ENGLISH USAGE HALL i U)fc ANQIIE5 STATE NORMAL SCHOOL ENGLISH USAGE STUDIES IN THE HISTORY AND USES OF ENGLISH WORDS AND PHRASES BY J. LESSLIE HALL, Ph.D., Litt.D. PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY; TRANSLATOR OF BEOWULF, AND OF JUDITH, PHOENIX. AND OTHER ANGLO-SAXON POEMS; AUTHOR OF "OLD ENGLISH IDYLS," "HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY," ETC. SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY CHICAGO NEW YORK ■Vino Copyright 1917 by Scott, Foresman and Company eoM To PROFESSOR BASIL L. GILDERSLEEVE THE DEAN OF AMERICAN SCHOLARS PREFACE It is often said that a preface is unnecessary. I feel, how- ever, that I should write one to set forth the object and the scope of this volume. I have long felt that not only purists but a far better class of men were putting us, teachers and pupils and general pub- lic, in strait-jackets. Distinguished grammarians and emi- nent rhetorical scholars condemn in their books many words and phrases that we see all through the literature. They seem at times to combine to expel from the language some locution that we have heard frequently from attractive speakers and have seen often in the works of eminent writers. The idea has frequently occurred to me while teaching usage with certain popular textbooks in hand that I was criticizing and correcting sentences that might have been taken from the most distinguished authors. Words mercilessly condemned by these textbooks would fall from the lips of some distin- guished speaker that addressed the students the very day on which these words had been treated as barbarisms in the English lecture room. But I had no definite statements with which to controvert the textbook: I might theorize but had no facts to offer. After Professor Lounsbury published his Standard of rs,i > 28 STUDIES IN USAGE III ADJECTIVES NOT COMPARED As to forms like more perfect, etc., the "lesser gram marians" are very rigid. Even the "greater grammarians are inclined to be stricter than the famous writers. The schoolmasters rarely give us an inkling that such forms as deadest, most perfect, most unique, could be anything short of criminal. Even Bain * condemns forms like chief est, extremest, most perfect. Carpenter - says, ' ' Words like perfect, complete, universal can be compared only when used loosely." Under adjectives that cannot be compared, Nesfield 3 names perfect and adds, "Such a phrase as more perfect is a short, but inac- curate, way of saying 'more nearly approaching perfection.' If these greater grammarians are strict, what can be expected of the lesser? Lounsbury 4 is as usual very liberal. He says that the gram- marians are often unjustifiably strict in regard to words like perfect, supreme, etc., and that these words have always been compared in all periods of English. He also cites perfectior, perfeetissimus, from Cicero, to show that English is not pecu- liar in this matter. Kittredge agrees with Lounsbury. The present writer has seen the following cases : Chief est, seven times in the King James Bible ; four times in Shake- speare ; once each in Marlowe, Jeremy Taylor, Butler, Swift, Lamb, Emerson, Dean Trench, Phoebe Cary, Saintsbury, and Tennyson. More perfect, once in the Bible. Most unique, once in Dr. Henry van Dyke. Most favorite, once each in Dr. Johnson, Irving, and Professor William Minto. Most princi- pal, once in the Prayer Book. Very unanimous, twice in Bishop Burnet. Deadest, once each in Emerson and Brown- 1 Higher English Grammar, p. 149. s Principles of English Grammar, p. 105. 3 English Grammar Past and Present, \>. 31. 4 History of tlir English Language, edition of 1007, i>. 252, ADJECTIVES NOT COMPARED 2!) ing. Correctcst, once in Lamb. Extremest, twice in Con- greve. Most excellent and more excellent are found in the Bible; the former certainly has wide vogue in polite society. \'i ry excelU nt comes out prominently in one classic passage in the Prayer Book Psalter. These examples should carry weight with all who recognize authority in language. Most of the authors quoted are emi- nent. Some are especially distinguished in the study of words. A few, though not of general fame, are literary men of a high order and well known to students of literature. The writer does not advise the promiscuous use of the locutions under discussion, but is merely trying to show how the language is striving to throw off the shackles with which the lesser grammarians, the purists, and the pedants have long sought to bind it. The lists above show that Lounsbury is right : these forms have been used all the way through the literature from Shake- speare — or Malory — to Henry van Dyke. A few passages from the standard authors will be interesting. Tennyson in The Princess says. Our chief est comfort is the little child Of one unworthy mother. In The Song of Solomon we read, "My beloved is the chief est among ten thousand.'" Emerson in The Poet says. "The ety- mologist finds the eh ad( st word to have been once a brilliant picture." In Acts 24:22, we read, "having more perfect knowledge of that way." In Saint Luke's Gospel we find, "most excellent Theophilus. " In Romans 2:18, we have "things that are more excellt nt." In the Prayer Book Psalter, we read, " Vt ry excellent things are spoken of thee. Zion. ? ' 30 STUDIES IN USAGE IV ADVERBS USED AS ADJECTIVES Kellner, 1 the Austrian scholar, says • ' ' From its predicative position the adverb next proceeds to be used even as an attri- bute preceding the substantive. . . . The adverb preceding the noun is of recent date and is probably due to the influence 'of the Greek." He quotes from Middle English, the pre-Shake- spearean drama, Pope, Byron, and Dickens, and also cites par- allel cases from Latin and Greek. Matzner 2 characterizes these words as quasi-representative of the attribute. He cites examples from numerous authors of various periods. "Whitney, 3 speaking of four of these words, above, almost, sometime, and then, says, "Sometimes (and less properly) even as an attributive adjective," but he uses almost oblivion in one of his own books. E. A. Abbott 4 says, "Some adverbs, especially those of place, are used with nouns almost like adjectives, except that they rarely come before the noun." He cites passages from Shakespeare, Byron, and Thackeray. He approves of the above argument and the then world. (See pages 31, 36, below.) George P. Krapp 5 recognizes these locutions and cites ex- amples from Theodore Roosevelt and Cardinal Newman. Krapp treats then, down, and outer. Baskervill and Sewell 6 say, "By a convenient brevity, ad- verbs are sometimes used as adjectives." They cite passages from Shakespeare, the King James Bible, Ruskin, Trench, and 3 Historical Outlines of English Syntax, pp. 31, 268. 2 English Grammar (Grece's translation). Ill, 138, 139. n Essentials of English Grammar, p. 171. 4 How to Parse, p. 241. * Modern English, p. 308. 6 Eiijilisli Grammar, p. 11G. ADVERBS USED AS ADJECTIVES 31 Trollope that involve the words then, sometime, seldom, and often. Jespersen, 1 in showing how free the English language is from pedantry and grammatical rigidity, speaks of "adverbs and prepositional suffixes used attributively," and illustrates by the phrases his then residence and an almost reconciliation used by Thackeray. Nesfield 2 says, ' ' the adverb that precedes the noun does not qualify the noun but some participle or adjective under- stood." For instance, "the then world" means the world then existing. A. S. Hill, 3 in his school Rhetoric, though not very partial to these locutions, admits that the then quoted above has estab- lished itself in the language ; and he adds that above seems to be gaining ground. Let us now take up some of these words seriatim. 1. ABOVE This is condemned by Genung 4 and Quackenbos 5 in their textbooks. The Standard Dictionary does not recognize it. A. S. Hill is rather hostile, and gives an example to be corrected. He is inclined to criticize the New English Dictionary because, in defending above as an adjective, it quoted but one passage and that from a rather obscure author. Dean Alford, on being criticized for using above as an adjective, said that, while not elegant, it was not uncommon. Kellner 7 recognizes above as an adjective and himself uses the above instance. The Century Dictionary says above has the force of an adjective in such phrases as "the above par- 1 Groicth and Structure of tJw English Language, p. 15. 2 English Grammar Past and Present, p. SO. 3 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, p. 290. * Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. 301. 5 Practical Rhetoric, 1S9G, p. 229. The Queen's English, edition of 1SGG, p. 201. 7 Historical Outlines of English f>i/ntaj\ p. 268. 32 STUDIES IN USAGE tieulars," in which "cited'' or "mentioned" is understood. Webster and the New English Dictionary say that this word is often used elliptically as an adjective. Matzner ' cites the above proverb from Scott and the above title from Halliwell. The writer lias seen above in Benjamin Franklin and in Hawr thorne. The last-named author says the above pictures and the above paragraph ; also, "It is not of pictures like the above that galleries, in Rome or elsewhere, are made up," etc. 2. AFTER After is recognized as an adjective by the Century Diction- ary; by the New English Dictionary, with numerous quota- tions from the literature ; by the Standard Dictionary ; by Webster, quoting Marshall. Baskervill and Sewell 2 recognize it, quoting De Quincey and Charles Kingsley. The writer has seen after moment in Coleridge; after years in Jefferson; after apostle in Fronde; her after reputation in Bulwer ; an after day in T. N. Talfourd ; after lectures, after nation, and after language in Trench; after life and after career in Herbert Spencer ; after life twice in Sir Henry Taylor; after times in E. A. Freeman. Froude uses after in his Lives of the Saints, "And again, when Patrick is described as the after apostle, raising the dead Celts to life," etc. Lamb, in his Barbara S — , says, "in the zenith of her after reputation it was a delightful sight," etc. Coleridge (Essays and Lectures) says, "He who possesses imagination enough to live with his forefathers, and, leav- ing comparative reflection for an after moment," etc., and, "nothing superior to them can be met with in the productions of his after years." The large number of words like aftermath, now established in the language, proves that after was long used as an adjective 1 English Grammar (Grece's translation), III. 13S. = English Grammar, p. 114. ADVERBS USED AS ADJECTIVES 33 and developed compounds. It was used as an adjective in the Anglo-Saxon period and has never lost this force entirely. In composition we do not need after as an adjective as much as we do above ; hence its comparative infrequency. 