Suppose a per-
son were to say " I shall come to-morrow," and I am to
give, not the precise words but the substance of that prom-
ise, grammarians would be pretty well agreed that I ought
to say " He said that he should come to-morrow," not
that he would. It would follow consistently, and would per-
haps be conceded, that if the first speaker had said " will" I
might say would. But suppose, further, that I remember
only the substance of the promise, and not the precise words,
ought I then to use should or would? Or if a third person
Auxiliary Verbs. 397
were to ask me the character of the reply, which would be
the most proper for him to say? " Did he say he should
come ? " or " Did he say he would come ? " I am of opinion
that in thus giving the purport of anything said or written,
we are not bound to preserve the identity of a single word.
There are places where eggs are sold by the hundred else-
where generally by the dozen. Now, if a poulterer should
come to the door and offer to sell " half a hundred " eggs, I
think the servant who interviewed him would be sustained
in a court of justice, and in the court of conscience, in re-
porting the number either as " fifty " or as " four dozen and
two." So I think I ought not to be censured for taking my
own way and saying " would."
The following selected sentences will illustrate further the
obscure limbo that surrounds Shall. In each instance I
place in parentheses the auxiliary that is nearly or quite
equivalent :
" Considering the thing to be accomplished, it will seem likely
that the men intended successfully to resist the influence of such
a system should be endowed with little natural sense of beauty,
and thus rendered dead to the temptation it presented."
RUSKIN : " Pre-Raphaelitism."
The meaning is doubtful ; would or ought would be intel-
ligible.
" the necessity of joining expressions of the most exemplary
humility * * * with such assertions of Divine authority as
should (or would) secure acceptance for the epistle itself in the
sacred canon." RUSKIN : " Sheepfolds."
" it may by and by give the world an encyclopaedic dictionary
of literature, in which the chief of our standard authors shall (or
will) be thoroughly treated." New York Ev. Post, June 5,
1889.
" But what should (can) this mean."
WYCHERLY'S " Country Girl."
" But how should (would or could) you know him ? "
BEN JONSON : "Every Man in His Humour."
398 English Grammar.
"What should (could") Boston have known about the Parsonage
where the morals of Harvard youth were depleted along with
Harvard purses ; where wine ran freely from dusk till daybreak ?
* * * What should (could) Boston have known about it, even
though an Alderman had owned this palace of joy. * * * ? "
North Am. Review, Nov., 1888.
" the hospital fund is to be expended for the benefit of both in
such proportion as the post-surgeon shall (or may) deem just."
" Decision of Secretary of War," Apr. 29, 1889.
" His position should (or ought to) be raised to the dignity of a
profession." North Am. Review, March, 1889, p. 325.
XVIII. The following examples illustrate what I deem
the misuse of shall and should.
" Any one who will consider the structure of the following sen-
tences shall perceive this pictorial power of the Participle."
Prof. EARLE : " English Prose."
" A child learning to read and coming to the word inveigle
shall be told to call it inveegle, though the best usage at present
is to say invaygle."
EARLE'S "Philology of the English Tongue," 184.
" one may expect a well bred person should soon take the
hint." FIELDING : "Joseph Andrews."
" He was, indeed, one of the largest men you should see." Id.
" I had a sexton once, when I was a clerk, that should have
dug three graves while he was digging one."
FIELDING : "Tom Jones."
" Shall you run away to-day ? "
GEORGE ELIOT : " Mill on the Floss."
" Should you. be influenced by any feeling in regard to (i) sit-
ting down thirteen at a table ; (2) beginning a voyage on Friday,"
etc. " Circular Inquiry by an American Society."
" I abated my pace, and looked about me for some side aisle
that should admit me into the innermost sanctuary of this green
cathedral." HAWTHORNE.
Auxiliary Verbs. 399
" If we could look into the hearts where we wish to be most
valued, what should you expect to see ? " Id.
Observe here the Hibernianism of inquiring what you
should see if we could look.
" Now as she had been mentioned by Mark several times
within a few preceding pages, it is not likely that this mode of
designating her * * * should have been used by him.
NORTON'S " Genuineness of the Gospels," Ixxvii.
" It should seem."
This is an absurd expression often met with even in the
most esteemed authors. What does it mean? We all un-
derstand the word seem in its two shades of meaning,
appearing and presenting a false appearance. Now a thing
either appears or does not appear ; and that might well be
an end of the matter. But in our great fondness for a dis-
play of modesty we sometimes say, hesitatingly : " It would
seem." This might consistently enough have a meaning,
which would be : " Granting certain conditions, it would
then seem." But that is not what people mean by the
phrase, but something like this : " I beg pardon ten thou-
sand times for venturing to intimate that possibly it seems."
Still, what is meant by, " It should seem," and wherein
does it differ from " It would seem " ? According to the
proper signification of the words the meaning should be :
" It ought to seem, but does not." Beyond that I am una-
ble to extract from it any semblance of sense.
The expressions animadverted upon in this section are
those of literary men and their ambitious imitators. They
reflect the stiff formalism of past ages, and not the thought
and speech oJf the active progressive part of mankind. Con-
sidering the extreme difficulty of maintaining so many
wavering lines of distinction, and the utter folly of saying,
for example, " I shall" and " You will" I cannot but think
that the language would be improved by using will exclu-
sively to express futurity, and shall as the expression of
authority. In closing this lengthy discussion of will and
400 English Grammar.
shall, I cite one more example to show the futility of the
distinctions now recognized.
"He is anxious to have a cistern built that shall hold 100
hogsheads."
Would not every one be just as well off if it were permis-
sible to say, " will hold " ? For my part I welcome as a
normal and healthy advance the increasing use of will, of
which grammarians generally complain.
CAN.
The present tense of this verb was in Gothic : ik kann,
thii kant, is kann, weis kunnum, jus kunnuth, eis kunnun.
Past tense : ik kuntha, thu kunthes, is kuntha, wcis kunthe-
dum, Jus kuntheduth, eis kunthedun.
Anglo-Saxon, present tense : ic can, thu canst, he can, we
cunnon, ge cunnon, heo cunnon.
Past tense : ic cu-the, thu cu-thest, he cu-the, we cu-thon,
ge cu-tlion, heo cu-tlion.
Observe that in Anglo-Saxon, as in the English of all
periods, the letter n has been dropped from the past tense,
although preserved in all the other Teutonic languages. To
compensate for the loss of the n the vowel was lengthened,
and at last became the ou in could, the / of which is a mere
blunder, from a supposed analogy with would and should.
This innovation dates from about the year 1450, although
couthe, couth, and kude occur much later.
The earliest signification was, to know. During the period
of transition it was used indifferently to express knowledge
and ability. Cunning is a derived verbal noun and verbal
adjective ; and the primary meaning of un-couth was merely
unknown, strange, like the Scotch un-co. The following
examples will illustrate the early use of the word, both as
to form and meaning :
" Ther-efter waex suythe micel uuerre betuyx the king &
Randolf eorl of Csestre noht for-thi th he ne iaf him al th he cuthe
axen him, alse he dide alle othre."
Auxiliary Verbs. 401
(Thereafter waxed very great war betwixt the king and Ran-
dolph earl of Chester, not because that he gave him not all that
he could ask of him, as he did to all others.)
"Saxon Chronicle," A.D. 1150.
" Ne was non so wis man in al his lond,
The kude vn-don this dremes bond."
GENESIS and EXODUS, 1250.
" And every statute couthe he pleyn by roote."
CHAUCER : " Prologue to Canterbury Tales."
" And thogh it happen sum of hem be fortune, to gon out, thei
conen no maner of langage but Ebrew."
SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE.
" And the wondriden, seyinge Hou kan this man lettris, sithen
he hath not lernyd ? "
WYCLIFFE : JOHN vii., 15.
" Ye ! blessed be alway a lewd man
That not but only his bileeve can"
(That is an unlearned man who knmvs only the creed.)
CHAUCER : " The Miller's Tale."
" For y can nou3t my crede y kare wel harde ;
For y can fynden no man that fully beleveth."
" The Ploughman's Crede."
MUST.
There was an old verb, mote, becoming obsolete even in
Saxon times, for the infinitive is not found. The meaning
was, to be able or at liberty to do a thing, hence closely
related in signification to can and may. It was much used
as a word of wishing or assent, like the Hebrew Amen " So
mote it be ! " To this was added a sense of obligation, as of
something that ought to be indeed, must be. The past
tense was moste, becoming the modern must. This is one
of three surviving words the others being durst and wist
that insert s in forming the past tense. This past tense,
must, becomes a secondary or derivative verb with a present
signification. It admits of no change of form. The ending
26
402 English Grammar.
in st precludes the additional st of the second person singu-
lar. Must usually expresses a general, undefined necessity
or propriety, not, like shall, the authority of a superior.
" Here coraeth my mortal enemy,
Withoute faile he mot be deed or I ;
For eyther I mot slen him at the gappe,
Or he mot slee me."
CHAUCER : " Knight's Tale."
" Por. Do you confesse the bond ?
" Ant. I do.
" Por. Then must the Jew be merciful.
" yew. On what compulsion must I ? Tell me that."
" Merchant of Venice."
The question was too hard even for the subtlety of Portia.
Must is also used where the necessity is not of doing
anything, but of believing something on the evidence of
circumstances.
" allowing the supposed change to have been possible, it must
have met with great opposition ; it must have provoked much
discussion ; it must have been the result of much deliberation ;
there must have been a great deal written about it at the time ; it
must have been often referred to afterwards."
NORTON : " Genuineness of the Gospels."
LET.
From a Teutonic root lat y meaning to let alone, leave
undisturbed, is derived the adjective late, in the sense of late
gleanings, late education. As a verb the word took two
forms i, a primary strong verb, A.-S. latan, to allow, per-
mit, let anything go or do as it will ; 2, a secondary weak
verb, lettan, to make late, delay, hinder. Both verbs came
to have the same form in English. The second is now
obsolescent. An example of its former use is afforded by
Spenser, " Faerie Queene," Hi., 5.
" And all the while their malice they did whet,
With cruell threats his passage through the ford to let"
Auxiliary Verbs. 403
So too,
" he who now letteth will lei until he be taken out of the way."
2 THESS. ii., 7.
The other verb has had and still has a very extended use.
From the idea of letting anything have its own way came
naturally such expressions as to let go, let loose, let out ; and,
as most things left to themselves sink or fall to the ground,
we have to let down. The word was also quite commonly
used in the sense of to cause :
" Anon he let two cofres make,
Of o semblance and of o make."
GOWER.
Naturally enough let came to be used before any kind of
a verb expressing the action of the speaker or of a third per-
son. Let that is, permit me or him to do this or that.
Our language, like many others, was always deficient in a
separate form for directing a command or wish to any other
than the person spoken to ; so let with an infinitive of the
principal verb came to supply the place of an imperative of
the first and third persons. This is usually thought to be
rather modern, but it is as old as the " Ormulum," if not
older. Indeed, it follows unavoidably from the Anglo-Saxon.
" Fylig me and Itzt deade bebyrigean hyra deadan."
(Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.)
Although the form is that of a request for permission,
there is often no trace of such a meaning left, and let is
purely formal, with no distinctive signification. In the sub-
lime words " Let there be light" and " Let us make man in
our image" there is no request for permission. Occasion-
ally in poetry and poetic prose we meet with a more primitive
and forcible form of expression without let.
" Be thine the glory and be mine the shame."
" Succeed the verse or fail." KEATS.
" All eyes be muffled." Id.
" and now be the welkin split with vivats."
CARLYLE.
404 English Grammar.
OUGHT.
The Gothic aigan, to possess, had an old past tense aih
used as a present ; and in like manner the past tense, dh, of
the A.-S. dgan, to possess, was used as a present. From this
a secondary past tense, dhte, was formed. As a became o in
English, and h at the end of a syllable was regularly replaced
by gh, the Middle English oughte two syllables is ac-
counted for as the past tense of owen, to possess. This in
turn was transformed into the modern ought. Out of the
frequent possession of things not paid for grew the meaning
of owing for, and from that again the general sense of obli-
gation. This sense was early attached to the word.
" we a"*>en thene sunnedei switheliche wel to wurthien."
(We owe to honor the Sunday exceedingly well.)
"Old English Homilies," A.D. 1200.
" all Chrestene men aZen to dai to noten."
(All Christian men owe to enjoy this day.) Id.
" 3e ancren owen this lutle laste stucchen reden to our wum-
men euriche wike enes."
(You nuns owe to read this last little piece to your women once
every week.) "Ancren Riwle," A.D. 1220.
" That forgotten was no thing
That owe to be done."
CHAUCER'S " Dream."
At the same time ought was employed as a past tense with
the modern sense of owed.
" Tweye dettours were to sum leenere ; oon oughte fyue hun-
dred pens, and an other fyfty."
WYCLIFFE : Trans. LUKE vii., 41.
" There was a certayne lender which had two detters ; the one
ought five hundred pence, and the other fifty."
TYNDALE'S version.
There seems to have been a confusion between the present
and past tenses, which resulted in the exclusive use of the
past to express duty or obligation.
Auxiliary Verbs. 405
" As every Servaunt owyth to have his Sustenaunce of hym that
he servyth, so owght the Pope to be susteyned by the Chirche."
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE : " Monarchic," Chap. vii.
Of cursing oweth ech gulty man to drede."
CHAUCER : " Prologue to C. T."
" And also rich in every thought
As he that all hath and ought nought."
CHAUCER'S " Dream," 1071.
Ought may be regarded now as a secondary growth
present in tense. The past is " ought to have"
The principal verb that follows ought is always preceded
by to. " We ought to obey the laws." In this respect ought
stands alone.
DO.
The earliest form in which we know this word is the San-
skrit dha, to set, put, or place, a meaning preserved in its
various migrations down to don and doff, to put on and to
put off, and the now obsolete dup and dout. This verb has
a persistent habit of being doubled, and its past tense, did,
is the only familiar instance of reduplication left in our lan-
guage. But in Sanskrit and Greek even the present tense
underwent reduplication dd-dha-mi and ri-^rj-^i. The mi
is the same word as our pronoun me. In Latin the redupli-
cation was limited to the perfect tenses con-did-i, I put
together, built. Here did-i is grammatically equivalent to
English, I did.
Do is not exclusively an auxiliary, as people do harvest
work, housework, plain sewing, etc. As an auxiliary its use
is now very extensive, and may seem to be quite modern,
but it is as old as King Alfred. First, it adds emphasis to
the main verb, and that is quite old. Jesus said to the
accused woman, John viii., 1 1 :
" do ga, and ne synga thu naefre ma."
(Do go, and sin thou not never more.)
If one were accused of never reading anything, he might
answer with some warmth : " Yes, I do read."
406 English Grammar.
Second, it is used in asking questions. Macbeth Inquires
of Banquo : " Ride you this afternoone ? " The nearest
approach our modern speech could make " Do you ride
this afternoon ? " is much inferior in terseness. Yet I fear
the modern pedant would say, " Shall you ride," an expres-
sion that wrings the nerves like biting a gravel stone in a
pudding.
Third. Do is used with negative sentences.
They did not come according to agreement.
Yet the language was much better without the auxiliary in
such cases.
" Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the
Samaritans enter ye not."
There are two early meanings of do to put and to cause
that are now found only in old books. In the following
from the "Lay of Havelok the Dane," A.D. 1300, do and
the last dede = put, place ; otherwise dede is merely em-
phatic.
" Ther-inne wanted nouct a nayl,
That euere he sholde ther-inne do"
" And in the castel dede him do,
Ther non ne micte him comen to."
" Grim dede maken a ful fayr bed,
Unclothed him and dede him ther-inne."
We still speak of doing up and doing away things.
" What helpeth that to don my blame away ? "
CHAUCER : " Troylus and Creseide."
In the three following examples, do means to cause :
" Unk schal i-tide harm and schonde,
3ef 3e doth grith-bruche on his londe."
(Harm and shame shall betide you two,
If ye cause peace-breaking in his land.)
" Owl and Nightingale," 1250.
Auxiliary Verbs. 407
" Now goo thou, syr Lucan, sayd the king, and do me to wyte
what bytokens that noyse in the felde."
Mallory's "Morte Darthur," 1469.
" Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God
bestowed on the churches of Macedonia." 2 COR. viii., i.
There is another word do, from A.-S. dugan, to avail, be
worth or fit, found in the expressions, " That will do"
" That will not do" A relic of the g survives in doughty,
a word that used to mean strong, valiant, but now expresses
rather more contempt than admiration.
" The gees, the hennes of the yerd,
Al he solde that ouct doucte,
That he euere selle moucte."
" Havelok."
It is not certain which of these two words ends the com-
mon greeting, " How do you do ? "
DARE.
Anglo-Saxon, ic dear, thu dearst, he dear ; past tense, ic
dorst, etc. Primarily, as we all know, the word expressed
courage, daring.
" The folke wel wene, that thou for cowardise
Thee fainest sick, and that thou darst not rise."
CHAUCER : " Troylus and Creseide."
But on some undisputed assertion we often hear the re-
mark, " I dare-say that is so," which requires no courage at
all. The word has here degenerated into a mere form of
expression, and has no particular meaning. But the word
is not wholly an auxiliary. It is as it were just beginning
its downward course. It has also an active or transitive
meaning to defy.
" What, is Brutus sicke ?
And will he steale out of his wholesome bed
To dare the vile contagion of the Night ? "
"Julius Caesar, ii., i.
408 English Grammar.
The word became divided, both as to form and significa-
tion. The auxiliary followed the old forms, and is now, /
dare, thou darest, he dare ; past tense, / durst, etc. For the
active verb new forms were developed : / dare, thou darest,
he dares ; past tense, I dared, etc ; and these always tend to
displace the old.
" This Midas knew, and durst communicate
To none but to his wife, his ears of state."
DRYDEN : " Wife of Bath's Tale."
" Camidius, wee
" Will fight with him by sea.
" Cleo. By sea, what else ?
" Cam. Why will my Lord do so ?
" Ant. For that he dares us too 't,
" Enob. So hath my Lord dard him to single fight."
" Anthony and Cleopatra," iii., 7.
HAVE.
This word primarily expresses possession ; and those who
hold that words never change assume the task of showing
property or possession in such an expression as " I have
never seen such grapes as you describe." What is it that I
have when I have lost all ? The following is probably as
good as any answer that can be given in support of such
possession :
"Jfave, of which had is the preterite form, expresses simply
present possession. * * * To express what the Romans
expressed by amavi, an inflection of amo, we use a verb have and
the perfect participle of another verb. The participle is an ex-
pression of completed action in the abstract loved. The only
real verb that we use in this instance is one that signifies posses-
sion. We say, I have have what ? possess what ? Possession
implies an object possessed ; and in this case it is that completed
action which is expressed in the abstract by the participle." 1
The idea of possessing a completed action in the abstract
is too " abstract " for my comprehension. It is more intan-
1 Richard Grant White: "Words and their Uses," p. 306: " Every-Day
English, "p. 434.
Auxiliary Verbs. 409
gible than the " incorporeal hereditaments " of the English
Law. Let us try to illustrate a single example on this
principle :
" I had forgotten to tell her that I had eaten no dinner."
This sentence then should mean :
" I was in possession of the past completed, action in the ab-
stract of forgetting (or forgetting in the abstract), the action
of telling that, at some still earlier period, I was in possession of
the past completed action of eating no dinner in the abstract."
In trying to take stock of these possessions I cannot quite
make out what my property is, nor whether I am thereby
richer or poorer, even if there be no flaw in the title.
The reader who has accompanied me thus far must be
already familiar with the view that language is not built up
in the manner of Euclid's Elements or a treatise on Alge-
bra. He has seen that it is a congeries of surviving popular
usages slowly developed, ever changing ; that its plains of
uniformity are everywhere seamed and scarred with fissures,
dykes, and all irregularities. If we but knew how these
irregularities arose we should understand them ; but that
knowledge is hard of attainment. We may be sure that " I
have loved " came into use by steps that seemed perfectly
natural, even if we should never discover them. We can
imagine such a starting-point as this :
" The boys liad roasted apples which they were eating."
Here had may express possession ; but the thing possessed
is " roasted apples," not the past completed action of roast-
ing in the abstract, for which boys would care very little.
Then people might have a great many other things, such as
" dressed skins," " embroidered robes," " thatched houses."
To the extent and form of such development there is no
limit, so common it is for the end to lose all sight of the
beginning. Grimm quotes a line in point from a hymn of
the fourth century, by St. Ambrose :
" quse extinctas habent lampadas." '
1 " Deutsche Grammatik," iv., 154.
4io English Grammar.
together with an Old High German translation :
" deo arslactu eigun leohtkar."
which may mean either
" who have extinguished lamps,"
or
" who have extinguished their lamps."
Indeed, the Latin race had this form of expression time out
of mind, although they, of all people, had least need for such
extra contrivances. Plautus, in the second century B.C.,
wrote :
" Vir me habet pessumis despicatum modis."
(The man has slighted me in the very worst way.)
" Casina," ii., 2, 15.
Again :
" docemur * * * auctoritate nutuque legum domitas habere
libidines." Cic. : " De Oratore," i., 43.
" Clodii animum perspectum habeo"
Cic. : " Epist ad Brutum," i., i.
" Omnes decumas ad aquam deportatas haberent."
Cic. : in " Verrem," ii., 3, 15.
" iste * * * bellum sacrilegum semper impiumque habiat in-
dicium.
Id., ii., 5, 72.
The Teutonic nations, whose verbs were lacking in distinc-
tions of time, borrowed this form of expression from their
Latin neighbors in the sixth and eighth centuries. Grimm
gives several early examples ' : " intfangan eigut " thou
hast received ; " haben gistriunit " I have gained. And now
such expressions as, ".I have written," "You have heard,"
" He had bought land," are among the best established in
the language for expressing actions that are finished and past.
There is another use of have as an auxiliary that is not
quite so common have to as in : " The bridge being
carried away, he had to swim the river." Here have is not
1 " Deutsche Grammatik," iv., 150.
Auxiliary Verbs, 411
quite so remote from the idea of possession the possession
of a duty or task to perform. This, too, is borrowed from
the Latins, but is post-classic. Riddle's Latin Lexicon cites
two passages from Tertullian, which I have not the means
of verifying :
" etiam Filius Dei mori habuit."
" si inimicos jubemur diligere, quern habemus odisse?"
In this last sentence the trenchant African Father was un-
consciously repeating Confucius.
The phrase had rather has been much disputed ; and some
even contend that it is sheer nonsense. That it has all the
sanction that can be derived from respectable usage will
scarcely be denied. On that point I shall cite only two
authorities, but they are of the greatest weight neither so
old as to be obsolete, nor so new as to be looked out of
countenance.
" I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by
my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in
an unknown tongue." i COR. xiv., 19.
" I had rather believe all the fables in the legend, and the
Talmud and the Alcoran than that this universal frame is without
a mind ; and therefore God never wrought miracle to convince
atheism, because his ordinary works convince it."
BACON : Essay xvi.
The phrase has the further high merit of being short, neat,
and universally understood. Those who call it nonsense
forget for the moment, what all know, that language is full
of idioms expressions that will not parse, will not fit them-
selves to grammatical rules the rules being primarily Latin.
Dreary and weary must the style be that can all be parsed.
Idioms are short, forcible, and great favorites with people
who would rather work or think than talk ; and they abound
in the best writers. Yet idioms are expressions that taken
literally are either absurd, or, what is worse, untrue. " There
is no water here" " All the lamps went out" The Dutch
say, " Dans maar op," where the English say, " Get out,"
412 English Grammar.
which means Depart ; but all three phrases taken literally
are nonsensical " Dance more up," " Procure out," " From
part."
The Germans have a word, " lieb" adj. and adv., meaning
dear, beloved, gladly, with pleasure. The comparative is
lieber ; and it is the same word as the nearly obsolete Eng-
lish lief, which had also a comparative, liever. The Germans,
like us, hold some things dear, dearer, or most dear. " Ich
habe meinen Freund lieb, lieber, am liebsten" " So habe ich
es am liebsten " ; I have it lievest so. " So hdtte ich es lieber ;
I had that is, would have it liever so, would prefer it. A
similar usage was quite common in early English, in which
I had is to be construed : I would have, hold, esteem it.
" Fare leuer he hadde wende
And bidde ys meete."
(Far liever he had go
And beg his meat.)
ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER, A.D. 1298.
" And saide they hadden sikirliche,
Leover steorve aperteliche,
Than thole soche wo and sorwe."
ALISAUNDRE, A.D. 1300.
" I hadde lever be dede or she had any dyseasse."
" Townley Mysteries," 1430.
The infinitive might be with or without the particle to
" He hadde lever to ben anhong
Than to be forsworn."
" Amel and Amiloun," A.D. 1330.
" I had levdeyr on a day to fight
Than alle my fathyrys lond."
Transl. of " Torrent of Portugal," 1370.
Better and several other words came to be used in imitation
of liever, which last has been completely displaced by rather,
comparative of rath, soon.
" Better he had to have be away." " Torrent."
Auxiliary Verbs. 413
As soon, as well, and best are employed in nearly the same
manner.
"Then you had as good make a point of first giving away your-
self." GOLDSMITH: "Good. Nat. Man."
"I fad as liefe haue heard the night-rauen."
SHAKES?.: " Much Ado," ii., 3.
" We had best return towards the boat." BULWER : " Rienzi."
Would rather may always be substituted for had rather.
Might rather would not have the same meaning. Would
and should do not go well with better. In one instance can
is admissible. " I can better afford" because can is especially
associated with afford. We may say might better, but it has
neither the sanction, the idiomatic force, nor the precise
meaning of had better.
BE.
This is one of the most remarkable words in the language.
It expresses no thing, action, quality, relation, or condition,
beyond that of bare existence. It is said to be wanting in
some languages ; and in some others it is sparingly employed.
It has more forms than any other English verb am, art, is,
are, was, wast, were, wert, be, being, been. No other has
more than eight. It alone has a separate form am for
the ist pers. sing. pres. and for the sing, of the past tense
was. It is the only verb that has a form wert found
only in the subjunctive, of which hereafter.
The substantive verb, as it is called, is derived from three
separate origins. Be, being, been, are from Sansk. bhu, to
grow, if indeed bhu, the earth, be not still earlier. From this
fertile source sprang the Greek phuo, to grow, and phuton, a
plant ; the Latin fui, I have been ; German bauen, to build
and to inhabit, bauer, a farmer; Icelandic bua, to build,
to dwell and to till the ground ; and English words so
diverse as physic, husband, neighbor, bower, boorish, and
by-law. From the Sansk. root as, to which some assign the
primary sense to breathe, and others, to dwell, come am,
414 English Grammar.
art, are, is. Was, wast, etc., are from the Sansk. vas, to dwell.
The r is in all cases due to the common transformation
of s.
The auxilary is used to form the passive side of transitive
verbs, by being placed before their past participles.
ACTIVE PASSIVE
I love I am loved
we saw we were seen
you will meet you will be met
he has paid he has been paid
they have heard they had been heard.
The simple tenses of this verb are used with infinitives to
form a kind of future. " He is to sail" " They were to
arrive" It is thus used also with the infinitive forms of
itself. " There is to be an auction." " There was to have
been a wedding." " He is to be captain." It is only the
simple tenses that are so used.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CONJUGATION OF VERBS.
BY means of internal changes, appropriate terminations,
auxiliary verbs, particles, and even change of position, verbs
are enabled to represent actions under a great variety of
conditions. The orderly presentation of these modifications
is called conjugation. The word signifies joining or yoking
together, and is more especially applicable to the joining of
verbs with the pronouns that often accompany them.
I is joined with am
thou " " " art .
he " " " is
we " " " are
but the term is made to include many other combinations.
When one repeats the whole body of such combinations for
any particular verb, he is said to conjugate it.
The kinds of distinction made in conjugating are five.
1. The subject or person spoken of may be represented
either as acting or as acted upon.
George loves. George is loved.
In the former the verb is said to be active ; in the latter
passive. The not very apt term voice is used to express the
distinction, and the one form is said to be in the active voice
and the other in the passive voice.
2. A verb may be so used as to express an assertion out-
right, a question, a supposition a command, an entreaty, or
even in so general a way as to present no such particular
aspect. Distinctions of this kind are called moods or modes.
415
41 6 English Grammar.
3. An action may be represented as going on now, as
performed some time ago, or expected hereafter. Such dis-
tinctions of time are called tenses. The word is from the
Old French tens, a degradation of the Lat. tempus, time.
4. The action may be represented as that of the speaker,
of the person spoken to, or of any one else. The one who
speaks is called the first person, the one addressed is the
second person, and the third person may be all the world
besides. This is the distinction of person.
5. But several persons may be spoken of together, many
may be addressed at once, and although usually only one
speaks, he may be so associated with others as to be merely
their mouthpiece. He may speak for or about any number
of whom he is one. Herein is the distinction of number,
the numbers we have to do with being two, the singular and
the plural.
A verb then, in addition to its essential meaning, which
distinguishes it from other verbs, needs to express the cir-
cumstances of Voice, Mood, Tense, Person, and Number. Three
of these present no difficulty, but grammarians have dis-
agreed, and are likely to disagree, about the numbers and
characters of the moods and tenses. Any one may make an
analysis of them satisfactory to himself, but no one has suc-
ceeded yet in satisfying every one else. We may begin
with the easiest and consider together Person and Number,
as they are inseparably connected.
PERSON AND NUMBER.
To any people having personal pronouns it would readily
occur to join them in some way with the verb, and say, for
example, / love, thou love, he love, we love, etc. It would do
just as well to put the pronoun after the verb and say, love
I, love thou, love he, love we. Now, however the pronoun be
placed, it and the verb are liable to become so united in
conversation as to be pronounced like one word witness,
I'm, you 're, we 77 and it is certain that if the pronoun be
placed last, it is apt to be clipped and obscured in hurried
The Conjugation of Verbs. 417
speech till little or nothing of it may be left. And as it is
well known that compound words often preserve their parts
better than those parts are preserved singly, it may happen
in the course of ages that the independent pronouns in use
are no longer identifiable with the fragments attached to
verbs. Nay, people speaking a language every day may not
recognize the fragments as having any meaning, and when
they wish to be quite explicit, saying, thou love-st, he love-th,
do in effect say, thou love-thou, he love-he. The nature of
these suffixed pronominal relics was first learned from
Hebrew, in which they have been better preserved than in
the Aryan languages. But it is supposed that in the latter,
far away in the prehistoric ages, there were three pronouns,
ma, sa, ta corresponding to / or me, thou and he* They
have not survived in those forms, but many scattered facts
would be united and made consistent by the supposition.
As suffixes to verbs and modified into mi, si, ti, they are
common in Sanscrit and not unknown in Greek 8 ; yet in
both languages they are unlike the separate pronouns. A
plural ma -\- sa, or mi -f- si, I and thou, that is we, might be
formed. In point of fact it is formed in the oldest Sanskrit
in the compromise form of ma-si. In like manner an ending
ta-si, he and thou, that is ye, is said to have existed once,
but what is really formed now is -thas for the dual number,
and-/&* for the plural. Another ending, -anti, equivalent to
they, is well known, but of uncertain origin. If we join these
endings, by the help of a connecting vowel, to the simplest
form of a verb, we shall have a small part of a Sanskrit
conjugation. Let -vad = speak, then :
vad-a-mi I speak
vad-a-si thou speakest
vad-a-ti he speaks
vad-a-ma-si * we speak
vad-a-tha ye speak
vad-anti they speak
1 Whitney : " Language and the Study of Language," 266, 267.
* Ktihner's Greek Grammar. Verbs in fit.
8 In later Sanskrit it is mas or mah.
27
4i 8. English Grammar.
There is a set of secondary terminations, somewhat further
pared down, employed in some of the moods and tenses.
Thus the imperfect prefixes a, as an augment and suffixes
the shorter endings
a-vad-a-m I spoke
a-vad-a-s thou spokest
a-vad-a-t he spoke
a-vad-a-ma we spoke
a-vad-a-ta ye spoke
a-vad-an they spoke.
The Latin scholar will recognize here the close resemblance
to terminations with which he is familiar :
leg-a-m leg-a-mus
leg-a-s leg-a-tis
leg-a-t leg-ant.
Old High German preserved the family likeness fairly well
but a process of obliteration has been everywhere going on.
We may take the word find and exhibit the personal endings
of Old High German, Old Saxon and Anglo-Saxon :
o. H. G. o. s. A.-S.
{ist pers. find-u find-u find-e
zd pers. find-i-s find-i-s find-e-st
3d pers. find-i-t find-i-d find-e-th
ristpers. find-a-mes find-a-d find-a-th
PLUR. -j 2d pers. find-a-t find-a-d find-a-th
1 3d pers. find-ant find-a-d find-a-th
Six terminations have now been reduced to four, almost to
three, there being only a difference of connecting vowel
between findeth and findath ; and that will not last long.
