The Grammar of English Grammars, Goold Brown [ebook reader for manga txt] 📗

9 Vowels and 19 Consonants. H is no letter, but merely a mark of aspiration."—Jones's Prosodial Gram. before his Dict., p. 14.

"The number of simple vowel and consonant sounds in our tongue is twenty-eight, and one pure aspiration h, making in all twenty-nine."—Bolles's Octavo Dict., Introd., p. 9.

"The number of letters in the English language is twenty-six; but the number of elements is thirty-eight."—Comstock's Elocution, p. 18. "There are thirty-eight elements in the English alphabet, and to represent those elements by appropriate characters, we should have thirty-eight letters. There is, then, a deficiency in our alphabet of twelve letters—and he who shall supply this imperfection, will be one of the greatest benefactors of the human race."—Ib., p. 19. "Our alphabet is both redundant and defective. C, q, and z, are respectively represented by k or s, k, and ks, or gz; and the remaining twenty-three letters are employed to represent forty-one elementary sounds."—Wells's School Gram., 1st Ed., p. 36.

"The simple sounds were in no wise to be reckoned of any certain number: by the first men they were determined to no more than ten, as spine suppose; as others, fifteen or twenty; it is however certain that mankind in general never exceed twenty simple sounds; and of these only five are reckoned strictly such."—Bicknell's Grammar, Part ii, p. 4.

[101] "When these sounds are openly pronounced, they produce the familiar assent ay: which, by the old English dramatic writers, was often expressed by I."—Walker. We still hear it so among the vulgar; as, "I, I, sir, presently!" for "Ay, ay, sir, presently!" Shakspeare wrote,

"To sleepe, perchance to dreame; I, there's the rub." —Bucke's Classical Gram., p. 143.

[102] Walker pronounces yew and you precisely alike, "yoo;" but, certainly, ew is not commonly equivalent to oo, though some make it so: thus Gardiner, in his scheme of the vowels, says, "ew equals oo, as in new, noo."—Music of Nature, p. 483. Noo for new, is a vulgarism, to my ear.—G. BROWN.

[103] "As harmony is an inherent property of sound, the ear should he first called to the attention of simple sounds; though, in reality, all are composed of three, so nicely blended as to appear but as one."—Gardiner's Music of Nature, p. 8. "Every sound is a mixture of three tones; as much as a ray of light is composed of three prismatic colours."—Ib., p. 387.

[104] The titulary name of the sacred volume is "The Holy Bible." The word Scripture or Scriptures is a common name for the writings contained in this inestimable volume, and, in the book itself, is seldom distinguished by a capital; but, in other works, it seems proper in general to write it so, by way of eminence.

[105] "Benedictus es Domine Deus Israel patris nostri ab eterno in eternum."—Vulgate. "O Eternel! Dieu d'Israël, notre père, tu es béni de tout temps et à toujours."—Common French Bible. "[Greek: Eulogætos ei Kyrie ho theos Israel ho patær hæmon apo tou aionos kai heos tou aionos.]"—Septuagint.

[106] Where the word "See" accompanies the reference, the reader may generally understand that the citation, whether right or wrong in regard to grammar, is not in all respects exactly as it will be found in the place referred to. Cases of this kind, however, will occur but seldom; and it is hoped the reasons for admitting a few, will be sufficiently obvious. Brevity is indispensable; and some rules are so generally known and observed, that one might search long for half a dozen examples of their undesigned violation. Wherever an error is made intentionally in the Exercises, the true reading and reference are to be expected in the Key.

[107] "Et irritaverunt ascendentes in mare, Mare rubrum."—Latin Vulgate, folio, Psal. cv, 7. This, I think, should have been "Mare Rubrum," with two capitals.—G. BROWN.

[108] The printers, from the manner in which they place their types before them, call the small letters "lower-case letters," or "letters of the lower case."

