to be corrected by inserting a hyphen and an of, after Murray's doctrine before cited; as, "What is the meaning of this lady's holding-up of her train?" Murray did well to reject this example, but as a specimen of English, his own is no better. The question which he asks, ought to have been, "Why did this person dismiss his servant so hastily?" Fisk has it in the following form: "What is the reason of this person's dismissing his servant so hastily?"--English Grammar Simplified, p. 108. This amender of grammars omits the of which Murray and others scrupulously insert to govern the noun servant, and boldly avows at once, what their rule implies, that, "Participles are sometimes used both as verbs and as nouns at the same time; as, 'By the mind's changing the object,' &c."--Ib., p. 134; so Emmons's Gram., p. 64. But he errs as much as they, and contradicts both himself and them. For one ought rather to say, "By the mind's changing of the object;" else changing, which "does the office of a noun," has not truly "a correspondent regimen." Yet of is useless after dismissing, unless we take away the adverb by which the participle is prevented from becoming a noun. "Dismissing of his servant so hastily," is in itself an ungrammatical phrase; and nothing but to omit either the preposition, or the two adverbs, can possibly make it right. Without the latter, it may follow the possessive; but without the former, our most approved grammars say it cannot. Some critics, however, object to the of, because the dismissing is not the servant's act; but this, as I shall hereafter show, is no valid objection: they stickle for a false rule.
OBS. 15.--Thus these authors, differing from one an other as they do, and each contradicting himself and some of the rest, are, as it would seem, all wrong in respect to the whole matter at issue. For whether the phrase in question be like Priestley's, or like Murray's, or like Fisk's, it is still, according to the best authorities, unfit to govern the possessive case; because, in stead of being a substantive, it is something more than a participle, and yet they take it substantively. They form this phrase in many different fashions, and yet each man of them pretends that what he approves, is just like the construction of a regular noun: "Just as we say, 'What is the reason of this person's hasty dismission of his servant.'"--Murray, Fisk, and others. "Just as we say, 'What is the meaning of this lady's dress,' &c."--Priestley. The meaning of a lady's dress, forsooth! The illustration is worthy of the doctrine taught. "An entire clause of a sentence" substantively possessed, is sufficiently like "the meaning of a lady's dress, &c." Cobbett despised andsoforths, for their lack of meaning; and I find none in this one, unless it be, "of tinsel and of fustian." This gloss therefore I wholly disapprove, judging the position more tenable, to deny, if we consequently must, that either a phrase or a participle, as such, can consistently govern the possessive case. For whatever word or term gives rise to the direct relation of property, and is rightly made to govern the possessive case, ought in reason to be a noun--ought to be the name of some substance, quality, state, action, passion, being, or thing. When therefore other parts of speech assume this relation, they naturally become nouns; as, "Against the day of my burying."--John, xii, 7. "Till the day of his showing unto Israel."--Luke, i, 80. "By my own showing."--Cowper, Life, p. 22. "By a fortune of my own getting."--Ib. "Let your yea be yea, and your nay nay."--James, v, 12. "Prate of my whereabout."--Shah.
OBS. 16.--The government of possessives by "entire clauses" or "substantive phrases," as they are sometimes called, I am persuaded, may best be disposed of, in almost every instance, by charging the construction with impropriety or awkwardness, and substituting for it some better phraseology. For example, our grammars abound with sentences like the following, and call them good English: (1.) "So we may either say, 'I remember it being reckoned a great exploit;' or perhaps more elegantly, 'I remember its being reckoned a great exploit.'"--Priestley, Murray, and others. Here both modes are wrong; the latter, especially; because it violates a general rule of syntax, in regard to the case of the noun exploit. Say, "I remember it was reckoned a great exploit." Again: (2.) "We also properly say, 'This will be the effect of the pupil's composing frequently.'"--Murray's Gram., p. 179; and others. Better, "This will be the effect, if the pupil compose frequently." But this sentence is fictitious, and one may doubt whether good authors can be found who use compose or composing as being intransitive. (3.) "What can be the reason of the committee's having delayed this business?"--Murray's Key, p. 223. Say, "Why have the committee delayed this business?" (4.) "What can be the cause of the parliament's neglecting so important a business?"--Ib., p. 195. Say, "Why does the parliament neglect so important a business?" (5.) "The time of William's making the experiment, at length arrived."--Ib., p. 195. Say, "The time for William to make the experiment, at length arrived." (6.) "I hope this is the last time of my acting so imprudently."--Ib., p. 263. Say, "I hope I shall never again act so imprudently." (7.) "If I were to give a reason for their looking so well, it would be, that they rise early."--Ib., p. 263. Say, "I should attribute their healthful appearance to their early rising." (8.) "The tutor said, that diligence and application to study were necessary to our becoming good scholars."--Cooper's Gram., p. 145. Here is an anomaly in the construction of the noun scholars. Say, "The tutor said, that diligent application to study was necessary to our success in learning." (9.) "The reason of his having acted in the manner he did, was not fully explained."--Murray's Key, p. 263. This author has a very singular mode of giving "STRENGTH" to weak sentences. The faulty text here was. "The reason why he acted in the manner he did, was not fully explained."--Murray's Exercises, p. 131. This is much better than the other, but I should choose to say. "The reason of his conduct was not fully explained." For, surely, the "one idea or circumstance" of his "having acted in the manner in which he did act," may be quite as forcibly named by the one word conduct, as by all this verbiage, this "substantive phrase," or "entire clause," of such cumbrous length.