3. ALMOST The use of almost as adjective is condemned by A. S. Hill, 1 Quackenbos, 2 and Genung 3 in their textbooks. It is recognized by the Standard and the New English dic- tionaries, the latter quoting Jeremy Collier, Southey, and W. D. Whitney. It is not recognized by Webster and the Century Dictionary. Baskervill and Sewell quote the almost terror from Thackeray, to show that an adverb may be used as an adjective. The writer has seen the almost tragedy in Saintsbury; the almost terror in Thackeray ; the almost insanity and the almost impossibility in Hawthorne; the almost oblivion and the almost iiniversality in Whitney; the almost diversity in Coleridge; the almost impossibility in George Campbell; their almost boy- hood in Sir Henry Taylor. 4. HITHER Either is treated as an adjective by Matzner, who quotes the hither side from Milton. The Standard Dictionary recognizes it. The Century Dictionary recognizes it, quoting Motley and the Century Magazine. Webster recognizes it, with quotations from Milton, Tennyson, and Huxley. Even Richard Grant White says the hither side. The New English Dictionary rec- ognizes hither as an adjective, quoting Milton, Merivale, Haw- thorne, and John Earle. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recog- nizes it, quoting a passage from Lord Clarendon. The author has seen hither bank and hither side in Hawthorne. 1 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, p. 290. 2 Practical Rhetoric, 1896, p. 229. » Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. 303. 3-4 STUDIES IN USAGE Tennyson says, Ami on the hither side or so, she look'd Of twenty summers. 5. OFTEN Often is recognized as an adjective by Webster, with quota- tions from the Bible and from Beaumont and Fletcher. The Century Dictionary recognizes it, quoting Puttenham, Ben Jonson, Burton, and Tennyson. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recognizes it, quoting I Timothy 5, 23. Professor John Earle * quotes three early modern authorities that use it. The Stand- ard Dictionary does not recognize it. The New English Dic- tionary calls it archaic, but quotes passages from Carlyle and W. D. Howells. The writer has seen often failings, often speech, often fears, and often prevailing >s in Bacon; often ejaculations in Jeremy Taylor; thine often infirmities in the Bible; the often changing of persons in Sidney; an often chance in Tennyson. It occurs in Shakespeare, Tyndale, and Milton. The only case which the writer has seen in recent literature is the one quoted frqm Tennyson. This use of often is little needed as we have "numerous" and "frequent." We rarely hear it in polite conversation, on the platform, or in the pulpit. The most familiar passage involving this use of often is I Timothy 5, 23: "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities." Jeremy Taylor in Holy Living says, "so retire again with often ejaculations and acts of entertainment to your beloved guest." Tennyson in Gareth and Lynettt says, an often chance In those brain-stunning shocks, and tourney-falls, Frights to my heart. The Oxford Dictionary is right in saying, "Now archaic." 1 Philology of the English Tongue, edition of 1SS7, p. 214. ADVERBS USED AS ADJECTIVES 35 6. SELDOM The New English Dictionary recognizes seldom as an adjec- tive, quoting Tyndale, Jeremy Taylor, Lamb, and the Pall Mall Gazette. The Standard Dictionary recognizes it. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recognizes it, quoting Shakespeare. Oliphant 1 says the word is used as an adjective in Yorkshire. Webster and the Century, however, call it archaic. Tyndale uses it in his translation of the Bible. Shakespeare has seldom state and seldom pleasures; Jeremy Taylor, seldom virtues, seldom anger, and seldom instances. The writer has seen it as a predicate adjective in Richard Baxter. The adjectival use of seldom is very rare in modern litera- ture. We have "rare," "infrequent," and other words to convey its meaning, and seldom is almost confined to the adverbial use. 7. SOMETIME Sometime as an adjective is recognized by Webster's Inter- national and the Century dictionaries, which quote passages from Purchas, Shakespeare, and T. N. Talfourd (died 1854). The Encyclopedic Dictionary quotes my sometime general from Shakespeare. The Standard does not recognize it as an adjective. Matzner quotes two passages from Shakespeare. Baskervill and Sewell 2 treat it as an adjective, using the same passage from Shakespeare as the Century and Webster's International. The phrase sometime fellow of such and such a university is still standard in England. Except in this connection, the locution is rare in recent English. The writer has seen no case in this course of reading, but scholars sometimes speak of themselves as sometime professor in, etc. The most familiar passage involving this locution is our sometime sister, now our queen. (Eamlct I. ii. 8.) » The Xew English, I, p. 432. 2 English Grammar, p. 116. 36 STUDIES IN USAGE 8. THEN Then is the strongest of the group. Kellner 1 treats it as an adjective, quoting passages from Byron and Dickens. Krapp 2 recognizes it, quoting Charles Dickens. A. S. Hill, 3 who is generally rather strict, recog- nizes it. Matzner puts it among his adverbs used as adjectives, citing passages from Bulwer and Byron. Baskervill and Sewell 4 treat it in the same way, quoting Kuskin and Trollope. The Standard recognizes it as an adjective. Webster's Inter- national says: "Then is often used elliptically like an adjec- tive for then existing; as, 'the then administration.' " Nesfield takes essentially the same view, saying, " 'The then king'= the then existing king." The Century Dictionary says that it is an ellipsis for "then being," quoting passages from Burke and Lamb. The New English Dictionary recognizes it, quoting from Leslie Stephen and several minor writers. However these scholars and dictionaries may explain its meaning, the locution is pretty strong in the literature and in polite society. The writer has recorded the following cases : Ben Jonson 1 Southey 1 Dr. Johnson 1 Dickens 1 Boswell 1 Poe 2 Sharon Turner 2 Kingsley 2 Burke 5 Tennyson 1 Lamb 4 Aubrey de Vere 1 De Quincey 1 Sir Henry Taylor 1 Franklin 2 Huxley 1 Coleridge 2 Stevenson 1 The table shows a continuous use of this locution in England for three centuries but little popularity in America. Are the Americans more "schoolmastered" than the English? Or are the English more influenced by Greek than are the Americans? 1 Historical Outlines of English Syntax, p. 26S. 2 Modern English, p. 308. 3 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, p. 290. * English eirammar, p. 116. or" ^ ADVERBS USED AS ADJECTIVES 37 This then is concise and convenient ; it saves time and econo- mizes labor for the speaker. It is often usefully non-commit- tal, e.g., "The then president" — whose name I either do not remember or do not care to mention. Who has not used this word in the hurry of speech? Burke, whose figures are the largest in the table, says, "It was the letter of the noble lord upon the floor, and of all the king's then ministers," and "it was my fortune, unknowing and unknown to the then ministry." (Conciliation with America.) Lamb in Barbara S — says, "whereat sat the then Treasurer of (what few of our readers may remember) the Old Bath Theater," and "copied out in the rudest hand of the then prompter." Poe (The Case of M. Yaldemar) says, "make the experiment of mesmerizing him in his then condi- tion." De Quincey (Autobiographical Sketches) says, "All the world has heard that he was passionately devoted to the beautiful sister of the then Duke of Richmond." Stevenson in Merry Men says, "I began to think of my then quest as of something sacrilegious in its nature." This use of the n, we see, is pretty strong in the literature down to the present ; it cannot be called archaic. Nor can it, with such names behind it, be called vulgar. It has a better raison d'etre than often, after, and others, for which the lan- guage furnishes adjectives exactly equivalent in meaning : th< n takes the place of a rather long group of words such as ' ' who was then Duke of Richmond," "the quest on which I was then engaged," etc. 9. UNDER Under is treated as an adjective by Webster, the Standard, Century, and the Encyclopedic dictionaries, and by Baskervill and Sewell, 1 the last-named quoting passages from Emerson and Ruskin. The writer has seen it in Thackeray: the under boy, the 1 English Grammar, p. 114. 38 STUDIES IN USAGE under hoys; also in Kingsley. It is used by Bulwer: an under taste, the tinder butler (twice). The Reverend Dr. C. Geikie uses it in his Life of Christ; Poe, in his Tales; Sir Henry Taylor, in his Autobiography. The dictionaries give. a large number of nouns like under- current and underking, which prove that tinder has always had adjectival value. Kingsley in Hereward says, "with under copse of holly and hazel." Bulwer in Pelham says, "The under butler appeared"; "The under butler looked at him." "The under dog" is very familiar. The foregoing facts and statistics make a strong case for the adjectival use of the words under discussion. While some of them have little vitality in recent literature, others are used considerably. As usual, the professors of rhetoric are more timid than either the linguistic scholars or the reputable authors. Above and then are the most useful and "labor-saving" of the group ; why will the purists compel us to use more words than we need to express our thoughts? V AFTER FOE AFTERWARDS After, as an adverb, is used in England both in polite speech and in literature, but is rare in America. Abbott x notices it, quoting Shakespeare, if you know That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard, And after scandal them. Abbott adds, "Now we use afterwards in this sense, using after rarely as an adverb and only with verbs of motion, to 1 Shakespearian Grammar, p. 36. ATHLETICS— SINGULAR OB FLUBAL? 39 signify an interval of space, as 'he followed after.' The writer has seen two cases in Shakespeare. The use of after for afterwards runs through the literature for centuries. It occurs frequently in Piers Plowman; is found in Shakespeare, the Bible, the Prayer Book, Lodge, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Milton, Lamb, Kingsley, Tennyson, Browning, and Justin McCarthy. It is very rare in American authors, the only case seen by the writer being in Professor L. A. Sherman's Analytics of Literature: "What race besides ever so buried a king, or after told the story so sublimely?" This use of after is recognized by Webster, quoting the Bible ; by the Century, quoting Shakespeare and the Bible ; by the Encyclopedic Dictionary, quoting the Bible and Shake- speare; and by the New English Dictionary, quoting several authors. Most of the dictionaries would lead one to infer that this use of after is not found in recent authors. VI ATHLETICS— SINGULAR OR PLURAL? Is athletics singular or plural? A. S. Hill 1 says, "More frequently plural than singular, ' ' quoting a sentence involving the plural. Carpenter 2 says, "Regularly treated as plural." The New English Dictionary says, "Used in the plural on the analogy of mathematics," etc. The writer has seen the word about twelve times in academic essays by Woodrow Wilson, A. C. Benson, Arlo Bates, and J. H. Canfield, all prominent in university circles. These scholars regularly use the plural except occasionally when a predicate noun in the singular leads the writer to prefer the 1 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, p. 59. 