Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/442

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IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.

ERRORS RESPECTING CONJUNCTIONS.

"A Verb is so called from the Latin verbum, or word."--Bucke's Classical Gram., p. 56.

[FORMULE.--Not proper, because the conjunction or, connecting verbum and word, supposes the latter to be Latin. But, according to Observation 7th, on the Classes of Conjunctions, "The import of connectives, copulative or disjunctive, must be carefully observed, lest we write or speak them improperly." In this instance, or should be changed to a; thus, "A Verb is so called from the Latin verbum, a word" that is, "which means, a word."]

"References are often marked by letters and figures."--Gould's Adam's Gram., p. 283. (1.) "A Conjunction is a word which joins words and sentences together."--Lennie's E. Gram., p. 51; Bullions's, 70; Brace's, 57. (2.) "A conjunction is used to connect words and sentences together."--Smith's New Gram., p. 37. (3.) "A conjunction is used to connect words and sentences."--Maunders Gram., p. 1. (4.) "Conjunctions are words used to join words and sentences."--Wilcox's Gram., p. 3. (5.) "A Conjunction is a word used to connect words and sentences."-- M'Culloch's Gram., p. 36; Hart's, 92; Day's, 10. (6.) "A Conjunction joins words and sentences together."--Mackintosh's Gram., p. 115; Hiley's, 10 and 53. (7.) "The Conjunction joins words and sentences together."--L. Murray's Gram., 2d Edition, p. 28. (8.) "Conjunctions connect words and sentences to each other."--Wright's Gram., p. 35. (9.) "Conjunctions connect words and sentences."--Wilcox's Gram., p. 80; Wells's, 1st Ed., 159 and 168. (10.) "The conjunction is a part of speech used to connect words and sentences."--Weld's Gram., 2d Ed., p. 49. (11.) "A conjunction is a word used to connect words and sentences together."-- Fowler's E. Gram., §329. (12.) "Connectives are words which unite words and sentences in construction."--Webster's Philos. Gram., p. 123; Improved Gram., 81. "English Grammar is miserably taught in our district schools; the teachers know but little or nothing about it."--Taylor's District School, p. 48. "Least, instead of preventing, you draw on Diseases."--Locke, on Ed., p. 40. "The definite article the is frequently applied to adverbs in the comparative and superlative degree."--Murray's Gram., p. 33; Ingersoll's, 33; Lennie's, 6; Bullions's, 8; Fisk's, 53, and others. "When nouns naturally neuter are converted into masculine and feminine."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 38. "This form of the perfect tense represents an action completely past, and often at no great distance, but not specified."--Ib., p. 74. "The Conjunction Copulative serves to connect or to continue a sentence, by expressing an addition, a supposition, a cause, &c."--Ib., p. 123. "The Conjunction Disjunctive serves, not only to connect and continue the sentence, but also to express opposition of meaning in different degrees."--Ib., p. 123. "Whether we open the volumes of our divines, philosophers, historians, or artists, we shall find that they abound with all the terms necessary to communicate their observations and discoveries."--Ib., p. 138. "When a disjunctive occurs between a singular noun, or pronoun, and a plural one, the verb is made to agree with the plural noun and pronoun."--Ib., p. 152: R. G. Smith, Alger, Gomly, Merchant, Picket, et al. "Pronouns must always agree with their antecedents, and the nouns for which they stand, in gender and number."--Murray's Gram., p. 154. "Verbs neuter do not act upon, or govern, nouns and pronouns."--Ib., p. 179. "And the auxiliary both of the present and past imperfect times."--Ib., p. 72. "If this rule should not appear to apply to every example, which has been produced, nor to others which might be adduced."--Ib., p. 216. "An emphatical pause is made, after something has been said of peculiar moment, and on which we desire to fix the hearer's attention."--Ib., p. 248; Hart's Gram., 175. "An imperfect phrase contains no assertion, or does not amount to a proposition or sentence."--Murray's Gram., p. 267. "The word was in the mouth of every one, but for all that, the subject may still be a secret."--Ib., p. 213. "A word it was in the mouth of every one, but for all that, as to its precise and definite idea, this may still be a secret."--Harris's Three Treatises, p. 5. "It cannot be otherwise, in regard that the French prosody differs from that of every other country in Europe."--Smollett's Voltaire, ix, 306. "So gradually as to allow its being engrafted on a subtonic."--Rush, on the Voice, p. 255. "Where the Chelsea or Maiden bridges now are."--Judge Parker. "Adverbs are words joined to verbs, participles, adjectives, and other adverbs."--Smith's Productive Gram., p. 92. "I could not have told you, who the hermit was, nor on what mountain he lived."--Bucke's Classical Gram., p. 32. "Am, or be (for they are the same) naturally, or in themselves signify being."--Brightland's Gram., p. 113. "Words are distinct sounds, by which we express our thoughts and ideas."--Infant School Gram., p. 13. "His fears will detect him, but he shall not escape."--Comly's Gram., p. 64. "Whose is equally applicable to persons or things."--WEBSTER in Sanborn's Gram., p. 95. "One negative destroys another, or is equivalent to an affirmative."-- Bullions, Eng. Gram., p. 118.

  "No sooner does he peep into
   The world, but he has done his do."--Hudibras.



CHAPTER X.--PREPOSITIONS.

A Preposition is a word used to express some relation of different things or thoughts to each other, and is generally placed before a noun or a pronoun: as, "The paper lies before me on the desk."