sense is there in this? The sentence ought to have been, "You do not attend to your studies, as he does to his." That is--"as he does attend to his studies." This plainly shows that there is, in the text, no real substitution of does for attends. So of all other examples exhibited in our grammars, under this head: there is nothing to the purpose, in any of them; the common principle of ellipsis resolves them all. Yet, strange to say, in the latest and most learned of this sort of text-books, we find the same sham example, fictitious and solecistical as it is, still blindly repeated, to show that "does" is not in its own place, as an auxiliary, but "supplies the place of another verb."--Fowler's E. Gram., 8vo. 1850. p. 265.
NOTES TO RULE XVII.
NOTE I.--When a verb has nominatives of different persons or numbers,[400] connected by or or nor, it must agree with the nearest, (unless an other be the principal term,) and must be understood to the rest, in the person and number required; as, "Neither you nor I am concerned."--W. Allen. "That neither they nor ye also die."--Numb., xviii, 3.
"But neither god, nor shrine, nor mystic rite,
Their city, nor her walls, his soul delight."
--Rowe's Lucan, B. x, l. 26.
NOTE II.--But, since all nominatives that require different forms of the verb, virtually produce separate clauses or propositions, it is better to complete the concord whenever we conveniently can, by expressing the verb or its auxiliary in connexion with each of them; as, "Either thou art to blame, or I am."--Comly's Gram., p. 78. "Neither were their numbers, nor was their destination, known."--W. Allen's Gram., p. 134. So in clauses connected by and: as, "But declamation is idle, and murmurs fruitless."--Webster's Essays, p. 82. Say,--"and murmurs are fruitless."
NOTE III.--In English, the speaker should always mention himself last; unless his own superior dignity, or the confessional nature of the expression, warrant him in taking the precedence: as, "Thou or I must go."--"He then addressed his discourse to my father and me."--"Ellen and I will seek, apart, the refuge of some forest cell."--Scott. See Obs. 11th above.
NOTE IV.--Two or more distinct subject phrases connected by or or nor, require a singular verb; and, if a nominative come after the verb, that must be singular also: as, "That a drunkard should be poor, or that a fop should be ignorant, is not strange."--"To give an affront, or to take one tamely, is no mark of a great mind." So, when the phrases are unconnected: as, "To spread suspicion, to invent calumnies, to propagate scandal, requires neither labour nor courage."--Rambler, No. 183.
NOTE V.--In general, when verbs are connected by and, or, or nor, they must either agree in mood, tense, and form, or the simplest in form must be placed first; as, "So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh."--Isaiah, xxxvii, 37. "For if I be an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die."--Acts, xxv, 11.
NOTE VI.--In stead of conjoining discordant verbs, it is in general better to repeat the nominative or insert a new one; as, "He was greatly heated, and [he] drank with avidity."--Murray's Key, 8vo, p. 201. "A person may be great or rich by chance; but cannot be wise or good, without taking pains for it."--Ib., p. 200. Say,--"but no one can be wise or good, without taking pains for it."
NOTE VII.--A mixture of the forms of the solemn style and the familiar, is inelegant, whether the verbs refer to the same nominative or have different ones expressed; as, "What appears tottering and in hazard of tumbling, produceth in the spectator the painful emotion of fear."--Kames, El. of Crit., ii, 356. "And the milkmaid singeth blithe, And the mower whets his sithe."--Milton's Allegro, l. 65 and 66.
NOTE VIII.--To use different moods under precisely the same circumstances, is improper, even if the verbs have separate nominatives; as, "Bating that one speak and an other answers, it is quite the same."--Blair's Rhet., p. 368. Say,--"that one speaks;" for both the speaking and the answering are assumed as facts.
NOTE IX.--When two terms are connected, which involve different forms of