The termination -st may appear as a novelty, but, although
not common, it occurs in the Gothic of the fourth cen-
tury. Its origin is conjectural. The Teutonic settlers in
the British Islands no doubt had marked differences of dia-
lect from the first, which have not yet disappeared. If we
select then the twelfth century, when materials are tolerably
abundant, we shall find among the mixed population of
Angles, Danes, and Northmen north of the Humber, in-
The Conjugation of Verbs. 419
eluding the lowlands of Scotland, a marked simplicity in
their vowel and inflectional systems. They made no distinc-
tion of person or number in their verbs, adding es through-
out in the present tense and nothing in the past. In the
south of England the present tense was conjugated :
Ich find-e we find-e-th
thu find-e-st ye find-e-th
he find-e-th hi find-e-th
The intermediate district between the Humber and the
Thames differed somewhat from both ; and even its east
and west portions differed from each other. These last are
known to the students of English dialects as the East-Mid-
land and the West-Midland. The former conjugated the
singular after the southern model, the latter almost like
the northern, while they agreed in ending the plural in -en
throughout. We may place the three local conjugations
side by side, thus :
NORTHERN MIDLAND SOUTHERN
IST PERS. SING.
20 PERS. SING.
30 PERS. SING.
ALL PERS. PLU.
find-e-s
find-e-s
find-e-s
find-e-s
find-e
find-e-s (or st)
find-e-s (or th)
find-en
find-e
find-e-st
find-e-th
find-e-th
The plural termination -en began to encroach on the others
before the middle of the fourteenth century, was the pre-
vailing form for a hundred years or so, and then gradually
disappeared, leaving the bare verb. It is said that it may
still be heard in Lancashire. Spenser has it when it suits
his rhythm ; but then Spenser was not only a poet, but one
very fond of very old words. The termination of the 2d
pers. sing., whenever used, is that of the south st to
this day. There are four words, however art, ivert, wilt,
shalt, in which only t is added. The northern -es, generally
shortened to -s, is retained for the 3d pers. sing. ; but now
and then, on fit occasion, we may have recourse to the
southern -eth. Indeed, the conflict between these two little
endings may be said to have lasted six hundred years.
Professor Whitney says that " s as ending of the third
420 English Grammar.
person of the verb is rare in Chaucer, and quite unknown
a little earlier." ' He possibly means that it was known
long before Chaucer's time, but had temporarily dis-
appeared ; yet that is not the most natural construction
to put upon his words. Dr. Morris, in the introduction to
his critical edition of Chaucer, says : " The singular in -es
or -is is not sanctioned by the best manuscripts. It is,
however, the ordinary inflection of the Verb in all Northern
dialects." The following examples from among many will
show the use of the verbal termination s, with or without a
connecting vowel, before the time of Chaucer, A.D. 1340 :
" Upsteigh til heven, sittes on right hand
Of God Fadir alle mightand."
"Creed" of 1240.
" Hwat is that lict in ure dene !
Ris up Grim, and loke wat it menes."
" Havelok the Dane," 1300.
" Lauerd, this is a mikel hete,
It greues vs it is sua grete."
" Cursor Mundi," 1320.
" Sain Jerom telles that fiften
Ferle takeninges sal be sen
Befor the day of dom."
" Homilies in Verse," 1330.
" For vnnethes es a child born fully
That it ne bygynnes to goule and cry ;
And by that cry men may knaw than
Whether it is man or woman.
For if it be a man, it says ' a, a,'
That the first letter es of the nam
Of our forme-fader Adam.
And if the child a woman be,
When it es born, it says ' e, e.'
E is the first letter and the hede
Of the name Eue that bygan our dede." 3
ROBERT ROLLE, 1340.
1 " Language and the Study of Language," 93.
1 Morris : " Specimens of Early English," vol. ii.
The Conjugation of Verbs. 421
Two things contributed to gain currency for the northern
termination intercourse with nations, especially the French,
who are without the sound of th and the requirements of
versification. The termination -th adds a syllable not added
by s, to all verbs except do, have, say, and those that end
with a sibilant ; and it is a convenience to be able at will to
use a shorter form. Hence the ending -s is much more fre-
quent in poetry than in prose of the sixteenth and seven-
teeth centuries. In the first part of Raleigh's " History,"
written between 1603 and 1612, of 200 verbs (that is, verbs
that might take the ending -th or -s) only three end in -s, and
those in a poetical quotation. The author adopted -s him-
self before the end of his work. The " Meditationes Histori-
cae " of Philip Camerarius were translated into English by
John Molle and printed in London in 1621. Of 200 verbs
in the first part 185 end in -th, and 15 in -s. Of these 15, 9 are
found in the few verses of poetry quoted. A like sample
from Shakespeare's " Merchant of Venice " yields 57 in -th
and 143 in -s. What is still more conclusive for the influence
of poetry in the matter, I find in a sample from Spenser's
" Fairie Queene" (A.D. 1590) 86 ending in -th and 114 in -s ;
and of the 86, 54 are either doth or hath, in which th does not
add a syllable. The graver class of English writers were
slow to accept -s, even in the seventeenth century. It is rare
in Bacon and excluded altogether from the Bible. Sir
Thomas Browne's " Pseudoxia," A.D. 1658, has 159 verbs
ending in -th to 41 in -s.
The present arrangement of personal endings is :
PRESENT TENSE.
I call we call
thou call-est you call
he call-s (or -eth) they call
PAST TENSE.
I called we called
thou called-est you called
he called they called.
422 English Grammar.
As ~est and -eth are scarcely used except in solemn poetry,
devotional exercises, and burlesque, for the general business
of life our verbs add but one personal ending, -s, with a con-
necting vowel e when necessary. This remote and unrecog-
nizable descendant of the primitive ta or ti is limited to the
present tense, third person, singular, and is not of the slight-
est use even there. It is well to know just how much, or if
you choose, how little, of personality is left.
The termination -est of the 2d pers. sing, is sometimes
omitted from the past tense in poetry.
" That morning, thou that slumbered not before
Nor slept, great Ocean ! laid thy waves to rest,
And hushed thy mighty minstrelsy. No breath
Thy deep composure stirred, no fin, no oar,
Like beauty newly dead, so calm, so still.
So lovely, thou, beneath the light that fell
From angel-chariots sentinelled on high,
Reposed and listened, and saw thy living change,
Thy dead arise."
POLLOCK'S " Course of Time."
THE TENSES OF VERBS.
Actions involve time as a condition, and the particular
time it is often important to show. One way of doing this,
when applicable, is always effective, and that is to give the
day, hour, and minute. When that can be done the form of
the verb is of no importance. " I see at this moment " ; " I see
on the fourteenth of last June at 2 h. 13 m. P.M. " ; "I see
without spectacles during these twenty years," are alike un-
mistakable, if such were the usage ; and there would be no
need to say : " I see" " I saw" " I have seen" Or, like the
Chinese, we might have an unchangeable verb, and an assort-
ment of adverbs meaning something like long ago, last year,
last month, yesterday, now, to-morrow, by and by, hereafter,
etc.,, which might be enlarged to any desired extent. These
expedients are precise, especially the first, but rather
unwieldy ; and so language has generally provided some
The Conjugation of Verbs. 423
short easy way of indicating the time of an action relatively
to some other action, or to some point understood. When
we say " I see" and " I saw "; the former refers the act
of seeing to the time of speaking, the latter refers it to some
earlier time. But unless we call in aid some other words
that is all the distinction of time that our English verb
admits of. I see and I saw is the whole extent. But if addi-
tional words be used the distinctions of time may become
infinite in number and variety. This holds true of change
of form in words, whether called declension, conjugation, or
anything else. The inflections are never sufficient, and have
to be supplemented by auxiliary words. The auxiliary
words are sufficient to do without the inflections altogether,
but they are lengthy. Inflections are a short-hand method
of doing a few easy things.
Now the distinctions of time that various peoples have
woven into the texture of their languages may be very
unlike, and curiously unlike, what most persons would
expect. Ninety-nine in a hundred, who would think of the
matter at all, would think it too obvious to admit of any
difference of opinion that time is either past, present, or
future there can be no other. Of course the past and
future can be further subdivided if needful. But consider
for a moment what is meant by the present. Is it this
year ? Part of the year is past and part future : how much
of it is present ? Or is it this day ? Part of that too is
past and part future ; and so of this hour or minute. As
there is not an inch of the earth's surface that is not either
north or south of the equator, so all time is either past or
future. The present becomes a mathematical point or line,
without breadth ; having only position, and that an ever
shifting one. Moreover, it will be seen hereafter that our
Teutonic ancestors did not impress a threefold division
of time upon their language.
Besides representing an action as taking place before,
after, or during some other action, several further circum-
stances are also noted. It may be regarded as completed or
as still going on, as instantaneous or extending over a long
424 English Grammar.
time. Again, an action may be ended once for all, or
repeated at intervals. We thus have a case of permutations
and combinations that may amount to a large aggregate num-
ber. Accordingly, grammarians are far from agreeing upon
the number of tenses recognizable in the English language.
Harris, one of the most learned and philosophical of them,
reckoned twelve. He first divided all action, or rather all
time, into present, past, and future ; next, each of these divi-
sions had a beginning, middle, and end, making nine subdi-
visions. The primary and secondary divisions made twelve.
The first, or main division was into present, past, and future
aorists
PRESENT I write scribo
PAST I wrote scripsi
FUTURE I shall write scribam
Each one was then divided into beginning, continuing, and
finishing the action.
I was going to write scripturus eram
I was writing scribebam
I had written scripseram
I am going to write scripturus sum
I am writing scribo, scribens sum
I have written scripsi
I shall be beginning to write scripturus ero
I shall be writing scribam, scribens ero
I shall have written scripsero
Here was a table laid out for the absolute divisions of time
without reference to the expressions that any given lan-
guage might have in use. If English, 1 Dutch, and Chinese
could not fill all the spaces, they might leave them empty.
A somewhat inferior arrangement of these twelve tenses
is given in a little book called " Outlines of English Gram-
mar," by C. P. Mason, Fellow cf University College, London,
which reached its tenth edition in 1883. Others again, like
1 " Hermes ; or, A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Universal Grammar,"
by James Harris, Esq. London, 1751.
The Conjugation of Verbs. 425
Lowth, Dalton, and Cobbett, still thinking of the meta-
physical division of time rather than the facts of language,
make three past, present, and future. Among those who
view the matter from the philological side, Dr. Latham and
Prof. Whitney admit only two real tenses, the present and
past, as we have separate and single terms for them see and
saw, write and wrote, smile and smiled. It is evident that
whatever disagreement there is relates only to the meaning
of the terms used, the one party intending an a priori divi-
sion of the time of actions, the other having in view expres-
sions of common English speech. A third division might
be made by enumerating the expressions that might be
readily met with distinguishing the time of actions, includ-
ing their commencement, continuance, termination, fre-
quency, and repetition. In that way considerably more
than twenty tenses might be counted up ; but there is no
precise limit to them, and every one has an equal right
to enumerate as many as he pleases. But far the greater
number of persons have reckoned them at six. For doing
this they have had the poorest of reasons that there are
six in Latin. If we had been nursed on Greek for the last
thousand years, we should undoubtedly have had seven ; if
Hebrew had been the language of the Church and the
schools, we should now have only two. For those six tenses
the Latin has six simple expressions, while we have only two.
Placing them in the order of time, they are as follows :
PLUPERFECT scripseram I had written
PERFECT scrips! I wrote
IMPERFECT scribebam I kept writing
PRESENT scribo I write
FUTURE-PERFECT scripsero I shall have written
FUTURE scribam I shall write
On this basis far the greater number have reckoned six
tenses in English, with the above names, or nearly the same,
In arranging them the grammarian usually places the pres-
ent first, then works backward to the pluperfect, next jumps
from the far away past to the future, and ends with the
426 English Grammar.
future-perfect. This scheme has been so long and familiarly
known, and is so nearly equal in merit to any other yet pro-
posed, that little is to be gained by a change. Of course it
is obvious that only two of these tenses can be expressed in
a single word, which may be taken to be native and prime-
val. All the others may be regarded as later and artificial
combinations. Of these six then, real or supposed, I shall
offer a few remarks.
PRESENT. The ancestors of the Slavonic and Teutonic
nations seem to have had from the earliest times that we
know of only two distinct and developed tenses, correspon-
ding to the English, I write and I wrote. These have been
reckoned as Present and Past. None of them have a corre-
sponding form for the future. In time the Slavonic race
developed a future for the verb to be, by means of which
futures for the other verbs were formed, somewhat like,
will be writing ; consisting, however, of only two words.
By the aid of auxiliaries still preserved as separate words
many other temporal distinctions have from time to time
been added.
It is interesting to observe that the important and highly
developed Shemitic languages, as Arabic and Hebrew, have
only two tenses, commonly called the Past and the Future
with no Present. All Shemitic scholars are aware that the
terms do not fit well. Caspari says :
" The temporal forms of Arabic are two, with in a general way
the distinction, that the first indicates a completed, the second
an uncompleted action. * * * The names Preterit and Fu-
ture, by which they are usually distinguished, are given up, as
not corresponding accurately with their import." 1
But is not this the case also with the European lan-
guages ? The point of separation in both cases seems to me
to be not one of time, but the distinction between a thing
done, and one not yet done, between what is finished and
what is unfinished. Finished action or work is wholly in
the past ; what is unfinished is, in whole or in part future.
1 Arabic Grammar, book ii.
The Conjugation of Verbs. 427
Confining ourselves now to our own language, the distinc-
tion is best preserved in our two participles. If a house is
built, the work is ended. So long as we are building a
house, part of the work is past and part future, only the
point of separation between the two being present. But
when of two expressions one is wholly appropriated to the
past, the other must serve for both present and future.
So from the earliest times known our northern ancestors
had but a single fprm for both. Mere futurity is almost
invaribly thus expressed by Ulfilas. Such too was the rule
in Anglo-Saxon, although a rule gradually relaxed. The
address of the angel to Mary (Luke i., 31) translated from
the A.S. Gospels would read thus :
" Truly now thou conceivest, and bearest a son and namest his
name Healer. He is great, and called the son of the Highest ;
and the Lord God giveth him the seat of his father David. And he
reigntth in Jacob's house forever, and of his kingdom there is no
end."
The present is, and always has been one means for ex-
pressing the future.
" Alle other wommen I forsake,
And to an elf queen I me take,
By dale and eek by doune."
CHAUCER : " C. T.," 15,201.
" I drinke the aire before and returne
Or ere your pulse twice beate."
SHAKESP. : " Tempest," v., i.
" Wring the black drop from your heart,
And to-morrow unites us no more to part
********
to-morrow we give to the slaughter and flame
The sons and the shrines of the Christian name."
BYRON : " Siege of Corinth."
" ' It was lucky for you, young man,' said Antony Vander
Heyden, that you happened to be knocked overboard to-day, as
to-morrow morning we start early on our return."
WASHINGTON IRVINP.
428 English Grammar.
The present is more especially used in suppositions with
such words as whoever, whenever, when, until.
" Eat ye every one of his own vine, and every one of his
fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his own cistern ;
until I come and take you away to a land like your own."
ISAIAH xxxvi., 16.
In such cases an interpolated shall would be stiff and cum-
brous.
" Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute
you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely."
MATT, v., n.
" We shall be obliged to hold our judgments suspended until
the general relations of the north-eastern Asiatic languages are
better settled." PROF. WHITNEY : " Language," etc.
" Every person specified * * * in the following section,
who has been since the fourth day of May, eighteen hundred
sixty-one, or who is hereafter disabled."
" If any person embraced within the provisions of sections
* * * has died since the fourth day of March, * * * or
hereafter dies" "U. S. Revised Statutes," 4,692, 4,702.
There are reckoned three forms of the present tense.
I write I do write I am writing
No particular term is needed to describe the first, which is
regarded as the original or normal form. The second is
called the emphatic, the third the progressive or continuous.
The second with do is used to reiterate or enforce a state-
ment, especially when doubted or disputed. It is also
necessary in interrogative and negative sentences '''Did
you see the fire ? " "I did see it" for we have abandoned
the much neater expressions: Saw you the fire? and I
saw it not. Do is not used with other auxiliaries nor gen-
erally with the verb to be. We may say : " I did have an
umbrella," but not, " I did be there." The difference
between the other two forms may be illustrated thus :
John//<yv the fiddle George is playing the fiddle
The Conjugation of Verbs. 429
The first can play, and has been known at sundry times
to entertain himself and friends in that way, but has not
drawn a bow these six months. The other is playing at
this moment ; listen to him ! The simple expression, in
most instances, is not really a present in signification, but
represents a long-continued habit continued in the past
and expected in the future. No one says : " I build a
house" or " I write an article for a magazine ; " for these are
not continuous habits ; but one may say : " I build houses"
or " I am just now writing an article" This distinction is
confined chiefly to verbs that express some kind of activity,
employment, or habit, and does not apply to those that
represent perceptions or sensations. I see a column of
smoke rising, hear a steam whistle, feel chilly. I am listen-
ing to the music, but hear the alarm bell.
PAST or PRETERIT. This is the only other tense expres-
sible by a single word " The sun rose "; " The ship sailed" ;
"We all waited" Like the present, it has three forms
" The ship sailed, was sailing, or did sail" not differing
in respect of time. Several names have been applied to
this tense, no one of which is perfectly satisfactory. It
might be called simply the past, but that is not thought
sufficiently distinctive, as there are two other past tenses.
At one time it was common to speak of it as the imperfect ;
because it did not in itself contain a reference to any
other event, or to any particular time. But that name was
found objectionable because in use in the Greek and Latin
grammars to denote actions at once prolonged and past.
Those languages would translate by the imperfect " He
wrote six months " ; but not, " He wrote a poem." But the
English tense whatever we may call it does not maintain
this distinction. If, however, we wish to make prominent
the continuity of action, we employ the compound form.
He was writing, continued writing, etc. The prefix preter
or prceter (Latin prater, past, beyond) was sometimes
applied to all the past tenses, which were then called preter-
imperfect, preterperfect, preterpluperfect ; but for all ration-
al purposes, the prefix was unnecessary, and has been
430 English Grammar.
generally abandoned. Finally the term preterit (Latin prce-
teritus, gone by) has been very generally applied to the
tense under consideration, not only in English, but in most
of the languages of Europe. The word has a feeble and
foreign sound, and literally means no more than past, but it
is widely recognized and understood. It is also unambigu-
ous, being employed solely as a grammatical term, for it
would be insufferably pedantic to speak of the preterit week
or preterit joys. Greek grammar is familiar with a tense
called the aorist, corresponding precisely to our simplest
past, and like it used in narrating past events. Aorist, then,
would have been the fittest term to adopt ; but that word
has never obtained currency among us for the reason that
our pattern and schoolmistress was not Greek but Latin.
The most appropriate name would be the narrative or
historical tense. Opening at a venture Hume's " History
of England," I find of 200 consecutive verbs, 180 of this
tense and 20 of the pluperfect. The reader can now have
his choice of names.
" I wrote a book " expresses action past and ended ; " I
wrote six months " is past, prolonged, and ended that is, my
labor on it is ended ; " I was writing " expresses action
continuous, past, but unfinished. All the tenses except the
present have these three distinctions.
PERFECT. What is called the perfect tense in English is
always formed by the aid of the auxiliary have. We have
already seen that have primarily signifies possession, but
that, in becoming an auxiliary, it passes insensibly into com-
binations in which possession is not thought of. The first
departure was undoubtedly a sentence like this :
I have trained horses,
which is ambiguous. If trained\>z associated with horses, it
is an adjective, and have, standing alone, retains its original
sense of possession. But if it be joined with have, the two
form one verb in the perfect tense. Introduce the word six,
and there is no longer ambiguity. The word trained must
The Conjugation of Verbs. 431
be either before or after the six, which can only belong to
the noun. There are then the two distinct alternatives :
I have six trained horses ;
I have trained six horses.
This tense no more expresses a completed or finished
action than any other, if we include the two expressions :
The river has risen, and the river has been rising.
Completion or continuance depends on the participle em-
ployed. Yet, although the past participle generally denotes
completed action, it is sometimes used to denote what is
still going on. " I have lived here twenty years " is precisely
equivalent to " I have been living here twenty years." I have
been an " Odd Fellow ten years," " I have suffered from
headache all my life " are past and present, with a prospect
of futurity.
There is but one permanent characteristic of the perfect
tense. While it speaks of the past it is in some way con-
nected with the present. " I have hired a horse." The
implication is that I still have the animal have a hired
horse. Have here retains with us a trace of its original
present signification. This perfect connected with the
present may reach back to an illimitable past. " Matter
has existed from eternity " is good in grammar, however it
may be in philosophy. In general the subject or actor must
still exist, also the object or thing acted upon ; and the time,
if named, must always include the present. We do not say
of a deceased person that he has done this or that, but that
he did. Still to this there are exceptions. Of one lately
dead we sometimes say that he has left his family or affairs
in such or such a condition, and, for a longer period, that he
has left us his example. Of one who died leaving writings
or literary compositions we use the perfect tense, or even
the present, without regard to lapse of time. Homer has
described the descent of Odysseus into the infernal regions,
and exposes the demagogue in the character of Thersites.
432 English Grammar.
By a kind of poetic figure we endow the author with per-
petual life ; " and by it he being dead yet speaketh." *
" A B has built a mill " is said only while both
builder and mill remain. But strangely enough we may say
that he has built twenty mills, though the greater part of
them may have perished, provided they be so scattered in
time as to form a kind of habit or business of life. The
series of structures may not yet have come to an end.
If the time be named, it must include the present. It
may be of any length this century, this year, this week,
to-day, but never last week or an hour ago. Foreigners are
slow to learn this distinction, and are apt to speak of what
has happened yesterday or last week. Even native writers
of great merit sometimes fall into this solecism.
" I make no doubt they have figured about these apartments in
days long past, when they have set off the charms of some peerless
family beauty." IRVING : " Bracebridge Hall."
A kind of perfect tense, formed of the past participle of
intransitive verbs with the verb to be, was formerly common,
especially about the beginning of the last century. To the
perfect was naturally added a pluperfect of the same type.
" I am in blood
Stept in so farre, that should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go ore."
SHAKESP. : "Macbeth," iii., iv.
" They were got about two miles beyond Barnet."
FIELDING : "Tom Jones," 12, 14.
" The court was sat" ADDISON : Spectator.
" The horsemen are returned" Id.
This use of the verb to be is much less common now, and,
except with those who affect an antiquated style, is limited
to such words as come, gone, flown, fled, risen, fallen, that ex-
press change of place or condition. When we say " The
column is fallen " we do not think of its recent fall, but of its
present prostration. For this reason we say " Much rain has
1 Hebrews xi., 4.
The Conjugation of Verbs. 433
fallen" but not " Much rain is fallen" for as soon as fallen
it ceases to be rain. In short, the participle in such connec-
tion is used adjectively, and not as part of a verb. This is
made clear when both forms of expression come together.
" Ye have come too late but ye are come ! "
COLERIDGE : " Piccolomini," i., i.
This is equivalent to saying :
" You have come too late still you are here."
If we take " The boy is grown " for a perfect tense, we
must accept " The boy was grown" as a pluperfect. In
that case what tenses are, " The boy has been grown" and
" The boy had been grown " ? Such expressions are found.
" Amelia and her companions returned * * * laden with
trinkets as if they had been come from a fair."
FIELDING: " Amelia," vi., i.
If in the last example but one we substitute large for grown
the matter will become quite simple.
The perfect tense of all transitive verbs is to be formed
with have, and all others may be so formed. Except in the
passive of transitive verbs, which we have not yet reached,
be should be used only in representing a condition, not an
act.
PLUPERFECT. The word is intended to signify more than
perfect, but as perfect in grammar does not mean completed,
so pluperfect does not mean more than completed. Indeed
in value and usage there is no relation between the two,
except that in the one have retains its present reference, and
in the other had is past. The two never come together.
The pluperfect expresses an action or event not only past,
but prior to some other event also past ; but the latter is
represented by the preterit, not by the perfect.
" I had heard that before you came " not " before you have
come"
" Jacob Bunting, so was this gentleman called, had been for
434 English Grammar.
many years in the King's service, in which he had risen to the
rank of corporal, and had saved and pinched together a small in-
dependence, upon which he now rented his cottage and enjoyed
his leisure."
BULWER : " Eugene Aram," i., i.
There are, as of all the tenses, the two forms, "/ had
written" and " I had been writing" with the usual difference
between the two participles.
FUTURE. It has been already observed that our language
never had at any known period a single word for the future,
and that Gothic and Anglo-Saxon habitually employed the
present in speaking of things to come. Yet both those
languages would on rare occasions, in order to show how
the future event was to be brought about, combine an
auxiliary with an infinitive, just as we do. Those auxiliaries
were oftenest will and shall, of which the first expressed
choice, voluntary determination, the second some external
controlling power or influence. These are the means com-
monly used by us to form future tenses. The difference
between will and shall, so far as I have been able to dis-
cern, has been given in treating of the auxiliaries ; but the
subject spreads out into ramifications so slender that the
distinction becomes scarcely perceptible, and is not con-
sistently maintained even by very careful writers. We saw
that for centuries shall was used almost to the exclusion of
will, except in expressing a mental resolution ; but that for
three or four hundred years will has been coming more and
more into use. Grammarians are apt to speak of this some-
what as a zealous clergyman would of the neglect of the
Sabbath ; but in the interest of simplicity and intelligibility
I am pleased to hear people say that things will, not that
they shall be done. Nearly all who claim to be authorities
would give the future tense of the verb to write substantially
in the following form :
I shall write We shall write
Thou wilt write You will write
He will write They will write.
The Conjugation of Verbs. 435
But this formula is scarcely ever adhered to throughout.
Except in prayer and solemn poetry, you will takes the
place of thou wilt. No reason but of the flimsiest kind can
be given to justify the retention of / shall along with you
will. And even our most conservative pedagogues will
allow us to say " We will " when we are very sure of any-
thing. Hence / will is looked on as a more positive assur-
ance than I shall. The strangest anomaly of all is the rule
that in making an assertion we are to say " You will" but in
asking a question, " Shall you ? " The reason assigned is as
strange as the rule namely, that we should shape the
question in imitation of the answer expected. 1 I am not
aware that a similar rule or reason is applied to anything
else in the world but the word shall. At page 392 I have
suggested a different origin for the anomaly, yet cannot pre-
tend to know the reasons which govern each one in his
choice of words.
Several other phrases that serve the purpose of a future
tense have been adopted from time to time. The oldest of
these, found already in the Gothic in the form of munan, to
think, remember, have a mind to, mean to, was not uncom-
mon in early English, forming a future, like will or shall,
" It is no boyte mercy to crave,
For if I do I man none have."
" Townley Mysteries."
This word passed out of use in English, or became merged
in the verb to mean. It survives in Scotland, but as early
as the times of Barbour and Gawin Douglas had taken the
meaning of must.
" And sen I maun zour erran rin
Sai sair against my will ;
I 'se mak a vow and keep it trow,
It shall be done for ill."
" Ballad of Gil Morrice."
" This may do maun do Sir, wie them wha
. Maun please the great folk for a wamefou."
1 Whitney, " Essentials of English Grammar," p. 120.
436 English Grammar.
Another very old expression is formed by combining the
verb to be with an infinitive. We find such in Anglo-
Saxon :
'* Sende thone the thu to sendene eart"
(Send him whom thou art to send.)
EXOD. iv., 13.
" Se the to cumenne is sefter me vaes beforan me."
(He that is to come after me was before me.)
JOHN i., 15.
This is still good English, and we may expect any day to
hear that " there is to be a great wedding, and we all are to
be invited, and the Bishop is to officiate" and a great many
other things are to be.
" We are going to build a new church." A phrase of this
kind is now the most common expression for the immediate
future. " We shall build" is quite indefinite as to time, but
the other form promises prompt, or quite early, action. Ac-
cording to Kington Oliphant it first appeared in its present
form in the " Revelations of the Monk of Evesham," about
1470,' and so has been in use a little over four hundred
years. Phrases very similar are still older, and no doubt
took their origin from an actual going with intent to do
something. They seem to have come from the French, who
have the two corresponding expressions,
Je vats ecrire une lettre
(I go to write a letter)
and
Je wens cTecrire une lettre
(I come from writing a letter).
That is, I have just written one. We have not yet adopted
this last, nor quite naturalized the excellent Hibernianism :
" I '11 be afther writing."
" I have to write " is generally, but not necessarily, future.
In point of time it is like the original tense, that was both
present and future. It also embodies the idea of necessity
1 "New English," ii., 322.
The Conjugation of Verbs. 437
expressed by must. Lastly, there is the present tense used
as a future :
I will write I will be writing
I shall write I shall be writing
I am to write I am to be writing
I am going to write I am going to be writing
I have to write I have to be writing
How many future tenses are here ? one ? or two ? or
ten ? Reader, count for yourself. There are certainly ten
ways of expressing future action, all differing in form and
slightly in effect, except that between "I will" and "I
shall" there is no difference in value. But do they form
ten tenses ? or half the number ? or what number ? If we
call them ten and invent ten names for them, we shall not
understand our language the better, nor use it any better.
There are but two elements of difference difference of form
and difference of signification or application. But then two
questions arise how much difference in either is required to
make a grammatical distinction ? and what are we to do
when difference of form is united with identity of applica-
tion, or identity of form with diversity of application ? The
older grammarians attached most importance to the aggre-
gate value of whole phrases ; the latter dwell more on the
history and form of single words. But consistency is not
common with either is probably impossible. To implore
and to command " forgive us our trespasses," and " forward
march ! " represent attitudes of the speaker as opposite as
the poles, yet both verbs are said to be imperative, which
means commanding. How different is it to ask a question
and to make an assertion ; yet that difference is rarely made
a grammatical distinction. The imperative and the simpler
form of the infinitive are always alike, yet grammarians
make two different modes of sing in the following sentence :
" Please sing us that song I have often heard you sing"
Some go so far as to maintain that the last is not a verb at
all but a noun. Indeed the rules of English grammar are
not a consistent body of doctrine framed during the six days
43 8 English Grammar.
of creation, and unchanged ever since, but a compromising
and inconsistent patchwork. It may well be doubted if any
two could state them alike beyond the merest outlines,
except in so far as they copied. It is a curious fact that
children of tender years have so often been taught, as their
life-guidance, a mass of stuff that they could not compre-
hend, and on which the learned could not agree.
FUTURE-PERFECT. The future-perfect represents a fu-
ture action preceding some other future action or event. It
was no doubt applied at first to actions expected to be com-
pleted or ended before a certain time, but when it is made
up with the continuing participle in -ing, as
By the end of June he will have been studying German six months,
the termination of the action is not implied. The simplest
form of this tense is like the following :
The sun will have set before we reach home.
" Before this time to-morrow I shall have gained a peerage or
Westminster Abbey." SOUTHEY : " Life of Nelson."
A sentence containing a future-perfect tense, when fully
expressed, consists of two parts. There is the principal or
direct part of the sentence, and a defining clause indicating
the time. In the example above, " The sun will have set "
is the main or direct statement ; " before we reach home,"
the defining clause. The future-perfect should rarely, if
ever, be used in the latter, and may often be omitted in the
former. It is just as well to say :
The sun will set before we reach home. The defining
clause may not contain a verb, in which case there is no
question about the tense in that part.
We shall then have walked five miles.
Here the defining clause is reduced to the single word then.
The future-perfect is a cumbrous expression, to be
avoided whenever possible, which can be done in several
ways.
First. We may use the present tense :
The Conjugation of Verbs. 439
" which may yet be established * * * when this com-
parison shall have been made with sufficient knowledge."
WHITNEY : " Language," etc.
" We shall be obliged to hold our judgments suspended until
the general relations of the north-eastern Asiatic languages are
better settled" Id.
In my judgment the latter example is much to be preferred.
" Until this transfer is effected, a guard of one officer and ten
enlisted men will be left at the post."
Hd. Qrs., Dept. of Dakota, April 8, 1891.
Second. The perfect tense may be used :
" The system of records * * * w in be commenced Janu-
ary, i, 1890. When an error or mistake is discovered. * * *
After the system has gone into operation the inspector of records
in the performance of his duty, will report whenever he ascer-
tains" etc. "Order of the War Depart., Nov. 2, 1889."
Third. We may use the future, as in example above :
" The sun will set " etc.
" I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of
God shall come." LUKE xxii., 18.
Fourth. Sometimes, but rarely, we find the preterit :
"And to every male citizen, whether refugee or freedman as
aforesaid, there shall be assigned not more than forty acres of
such land, and the person to whom it was so assigned shall be
protected in the use and enjoyment of the land."
" U. S. Statutes," 15, 508.
The following short example illustrates various ways of
representing the same future event. It is the last part of
John xiii., 38 in successive versions : Gothic, Anglo-Saxon,
Wycliffe, Tyndale, and the authorized version, with which
the new revision is identical.
"Amen, amen, qitha thus, thei hana ni hrukeith unte thu mik
tf/tfz/foV kunnan thrim sintham."
(Transl.) Verily, verily, I say unto thee, the cock croweth not
until thou deniest knowing me three times.
44-O English Grammar.
" Soth ic the secge, ne craweth se cocc, aer thti with-secgst me
thriwa."
(Transl.) In sooth I say to thee, the cock croweth not ere thou
deniest me thries.
