Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/331

 of the personal pronouns by way of emphasis, or opposition; but separately, as an adjective, and not combining with them to form a relative: as, 'I did it of my own free will:' 'Did he do it with his own hand?'"--Ib., p. 227.

OBS. 27.--The preceding instructions, faulty and ungrammatical as they are, seem to be the best that our writers have furnished upon this point. To detect falsities and blunders, is half the grammarian's duty. The pronouns of which the term self or selves forms a part, are used, not for the connecting of different clauses of a sentence, but for the purpose of emphatic distinction in the sense. In calling them "relatives," Churchill is wrong, even by his own showing. They have not the characteristics which he himself ascribes to relatives; but are compound personal pronouns, and nothing else. He is also manifestly wrong in asserting, that they are severally "the same in all three cases." From the very nature of their composition, the possessive case is alike impossible to them all. To express ownership with emphasis or distinction, we employ neither these compounds nor any others; but always use the simple possessives with the separate adjective own: as, "With my own eyes,"--"By thy own confession,"--"To his own house,"--"For her own father,"--"By its own weight,"--"To save our own lives,"--"For your own sake,"--"In their own cause."

OBS. 28.--The phrases, my own, thy own, his own, and so forth, Dr. Perley, in his little Grammar, has improperly converted by the hyphen into compound words: calling them the possessive forms of ''myself, thyself, himself'', and so forth; as if one set of compounds could constitute the possessive case of an other! And again, as if the making of eight new pronouns for two great nations, were as slight a feat, as the inserting of so many hyphens! The word own, anciently written owen, is an adjective; from an old form of the perfect participle of the verb to owe; which verb, according to Lowth and others, once signified to possess. It is equivalent to due, proper, or peculiar; and, in its present use as an adjective, it stands nowhere else than between the possessive case and the name of the thing possessed; as, "The Boy's Own Book,"--"Christ's own words,"--"Solomon's own and only son." Dr. Johnson, while he acknowledges the abovementioned derivation, very strangely calls own a noun substantive; and, with not more accuracy, says: "This is a word of no other use than as it is added to the possessive pronouns, my, thy, his, our, your, their."--Quarto Dict., w. Own. O. B. Peirce, with obvious untruth, says, "Own is used in combination with a name or substitute, and as a part of it, to constitute it emphatic."--Gram., p. 63. He writes it separately, but parses it as a part of the possessive noun or pronoun which precedes it!

OBS. 29.--The word self was originally an adjective, signifying ''same, very, or particular; but, when used alone, it is now generally a noun''. This may have occasioned the diversity which appears in the formation of the compound personal pronouns. Dr. Johnson, in his great Dictionary, calls self a pronoun; but he explains it as being both adjective and substantive, admitting that, "Its primary signification seems to be that of an adjective."--Again he observes, "Myself, himself, themselves, and the rest, may, contrary to the analogy of my, him, them, be used as nominatives." Hisself, itsself, and theirselves, would be more analogical than himself, itself, themselves; but custom has rejected the former, and established the latter. When an adjective qualifies the term self, the pronouns are written separately in the possessive case; as, My single self,--My own self,--His own self,--Their own selves. So, anciently, without an adjective: as, "A man shall have diffused his life, his self, and his whole concernments so far, that he can weep his sorrows with an other's eyes."--South. "Something valuable for its self without view to anything farther."--Harris's Hermes, p. 293. "That they would willingly, and of their selves endeavour to keep a perpetual chastity."--''Stat. Ed. VI. in Lowth's Gram.'', p. 26. "Why I should either imploy my self in that study or put others upon it."--''Walker's English Particles'', p. xiv. "It is no matter whether you do it by your proctor, or by your self."--Ib., p. 96. The compound oneself is sometimes written in stead of the phrase one's self; but the latter is preferable, and more common. Even his self, when written as two words, may possibly be right in some instances; as,

"Scorn'd be the wretch that quits his genial bowl,    His loves, his friendships, ev'n his self, resigns;    Perverts the sacred instinct of his soul,     And to a ducat's dirty sphere confines." --SHENSTONE: ''Brit. Poets'', Vol. vii, p. 107.

OBS. 30.--In poetry, and even in some compositions not woven into regular numbers, the simple personal pronouns are not unfrequently used, for brevity's sake, in a reciprocal sense; that is, in stead of the compound personal pronouns, which are the proper reciprocals: as, "Wash you, make you clean."--Isaiah, i, 16. "I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens and orchards."--Ecclesiastes, ii, 4. "Thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all as with an ornament, and bind them on thee as a bride doeth."--Isaiah, xlix, 18. Compare with these the more regular expression: "As a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with jewels."--Isaiah, lxi, 10. This phraseology is almost always preferable in prose; the other is a poetical license, or peculiarity: as,

"I turn me from the martial roar."--Scott's L. L., p. 97.

"Hush thee, poor maiden, and be still."--Ib., p. 110.

"Firmer he roots him the ruder it blow."--Ib., p. 49.

OBS. 31.--To accommodate the writers of verse, the word ever is frequently contracted into e'er, pronounced like the monosyllable air. An easy extension of this license, gives us similar contractions of all the compound relative pronouns; as, whoe'er or whosoe'er, whose'er or ''whosesoe'er, whome