[109] I imagine that "plagues" should here be plague, in the singular number, and not plural. "Ero more ius, o mors; morsus tuus ero, inferne."—Vulgate. "[Greek: Pou hæ dikæ sou, thanate; pou to kentron sou, aidæ;]"—Septuagint, ibid.

[110] It is hoped that not many persons will be so much puzzled as are Dr. Latham and Professor Fowler, about the application of this rule. In their recent works on The English Language, these gentlemen say, "In certain words of more than one syllable, it is difficult to say to which syllable the intervening Consonant belongs. For instance, does the v in river and the v in fever belong to the first or to the second syllable? Are the words to be divided thus, ri-ver, fe-ver? or thus, riv-er, fev-er?"—Fowler's E. Gram., 1850, §85; Latham's Hand-Book, p. 95. Now I suppose it plain, that, by the rule given above, fever is to be divided in the former way, and river in the latter; thus, fe-ver, riv-er. But this paragraph of Latham's or Fowler's is written, not to disembarrass the learner, but just as if it were a grammarian's business to confound his readers with fictitious dilemmas—and those expressed ungrammatically! Of the two Vees, so illogically associated in one question, and so solecistically spoken of by the singular verb "does," one belongs to the former syllable, and the other, to the latter; nor do I discover that "it is difficult to say" this, or to be well assured that it is right. What an admirable passage for one great linguist to steal from an other!

[111] "The usual rules for dividing [words into] syllables, are not only arbitrary but false and absurd. They contradict the very definition of a syllable given by the authors themselves. * * * * A syllable in pronunciation is an indivisible thing; and strange as it may appear, what is indivisible in utterance is divided in writing: when the very purpose of dividing words into syllables in writing, is to lead the learner to a just pronunciation."—Webster's Improved Gram., p. 156; Philosophical Gram., 221.

[112] This word, like distich and monostich, is from the Greek stichos, a verse; and is improperly spelled by Walker with a final k. It should be hemistich, with the accent on the first syllable. See Webster, Scott, Perry, Worcester, and others.

[113] According to Aristotle, the compounding of terms, or the writing of them as separate words, must needs be a matter of great importance to the sense. For he will have the parts of a compound noun, or of a compound verb, to be, like other syllables, destitute of any distinct signification in themselves, whatever may be their meaning when written separately. See his definitions of the parts of speech, in his Poetics, Chapter 20th of the Greek; or Goulston's Version in Latin, Chapter 12th.

[114] Whether worshipper should follow this principle, or not, is questionable. If Dr. Webster is right in making worship a compound of worth and ship, he furnishes a reason against his own practice of using a single p in worshiper, worshiped, and worshiping. The Saxon word appears to have been weorthscype. But words ending in ship are derivatives, rather than compounds; and therefore they seem to belong to the rule, rather than to the exception: as, "So we fellowshiped him."—Herald of Freedom: Liberator, Vol. ix, p. 68.

[115] When ee comes before e, or may be supposed to do so, or when ll comes before l, one of the letters is dropped that three of the same kind may not meet: as, free, freer, freest, freeth, freed; skill, skilless; full, fully; droll, drolly. And, as burgess-ship, hostess-ship, and mistress-ship are derivatives, and not compounds, I think they ought to follow the same principle, and be written burgesship, hostesship, mistresship. The proper form of gall-less is perhaps more doubtful. It ought not to be gallless, as Dr. Webster has it; and galless, the analogical form, is yet, so far as I know without authority. But is it not preferable to the hyphened form, with three Ells, which has authority? "GALL-LESS, a. Without gall or bitterness. Cleaveland."—Chalmers, Bolles, Worcester.

     "Ah! mild and gall-less dove,
    Which dost the pure and candid dwellings love,
     Canst thou in Albion still delight?"—Cowley's Odes.

Worcester's Dictionary has also the questionable word bellless. Treen, for trees, or for an adjective meaning a tree's, or made of a tree, is exhibited in several of our dictionaries, and pronounced as a monosyllable: but Dr. Beattie, in his Poems, p. 84, has made it a dissyllable, with three like letters divided by a hyphen, thus:—

"Plucking from tree-en bough her simple food."