" Treuli, treuli, I seie to thee, the koc schall not crowe till
thou schalt denye me thries."
" Verely, verely, I saye vnto thee, the cock shall not croive, till
thou have denyed me thryse."
" Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow till
thou hast denied me thrice."
As both the perfect and the future are relatively late in
the Teutonic family of languages, we may well believe that
the future-perfect is the youngest of all the tenses. Yet
it is found as early as the beginning of the thirteenth cen-
tury in line 151 of the " Ormulum."
" & 3iff the33 all forwerrthenn itt,
Itt turrnethth hemm till sinne ;
& I shall hafenn addledd me
The Laferrd Cristess are."
(And if they all reject it,
It turneth to them for sin ;
And I shall have earned me
The Lord Christ's wrath.)
MOODS.
I have met with no satisfactory definition of mood or
mode in grammar, and am unable to give one. But before
attempting even an approximate account of the thing it
may be well to determine the name we shall call it by. The
word that has been most commonly and constantly used,
especially in England is mood, while late American writers
give the preference to mode. This seems to come from a
desire to distinguish it from the quite different word mood,
a state of the mind, with which it has no connection. The
grammatical term is derived from the Latin word modus,
measure or manner, from which we have many words
mode, moderate, modest, accommodate, and others. It occurs
The Conjugation of Verbs. 441
in both forms, mood and mode, and as a grammatical term is
quite as technical and special as tense. In the form mode
the word is employed in logic to denote certain differences
among propositions, which is one reason for calling the
grammatical term mood.
The several moods are different ways in which the speaker
regards the action of which he speaks, as related to himself.
That will not make a definition, for it may be true of other
distinctions. Still it is true so far as it goes. Take first
the distinction of number ; second the distinction of person,
heretofore explained ; third, the distinction of tense or time;
fourth, the distinction of active and passive of acting and
being acted upon, then all other variations in the form and
construction of our verbs are distinctions of mood. The
speaker may regard the action as a fact within his knowledge.
The ship has sailed.
He may regard it as a thing unknown to him, but which he
desires to know :
Has the ship sailed '?
It may be uncertain and a condition on which something
else depends :
If the ship have sailed.
It may be uncertain depending on another uncertainty :
If the wind be fair, the ship may sail.
It may be a thing wished for :
O that the ship would sail.
The speaker may command the action :
Sail the ship.
He may treat it as an adjective or quality :
He preferred a sailing ship to a steamer ;
or as an entity or thing :
Contrary winds delayed the sailing of the ship.
Or he may strip the action of all these and show it in primi-
tive nakedness :
A freshening breeze soon made the ship sail.
442 English Grammar.
These may not be generally called moods, but they illus-
trate the kind of distinctions to which the term is applicable.
There is no precise limit to their number. One authority
very justly says : " As the whole order of the variation of
words in the conjugation of a verb is merely arbitrary, those
who invent them may arrange them into what order they
please and call them by what names they may think most
proper. But, however they may vary the names or external
arrangement, this does not affect the things themselves."
That is, such examples as those above given exist in our
language and are beyond individual control ; but any one
may classify them as he pleases. The same writer suggests
as names of moods : Declarative or Indicative, the Potential,
the Elective, the Determinative, the Compulsive, the Obliga-
tive, the Subjunctive, the Optative, the Imperative, the Re-
quisitive, the Precative, the Interrogative, and the Vocative ; 1
and perhaps ingenuity could double even that number. I
am not aware that any one has seriously worked out a gram-
mar with anything like so many moods. For practical
purposes I shall confine myself to the number now acknowl-
edged by the most learned expositors of the English lan-
guage. Those are the Indicative, the Subjunctive, the Im-
perative, the Infinitive, and Participle, admitting at the same
time that both the number and the names are quite arbitrary
and might easily have been very different.
.INDICATIVE. This includes all simple direct assertions :
<r The sun shines " / " The day was warm " ; " They marched
all night." The presence of the negative not makes no
grammatical difference anywhere, beyond requiring the use
of do with an infinitive form in all cases except with the
verbs to be, to have, and the auxiliaries. " The sun did not
shine " / " The day was not warm " ; " They did not march
all night." But this change of arrangement is not held to
alter mood, tense, person, or number. Under the indicative
are included direct questions, which in like manner require
the auxiliary do " Does the sun shine ? " Observe that, in
assertions, the subject or agent is placed first, the verb next,
1 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2d ed., article " Grammar."
The Conjugation of Verbs. 443
but that in questions the order is reversed. " The day is
warm." " Is the day warm ? " But when an auxiliary is
used, that alone is placed before the subject. This is one
reason why some of the most profound grammarians hold
the auxiliary in such case to be the real verb ; another is
that it alone is inflected for person, number, mood, and
tense. There are two ways of regarding a complex ex-
pression. It may be taken collectively as a whole, or word
by word. Language here finds a parallel in algebra, where
the complex expression ^ (L _ ^-V _|_ ^ may be taken
and handled as a unit, or regard may be had to the value of
each single character. The first method is preferable for
some purposes, the second for others.
The indicative is used not only when the speaker expresses
his own convictions, but also when he represents the thoughts
and words of others, whether correct or incorrect. " Who
do men say that the Son of man /"*** " But who say
ye that I am ? " '
A supposition given as the ground of some other proposi-
tion takes an indicative when the supposition is regarded as
a fact and not a matter of doubt.
"If thou accountedst it shame, lay it on me."
SHAKESP. : " Taming of the Shrew," iv., 3.
" If there is a class who, in contempt of its follies and disgust
at its corruptions, have contracted towards Religion a repugnance
which makes them overlook the fundamental verity contained in
it ; so too, is there a class offended to such a degree by the de-
structive criticisms men of science make on the religious tenets
they regard as essential, that they have acquired a strong preju-
dice against Science in general."
HERBERT SPENCER : " First Principles," Chapter i.
The above examples are introduced by the dubitative
word if, but suppositions may be introduced by many other
words, such as unless, though, whether, whoever, suppose.
1 Matt, xvi., 13-16, Revised Version.
444 English Grammar.
" Shall we say then that whether it consists of an infinitely divisi-
ble element or of ultimate units incapable of further division, its
parts are everywhere in actual contact ? "
SPENCER'S " First Principles," Chap. iii.
The doctrine that suppositions take the indicative only
when admitted as facts is more applicable to the language as
it was than as it now is ; for this mood is a growing and ex-
tending one, not limited now to certainties, but used in say-
ing many things that were formerly expressed otherwise.
" If it is the first cause, the conclusion is reached. If it is
not the first cause, then by implication there must be a cause be-
hind it ; which thus becomes the real cause of the effect."
SPENCER'S " First Principles," Chap. ii.
The writer does not take these two opposite suppositions to
be both true, but both in doubt ; and had he lived a century
earlier would probably have written be instead of is.
In regard to forms, the indicative can scarcely be said to
have any determined by the mood ; certainly none unless it
be in the anomalous verb to be. Its variations are deter-
mined by person, number, and tense ; not by mood ; and of
these variations it preserves by far the largest remains. Of
every verb always excepting the verb to be there is one
simplest form, as, for example, go. This might be called the
ground form, but it is found alike in all moods, not including
the participle, unless changed for person, number, or tense.
SUBJUNCTIVE. Statements, assertions, predications, as
they are variously called, are not all put forth as positive
facts ; but many of them are uttered hesitatingly as being
suppositions, conditioned, or conditional. From the earliest
ages that we know of certain forms of the verb have been
assigned to these timid hesitating utterances. But as the hesi-
tancy is of all degrees, and due to a great variety of causes,
it has been found difficult or impossible to keep these dubi-
tative forms of the verb clearly distinguished in form and
application. In Sanskrit they are in a state of great confu-
sion ; in Greek it is doubtful whether the difference between
subjunctive and optative be one of mood or of tense ; Latin
The Conjugation of Verbs.
445
has but one of these doubtful divisions, but the student
knows that it covers a wide field, whose boundaries are hard
to trace. In English it is the central difficulty of the lan-
guage not the less difficult that only vestiges of it remain.
It is often impossible to tell at present whether a verb in a
given case be indicative or subjunctive. It rarely has a
separate or special form of its own. That this was not so in
the earlier ages of the language will appear on comparing the
Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, and English of the verb find.
i PERS. SING.
FLU.
PRESENT INDICATIVE
finth-a find-e
finth-is find-est
finth-ith find-eth
finth-am find-ath
finth-ith find-ath
finth-and
find-ath
find
find-est
find-s
find
find
find
PRETERIT INDICATIVE.
i PERS. SING.
fanth
fand
found
2
fanst
fand-e
found-est
3
f(
fanth
fand
found
i
PLU.
fanth-um
fand
found
2
fanth-uth
fund-e
found
3
H
fanth-un
fand
found
PRESENT SUBJUNCTIVE.
1 PERS. SING. finth-au
2 " " finth-ais
3 " " finth-ai
1 " PLU. finth-aima
2 " " finth-aith
3 " " finth-aina
PRETERIT SUBJUNCTIVE.
1 PER. SING, funth-jau )
2 " " funth-eis Hunde
3 " " funth-i )
i " PLU. funth-eima }
a " " funth-eith L fund-en
3 " " funth-eina
found
446 English Grammar.
The reader will not fail to notice the lengthening of the
subjunctive vowels in Gothic, a feature common to that
language, Greek, and Sanskrit. On this peculiarity Professor
Ernst Curtius remarks :
" The lengthening of the sound between the root and the per-
sonal ending naturally and meaningly distinguishes the hesitating
and conditional statement from the unconditional." '
It will also be seen by the Anglo-Saxon column that in
course of five or six hundred years the six original forms
had become reduced to two ; and that in another equal
period there remained in English only one. Moreover, in
the perterit tense that one is derived from the plural of the
past indicative, never from the singular. In English, with
one exception, the preterit subjunctive is identical with
the preterit indicative. But in that exceptional instance, in
which there are separate forms for singular and plural in the
past indicative, the past subjunctive adopts the plural. We
say : / zvas, he was, we were, they were, but if I were, if he
were, if they were. The second person singular is excep-
tional and peculiar, and offers the sole example in the lan-
guage of a form found only in the subjunctive. Indie, thou
wast, subj. if thou wert, which also is allied to the plurals.
In point of form the subjunctive is the perfection of sim-
plicity ; the intricacy is all in using it. The first peculiarity
that I shall mention is a shifting verschiebung as the Ger-
mans call it of the tenses. The present is not so much a
present as a future ; what has been called the preterit is
present in effect ; and what is pluperfect in form is simply
past or preterit in its application. In the following illus-
tration let the words, yesterday, etc., show the real time.
Before yesterday Yesterday To-day To-morrow
Ind. It had rained It rained It rains It will rain
Sub. If it had rained If it rained If it rain
These expressions may be further expanded.
If it had rained yesterday, there would be less dust now.
If it rained now we should get wet.
If it rain to-morrow, we will stay indoors.
1 " History of Greece," Chap, i.
77ie Conjugation of Verbs. 447
It is not necessary to say : " If it should rain " ; for, " If
it rain," serves the purpose quite as well ; and it would be
impossible to say whether the longer expression were in-
dicative or subjunctive. Expressions like : " If he shall,"
" If it shall," are admissible, and often met with ; but I can-
not think of a case where they are necessary. On the other
hand, "If he will" does serve a useful purpose, as: "We
will give him an equal share in the venture, if he will accept
it." But in such case will retains its sense of the volition
" if he be willing to accept it." Then turning the sentence
and stretching the analogy, we still retain the will, saying ;
" We will give him an equal share with ourselves, if that
will please him." Stretching the analogy still farther and
beyond the limit of intelligent volition, we go on to say such
things as this : " Immerse these eggs in melted paraffine,
and see if that will preserve them." In fact we employ
the word wherever there is a desirable purpose of doubtful
attainment. We cannot be sure in such cases whether will
is indicative or subjunctive.
I have said that in the subjunctive the tense that is pres-
ent in form is generally future in its reference, but even the
apparently past but really present tense is often shifted so
far that its reference is future. We may inquire of one
going out in a boat : " What would you do if a storm
arose ? "
" To turn the rein were sin and shame,
To fight -were deadly peril ;
What would you do now, Roland Cheyne,
Were ye Glenallan's Earl ? "
SCOTT : " The Antiquary," Chap. 40.
It would be more in accordance with modern usage to
say in the above samples ; " should arise " and " would be " ;
but such a change would not alter mood, tense, or sense.
It would be merely substituting a compound verbal expres-
sion for a simple one. In complex verbal expressions it is
only the auxiliary that is varied to distinguish mood, tense,
person, or number. Of these have and be are followed by
the participle ; the others take the infinitive.
I will sing, thou didst sing, they might sing.
448 English Grammar.
I am surprised ; thou mightest have been surprised ; they will be
surprised.
This circumstance goes to confirm the view of those who
hold that, so far as grammar goes, the auxiliary is, in these
cases, the real verb. It is also inconsistent with the exist-
ence of a separate mood that used to be called the potential ;
that is the mood which expressed possibilities. It was made
by the aid of several auxiliaries may, can, and sometimes
must, will, and shall. It was never claimed that " I shall
write " belonged to this mood. That was called future in-
dicative ; but " I should write " was so claimed. In a pre-
tentious grammar now before me that is called the past tense
of the potential mode ; but it is not a past tense, in fact,
and never relates to past time.
"If I &z</pen, ink, and paper, I should write now."
Had is here the past subjunctive of have, should is the
same of shall, but, as already shown, past subjunctives refer
to the present or the future. May was held to be the typi-
cal sign of the potential mood, but might is the past sub-
junctive oi-may. If, then, "I may write" were present
potential, "I might write" would be the subjunctive mood
of the potential mood, which I suppose no one claims.
The field occupied by the subjunctive is so large and ir-
regular that it is difficult to define its limits or designate its
several portions. The problem is complicated by the fact
that such occupancy is only a kind of tenancy in common,
there are so many cases in which some other mood might be
put in its place. In the examples which are now to follow
I shall give under each subdivision those that contain a sub-
junctive, and then per contra others of the same character,
except that a different mood is used.
The subjunctive is used in expressing suppositions and
results depending on supposed conditions. A conditional
sentence may be roughly defined as a sentence whereof one
half is a condition on which the other half depends. Take
this as a typical example :
The Conjugation of Verbs. 449
" If Mr. Serious, the clergyman, calls, say I am gone to the
great meeting at Exeter Hall." BULWER : " Money," 3, 2.
The call by Mr. Serious is the condition on which the answer
depends. If he call, he is to be answered as directed ; if he
call not, there can be no answer. Such a supposition, while
still retaining the same words, may take three different forms
grammatically, thus : If it rains, If it rain, If it rained (or
should rain). The first is indicative present, and admits the
supposition as correct. The second is subjunctive present,
with usually a future reference, and indicates a mental atti-
tude of unbiassed uncertainty. The third is preterit subjunc-
tive, but never referring to past time, and means that the
supposition is untenable. The words might indeed be
preterit indicative. That is only to be determined by the
sense of the context. These three kinds of suppositions
may be further illustrated by adding to each, in brackets,
the remainder of a suitable sentence.
If it rains (or is raining) [as you say it is, we had better stay
in].
If it rain [to-morrow, which we have no means of knowing, it
will be bad for the meeting in the grove].
If it rained (or were raining) [the dust would not be flying, as
you see it is].
The second is very generally followed by a future in the
apodosis, and the third by the same mood and tense which
is in the protasis.
Again I may remind the reader that writers and speakers
have been unable or unwilling to adhere to any precise rule
on the subject.
" It is one of the best bonds, bothe of chastity and obedience
in the wife, if she think her husband wise, which she will never
do if she find\mn. jealous." BACON : " Essay" viii.
" she deserts thee not if thou
Dismiss not her, when most thou needst her nigh."
" Paradise Lost," 8, 563.
450 English Grammar.
" But if no faithless action stain
Thy love and constant word,
I '11 make thee famous by my pen,
And glorious by my sword."
MARQUIS OF MONTROSE.
" If solitude succeed to grief,
Release from pain is slight relief."
BYRON : " Giaour."
" If it were done, when 't is done then 't were well
It were done quickly." SHAKES?.: " Macbeth," i, 7.
" If it were so,
There now would be no Venice."
BYRON : " The Two Foscari."
" Were matter thus absolutely solid, it would be what it is not
absolutely incompressible."
SPENCER : " First Principles," Chap. iii.
And, generally written an, and having the value of if, was
quite common in Middle English.
" Now well were I an it so were."
" Townley Mysteries."
Hence it was said :
" If ifs and an's were pots and pans,
There 'd be no need of tinkers."
It is now confined to poetry and some provincial dialects.
"An 'f were not for thy hoary beard,
Such hand as Marmion's had not spared
To cleave the Douglas dead."
SCOTT : " Marmion," Canto 6.
If is often omitted, especially in poetry, before have, be,
and the auxiliaries. The verb is then placed before its sub-
ject.
" were I quiet earth,
That were no evil."
BYROX : " Cain."
The Conjugation of Verbs. 451
" Society, friendship, and love,
Divinely bestowed upon man ;
O, had I the wings of a dove,
How soon would I taste you again ! "
COWPER : " Selkirk."
" And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know,
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities, I, day by day,
Would wear away."
SOUTHEY : " Holly Tree."
Although the most common, if is not the only word used
to introduce a supposition. There are many others, among
which are, although, unless, except, provided, admit, grant, sup-
pose, so, whether. Many of these may also take the conjunc-
tion that after them. Sometimes there is no special formula.
The choice between indicative and subjunctive depends
essentially on the question whether we conceive ourselve
to be dealing with a fact or with a supposed possibility.
" Though he heap up silver as the clay, and prepare raiment as
the dust." JOB xxvii., 16.
" And oft though Wisdom wake, Suspicion sleeps
At Wisdom's gate."
" Paradise Lost," iii., 686.
" And he said, Whether they be come out for peace take them
alive ; or whether they be come out for war, take them alive."
i KINGS xx., 1 8.
" Whether he spin poor couplets into plays,
Or damn the dead with purgatorial praise,
His style in youth or age is still the same."
BYRON : " English Bards."
" Whether this be or be not implied."
J. S. MILL : " Logic," Chap. 8.
" The soul which hath touched any such * * * shall not
eat of the holy things, unless he wash his flesh with water."
LEVIT. xxii., 6.
452 English Grammar.
" The events * * * must be very imperfectly understood
unless the plot of the preceding acts be well understood."
MACAULAY : " Hist, of Eng.," Chap. i.
" Except thou take away the blind and the lame, thou shalt not
come in hither." 2 SAMUEL v., 6.
" And this will I venture my poor gentleman-like carcase to
perform, provided there be no treason practised upon us."
BEN JONSON : " Every Man in his Hum.," iv., 5.
" Suppose 't were Portius, could you blame my choice ? "
ADDISON : " Cato," i., 6.
" Or suppose Bishop Philpotts requested it of him as a favor."
LEIGH HUNT : " Table Talk."
" Perhaps it had been better to stand by mere Prussian and
German merit, native to the soil."
CARLYLE : " Fred'k the Great."
" So I were out of prison and kept Sheepe,
I should be as merry as the day is long."
SHAKESP.: " King John," iv., 2.
" Why (Cosine) were thou Regent of the world,
It were a shame to let this land by lease."
SHAKESP.: " Richard II.," ii., 2.
" Be it scroll or be it book,
Into it, knight, thou must not look."
SCOTT.
But per contra.
(> If thou more murmur 'st, I will rend an Oake
And peg thee in his knotty entrailes."
SHAKESP. : " Tempest," i., 2.
"And //thou loiter est longer, all will fall away."
COLERIDGE: " Piccol.," i., 10.
" Oh ! if your tears are given to care,
If real woe disturbs your peace,
Come to my bosom." THOMAS MOORE.
" I suppose you would aim at him best of all if he was out of
sight.' SHERIDAN : " Rivals," v., 2.
The Conjugation of Verbs. 453
" Dr. Marshall Hall * * * remarked that // the foot of a
frog -was pinched, the animal withdrew the limb."
London Quarterly, Jany., 1855.
" The business of the pension office would be seriously imped-
ed, even if the health of the clerks was not impaired."
"Report of Postmaster General, Nov. 27, 1889."
" Except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely there
had been no man left to Nabal by the morning light."
i SAM. xxv., 34.
" Unless thou hadst spoken, surely then in the morning the
people had gone up every one from following his brother."
2 SAM. ii., 27.
"Thogh with their high wrongs I am strook to the quick,
Yet, with my nobler reason, gainst my furie,
Do I take part."
SHAKESP.: " Tempest," v., i.
"Tho* no Exchecquer it commands, 'tis wealth,
And tho' it wears no ribband, 'fis renown."
YOUNG : " Night Thoughts," vi., 337.
" Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little or too much."
POPE : " Essay on Man," ii., n.
" Whether thy muse most lamentably tells
What merry sounds proceed from Oxford bells,
Or, still in bells delighting, finds a friend
In every chime that jingles from Ostend."
BYRON : " English Bards."
" The mere delight in combining ideas suffices them ; provided
the deductions are logical, they seem almost indifferent to their
truth." G. LEWES.'
Indicative and subjunctive may be found in the same
sentence.
" Whether it be owing to such poetical associations * * *
or whether there is, as it were, a sympathetic revival."
IRVING : " Braceb ridge Hall."
1 Quoted from Matzner.
454 English Grammar.
The subjunctive is found with indefinite pronouns and
adverbs of time, place, and manner whoever, whatever,
wherever, whenever, however, etc. when there is an element
of uncertainty or conjecture in the clause.
" If thou pardon whosoever pray,
More sinnes for this forgiueness prosper may."
SHAKESP.: " Richard II.," v., 3.
"But he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever
he be" GAL. v., 10.
" Drede ay God where so thou be"
" Townley Mysteries."
" He hath always 3 wifes with him, where that ever he be"
SIR JOHN MAUNDEVILLE.
" Howe'er the world go, I '11 make sure for one."
MARLOWE : " Jew of Malta," i., i.
" Whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be"
2 KINGS viii., 37.
Closely related to these examples are indefinite designa-
tions of time, after which the subjunctive was formerly used
much more than it is now.
" Now quiet Soule, depart when Heauen please."
SHAKES?.: i " Henry VI.," iii., 2.
" Why, at any time when it please you, I shall be ready to dis-
course to you all I know."
BEN JONSON : " Every Man in his Humour."
" before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice." MATT.
xxvi., 34.
" Ere thou goe, give up thy Staffe."
SHAKESP.: 2 " Henry VI.," ii., 3.
" I saw, alas ! some dread event impend,
Ere to the main this morning sun descend"
POPE : " Rape of the Lock," i.
" What billows, what gales is she fated to prove,
Ere she sleep in the lee of the land that I love ! "
TOM MOORE.
The Conjugation of Verbs. 455
" The tree will wither long before \\.fall."
BYRON : " Childe Harold," in., 32.
Per contra.
" Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art
that judgest." ROMANS ii., i.
" The Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou #/."
JOSHUA i., 9.
" Who ere helps thee, 't is thou that must help me."
SHAKESP. : i " Henry VI.," i., 2.
" Who euer wins, on that side shall I lose."
SHAKESP. : " King John," ii., i.
" Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things
are honest, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report * * * think on these
things." PHIL, iv., 8.
A considerable number of adjectival expressions, like it
is good, well, better, fitting, desirable enough, hard, sad, take
after the conjunction that, a subjunctive.
" It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth."
LAM. iii., 27.
This could have been as well expressed :
" It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth,"
which is a much more common form of expression. The
subjunctive here takes the place of an infinitive. The last
half of the sentence might be regarded collectively as a sub-
stantive ; and the whole might take this form :
Bearing the yoke in his youth is good for a man.
Hence this use of the subjunctive might be said to be as a
substitute for substantive clauses.
" it is better that thou succour us out of the city."
2 SAM. xviii., 3.
" is it fit this souldier keepe his oath ? "
SHAKESP. : " Henry V.," iv., 7.
456 English Grammar.
" Therefore 't is meet Achilles meet not Hector."
SHAKESP. : " Troyl. and Cressida."
" In such a time as this it is not meet
That every nice offence should meet his Comment."
" Julius Caesar," iv., 2.
" 'T is better that the Enemie seeke vs."
Id., iv., 3.
" 'T is necessary that be looked into."
MARLOWE : " Jew of Malta," i., 2.
The subjunctive is largely used to express indirectly the
effect of causing or preventing. Here is an example of the
direct way of expressing it. " And he straitly charged them
to tell no man." Mark v., 43 ; and here an example of the
indirect : " I charge you * * * that ye stir not up nor
awake my love till he please." Canticles ii., 7. The words
of causing and preventing are many and various, including
among others : cause, command, provide, see, take care, beseech,
entreat, exhort, forbid ; to which maybe added any words
of hindering or fearing followed by lest. In the expressions
now under consideration the verb is usually followed by that
or lest, but that is sometimes omitted for sake of brevity.
" he spake and commanded that they should heat the furnace."
DANIEL iii., 19.
" He commandeth * * * that they return from iniquity."
JOB xxxvi., TO.
" Beware tJiat thoufass not such a place."
2 KINGS ii., 9.
"Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you." ISAIAH xxxvi., 18.
" Then give me leave, that I may turne the key,
That no one enter, till my tale be done."
SHAKESP. : " Richard II.," iv., 3.
The subjunctive is used to express very earnest wish or
desire :
" O that I were as in months past, as in the days when God
preserved me." JOB xxix., 3.
TTte Conjugation of Verbs. 457
" In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even ! and
in the even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning ! "
DEUT. xxviii., 67.
" Oh, that I were a Mockerie King of Snow,
Standing before the Sunne of Bullingbrooke,
To melt my selfe away in Water-drops."
SHAKESP. : " Richard II.," iv., i.
" Would thou wert cleane enough
To spit upon."
SHAKESP. : " Timon of Athens."
Per contra.
" I wish from the bottom of my heart, this unnatural struggle
was over." COOPER : " Spy," i.
The subjunctive mood is becoming less used than for-
merly, and may in time pass away entirely, like so much of
the inflectional system that once belonged to the language.
As an illustration of the change that is going on, I observe
that the recent revisers of the New Testament have turned
23 subjunctives into indicatives in the Epistle to the Romans
alone, omitting the considerable number not easily distin-
guished.
IMPERATIVE. The imperative is so named from its fre-
quent use in direct commands. But, as the form of expres-
sion is the same, the name is extended to requests and
prayers, even the most humble " Forgive me, I implore."
As to its form, it is in English, merely the ground-form of
the verb. Hence Dr. Latham, Dr. Morris, and others main-
tain that it is not properly a mood, as it has no peculiar
form to itself. The imperative addressed to a single person
is very generally, but not universally, the shortest and
simplest form that the verb can assume. The Latin impera-
tives, ij es, die, fac, fer, are familiar examples. Although
reduced to its lowest terms in modern English, the impera-
tive had once a goodly array of endings for the first, second,
and third persons, singular, dual, and plural numbers ; and
it furnishes one of the best examples of the gradual dis-
appearance of inflections.
458
English Grammar.
SANSKRIT
I vad-ani
Sing. \ 2 vad-a Xey-s leg-e parl-e qith
( 3 vad-a-tu Xsy-s-TKi leg-i-to
LATIN FRENCH GOTHIC SAXON ENGLISH
\
secg-e
( i vad-ava
Dual < 2 vad-a-tam Xey-E-rov
( 3 vad-a-tam \E.y--TK>Y
qith-aits
!say
( i vad-ama parl-ons qith-am
Plur. -\ 2 vad-a-ta hey-s-rs leg-i-te parl-ez qith-ith secg-ath
( 3 vad-antu hey-ov-rcav leg-unto /
The plural form of the imperative, ending in -ath, -etk, or
ith for the vowel was quite unstable continued down to
within a dozen years of the discovery of America.
" Ne taketh of my word no displeasaunce,
Thinketh that ye ben set in governynges
Of lordes' doughtres * * *
Kepeth wel tho that ye undertake.
*****
And taketh keep of that that I schal sayn."
CHAUCER : " Tale of the Doctor of Phisik."
As inflections gradually disappeared, so far as clearness of
expression is concerned, their places were effectually filled
by the auxiliary let and constant recourse to pronouns. The
former supplied all that was peculiar in the imperative mood ;
the latter distinguished person and number. There was no
loss of intelligibility, but there was a loss of brevity, and
consequently of force. We now use let with the first and
third persons of both numbers. " Let me die the death of
the righteous," said the eastern seer.
" Let my boy bishop fret his fill."
SCOTT : " Marmion."
We have already seen that let originally meant permit, a
meaning which it often has yet in various degrees. Its re-
duction from an independent verb to a mere sign of a mood
began in Anglo-Saxon ; but it was used as an auxiliary
The Conjugation of Verbs. 459
sparingly before the fifteenth century. Considered by itself,
and apart from the verb that follows it, the auxiliary let is
imperative.
In the once familiar words, " Thy kingdom come" of
what mood is come ? That is a question I cannot answer ;
but I can adduce a few facts that may contribute to a better
understanding of it.
First. Authorities are not agreed. Most writers on
English Grammar, who have noticed the point at all, hold
that verbs so situated are imperative ; but the most learned
think otherwise. Matzner regards them as subjunctive;
Professor Whitney calls them optative subjunctives?
Second. As naming is not intended to change their form,
position, or force, for the practical purpose of speaking and
writing good English, it is not of the slightest importance
what they are called.
Third. They do not result from dropping may, still less
from an elision of let. In the particular instance given, we
might, indeed, say : " May thy kingdom come " ; or, " Let
thy kingdom come " ; but it will be shown presently that
such expressions do not originate in that way. Moreover,
in many instances such an explanation would be inad-
missible, thus :
" ' Submit we then to force,' said Clare."
SCOTT : " Marmion," vi., 32.
This is not an apocopated substitute for " May submit
we," still less for " Let submit we " ; and there are hundreds
of such examples to be found.
Owing to the great scarcity of verbal forms in English, the
simple ground-form of the verb is extensively used. It is
the form alike of the subjunctive, imperative, infinitive, and
in part of the indicative. The form, therefore, decides
nothing, but all agree substantially that in the phrases under
consideration the verb is either subjunctive or imperative.
But in the earlier ages of the language there were forms that
1 " Essentials of English Grammar," page 233.
460 English Grammar.
could be distinguished. Anglo-Saxon had two forms of the
imperative, as we have seen, one for the singular and one for
the plural ; but both were limited to the second person. We
can suppose that these, for want of others, might have been
extended to the first and third persons; but were they?
The subjunctive had also separate forms for the singular and
the plural. In the singular the two moods were often alike,
and therefore ambiguous ; in the plural they were always
unlike. Now, in the class of phrases in question the verb
always agreed with forms of the subjunctive known to exist ;
they never agreed with known imperative forms where the
two moods differed. So far, then, as they were distinguish-
able they were subjunctive. Shortened, indistinguishable
forms, however, were often used ; for the old language was
written with great irregularity. A common substitute for
the first person plural imperative was uton, utan, utun, which
must be construed as a plural subjunctive. It was used pre-
cisely as we now use " let us" and was followed by an infin-
itive, such as gan, wyrcan, seglian let us go, make, sail, etc.
The third person plural was the subjunctive ending in -in,
-en, or -on. The following examples will show how the places
of the imperatives of the first and third persons were sup-
plied in the earlier ages, and also that the general use of let
is comparatively modern. It is not necessary to introduce
the Gothic, which also employed the subjunctive as a sub-
stitute for the imperative, even when there was no percep-
tible need. The examples are from the Anglo-Saxon Gospels,
followed by the versions of Wycliffe and Tyndale and the
authorized version.
Uton wyrcan her threo earthung-stowa,
Make we here thre tabernaclis,
Let vs make iij tabernacles,
Let us make three tabernacles. MARK ix., 5.
Utonfaran to Bethleem,
Passe we ouer til to Bedleem,
Let vs goo even vnto Bethleem,
Let us now go even unto Bethlehem. LUKE ii., 15.
The Conjugation of Verbs. 461
Fleon thonne to rmintum tha the in ludea-lande synt,
Thanne thei that be in Judee, fie to mounteynes,
Then let them whych be in Jury, flye into the mountaynes,
Then let them which be in Judeayfor into the mountains.
MATT, xxiv., 16.
hig hlyston him,
heere thei hem,
left them heare them,
let them hear them. LUKE xvi., 29.
S$ he on rode dhangen,
Be he crucified,
Lett him be crucified,
Z^/him be crucified. MATT, xxvii., 21.
The subjunctive was even used for the second person
imperative.
Nellonge vesan svylce ledse liceteras.
Be not, as the hypocrites. MATT, vi., 16.
" Ne sweregen ge." (Swear ye not.) Laws of King Alfred.
The same mode of expression continued while the old
terminations were becoming more and more indistinct, sur-
vived all distinctions of form, and may be found in the
poetry of the present century.
Sceawie we thes uncothe msen ur 3efon.
Look we at these strange men, our foes.
Old Eng. Homily, A.D. 1150.
" Nu fusen we horn to ;
& staercliche heom leggen on ;
& wraken wunderliche
ure cun & ure riche,
& wreken thene muchele scome."
