Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/781

 enthesis have likewise been in use for several centuries. But the clash is a more recent invention: Lowth, Ash, and Ward,&mdash;Buchanan, Bicknell, and Burn,&mdash;though they name all the rest, make no mention of this mark; but it appears by their books, that they all occasionally used it.
 * 1) Of the colon it may be observed, that it is now much less frequently used than it was formerly; its place being usurped, sometimes by the semicolon, and sometimes by the period. For this ill reason, some late grammarians have discarded it altogether. Thus Felton: "The is now so seldom used by good writers, that rules for its use are unnecessary."&mdash;Concise Manual of English Gram., p. 140. So Nutting: "It will be noticed, that the colon is omitted in this system; because it is omitted by the majority of the writers of the present age; three points, with the dash, being considered sufficient to mark the different lengths of the pauses."&mdash;Practical Grammar, p. 120. These critics, whenever they have occasion to copy such authors as Milton and Pope, do not scruple to mutilate their punctuation by putting semicolons or periods for all the colons they find. But who cannot perceive, that without the colon, the semicolon becomes an absurdity? It can no longer be a semicolon, unless the half can remain when the whole is taken away! The colon, being the older point of the two, and once very fashionable, is doubtless on record in more instances than the semicolon; and, if now, after both have been in common use for some hundreds of years, it be found out that only one is needed, perhaps it would be more reasonable to prefer the former. Should public opinion ever be found to coincide with the suggestions of the two authors last quoted, there will be reason to regret that Caxton, the old English typographer of the fifteenth century, who for a while successfully withstood, in his own country, the introduction of the semicolon, had not the power to prevent it forever. In short, to leave no literary extravagance unbroached, the latter point also has not lacked a modern impugner. "One of the greatest improvements in punctuation," says Justin Brenan, "is the rejection of the eternal semicolons of our ancestors. In latter times, the semicolon has been gradually disappearing, not only from the newspapers, but from books."&mdash;Brenan's "Composition and Punctuation familiarly Explained", p. 100; London, 1830. The colon and the semicolon are both useful, and, not unfrequently, necessary; and all correct writers will, I doubt not, continue to use both.
 * 2) Since Dr. Blair published his emphatic caution against too frequent a use of parentheses, there has been, if not an abatement of the kind of error which he intended to censure, at least a diminution in the use of the curves, the sign of a parenthesis. These, too, some inconsiderate grammarians now pronounce to be out of vogue. "The parenthesis is now generally exploded as a deformity."&mdash;Churchill's Gram., p. 362. "The Parenthesis, has become nearly obsolete, except in mere references, and the like; its place, by modern writers, being usually supplied by the use of the comma, and the dash."&mdash;Nutting's Practical Gram., p. 126; Frazee's Improved Grammar, p. 187. More use may have been made of the curves than was necessary, and more of the parenthesis itself than was agreeable to good taste; but, the sign being well adapted to the construction, and the construction being sometimes sprightly and elegant, there are no good reasons for wishing to discard either of them; nor is it true, that the former "has become nearly obsolete."
 * 3) The name parenthesis is, which literally means a putting-in-between, is usually applied both to the curves, and to the incidental clause which they enclose. This twofold application of the term involves some inconvenience, if not impropriety. According to Dr. Johnson, the enclosed "sentence" alone is the parenthesis; but Worcester, agreeably to common usage, defines the word as meaning also "the mark thus ." But, as this sign consists of two distinct parts, two corresponding curves, it seems more natural to use a plural name: hence L. Murray, when he would designate the sign only, adopted a plural expression; as, "the parenthetical characters,"&mdash;"the parenthetical marks." So, in another case, which is similar: "the hooks in which words are included," are commonly called crotchets or brackets; though Bucke, in his Classical Grammar, I know not why, calls the two "[ ] a Crotchet;" (p. 23;) and Webster, in his octavo Dictionary, defines a "Bracket, in printing," as Johnson does a "Crotchet" by a plural noun: "hooks; thus, [ ]." Again, in his grammars, Dr. Webster rather confusedly says: "The parenthesis and hooks [] include a remark or clause, not essential to the sentence in construction."&mdash;Philosophical Gram., p. 219; Improved Gram., p. 154. But, in his Dictionary, he forgets both the hooks and the parenthesis that are here spoken of; and, with still worse confusion or inaccuracy, says: "The parenthesis is usually included in hooks or curved lines, thus, ." Here he either improperly calls these regular little curves "hooks," or erroneously suggests that both the hooks and the curves are usual and appropriate signs of "the parenthesis." In Garner's quarto Dictionary, the French word Crochet, as used by printers, is translated, "A brace, a crotchet, a parenthesis;" and the English word Crotchet is defined, "The mark of a parenthesis, in printing, thus [ ]." But Webster defines Crotchet, "In printing, a hook including words, a sentence or a passage distinguished from the rest, thus []." This again is both ambiguous and otherwise inaccurate. It conveys no clear idea of what a crotchet is. One hook includes nothing. Therefore Johnson said: "Hooks in which words are included [thus]." But if each of the hooks is a crotchet, as Webster suggests, and almost every body supposes, then both lexicographers are wrong in not making the whole expression plural: thus, "Crotchets, in printing, are angular hooks usually including some explanatory words." But is this all that Webster meant? I cannot tell. He may be understood as saying also, that a Crotchet is "a sentence or a passage distinguished from the rest, thus [];" and doubtless it would be much better to call a hint thus marked, a crotchet, than to call it a parenthesis, as some have done. In Parker and Fox's Grammar, and also in Parker's