Page:The Comic English Grammar.djvu/81

Rh Government is that power which one part of speech has over another, in directing its mood, tense, or case.

Government is also that power, of which, if the Agrarians have their way, we shall soon see very little in this country.

To produce the agreement and right disposition of words in a sentence, the following rules (and observations?) should be carefully studied.

RULE I.

A verb must agree with its nominative case in number and person: as "I perceive." "Thou hast been to Boston." "Apes chatter." "Frenchmen gabble."

Certain liberties are sometimes taken with this rule: as, "I own I likes good beer." "You'm a fine fellow, aint yer?" Such modes of speaking are adopted by those who neither know nor care anything about grammatical correctness; but there are other persons who care a great deal about it, but unfortunately do not know what it consists in. Such folks are very fond of saying, "How it rain!" "It fit you very well." "He say he think it very unbecoming." "I were gone before