" Now go we for them ;
And stoutly them lay on ;
And wondrously avenge
Our kin and our kingdom,
And avenge the mickle shame."
LAVAMON, 1205.
462 English Grammar.
" Ne lipne no wif to hire were ; ne were to his wyue.
Beo vor him seolue vych man, the hwile he beoth alyue."
(Trust no wife to her man, nor man unto his wife.
Be each man for himself, the while he is alive.)
"A Moral Ode," 1250.
tl ffe that is Lord fortune be thy stereV'
CHAUCER : " Man of Lawes Tale."
"Laud we the Gods * * *
Publish we this Peace
To all our Subjects. Set we forward."
SHAKESP.: " Cymbeline," v., 5.
" No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever."
MARK xi., 14.
" and now be the welkin split with vivats."
CARLYLE : " French Revolution," viii., 12.
But while it is evident enough that the verb in such ex-
pressions was originally subjunctive, and is not a remnant
left by dropping may or let, it is not equally clear that it is
still subjunctive. There are who adhere to various modifi-
cations of the doctrine that words never change. Horne
Tooke held that such little words as and, but, lest, since,
though, yet, were originally verbs, and still are verbs. Dr.
Latham inclines to call him, them, and whom dative cases,
because they once were such, 1 while he admits that in
present use the case is generally what is called accusative
or objective. But few will go such lengths. The form is
too simple and common to distinguish the mood ; and the
construction is precisely that of an imperative, if we had one
applicable to the first and third persons. Probably most
persons who give the point a thought believe that they are
using imperatives, and intend to do so by extending them
beyond their earlier limits, a thing that in one way or other
is done with words every day. If an ardent orator exclaims,
" Perish the thought ! " intending to use an imperative
mood, may it not be imperative ? The sum of the matter
1 " English Language," p. 290.
The Conjugation of Verbs. 463
is that the origin is subjunctive, the construction imperative
the form indistinguishable, the name unimportant.
INFINITIVE. In point of form the infinitive is the simple,
unchanged root-form of the verb. The term " infinitive
mood " only denotes the particular relation of the verb to
the other words in the sentence. It is called infinitive when
it follows an auxiliary (except ought] bid, make, need and
verbs of perception, like see, hear, feel they may come, they
made him promise, they bade him run, you need not fear,
we saw the moon rise, heard the owls hoot, and felt the night
winds blow . We may be allowed for the present to call this the
primary infinitive. When preceded by the little word to we
may in like manner call it the secondary infinitive. Neither
of them has any connection with infinity. The primary in-
finitive was once much more extensively used than now.
The number of words that it may follow is decreasing.
Formerly it might be found after beg, begin, behoove, boot,
cJtarge, cause, command, deign, desire, forbid, force, go, intend,
lie, entreat, persuade, pray, set, teach, and wish. A few words
are in the transition state dare, need, please and are fol-
lowed sometimes by the primary and sometimes by the
secondary infinitive. Naturally the primitive is used oftener
in poetry than in prose.
Philologists are much inclined to call the infinitive a verbal
noun, not so much because it is now a noun which it is only
exceptionally as because they hold that it was once a noun
" lang syne Lord kens how lang." It has been found that
Sanskrit in its earlier stages had about a dozen ways of form-
ing words expressing the action of verbs, but having in some
of their relations the effect of nouns. In course of time only
one of them survived, ending in -tu or -turn, and correspond-
ing to the Latin supines with the same terminations. Nouns
expressing the actions of verbs were formed in a variety of
ways in Greek and Latin, several of which have come over
into English, often in a mutilated form. Thus we have from
Greek anatomy, analy-jw, baptise, apha-sta, cycloped-z#,
poe-.?// from Latin iav-or, cens-us, comple-fwn, conjecture,
But such words are nouns and nothing else,
464 English Grammar.
either in the original languages or in English. Latin had,
indeed, two real hybrids, half noun and half verb ; and it
will be seen presently that we have words of this mixed
character. The Greek and Latin infinitives were employed
as nouns only exceptionally, as we sometimes speak of the
ups and downs, the whereabouts, the why, and the sweet by
and by. There are no considerable classes of constant verbal
nouns native to English. There are a very few scattered
ones, like birth, stealth, speech, which are exclusively nouns,
and perform no duty as verbs. This may be made clearer
by comparing believe and belief :
Some still believe in witchcraft, but we do not share their
belief.
The former is wholly a verb, the latter a noun, and neither
can be used in place of the other. Yet there might be words
partly both nouns on the left side and verbs on the right.
Are infinitives of that class ? Nouns have certain grammati-
cal characteristics. They may be limited by preceding ad-
jectives or pronouns, affected by prepositions or transitive
verbs, or they may take the plural form. None of this is
true of infinitives, but all applies to a class of verbal nouns
ending in -ing, presently to be considered. Contrast earn,
or to earn, with earning.
" They live upon the scanty earnings of the shop."
We do not make a plural of earn, or to earn, nor place before
it either of the three words that immediately precede earn-
ings. There is only one preposition, to, that can precede an
infinitive. It is then either abortive and undeveloped, or
almost entirely atrophied on one side, while its activity on
the other, the verbal side, is unimpaired :
" They were unable to conceal him"
If, notwithstanding these marked differences between the
infinitive and all other nouns, any one still chooses to call it
a noun, there is probably no court that will grant an injunc-
tion to restrain him. Infinitives are indeed used as nouns,
but only exceptionally, and as almost any other words might
The Conjugation of Verbs. 465
be. The primary is the rarest, and is now confined to poetry,
and following such words as rather, better, best :
" Better dwell in the midst of alarms
Than reign in this horrible place."
COWPER.
The secondary infinitive used as a noun is more common :
" For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. * * * Never-
theless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you."
PHIL, i., 21.
" To dye, to sleepe,
To sleepe, perchance to Dreame : I there 's the rub."
SHAKESP. : " Hamlet."
Of this infinitive with to Professor Earle says :
" here we perceive that an opportunity offers itself to explain
philologically one of the most peculiar of the phenomena of the
English language. That which we call the English infinitive
verb, such as to live, to die, is quite a modern thing, and is charac-
teristic of English as opposed to Saxon. The question, in pres-
ence of such a new phenomenon, is naturally raised Whence
this form of the infinitive verb ? We did not borrow it, for it is
not French nor Latin ; we did not inherit it, for it is not Saxon.
How did it rise, and what gave occasion to it ? "
These remarks are not applied, or applicable, to cases in
which to is still significant and equivalent to unto, for, for
the purpose of, etc. Such a form of expression is common to
Latin and the languages derived from it, and to all the Teu-
tonic tongues. The transition, which appears to Professor
Earle so remarkable, to phrases in which to is a mere dumb
sign, as in the words of Saint Paul and of Hamlet quoted
above, seems to me easy and natural only a single illustra-
tion of that extension of words and phrases which is going
on all the time. It seems too to have been begun at a very
early period. At least one example can be found in the
scanty remains of Gothic literature. The sons of Zebedee
had asked Jesus to promise them the foremost positions in
466 English Grammar.
the expected new kingdom. The conclusion of his reply, as
rendered by Ulfilas, was :
" Ith thata du sitan af taihswon meinai uiththau af hleidumein
nist mein du giban"
(But that to sit on my right hand or on my left is not mine to
give.} MARK x., 40.
In the fourth century, then, to sit could be used so com-
pletely as a noun in the nominative case that it might take
the pronoun that before it, a greater liberty than English
admits of now. This may have been due to Greek influence.
This secondary infinitive was well preserved in the Norse or
Icelandic. The following passage is from the so-called Elder
Edda (Havamdl 152), date uncertain :
" That kann ek it niunda,
ef mik nauthr um stendr.
at biarga fari minu d floti."
(This ninth thing I know,
When dangers surround me,
To keep my course safely at sea. 1 )
Two more examples, taken from Egils Saga (thirteenth
century), may suffice a :
" Var that sithr hans at Hsa drdegiss."
(It was his habit to rise early.) Page 4.
" That thotti fodur meinum sigr, at deyia i konungdomi med
saemd."
(To die a king, with honor, seemed to my father a victory.)
Page 8.
If, then, a source for the secondary infinitive be wanted,
we may naturally look to the Scandinavian settlements in
the north and east of England.
In the Teutonic tongues the infinitives originally ended
in -an. In the Gothic this was invariable. In A.-S. it often
took the form -on, and it had a vestige of inflection as a
1 Saemundar Edda. Paderborn, 1876.
8 Egils Saga. Havnise, MDCCCIX.
The Conjugation of Verbs. 467
noun a dative singular ending in -nne, always preceded
by to.
" Ac hwi ferde ge to seonne ? "
(But what went ye to see ?)
LUKE vii., 25.
This might be otherwise expressed : for the purpose of
seeing.
"manega witegan and rihtwise gewilnudon tha thing to geseonne
the ge gesoth."
(many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those
things that ye see.) MATT, xiii., 17.
" Hit is sceame to tellane, ac hit thuhte him nan sceame to
donne"
(It is a shame to tell, but it seemed no shame to him to do.)
Peterborough Chronicle.
The secondary infinitive is here equal to in and a verbal
noun in telling, in doing. In the case of Peter Pindar's
razors, which were good to sell, not to cut, the usefulness
was for selling and not for cutting. There is no doubt that
the to was once significant, and meant what we now usually
express by to or for ; but that meaning gradually faded out,
so that now it seldom has any that is appreciable. It has
become a mere earmark of the infinitive mood, and another
preposition is sometimes placed before it as if itself were
none.
" But what went ye out/<?r to see 1 "
MATT, xi., 8.
The terminations -an, -on, -enn, -enne, began to be clipped
off so early as the twelfth century, the sliding scale being
sing-an, sing-en, sing-e, sing. The old endings may be said
to have fairly disappeared by the middle of the fifteenth
century, to be only rarely seen again in the affected archaism
of poetry.
" No longer can she now her shrieks command ;
And hardly she forbears, through awful fear,
To rushen forth, and with presumptuous hand,
To stay harsh justice in his mid career."
SHENSTONE : " Schoolmistress."
468 English Grammar.
PARTICIPLES. In the infinitive mood the verb is shaded
off into a noun ; in the participle it becomes an adjective.
We have two participles in English, but could find use for
several more. Greek has ten or more, which are among the
beauties of that wonderful language. We supply the defect
in part by such composite phrases as having written, having
been written, being on the point of writing, having been intend-
ing to write, for the purpose of writing, with the intention of
writing.
Our first participle always ends in -ing ; the second gen-
erally ending in -en or -ed, takes the various forms exhibited
on pages 353-367. The two are contrasted in three ways.
The first relates to the present, the second to the past ; the
first is active, the second passive ; the first expresses what is
going on and unfinished, the second what is ended. It is
common to call them the present participle and the past
participle.
In most of the Aryan languages the present participle
originally ended in -nt or -nd, often somewhat disguised by
additional terminations indicating number, gender, and case.
In this respect early English was no exception.
" they ben shapen into briddes,
Swimm<?#</ upon the wawe amiddes,
And whon she sigh her lord \\vend,
In likeness of a bird swimmend."
GOWER : " Ceix and Alcaeon."
The termination -nd in time gave place to -ng, one of the
most considerable grammatical changes in our language since
the Norman Conquest. This took place from 1200 to 1400;
the successive steps were -ande or -ende, -inde, -inge, -ing.
Chaucer used both forms ; oftenest -ing. The change came
from the South, and the old form survived long in Scotland.
" With dowbyll clethyng frome the cald,
Eito^and drynka/w? quhen thay wald."
SIR DAVID LINDESAY.
Before offering any explanation of this change, I wish to
call attention to four grammatically different uses of the
The Conjugation of Verbs. 469
verbals ending in -ing. In running water and singing birds
they are adjectives, as such are placed before the nouns
which they accompany, and they express no action. In
"The birds are singing, the stars are shining" they are true
participles, expressing actions as verbs, but holding the place
of adjectives in the sentence quite as much as if we
should say : " The birds are beautiful ; the stars are bright."
Again, in the expressions, " philosophical writings, a hall for
dancing" we have nouns which admit of the plural form.
Lastly, there is a usage more difficult to classify.
He escaped by breaking a window.
The true participle is a hybrid between a verb and adjective,
but this is half a verb and half a noun. Like a noun it takes
a preposition by before it ; or may take a possessive pro-
noun, and, like a verb, it is followed by the object a window.
It is Janus-faced, a noun on the one side and a verb on the
other. Such a word is called in Latin Grammar a gerund. It
differs from a verbal noun in taking an object after it. The
preposition before it is not a constant or essential char-
acteristic.
He escaped by the opening of a window.
Here opening is only a verbal noun. It may be preceded by
the article or a pronoun, and it takes no object after it. Its
place may be taken by a word that makes no pretence to
being a verb, when there happens to be one suitable.
" I waive the quantum o' the sin,
The hazard of concealing"
BURNS.
Nothing but the requirements of rhyme prevents concealment
from doing quite as well.
Of these four tolerably distinct uses of the so-called par-
ticiple the first two present no difficulty. The other two
were not originally participles ; the only question is whether
they had one or two separate origins. To go no farther
back, the Anglo-Saxon had a class of nouns derived from
verbs and ending in -ung less frequently -ing. A few of
47 English Grammar.
them have reached our time almost unchanged, such as
cleansing, earning, fasting, fostering, fighting, greeting, learn-
ing. In time the endings of all that survived of them were
reduced to -ing, and it became the practice to form one from
every verb as occasion required. We have here one source
of verbals in -ing employed as nouns. We have also seen
that the infinitive, ending in -an, -enne, -en was sometimes
used as a noun ; yet, if it were from a transitive verb, it was
still a verb on one side.
" and me nam rapes and caste in to him for to dra^en him ut
of thisse putte. Ah his licome wes se swithe feble, thet he ne
mihte itholie the herdness of the rapes, tha sende me clathes ut
of thes Kinges huse for to bi-winden the rapes."
(And they took ropes and threw them in to him for to draw him
out of this pit. But his body was so very feeble that he could
not bear the hardness of the ropes ; then they sent cloths out of
the King's house for to bewind the ropes.}
" Old English Homily," A.D. 1200.
This again shows how a gerundial use might have arisen.
There were thus the verbal noun ending in -ing, and the in-
finitive in -en, which might easily be mistaken for each other.
We hear the two sounds assimilated every day. Professor
Earle says that in the fifteenth century the terminations -yn
and -yng were often interchanged ; and he cites a passage
from the preface to Caxton's " Game of Chess," A.D. 1474 :
" Beseeching of them that this litel werke shal see here or rede
to haue me for excused for the rude & symple makyng and
reducyn into our englisshe."
The victory at last remained with -ing, an evidence of care
like that of the worthy, casing Griff /w^ who brings chick/w^r
to Bostfftg*.
The participle had begun to adopt the -ing as early as
Layamon, about 1204 ; and so it comes to pass that in our
time we have three classes of words originally distinct,
melted into one. It is not always possible now to say to
which group a given word is most nearly related. The diffi-
culty is not lessened by the circumstance that experts are
The Conjugation of Verbs. 471
not agreed. Some of the combinations, a few examples of
which here follow, are curious, and their analysis is more
difficult and uncertain than important.
There was a large sum of money owing to him.
" how shall I reconcile your temper with having made so
strange a choice ? "
COLLEY GIBBER : " Careless Husband."
Kington Oliphant cites from the " Lives of the Norths " :
" he feared the being made infamous " ;
and from Miss Burney's " Cecilia " he quotes :
" there was no avoiding asking him"
" the whig party were in possession of bestowing all places both
of the state and of literature."
HUME : " Hist of Eng.," i., ix.
These examples, I think, are all of a gerundial character,
but, as they stand, are not good models for imitation.
The second participle, called indifferently the past parti-
ciple and the passive participle, has pretty well escaped
entangling combinations except in forming the compound
tenses, which have been considered already, page 353. It
may be used as an adjective hewn timber, ploughed land,
printed documents, or as a pure participle the field is
ploughed. Out of its use as an adjective have grown a swarm
of imitations left-handed, blue-eyed, quick-witted, weak-kneed,
four-wheeled, which some treat as participles from verbs
that never existed. I regard them as rather strained im-
itations of such words as saddled, booted, gowned, crowned,
plumed, that is, furnished with saddle, boots, gown, etc.
This participle is never a noun except as any adjective may
occasionally be used as such. If we say, " the afflicted"
" the vanquished" we still oftener speak of the old and the
young, the rich and \.\\e poor.
Participles are used to form clauses that are but loosely
hung on the main thread of our discourse.
" Not long after the Spanish general, conceiving that his royal
captive was sufficiently humbled, expressed his willingness that he
should return, if he inclined, to his own palace." PRESCOTT.
472 English Grammar.
These attendant clauses are sometimes still further de-
tached.
" And supper being ended, the devil having put it into the heart of
Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him * * * he riseth
from supper." JOHN xiii., 2.
When the subject of the participle is thus entirely different
from the main subject or actor in the sentence, the partici-
pial clause is sometimes called the case absolute. These
participial clauses appear to be imitations of the Latin, in
which they are very common.
THE PASSIVE VOICE.
Thus far I have treated only of the active side of verbs ;
but when the action takes effect upon any person or thing
there is a passive side and the order of statement may be
reversed. If the Indian kills a deer, then also a deer is
killed by the Indian. The passive voice consists of some
form of the verb to be placed before the passive participle.
The verb admits of all the variation of which it is anywhere
susceptible, but the participle remains always unchanged.
Take every form of the verb to be and place after it a pas-
sive participle and you have a complete conjugation of the
passive voice.
We have not participles enough, and are put to very awk-
ward shifts for want of them. The passive participle repre-
sents everything as done and finished. It admits of no de-
grees and no progress. We can say that the house is built,
which means that it is up at least, and approximately fin-
ished ; but we have no corresponding expression to show
that it is in progress. To meet this want there have been
two kinds of make-shifts. The most persistent of these has
been the verbal noun ending in -ing, preceded by on or in
(ultimately the same word), by a, an abbreviation of them,
or even with these suppressed.
" Forty and six years was this temple in building."
JOHN ii., 20.
The Conjugation of Verbs. 473
" the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the
ark was a building." i PETER iii., 20.
" and therefore sent Critheis to Smyrna, which was then build-
ing" Encycl. Britan., 2 d edition. "Homer."
Of these three the first is practically out of use, the second
is rarely met with now, while the third is not uncommon.
They all have the same radical defect. They do not distin-
guish between active and passive, between subject and
object, between the actor and the thing acted upon. It was
probably the consciousness of this ambiguity that gave rise
to the expressions of which " The house was being built" is a
type. According to Mr. Kington Oliphant this form of ex-
pression came into common use about 17/0, although he
cites two examples more than 300 years older. 1 How many
examples escaped notice we cannot say, but so much is clear,
that the expression has been in the language more than 400
years. Many worthy persons, whose tastes were formed long
ago, have protested against the supposed novelty in a style
that is more forcible than their reasoning. The most emi-
nent is Cardinal Newman, who in a letter, published with his
permission by Professor Earle, says : " I know nothing of
the history of the language, and I cannot tell whether all this
will stand, but this I do know that, rationally or irrationally,
I have an undying, never-dying hatred to ' is being] what-
ever arguments are brought in its favor. At the same time
I fully grant that it is so convenient in the present state of
the language that I will not pledge myself I have never been
guilty of using it." * Richard Grant White of New York has
written at greater length, but to about the same effect. Now
I do not agree with Cardinal Newman as to the convenience
of the expression : "The house is being built." It seems to
me quite inconvenient, inelegant, clumsy, and one that
would be used only by a person who could think of no other
to suit his purpose. Indeed, it admits of greater awkward-
ness than I have ever seen represented. If we say, " is being
1 " Old and Middle English," 337. " New English," vol. i., 273.
3 Earle's " Philology of the English Tongue," 583.
474 English Grammar.
built," we may also say, " has been being built, or even, " The
house being being built, the family went away for the sum-
mer." Any one who will invent a better phrase will deserve
public gratitude. Yet, bad as it is, it serves the purpose. It
shows that the house is in progress, and that it is not the
builder but the thing to be built. Let us now consider the
alternatives offered. Lieut. Chas. C. Rogers, U. S. Navy,
reporting on the progress of the Panama Canal in 1887,
wrote, " a bridge is now building across the valley." It is
not a mere quibble to object that it was the workmen who
were building, and not the bridge. The meaning would no
doubt be understood in this particular case, but hundreds
might lead to the widest misapprehension. Ruskin in his
" Pre-Raphaelitism " says :
" the fishwomen were being blown about."
This is unmistakable ; but had he said :
" the fishwomen were blowing about,"
we should be at liberty to understand that they were exer-
cising their own wind-powers rather than that they were the
sport of the elements. So, if one should say that " Mrs.
Jenkins was scolding" we should naturally suppose her the
actor on the scene, and not the victim of lingual castigation.
Or again, if one should rush into a village exclaiming :
" Help, good friends, for God's sake help ! the Cardinal is
robbing on the other side of the river,"
I doubt not that in such a case even Cardinal Newman
would rather be represented as being robbed.
If the a, that is now generally omitted, be restored, the
case is not thereby materially mended. The difference be-
tween active and passive is not distinguished. In the Gospel
of John we read that in the darkest days of Christianity,
" Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing"
Paraphrased into the language of modern times, that
would be :
" It is all over with us now, and, as for me, I am going back to
work at the old trade."
The Conjugation of Verbs. 475
And in a compilation that is generally very pure English we
read of a
" Little Baby Bunting,
Whose daddy went a hunting,
To catch a rabbit for its skin,
To wrap the Baby Bunting in."
Whatever the difference in dignity, both the despondent
apostle and the parent of Bunting intended to catch and
not to be caught. But the rabbit was a party in interest,
albeit a passive one ; and when it left its lair in the morning,
it too went a hunting. Moreover, the sound is often a suffi-
cient objection.
" Billy Patterson is a assaulting in the street,"
is both ambiguous and cacophonous. The same twofold
objection would lie against in.
That matter is in inquiring into.
Where several words intervene between is and being the
substitution of the older expressions would often be very
inelegant as well as ambiguous.
The boys were in a row the whole length of the hall examining.
In short, expressions like " is being built" serve the purpose
completely ; the others are often still more inelegant, and
never fully serve the purpose.
English, having no original reflexive pronoun, has no
middle voice. Still, by a number of contrivances, we can
attain that end substantially. We can use the pronouns
myself , yourself , etc., after transitive verbs: " I hurt myself"
" You deceive yourself" " He built himself a house." More
subtle and liable to escape notice is the formation of a kind
of middle voice by using get as an auxiliary : " I got up,"
tired," "They^w/ married," " He got elected."
CHAPTER VIII.
ADVERBS, PREPOSITIONS, AND CONJUNCTIONS.
THE remaining parts of speech are much less subject to
grammatical requirements than those already considered.
Most adverbs admit of a change of form to express degree :
" He ran. fast and faster." Very many reach a similar result
by the help of more and most, while a considerable num-
ber are invariable, and none of them require a change
of form in other words. Prepositions are themselves un-
changeable, but necessitate a change of case, so far as that
is possible, in nouns and pronouns that follow them. Con-
junctions neither undergo nor cause change.
These three parts of speech are so shaded into each other
that it is sometimes difficult to say in a given instance to
which class a word belongs ; and still oftener the same word
is used in one or the other way as occasion may require.
The class of adverbs is large ; the two others very small.
ADVERBS.
The term adverb means added to a verb, as the most fre-
quent use is to describe the manner, intensity, or circum-
stances of the action represented by the verb. But, as
usually happens, from that starting-point it spreads till it
reaches the adjective as well. I have expressed the belief
that the foundation of language is the names of things, that
is, of whatever we can think of, but things have their quali-
ties and activities, and if names or nouns be the primary
formation, adjectives and verbs are a secondary deposit.
And continuing the geological figure, we may call adverbs
a tertiary stratum, and represent the arrangement thus :
476
Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions. 477
ADVERBS ADVERBS
ADJECTIVES VERBS
NOUNS.
There is even a fourth layer of adverbs superimposed
upon these.
Adverbs are so heterogeneous and derived from so many
sources that it has sometimes been said that all words tend
to become adverbs. The class is the final resting-place of
waifs and strays the depository of the odds and ends of
language. But on entering this class words lose more or
less of their individuality and significance. Sometimes they
are used without any meaning; oftener they give a mere
shade or piquancy to the sentence ; and he who would write
well should use them sparingly. We read that :
" There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job."
The first word is required by the habit of the languge, but
adds nothing to the statement. So we may hear one say :
" Well, now then, what are you going to do about it ? "
It would be a good exercise of acuteness to tell the force of
each of the first three words.
An approximate but only approximate definition of
adverbs would be that they are words accompanying verbs,
adjectives, or even other adverbs, and expressing place,
time, number, order of succession, manner, or degree here,
then, twice, thirdly, unawares, very. But although this may
include some 99 per cent, of adverbs, there are others that,
likejj/m and amen, defy classification ; for words refused admit-
tance anywhere else are usually taken in among the adverbs.
Adverbs may be variously classified upon a variety of prin-
ciples that have no relation to each other. They may be
divided, as above, according to signification ; or they may be
divided with reference to their derivation ; or into those that
do and those that do not admit of a difference of degree ;
or again into simple, compound, and adverbial phrases not yet
condensed into single words. The same word may belong
478 English Grammar.
to two or more classes ; and may be at one time an adverb,
at another a preposition, a conjunction, or something else.
Although it is nearly certain that every existing adverb is
a modification or a derivative of some other word, yet a few
have held their present places so long that the student of
English may, for his purposes, call them primitive or original.
They are :
aft forth off so
after in oft, or often soon
as less on too
ere lief out up
erst not over well
ever now seldom yet
When a word is by turns adverb and preposition, sometimes
with a slight difference of form, as of and off, to and too,
it is sometimes impossible, and never important, to determine
which part it played first. A large number are derived in
various ways from nouns a few without any change, as east,
west, north, south, home, while, yesterday. The greatest part
of those derived from nouns are formed by prefixing a,
which stands for an original on, reduced first to in, and then
to a. The present meaning of the prefix is on, to, or towards.
Many are made from other parts of speech by imitation.
About 1 20 adverbs formed in this manner are still available
for use, and an almost equal number have become obsolete.
Of those remaining aboard, adrift, afloat, afoot, aground, alive,
aloft, ashore, aside, asleep, astern, awry, are familiar examples.
In several the prefix a has not the same origin or force.
It is from off and of in
adown ' afresh anew anight s
afar akin anigh a'clock, or o'clock
1 In adown a is off and down or dune is a hill. " Dale and down " for val-
ley and hill is common in old ballads.
'' The lady sat on castil \va' ,
Beheld baith dale and doun,
And there she saw Gill Morice' head
Cum trailing to the toun."
Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions. 479
In a few it is the French a from Latin ad.
alamode, alamort, apart.
The a in alike and aware is a phonetic degradation of A.-S.
prefix ge without any precise meaning so common in early
English and in German.
Along, in the direction of the length, contains a relic of
the A.-S. and = out, forth, away. 1 End-/^^ is a better pre-
served form of the same.
Amuck, Malayan, is probably understood by most read-
ers as two words, the article a and an Eastern word, muck ;
but it is a single adjective frenzied, furious used ad-
verbially.
A few are formed with the prefix be originally the same
as by.
bechance before beforehand
behind below beneath
besides betimes between
Several adverbs originated as genitive cases of nouns, pro-
nouns, or adjective pronouns. None of these now remain in
general use and entirely unaltered except needs.
"They must needs be borne, because they cannot go."
JEREMIAH x., 5.
Several genitive cases, like days, for of the day, in the day
time ; nights, at night, in the night time, have gone out of use.
" Heo wolden feden thone king, dates and nihtes"
(They were willing to feed the king day and night.)
LAYAMON.
The following are either derivatives or imitations of geni-
tives :
always
forwards
outwards
twice
anights
hence
since
unawares
backwards
nowadays
sometimes
upwards
besides
noways
thence
whence
betimes
once
thrice
eftsoons
onwards
towards
1 A different word from the old preposition along owing to.
480 English Grammar.
We have scarcely a trace left of a class of feminine geni-
tives that ended in -linga, -lunga, darkling, flailing, headlong,
sidelong. Like other old words, they have been best pre-
served in Scotland. Burns has two, to which he adds the
genitive s, in " Halloween."
" Rab stowlins pried her bonnie mou
Fu' cozie in the neuk for 't."
" An darklins graipit for the bauks,
And in the blue clew throws then.*'
Of old dative cases in -um or -om we have at least one in
good use seldom from an adjective seld, rare. Whilom is
nearly obsolete.
Adverbs are also formed by prefixing various prepositions
to nouns.
aboveboard indeed perforce
abovedeck instead perhaps
aforetime overhead to-day
alongshore overland together
alongside peradventure to-morrow
beforehand perchance to-night
Much the greatest number of adverbs are formed from ad-
jectives by adding -ly A.-S. -lice like brave-ly, cool-ly, earn-
est-ly. If the adjective already end in -ly costly, deadly,
early, goodly, holy, jolly, lordly, silly, a second -ly is not added.
A considerable number of adjectives may be used adverb-
ially without change. With some it is left optional to add
or omit -ly. We my say: " He spoke very loud" or, " He
spoke very loudly." We add -ly more regularly than our an-
cestors did a few centuries ago. Naturally the poets omit it
oftener than prose writers, partly from the requirements
of verse, and partly through their fondness for antiquated
style. The following are examples of adjectives oftenest
employed adverbially without change :
aghast fain little naked crooked
better fast less parallel sheer
best full least plump zigzag
clean hollow long straight low
empty
Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions. 481
A few of those that frequently omit -ly have a somewhat
different meaning when it is added.
clear full open wrong
dark high short quite is another form
deep late still for quit
fair near wild
Many adjectives expressing native country, source, mate-
rial, shape, and essential character, do not admit of being
used adverbially in any way. Swedish, fossil, carbonaceous,
metallic, alkaline, sandy, fibrous, oval, triangular, meteoric,
stellar.
Adverbs are also formed from pronouns. There is a
tolerably regular series from the same radical sources that
give us he, that, this, and who.
he here hither hence
that then there thither thence the 1
this thus
who when where whither whence why how
From a part of these still other adverbs are developed,
such as henceforth, thereat, thenceforward, however, where-
upon.
Some adjective pronouns are employed without change
as adverbs all, any, either, neither, some, whether, yonder.
Others again are combined with almost any kind of words
to form adverbs almost, alone, already, also, altogether,
always, anyhow, anyway, anywhere, anywhither, anywise,
everywhere, otherwise, sometimes, somewhere.
From the numeral one we have alone, anon, once, only;
from other numerals, twice, thrice, secondly, thirdly, etc.
Quite a number of adverbs are formed by adding ward,
expressive of direction, to nouns, adverbs or prepositions.
1 In the phrase: "The more the .merrier." A.-S. thy, an instrumental
case singular of the pronoun.
" For thy appease your grief e and heavie plight."
SPENSER, "Fairie Queene^" ii., i, 14.
482 English Grammar.
Sometimes s is added in imitation of a genitive case :
afterward-s
hellward
northward
toward-s
backward-s
downward-s
hitherward
homeward-s
onward-s
outward
upward-s
westward
eastward
inward
seaward
whitherward
for\vard-s
landward
southward
heavenward leeward thitherward
Alias, alibi, impromptu, tandem, are Latin adverbs used
sometimes as adverbs and sometimes as nouns.
Apart and very come from the Latin, through the medium
of French. The a is a reduction of the Latin ad.
Askance has a long history, from an old Teutonic word
meaning slanting, through Italian and French to English,
picking up on its way the prefix a, originally Latin ad, too.
Along, A.-S. andlong ; the and meaning upto, unto,
against. Endlong is a different form of the same word.
The long in headlong and sidelong is a different word and
identical with ling in darkling, and has nothing to do with
length.
" and loo ! in a greet bire al the droue went heedlynge in to the
see."
WYCLIFFE : transl. MATT. viii. 32.
Blindfold may be regarded as a past participle, with
corrupt pronunciation, of an old blindfell, to fell or strike
blind. " Ancren Riwle," A.D. 1210.
Helter-skelter, higglety-pigglety, hurly-burly, hurry-skurry,
zig-zag, although some of them are now old and widespread,
are such words as people make out of nothing on the
instant.
Hodge-podge, or hotchpot, is traced to old French pot
and hocher, to shake or stir. In such impromptu creations
the second half is a mere repetition of the first, with usually
a change of the first consonant or vowel.
Pell-mell : Old French pelle melle ; mixed with a shovel.
Piece-meal the first part French, the last A.-S., both
meaning piece. The sense of the compound is piece by
piece. Mealh the relic of a Saxon dative case mizlum
Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions. 483
that has lost the dative termination. It was formerly
joined to other words than piece. Chaucer has stoundemele,
hour after hour, and flockmel, flock after flock ; and Shake-
speare :
" O that I had her heere, to tear her Limb-meale"
"Cymbeline," n., 4.
Topsy-turvy is an old word of doubtful origin.
Upside-down was formerly up-so-down.