2 Principles of English Grammar, p. 59. 40 STUDIES IN USAGE singular verb; e.g., Athletics is exhilarating sport. It would seem that the plural is almost universal in academic circles. Professor Arlo Bates 1 says, "where athletics are carried so much farther. ' ' And ' ' The feature which most markedly dis- tinguishes modern athletics from those of the days of our fathers," etc. Benson in his use of the plural probably represents the English university usage. VII AT LENGTH = AT LAST Genung 2 condemned at length (=at last) in 1893 but later withdrew his opposition. The Century recognizes it. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recognizes it and quotes Dryden. Webster recognizes it. Lounsbury 3 defends the locution. Though he does not cite any passages, he says, "No one who has made any study of the practice of the great writers in this particular can have failed to note that at length is employed by them five times in the sense of denoting the end of a period, where it is used once in denoting the full extent of anything. Either usage is of course correct." The opposition to the phrase was directed toward its use in the sense of "at last," denoting the end of a period, i.e., "finally." No doubt there are some besides Genung prejudiced against this phrase ; for, judging by himself, the writer does not doubt that Genung 's textbooks have influenced many people. The phrase in question is used by the following authorities : Latimer 3 Samuel Daniel 1 Shakespeare 1 Marlowe 1 Massinger 1 Barnabe Barnes 1 Sidney 2 Beaumont and Fletcher.' 2 Ben Jonson 2 Milton 2 1 The 'Kegatire Side of Modern Athletics. 2 Outlines of Rhetoric, edition of 1S93, p. 304. 3 The Standard of Usage in English, pp. 105, 166. AT LENGTH = AT LAST 41 Baxter 1 Dryden 8 Swift 3 Steele 3 Addison 13 Pope 3 Prior 3 George Campbell 1 Goldsmith 12 Dr. Johnson 2 David Hume 1 Thos. Warton 1 E. B. Sheridan 1 Fielding 51 Gibbon 24 John Newton 1 Jefferson 4 Franklin 21 Sharon Turner 1 Wordsworth 14 Thos. Campbell 1 Cowper 3 Keats 2 Southey 3 Lamb 7 De Quincey 2 Scott 2 Hallam 7 Dickens 15 Carlyle 13 Poe 73 Mrs. Gaskell 7 Bulwer 7 Thos. Hughes 2 Macaulay 98 Adelaide Procter 2 Newman 3 Hawthorne 6 D. G. Eossetti 1 Mrs. Anna Jameson 1 Browning 1 F. W. Faber 1 Grote 17 Phoebe Cary 1 Dean Trench 3 C. G. Eossetti 1 Thackeray 4 Parkman 1 Holmes 1 Tennyson 6 Huxley 4 J. A. Froude 1 John Earle 14 G. W. Cable 18 Edward Dowden 1 Longfellow 14 R. L. Stevenson 17 T. L. K Oliphant 1 John Fiske 8 W. D. Whitney 4 Stephen Phillips 1 Ernest Ehvs 1 Here are 72 "reputable authors'' that use this phrase. It is pretty strong in Addison, Fielding, Goldsmith, Dickens, Carlyle, Stevenson, and John Earle, and very strong in Poe, Gibbon, and Macaulay; it is one of Macaulay 's everyday expressions. If necessary, many more authors and hundreds of additional passages could be cited. If great names carry weight, the case of at length is settled in the affirmative. It is very common in polite speech. 42 STUDIES IN USAGE To quote a few of the sentences in which this phrase occurs : And long we gazed, but satiated at length Came to the ruins. (Tennyson: Princess, Prol., 11. 90 ff.) At length I saw a lady within call, Stiller than chisell'd marble. (Tennyson: Dream of Fair Women, 11. 86 ff.) at length The expected letter from their kinsman came. (Wordsworth: Michael, 11. 306 ff.) The ministers at length flattered themselves that Harley's resolu- tion might be rescinded. (Macaulay: Hist, of Eng., V, chap, xxiii.) VIII BEAT FOF DEFEAT The first edition of Genung's Outlines of Rhetoric 1 warned the student not to say beat, but to say "defeat"; as, "Har- vard defeated Yale in football." Though Genung changed this in a later edition, his first edition has no doubt influenced many students and teachers. Beat is recognized by the Standard, Worcester's, Webster's, the Encyclopedic, and the Century dictionaries, with passages from Shakespeare, Arbuthnot, Prescott, and Matthew Arnold. The New English Dictionary recognizes it, with quotations from Caxton, the King James Bible, Malory, Pepys, Steele, Burke, Southey, Edgeworth, Byron, Hallam, Freeman, and Lowell. The word occurs in the following : Latimer 1 Franklin 1 King James Bible 3 Grote 1 Shakespeare 5 Mrs. Gaskell 1 Paston Letters ] E. A. Poe 2 Addison 2 Macaulay 9 Dryden 1 Ruskin 1 * Edition of 1893, pp. 304, 305. BETWEEN EACH (OE EVERY) 43 Thos. Hughes 2 Grant Allen 1 Freeman 12 H. N. Hudson 1 Holmes 1 Carlyle 1 Kingsley 4 Price Collier 1 Bulwer 1 Bret Harte 2 The writer has not seen defeat in the literature to any great extent, though no one would deny that it would be proper. In polite colloquial usage, beat is the usual word. Macaulay says, "on which, right or wrong, he was sure to be beaten, and on which he could not be beaten without being degraded." The Bible (Josh. 8, 15) says, "And Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness." Freeman (Old English History) says, "Theodosius, . . . who was a wise and brave man, and who beat both the Scots and the Saxons." Freeman, as the table indicates, is very partial to this verb. IX BETWEEN EACH (Oil EVERY) A "common error" with persons of considerable intelli- gence is to say between each for every) + the noun; e.g., between each step. This might seem to be illiterate ; but it is found pretty often in the best authors. The writer has seen the following cases : Shakespeare 1 Coleridge 1 Jeremy Taylor 1 Scott 1 Pope 1 Motley 1 Fielding 1 Dickens 2 Goldsmith 1 George Eliot 4 William Collins 1 P. H. Hayne 1 Scott says, "Between every pause." Motley says, "Between each step." The writer does not remember seeing between every two steps, between every two pauses, etc., in any great 44 STUDIES IN USAGE author. George Eliot says, "Between each item", "between every section," and in Adam Bede, "pausing between every sentence to rap the floor" . . . "said Mr. Poyser, turning his head on one side in a dubitative manner, and giving a pre- cautionary puff to his pipe between each sentence." The writer is not recommending this locution but showing that it is not an unauthorized vulgarism. BTJT + NOMINATIVE 1 Whence all but he had fled. (Mrs. Hemans: Casablanca.) Can a preposition take the nominative? Or is this but a conjunction ? This is the point on which the grammarians dif- fer ; but the fact remains that sentences like that quoted above are found all through English literature. In the Anglo-Saxon gospels this construction is very common. It comes through Chaucer, Thomas Malory, the Miracle Plays, and Shakespeare, without a break to the present. As to whether this but is a preposition or a conjunction, the grammarians differ. Matzner 2 regards it as a preposition passed into a conjunction. Nesfield 3 treats it as a confusion between conjunction and preposition. Abbott 4 takes the same view, and says, "probably owing to confusion between the prepositional and the conjunctive usage, but, even when a preposition, is often followed by the subjective form." Bas- kervill and Sewell 5 treat it as a preposition ; Carpenter, as a conjunction. Kellner 6 prefers to parse it as a conjunction. The grammarians named above cite passages from the fol- 1 Fur save + nominative see p. 251 below. 2 English Grammar (Grace's translation). II, 407. 3 English Grammar Past and Present, p. Ifl7. 4 How to Parse, p. 222. 5 English Grammar, pp. 283, 2S4. 9 Historical Outlines of English syntax, pp. 130, 131. BUT + NOMINA Tl YE 45 lowing authorities: Anglo-Saxon Bible, Towneley Mysteries, Caxton, Shakespeare, Samuel Butler, Emerson, Kingsley, Southey, William Taylor, and Mrs. Hemans. The New Eng- lish Dictionary under but says, "The colloquial use of 'me,' 'us,' for 'I,' 'we,' etc., as complemental nominatives in the pronouns, making it uncertain whether 'hut' is to be taken as governing a case. ... In colloquial use the objective forms are more common than ' I, ' etc. ; in literary use the point is usually avoided by some change of phraseology." Kellner 1 cites parallel passages from Lessing and Luther showing a like development in German. The writer has recorded the following cases in English and American literature : Lord Berners 1 Cowper 1 Malory 6 De Quincey 1 Chaucer 3 Jean Ingelow 1 Oecleve 1 Swinburne 3 Biblo 3 D. G. Eossetti 6 Marlowe 7 Mrs. H. Ward 1 Shakespeare 15 Lowell 1 Milton 1 William Morris . . 2 Dry den 1 Browning 4 Pope 1 Bryant 1 Prior 1 Bayard Taylor 3 Addison 1 Mrs. Hemans 1 Boswell 1 Dickens 2 Philip Freneau 2 Newman 1 Hazlitt 1 But I, but he, but she, but they, but ive seem to be pretty evenly distributed. To the average mind, even the educated mind, it is almost impossible to accept the dictum that a preposition can be fol- lowed by the nominative case ; yet some of the best grammari- ans take this view. For instance, Baskervill and Sewell 2 1 Historical Oullincs of English Syntax, p. 209. 2 English Grammar , p. 277. 46 STUDIES IN USAGE say, "In the sentence, 'None remained but lie,' grammatical rules would require him instead of 'he' after the preposition; yet the expression is sustained by good authority." Kellner, on the other hand, treats it as a conjunction in an elliptical construction, e.g., "None remained but he" (remained). Others explain it in the same manner. In parsing the but + nominative we are between the two horns of a dilemma. "While, as already said, it is difficult to conceive of a preposition 's taking any but an oblique case, we have a few parallel cases, e.g., from Luther's Bible and Lessing, both cited by Kellner. To treat but as a conjunction often involves an absurdity; e.g., "Whence all had fled but he had not fled." This is an ellipsis beyond the average compre- hension, and we have no reason to believe that such a sentence ever had a place in the language. Some such locutions Abbott labels as due to confusion between two constructions, not attempting to parse them. Probably this is the best way out of this dilemma. While the grammarians are not able to solve the question of syntax, and though but i objective i s mor e usual than but + nominative, we have nevertheless good au- thority for using but with a nominative pronoun. In addition to the sentence quoted from Mrs. Hemans, we will quote passages from authors of even greater fame : "Within his own circle none durst tread but he." (De Quincey : Lake Poets, essay on Coleridge) ; "that being a vice which I think none but he who knows the secrets of men's hearts should pretend to discover in another," etc. (Addison: Spec- tator) ; "when the storm mounted overhead and broke upon the earth, it was those scorned and detested Galileans, and none but they, the men-haters and God-despisers, who . . ." (Newman: Essays.) CALCULATED + THE INFINITIVE 47 XI CALCULATED + THE INFINITIVE Whatever is calculated to affect the imagination. (Burke.) Calculated + the infinitive, as in the quotation from Edmund Burke, was an abomination to Richard Grant White. 