Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/454

 "Based in the great self-evident truths of liberty and equality."--Scholar's Manual. "Very little knowledge of their nature is acquired by the spelling book."--Murray's Gram., p. 21. "They do not cut it off: except in a few words; as, due, duly, &c."--Ib., p. 24. "Whether passing in such time, or then finished."--Lowth's Gram., p. 31. "It hath disgusted hundreds of that confession."--Barclay's Works, iii, 269. "But they have egregiously fallen in that inconveniency."--Ib., iii, 73. "For is not this to set nature a work?"--Ib., i, 270. "And surely that which should set all its springs a-work, is God."--ATTERBURY: in Blair's Rhet., p. 298. "He could not end his treatise without a panegyric of modern learning."--TEMPLE: ib., p. 110. "These are entirely independent on the modulation of the voice."--Walker's Elocution, p. 308. "It is dear of a penny. It is cheap of twenty pounds."--Walker's Particles, p. 274. "It will be despatched, in most occasions, without resting."--Locke. "'0, the pain the bliss in dying.'"--Kirkham's Gram., p. 129. "When [he is] presented with the objects or the facts."--Smith's Productive Gram., p. 5. "I will now present you with a synopsis."--Ib., p. 25. "The conjunction disjunctive connects sentences, by expressing opposition of meaning in various degrees."--Ib., p. 38. "I shall now present you with a few lines."--Bucke's Classical Gram, p. 13. "Common names of Substantives are those, which stand for things generally."--Ib., p. 31. "Adjectives in the English language admit no variety in gender, number, or case whatever, except that of the degrees of comparison."--Ib., p. 48. "Participles are adjectives formed of verbs."--Ib., p. 63. "I do love to walk out of a fine summer's evening."--Ib., p. 97. "An Ellipsis, when applied to grammar, is the elegant omission of one or more words in a sentence."--Merchant's Gram., p. 99. "The prefix to is generally placed before verbs in the infinitive mood, but before the following verbs it is properly omitted; (viz.) bid, make, see, dare, need, hear, feel, and let; as, He bid me do it; He made me learn; &c."--Ib., Stereotype Edition, p. 91; Old Edition, 85. "The infinitive sometimes follows than, after a comparison; as, I wish nothing more, than to know his fate."--Ib., p. 92. See Murray's Gram., 8vo, i, 184. "Or by prefixing the adverbs more or less, in the comparative, and most or least, in the superlative."--Merchant's Gram., p. 36. "A pronoun is a word used instead of a noun."--Ib., p. 17; Comly, 15. "In monosyllables the Comparative is regularly formed by adding r or er."--Perley's Gram., p. 21. "He has particularly named these, in distinction to others."--Harris's Hermes, p. vi. "To revive the decaying taste of antient Literature."--Ib., p. xv. "He found the greatest difficulty of writing."--HUME: in Priestley's Gram., p. 159.

"And the tear that is wip'd with a little address   May be followed perhaps with a smile." Webster's American Spelling-Book, p. 78; and Murray's E. Reader, p. 212.

CHAPTER XI--INTERJECTIONS.

An Interjection is a word that is uttered merely to indicate some strong or sudden emotion of the mind: as, ''Oh! alas! ah! poh! pshaw! avaunt! aha! hurrah!''

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.--Of pure interjections but few are admitted into books. Unimpassioned writings reject this part of speech altogether. As words or sounds of this kind serve rather to indicate feeling than to express thought, they seldom have any definable signification. Their use also is so variable, that there can be no very accurate classification of them. Some significant words, perhaps more properly belonging to other classes, are sometimes ranked with interjections, when uttered with emotion and in an unconnected manner; as, ''strange! prodigious! indeed! Wells says, "Other parts of speech, used by way of exclamation, are properly regarded as interjections; as, hark! surprising! mercy!"--School Gram.'', 1846, p. 110. This is an evident absurdity; because it directly confounds the classes which it speaks of as being different. Nor is it right to say, "Other parts of speech are frequently used to perform the office of interjections."--Wells, 1850, p. 120.

OBS. 2.--The word interjection comes to us from the Latin name interjectio, the root of which is the verb interjicio, to throw between, to interject. Interjections are so called because they are usually thrown in between the parts of discourse, without any syntactical connexion with other words. Dr. Lowth, in his haste, happened to describe them as a kind of natural sounds "thrown in between the parts of a sentence;" and this strange blunder has been copied into almost every definition that has been given of the Interjection since. See Murray's Grammar and others. Webster's Dictionary defines it as, "A word thrown in between words connected in construction;" but of all the parts of speech none are less frequently found in this situation.

OBS. 3.--The following is a fair sample of "Smith's New Grammar,"--i.e., of "English Grammar on the Productive System,"--a new effort of quackery to scarf up with cobwebs the eyes of common sense: "Q. When I exclaim, 'Oh! I have ruined my friend,' 'Alas! I fear for life,' which words here appear to be thrown in between the sentences, to express passion or feeling? Ans. Oh! Alas! Q. What does interjection mean? Ans. Thrown between.