"and sodenly the kinge thoughte the whele torned vp-soo-doune"
" Morte Darthur," A.D. 1469.
" wher sche ligteth not a lanterne, and turneth vpsodoun the
hous, and seketh diligently, til sche fynde."
WYCLIFFE : Luke xv., 8.
" and he turnyde vpsadoun the bordis of chaungeris, and the
chaiers of men sellynge culueris." Id. : Matt, xxi., 12.
Evermore, nevermore, everywhere else, inasmuch, nevertheless,
nowadays, outright, contrariwise, are examples of compound
adverbs. Indeed, if we have regard to signification and not
form, any combination of words, however long, expressing
time, manner, or degree, may be regarded as an adverbial
phrase. The words in the following parentheses have the
effect of adverbs :
And (when) we moved (at the captain's beck),
We moved (like men in sleep).
The root of the negative is the letter n followed by a short
vowel to make it pronounceable. Sanskrit and Gypsy, na ;
Gothic, O. H. G., Welsh, Irish, Gaelic, ni ; Latin, French,
M. H. G., Russian, A.-S., ne. The English no, as a direct
negative, is the modern form of A.-S. nd (d becoming regu-
larly o), formed by prefixing the negative n to d, ever, the
equivalent of the modern aye. In all the earlier forms of
English it was very common to indicate negation by pre-
fixing this n, especially to verbs :
"^Ves hit #awiht longe."
(It is not no whit long.)
LAYAMON.
484 English Grammar.
fleuere swich another as is she."
(Was not never such another as is she.)
CHAUCER : " Man of Lawes Tale."
We still have a few words, mostly adverbs, formed in that
way neither, never, nay, n-one, nor. No, meaning not any, is
an abbreviation of n-one, analogous to the Latin non, formed
in the same manner :
" Give none offense, neither to the Jews nor to the Gentiles."
i COR. x., 32.
Not is an abbreviation of nought or naught, A.-S., ndwiht
no whit. The simple negatives combine again with other
words to form complex negatives nevertheless, notwithstand-
ing, etc.
Nay is an equivalent for no, made with the Norse ei or ey
(pronounced aye), allied to the Greek aez, ever. Formerly
there was a slight difference of usage between the two. Nay
was common, no emphatic. No was also the answer when
the question contained a negative :
Is it raining ? Nay.
Is it not raining ? No.
Sir Thomas More berated Tyndale with coarse malignity
for not observing this useless distinction, and in doing so
made a blunder himself.
A somewhat similar distinction was observed between yea
and yes. The former was a simple affirmative, the latter an
emphatic declaration, often further reinforced by an oath.
It has been conjectured that yes is shortened from A.-S.
gea sy yea, so be it. Although no as a direct negative occurs
thirty-two times in the Bible, yes has not been admitted.
Yea and nay are nearly obsolete, and only met with in the
parliamentary expression to vote by yeas and nays ; but even
in that case the voter does not say yea or nay, but aye or no.
Yes, no, and amen are usually classed among adverbs be-
cause there is nowhere else to put them ; but they are in
effect sentences abridged.
Adverbs, Prepositions > and Conjunctions. 485
PREPOSITIONS.
If our purpose were to give a learner his first idea of a
preposition, we might say that it is a word which expresses
the relation of one thing to another in respect of place or
position. We might go on to illustrate by saying :
" The house stands upon rising ground. There is a lawn before
the door, a veranda along one side of the house, behind it an apple
orchard bending under the weight of its ruddy fruit. Below the
orchard the river flows between rocky banks, and beyond it rises a
steep woody hill. A little up the stream there is a bridge across
it, so high that boats can pass beneath it."
We might next explain, what is so very common, that a
device found to serve well for one purpose is apt to be
applied to many others. So many other relations besides
those of place are expressed by prepositions. Thus there
are relations of time before noon ; between dawn and sun-
rise ; during the eclipse ; after the Revolution. Before
frost, before rain, after taking the oath, are but slight
modifications of the same. Prepositions also express cause,
instrumentality, manner, and purpose.
The house was struck by lightning,
It was all through love of fame,
They fled/^r fear of discovery,
The letter was sealed with wax,
She prayed with zeal and fervor,
They were working for an education.
Prepositions thus take a variety of secondary meanings.
Through has not the same signification in :
I was walking through a wood, and
They betrayed him through envy.
So one may walk with a lady, with difficulty, with a limp,
with a cane, with a sprained ankle.
A few prepositions may be regarded as original :
at for over up
by from through with
ere in or on under
486 English Grammar.
but by far the greater number are derivatives or compounds.
Some are formed by prefixing a, as explained under adverbs,
about, above, against, along, among, around, athwart. Still
more are made with be, a reduced form of by, before, behind,
below, beneath, beside, besides, between, betwixt, beyond.
Prepositions, whether consisting of single words, or com-
pounds like the above, are mostly native, but a few of Latin
origin are to be met with per, as so much per ton ; versus ;
sine, or its French derivative sans ; plus, minus.
Phrases made up of several words, of which the last is
usually a preposition, often have constructively the effect
of prepositions because of, with reference to, in consequence
of. To the formation of these there is no limit.
Simple prepositions are also united into compounds
into, upon, within.
A number of words used as prepositions are verbs, us-
ually in the form of participles, but a few have taken that
of imperatives during, pending, passing, regarding, respect-
ing, touching, notwithstanding, save, except.
A few of the prepositions have peculiarities of formation
or use that will justify short remarks.
A, in the expression " ten cents a peck," is no doubt
generally regarded as an article ; and perhaps so it is, for
doubtless the speaker generally intends an article. But it
was not so originally. It was the same as the a in a-foot,
a-shore, and represented on. The n was retained before a
vowel, of which there is a relic in the old scriptural word
anon. In " ten cents a peck " there is not an omission of a
preposition, but in " ten cents for a peck " there is an inter-
polation of for.
" Thrywa on gear." Thrice a year.
" An halpenny on day." A halfpenny a day. 1
After af-ter, is a comparative of af = of.
But be-utan on the outside, without, is adverb, prep-
osition, and conjunction ; but in modern speech the uses
1 Morris, "Outlines of English Accidence," page 195.
Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions, 487
are so inextricably mixed that it is often impossible to
distinguish the two latter. In older writers it is found as a
preposition with the sense of without.
or drinke she dressed her to lie.
In a darke corner of the hous alone."
CHAUCER : "Troylus and Criseide."
Mr. Home Tooke has collected thirty-four passages from
Gawin Douglas in which but, with this prepositional mean-
ing, occurs alongside of the conjunction but. Allan Ramsay
says :
" I 'd tak my Katie but a gown,
Barefooted in her little coatie."
The adverbial force of but is only, and is an outgrowth of
the conjunction with a negative before it.
" If they kill us, we shall but die."
2 KINGS vii., 4.
More fully: "we shall not but die" that is, "we shall not
(fare any worse) but we shall die." Most frequently it is a
conjunction ; and when it has the force of a preposition it is
equal to except ; but the uncertainty of how much has been
left out, and consequently what part of speech it is, may
account for its rarely taking an objective case after it.
" He seide vnto tham alle that purueied suld it be
That in alle the lond suld be no kyng bot he."
ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER.
" Away went Gilpin, who but he 1 "
COWPER.
By. The primary meaning in Saxon and English is along
side of, whence it widens out to express accompaniment,
active agency, and many other shades of signification. The
" Century Dictionary " enumerates nineteen. In Gothic, it
had signified about, concerning. This meaning it also had in
Anglo-Saxon :
488 English Grammar.
"he rehte him of Moyse and of eallum haligum gewritum,
the be him awritene waeron."
(He told them from Moses and from all the Scriptures what
had been written about him.}
LUKE xxiv., 27.
" Thou hast spoken evil words by the queen."
Fox.
It then glided into the sense of against something bad
about one of which we have a curious instance in
I Cor. iv., 4 :
" For I know nothing by myself, yet am I not thereby
justified."
The revised version has : " I know nothing against myself."
Another peculiar expression is to do well or ill by a person,
instead of to or for. This does not seem to be a good usage.
During. Dure was formerly equivalent to the present
endure to last or continue. The gradual transformation of
such a word into a preposition may be better seen in the
similar word pending: I "while the trial is pending" '/ 2, the
case absolute form, " the trial pending "; then, 3 " pending
the trial."
Like, originally an adjective, is not generally reckoned a
preposition, but it has all the effect of one, and is followed
by me, us, him, them, etc. So long as our language had
cases, like was followed by the dative ; and when they dis-
appeared to was sometimes inserted to supply the supposed
want of a case ending. But to is no more necessary, and
hardly more common after like, than after give or tell.
Near, another adjective generally used as an adverb or a
preposition. It is really a comparative of neah, from which
we have the modern nigh.
Nigh and near are used both with and without the un-
necessary to.
Of, so far as its form is concerned, is but little changed
from the Gothic af, and not at all from A.-S. of, the primary
meaning of which was from, off from, away from. We retain
the original sense only in speaking of the material of or from
Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions. 489
which anything is made, or the source from which it comes.
As equivalent to by, expressing agency, it is common in the
Bible, but no longer in use.
" All their works they do to be seen of men."
MATT, xxiii., 5.
Speaking of its present range of use, Professor Earle says :
" Probably it occurs as often as all the other prepositions put
together. It is a characteristic feature of the stage of the language
which we call by distinction English, as opposed to Saxon. And
this character, like so many characters really distinctive of the
modern language, is French. Nine times out of ten that of is
used in English, it represents the French de. It is the French
preposition in a Saxon mask * * * The common and current
of, which is so profusely sprinkled over every page, is French in
its inward essence. Numerous as are the places in which this
preposition now occurs, it is less rife than it was. In the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries the language teemed with it. It recurred
and re-recurred to satiety. This Frenchism is now much abated." *
The following examples from Shakespeare will illustrate
these " Frenchisms " :
" I go of message from the queen to France."
" I like not of this flight of Edwards."
" I am your husband if you like of me."
" Sight may distinguish of colours."
Since. The Saxons had an adverb and preposition sith,
meaning after, since, which managed to steal down the ages
into the English Bible :
" sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue
thee."
This sith was sometimes followed by a dative case of the
demonstrative pronoun, making sith tham. This became
reduced in time to siththen, or sit/ten. To this again was
added an s, in imitation of a genitive case sithens. Next
1 " Philology of the English Tongue," 523.
4QO English Grammar.
th was dropped out and the remainder appeared as sins or
sens. Since followed as a mere change of spelling to keep
the word from being pronounced sinz.
Till is the Scandinavian for to, and therefore naturally
belongs to the Northumbrian dialect and to Scotland. Bar-
bour and Sir David Lyndesay use to and till interchange-
ably. The former has " to win and till occupy," and
"He ran on feet always hym by,
Till he in-till the wod wes gane.
Than said he till hym-self allane."
The latter in describing the last Judgment makes the angel
proclaim :
" Ryse, dede folk, cum to Jugement."
Then
" The one to plesour salbe led."
" The one tyll euerlastyng glore."
The two words have still the same meaning, but not the same
extent of application. Till is restricted to duration of time.
One may walk till noon, but not till town.
Towards was sometimes divided into two parts and a
word placed between. This kind of infixation is extremely
common in some North American dialects, as the Dacotah,
but is rare in English. There are several instances in the
Bible, as
"the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward"
EPHES. i., 19.
Unto and until are doubled prepositions. Un for Gothic
and old Saxon und, is not found in A.-S. in either form, yet
found its way into English. The meaning is to, so that un-
to = to to.
With. There were two prepositions in A.-S. and early
English, mid, with and with, against,
" Se the nys mid me, he is ongen me."
(He that is n't with me, he is against me.)
MATT, xii., 30.
Adverbs', Prepositions, and Conjunctions. 491
"Nu leofemen for godes liefe witeth eow with thes deofles."
Now, dear men, for God's love, guard yourselves against these
devils. " Old English Homily."
Mid is entirely out of use as a separate word, remaining only
as a prefix in midwife. The distinction between the two
words is well shown in a passage of the " Saxon Chronicle":
" And him come to-gaenes Willelm eorl of Albamar the the king
hadde beteht Euorwic & to other seuez men mid faen men and
fuhten widhim. & flemden the king aet the Standard."
(And William Earl of Albemarle, to whom the king had entrust-
ed York, and two other loyal men came against him with a few
men, and fought against him and put the king to flight at the
Standard.)
With has now usurped the whole duty of mid and lost
most of its own. It has its original meaning as a prefix in
wzV/zhold and wz'Mstand, and in such expressions as to fight,
strive, quarrel, or go to law with.
If English nouns had distinctions of case those that follow
prepositions would be in the objective, as they are indeed
held to be by most authorities. It must be admitted, how-
ever, that the objective is precisely like the nominative. The
effect of the preposition is only seen when it is followed by
a personal, interrogative, or relative pronoun, before me,
after us, for him, from them, with whom.
CONJUNCTIONS.
A conjunction is a word that conjoins or connects. Con-
junctions so often connect sentences, or what may readily be
developed into sentences, that it has sometimes been held
that they invariably have that office. Mr. Harris, the author
of " Hermes," and Dr. Latham are probably the most emi-
nent advocates of that view. The latter says, " there are
always two propositions where there is one conjunction " l ;
but the statement, I think, requires limitation. But be that
as it may, they unite into a continuous whole what would
1 " English Language," chap. 26.
492 English Grammar.
otherwise be scattered shreds of discourse, not only connect-
ing the parts but showing their relation to each other ; that
some ideas agree with and support each other ; that some
are opposites ; that one is to another as cause or effect ; that
they are really consistent, though apparently inconsistent ;
or they carry with them many other implications.
Conjunctions unite two or more distinct sentences into
one, as in the following quotations in which all the parts are
fully expressed.
" No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with
you." JOB xii., 2.
" The wind comes from the desert, but there is no sound in
thy leaves." OSSIAN.
" Though the fields of our battles were dark and silent, our
fame is in the four gray stones." Id.
" The time of the event was accurately ascertained, and the
family hung in trembling suspense, as the minister of heaven
cast the horoscope of the infant."
PRESCOTT : " Conq. of Mex.," i., 4.
Here, although everything is expressed in full, one member
of a sentence repeats nothing contained in another. But
where the simpler conjunctions are used there is generally
something common to two or more members, which is ex-
pressed only in one.
" Houses are built to live in, and not to look on."
BACON : " Essay," 45.
If the second member were fully expressed it would be
"houses are not built to look on."
Thus what is identical in the two members is suppressed in
one of them. Nearly the whole is sometimes suppressed on
account of identity, there being only one little word different.
The ship was driven to and fro.
This, if expanded into two propositions, would be :
The ship was driven to and (the ship was driven) fro.
Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions. 493
When the subject or object is two individuals, acting or
acted upon together and united by and, the sentence cannot
always be decomposed into two propositions without com-
pletely recasting it.
" This dog and man at first were friends."
If this were developed into :
This dog at first were friends,
and
This man at first were friends,
it would be very like nonsense. The same might be said of
She mixed wine and oil together.
The mother and daughter embraced each other.
It is evident then that and does not always connect separate
propositions.
Much may be said without conjunctions ; and primitive
peoples employ few. If we used none, our discourse would
be like a dry-stone wall, without mortar to cement the pieces.
Such is the style of the poems attributed to Ossian.
" I stood in the darkness of my strength. Toscar drew his
sword at my side. The foe came on like a whirlwind. The
mingled sound of death arose. Man took man ; shield met
shield ; steel mixed its beams with steel ; darts hiss through air ;
swords on broken bucklers bound. Like the sound of an aged
grove when a thousand ghosts break the trees by night, such was
the din of arms. But Uthal fell beneath my sword ; the sons of
Berathon fled." l
There are only three words that the English student need
regard as primitive and exclusively conjunctions. The re-
mainder have been adopted or modified from other known
parts of speech, especially pronouns, prepositions, and ad-
verbs. From pronouns, we have either, neither, or, nor,
hence, however, than, that, then, therefore, wherefore, whence,
whereas, whether, why. Many words are sometimes pronouns
or adverbs, and sometimes conjunctions ; and it is not
1 Perhaps not quite accurate, quoted from memory after fifty years.
494 English Grammar.
always possible to tell in a given instance which they are.
The general test of a conjunction is that it unites two
propositions or phrases without being a part of either.
We called (but) there was no answer.
The propositions are complete in themselves, and but adds
nothing to either ; but it shows a relation between the two
a relation we may say of disappointment. The conjunction
is not necessarily placed between the related propositions.
(Although} we called, there was no answer.
A conjunction differs from a relative pronoun or adverb,
which also connects propositions, in this that the relative
belongs to one of the propositions, and the conjunction
does not.
This is Mr. A. B. who is the secretary of our society.
This is Mr. A. B. (and) he is the secretary of our society.
Some conjunctions are apt to go in pairs, the principal of
which are
as as as so both and
if then either or neither nor
whether or though yet
One member of the pair can generally be dispensed with.
It is a question, fortunately not an important one, whether
one of these pairs is one conjunction or two. We have
seen that adverbial and prepositional phrases may be made
up of two or more words, and the same is true of conjunc-
tions. We have such compound expressions as, and yet, if
however, as soon as, inasmuch as, now therefore, on the other
hand. Of however many words such an expression may
consist, it performs the work of a single conjunction, and so
does one of the pairs under consideration.
Grammarians have often divided conjunctions into a
number of classes, according to the relations which they
express or imply, Copulatives, Disjunctives, Concessives,
Continuatives, Illatives, etc., which classification seems to
me to serve no useful purpose. A conjunction not only
Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions. 495
connects but indicates the character of the connection. It
expresses a relation ; and to tell what that relation is
pertains to lexicography rather than to grammar.
I will now remark briefly on a few of the conjunctions, in
regard either to their formation or use.
Also, originally and literally all so, just so, exactly so, in
the very same manner. Compare the Saxon and common
version of Matt, xxi., 30 :
" Tha cwseth he eal swa to tham 6thrum."
(And he came to the second and said likewise?)
It is used to tack on something additional, the main
statement having gone before.
Although all though does not differ in meaning from
though, one of our most primitive conjunctions. It admits
the foregoing proposition, but prepares to deny the con-
sequences expected to follow. It is often followed by still
or yet as a correlative.
" Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be
in the vines, * * * yet I will rejoice in the Lord." HAB. iii.,
And joins only things that are grammatically alike and
equivalent. It unites nouns, including their substitutes,
pronouns, or adjectives, verbs, adverbs, or prepositions, but
it does not unite members of these different classes. More-
over it is the only conjunction that unites parts which can-
not be construed as separate propositions.
Because is by cause, and the earlier and fuller expression
was by the cause that
" And by the cause that they sholde ryse
Eerly for to seen the grete fight
Vn to her reste wen ten they at night."
CHAUCER : " Knight's Tale."
But. The origin of this word as a preposition has been
already shown. As a conjunction it introduces something
496 English Grammar.
opposite to, or at least different from, what has been said.
But here is a distinction between opposition and difference.
The Greeks expressed the former by a\\a and the latter by
<? ; and the barbarian Goths had five words for all of which
we have only but.
Eke is scarcely used as a conjunction, and, like several
others, never goes alone in prose, but follows and :
" And when he rood men might his bridel heere
Gyngle in a whistlyng wynd so cleere,
And eek as lowde as doth the chapel belle."
CHAUCER : " Prolog, to C. T."
" A train-band captain eke was he,
Of famous London town."
COWPER : " John Gilpin."
The conjunction is the same word as the verb eke, which is
but little used, and oftenest in such expressions as to eke
out a scanty meal. In Scotland they eke garments, pieces
of cloth, and broken threads.
Except is shortened from excepting.
"It was a fine April morning, excepting that it had snowed
hard the night before." SCOTT : " Black Dwarf," chap. i.
This is in turn a mere translation of the native English, out-
taking, or out-taken, which first occurs in the " Cursor Mundi "
about 1290.
" And ye, my mooder, my souerayn plesance
Ouer alle thing, out-taken crist on lofte."
CHAUCER : " Man of Lawes Tale."
Save succeeded to the place of out-take :
" Thei ben fulle resonable * * * sa f that thei worschipen
an ox for here god." MANDEVILLE.
Like all or most prepositions adopted as conjunctions, except
was originally and properly followed by that. It was for-
merly much used as a conjunction :
Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions. 497
" Slack not thy riding except I bid thee."
2 KINGS iv., 24.
It is so used sixty-six times in the Bible, and unless only
eight times. At present the prevailing, and I think better,
practice is to use unless exclusively as a conjunction and
except as a preposition.
For is the same word as the preposition for. It is an
abbreviation originating in A.-S. "for tham the" meaning
for the reason that. The that continued long to be used :
"and so death passed upon all men/<7r that all have sinned."
ROM. v., 12.
" Famed Beauclerc called, for that he loved
The minstrel, and his lay approved."
If. Home Tooke's plausible conjecture that this word
formerly sometimes written gif\s the imperative of give,
proves to be ill founded, as the Gothic, Old High German,
Old Saxon, and Icelandic are without g, and the primary
meaning of the word is not to give but to doubt, Icel. if,
uncertainty, efa, to doubt. Moreover the g can be account-
ed for. The Gothic equivalent was iba or ibai, but to this
was sometimes prefixed yah, and, making yabai, and if; not
that it was written with y but rather with J. Passing into
Old Frisian and Anglo-Saxon the word took the formjefor
gef,g alternating between the sounds of our g and y. If
introduces a proposition as more or less doubtful, connected
with another in such wise that if the first holds good, so does
the second ; if the first fail, the second will fail with it.
Now, as an adverb = at this time ; and as a conjunction
retains something of the same meaning. We employ it when
we have cleared our ground, stated our premises, and are
ready to bring forward our conclusion, or make an important
advance in a continuous argument. Joseph, after briefly
reciting certain facts, sums up :
" So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God."
GEN. xlv., 7.
498 English Grammar.
and the eloquent author of the Epistle to the Hebrews pre-
pares to conclude a long argument by saying :
" Now, of the things that have been spoken this is the sum."
A presidential proclamation is prefaced by a statement
headed by the word, " Whereas," and prepares for real busi-
ness with, "Now therefore" Now is also employed in de-
bate to show that an opponent has omitted an important
point.
" In Matt, xxiii., 35, we have the following passage * * * :
' That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the
earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias,
son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.'
Now two Zachariases are recorded in history as having been thus
slain." GREGG : " Creed of Christendom," chap. 8.
Lest is not a shortening of least, but is in part from less.
It is an abbreviation of A.-S. " thy Ices the" the less for this
reason that in which thy is the instrumental case of the
demonstrative pronoun = for this = for this reason and
the a relative pronoun :
" Ic hine ondraede the Ices the he cume and ofslea thas mothra
mid heora cildum."
(I dread him lest he come and slay the mother with her children.)
GEN. xxxii., n.
The first part of the expression was early dropped, leaving
less the, which gradually shrunk to les the, leste, lest.
" Hii habbeth of oure londe al thane north ende, and we beoth
adrad sore leste he habbe nou more."
(He has of our land all the north end, and we be sore adread
lest he now have more.) LAYAMON.
Or is an abbreviation of other ; nor is the same with the
negative n prefixed.
Since like as, inasmuch as, whereas, because, for, introdu-
ces a reason for some act or belief. Like other conjunctions
originally prepositions it was formerly followed by that.
Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions, 499
" How else ! since that the heart's unbiassed instinct
Impelled me to the daring deed."
COLERIDGE : " Piccol." iv., 4.
Still and yet as adverbs express continuance of time, often
conveying a hint that the time is felt to be rather long. As
conjunctions they are introduced in showing that arguments,
actions, good or bad, successes, or failures have failed to
produce the effect expected, and that some person or thing
continues unchanged. You may some time present a topic
dear to your heart, with the demonstrative clearness of
Euclid, and as much eloquence as you can work in, and then
be answered somewhat in this style :
" I admit that you have stated your side of the case very
forcibly ; and if there were no other considerations it would
look quite plausible. I don't pretend to argue the subject just
now ; still I cannot but believe that," etc., etc., etc.
And that is all you get for your pains.
Than and then are variations of the same word. The
first is the most primitive in form, the second in signification.
Shakespeare and earlier writers make no consistent distinc-
tion between the two. Than is used in comparing two
things or classes ; and we are to remember that the com-
parative degree is dual, referring only to two. Hence if we
say " gold is heavier " and go no farther, we do in effect say
that of two things gold is the heavier. We may afterwards
add, " then silver," or " than silver." Then is employed in
drawing a sudden conclusion from something said or done.
Bru. " You are my true and honorable Wife,
As deere to me as are the ruddy droppes
That visit my sad heart."
Por. " If this were true, then should I know this secret."
SHAKESP. : "Julius Caesar," act ii.
An example vastly inferior in dignity, but more apposite, is
afforded by the very simple lines :
500 English Grammar.
1 ' What is your fortune, my pretty maid ? '
' My face is my fortune, Sir,' she said.
' Then, I '11 not have you, my pretty maid.' "
That, originally a demonstrative pronoun, not only be-
came one of the most common of conjunctions, but helped
to make many others. Prepositions after, before, besides,
since, till, notwitJistanding became conjunctions by being
set before that, and retaining their places when it had
disappeared.
" Now after that men han visited the holy places, thanne will
thei turnen toward Jerusalem." MANDEVILLE.
In like manner that was formerly placed and is now omitted,
after if, because, lest, though, while, and other words that
never were prepositions.
One of Home Tooke's acutest conjectures has reference
to the use of that as a conjunction.
" B. * * * Has the Conjunction THAT, any the smallest
correspondence or similarity of signification with THAT, the
Article or Pronoun ?
" H. In my opinion the word THAT (call it as you please, either
Article or Pronoun, or Conjunction) retains always one and the
same signification. Unnoticed abbreviation in construction and
difference of position have caused this appearance of fluctuation ;
and misled the grammarians of all languages, both ancient and
modern, for in all they make the same mistake. Pray, answer
me a question. Is it not strange and improper that we should,
without any reason or necessity, employ in English the same
word for two different meanings and purposes ?
"B. I think it wrong : and I see no reason for it, but many
reasons against it.
" H. Well ! Then is it not more strange that this same impro-
priety, in this same case, should run through ALL languages ?
And that they should ALL use an Article without any reason,
unnecessarily, and improperly, for this same Conjunction with
which it has, as you say, no correspondence nor similarity of
signification ?
"* * * Examine any languages you please and see whether
Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions. 501
they also, as well as the English, have not a supposed Conjunction
which they employ as we do thai j and which is the same word
as their supposed Article or Pronoun. Does not this look as if there
was some reason for employing the Article in this manner ?
" B. The appearances, I own, are strongly in favour of your
opinion. But how shall we find out what that connection is ?
" H. Suppose we examine some instances ; and, still keeping
the same signification of the sentences, try whether we cannot,
by a resolution of their construction, discover what we want.
" Example. ' I wish you to believe THAT I would not wilfully
hurt a fly.'
" Resolution. ' I would not wilfully hurt a fly ; I wish you to
believe that [assertion].' "
This view has the powerful support of Bopp, so far as the
German language is concerned ; but both writers have neg-
lected to give any actual examples illustrating the trans-
formation of the second of the above forms into the first.
It is an interesting fact that many languages form this
conjunction from a pronoun ; but then pronouns are a fruit-
ful source of adverbs and conjunctions generally. This
adoption is not confined to the Aryan languages, but is
found also in Hebrew, and, according to Gesenius, in Ara-
maic and Ethiopic. Hebrew has two relative (not demon-
strative) pronouns chi and asher which also do duty for
the conjunction that. The Hebrew scholar scarcely needs to
be reminded of the oft-repeated formula :
" vaiiare Elohim chi tob."
(And God saw that [it was] good.)
For the similar use of asher we may instance 2 Sam. xi., 20 :
" y'da'tem eth asher yoru meal hakhomah."
(Ye know that they shoot from the wall.)
To show the use of this conjunction by a single example
from several Aryan languages I select the Greek, Latin,
Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, English, Russian, and German versions
of the first part of Matt, v., 17 :
502 English Grammar.
ff voftiffrfTK on rjkQov KaraXvGai rov VOJA.OV
Ne existimate me venisse ut dissolvam legem.
Ne hugyaith ei qemyau gatairan witoth.
Nelle ge we" nan that ic come towurpan tha ae.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law.
Ne dumaite chto Ya prished parushit zakon.
Ihr sollt nicht wahnen, dass ich gekommen bin das Gesetz * * *
aufzulosen.
Still, the dictum that the pronoun corresponding to the
English that becomes a conjunction in ALL is stated too
broadly. In the first place it fails entirely in Arabic, Irish,
and Magyar, and probably in many other languages equally
unknown to Mr. Home Tooke and the present writer. In
the second place the conjunction is not from the demonstra-
tive but from the relative pronoun.
There were in Sanskrit three pronouns which, divested of
all irregularities and reduced to their simplest terms, were
interrog. ka, demonst. ta, and relat. ya ; or adding a letter
that was an almost invariable part, kad, tad, and yad. Now
of the relative yad only doubtful traces are left in any
Western branch of the great Aryan family, and never as
a pronoun. Relatives had to be borrowed. The Latin, the
Slavonic, and, it is asserted on good authority, the Lithu-
anian used the interrogative as a relative ; the Teutonic
branch alone preferred the demonstrative, but at a com-
paratively late date adopted the interrogative also. Hence
it is that we can say : " the man that laughs," and " the man
who laughs " ; but the latter is not older than the Reforma-
tion. But the Teutonic tongues had yet another relative, an
indeclinable particle, perhaps remotely derived from a de-
monstrative. In Gothic it was ei, which we have seen used
as a conjunction. It was generally connected with its ante-
cedent ik-ei, I who, thu-ei, thou who, thata-ei, that which.
Now this thata-ei, usually shortened to thatei, was the com-
mon Gothic conjunction = that. Icelandic had two such
particles, ancient es, modern er, and sem, both of which were
relatives and conjunctions. Anglo-Saxon had also two inde-
Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions. 503
clinable relatives, as and the (see page 328). This particular
as is probably akin to the particle ei, and es or er just cited
a relative pronoun turned relative conjunction. The was no
doubt originally a demonstrative pronoun, but known to us
as an indeclinable relative :
"Wrecce men sturven of hungear, sume ieden on aelmes the
waren sum wile rice men."
(Wretched men starved of hunger, some went to beggary who
some time were rich men.) " Saxon Chronicle."
We also find it as a conjunction :
" Mid almyhtyes godes luue, vte we vs werie,
With theos wrecche worldes luue, the heo vs ne derye." '
(With Almighty God's love, let us guard ourselves
Against this wretched world's love, that it harm us not.)
Next we find this particle connected with the true demon-
strative, which for sake of distinction I shall here render this
-for tham the, vith tham the, cer tham the, after tham the*
These phrases may be rendered : for this, that i. e., for this
reason, that ; contrary to this, that. One step farther and
we find this relative the and the neuter singular of the
demonstrative, that, mistaken for each other for thy t/uzt,
thurh that that. In some such way, through ignorance and
carelessness, that came to take the place of the indeclinable
relative and conjunction.
How this relative pronoun became a conjunction at first I
do not know ; but a possible manner of transition may be
made more conceivable by an example or two from other
languages, where the relative occurs, as an adverb = how, or
as a conjunction = that.
" Docebat etiam * * * ut omni tempore totius Gallise
principatum ^Edui tenuissent."
1 Morris's " Specimens of Early English," i., 216.
1 Matzner's " Englische Grammatik," Hi., 427.
504 English Grammar.
(He also explained * * * how (or thaf) the JEdluans had
always held the leadership of all Gaul.)
CAESAR : " Bel. Gal.," i., 43.
" v'atta higgadta haiiom eth asfar-a.siiha.h itti tobah."
(And thou hast showed this day how that thou hast dealt well
with me.) i SAM. xxiv., 18.
Unless was formerly written onles or onlesse that is, on less.
Home Took says that Tyndale was one of the first to write
this word with u and that the great importance and merit of
his works gave currency to the corruption. The meaning
seems to be, " on a less condition " " on easier terms," the
event referred to will not take place. The phrase requires
than to complete it.
" But that may not be upon lesse than wee now falle toward
hevene fro the erthe." MANDEVILLE.
The on was sometimes omitted
" I xal him down dynge
Lesse than he at my byddynge
Be buxom to min honde."
" Townley Mysteries," A.D. 1430.
" Gif he
Commyttis any tresoun, suld he not de ;
Less than his prince of grete humanite
Perdoun his fault for his long trew service ? "
GAWIN DOUGLAS.
Than was changed to that.
" I xal forfare, ffor to grete synnys that I have do,
Less that my lord God sumdel spare."
" Townley Mysteries."
Lastly, as in so many other cases, that was omitted.
Why, originally the instrumental case of who, as a conjunc-
tion begins a reply. If the answer be not ready at hand, it
expresses doubt and hesitation ; oftener it expresses indig-
nant surprise.
Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions. 505
" Why, in that elder day, to be a Roman
Was greater than a King."
Miss MITFORD.
Many years ago, during the excitement over the capture and
return of the slave Burns, Theodore Parker in one of his
addresses, burst forth indignantly with :
" Why, his countrymen were bishops of Hippo and Carthage."