1 He found in the dictionary that etymologically calculate means to "compute, reckon, work out by figures," from calculus, a bean, used, in ancient times, for counting. So that, beguiled by "the devil of derivation," spoken of by one of our great scholars, he argued that we must not say "calculated to do harm" except where the thing was done intentionally. A more recent writer on usage, Professor J. F. Genung, 2 adopts the same idea. Genung says: "Not to be used in the sense of liable, likely, apt. . . . With the word is associated the idea of intent, and it should be used only in cases where this idea is present." The Century Dictionary takes practically the same position. The Hart textbook on rhetoric, written by the elder Hart and revised by his son, J. M. Hart, condemns calculated + the infinitive. Quackenbos 3 puts it in the class that he calls "malaprops," his word for improprieties in speech. White, in his attack upon the word, admitted that it was used by Goldsmith ; for numerous other authors that use it, see the table below. Calcul 'at ed + the infinitive is recognized by Webster, with quotations from Goldsmith and Hawthorne ; also, by the New English Dictionary, quoting Defoe, Southey, Gladstone, and two or three minor writers. 1 Words and Their Uses, pp. 96, 97. 2 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. 306. 3 Practical Rhetoric, 1896, p. 152. 48 STUDIES IN VS.1GF Thus far the authorities seem, on the whole, unfavorable: six con's and two pro's. Let us turn to the literature and see what reputable authors use it. Hallam 5 Century Dictionary 1 Ruskin 2 Fitzedward Hall 1 Motley 1 Poe 6 Bulwer 2 Justin McCarthy 2 Dean Alf ord 1 Holmes 1 Milman 3 Horace Greeley 1 W. D. Whitney 1 Mrs. Anna Jameson 4 George Eliot 1 Minto 1 Douce 1 John Fiske 2 Stanley 1 W. W. Skeat 1 Matthew Arnold 1 Gladstone 2 Huxley 2 Katharine Lee Bates . . . 1 Sidney Lee 1 Mrs. H. Ward 1 Saintsbury 1 John Lubbock 1 G. W. Cable 1 Sir Henry Taylor 3 Hawthorne 1 James Eryce 1 Addison 1 Sheridan 1 Joseph Priestley 1 George Campbell 2 Coleridge 7 Gibbon 1 Grote 1 Irving 4 John Adams 1 Dr. Johnson 1 Boswell '. 1 Swift 1 Defoe 1 Dr. H. Blair 7 Thomas Warton 3 Goldsmith 2 Thomas Paine 2 Burke 1 Hazlitt 1 Lamb 3 De Quincey 1 Jane Austen 2 Jefferson 1 Scott 2 Mrs. Gaskell 1 Beaconsfield 2 Trench 1 Dickens 3 Prescott 1 Carlyle 1 Macaulay 2 Charlotte Bronte 4 Here we have 64 authors in over 100 passages. Some of these authors are eminent writers on rhetoric; others are great stylists such as Burke, Arnold, and Macaulay. White's denunciation of calculated terrified the present writer in days gone by; no doubt the new editions of his books CAN AS AN INDEPENDENT VERB 49 on usage are read by many people anxious to get daylight in matters of usage. While holding no brief for calculated + the infinitive, the writer feels that it is a very useful word and one that has been in good standing for at least two centuries. It has wide vogue in polite society and among reputable speakers. The dictionaries cited above and about sixty-five reputable authors would seem to establish the word as good English. In addition to the passage from Burke already quoted, a few sentences from standard authors may be added. Gibbon says, "The grave simplicity of the philosopher was ill calcu- lated to engage her wanton levity." Motley says, "previous statutes, which were, however, not calculated to make men oblivious." Matthew Arnold writes, "It seems calculated to be of more use." Ruskin says, "it . . . presents this group to the spectator in the form best calculated to enable him to grasp it also, and to grasp it with delight." XII CAN AS AX INDEPENDENT VERB No doubt most of us lose sight of the fact that can some- times holds on to its independent, or notional, meaning, so accustomed are we to its use as an auxiliary. We are now treating can in the sense of know, understand, know how to do, be able, followed by an object. This use is recognized by the Century, with illustrative passages from older authors such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, Ben Jonson, and Fletcher. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recog- nizes it, quoting Milton and Pope. The writer can add the following: Milton (2) ; Matthew Arnold (1) ; Browning (1) ; Rossetti (1) ; Richard Crashaw (1) ; Emerson (1). Of course, these are but sporadic survivals and are all found in poetry. 50 STUDIES IN USAGE A few passages may be added for the benefit of any who might care to risk the locution. Browning says, But here is the ringer of God, a flash of the will that can. Rossetti says, She sobbed, "for we can no more! " Matthew Arnold says, Whieh has not taught weak wills how much they can? In the older periods, this use of can was quite common ; the following passage from Chaucer is one of many: For in the lond ther nas no crafty man, That geoinetrie or ars metrik can. This article is merely a contribution to lexicography : the locution is not a disputed one but rare and interesting. XIII CATCH A POST (TRAIN, BOAT, ETC.) Richard Grant White 1 and Genung, 2 the latter in 1893, con- demned this locution, but Genung afterwards withdrew his objection. It is recognized by Webster, the Century, the New English, the Standard, and the Encyclopedic dictionaries, most of them using the phrases at the head of this section. "To reach, to arrive at," is an old meaning of catch, and is found in English literature for many centuries. White argued that we could catch a person on the train or catch scarlet fever from some person who had been in the train, but could not catch the train. He overlooked one of the old meanings of the word and thought of only one meaning. Polite usage favors the locution. The scholars first named are in the minority. 1 Words and Their Uses, p. 99. 2 Outlines of Rhetoric. 1893, p. 306. CATCHET) FOR CAUGHT 51 XIV CATCHED FOB CAUGHT Lounsbury 1 says, "During the whole period of modern English catched and teached, which go back to the Old English period, have maintained themselves alongside of caught and taught, though the present tendency is to regard them as improper. ' ' The Century Dictionary says they are vulgar or obsolete. Webster recognizes them as secondary but rarely used forms. The writer has seen the following cases: Shakespeare (1) ; Lyly (1) ; Butler (1) ; Defoe (1) ; Congreve (1) ; Boswell (4); Dr. Johnson (1); Lamb (1); Dr. II. Blair (2). Dr. Johnson defended catched and used it himself. Horace Wal- pole used it. Fitzedward Hall in 1873 called it "vulgar and ignorant." Lamb is the most recent author in whose books catched was seen, and he is somewhat old-fashioned in his grammar, as will be seen in several sections of this treatise. In a letter dated December 27, 1800, Lamb says, "Then he caught at a proof-sheet, and catched up a laundress's bill instead." This may be humor. Webster is undoubtedly cor- rect in saying "rare." The writer has found so few modern writers using catched, and hears it so often in the mouths of the illiterate, that he cannot accept Lounsbury's statement that catched has maintained itself through the whole period of modern English unless he will say "sporadically," or "as a vulgarism. " Butler's one case is a participle; the others, mostly preterites. 1 History of the English Language, p. 385. 52 STUDIES IN USAGE XV COLLECT A BILL Genung 1 condemned the phrase collect a bill in 1893 but afterwards withdrew his objection. Others, however, possibly influenced by him, are still fighting the locution, arguing that one can collect the money but not the bill. The Century, Standard, and Webster recognize the phrase. Polite usage accepts the locution ; how else shall we express the idea ? XVI COMMENCE + THE INFINITIVE Genung 2 condemns (but mildly) the use of commence fol- lowed by the infinitive, as "He commenced to play." He thinks "begin" is better with the infinitive; commence, with the form in -ing; e.g., "He commenced playing/' but "He began to play." The Century takes the same view. Webster says that good writers prefer the verbal noun after commence. George P. Marsh, in his Lectures on the English Language, takes the same view but says that there is no valid grammatical objection to the infinitive after commence. The phrases commence patriot, commence author, etc., though condemned severely by White, have been used in England by such writers as Junius, I. D' Israeli, and Fitzed- ward Hall, and the phrases to commence M. A., etc., have been recognized for at least three centuries in England. They are not found to any extent in American literature. » Outlines of Rhetoric, 1893, ix 307. 2 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. 307. CON COED OF VERB AND SUBJECT 53 XVII CONCORD OF YEEB AND SUBJECT "A verb must agree with its subject in number and person" is an old rule of grammar that we have all learned at school. In our young days we never dreamed that this rule ever ad- mitted an exception. No teacher, no grammar, ever suggested such a possibility. In recent years, however, we read in pro- gressive textbooks that a verb may decline to agree with its subject. We are told that a group of subjects may be con- ceived as a unit and take a verb in the singular. In one stand- ard grammar for high schools x we are told, ' ' It will not do to state as a general rule that the verb agrees with its subject in person and number. ' ' In the Anglo-Saxon period we see plural subjects taking the singular verb. Groups of cases are given by March and by Matzner in their grammars ; the writer has recorded four unmistakable cases in Beowulf. These Anglo-Saxon sentences cannot be represented in modern English on account of the loss of inflections. But they are real incongruences just as if we should say, "Two men goes to the city;" "James and John sees the sights." They are rare but prove that the rule was not absolutely rigid. Those who have studied Greek will remember the neuter plural subject : if a noun is neuter, its nominative plural takes a singular verb. However scholars may explain this, it proves that the Greek language did not require every plural subject to have a plural verb. The Anglo-Saxon language, also, allowed this occasionally : the writer has recorded one case in King Alfred's Orosius and one in the poetry of Caedmon, though editors, not knowing of the neuter plural and singular verb, have emended this last word into a plural. Kiihner, in 1 Baskervill and Sewell, p. 312. 