Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/928

 to write singeing, from the verb to singe, by way of distinction from singing, the participle of the verb to sing."--Id. "Many verbs form both the preterit tense and the preterit participle irregularly."--Id. "Much must be left to every one's taste and judgement."--Id. "Verses of different lengths, intermixed, form a Pindaric poem."--Priestley cor. "He'll surprise you."--Frost cor. "Unequalled archer! why was this concealed?"--Knowles. "So gayly curl the waves before each dashing prow."--Byron cor. "When is a diphthong called a proper diphthong?"--Inf. S. Gram. cor. "How many Esses would the word then end with? Three; for it would be goodness's."--Id. "Qu. What is a triphthong? Ans. A triphthong is a coalition of three vowels in one syllable."--Bacon cor. "The verb, noun, or pronoun, is referred to the preceding terms taken separately."--Murray. "The cubic foot of matter which occupies the centre of the globe."--Cardell cor. "The wine imbibes oxygen, or the acidifying principle, from the air."--Id. "Charcoal, sulphur, and nitre, make gunpowder."--Id. "It would be readily understood, that the thing so labelled was a bottle of Madeira wine."--Id. "They went their ways, one to his farm, an other to his merchandise."--Matt.,xxii, 5. "A diphthong is the union of two vowels, both in one syllable."--Russell cor. "The professors of the Mohammedan religion are called Mussulmans."--Maltby cor. "This shows that let is not a mere sign of the imperative mood, but a real verb."--Id. "Those preterits and participles which are first mentioned in the list, seem to be the most eligible."--Murray's Gram., p. 107; Fisk's, 81; Ingersoll's, 103. "Monosyllables, for the most part, are compared by er and est, and dissyllables, by more and most."--Murray's Gram., p. 47. "This termination, added to a noun or an adjective, changes it into a verb: as, modern, to modernize; a symbol, to symbolize."--Churchill cor. "An Abridgement of Murray's Grammar, with additions from Webster, Ash, Tooke, and others."--Maltby's Gram., p. 2. "For the sake of occupying the room more advantageously, the subject of Orthography is merely glanced at."--Nutting cor. "So contended the accusers of Galileo."--O. B. Peirce cor. Murray says, "They were travelling post when he met them."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 69. "They fulfill the only purposes for which they were designed."--Peirce cor.--See Webster's Dict. "On the fulfillment of the event."--Peirce, right. "Fullness consists in expressing every idea."--Id. "Consistently with fullness and perspicuity."--Peirce cor. "The word veriest is a regular adjective; as, 'He is the veriest fool on earth.'"--Wright cor. "The sound will recall the idea of the object."--Hiley cor. "Formed for great enterprises."--Hiley's Gram., p. 113. "The most important rules and definitions are printed in large type, Italicized."--Hart cor. "HAMLETED, a., accustomed to a hamlet, countrified."--Webster, and Worcester. "Singular, spoonful, cupful, coachful, handful; plural, spoonfuls, cupfuls, coachfuls, handfuls."--Worcester's Universal and Critical Dictionary. "Between superlatives and following names,   Of, by grammatic right, a station claims."--Brightland cor.

THE KEY.--PART II.--ETYMOLOGY.

CHAPTER I.--PARTS OF SPEECH.

The first chapter of Etymology, as it exhibits only the distribution of words into the ten Parts of Speech, contains no false grammar for correction. And it may be here observed, that as mistakes concerning the forms, classes, or modifications of words, are chiefly to be found in sentences, rather than in any separate exhibition of the terms; the quotations of this kind, with which I have illustrated the principles of etymology, are many of them such as might perhaps with more propriety be denominated false syntax. But, having examples enough at hand to show the ignorance and carelessness of authors in every part of grammar, I have thought it most advisable, so to distribute them as to leave no part destitute of this most impressive kind of illustration. The examples exhibited as false etymology, are as distinct from those which are called false syntax, as the nature of the case will admit.

CHAPTER II.--ARTICLES.

CORRECTIONS RESPECTING A, AN, AND THE.

LESSON I.--ARTICLES ADAPTED.

"Honour is a useful distinction in life."--Milnes cor. "No writer, therefore, ought to foment a humour of innovation."--Jamieson cor. "Conjunctions [generally] require a situation between the things of which they form a union."--Id. "Nothing is more easy than to mistake a u for an a."--Tooke cor. "From making so ill a use of our innocent expressions."--Penn cor. "To grant thee a heavenly and incorruptible crown of glory."--Sewel cor. "It in no wise follows, that such a one was able to predict."--Id. "With a harmless patience, they have borne most heavy oppressions."--Id. "My attendance was to make me a happier man."--''Spect. cor. "On the wonderful nature of a human mind."--Id. "I have got a hussy of a maid, who is most craftily given to this."--Id. "Argus is said to have had a hundred eyes, some of which were always awake."--Stories cor. "Centiped, having a hundred feet; centennial, consisting of a hundred years."--Town cor. "No good man, he thought, could be a heretic."--Gilpin cor. "As, a Christian, an infidel, a heathen."--Ash cor. "Of two or more words, usually joined by a hyphen."--Blair cor. "We may consider the whole space of a hundred years as time present."--Ingersoll's Gram.'', p.