CHAPTER IX.
SYNTAX.
ALL agree that the second important part of grammar is
SYNTAX. The word means literally placing together in
order. The Greek Syntaxis was primarily a military term,
and related to the placing of men and different bodies of
troops preparatory to a battle. But when the term is
transferred to the marshalling of words, that part which
relates to placing them is in a great measure lost sight of.
The reason is easily understood when we reflect that our
grammar is an inheritance from the Greeks and Romans
whose words were as mutable as Proteus, and assumed as
many disguises. The question with them was not where to
place their words, but what forms to give them. And although
the forms of English words are few and seldom mistakable,
and their relations to each other determined largely by posi-
tion, grammarians have almost entirely ignored these facts,
and under the head of Syntax have treated of the forms
and not the placing of the words.
The difference between Greek and Latin on the one side
and English on the other, how imperious were the demands
of form with them, and how important position is to us, will
be seen by a single example :
Hie venator juvenis ilium ursum nigrum occidit.
This young hunter killed that black bear.
There are seven words in each version, and to change the
form of one in the Latin or the position of any but one in
the English would alter or impair the sense. The Latin
words might be arranged 5,040 different ways, while the
506
Syntax. 507
English would admit of only one change. We might say,
" The hunter young," but every one would recognize that
as belonging rather to the style of poetry than of plain
prose. A greater freedom of arrangement then is practised
by the poet than by the prose-writer. It is a part of what
is called poetic license, and has no other limit than the
necessity of being intelligible, which limit is perhaps some-
times passed. But he who speaks or writes English prose
must pursue a straight and narrow path compared with one
whose words may assume a thousand forms, or be arranged
in a thousand different ways. Still we may find that there
are compensating advantages, and that the principles of our
language forbid our doing only those things that would be
of no advantage.
Of that part of syntax that prescribes the forms that
words shall bear in certain connections, much is necessarily
taught under the head of Etymology in exhibiting the
forms themselves. Nearly all that I have deemed proper to
say on that subject has been already said. Much of the re-
mainder that is usually presented as syntax consists merely
of names and definitions for various arrangements of words,
which no one is much the wiser for knowing. What remains
to be said on what are called " Concord and Government "
will be introduced when required in the general discussion
on the selection and placing of words. It is hoped that the
young and ingenious reader will find interest and advantage
in following a line of thought somewhat different from that
of the common text-books.
No one will question the importance of selecting appro-
priate words ; but the equal importance of arrangement will
be seen by dislocating the words of a sentence, thus :
" Whoever makes not this one kind of easy argument to de-
ceive the physical elements of some back sciences should learn
more the use of intending to be sent." " Mill's Logic."
Whatever might be done if the language were Latin, it is
doubtful if any one could restore sense to a long English
sentence thus dismembered. But be the language what it
508 English Grammar.
may, it is clear that such dismemberment adds to the diffi-
culty of understanding.
There is only one fundamental principle governing the
location of words, which is, that words which limit, explain,
or complement each other should be placed near together.
It is equally applicable to all languages, but not equally
imperative. It is not strictly followed by any that I am
acquainted with. Suppose we had occasion to speak of an
" opening rose," but instead of placing the two words to-
gether, we should interpose thirty or forty other words,
relating to various matters, it would then require considera-
ble mental effort to disentangle the idea of an " opening rose."
Now this kind of displacement is of frequent occurrence.
" Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes."
vi., 663.
The first and last words are more closely connected in ex-
pressing the import of the line than any others in it.
Again, in the line of Propertius :
" Nee levis in verbis est medicina meis."
levis belongs with medicina, and verbis with meis. Of two
closely connected words it may matter little which comes
first or last ; but it helps the understanding greatly to find
them together. I have before me a sentence from an Eng-
lish author who has had a wide popularity for more than a
century ; and in that sentence a verb and its immediate ob-
ject are separated by ninety-four words. A private pension
act of the Fifty-first Congress directs the Secretary of the
Interior " to place on the pension roll, at the rate of fifteen
dollars per month, * * * subject to the provisions and
limitations of the pension laws." In good composition
nothing more than a comma would intervene between
"month" and "subject"; but in reality there are eighty-
two words. The Germans have probably carried to a
greater degree of perfection than any other people the art of
putting asunder things nearly related. They will not only
separate words closely connected, but, like the American
Syntax. 509
Indians, they will cut a word in two, and put a long discus-
sion between the parts.
" He (i) had several older brothers ; and was, (2) since the pos-
sessions of the family an inheritance for the oldest formed, and
he himself sorely against the custom and the tradition of his race,
through great learning-fondness and a decided inclination to a
quiet contemplative life devoted, for the diplomatic service (4)
through the persuasion of his mother, a beautiful, gentle, sickly
lady, who in the solitude of the ancestral castle of Tissow the
most brilliant gifts with which she upon a far grander theatre had
shine can, unused or almost unused, go-to-waste let must destined
become (3)."
The thread of the story runs through the italicized passages
in the order of the numbers. The labor of sifting out the
essential atoms and putting them together is as real to the
German as it would be to us, although long use has made
him less conscious of it.
There are three peculiar words in our language, yes, no,
and amen. Each of them is a symbol that stands for a sen-
tence, and is incapable of combining with other words to
form one. They are holophrasts, and not parts of speech in
the same sense as other words are.
With the exception of these three, no other word expresses
a complete meaning when standing alone. A verb used im-
peratively come, halt comes the nearest to it ; but there
must be some one to " come " or " halt " ; and, if the com-
mand were given in full, a noun or pronoun would accom-
pany the verb. A sufficient number of words put together
to express a complete meaning make a sentence. Our
speech and writing are made up of sentences. Of these
there are several kinds. They may be divided into classes
in various ways on a variety of different principles. One
obvious way of dividing them is into Declarative, Interroga-
tive, and Imperative.
" Ireland is an island," makes a statement as of a fact.
" When will the moon be full ? " asks a question.
" Open the window," gives a command.
510 English Grammar.
The last two forms might indeed be dispensed with, and we
might say :
I desire to know when the moon will be full.
I desire you to open the window.
thus making all sentences declarative, as by far the greater
part are. It is with them that we shall be chiefly occupied.
Every complete sentence contains at least two elements.
One of the simplest possible sentences is,
Bears hibernate.
Something is mentioned " bears " and something is told
about them that they " hibernate " ; and these two ele-
ments are indispensable. The first is called the subject
the thing spoken about ; the second is called the predicate
the thing declared or said. The subject is generally a
noun, but it may be a pronoun, or indeed it may be any
word or set of words that can be used as a noun for the oc-
casion. The predicate, limited to a single word, is always a
verb, expressing an action or condition limited to the sub-
ject and not affecting any other person or thing. Of such
verbs fall, sit, sleep, walk, laugh, sneeze are examples. But
the greater number of verbs express actions affecting some
second person or thing catch, hold, lift, make, fasten, etc.
What is thus acted upon is called the object. A third class
of verbs do not express an action exercised upon anything,
and yet require to be supplemented by some other words in
order to make sense. Verbs that in any way signify to be,
become, seem or be called are of this class, and grammarians
are pleased to call them by the awful title of " Verbs of In-
complete Predication." In such cases the verb is called a
copula a mere coupling, or connecting link ; and the supple-
mentary words are regarded as the predicate, or thing as-
serted. Judged, then, by the part they play in sentences,
verbs are of three kinds first, those that tell their own story;
second, those that express an action upon something ; and
third, those that connect somewhat in the manner of the
algebraic signs = <.
Syntax. 511
The verb can be recognized by its meaning, whatever its
grammatical form, or however it may be placed ; but the
subject and object may be mistaken for each other. To
obviate this, a method that has prevailed very widely, is to
attach to one or both certain prefixes or suffixes that would
distinguish them wherever they might be placed. In prac-
tice this method had the serious drawback that it was seldom
carried out thoroughly, and a multitude of words were left
indistinguishable. Moreover, in a very long sentence, as we
have seen, words might be separated far from their partners,
and the reader or hearer would have to retain them in mind
and keep on the outlook for other words to fit them.
We have almost wholly abandoned that method, retaining it
only in the case of a few pronouns. We rely upon the
position of the words, the normal order being Subject, Verb,
Object. This order is sometimes departed from in legal
documents, poetry, and the Bible, all formed upon archaic
patterns.
" God and his son except,
Created thing naught feared he." MILTON.
Where words are few and simple any order agreed upon
and understood serves perfectly well ; but in long and intri-
cate sentences the order of arrangement may become im-
portant. Is there any natural principle determining the best
order? Herbert Spencer, in an essay on the philosophy of
style, lays down two leading principles. The first is that the
best arrangement is that which requires the least effort on
the part of the reader or hearer in order to understand and
appreciate it. This principle is beyond dispute, but it does
not go very far. The second, which is more questionable, is
that details and circumstances should precede the essential
words. The philosophical author seems to think that when
the word horse, for example, is seen or heard, there is formed
in the mind a picture of the animal, complete in every way,
of a certain age, size, color, and attitude, grazing, standing
in a stable, or otherwise employed. When any of these cir-
cumstances are afterwards given, the chances are largely that
512 English Grammar.
the preconceived picture turns out to be incorrect, and has
to be erased, as it were, and a new one formed. This process
has to be repeated as each new feature is added, and the
successive corrections involve mental labor. It is argued
that if the details were given first no picture would be
formed until the mind was in possession of all the materials.
To all this I am unable to assent. I am not conscious of
forming, on hearing names, mental images that require such
continued erasure or alteration. For ought that I can see,
they may be but faint and colorless outlines that are rendered
more distinct and definite by each successive touch. On the
other hand, to gather up and carry forward a multitude of
details without knowing what is to be done with them
involves considerable mental effort. Let us suppose a
sentence like the following, which is one of the simplest of
the kind :
" All the dismal winter night, through the dark and dripping
woods, while the north wind sobbed and moaned, shaking the
icicles from the leafless branches, and in mournful chorus howled
the wolves and whooped the owls from their hiding in the hollow
trees, tramped and floundered, fell and rose, ever pressing
toward the Pontic Sea, the cold and hungry, ragged, footsore,
fugitive Jew."
Sentences constructed in this manner might be well cal-
culated to excite attention at first, to see what was coming ;
but weariness would soon overcome curiosity ; and, if per-
sisted in, they would be resented as a rhetorical trick.
Indeed, Mr. Spencer, with characteristic candor admits that
in very long sentences such would be the effect. But then
a principle or rule is of little value if it fails where most
needed.
But, whatever may be theoretically best, the rule of prece-
dence in English is as stated :
Subject Verb Object
or at least the first two. But few sentences are confined
to two or three words. These may become centres of
Syntax. 513
development to be expanded in an indefinite number of
ways. In treating of them, we may begin with the subject,
and much that is to be said of it applies equally to the
object.
The subject may be either a noun or a pronoun, and it is
always in the nominative case when it admits of such a dis-
tinction, which, however, is only shown in a few pronouns.
There may be several subjects, not merely a multitude of
individuals represented by a single word, and therefore
grammatically single, but two or more nouns or pronouns.
We may say not only, " Children love play," but also,
" Boys and girls love play."
" Then went up Moses and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu and
seventy of the elders of Israel."
The other members of the sentence may be equally com-
posite.
A noun, whether subject or object, may be accompanied
by an adjective, or by other words serving the same pur-
pose. Instead of the unqualified statement, " Boys throw
stones," we may say, " Bad boys throw stones." When an
adjective is thus put directly along with a noun, it is said by
grammarians to be used attributively. If placed alone at
the other end of the sentence, after a verb of being, seeming,
or becoming the boys are bad it would be the predicate,
or be used predicatively. In the first case the quality is
tacitly assumed ; in the second, expressly declared. The
normal place of the adjective is before the noun in English,
but after it in the languages of the Latin stock. In some
imitations of Latin and French, and often in poetry, it is
placed after the noun. A noun may have several adjectives
attached to it, in which case the one that is most essential,
permanent, and inherent is placed nearest.
A poor old man came to the door.
His age is a more permanent, essential, characteristic than
his poverty. But if he were "a poor old colored man,"
his color would stick to him closer than either age or penury.
33
514 English Grammar.
Professor McGuffey, of Virginia, used to illustrate this
point by the difference between " an old cocked hat " and
" a cocked old hat." The first was from the day of its mak-
ing a hat of the special kind known as a cocked hat, which
had become old. The other was an old hat of any kind,
that through accident or rough usage had been knocked into
a cocked hat. It is upon the same principle that adjective
pronouns a, an, the, this, some, any, several, being applica-
ble always and to everything, are placed farther from the
noun than any real adjective.
A curious instance of misplacement is afforded by a private
act of the Fifty-first Congress, which alleges that Milo Miner
had " four only sons." It is not uncommon to have only
four sons, but the circumstance of having a number of only
sons perhaps merited preservation in permanent form as a
part of the law of the land.
A great number of words may be used as eithqr nouns,
adjectives, or verbs. Participles especially partake of the
adjective character, and the same is true of the possessive
case of nouns. The dignity of a senator is the same as
senatorial dignity. A long series of words may be used
adjectively before a single noun. An act of Congress, dated
August 1 8, 1890, specifies
" one light rapid fire, rapid twist six-pounder breech-loading
field gun."
Here are ten words, placed as adjectives before the word
"gun" and three of them are nouns, while " twist " is am-
biguous, but probably a noun. Obviously some of these
words belong together in pairs, as " rapid-fire," " rapid-
twist," " breech-loading," " field-gun " ; so that the ideas to
be expressed are less than the number of words. But on
the other hand any adjective may be preceded by an adverb,
or even by more than one.
A very well informed man told the story.
In languages where the adjectives admit of full inflection
they are required to agree with the nouns to which they be-
Syntax. 5 1 5
long in number, gender, and case ; but in English there are
only two words that admit of such distinction namely, this
and that, which have the plurals these and those. Adjectives
may be further limited or defined by being connected with
nouns or equivalent expressions by means of prepositions
suitable for building, unfit for severe service, unable to walk.
While any number of single adjectives may be placed before
the noun which they qualify, these adjective phrases are put
after it. We do not say : " An unable to walk man," but
" A man unable to walk." Similar qualifying expressions
may be introduced in any part of a sentence after either a
noun, an adjective, or a verb a man with a basket and a
fishing-rod. The Indian rode without saddle or bridle. In
either case the qualifying phrase is put after the word
qualified.
Thus far I have spoken only of adjective expressions
closely and immediately connected with the subject or ob-
ject ; but there are others thrown in parenthetically in the
manner of passing remarks, and usually pointed off by
commas.
" Yet man, ignorant of the constitution of the dust upon which he
treads, has ventured to speculate on the nature of God."
"His spirit, mean in adversity, violent and inhuman in prosperity,
sank under the load of public abhorrence."
Words and phrases thus loosely connected with subject or
object, are said to be in apposition, with it, which means
placed near, not joined to it. Either nouns, adjectives, or
adjective phrases may stand in apposition with the subject
or the object, and may either precede or follow, or be placed
at some distance while other words intervene.
" Now therefore I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United
States of America, do issue this my proclamation."
The subject of the sentence is " I."
" Stretching far away at their feet, were seen noble forests of
oak, sycamore, and cedar."
516 English Grammar.
" Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of
smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of
the merchant ? "
" A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse ; a spring shut up,
a fountain sealed"
In this last passage from Canticles the natural order of sub-
ject, copula, and predicate would be :
" My sister, my spouse, is a garden enclosed, a spring shut up, a
fountain sealed"
The very next sentence unfolds an exuberance of explan-
atory terms in apposition :
" Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant
fruits ; camphire with spikenard, spikenard and saffron ; calamus
and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense ; myrrh and aloes,
with all the chief spices."
One example more will show how far appositive phrases
may be extended.
" Herculean strength and a stentorian voice,
Of wit a fund, of words a countless choice ;
In learning rather various than profound,
In truth intrepid, in religion sound ;
A trembling form and a distorted sight,
Yet firm in judgment, and of genius bright :
Deep tinged with melancholy's blackest shade,
And, though prepared to die, of death afraid ;
To more than merited his kindness kind,
And, though of manners rough, yet friendly mind ;
Such Johnson was, of whom with justice vain,
O when shall England see his like again ? "
When the subject is a pronoun it does not take adjectives
directly, or attributatively, but may have adjectives or ad-
jective phrases in apposition.
Thus far none of the explanatory words or phrases con-
sidered have contained verbs ; but there may be illustrative
clauses containing both subject and verb, thus having with-
Syntax. 517
in themselves the essentials of sentences. There may thus
be subordinate sentences contained in or attached to prin-
cipal sentences. They may be attached to subject, verb, or
object, but always by means of conjunctions, or pronominal
or adverbial relatives words closely related in character.
" The events which I propose to relate form only a single act of
a great and eventful drama."
" While the German princes who reigned at Paris, Toledo, Aries,
and Ravenna, listened with reverence to the instructions of bishops,
adored the relics of martyrs, and took part eagerly in disputes touch-
ing the Nicene theology, the rulers of Wessex and Mercia were still
performing savage rites in the temples of Thor and Woden."
" The Church has many times been compared to the ark of
which we read in the Book of Genesis"
There are even such subordinate sentences enclosing others
still more subordinate.
" We read in our Saxon chronicles of tyrants, who (when at
the height of greatness,) were smitten with remorse * * * and
who sought to atone for their offences by cruel penances and incessant
prayers."
The dependent sentence may thus be much longer than the
principal one.
While the grammatical subject is usually a single word
noun or pronoun the logical subject, that which we are
called upon to think of, is the aggregate represented by that
noun or pronoun together with all the adjectives, adjective
phrases, and dependent sentences attached thereto. The
same may be said of the object. The verb may in like man-
ner be expanded so as to include logically all the circum-
stances of time, manner, cause, and purpose. Thus the
whole sentence, however long, crystallizes around the three
points of Subject, Verb, and Predicate, or Object.
While the central point of the subject or object is
generally a noun or pronoun ; yet it sometimes takes the
form of a phrase, clause, or dependent sentence.
518 English Grammar.
" That I have tane away this old man's Daughter,
It is most true."
The first line is here the real subject.
He found that during his absence a pack of ragamuffins had
entered and robbed his garden, and broken down his fruit-trees,
vines, and flowers.
In this example " He " is the subject, " found " the verb, and
all the rest object.
As in the above quotation from " Othello," the little pro-
noun " it " is often made to figure as the grammatical sub-
ject ; " // is most true." But " it " in this case can stand for
nothing but the previous line, which has no need of such a
representative. This it belongs to the habit of the language,
but really performs no more duty than he in such a sentence
as:
The watchman he fell asleep.
Nearly all that has been said of the subject of a sentence
applies equally to the predicate after a verb of being, or
the object after a transitive verb : yet there are some points
of difference.
Where case can be distinguished verbs of being, becoming,
seeming, etc., take the same case before and after them ;
transitive verbs require the objective. Instances of devia-
tion will be noticed when we come to treat of the syntax of
pronouns. The noun or pronoun which is the nucleus of
the object is placed as near as possible to the beginning, so
as to be in close proximity to the verb on which it depends.
We may say :
Descended from an old baronial family who had lived on the
ancestral estate three hundred years, Sir Thomas was elected, etc.
But we may not say:
They elected, descended from an old baronial family who had
lived on the ancestral estate three hundred years, Sir Thomas.
This latter construction is common in German, only that an
article, an or the, would be placed before " descended."
Syntax. 519
The superfluous " it " has no place in the object. The
equally superfluous " there " is also excluded.
There is great scarcity of water in Wyoming.
They found great scarcity of water in Wyoming.
A reason for the use of these redundant particles can be
conjectured. The verb to be has nearly the effect of the
sign of quality =, and like it requires a term on each side.
Let us substitute the sign. I = very cold. There = about
500 men. These are complete equations, so far as mere
form goes, but, = very cold ; = about 500 men, show their
incompleteness too plainly.
Besides the direct object of a verb there may often be an
indirect one, viz., the person to, for, or on behalf of whom
an action is performed.
A B is building me a house.
He is not building me; he is building a house; but the
house is for me. The to or for often placed before the
indirect object belongs to the class of "modern improve-
ments," not really necessary, but occasioned by the dis-
appearance of case-endings. When we were able to distin-
guish cases such indirect object was in the dative. The
distinction is still sufficiently shown by position, as the in-
direct object without a preposition is placed before the
direct.
Sing me a song ; not, Sing a song me.
But if a preposition is used the order is reversed.
Send it to him ; not, Send to him it.
A few verbs have the appearance of having two direct
objects. We may take teach as an example. One may
teach boys, or he may teach Latin. So then when he
teaches boys Latin, which is the direct and which the
indirect object? That may be determined by position.
We teach boys Latin, but never Latin boys. In reality the
word is used in two different senses. In the sentence : " We
520 English Grammar.
teach boys," teach = instruct ; it has not that value in the
sentence: " We teach Latin." The words pay and forgive
may be disposed of in the same manner. Ask is somewhat
different, as we do not ask to or for, but of or from a person
and for a thing. The indirect object here never was a
dative ; and the Saxon verb governed two accusatives.
" ne ndn ne dorste of tham dsege, hyne nan thing mare acsian."
(nor no one durst not from that day ask him no thing more.)
MATT, xxii., 46.
In usage ask is now assimilated to the others just con-
sidered. We may easily determine which is the direct
object by trying the collocation : " I asked a question him."
The indirect object need not necessarily be a person.
Verbs are modified by adverbs, hence all expressions and
clauses that limit, define, or describe the actions represented
by verbs have an adverbial character, especially those that
express cause, purpose, time, manner, or instrumentality.
The placing of adverbial expressions is a subject of great
extent and of considerable importance and difficulty. Only
an outline can be given here.
Beginning with the simplest class, intransitive verbs quali-
fied by simple adverbs, we find that, while adjectives regu-
larly precede nouns, adverbs generally follow verbs.
run away
sit down
run aground
go ahead
fall off
climb up
draw out
fall behind
turn round
cry out
keep aloof
sit up
In these and similar expressions the adverb is to be placed
after the verb and nowhere else. They have become almost
an integral part of the verb. There are no unquestionable
adverbs, except those derived from the interrogative pro-
noun, that are imperatively required to be placed before
verbs. A very few adverbs of time, or that express difficulty,
generally come before the verb when it consists of a single
word :
Almost, erst, ever, never, hardly, rarely, scarcely, seldom.
Syntax. 521
But when the verbal expression is composite, they may, and
generally do, follow the auxiliary ; and it is to be remem-
bered that, grammatically, the auxiliary is the verb.
When the verb is present or preterit active that is, con-
sists of a single word, there are a number of adverbs that
never precede it. The following are a few examples :
Apart, asleep, astray, aloud, lengthwise, late, near, nigh, pitapat
straight, together, upside down.
The negative not has the peculiarity of always following an
auxiliary or the verb to be, or to have.
Such adverbs of time as long ago, now, then, often, sometimes
yesterday, to-morrow, by and by, are homeless wanderers,
having no fixed place in the sentence.
By far the greatest number of adverbs in the language are
formed from adjectives by adding ly, and express the manner
of doing something. Their proper place, which, it must be
admitted, is not very well assured, is after the verb, or at
least after an auxiliary. To place them before the verb
would often be perfectly barbarous.
He well acts He unintelligibly speaks
They insolently behaved He too long stayed
They wastefully live He fashionably dresses.
I conclude then that the normal place of the adverb is
after the verb. Of course there are exceptions, and we are
not to expect consistency ; but such is according to the
genius and fundamental analogies of the language.
There are two places in a sentence where adverbs are not
appropriate. One is between a transitive verb and its ob-
ject. If the object be a noun, adverbs expressing the direc-
tion of motion, and forming almost a part of the verb, may
be placed either before or after such noun.
He cut down the tree ; or, He cut the tree down.
He called back the boy ; or, He called the boy back.
When, however, a preposition precedes the noun object, an
adverb or adverbial phrase may come between that and the
522 English Grammar.
verb. But when the object is a pronoun, no adverb is al-
lowed between it and the verb :
They sent him away ; not They sent away him.
The other unsuitable place is between an infinitive and
to preceding. In modern English to has become so closely
associated with the verb as to be considered a part of it. If
you ask any one whether there is any verb corresponding to
the noun collision, he will probably tell you that there is,
and that it is to collide. That is the usual way of mention-
ing any verb. So closely have they become united that I
can think of no justification for putting them asunder. I
have met with but few instances of the separation in books ;
but within a few years newspapers, magazines, speeches all
documents of the day and hour abound with expressions
somewhat like the following :
They were expected to immediately return.
He promised to to-morrow call and settle.
The trade was expected to immensely increase.
A passage with this grammatical feature occurs in one of
Miss Burney's novels written about the time of the Ameri-
can revolution, and " Childe Harold " has at least one ; but
then the arrangement of words in poetry is privileged.
" To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene."
So they are to be found in the writings of Herbert Spen-
cer, and probably in some other works with which I am not
familiar ; but happily they are still rare in books of any
literary merit. The following are genuine and recent :
" For the champion of a great cause [Parnell] to repeatedly and
with deliberation place himself in a position rendering certain his
removal," etc.
" The great reduction in recent years in the price of copper
* * * led to such a general extension of the uses of that metal,
as to finally not only absorb any surplus stock, but also," etc.
Syntax. 523
" a proper care for human life should inspire every member of
Congress with a determination to, as soon as possible, remedy the
condition of affairs now existing."
It is very curious to observe how rapidly such a fashion
will overspread the world in the manner of a rinderpest or
a potato-blight. A votary of the fashion, with more ambi-
tion than judgment, gets the following imitation put into
print :
" There has been some mortality among the cattle * * * due
to principally overcrowded ranges."
Leaving adverbial expressions consisting of single words
and turning to clauses of some length, there is one that de-
serves particular attention. It is sometimes called the Case
Absolute, but might more properly be called the Absolute
Clause. It introduces something that has no expressed con-
nection with the rest of the sentence ; but a relation of time,
cause, or occasion is left to be understood.
Mrs. Fauntleroy having paid the fine and costs, Simpkins was
released.
The relation is one of cause.
The gate being open, the cattle entered and destroyed the corn.
Here the relation is one of occasion or opportunity.
The essential parts of the clause are a subject different
from that of the principal sentence, accompanied by a parti-
ciple instead of a verb. Where there are sufficient distinc-
tions of case the subject and participle are in some one of
the so-called oblique cases. In Sanskrit it was the locative,
employed with the sense of at, during, or upon. In Greek,
the case absolute was the genitive ; in Latin, where it was
extremely common, it was the ablative ; in Anglo-Saxon, the
dative ; in English it is the nominative or common case,
there being no other choice except the possessive.
It would be practically impossible, and useless even if
practicable, to name, describe, explain, and justify every
form of expression employed to set forth all the circum-
524 English Grammar.
stances of time, place, cause, manner, instrumentality, and
effect. We have seen that when a sentence consists of only
two or three words, they must be placed in a certain order,
and that when single words are added to these there are
appropriate places for them. But when the additional matter
amounts to long clauses and even sentences, the arrangement
of such material is left very much to the judgment and taste
of the writer. We have merely found that there are two
places, at least according to my judgment, from which they
are generally to be excluded. The essential words of the
sentence preserve their relative places. By marking them
in italics we can show where the secondary matter is distrib-
uted or accumulated. It may precede or follow them, be
interposed between them, or spread around them.
" Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias Caesar,
Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch
of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and of the
region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene,
Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came
to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness."
4< The Bishops edified all who approached them by the firmness
and cheerfulness with which they endured confinement, by the
modesty and meekness with which they received the applause and
blessings of the whole nation, and by the loyal attachment which
they professed for the persecutor who sought their destruction."
" Even Powell, whose character for honesty stood high, had
bornea.part'v<\ some proceedings which it is impossible to defend."
A good deal is often placed between the auxiliary and
participle in a compound tense.
" He had, in the great case of Sir Edward Hales, with some
hesitation, it is true, and after some delay, concurred with the
majority of the bench."
I do not think, however, that this is the best arrangement
possible.
If there be one leading principle above all others to be
seen in the structure of English sentences, it is that of keep-
ing the essential words, or at the very least two of them,
Syntax. 525
near together, so that their relations to each other may be
seen in an instant, without waiting for the end of a long
discourse. It is true that the outlying circumstances are in
danger of not receiving full attention, but then they are less
important, sometimes not important at all. Alike in accenting
our words and framing our sentences, our instinct is to make
sure of the main point, even at the sacrifice of some of the
accessories. But this practical bent of the language has
been interfered with by the Latin training of the schools.
The Latin sentence, like the Latin pronunciation, rested on
principles different from ours. The simplest of Latin sen-
tences were constructed somewhat like the following from
Livy :
" Carthaginiense s eo anno argentum in stipendium impositum
primum advexerunt"
" Consul, per Charopum Epiroten certior factus, quos saltus
cum exercitu insedisset rex, et ipse, quum Corcyrae hibernasset,
vere prime in continentem transvectus, ad hostem ducere pergit"
Latin preserved the integrity of its sentences, by placing
the principal words at the extremities, reminding us of
structures that have both sides faced with solid masonry,
and the space between filled up with earth and rubble. Sen-
tences constructed on this principle would be laborious to
follow, but in classic Latin they were generally short. The
sentences of Sallust, the most rhetorical of all the Roman
writers, average only twenty-eight words. We are not to
understand that all Latin sentences are precisely like those
above, or that all English sentences ought to follow a
definite model, thus producing a sameness that would be
tiresome. The variety is alike endless in both languages;
but the leading characteristics can be detected under nearly
all disguises.
The maxim that no sentence should end in small or
unimportant words is doubtless an outgrowth of Latin
teaching, and its general application to English is impos-
sible. It has contributed, however, to the bad habit of
crowding one phrase or clause inside of another, to which is
526 English Grammar.
due in turn most of the ambiguity and bad composition we
meet with.
Arrangement is more important than concord or govern-
ment. We rarely misunderstand any one because of violation
of common rules of grammar. If the proper words be
chosen and properly placed, a wrong number, gender, or
case will seldom be a fatal defect. If an Indian says :
" Me see white man shoot injun yesday,"
his meaning is as unmistakable as if clothed in the choicest
language of the schools. But the adverb of time is the only
word that can be moved from its place without impairing
or destroying the sense. I do not claim that strange or
uncouth forms should be encouraged, but only that some
offences against correct speech are more heinous than others.
We meet every day with sentences that are either ambiguous,
nonsensical, or ungraceful solely because their words are
misplaced. There was once said to be in the old Columbian
Museum in Boston a bottle partly filled with wine and bear-
ing this inscription :
" This is the wine that Green drank and the bottle that was
executed for highway robbery."
Such an inscription is not beyond the bounds of possibility,
or even of probability. There is little more than a displace-
ment of the words, " and the bottle." So I have read of
a Dutch village of 500 houses on the Hudson or the
Mohawk containing 2,000 inhabitants, all with their gable
ends turned towards the street. It is frankly admitted that
these two examples, although found in print, may have
gained something by re-editing ; the following are taken at
first hand, but their respective and respectable authors may
not be ambitious to have their names made public :
" The five young ministers of the Reformed Presbyterian
church, who had been on trial before Pittsburg presbytery
* * * were yesterday suspended and prohibited from
exercising their ministerial office until they repent by a vote of
twenty-five to forty."
Syntax. 527
Repenting by a vote of twenty-five to forty is an odd
kind of penitence ; possibly it would be more sincere if they
should repent by a vote of forty to twenty-five.
" Mr. Struble said that * * * he rose to speak on the
question of public buildings as represented by the unfinished
calendar of the House, upon which were thirty-five bills passed
by the committee of the whole on May 29, no one of which had
been permitted to be considered by the Speaker of the House."
It may be a pity if the Speaker be not permitted to con-
sider bills ; but how would it be if the bills had not " been
permitted by the Speaker of the House to be considered."
The latter is what was intended.
"Two police saw Collins take money from the bar. Upon
searching him they found coins marked for the purpose of de-
tecting the thief in his pocket."
A dangerous man was Collins if he carried a thief in his
pocket.
" Dr. Ramon de la Sota, a Spanish physician who has given
much attention to the subject, states that he is frequently called
upon to treat Spanish ladies, who do not themselves smoke for
irritation of the throat."
The report fails to state what these ladies do smoke for.
" It is the business of the physiologists to trace our sensations
to their material organs, not ours."
The italics are not in the original. But if I were to go on I
might be tempted to expose grammatical " wickedness in
high places," and so may as well stop here.
Adverbial clauses expressive of time and place have no
special position, but may be put wherever they will least
obstruct the other parts of the sentence. It is very common
to place them either at the beginning or the end. Adjective
clauses describing the subject or the object should be placed
near those terms ; and clauses defining the action of the
verb are very often placed after the object, especially if it
has no following of its own.
528 English Grammar.
He wrote ten letters within the space of a single week, and
with his right arm in a sling.
It would not be :
He wrote within a single week, and with his right arm in a
sling, ten letters.
The adverbial clauses might be placed at the beginning, or
one at each extremity. But this is only a hint of a general
principle, and not a rule that will hold good in all cases.
Indeed there are few such.