54 STUDIES IN USAGE his Greek Grammar, 1 tells us that, occasionally in poetry and very rarely in prose, masculine and feminine plural subjects take the verb in the singular. Jespersen 2 tells us that the spoken language of Denmark discarded concord in verbs three hundred years ago and the written language more recently, so that the verb no longer carries a sign of person and number. Bradley, the English lexicographer, intimates that English may some day do the same thing; e.g., He go, she go, etc. That is, the pronoun alone will show person and number. Jespersen would no doubt place this under "progress in language"; but the purists would say that the English language was going to perdition. In Chaucer's Squire's Tale 3 we read, The spyces and the wyn (wine) is come anon. Skeat 4 in one of his glossaries says of this is, "Present singular used with two substantives." Mandeville says, "there is made large nets," etc. Malory says, "was chosen . . . the most men of worship." These are typical of numer- ous passages in Malory, Latimer, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and many Elizabethan authors. The great grammarians all note that is and teas are used with plural subjects for many cen- turies, especially when they stand before the subject. "There is tears for his love"; "here is more of us"; "fire and food is ready," are typical for Shakespeare. "Two or three is enough to bear witness"; "so is the pains of the soul"; "where is locked up all things necessary," etc. ; "which doings of the vicar was damnable"; "was there not some," etc.? — these are taken here and there from Latimer's sermons. Lounsbury, however, regards this is and ivas in Elizabethan literature as plural, and to them traces the illiterate is and 1 § 241. 'Progress In Language, pp. "2, 33. s L. 294. 4 Prioresses Talc, etc., Clarendon Press, s.v.is. COXCOED OF VEEB AND SUBJECT 55 ivas in present-day English. Matzner, also, treats was as an old plural in you was. This is and was come on down. Pepys says, "here was W. Batelier and his sister," etc. Cowley says, "there was wont to lie Spencer's works." Hume writes, "The principles of every passion, and of every sentiment, is in every man." Mary Wortley Montagu says, "There is few of my acquaint- ance I should ever wish to see again." Charles Lamb: "There was only he and Lewis"; "there is in nature, I fear, too many tendencies," etc.; "here is more of the plaguy comforts," etc. As the foregoing examples indicate, this con- struction is especially common after "here" and "there" at the head of the sentence. This is paralleled in Greek and is treated as impersonal by the grammarians. Thackeray writes, "There icas a hare, a rabbit, some pigeons," etc. This construction is sometimes explained by saying that, when uttering the verb, the writer or speaker had not conceived the subject clearly in his mind and that conse- quently he used the singular verb most naturally. However we may explain these cases, the fact is clear that the plural subject does not always require the plural verb in standard literature : the syntax used to be freer before it was ' ' schoolmastered. ' ' Baskervill and Sewell x quote sentences like those given above from Matthew Arnold, Burke, Hawthorne, and Scott. They quote from Macaulay, "Then comes the 'Why, sir!' and the 'What then, sir?' and the 'No, sir!' " putting comes under the head of "several subjects with a singular verb when the subjects are after the verb." Our present strict syntax would lead us to criticize all the sentences quoted above if found in the writings of an unknown author. Young says, "What means these questions?" What schoolmastered writer of our day would risk that sentence ? Again : Malory writes, "Manhood and worship {i.e., honor) 1 English Grammar, p. 314. 56 STUDIES IN USAGE is hyd within man's person'"; "worship and hardynesse is not in arayment." The King James Bible has "Light and under- standing and excellent wisdom is found in thee"; "where envying and strife is.*' Milton says, "The weight cf all, and our last hope, relics." Thackeray says, "In those two gentle- men is the moral and exemplification of," etc. In all these sentences, where strict modern usage demands the plural, grammarians explain the singular verb by saying that the two or three subjects constitute a psychological unit and may therefore have a singular predicate. Or relies in the sentence from Milton might agree in number with hope as being the subject nearest the verb and uppermost in the mind of the writer. In either case, it helps to justify the statement of the greater grammarians that a plurality of subjects does not always require a plural predicate. Kellner 1 well puts it, ' ' Every plurality may be conceived as a unity. ' ' That is good, strong food for the liberal scholars; how can the purists ever swallow and digest it ? This dictum of Kellner 's is well illustrated by sentences that the writer has recorded in his notes. John Knox says, "Both my vocation and conscience craves plainness of me." Here the idea is a unit: "my duty as a minister and my conscience" may be taken together as one idea. We might, however, treat craves as the old Northern plural so common in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and edited out of the plays of Shakespeare wherever possible. This, however, will not apply to Thackeray's sentence, "That dining for a shilling and strutting about Pall Mall afterwards was, after all, an hypocrisy." The plurality here can be conceived as a unity — "that pretense, that deception, trying to hide your impecu- niousness by strutting around Pall Mall after eating a wretched dinner in a cheap tavern, ivas an hypocrisy." So Thackeray no doubt conceived it when he wrote the sentence, though it 1 Sec Historical Outlines of English Syntax, ?§84ff., for a thorough treat- ment of this subjci t. CON COED OF VEHB AND SUBJECT 57 may be possible that was lakes its number from "hypocrisy." "Wordsworth writes: "But here is perfect joy and pride." This would bring down the scorn of the puristic grammarian. Numerals, being apprehended as a collective unit, sometimes take the singular; e.g., "Seven masters is here come" — mod- ernized from a monument of about a.d. 1320. We have left Shakespeare to the last. In spite of the editors of three centuries, there are passages in Shakespeare's plays that look ungrammatieal to the readers of our day ; e.g., "Banquo and his Fleance lives"; "hanging and wiving goes by destiny" ; "whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect," etc. So in the sonnets, the rhymes have saved many verbs frcm being altered by the editors; e.g., "Both truth and beauty on my love depends." In a note to the teaches quoted above, Richard Grant White says, "A fine example of Shakespeare's heedlessness of gram- mar." Some other literary scholars, commenting on some of these two hundred or more passages changed by editors say, "Singular verb with plural subject." Dr. E. A. Abbott and other grammarians, however, regard these as old Northern plurals surviving down through the Elizabethan period. This explains "Kind nature and custom gives," in Gorboduc; numerous passages in Latimer ; at least two hundred in unal- tered editions of Shakespeare, and many passages in other Elizabethan literature. When, however, we see these same incongruences in authors like Cowley, Milton, Hume, Lamb, Thackeray, and others, we must ascribe them to the freer syntax they were working under. Lamb, especially, was a free lance in English : he, as seen in other sections of this treatise, occasionally used you was and two negatives, both of which were in disrepute in many quarters when he used them. Defoe is called very ungrammatieal by one of the most eminent literary critics of the last century. No doubt this critic and rhetorician judged Defoe by some of these old pin- 58 STUDIES IN USAGE rals that survived through his day (1661-1731) and lunger. We have noted some of the passages: "In which was em- harked all my effects in the world"; "there was but twenty- eight in the whole city"; "numbers of people which . . . had flocked to London . . . was such," etc. In a note to one of these passages, a distinguished American scholar says, ' ' Defoe does not always observe grammatical correctness." But, applying the canons of syntax as quoted from Matzner, Kellner, and other great grammarians, we find that they all come under these canons; which means that Defoe used the English language according to the free syntax in vogue before the eighteenth century reformers and their nineteenth century disciples had improved the language, rewritten Shakespeare, and put us all in strait- jackets. One famous passage from the heart of the living language may well be quoted. In his great Recessional hymn, Kipling says, The tumult and the shouting dies, where most of us would use die in both spoken and written English. Some one, not willing to be convinced, may say that Kipling wanted a rhyme for "sacrifice. j j XVIII CONSIDER FOX REGARD Some objection has been raised to the word consider in the sense of regard; e.g., "He is considered an able man." It is recognized by the Century, which quotes Newman and J. K. Seeley. Webster's International Dictionary recognizes it with a passage from Macaulay. The New English Dictionary rec- ognizes it, quoting Lord Berners, Marryat, James Bryce, and CONSIDER FOB MEGA ED 59 Andrew Lang. The Standard and the Encyclopedic dic- tionaries recognize it. Genung condemned it in 1893. The writer has seen it in the following: Addison 20 Holmes 5 Steele 3 Hawthorne 1 Fielding 22 Thomas Hughes 1 Goldsmith 1 Grote 19 Hume 4 Macaulay 36 Franklin 3 Carlyle 3 Gibbon 28 Sir Henry Taylor I Lamb 5 Stevenson 1 Hallam 32 Sir Leslie Stephen 1 Poe 1 George Eliot 2 This shows an unbroken history from Addison to Stevenson. Richard Grant White 1 (1867) ridiculed this use of con- sider. He thought that consider was derived from the Latin for "sit down together" and should be held to its etymology. So he ridiculed the idea of its being used in the meaning of "think", "suppose," and thought it should be used in the sense of "ponder", "contemplate." According to White and his school, a word cannot cut loose from its etymology and ex- pand its territory: consider would have to mean "sit down together." Or, if it should be traced back to the word sidera (stars), we should have to take counsel with the stars before forming an opinion. All which is utterly opposed to recent scholarship and modern philology. The lists given above show that consider in the meaning of "regard" has been in good standing for hundreds of years. Genung withdrew his objection in 1900, but White's attacks are still found in our libraries in new editions of his books. Moreover, Genung 's earlier editions are still on many book- shelves. Stevenson says, "I considered this one of the most unhand- some speeches ever made." Gibbon says, "The conquest of 1 Words and Their Uses, pp. 101, 102. 