[116] Handiwork, handicraft, and handicraftsman, appear to have been corruptly written for handwork, handcraft, and handcraftsman. They were formerly in good use, and consequently obtained a place in our vocabulary, from which no lexicographer, so far as I know, has yet thought fit to discard them; but, being irregular, they are manifestly becoming obsolete, or at least showing a tendency to throw off these questionable forms. Handcraft and handcraftsman are now exhibited in some dictionaries, and handiwork seems likely to be resolved into handy and work, from which Johnson supposes it to have been formed. See Psalm xix, 1. The text is varied thus: "And the firmament sheweth his handiwork."—Johnson's Dict.. "And the firmament sheweth his handy-work."—Scott's Bible; Bruce's Bible; Harrison's Gram., p. 83. "And the firmament showeth his handy work."—Alger's Bible; Friends' Bible; Harrison's Gram., p. 103.

[117] Here a word, formed from its root by means of the termination ize, afterwards assumes a prefix, to make a secondary derivative: thus, organ, organize, disorganize. In such a case, the latter derivative must of course be like the former; and I assume that the essential or primary formation of both from the word organ is by the termination ize; but it is easy to see that disguise, demise, surmise, and the like, are essentially or primarily formed by means of the prefixes, dis, de, and sur. As to advertise, exercise, detonize, and recognize, which I have noted among the exceptions, it is not easy to discover by which method we ought to suppose them to have been formed; but with respect to nearly all others, the distinction is very plain; and though there may be no natural reason for founding upon it such a rule as the foregoing, the voice of general custom is as clear in this as in most other points or principles of orthography, and, surely, some rule in this case is greatly needed.

[118] Criticise, with s, is the orthography of Johnson, Walker, Webster, Jones, Scott, Bolles, Chalmers, Cobb, and others; and so did Worcester spell it in his Comprehensive Dictionary of 1831, but, in his Universal and Critical Dictionary of 1846, he wrote it with z, as did Bailey in his folio, about a hundred years ago. Here the z conforms to the foregoing rule, and the s does not.

[119] Like this, the compound brim-full ought to be written with a hyphen and accented on the last syllable; but all our lexicographers have corrupted it into brim'ful, and, contrary to the authorities they quote, accented it on the first. Their noun brim'fulness, with a like accent, is also a corruption; and the text of Shakspeare, which they quote for it, is nonsense, unless brim, be there made a separate adjective:—

"With ample and brimfulness of his force."—Johnson's Dict. et al.

"With ample and brim fullness of his force," would be better.

[120] According to Littleton, the coraliticus lapis was a kind of Phrygian marble, "called Coralius or by an other name Sangarius." But this substance seems to be different from all that are described by Webster, under the names of "coralline," "corallinite," and "corallite." See Webster's Octavo Dict.

[121] The Greek word for argil is [Greek: argilos], or [Greek: argillos], (from [Greek: argos], white,) meaning pure white earth; and is as often spelled with one Lamda as with two.

[122] Dr. Webster, with apparent propriety, writes caviling and cavilous with one l, like dialing and perilous; but he has in general no more uniformity than Johnson, in respect to the doubling of l final. He also, in some instances, accents similar words variously: as, cor'alliform, upon the first syllable, metal'liform, upon the second; cav'ilous and pap'illous, upon the first, argil'lous, upon the second; ax'illar, upon the first, medul'lar, upon the second. See Webster's Octavo Dict.

[123] Perry wrote crystaline, crystalize, crystalization, metaline, metalist, metalurgist, and metalurgy; and these forms, as well as crystalography, metalic, metalography, and metaliferous, are noticed and preferred by the authors of the Red Book, on pp. 288 and 302.

[124] "But if a diphthong precedes, or the accent is on the preceding syllable, the consonant remains single: as, to toil, toiling; to offer, an offering."—Murray's Octavo Gram., p. 24; Walker's Rhym.