Relative clauses should follow as closely as possible the
words which are the antecedents ; otherwise it may be un-
certain what they relate to.
On the steamer yesterday I met with Judge Crocker, the
father of our friend George Crocker, who married Mabel Evans,
the owner of the cutlery works on Silver Creek, who was going
to Boston to visit a sick sister.
This sentence leaves it uncertain who was going to Boston,
or which of the three persons named owned the cutlery
works. The construction favors Mrs. Crocker, who was
probably neither the proprietor nor the visitor in the case.
The principle of placing the relative next to its antecedent,
sometimes comes in the way of the placing of an adverbial
clause after the object.
They hired Warren, who had worked in the factory fifteen
years, for $70 a month.
The meaning is that they hired Warren for $70 a month, he
having worked in the factory fifteen years. In writing,
punctuation sheds a feeble and wavering light on the
meaning, but for the spoken language even that guidance
is wanting.
The difficulty of making a lucid, unambiguous arrange-
ment is a real one, and may be illustrated in this manner.
Let A, one of the essential elements of a sentence, require
to be modified by the three clauses, b, c, d. If they could
be arranged thus - <CI^ all would be easy. But as we can-
^^^^
Syntax. 529
not say three things at once, we are compelled to take them
one at a time, 4.^.^/ and the danger is that d may appear
to apply, not to A, but to b or c.
The misplacing of only is a frequent source of ambiguity.
In careful writing the word limited is preceded by only or
followed by alone. While this is the general distinction it
is not always adhered to.
" She was accounted inferior to the Queen only in dignity."
PRESCOTT.
That is, she was inferior in no other respect. Either only
ought to follow " inferior " or be replaced by alone. Profes-
sor Earle quotes from Clarendon's History :
" He was a man of few words except in hunting and hawking,
in which he only knew how to behave himself."
and suggests that " modern usage would require the he and
the only to change places. I do not see how that would
mend the matter ; for if " only he knew how to behave him-
self," it follows that no one else did ; whereas the meaning
of the noble author no doubt was that " it was only in hunt-
ing and hawking that he knew how to behave himself."
There is no patent method of escaping this difficulty ; but
time, care, judgment and good taste will surmount it ; and
in the next chapter I purpose to offer a few practical sug-
gestions on this and other points.
Thus far we have considered only affirmative sentences,
those that assert that something is or was or will be. A few
words may now be said about those that contain a negation.
A negative character may be given to any kind of sentence.
The common negative in the present stage of the language
is not, a shortened form of nought or naught. The negation
resides in the letter n, and is present equally in no, nor, never
neither, and the compounds of no. No, as an adjective pro-
noun, is the negative of o=one ; and bears the same relation
to none that my does to mine. In virtue of its adjective
quality its place is before a noun. Not, being an adverb,
naturally follows a verb.
34
530 English Grammar.
" Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the
Samaritans, enter ye not" MATT, x., 5.
The departure from this form of expression has not im-
proved the language. At present not follows only the aux-
iliaries and the verbs be and have. Where there is no natu-
ral necessity for any auxiliary, do is used pro forma to pre-
cede not. One of the evidences that let is not yet fully
converted into an auxiliary is its relation to this negative.
We no longer say : " Let not" but feel required to say : " Do
not let"
When applied to any other part of speech than a verb not
infinitive not has priority of position.
Not having provided myself with a pass, I was refused admit-
tance.
He bought a copy of Marlowe, second-hand, but not soiled or
worn.
It may be said then that not follows a finite verb to which
it applies, but precedes anything else. But the association
of not with other parts of speech is often a mere artificial
arrangement of words, while it logically follows the verb.
Not justice, but mercy, is the prayer of mortals,
may as well be written :
The prayer of mortals is not justice, but mercy.
The poets sometimes indulge in strange dislocations :
" For not to have been dipped in Lethe's lake
Could save the son of Thetis from to die."
Not belongs between " could " and " save " ; " to have been
dipped " = immersion, and " to die " = death.
Among our inheritances from the Latin is the doctrine
that two negatives make an affirmative. It is not self-evi-
dent that reiterated denial amounts to affirmation or that
refusal oft repeated is consent. Such a grammatical canon
was unknown to the Greeks, and is not recognized by the
Syntax. 531
Spaniards. It is modern in English, and entirely due to
Latin and French influences. Our Saxon and early English
ancestors were profusely liberal in their use of negatives.
" They can not seen in that non auntag6
Ne in non other way saue mareage"."
CHAUCER : " Man of Lawes Tale."
" He is fre of hors that rcer ade on."
" Proverbs of Hending."
" nas tid ne tyme ni ne wurth that god ne send gode maenn his
folc forte 3elathie to his rice."
(There has not been tide nor time, nor will not be that God
sendeth not good men for to bid his folk to his kingdom.)
" Old English Homily."
" By innocence I sweare and by my youth,
I have one heart, one bosome, and one truth,
And that no woman has, nor never none
Shall mistris be of it saue I alone."
SHAKES?.: "Twelfe Night," iii., i.
This redundant negation began to disappear from careful
prose about the end of the fifteenth century, and the process
of pruning is not yet quite complete.
The Latin doctrine of the negative was that it not merely
negatived a proposition, but reversed it. It was like the
military movement of about-face, which, when repeated, led
to the point of starting. It resembled the continued mul-
tiplication of a negative quantity, in which all the odd terms
are negative and all the even ones positive. Hence the
small boy's frequent plea :
I did n't do nuthin to nobody,
is negative as intended.
Many words contain a negation in themselves unjust, in-
sincere, disobedient, child/ess, naked, empty. When one of
these words is used with a separate negative, it amounts to
a double negation. Not unsuccessful = successful. But,
when between an idea and its opposite there is a consider-
532 English Grammar.
able range of intermediate degrees, the negation of one term
is not the affirmation of the opposite. The* bottle is not
empty, is not equivalent to The bottle is full. So to say that
it is not improbable is by no means the same as to say that
it is probable, as the chances may be equal. Double nega-
tives of this kind are much used as a sort of guarded, half-
way affirmations. Hence the dictum that two negatives
make an affirmative requires to be taken with some grains of
allowance.
There is a case of repetition of the negative the propriety
of which has never been decided. There are only opinions
for and against it.
" He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard
in the street." ISAIAH xlii., 2.
Some now think that the sentence would be improved by
having only one negative, and substituting or for each nor.
Similar sentences may be found in which the first negative
is no, never, or neither. The above sentence from Isaiah has
been influenced by the phraseology of the Hebrew original,
of which it is a very close and faithful translation the nega-
tive being there repeated, and by a doctrine of the English
verb different from that which is now beginning to appear.
On the question whether or or nor be preferable in such
sentence the following points may be presented.
1. In the earlier ages of the language when negatives were
thrown around as if they cost nothing, nor would unques-
tionably have had the preference.
2. At present it would be useless to cite examples or
authorities, as plenty could be found on each side.
3. The meaning is the same either way.
He has not eaten nor slept since Friday at noon.
He has not eaten or slept since Friday at noon.
These two lines state the same fact, and in ways equally
unmistakable. The only question is whether or not there
is a superfluous negative in the first.
Syntax. 533
4. In signification and effect, nor is not equivalent to or -j-
not, but to and -\- not. It does not introduce an alternative
but an addition. " He has not eaten nor drunk " does not
mean " He has not eaten, or he has not drunk, but " He has
not eaten, and he has not drunk.
5. Not is generally placed immediately after a verb to
which it applies in modern English oftenest an auxiliary.
Its influence is co-extensive with that of the verb which it
affects, governs, or controls, and within that domain there is
no need of another negative. It is only necessary to ascer-
tain the limits to which the force of the verb extends.
I cannot nor will consent to the proposal.
Here can does not control will, and therefore a second
negative is necessary. Cannot or will would be ambiguous
or unmeaning.
I have said that the above example from Isaiah has been
influenced by the wording of the Hebrew. Now we may
take one in which or is employed instead of nor.
" Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any
likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth
beneath, or in the waters under the earth."
For this difference two reasons can be assigned, first, that
the negative is not repeated in the Hebrew, and second, that
the whole, as far as the word anything is governed by the
verb make, which is controlled by not. Yet we are not to
expect such a distinction to be consistently observed. Let
us take as another example Matthew x., 9.
" Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses ; nor
scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet
staves."
Here the negative is repeated, although, according to the
principle I have stated, it is not necessary, as " provide "
governs to the last word. The negative is repeated in the
Greek original. Admirable then as the English Bible is, it
534 English Grammar.
is influenced somewhat by foreign idiom in its use of the
vernacular.
In the following sentences nor or some equivalent word is
necessary.
" Blame not thy clime, nor chide the distant sun."
" If she sent to a hundred lawyers, not one nor all of them
could alter the law."
" My hair is gray, but not with years,
Nor grew it white in a single night."
In the following nor is not required, for the reason that
the verb to which the first negative applies covers the whole
sentence.
" Call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen,
nor thy rich neighbors."
" I am not ugly nor old,
Nor a villanous scold."
When not applies to any other word than a verb, it in like
manner affects that particular word as far as its action or
influence extends.
No, neither, never are equivalent to not any, not either, not
ever. The separation or union of the parts does not affect
the force or extent of the negation.
" Heav'n whose high walls fear no assault or siege,
Or ambush from the deep." MILTON.
No = not any ; hence fear no = fear not any.
"With no great love for learning or the learn'd."
BYRON : " Don Juan."
" There was no manifestation of disgust or pity, or indignation
or sorrow." DICKENS.
" I never saw her either read a book or occupy herself with
needlework." MARRYAT : " Peter Simple."
" And never more saw I or horse or rider."
COLERIDGE : " Piccolomini."
" I have neither age, person or character, to found dislike on."
SHERIDAN: "Rivals."
Syntax. 535
" Often had William of Deloraine
Rode through the battle's bloody plain,
And trampled down the warriors slain,
And neither known remorse or awe."
SCOTT.
Neither is oftener than any of the others followed by nor,
so that many seem to think that it has a peculiar and pre-
scriptive right to a negative attendant ; but really it has, if
possible, less claim than any of the others. Neither = not
either = not any one of the two. It negatives two things
considered one at a time. The supposed necessary bond
between neither and nor depends upon contrasting them
with the correlation either * * * or, a. false proportion :
Neither : nor : : either : or.
We have not found either peace or plenty in this unhappy Ireland
is precisely the same as,
We have found neither peace or plenty, etc.
The latter seems strange because it is unusual.
Neither is often made to alternate with nor in the Bible,
merely to give variety of expression.
The employment of nor in the place of neither
" Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him,"
is probably due to a mistaken idea that they are only two
forms of the same word.
There is a kind of double negative, not uncommon, which
seems often unnecessary, if not silly.
There is no telling what he might not do. A more prac-
tical question would seem to be, " What he might do."
All sentences thus far considered have affirmed or denied,
but others remain which make no assertion. They are direct
questions and direct commands, or interrogative and im-
perative sentences, of which only a few words need be said.
Interrogative sentences, considered grammatically, are
naturally divisible into two classes. The first aim direct at
the central point of the fact under inquiry the verb by
which that fact can be stated.
536 English Grammar.
Have you written a letter to the Governor ?
The answer is expected to be equally short and direct, and,'
if affirmative, to take very nearly one of three forms. " I
have written to him," " I have," or " Yes." If the answer be
negative, not is placed after " have," or " No " is substituted
for " Yes."
The verb, being the point in question, is regularly the first
and interrogative word, but in the composite tenses it is only
the auxiliary that is placed first, and the rest of the verbal
expression may be at some distance.
Have you ever, in all your intercourse with the world, found a
man perfectly contented with his lot ?
The simple verbs take do as a formal auxiliary, for in the
present state of the language have and be are the only single
verbs that ask questions.
The second class of interrogatories never bring the main
fact in question, but only some circumstance. Referring to
the first example above, the fact of writing would be taken
for granted ; but it might be asked, " Who wrote ? What
or to whom, when, where, how or why did you write?"
These interrogative words, consisting of the interrogative
pronoun and its derived adverbs, are placed first in the sen-
tence. Questions of this class do not admit of the general
and direct answer yes or no, but only of a special answer
going to the particular point of the inquiry.
Instead of asking a question of any kind, one may some-
times effect the same purpose by expressing a desire for
information.
I should like to know if you have written to the Governor.
But a substitute of this kind is not really an interrogatory.
An imperative sentence is a direct command. As such it
must be addressed to some one present, or who can be
reached by voice, letter, or other direct means. It would be
no better than a repetition to say that the subject of the
verb is the second person that is, the person addressed.
" Repine not at thy lot."
Syntax. 537
The form of the verb is the shortest and simplest that can
be used. In point of fact, it is like the infinitive, but only
for the reason that that too is reduced to its lowest terms.
In languages that admit of such apocopation the imperative
is shorter than the infinitive. It is without variation for
person, number, or tense.
The subject of an imperative verb is seldom expressed,
but when it is it follows the verb :
" When I rear my hand do you the same."
SHAKESPEARE : " Tempest," ii., i.
When a noun is placed before the verb it is as an exclama-
tion or a call to ensure attention.
" Tigress, begone ! "
ADDISON : " Rosamond."
Expressions like : " The Lord forgive you," have been con-
sidered, page 458.
Something like imperatives of the first and third persons
are obtained by the help of let.
" Let us stand by each other."
" He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him, let him
deliver him." PSA. xxii., 8.
In point of form it is a command to some ideal second person
to permit something to be done, and sometimes is such
command :
Stop the car and let me get out.
Very often it is a mere exhortation, or wish, and unfortu-
nately the words do not show the distinction. It was
otherwise when fashion sanctioned " Go we " for " Let us
go," and " Come they " for " Let them come." Our lan-
guage is now very largely dependent upon auxiliary words ;
but in many cases, and notably in negative, interrogative,
and imperative sentences it has been weakened by an ex-
cessive use of them.
There are two substitutes for an imperative mood. The
first of these is by the use of shall.
" Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image."
538 English Grammar.
Two things show that shalt is not imperative. It is preceded
by its nominative thou, and has the personal ending -/. It is
therefore indicative, and makes an assertion. Shall expresses
not duty or obligation, but authority. To say that you
shall do this or that is not saying that you ought, but that
you are required by an authority able and willing to enforce
its behests. Grammatically shall cannot be made into an
imperative, or an infinitive either.
The effect of an imperative may also be attained in a mild
way by expressing a desire that the thing required be done.
MISCELLANEOUS POINTS OF SYNTAX.
Dr. Latham observes that the only adjective that governs
a case is the word like. Like is not an ellipsis for like to,
the to being a modern innovation, a part of the general ten-
dency to use a multitude of auxiliary words. Like governs
a dative case in most languages that have one ; and earlier
English was no exception.
" Sothlice hwam telle ic thas cneorysse gelice ? "
(Truly whom call I this generation like ?)
MATT, xi., 16.
" Ther nas no kni3t him ilik"" King Horn."
But worth also governs a case.
" There 's bucks and raes on Bilhope braes,
There 's herd in Shortwood Shaw ;
But a lily-white doe in the garden goes ;
She 's fairly worth them a' "
" Bride of Lammermoor."
I have long held that like, when it expresses a direct rela-
tion, is a preposition ; and I find that now I am supported
by the authority of Professor Earle and the great Dictionary
of the Philological Society. But if like be sometimes a
preposition, so also is worth.
What is generally regarded as grammar concerns chiefly
pronouns and verbs. As the personal pronouns have pre-
Syntax. 539
served the distinctions of number, gender, and case, they
have to agree with the nouns which they represent in num-
ber and gender, so far as they are capable of distinguishing
the latter ; verbs of which they are the subjects must agree
with them in number ; and when they are the objects of
verbs or follow prepositions they are required to be in the
objective case.
What is called the ethical dative, which is neither sub-
ject nor object, is now rare. When it has any meaning it is
equivalent to the modern phrase : " for my sake," " to oblige
me," etc. When, in " Henry VI.," Duke Humphrey says,
" leape me over this stoole and runne away."
his meaning might be thiis expressed :
Oblige me by leaping over this stool and running away.
The reflexive pronoun being a comparatively modern
formation, the simple personal pronoun is often used in its
place by old authors and by poets.
" I made me great works ; I builded me houses ; I planted me
vineyards ; I made me gardens." ECCL. ii., 4.
" He sate him down at a pillar's base,
And pass'd his hand athwart his face."
BYRON.
The combinations with self are extremely confused. In
the first place they are made to serve two purposes that
have no connection or resemblance. They are emphatic,
and they are reflexive. In the two following sentences
himself performs entirely different offices."
" But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness."
" He that is swift of foot shall not deliver himself"
In the second place part of them are formed with objective
cases of the personal pronouns, part with possessives, and a
part (herself and itself} are uncertain. Moreover it is not
always clear whether they are nouns or pronouns. Now a
noun is of the third person, unless directly addressed, or in
apposition with a pronoun of the first or second person.
540 English Grammar.
There is then a chance that myself may be of the third per-
son, and accordingly Dr. Latham says :
" When myself or thyself stands alone, the verb is in the third
person myself is (not am) weak, thyself is (not art) weak.
But that is at variance with authoritative usage.
" And that thyself shalt now sen." 1
" Richard Creur de Lion."
" So shall thy judgment be ; thyself hast decided it."
i KINGS xx., 40.
" by examining of whom thyself mayest take knowledge of these
things." ACTS xxiv., 8.
"Myself am Naples." SHAKESP. : "Tempest," i., 2.
" Which way I fly is hell ; myself am hell."
MILTON : " P. L.," iv., 75.
The pronouns this, that, and yonder once pointed out ob-
jects different in place or differently related to the speaker or
the person spoken to.
This dog (of mine), that horse (of yours), yonder tower (on
the hill).
But yonder has almost gone out of use, except as an adverb
of place, and that has to perform double duty. This and
that are, or rather have been, also used of things not before
the eyes, but before the mind. Two things having been
named a moment before, we may refer to them as this and
that. All argument to determine which shall be called this
and which that was cut short by the rule of Latin grammar,
which applied this to the one last named and that to the
other
" Behold ! if fortune, or a mistress, frowns,
Some plunge in business, others shave their crowns.
To ease the soul of one oppressive weight,
This quits an empire, that embroils a state." POPE.
The words were also used without reference to things
specifically named, but with the general sense of " one or the
other " :
1 Quoted by Matzner.
Syntax. 541
" As when two scales are charged with doubtful loads,
From side to side the trembling balance nods ;
******
Till poised aloft, the resting beam suspends
Each equal weight, nor this, nor that, descends."
POPE'S " Iliad."
When the things contrasted were quite evident, this kind
of antithesis was very neat and effective ; but if clumsily
handled a hearer might be left at a loss to know which was
this and which was that. It is perhaps for some such reason
that this use of the demonstratives, once so common, has
been almost abandoned. We now employ the former and
the latter for a similar purpose ; but, when not liable to mis-
take, they lack the terseness of this and that, and when there
is any doubt as to their application they are in no respect
better than the shorter words. Boswell relates of Dr. John-
son that he avoided the use of " the former " and " the latter,"
because they put people to the trouble of tracing backwards
to find what they refer to.
It might well seem that there could be no excuse for not
knowing when to use the singular and when the plural of this
and that, but experience proves that it is possible to err even
here, and that the subject is really not so simple as it seems.
But few nouns that include a plural number under a singular
term admit of these or those. We might say :
The company were invited.
The mob were breaking into the jail.
but it would not be admissible to say : " these company,"
" these class," " those mob," " those army." Yet such
examples are to be found :
" When you and those poore number saued with you
Hung on our driuing boate."
SHAKESP. : " Twelfe Night," ii., 2.
" These kind of sufferings." BP. SHERLOCK.
This last is the most common form of the error. Yet there
are a few, a very few, singular nouns that may be preceded
54 2 English Grammar.
by these or those. We may safely reckon on people, gentry,
cavalry, infantry, cattle, poultry, vermin. I do not think that
we can include the aristocracy, nobility, clergy, society, yeo-
manry, peasantry, artillery, militia, nor do I think that any
well defined distinction exists.
The personal pronominal forms that express possession
are, at the present day, so far as syntax is concerned, divisi-
ble into two classes, of shorter and longer forms :
my mine his his
our ours her hers
thy thine its its
your yours their theirs
His and its are the same for both. Now the shorter are
always employed with nouns, the longer without. In the
present state of the language the former are adjectives, the
latter are not. They are therefore possessive cases of the
personal pronouns. Neither alone are equal to the possessive
cases of nouns, with which they may be thus compared :
This is Mrs. Ashton's carriage. This is her carriage.
It is Mrs. Ashton's. It is hers.
The possessive of the noun may be used with or without a
noun following, which can only be done by the two pronomi-
nal forms supplementing each other.
What is called the double possessive is found both in
nouns and pronouns.
He was riding a horse of the Doctor's.
The explanation that has been usually given is that this
means a horse of (from or out of) the Doctor's horses. This
is seen more clearly in the Spanish :
" Un pintor celeb re of reef a un cuadro de los suyos."
Whether such an explanation be good or not, the double
genitive is a well-established form of expression, and is some-
times convenient to distinguish between a picture of my
friend and a picture of my friend's.
Syntax. 543
Each and every express plurality under a singular form,
and both require singular verbs. They equally represent
aggregates, considered one by one. Each marks the separa-
tion into units more distinctly than every does. Either may
be followed by one or by a noun ; but every cannot go alone:
" Sweare his thought ouer
By each particular- Starre in Heaven."
SHAKESP. : " Winters Tale," i., 2.
" The prayers of priests and people were every moment inter-
rupted hy their sobs. CARLYLE : " Fr. Revol.," I., i., i.
Each and every, although singular, are, sometimes, associ-
ated with plural nouns or pronouns, either needlessly or
to indicate that the units are thought of one by one :
" Good husbands, let us every one go home."
SHAKESP. : " Merry Wives," v., 5.
" Kind uncle, woe -were we each one,
If harm should hap to Brother John."
SCOTT : "Marmion," i., 22.
" They suspect each other" is equivalent to they each suspect
the other. Taken any way the expression is anomalous, and
makes no intelligible distinction between subject and object.
Omit they, and each suspects the other is plain enough.
Either and both are dual in signification, but while both
means the two, either is only one of the two :
You may have either sister, but not both.
Either being confined to two, " Either he or his father or
his brother " would be incorrect ; so also is " either one' of
the ten." Either is incorrectly but not unfrequently used
for each :
" The chief officers of either army were present."
THACKERAY : " Henry Esmond," ii., 4.
" In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river,
was there the tree of life." REV. xxii., 2.
544 English Grammar.
Some and any apply equally to any number. They have
this curious distinction that some is affirmative, any inter-
rogative or negative :
I never had any talent for music ; do you think that my daugh-
ter has any ? Yes, she certainly has some.
The interrogative and relative pronouns, which are to a
great extent the same words, are especially liable to become
the victims of misunderstanding. To say
Whom did you say you saw at the ball ?
is correct, but,
Whom did you say was at the ball ?
is incorrect. In the first question whom is the object oisaw,
in the second it is the subject of was. In neither case does it
depend upon say, although that is the word that occasions
the confusion.
" Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am ? "
MATT, xvi., 14.
Of course the Revised Version has Who, but in other re-
spects I do not think the passage improved. This confusion
of cases is very common, in unstudied speech more common
than correct discrimination. So foreign to our habits of
thought is the idea of case, except the possessive, that
although only four words in the language have any, we
habitually blunder about them :
" Who can he take after ? " " Who the devil is he talking to ? "
SHERIDAN : " Rivals."
" How ? thy wife ?
I Sir : whom I thanke heauen is an honest woman."
SHAKESP.: " Measure for Measure," ii., i.
The presence of the conjunction than helps to confuse the
mind as to the case of the relative. Very many persons
would see nothing incorrect in
He is five years older than me ;
Syntax. 545
yet than has no effect upon case, and the real meaning is
He is five years older than / am.
This confusion of case is especially frequent :
" Belial came last, than whom a spirit more lewd
Fell not from heaven."
MILTON : "Paradise Lost," i., 491.
" Accepted Howard, than whom knight
Was never dubbed more bold in fight."
This confusion is most frequent when the relative and
antecedent are of different cases, and one of them is sup-
pressed. The other is then left to perform the part of both,
and cannot be in two cases at once. What is the only word
that can be both subject and object.
He whom I accuse has entered
is complete ; but if either " he " or " whom " were omitted
the hiatus would lead to confusion.
"Him I accuse
The City Ports by this hath entered."
SHAKESP. : " Coriolanus," v., 5.
" Better to leaue vndone, then by our deed
Acquire too high a Fame, when him we serues away."
" Antony and Cleopatra," iii., i.
" Edward * * * at length drew a pocket pistol, and threaten-
ing to shoot whomsoever dared to stop him."
SCOTT i " Waverley," xxx.
" The original papers, together with the scarlet letter itself
* * * are still in my possession, and shall be freely exhibited
to whomsoever, induced by the great interest of the narrative, may
desire a sight of them." HAWTHORNE.
When .two words in a sentence, alike capable of being
antecedent, are followed by a relative, it should refer to the
second. In
The father of the boys of whom we were speaking,
35
546 English Grammar.
whom is to be understood as relating to boys ; but if one of
the nouns cannot correctly be the antecedent, the relative is
to be understood as referring to the other.
The father of these boys, who was drowned last year.
Here the antecedent must be father.
When one or more nouns and a personal pronoun, mean-
ing the same person, come together, the pronoun is the
leading word, and determines the number, gender, and
person.
" I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States, do issue
this my proclamation."
" Thou James of Douglas wert the man."
But when two nouns or pronouns stand as subject and
predicate, a relative following agrees with the last.
// was an orphan girl who had gathered them with her own
hands.
King, Lords, and Commons are zform of Government which
is believed by the English people to be the best suited to their
present wants.
" I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his
wrath." LAM. iii., r.
The errors and mistakes connected with the use of the
pronouns probably outnumber all others in the language ;
and for this two reasons may be at least conjectured. The
simplest is that they alone trouble us with their cases. The
other and deeper reason is connected with their great irregu-
larity. Both are, I think, due to their being little words
with no tangible or permanent meanings of their own, ex-
pressing only ever-changing relations, flitting, flickering
about, applicable to everything by turns, and constantly
liable to have their old forms and meanings forgotten and
intermixed. Innumerable examples might be furnished of
the confusion that prevails in the use of pronouns, but I
shall instance only one in addition to those already given.
It is one to which writers and speakers of all grades have
Syntax. 547
been prone for three hundred years, and more, from Bishop
Latimer to Mr. Gladstone :
"This is, perhaps, the truth of all others, most harmoniously
re-echoed by every philosopher of every school."
SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON.
Sir Walter Raleigh furnishes a quaint form of this sole-
cism, when he says that Richard III. was the most heartless
tyrant " of all that forewent him" If long and wide usage
and illustrious names can legitimize an absurdity, this must
be very nearly standard English. Still it is not universal.
A verb agrees with its subject or nominative in number
and person so far as it is capable of distinguishing these ;
but that is really to a very small extent. For most practical
purposes a verb has but two forms, and as often only one.
The present tense has one form for the third person singular
and one for all other purposes ; the past tense is alike
throughout. All singular pronouns and singular nouns,
even when they represent numbers acting together as uni-
ties, are followed by singular verbs. When the subject is
plural so also is the verb. Several nominatives united by
and or shown in any other way to join alike in the action of
the verb require a plural.
The teacher #</his wife and three children were crossing the field.
There is here a grammatical equality and community in the
action, which is wanting in
The teacher, with his wife and three children was crossing the field.
This latter is equivalent to
The teacher was crossing the field with his wife and three children.
That was the manner of his crossing. The other persons
were only an accompaniment.
When several persons are designated with the understand-
ing that only one is to act, but it is left undetermined which
one, the verb is singular.
John or James or Thomas or Mary is sure to be at home.
548 English Grammar.
If the alternate subjects be all singular or all plural, the
number of the verb obviously must agree ; but if one be
singular and another plural, the verb cannot agree with
both.
The strikers or the company has (or have) to give way.
As a matter of convenience, and to make an end of strife, it
is tacitly accepted that the verb shall agree with the last ;
and it looks least incongruous when that is the plural.
A verb, not imperative or infinitive, is always of the third
person unless its nominative be a pronoun of the first or
second person. In a dependent sentence whose subject is
a relative, that relative, and consequently its verb, should
agree with the antecedent in number and person.
I who stand here saw those things ;
not
I who stands.
When several nominatives differing in person are united
under one verb, the first preference is given to the first
person, the next to the second. We is any aggregate that
includes the speaker, you is any that excludes the speaker
but includes the person spoken to.
When two or more nominatives to be taken as alterna-
tives differ in person or number, the verb should agree with
the one nearest to it. This is a point on which authorities
do not agree. Of these two sentences :
They or I am in error,
They or I are in error,
some prefer the one and some the other. The following
considerations are in favor of the first. Either sentence is
elliptical, being in full :
They are in error, or I am in error.
Supplying the necessary words the two will read,
They are or I am in error.
They, or I am, are in error.
Syntax. 549
The second absurdly thrusts " / am " between They and its
verb. All such sentences are extremely awkward, and had
better be avoided altogether. We are under no obligation
to write inelegantly, merely to show our preference for one
barbarism over another. The presence of either would
make no difference, as it would merely supplement or.
A verb, transitive or intransitive, is often followed by a
word of kindred meaning, as its real or apparent object. To
tell a tale, to sing a song, to run a race, to throw a throw, to
play plays, to live a virtuous life, to die a violent death, to
smile a ghastly smile, are examples. Such expressions
might be so arranged in a series that while in the first the
noun would be unquestionably the object of the verb, in the
last no action on the object is thought of. When Balaam
prayed :
" Let me die the death of the righteous,"
he could not have supposed that his dying would have any
effect upon the " death of the righteous." He merely
desired that he might die as righteous men die. The words
" the death of the righteous," in form the object of the verb,
are in signification an adverbial clause, expressive of manner
and not substance.
There are yet others of the same form in which the noun
is still farther from being the object of the verb.
" I sit a queen, and am no widow." REV. xviii., 7.
Queen cannot be the object of sit. The meaning bears no
analogy to that of sitting a spirited horse. Queen is really in
apposition with /, and would be nominative if we had such
a separate case. It is so in the Greek and in the Latin
version of Beza. A more lucid rendering would be
I sit as a queen ;
and we might amend in the same manner all sentences like
He walked forth a free man.
The so-called substantive verb to be has the same case
before and after it. To this there are apparent exceptions :
550 English Grammar.
These books are John's.
The sentence is elliptical, and if filled up would be either :
These books are John's books, or, These are John's books.
Is that you, John ? Yes, it is me.
If this be correct, it is still contrary to general analogy, and
sets all rule and reason at defiance. It is very common but
not yet quite classical English.
All passive verbs in English are made with the help of the
verb to be, and take the same case after as before them :
He was elected governor. They were appointed commissioners.
As nouns have no distinctive case except the possessive, the
fact is not of much practical importance, but it helps to
illustrate the construction of the infinitive.
The infinitive is used in four different ways :
a. It follows the auxiliaries and a few other verbs incorrectly
employed in the same manner.
b. It follows a number of verbs and adjectives that pre-
sent a probability of something. Seem, hope, fear, promise,
threaten, able, willing, and apt are examples :
She seemed to recover. He promised to pay.
c. Many verbs in English, and still more in other languages,
expressing the action of the senses, of power or intelligence,
are followed by an infinitive expressing the action of another
person. The word representing the second person (or thing,)
at once the object of the first verb and the subject of the
second, is in the objective case, if there be any such case
distinguishable :
" Then Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer."
" If thou puttest me to use the carnal weapon it will be worse for
you."
"He * * * led the way to the pavilion, loudly ordering the
banquet to be spread"
"Imagine this to be the palace of your pleasure."
" I hope he takes me to be flesh and blood."
Syntax. 551
Several infinitives may follow each other :
She persuaded him to pretend to agree to do as they required.
The verb preceding the infinitive may be passive. The
subject of the infinitive then becomes nominative.
They bade me stand up. I was bidden stand up.
If they were retained, it would be transformed into by them :
" Some were heard to curse the shrine
Where others knelt to pray."
d. The infinitive is used, but not very frequently, as a
verbal noun :
" If all the yeare were playing holidaies,
To sport would be as tedious as to worke."
SHAKESP. : i " Henry IV.," i., 2.
CHAPTER X.
SUGGESTIONS TO YOUNG WRITERS.
IT is with more than usual diffidence that I add a closing
chapter for the benefit of young and inexperienced writers,
giving some words of counsel beyond the mere details of
grammar. What follows is not intended to instruct those
who are already accomplished and elegant writers. Nor is it
intended to teach any one how to become an eminent and
successful author in any department of literature ; the pur-
pose is the more modest one of helping the unskilful to tell
a plain matter in a plain and effective way. There are a
great number of persons who sometime in their lives, and
perhaps often, have occasion to write something of sufficient
importance to be worth writing well ; and it is to these that
I address myself. For sake of brevity the principles and
illustrations will be put in the form of direct address to the
reader.