60 STUDIES IX USAGE Britain Was considered as already achieved." Addison says, "She considers her husband as her steward"; "Cowley, observing the cold reserve of his mistress's eyes, . . . con- siders them as burning-glasses producing love." (Spectator.) XIX CONSPIRE = CONCUR, AGREE From its association with conspiracy, one might think that conspire would always have an unpleasant connotation. This, however, is not the case. It is recognized in an entirely pleas- ant meaning by the Century, Webster, Standard, and Ency- clopedic dictionaries, which quote Goldsmith, Cowper, Emer- son, and Tyndall. The word is used in a pleasant sense by the following : Spenser . 1 Coleridge 1 John Evelyn 2 Grote 1 Dryden 1 Hallam 3 Congreve 1 Sir E. Strachey 1 Joseph Hall 1 Poe 1 Addison 1 E. A. Abbott 1 Pope 3 Prescott 1 Dr. H. Elair 1 William Minto 1 Goldsmith 4 George Eliot 1 Philip Freneau 1 Bulwer 1 De Quincey 1 Stevenson 1 Shelley 1 H. W. Mabie 1 Here are 27 reputable authors using the word in its pleasant meaning and 4 dictionaries recognizing it. De Quincey, in his Lake Poets, says of Coleridge, "all things conspired (= combined) to throw back my thoughts upon that extraordinary man whom I had just quitted." Ste- venson says, "the steepness of the slope, the continual agile turning of the line of descent, and the old unwearied hope of finding something new in a new country, all conspired to lend CON ST AN T (LY )= CONTINUAL {LY) 61 me wings.'' (Travels with a Donkey.) Prescott in his essay on Sir Walter Scott says, "It is impossible to glance at Scott's early life without perceiving how powerfully all its circum- stances . . . conspired to train him for the peculiar position he was destined to occupy in the world of letters." Conspire in the meaning of "combine," with no unpleasant connotation, is found in English literature from Spenser to Stevenson. The pleasant use of the word is not disputed in the books, though the writer long had doubts as to its propriety. XX CONSTANT (LY) = CONTINUAL (LY) Genung in his high school Rhetoric 1 says, "Constantly, which means 'steadfastly,' not to be used for 'often' or 'con- tinually.' Mr. Genung himself, however, uses constantly in this sense at least ten times in his books, and it is probable that thirty or forty cases could be found, showing that his theory is stricter than his practice. The Century Dictionary recognizes constantly in the sense of "continually." The Encyclopedic Dictionary recognizes it, quoting Macaulay. The Oxford Dictionary recognizes it, quot- ing reputable authors. It is probable that hundreds of cases could be found in Macaulay : the list below shows 94 passages. The word occurs continually in every author worth quoting: the writer has recorded the following passages : Bacon 1 Franklin 7 Baxter .°> Johnson 3 Addison 1 Goldsmith 1 Pope 5 Burke 1 Swift 1 George Campbell 2 Steele 2 Hume 4 Fielding 21 Gibbon 10 1 Appendix III, p. 308. 62 STUDIES IN USAGE Hazlitt 1 Jeffrey 1 Jefferson 3 Lamb 9 Hallam ID Southey 2 Grote 16 Keats 1 Trench 7 Mrs. Anna Jameson 1 Mrs. Gaskell 1 Dean Alford 2 Holmes 4 Dickens 4 George Eliot 7 Bulwer 7 Matthew Arnold 2 Macaulay 94 Hawthorne 2 E. A. Freeman 1 Thomas Hughes 3 W. D. Whitney 32 IT. H. Furness O. F. Emerson Henry Bradley 1 Grant Allen 3 Justin McCarthy 1 G. W. Cable 1 Professor John Earle 4 Dr. C. Geikie 1 Henry Sweet 1 Saintsbury 2 Huxley 6 H. A. Beers 1 Genung 10 T. N. Page 3 Lounsbury 43 Sidney Lee 1 Kittredge and Greenough 10 W. W. Skeat 2 Stevenson 6 Longfellow 1 Arlo Bates 3 James Bryce 2 Here we have about 58 authors and about 385 passages; many others could be added. As seen from a glance at the table, constantly is a favorite word with Macaulay, Whitney, and Professor Lounsbury — a great stylist and two great Eng- lish scholars. If one authority can establish a word, Macaulay certainly establishes the word under discussion. Notice the faithful custodians of language in the list : Alford, A. S. Hill, Trench, Whitney, Genung, Kittredge, and Lounsbury. Polite colloquial English and the most finished speakers regularly employ constant and constantly. The meaning "continual" is a perfectly natural extension of the original meaning of constant; e.g., "A constant (steadfast) friend becomes a constant (frequent) visitor." Macaulay (History of England, I, chap. Ill) says, "It is, in some sense, unreasonable and ungrateful in us to be constantly discontented with a condition which is constantly improving. COTEMPOFAEY = CONTEMPORARY 63 But, in truth, there is a constant improvement precisely be- cause there is constant discontent." Stevenson says, "the fear of the sea was constantly in my mind, battling with the fear of my companions." (Master of Ballantrae.) "They were then constantly together." (Master of Ballantrae.) Steele says, "His faults are generally overlooked by all his acquaintance; and a certain carelessness, that constantly attends all his actions, carries him on with greater suc- cess. ..." (Spectator.) XXI COTEMPORARY = CONTEMPORARY The great scholar Bentley (1662-1742) denounced cotem- porary as a "downright barbarism." For some time it ex- pelled contemporary, but has now been beaten in the race. George Campbell in 1776 expressed his preference for the form in con. Cotemporary was on the forbidden list of W. C. Bryant, the very critical editor of the Evening Post. It is condemned by Genung x in his school Rhetoric. The Century says that it is the less usual form. It is recognized as proper by the Standard, the New English, "Webster, Worcester, and the Encyclopedic dictionaries, the last-named quoting Locke and Sprat as using it. The writer has seen the word once in Hazlitt, three times in Christopher North, twice in Dean Trench, once in Poe. It is undoubtedly less common in recent literature than the other word, but should not be condemned as an error. There seems no ground of objection to the form in co; it is just now out of fashion but may come into vogue at some later period. Christopher North in an essay says : " Go back a little, step over an imperceptible line, to the cotemporary of Dryden, 1 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. SOS. 64 STUDIES IN USAGE Milton, and you seem to have overleaped some great chronolog- ical boundary"; "Shakespeare and Spenser, what cotemp'o- raries!" ; "In the verses of our old poet and his cot empor dries, Venus and Cupid are as active as they were with Homer and Anacreon." Since the days of North, contemporary lias be- come the regular form. XXII A COUPLE OF FOR TWO The phrase a couple of for two was attacked vigorously by Richard Grant "White 1 in 1867. Quackenbos 2 in various edi- tions of his textbooks continued the attack. Genung 3 in his first edition condemned the phrase, but withdrew his opposi- tion after "he had taken account of criticism and comment." Unfortunately, however, a scholar like Genung can never undo the harm that he does an innocent word or phrase. The phrase is recognized by the Century, quoting Sidney, the Bible, Shakespeare, Pepys, Locke; by Webster, quoting Sidney, the Bible, Addison, Dickens, and Carlyle ; by the New English Dictionary, quoting Caxton, Coverdale, Ascham, Shakespeare, Steele, and others not so eminent. The writer has seen it in the following : Interlude of Thersytes 1 Coleridge . , 1 Latimer 1 Hazlitt 1 King James Bible 2 Philip Freneau 1 Addison 8 Jane Austen 2 Dean Swift 1 Seott 2 Sterne 3 Lockhart 2 Boswell 1 Christopher North 1 Dr. Johnson 1 De Quincey 2 Smollett 1 Poe 10 1 Words and Their Uses, pp. 102, 103. -Seo Practical Rhetoric, 1S96, p. 232. a Outlines of Rhetoric, 1893, p. "<>^ : 1900, pp. 301, 30S. A COUPLE OF FOR TWO 65 Holmes 1 Matthew Arnold 1 Mrs. Gaskell 1 Mrs. Anna Jameson 1 Dr. John Brown 1 George Meredith 10 Bulwer 2 Professor John Earle 1 George Eliot 21 Mrs. H. Ward 4 Huxley 1 Stevenson 12 Dickens 31 Henry James 1 Thackeray 38 Saintsbury 3 Ruskin 1 Kipling 1 Froude 1 George P. Marsh 1 W. E. Henley 2 John Fiske 7 D. G. Mitchell 4 W. D. Whitney 2 Browning 1 Sir Henry Taylor 1 Here are about 50 authors in more than 175 passages. It is pretty common in polite society but still more popular with the uneducated classes. A good many people think that a word popular with the uneducated classes is apt to be wrong, but this is not a safe inference. Of course it is true that much of their grammar and of their vocabulary is broken down aristocracy, but not all of it. The phrase under discussion has a long and honorable pedi- gree. How it is used by some eminent writers of different periods will be seen from the following passages. Addison in the Spectator says, "As we were upon the road, Will Wimble joined a couple of plain men who rid before us." Coleridge says, "If people would, in idea, throw themselves back a couple of centuries." Ruskin says, "A great nation, for instance, does not spend its entire national wits for a couple of months in weighing evidence of a single ruffian's having done a single murder; and for a couple of years see its own chil- dren murder each other," etc. Matthew Arnold (Religious Sentiment) says, "A couple of Syracusan women, staying at Alexandria, agreed on the occasion of a great religious solemnity," etc. This phrase ran riot in the volumes of Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot, but is not so common in recent literature, though Stevenson was partial to it. The attacks of "White and other verbalists may have influenced the 66 STUDIES IN USAGE destinies of this locution in the literature. The phrase occurs in many excellent books by men of scholarship not in the table given above. XXIII CULTURED AS ADJECTIVE Of cultured as an adjective, A. S. Hill 1 said, "At present it has no standing in literature or in polite society. ' ' Genung 2 said, about the same time, "Though somewhat undesirable in formation, is in too common usage to be condemned." When such good doctors disagree, what shall we poor patients do? Nothing but go to the higher authorities, the reputable authors, and the "easy language of cultivated men who are neither specialists nor pedants." Before citing the authors, let us see what the dictionaries say. The Century recognizes cultured, quoting Izaak Taylor. Webster recognizes it, quoting the same passage from Taylor and one from Whittier. The New English Dictionary recog- nizes it, and quotes Goldsmith, Tyndall, and Whittier. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recognizes it, quoting a passage from Cowper. These facts seem to refute Hill's statement. The writer has seen the word in the following : W. D. Whitney 2 Richard Grant White 2 Fitzedward Hall 1 Walter Bagehot 2 John Earle 2 J. F. Genung 6 Herbert Spencer 1 Bishop Moule 2 Huxley 1 G. K. Chesterton 1 William Hayes Ward 1 Henry Drummond 1 Frederic Harrison 2 Edward Dowden 1 As most of these men were writing in 1902, Hill's statement was unwarranted. The word is used by many men of distin- guished culture not in the table. 1 Beginnings of Rhetoric ami Composition, 1902, n. 78i "Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. 