IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.
FALSE SYNTAX UNDER RULE XIII.
PRONOUNS WITH ANTECEDENTS CONNECTED BY OR OR NOR.
"Neither prelate nor priest can give their flocks any decisive evidence that you are lawful pastors."--Dr. Brownlee.
[FORMULE.--Not proper, because the pronoun their is of the plural number, and does not correctly represent its two antecedents prelate and priest, which are connected by nor, and taken disjunctively. But, according to Rule 13th, "When a pronoun has two or more antecedents connected by or or nor, it must agree with them singly, and not as if taken together." Therefore, their should be his; thus, "Neither prelate nor priest can give his flocks any decisive evidence that you are lawful pastors."]
"And is there a heart of parent or of child, that does not beat and burn within them?"--Maturin's Sermons, p. 367. "This is just as if an eye or a foot should demand a salary for their service to the body."--Collier's Antoninus, p. 178. "If thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee."--Matt., xviii, 8. "The same might as well be said of Virgil, or any great author, whose general character will infallibly raise many casual additions to their reputation."--Pope's Pref. to Homer. "Either James or John, one of them, will come."--Smith's New Gram., p. 37. "Even a rugged rock or barren heath, though in themselves disagreeable, contribute by contrast to the beauty of the whole."--Kames, El. of Crit., i, 185. "That neither Count Rechteren nor Monsieur Mesnager had behaved themselves right in this affair."--Spect., No. 481. "If an Aristotle, a Pythagoras, or a Galileo, suffer for their opinions, they are 'martyrs.'"--Gospel its own Witness, p. 80. "If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die; then the ox shall be surely stoned."--Exodus, xxi, 28. "She was calling out to one or an other, at every step, that a Habit was ensnaring them."--DR. JOHNSON: Murray's Sequel, 181. "Here is a Task put upon Children, that neither this Author, nor any other have yet undergone themselves."--Johnson's Gram. Com., p. 162. "Hence, if an adjective or participle be subjoined to the verb, when of the singular number, they will agree both in gender and number with the collective noun."--Adam's Lat. Gram., p. 154; Gould's, 158. "And if you can find a diphthong, or a triphthong, be pleased to point them out too."--Bucke's Classical Gram., p. 16. "And if you can find a diphthong, or a triphthong, a trissyllable, or a polysyllable, point them respectively out."--Ib., p. 25. "The false refuges in which the atheist or the sceptic have intrenched themselves."--Christian Spect., viii, 185. "While the man or woman thus assisted by art expects their charms will be imputed to nature alone."--Opie, 141. "When you press a watch, or pull a clock, they answer your question with precision; for they repeat exactly the hour of the day, and tell you neither more nor less than you desire to know."--Bolingbroke, on History, p. 102.
"Not the Mogul, or Czar of Muscovy,
Not Prester John, or Cham of Tartary,
Are in their houses Monarch more than I."
--KING: Brit. Poets, Vol. iii, p. 613.
CHAPTER VI.--VERBS.
In this work, the syntax of Verbs is embraced in six consecutive rules, with the necessary exceptions, notes, and observations, under them; hence this chapter extends from the fourteenth to the twentieth rule in the series.
RULE XIV.--FINITE VERBS.
Every finite Verb must agree with its subject, or nominative, in person and number: as, "I know; thou knowst, or knowest; he knows, or knoweth"--"The bird flies; the birds fly."
"Our fathers' fertile fields by slaves are till'd,
And Rome with dregs of foreign lands is fill'd."
--Rowe's Lucan, B. vii, l. 600.
OBSERVATIONS ON RULE XIV.
OBS. 1.--To this general rule for the verb, there are properly no exceptions;[385] and all the special rules that follow, which prescribe the concord of verbs in particular instances, virtual