I. The idea which the reader has of the writer, or the
hearer's opinion of the speaker, is of the first importance. If
the speaker or writer be thought insincere, or to be hypo-
critically urging his own interest, his words are vain. There
is somewhere in the economy of the human mind a kind of
cut-off, capable, when called into action, of excluding all
impressions. When that valve is closed cherubic wisdom
could not find an entrance. Though your eloquence drop
as the rain it will run off as from the back of a tortoise.
Valuable above all the arts of rhetoric will be a general belief
that you are too upright to deceive and too careful and
clear-headed to be deceived that in all probability what you
have to say is true, and truth worth listening to. Such a
552
Suggestions to Young Writers. 553
reputation cannot be acquired and maintained without
deserving it.
II. It is well to know the subject you are to write about, and
know it thoroughly. There is a great advantage in knowing
more of a subject than any one else does ; and that is often
possible enough if it be a small one and somewhat personal
to yourself. But when a large field is to be covered informa-
tion must be collected ; and that is often a work of great
labor. A laborious German author has said that he has
sometimes condensed into a parenthetic clause the results of
a month's search. Still such labor is generally well bestowed.
Spare no pains to get at the facts, and make sure that they
are facts. It is humiliating, and may be disastrous, to find
in the crisis for which you are preparing that your facts turn
out to be fictions. In collecting facts that are beyond your
own knowledge, and not of public notoriety, write each one
down plainly on a slip of paper, carefully adding the source
(book, page, etc.) from which it was obtained. All slips
bearing upon the same point should be put together into an
envelope, also plainly marked. Such envelopes can be ar-
ranged alphabetically. If this plan be well carried out, all
the information you can ever collect may be arranged so
that you can lay your hand in a minute upon all that' you
have on any required point.
Every subject touches upon the boundaries of many
others, and it is often necessary to reconnoitre the borders
of these adjacent territories. Hence the importance of wide
and general knowledge having its central point in the busi-
ness in which you are especially interested. A clergyman
who was a diligent student once said to me that he kept one
foot of his compasses on the Bible, and with the other swept
over everything within reasonable distance.
Patiently hear, diligently seek for, and judge with judicial
fairness every adverse fact and argument, so that you may
not be disarmed by sudden objections. In doing this you
will probably find that upon subjects in which the public are
not actively interested their ideas are very crude and imper-
fect, and that in reference to others in which they take an
554 English Grammar.
active part many of the arguments, assertions, and catch-
words that pass from mouth to mouth on both sides, and are
borne about by every wind that blows, are without value.
Dr. Franklin had a way of applying one of the principal
methods of algebra to social and political questions. He
arranged on opposite sides all the facts and arguments for
and against any proposition, and then proceeded to cancel
all that seemed to be worthless or to balance each other ;
and he formed his judgment upon the remainder. If the
subject to be treated involves a succession of dates, labor
will be saved by arranging these on a separate slip. When
you are ready to write, the necessary memorandums can be
picked out and arranged in the order in which they are to be
used. It will be a great advantage in writing to have all the
material either ready in your mind or conveniently placed
before you.
III. Having collected the necessary material, and weeded
out all that is irrelevant, the next point is to consider well
the bearing of each fact upon the others and upon the propo-
sition which you wish to establish. In doing this it is best
to be thoroughly honest with yourself. In giving your facts
to the public you may perhaps choose to present them
,in a sort of dress parade each one of course a real soldier
and not a dummy in clothes but for your own purposes
it is better to view them in the undress of the arena with-
out a tag of ornament on them. You will thus come to
have a distinct bird's-eye view of the subject as a whole.
In order to write effectively you must write clearly ; and
for that clear thinking is indispensable. An artist, an archi-
tect, or machinist has his whole subject so clear in his mental
view as to see at once the effect that would follow a change
in any of the parts. I have seen a chess-player lie down
upon a sofa with his face to the wall and play against one a
little less expert, and win the game without once seeing the
board from beginning to end. He must have maintained
throughout a mental picture showing the position of every
piece, and seen the effect of every move, and the perfect
accuracy of his conceptions was proved by the result. This
Suggestions to Young Writers. 555
is an ideal of clear thinking on a special subject, but an ideal
to be aspired towards in all. I feel shy of a doctrine that is
unthinkable, of an action that cannot be mentally repre-
sented. It will be a useful exercise to practise upon the
various questions that may arise, not only rinding answers
to them, but tracing with all possible accuracy the steps by
which results are brought about, and the principles on which
they depend. I give four questions in illustration, which
are at your service until better occur to you.
1. If the money in a country amount to $10 per capita,
and in ten years steadily advance till it reach $20, and then
in other ten years recede to $10, it will pass twice over the
ratio of $15. What will be the difference in effect upon
public prosperity and feeling between the ascending and the
descending ratio of $15 ?
2. Gresham, in the reign of Elizabeth, showed that bad
money drives out good ; and now it is found that the Euro-
pean rat drives out the Australian rat ; do the two phe-
nomena depend on the same principle ?
3. Why is there a limit to the size of animals?
4. Illustrate the principle of the syllogism to the eye by a
diagram.
Here is the fittest place to point out a useful distinction
between a question of fact and one of propriety or expedi-
ency. A question of fact is comparatively simple. An
assertion put forth as an existing fact is true, or it is not
true, or it differs from the truth by a measurable quantity.
If it is true that J. Wilkes Booth assassinated President
Lincoln, there is nothing in the universe of the least validity
to disprove it. But a question of advisability has generally
two good sides. It depends upon the effects of a proposed
action ; but those effects are multifarious, some favorable
and others unfavorable, and few of them definitely ascer-
tainable. A tariff or currency question is an equation
involving an indefinite number of unknown quantities.
Hence it is best to give priority to the ascertainment of
facts, partly because it is comparatively simple and partly
because the facts may help to determine the expediency,
556 English Grammar.
but no considerations of expediency of profit or loss can
make or unmake a fact.
IV. Having mastered a subject in its details and as a
whole it is next to be considered in what order you will pre-
sent it. There is generally some one preferable to all others.
If much depend upon dates, a chronological order will proba-
bly be best. But this is only a single exemplification of a
broader principle that when one thing is necessary to the
understanding of another the explanatory one should come
first. The reason is that it is useless to present what the
reader is not prepared to understand. You must divine as
best you can what he already knows and thinks, begin at
that point and lead him on step by step. If an unbridged
gap intervene your words will be wasted. It is better to go
back a little and recapitulate briefly and clearly what most
people know already than run the risk of losing connection.
Many a fine discourse has been as water spilt on the sand
because it connected with nothing in the mind of the hearer.
I once heard Professor Pierce of Harvard deliver a public lec-
ture in which he repeatedly alluded in a passing careless way to
the great advantages derived from the method of polar s, just
as if every one were perfectly familiar with it ; whereas it is
not likely that one in ten had ever heard of polars before.
Hence in addressing a mixed audience it is better to aim
a little below the average intelligence, occasionally adding
something to satisfy the better class of minds. We are some-
times vexed by worthy people who out of extreme politeness
assume that we know everything already, and that it is only
necessary to allude delicately to a point here and there by
way of refreshing our memories.
The essential kernel of a book, a review, or newspaper
article can often be stated in a single sentence, of which all
the rest is only evidence and amplification. The reader
should never be left at a loss to know what that essential
point is. But we often read articles or hear addresses every
sentence of which, taken alone, is passably good, while we
are sadly puzzled to know what the whole is about. Such
want of point is a fatal defect.
Suggestions to Young Writers. 557
In unfolding a subject step by step it will naturally and
without any special effort fall into a succession of short
divisions called paragraphs, each one of which will be seen to
present a consideration, argument, or little group of closely
connected facts easily distinguished from those of any other
similar division. The paragraph is a great feature in modern
authorship, and is in the interest of that clearness and dis-
tinctness so much prized by an active practical people. The
most valuable facts lose their force if they get mixed up
criss-cross-wise.
V. The language or choice of words to be employed is of
very great importance. Habitual reading of the best books
and associating with the best accessible company will with-
out any particular effort on your part supply a stock of words
sufficient for most purposes. One who aspires higher may
go through a large dictionary and mark unfamiliar words
that seem likely to be valuable acquisitions, and afterwards
go over, or even copy out, the words marked. Idiomatic
expressions can be got from people who live far from cities,
old books, and the by-ways of literature.
Words should be appropriate to the subject, and, as far as
possible, familiar to the persons addressed. Every considera-
ble field of human endeavor has its own vocabulary, and if
you know a subject well you know its appropriate terms,
yet many of these are to be addressed only to experts. In
relating to sailors your experience at sea use nautical phrases
liberally, but not in telling the same thing to farmers. Do
not address long Latin words to children or wheel-barrow
men, and never shoot over the heads of an auditory, making
a noise in the air and hitting nothing. Generally speaking
it is not well to use two words where one is enough, or a
long word where a short one will serve the purpose. Yet
one long word may be preferable to several short ones. A
succession of monosyllables is not elegant, and we tire of a
threadbare diction as readily as of one overloaded with orna-
ment. If phosphomolybdic be the one word that expresses
your meaning, that is the one to use, no matter for its length.
Let all your words be English, sound reliable English, and
558 English Grammar.
nothing but English ; and when you speak of a spade call it
by its name, and when you mean hyperasthesia, say so.
A good deal has been said of late years about writing and
speaking vigorous Anglo-Saxon, sometimes, perhaps, by
persons who would not know Anglo-Saxon if they saw it.
The clamor for it sometimes amounts to that is of the
nature of a reaction against a style that long ago grew to be
an abuse. But a reaction against anything extreme is itself
apt to be an extreme. In the second chapter of this work
I have spoken of the several sources of English, and of the
limited capabilities of any of the elements alone. Not only
do we speak a mixed language, but almost every sentence is
mixed ; and we cannot speak without using words drawn from
several sources. Our language is like a river formed by the
confluence of four main streams and many subsidiary rills.
The first is the Anglo-Saxon element, most of which is alike
familiar to all, and without which scarcely a sentence can be
uttered ; yet it has not words for a fourth part of the ideas
of the nineteenth century. It is more especially the property
of the unlearned. The second is the stream of classical words
introduced through the medium of the French before A.D.
1500. Wherever necessary, they have been so far modified
in spelling, pronunciation, or meaning, as to become a har-
monious part of the language. They have never percolated
downward to any great extent below the intelligent indus-
trious classes. Thirdly, there is the direct Latin contribution
connected with the revival of learning in Europe, and dating
roughly from 1500 to 1800. During the latter two thirds of
that period a Latin diction so completely dominated litera-
ture as to provoke a reaction. The words being pronounced
according to English analogies offer no offence to the ear.
They are more especially the property of literary persons.
Lastly, there are the Greek terms appropriated by science,
which have increased with amazing rapidity since the middle
of last century. The greater part of them are known only
to scientific specialists. Whoever knows any one of the
four parts as enumerated is presumably familiar with those
that precede. All are equally proper in their places.. ., ;
Suggestions to Young Writers. 559
It often happens that we have words of kindred meaning
from two or three different sources, thus :
SAXON FRENCH LATIN
begin commence initiate *
care anxiety solicitude
deal traffic negotiate
earn deserve merit
feud enmity hostility
greedy covetous mercenary
harm damage detriment
ill-timed unseasonable inopportune
kernel core nucleus
lessen diminish extenuate
mirth drollery jocularity
needy poor indigent
open frank ingenuous
plight condition predicament
quicken revive reanimate
scold blame abjurgate
twit reproach reprehend
These triple lines, where they exist unbroken, afford a
valuable and much needed variety of expression ; but in a
majority of instances there are not more than two, or even
one. Still, this is not the only source of variety. We some-
times find several words nearly synonymous where two of
these lines are wanting.
Adjacent, adjoining, contiguous, conterminous.
Translucent, transparent, transpicuous, diaphanous.
When the reign of Latinity was at its highest, it was not
uncommon to meet with sentences in which every significant
word was in some way derived from that language.
" A citizen of Ancyra had prepared for his own use a purple gar-
ment; and this indiscreet action, which, under the reign of Con-
stantius, would have been considered a capital offense, was reported
to Julian by the officious importunity of a private enemy"
GIBBON.
1 American "inaugurate."
560 English Grammar.
This was the diction of the schools, and was sometimes
far outdone. In this country those who received what was
thought a careful education fifty or sixty years ago were
taught to employ, both in speaking and writing, as many
and as long words of Latin origin as it was possible to crowd
together. Their speech was full of euphemisms like these :
Instead of drunkard, say, a gentleman who habitually in-
dulges in the immoderate use of alcoholic stimulants.
Scold : a lady who permits herself to employ vituperative
language, or to apply epithets.
Pot : a domestic utensil adapted to culinary uses. And
Dr. Johnson's idea of a network was " anything reticulated
or decussated at equal distances with interstices between the
intersections"
Many worthy people became seemingly incapable of speak-
ing in any other way. It is not to be wondered at that
a reaction and demand for Anglo-Saxon set in, or that it
was sometimes extreme and misjudged. So completely had
Latinity overmastered all minds that those who were most
anxious for Anglo-Saxon knew no Saxon words in which to
ask for it. The following sentence is not without a touch
of unintentional humor on that account.
" But the coinage of anglicised words of Latin origin is still too
abundant, and either overload the language by their superfluity
or enfeeble it by dilution, and by distinctions without differences."
It is, however, of no practical importance from what source
our words are derived, so long as they are well understood
and their sound is in harmony with the general tone and
cadence of the language.
VI. Sentences should be neither so short as to appear
abrupt and jerky, so long as to tire the reader, or so intricate
that he will lose his way in their windings. They are too
various to admit of rules ; but in every sentence a distinct
and clear idea should be clearly expressed. These require-
ments are best appreciated when they have been neglected.
Here are two faulty sentences from the North American Re-
view, on which it is scarcely necessary to make any comment.
Suggestions to Young Writers. 561
" The final proof of song or personality is a sort of matured,
accreted, superb, evoluted, almost divine, impalpable diffuseness
and atmosphere or invisible magnetism, dissolving and embracing
all, and not any special achievement of passion, pride, metrical
form, epigram, plot, thought, or what is called beauty." No-
vember, 1890.
" Even if man was all that he might be, woman would still
have wanted a profession, because a cause appeals to latent
chivalry, and because the sense of personality has been weakened
by the slow growth of causes." February, 1891.
Neither of these would be made any clearer by giving the
context.
Before the year 1500 English had become a well devel-
oped, lucid, pleasant medium of communication. I give in
illustration a few sentences from Caxton's " History of
Troy," date of 1471, merely modernizing some of the spell-
ing, as that is not a point of importance here.
" Then prayed the Greeks that they might set the horse of
brass within the temple of Pallas, for the restitution of the Pal-
ladium, to the end that the goddess Pallas might be to them
agreeable in their return. And as the king Priam answered not
thereto, ^Eneas and Antenor said to him that it should be well
done, and that it should be honor to the city ; howbeit the king
Priam accorded it with evil will. Then the Greeks received the
gold and silver and the wheat that was promised to them, and
sent and put it into their ships. After these things they went all
in manner of procession and in devotion with their priests, and
began with strength of cords to draw the horse of brass into the
city. And for as much as by the gate it might not enter into the
city, it was so great, therefore they brake the wall of the city in
length and height in such wise as it entered within the town ; and
the Trojans received it with great joy."
It was this style slightly modified that was employed for
the successive translations of the Bible from Tyndale to
King James, which deserve more than Chaucer to be called
"the well of English undefiled." It is toward this early
type that the last half of the nineteenth century is now re-
36
562 English Grammar.
turning. An exact imitation is no longer possible or de-
sirable ; but its straightforward clearness is an admirable
corrective of turgidity, bombast, and obscurity.
Those who make and manipulate laws have a superstition
that whatever they have to say must all be said in one sen-
tence, however many pages it may fill. It is also felt that
all contingencies and misconceptions must be guarded
against by provisos, repetitions, and explanations. Hence
legal documents are wordy, wearisome, and obscure, and in
short the worst of all human compositions. To illustrate
this labyrinthic character of legal language, I quote about
one third of a sentence describing the boundaries of Rock
Creek Park at Washington. It would not be any clearer if
the other two thirds were added. If any one can understand
it I bow to his superior intelligence.
" The initial point begins on the north of the Blagden Mills
road at a point where it is intersected by the west line of i6th
street extended ; thence it runs north, following the line of i6th
street extended until intersected by a line running from east to
west, which line will cut off from the northeastern part of the
park, as mapped out on the first trial map and included between
the straight lines of the said trial maps, as many acres as the
present boundary lines will include in the projection beyond the
west of the straight lines in said trial map."
Latin had already been the language of law and diplo-
macy for many generations before the beginning of that
ascendancy which it attained in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries. Legal Latin then infected the Latin of
the schools with its own endless wordiness and trivial pro-
visos, and in time infected English prose, just as the same
causes have made the literary language of Germany what it
now is. The writings of some of the great lights of Eng-
lish literature are not much more lively reading than a deed
in entail or an indictment for manslaughter. Milton wrote
sentences of three or four hundred words, and I venture to
introduce one of the more moderate here as an example to
be avoided :
Suggestions to Young Writers. 563
" And for the usual method of teaching arts, I deem it to be an
old errour of universities, not yet well recovered from the scho-
lastic grossness of barbarous ages, that instead of beginning with
arts most easy, (and those be such as are most obvious to the
sense,) they present their young immatriculated novices at first
coming with the most intellective abstractions of logic and meta-
physics ; so that they having but newly left those grammatic flats
and shallows where they stuck unreasonably to learn a few words
with lamentable construction, and now on the sudden transported
under another climate to be tossed and turmoiled with their
unballasted wits in fathomless and unquiet depths of controversy,
do for the most part grow into hatred and contempt of learning,
mocked and deluded all this while with ragged notions and bab-
blements, while they expected worthy and delightful knowledge ;
till poverty or youthful years call them importunately their
several ways, and hasten them with the sway of friends either to an
ambitious and mercenary, or ignorantly zealous divinity ; some
allured to the trade of law, grounding their purposes not on the
prudent and heavenly contemplation of justice and equity, which
was never taught them, but on the promising and pleasing
thoughts of litigious terms, fat contentions, an'd flowing fees ;
others betake them to state affairs, with souls so unprincipled in
virtue and true generous breeding, that flattery and courtships
and tyrannous aphorisms appear to them the highest points of
wisdom ; instilling their barren hearts with conscientious slavery ;
if, as I rather think, it be not feigned." " Of Education."
In vol. ii. of Milton's prose works, edited by Symmons, may
be found at page 339, in certain articles of agreement, the
beginning of a sentence of 910 words, covering two whole
pages and part of two others. Milton, although a conspicu-
ous example of this style, was no exception.
The combination of law and Latin was thus developing
a language of the learned, not in sympathy with the body
of the people or fit for any of the purposes of active life.
Fortunately it was not permitted to continue as a literary
standard. It was first effectively met by the pioneers of the
newspaper press. The journalist does not sit in a well
stocked library meditating theses for the entertainment of
scholars. He has to write on the spur of the moment, often
564 English Grammar.
without preparation or revision, about the events and the
questions of the day in a way to interest and inform the
body of the people. His excellences and his shortcomings
grow out of those conditions. Hence it is in no small
degree due to such literary hacks as L' Estrange and Defoe,
and their imitators, that there is now in English a literature
that can be read and a people who are pleased to read it.
The long sentence with its endless convolutions was the
first to give way, and people were content for more than a
century to accept Latin and its derivatives in any quantity,
if only put up in small packages, but latterly there has been
an increasing demand for short and simple native words. In
words and in sentences it is safe now to use a good deal of
freedom, being careful only to avoid all extremes on the
one hand and on the other a tiresome monotony.
VII. An idiom is a figure of speech become so familiar by
long use, that it is no longer regarded as a figure, but as a
literal truth. Yet it is like any figure in this, that if its
words be taken in their primary literal meaning it is either
untrue or nonsense.
He fell in with a batch of old salts spinning yarns.
" One half the prayers with Jove acceptance find,
The other half he whistles down the wind."
The boundary between idiom and slang has never been
established, or between either and metaphor. They are
slang when too low or coarse. To be an idiom an expression
must be perfectly established and understood. It should be
shorter than any literal equivalent, and is then apt and
forcible.
Idiomatic. The fire has gone out.
Literal. The process of combustion has ceased.
One who attempted to avoid idioms would be insufferably
stiff and tedious.
While idioms should be so old as to be familiar to every-
body, metaphors and similes are best when perfectly new.
They are not only entirely proper but they may be an
Suggestions to Young Writers. 565
admirable help when they are apt, fit well in the connection
in which they are placed and occur naturally in your way of
thinking of your subject. They are not to be hunted down
and dragged in by force.
Anecdotes, if well managed, are of great use in oral ad-
dresses, but have little value in writing. It is not because they
are idle and empty-headed that stump orators indulge so much
in stories. In reading a book you may lay it aside when
tired and resume it again at leisure, but a speech must be
heard through at a sitting. If it be an intellectual pem-
mican of fact and argument, the mind soon tires in the
effort to take in and digest materials so solid : and a little fun
thrown in here and there gives a needful rest, and acts like a
recess for a school of children. You of course understand
that stories and figures of speech are embellishments that
serve only for relief or' amusement, and that no amount of
them can prove anything.
VIII. Some things are to be avoided with conscientious
care. Among them are all slang and low, coarse or unclean
expressions, all puns, playing upon the sound of words, and
paltering in a double sense. As Artemus Ward said, they
are not funny ; they edify no one and please no one who
has any claim to be pleased. Avoid also all those phrases
that are continually starting up like weeds and are in every-
body's mouth, enjoying a nine days' popularity. Quotations
of apt phrases and lines of poetry should be admitted spar-
ingly. As a rule employ no French or other foreign words.
To many good people they are unintelligible or unpronounce-
able ; and unless your knowledge be very accurate there is
a chance of their being incorrect. They are in bad taste and
wholly out of tune ; and moreover the chances are a thou-
sand to one that there are words enough in English to tell
more than you know. Do not clothe little thoughts in big
words. The effect is less disagreeable when the words seem
unequal to the weight of sense they have to bear. Do not
" inaugurate " a new style of shearing your " phenomenal"
poodle. Moreover, great things may be said simply. When
very young I read these words in a book that was then old :
566 English Grammar.
" And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold I make all
things new."
A fifth-grade newspaper would now express it thus :
And the occupant of the celestial divan announced his deter-
mination of immediately inaugurating an essentially novel
regime.
Two words, " inaugurate " and " regime," would be indis-
pensable. If the Anglo-Saxon reformers sometimes let
their zeal carry them a little too far, what a debt of grati-
tude is due them for raising a protest against such verbiage !
Another thing to be avoided is unnecessary arithmetical
figures. In the present age there is a craze for statistics,
even if they point nowhere. There is a popular saying that
figures do not lie ; but those who are better informed are
aware that they are mercenary troops that fight with equal
readiness on either side of any dispute. The possible com-
binations of numbers are infinite, and some of them may be
made to seem to favor any proposition whatever. Hence a
cautious man will always distrust your figures except the few
that he knows already, and those he need not be told. You
will sometimes see a public man stand up in a crowded hall
and read page after page of exports and imports of the past
twenty years, and the guessed values of farms, buildings, and
live stock in 44 States, of all of which not a grain sticks in
the memory of any one. The audience sit wearily thinking
of something else, and go away with a tired feeling of hav-
ing heard of something vacant and vast. The figures may
or may not be misleading; they are certain not to be
remembered.
In writing it is sometimes necessary to introduce numeri-
cal statements ; but then they should be few and presented
with all possible clearness. If your point be to prove the
rapid growth of Porkopolis, it will be sufficient to show that
the number of pigs killed there has steadily risen in ten years
from 53 to 53,000,000; you can then afford to dispense with
the statistics of beer and several other things.
Suggestions to Young Writers. 567
Nouns and verbs are the bones and muscles of language,
that give it form and strength. Adjectives should be em-
ployed sparingly and with discretion. Adjectives that describe
sandy, calcareous, white, liquid, circular, fibrous, are of
course to be used wherever necessary ; but it is better not to
be profuse with those that are intended merely to depreciate
or to raise admiration. They give an inflated appearance, and
are a great source of weakness. The same is true of adverbs
derived from adjectives. So, too, pronouns need to be han-
dled with great care. They are a lazy makeshift contrivance
to save the labor of naming things. The greatest source of
ambiguity and uncertainty in common conversation is the
continual repetition of he, she, it, they, this, that, the other,
when people will not take the trouble to name what they are
talking about. The following is a sentence from a sermon
preached by Archbishop Tillotson before the king and
queen :
" Men look with an evil eye upon the good that is in others,
and think that their reputation obscures them, and that their
commendable qualities do stand in their light ; and therefore they
do what they can to cast a cloud over them, that the bright shin-
ing of their virtues may not scorch them."
Even ill-sounding words and combinations are objectiona-
ble. They can be detected by reading aloud carefully and
distinctly ; and the faculty of detecting faults will improve
by use. Whatever sounds badly is not well written. Some
words like deprecatory, peremptorily, speculative-ness, are ca-
cophonous however they may be placed ; but a much com-
moner fault is the recurrence of similar sounds that do not
well go together because the laws cause, some come from
home, a single glass, he ran on in an unintelligible harangue.
Roofless is well enough, but shingleless would be bad ; skill-
less and tailless are not much better, and there is altogether
too much sibillation in successlessness. In general it is not
desirable to have the same word occur twice in a sentence,
or end two successive short sentences. It is even worth
while to take some little pains to have a word ending with a
568 English Grammar.
vowel followed by one beginning with a consonant, and to
have consonants followed by vowels.
IX. The naturalist Buff on is credited with saying that
the style is the man, the plain English of which seems to be
that every one has a way of expressing his thoughts as dis-
tinctive of the individual as his voice or features. While
it should be the constant aim to correct all errors and remedy
all defects, no effort should be made to form a style by imi-
tation. The habitual and appreciative reading of good
authors will influence your style without your thinking of it.
Having a stock of words acquired by reading and having
mastered your subject as a whole and in its details, tell your
story in your own words and in your own way without any
thought about style or fine writing. If time be allowed you,
lay aside your manuscript until you have in a manner for-
gotten it and can see it with something like the eyes of a
stranger. Then go over it carefully, strike out every word
that can be spared, change every word and every sentence
that can be changed for the better, and leave the rest unal-
tered.
INDEX.
Absolute clauses, 523.
Accent, 187.
" in Arabic and Icelandic, 44.
Acrostics in the Bible, 112.
Adjective clauses, 515.
" pronouns, 333.
Adjectives, 288, 513.
comparison of, 294.
declension of, 293.
formation of, 289.
" plural, 292.
Adverbial clauses, 520.
Adverbs, 476.
Agglutination, 8l.
Alexandrian Museum and Library, 47.
Alphabet, defects of our, 123.
first appearance of, 109.
modifications of, in Eng-
land, 122.
table of, 129.
the, among the Greeksy 118.
" in Italy, 119.
what it should be, 123.
Alphabetic writing, 94.
Alphabets of Lepsius and Ellis, 128,
I3i-
Analysis of the Dictionary, 36.
Anglian element in English, 14.
Anomalies of pronunciation and spell-
ing, 195.
Anticipating sounds that are to follow,
163.
Apposition, 515.
Articles, 335.
Articulate sounds, 127.
Aspirates, 159.
Aspiration, 159, 170.
Assimilation of foreign materials, 34.
Auxiliary the real verb, 474, 521.
Auxiliary verbs, 372.
Be, 413.
Best or better of the two, 30x4.
Bilingual inscriptions, 106.
Buddhist missionaries, 98.
Can, 400.
Cases of nouns, 275.
Celtic element in English, 12.
Cherokee syllabary, 101.
Children as language-makers, 4.
Chinese writing, 96.
Classification, 222.
Cockneyism, 159.
Codex Argenteus, 9.
Compounding words, 56.
Compound tenses, 430.
Condition of England under the Nor-
mans, 18.
Conjugation, 415.
Conjugations, 351.
Corean alphabet, 98.
Cuneiform writing, 103.
Cyprus patera, the, 113.
Dare, 407.
Declension in Sanskrit and Hebrew,
84.
Demonstrative pronouns, 333.
Derivatives, 79.
Devanagari, 100.
Development by inflectional endings,
8p.
by internal changes, 86.
Do, 405.
Early English grammars, 48.
Egyptian hieroglyphics, 105.
Ending -eth changed to -es, 420.
English and American usages, 193.
Eshmunazar, inscription of, 116.
Foreign words in different authors, 39.
Forms of the letters, 112.
French eagerly learned, 19.
French element in English, 15.
" plurals, 251.
Fundamental sound in language, 127.
Gender, 228.
Gothic, 9.
509
570
Index.
Grammar, a descriptive science, 50.
' ' and Lexicography compared ,
43-
beginnings of, 46.
divisions of, 217.
Max Miiller's idea of, 44.
not indispensable, 46.
What does it teach ? 43, 50.
Greek element in English, 30.
plurals, 248.
Grimm's Law, 132.
Have, 408.
Hebrew plurals, 251.
" square letters, 117.
Hieratic writing, 108.
Homonyms, 58.
Hybrid words, 79.
Imperative mood, 457.
Inconsistency of our spelling, 138.
Indicative mood, 442.
Infinitive " 463.
" with to< 463, 465.
Inflection, extent of, in other lan-
guages, 45.
Instability of language, 3.
Interrogative pronoun, 327.
Irish pronunciation, 155.
" Is being," 473.
Italian plurals, 252.
Italics, 121.
Japan, introduction of writing into, 99.
Language, changes of, 4.
families of, 9.
of animals, 52.
what it must be capable
of, 221.
Latin, books written in, 16, 20.
" plurals, 245.
Law Latin, 17.
Layamon, 20.
Laziness a factor in word-making, 56.
Legal French, 17.
" maxims, 17.
Let, 402.
Letters, intruded, 149.
" small, invention of, 121.
" that preserve their sounds,
146.
Like, used as a preposition, 488.
Loss of inflections, 24.
May, 373.
Mexican picture writing, 96.
Moabite stone, the, 113.
Moods, 440.
Must, 401.
Names of the letters, 109.
" " in Italy, 120.
Negative, double, 530.
the, 483.
Nimroud weights, 116.
Norman Conquest, 15.
Nouns, 225.
" factitious, 265.
of aggregation, 541.
" that mimic humanity, 264.
" " " plurality, 264.
Number, 235.
Numerals, 337.
Obelisk of Philse, 107.
Object, 510.
" indirect, 519.
Order of the letters, 112.
" of words, 511, 524.
Organs of speech, 125.
Ormulum, the, 20.
Ought, 404.
Palatalization, 152.
Participle, past, 468, 471.
present, 468.
Participles, 468.
Parts of speech, 224.
Passive voice, 472.
Person and number of verbs, 416.
Persons of nouns, 287.
Phonetic pictures, 95.
" spelling, 205.
Picture writing, 94.
Plural of compound nouns, 254.
Plurals, irregular, 239.
' ' of foreign words, 244.
" peculiar, 265.
Possessive pronouns, 336.
Predicate, 510.
Prefixes, 59.
Prepositions, 485.
Pronoun of the first person, 309.
" second person, 313.
" " " third person, 316.
Pronouns, 307.
" classes of, 308.
" personal, 308.
" syntax of, 439.
Pronunciation, and spelling, when
they agree, 138.
often unsettled, 139.
precedes spelling, 138.
Protasis and apodosis, 395.
Rebus a step towards writing, 95.
Reduplication, 350.
Reflexive pronoun, 323, 539.
Relative pronouns, 328.
Index.
57
Rhotacism, 243.
Roots, 55.
Rosetta Stone, the, 106.
Runic alphabet, 112.
Saxon element in English, 12.
Scandinavian element in English,
. &tf, 539-
Sentence, the, 509.
Sentences, affirmative, 509-529.
different kinds of, 509.
imperative, 536.
interrogative, 535.
negative, 529.
Shemitic alphabet, 109.
Shortening of words, 142.
Silent letters, 146.
Silver Book, the, 9.
Sounds in Anglo-Saxon, 140.
Sounds, scale of, represented, 144.
Sources of English, 12.
Spelling formerly unsettled, 143.
" phonetic, 205.
" principles of, 178.
" proposed reforms in, 212.
Strong verbs, 351.
Subject, 510, 513.
" grammatical, 517.
" logical, 517.
Subjunctive mood, 444.
Suffixes, 70.
Symbolism, 95.
Syntax, 506.
Tenses, 422.
Termination -ed, 366.
Ulphilas, his translations of Scripture,
9-
Uncial letters, 121.
Unstable letters, 148.
Verbal nouns, 463.
Verbs, 343.
" impersonal, 348.
intransitive, 346.
reflexive, 347.
" syntax of, 520, 547.
" transitive, 346.
Vowels, 130.
Vowel shifting, 154.
Vowels, influence of one upon another,
83-
Vowel sounds grow thinner, 154.
Weights, set of, from Nimroud, 116.
WzY/and shall, 377.
Words at first monosyllabic, 54.
" borrowed, of what kind, 24, 27.
" invention of, 53.
' ' primitive end in vowels, 54.
" that are mistakes, 91.
Worth, as a preposition, 538.
THE END.
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