308. DEAD COEPSE 67 If cultured is from the noun "culture," it belongs in the class with moneyed, gifted, talented, which seem to be well established. Cultivated is probably more common in the litera- ture, but cultured should not be condemned. A few passages will show how the word is used by reputable authors. Herbert Spencer says, "Transmitting traditional statements concerning ghosts and gods, at first to neophytes of his class only, but afterward to the cultured classes." Fred- eric Harrison says, "But to Homer and the primeval type of heroic man in his beauty, and his simpleness, and joyous- ness, the cultured generation is really dead. . . ." G. K. Chesterton in his Browning says, "But his interest in these studies was not like that of the ordinary cultural visitor to the Italian cities." The word has considerable vogue in the books of reputable scholars, editors, men of letters, and lecturers of the last twenty years. XXIV DEAD CORPSE When the Bible reader meets in II Kings 19:35 and Isaiah 37:36 with the phrase, "when they arose early in the morn- ing, behold, they were all dead corpses'," he is apt to be amazed at the use of corpses coupled with dead. If, however, he knew that corpse used to mean "a living body," he would not be surprised. Chaucer often speaks of " a living corpse. ' ' Malory says, "And therewith he fell down on the one side to the earth like a dead corpse"; "But this night, at midnight, here came a number of ladies, and brought hither a dead corpse, and prayed me to bury him." (Morte D' Arthur.) The phrase is used by Robert Manning and Thomas Sackville. The latest case the w r riter has seen is in Defoe's History of the Plague: "Looking upon themselves all as so many dead corpses, they came to the churches without the least caution." 68 STUDIES IN USAGE Only since Defoe's day has the Avoid corpst become applied exclusively to a dead body; it is no longer used for "living body." XXV DEMEAN - DEBASE, DEGRADE ONESELF Demeaned himself by marrying a French lady of birth quite inferior to his own. (Thackeray.) The use of demean in the sense of "debase or degrade oneself" has some vogue in polite society in America. It is condemned however, by George Campbell, A. S. Hill, Genung, the Standard Dictionary, and Lord Macaulay. Fitzedward Hall gave it a wide berth but did not condemn it. The Century says, "Being thus illegitimate in origin and inconvenient in use, from its tendency to be confused with demean in its proper sense, the word is avoided by scrupulous writers." The Cen- tury quotes a passage from Sheridan and one from Thackeray — not the same as that at the head of this section. "Webster recognizes it, quoting the same passage from Vanity Fair as that quoted by the Century. The New English Dictionary recognizes the word in the sense of "degrade oneself," quoting Doddridge, Richardson, Thackeray, Black, Foote, George Eliot, the Saturday Review, and some other authorities less known. The writer has recorded two cases from Thackeray, one from Dickens, and one from Emerson. Instead of demean Genung 1 suggests "degrade" and "be- mean." This last-named word is approved by the Century, which quotes Max Midler and James Payne as using it. Dickens (Our Vestry) says, "Mr. Wagg . . . takes that opportunity of saying that, if an honorable gentleman whom he has in his eye, and will not demean himself by more par- 1 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. 310. DESCRIPTION = KIND, SOET 69 ticularly naming. ..." Emerson, who is more classical in his use of language, says, "His vice glasses his eye, demeans his cheek, pinches the nose, sets the mark of the beast on the back of the head." The majority of our authorities seem to be in favor of demean in the sense of "degrade oneself." XXVI DESCRIPTION = KIND, SORT Whenever any tolerable book of the same description makes its ap- pearance, the circulating libraries are mobbed. (Macaulay: Essay on History.) Quackenbos * says, "Description means an account of char- acteristics, and is not a synonym of kind or sort." Genung 2 says, "Better not to use this in the sense of 'kind.' The New English Dictionary recognizes the disputed use, quoting some old authors and one recent one, Ik Marvel. Webster recognizes this use of the word, quoting passages from Alexander Hamilton and Macaulay. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recognizes, and quotes Shakespeare. The Century recognizes, quoting Shakespeare, Macaulay, Dowden, and the Washington Chronicle. The Standard recognizes it. It is used by the following authorities : Shakespeare 1 Macaulay 4 Bulwer* 4 Grote . .'. 2 Lamb 2 Hawthorne 1 Jefferson 1 Poe 8 Sharon Turner 1 Lowell I Hallam 2 Stevenson 3 This use of description was common with our grandfathers and great-grandfathers and is seen frequently in the speeches 1 Practical Rhetoric, 1S96, p. 232. 2 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. 310. 70 STUDIES IN USAGE and letters of the public men of two or three generations ago. No doubt hundreds of passages could be collected from the speeches of the elder statesmen of America, from Hamilton and Madison down to Calhoun, Clay, Webster, etc. The word is not very common in recent literature, and is giving way to shorter words like sort and kind, such being the tendency of the language. All readers of Shakespeare remember the passage in the Merchant of Venice where Portia says: Double six thousand, and then treble that, Before a friend of this description Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault. Macaulay in his essay on Hallam says, '"We will not posi- tively affirm that a law of this description must always, and under all circumstances, be unjustifiable." Stevenson says, "But in the open portmanteau, no papers of any description"; "there was probably (my doctor added) some predisposition in the family to accidents of that description." (Master of Baliantrae.) The word is rather old-fashioned nowadays and is rare in recent authors. XXVII DIFFICULTLY The writer became interested in the adverb difficultly from seeing it in Coleridge's Biographic Litcraria. It is recognized by Webster, quoting the poet Cowper. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recognizes it, with a quotation from the Passen. nil'. 2 Greenough ami Kittretlge : Words and Tin ir Ways in English ffpeech, p. 122. 84 STUDIES Ij\ r USAGE XXXVII EITHER EACH OF TWO On cither side the river lie Long fields of barley and of rye. (Tennyson.) The use of cither for both is criticized — though mildly — by Genttng; 1 he says, "Each would be better." It is recognized by the Standard, the New English, Webster's, the Encyclo- pedic, and the Century dictionaries, which quote King Alfred, Coverdale, the King James Bible, Milton, Scott, Hobbes, Jowett, Prescott, Cowper, Tennyson, and others. It is recognized by Nesfield,- the grammarian. This use of cither is common in Chaucer, and is found very often in Malory. In more modern authors the following cases have been noted : King James Bible 2 Gorboduc 1 Shakespeare 4 Milton 7 Addison 4 Swift 3 Prior 3 Pope 1 Dryden 3 Dr. Johnson ] Gibbon 2- Fielding 5 Gray 2 Philip Frenean 1 Scott 16 Wordsworth 4 Keats 3 Pollok 1 Irving 1 Dickens 10 Bayard Taylor 2 Hawthorne 7 Motley 3 Be Quincey - Matthew Arnold 2 Tennyson 30 William Minto 1 Cooper 2 Bulwer 9 Milman 1 Poe 4 Thackeray 7 Whittier 1 Bryant 2 Andrew Lang 2 Wm. Morris 3 Fronde 1 Holmes 1 1 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1000, p. 312. 2 English Grammar Past and Present, p. 29. EITHER BEFEBBING TO KOBE THAN TWO 85 Fiske 1 G. W. Cable 4 W. W. Skeat 1 T. N. Page 3 Kingsley 2 Kipling 1 Clough 2 Henry van Dyke 1 Browning !> Swinburne 3 Brooke - George Meredith 1 Eossetti 3 T. B. Aldrich 1 Stevenson 12 Here are over 50 authorities, in all periods. Tennyson uses the word very frequently ; only a fraction of his use of the word is shown in the table. Additional examples may be given. In this lone, open glade I lie, Screened by deep boughs on either hand. (Arnold.) And drops of water fell from t ith( r hand. ( Tennyson.) The benches at either end of the platform were accordingly filled with the royal and princely personages invited. (Motley.) the great quadruple city on either side of the Nile, Luxor and their satellites. (Milman.) On either side were horizontal niches. (Hawthorne.) XXXVIII EITHER REFERRING TO MORE THAX TWO Quackenbos 1 says, il Eitlu r always implies tiro.'" Genung 2 says, "To be used of two objects; any one, of more than two." Baskervill and Sewell, 3 while preferring any, give sentences from Edward Everett and Emerson in which either and neither refer to more than two. The New English Dictionary recog- nizes it, quoting W. T). Howells. 1 Practical Rhetoric. 1896, p. 2::.°.. 'Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. 312. 3 English Grammar, p. 300. 86 STUDIES IN USAGE The writer lias noted it in the following : Poe 3 Churton Collins 1 Emerson 1 H. W. Mabie 1 O. W. Holmes 1 J. F. Genung 1 W. D. Whitney 2 John Earle 1 Whitney, for instance, says, "cither of the last three syl- lables, "and" eiY/ter of the (four) languages named." Genung says, "as either of these" (three), etc. Here we see that Genung 's own rule is too strict for him to obey, because it is stricter than the language itself. It would seem that the authors and the professors of rhetoric clash here as in many other places. Churton Collins says, "cither of the first three quartos of Borneo and Juliet." Poe in The Black Cat says, "Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these (four plans)." Poe uses neither of six or seven. Holmes uses cither referring to four things. Whitney says, "in Greek it may be given to either of the last three syllables." Again : "no one, probably, who has ever added a knowledge of either of the (several) languages named to that of his mother-tongue, ' ' etc. XXXIX FORMS IN ELSE AND ELSE'S Many intelligent persons hesitate between forms like some- body else's and somebody's else. Oliphant 1 says that the form in else's began to appear in the literature about 1840 and that it originated with Dickens. The earliest examples found by the writer are in Thackeray, 1851 and 1852, and the earliest in Dickens in 1860; but we need not doubt the correctness of Oliphant's statement, as Dickens wrote some of his greatest books as early as 1840. 1 Thc Xciv English, II, 208. FORMS IN ELSE AND ELSE'S 87 Jespersen, 1 after saying that the ancient practice was to add 's to the pronoun and not to else, and that afterwards it was in most cases added to the else, quotes nones else from an author of 1665; anybody's else from Thackeray; and nobody's else from Mark Twain. Of the else's form, he quotes eight examples from reputable authors, Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot among them. The Century Dictionary and the best modern grammars treat somebody else and its congeners as compound pronouns with the s at the end. This is the easiest and the best solution of the question. Baskervill and Sewell " in their grammar take the view given above. They cite eight examples from reputable authors, all of them using else's before the noun; e.g., nobody else's business. A. S. Hill, 3 while taking the same view as the authorities cited above, says that Henry James and Horace Walpole some- times use anybody's else, Walpole using it both with and with- out the noun; but it may be said that anybody's else life, a*s used by Walpole, is extremely rare in literature and is utterly intolerable. When the noun is present, the almost universal usage is dsc's. ' It occurs pretty often in Dickens and in George Eliot; occasionally in Thackeray and in Walter Bagehot. The writer's figures are: Somebody else's book, 13; somebody's else book, none. This book is somebody else's, 8; this book is somebody's else, 2. Of this last type the writer has seen one case in Congreve and one in Thackeray; none in Dickens and in George Eliot. These locutions are not very common in standard literature. Possibly the uncertainty as to the correct possessive form has frightened some waiters away from it. It may be that the 1 Progress in Language, p. 298. 2 English Grammar, p. 303. 3 Beginnings of Rhetoric 56. EVER SO AND NEVER SO 91 Shaftesbury 2 Bret Harte 1 Boswell 1 Edward Eggleston 1 Jonathan Edwards 1 Browning 1 Dr. Johnson 10 Buskin 3 Goldsmith 2 Holmes + George Campbell 1 H. X. Hudson 1 William Hazlitt 2 G. W. Cable 1 Byron 1 Swinburne - J. Howard Payne 2 Richard Grant White 1 Grote 1 William Morris 1 De Quineey 1 Thackeray 38 Lamb 2 Dean Stanley 1 Dr. Hugh Blair 4 Hawthorne 3 Dr. John Brown 2 Tennyson 2 Christopher North 2 I 'oe 1 Matthew Arnold 1 Fitzedward Hall 1 Summary : 38 authorities, 113 cases. Thackeray uses ever so 38 times in the books read in this course of stud}'; never so, only once. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, both Johnson and George Campbell expressed a decided preference for ever so ; and, as far as the writer has noticed, Johnson used it exclusively. The support of these two men may have helped ever so considerably, though the tendency in its favor had already developed. Never so, like its rival, begins in the Anglo-Saxon. It runs through Chaucer, Malory, the Miracle Plays, Latimer, Bacon, Shakespeare, the Bible, and Milton. While never so was so vigorous, ever so was lying quiescent, to emerge in the sixteenth century. The Century Dictionary quotes Mandeville, the Bible, and Sandys as using never so. It adds that m v< r so is now usually replaced by t ver so; it should say that ever so is more common in recent literature. Webster quotes the Bible and Black- stone as using never so. Greenough and Kittredge 1 say, "the negative form is still occasionally used." (This is rather 1 Words and Their Ways in English Speech, p. SIC. 92 STUDIES IN USAGE underestimating its vitality.) Matzner 1 quotes eases of never so from Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, the Miracle Plays, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Richard Bentley. A. S. West, in his edition of Bacon's Essays, says, " 'Never so' in modern idiom ever so," though he justifies the former also. Carlyle, as far as the writer has noticed, always uses the negative form — 16 to 0. Never so has been noted in the following : Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 1 Chaucer 2 Miracle Plays 7 Malory 2 Marlowe .'5 Massinger 1 Shakespeare 7 Bible 3 Prayer Book 2 Bacon 7 Latimer 10 Izaak Walton 1 Thomas More 1 Lyly 2 John Webster 3 Jeremy Taylor 1 Butler 1 Milton 5 Clarendon 1 Matthew Prior 2 Bishop Burnet 1 Congreve 1 Cowley 1 Fielding 9 South '. 3 Sprat 2 John Knox 2 Bishop Percy 1 Thackeray 1 Emerson 3 George William Curtis 1 Browning 3 Freeman 1 Carlyle 16 Ruskin 1 Kingsley 1 G. W. Cable 1 Hart and Hart 1 E. C. Stedman 1 Summary : 39 authorities, 112 cases. Both phrases, then, had their birth in the Anglo-Saxon period. Both are logical, if that is to be counted. Both have good usage in their favor. The negative form seems to be gradually passing out of the language except in a few circles, where the influence of Shakespeare, the Bible, and Carlyle is felt especially. Tn the seventeenth century, the two locutions ran somewhat together. With Dr. Johnson, ever so made a big '■English Grammar (Grece's translation), III. pp. 130. 131. EVER SO AND NEVER SO 93 leap. Since then it has distanced never so. Taking the lit- erature as a whole, the two phrases are about even. For the last two centuries, ever so is far more common. In 1864 Dean Alford said, "In familiar speech we mostly say ever so; in writing, especially in the solemn and elevated style, we mostly find never so. . . . These two amount to the same." The Oxford Dictionary says that ever so has been substituted, ' ' from a notion of logical propriety, ' ' for never so, "which in literary use appears to be much older and still occurs archaically." As to the respective ages of the two locutions, nothing more need be said. As to the archaic use of ■never so it may be said that some writers and speakers use it, not because they wish to be archaic, but because they do not know which is better and because they vaguely remember seeing it in some of the old standard books, especially the Bible, the Prayer Book, and Shakespeare. For a full explanation of both phrases under discussion, the reader is referred to the Century Dictionary under the word never, and to Greenough and Kittredge's Words and Their Ways in English Speech, page 316. We may conclude this section by quoting passages from the literature. Tennyson in the Holy Grail, line 614 ff., says, And this am I, so that ye care for me Ever so little. In Maud, he says, She is coming, my own, my sweet; Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed. Ruskin (Crown of Wild Olive) says, "You must put your ear down ever so close to her lips, to hear her speak." Matthew Arnold in his Last Words on Translating Homer says, "they are, and must remain, like those lines we read of in Euelid, 94 STUDIES IN USAGE which, though produced ever so far, can never meet." Haw- thorne in the Marble Faun says, "she might have helped to fill the already crowded and cumbered world with pictures, not destitute of merit, but falling short, if by ever so little, of the best that has been done"; "the grape-juice that gushed beneath his childish tread, be it ever so small in quantity, sufficed to impart a pleasant flavor to a whole cask of wine." (No cases of never so have been found in Hawthorne by the author of this volume.) Emerson says (The Poet), "Man, never so often deceived, still watches for the arrival of a brother who can hold him steady to a truth, until he has made it his own"; "and never so surprising, the fact of mechanics has not gained a grain's weight." (Emerson, like Carlyle, seems to use the never so habitually.) Browning uses both forms but never so more frequently. In Waring he says, A pilot for you to Triest? Without one, look you ne'er so big, They'll never let you up the ba} r . We natives should know best. In his Madhouse Cell he says, No suns and moons though e'er so bright Avail to stop me. How can either locution be condemned by those who follow the great authors? XLII EVERY AS A PRONOUN Every as a pronoun, e.g., "Every of us," survived until some time after Shakespeare. Abbott treats it in his Shake- spearian Grammar, 1 and every student of Shakespeare meets it in his reading; of course, it is obsolete now. 1 P. 24. EVIDENCE AS A VERB 95 It was common in Chaucer and is seen pretty frequently in Malory ; occasionally in Thomas More and Bacon. The writer has seen it three times in Jeremy Taylor: "every of his crea- tures", "every of these", "every of its members.'.' Taylor died in 1667. The Century quotes a passage from Winthrop's History of New England, whose author died in 1649. The Encyclopedic Dictionary quotes a passage from the Rev. Henry Hammond, who died in 1660. The latest examples that the writer has are taken from Defoe's History of the Plague, published in 1722: ''and every of these to have one quarter for his limit ; and the said chirurgeons in every of their limits to join with the searchers," etc. Bacon says, "That Every of them is carried swiftly by the Highest Motion." Jeremy Taylor writes, "so is God not dishonored when we suppose him in every of his creatures." XLIII EVIDENCE AS A VEEB Evidence as a verb is recognized by the Century Dictionary, with quotations from William Bradford, Tillotson, Huxley and Youmans, and S. Dowell. "Webster's International Dictionary recognizes it, citing Milton as an authority. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recognizes it, quoting Hale and Glanvill. "Worces- ter and the Standard recognize it. The New English Dic- tionary recognizes it. ((noting William Penn, Jane Austen, Young. Lyell, and others. The writer has seen it in the following authors : Coleridge 1 Rev. Dr. James Orr 1 Hallam 1 Henry A. Beers 1 Professor John Earle 1 H. W. Mabie 3 This use of evidence has been in the language for hundreds of years. Moreover, it is used by eminent authors like Milton 90 STUDIES IN USAGE and Coleridge, as well as by "cultivated men who are neither specialists nor pedants," in their hooks and their speeches. Again : it is very natural for a noun to be used as a verb. This disposes of one objection to the word. "Evidence as a verb used to be stigmatized as an American- ism. This charge is unwarranted for the following reasons: (1) The word is found in the best English literature before the poor, wretched Americans had begun to pollute "the well of English undented"; (2) most of the authors cited above are Englishmen. Coleridge, in a letter dated February 28, 1819, says, "This w r as most strikingly evidenced in the coincidence between my lectures and those of Sehlegel." Hamilton W. Mabie in his volume on Shakespeare says, "In the following year his grow- ing influence was evidenced by his election as tester of the quality of bread and of malt liquors." Hallam in his Middle Ages says, "The subsequent recognition of almost all Ger- many, and a sort of possession evidenced by public acts, which have been held valid," etc. We often hear the word used as a verb by reputable public speakers. XLIV EXECUTE PUT TO DEATH Richard Grant "White 1 was especially severe in his con- demnation of execute in the meaning of "put to death." A law, says he, may be executed, but not a man. He criticizes "a well-known historian" for using the word in connection with Anne Boleyn. Another violent enemy of the word was Walter Savage Landor, who, to use the phrase of Professor Lounsbury, was "fully possessed by that devil of derivation which, unlike the evil spirit of Scripture, makes happy him '■Words and Their r.sr.s, pp. Ill, 112. EXECUTE = PUT TO DEATH 97 in whom it dwells and vexes only the souls of those with whom he comes in contact." Genung 1 says, ll Ezecut( has conic into such frequent misuse as applied to a personal object in the sense of put to death, that it would be hard to displace. Strictly speaking', it is not the criminal, hut the sentence, that is executed." See how the evil spirit of derivation can tear such noble spirits as White, Landor, and Genung; but, unlike the spirit in the scripture, he will not come out of them and go into the herd of swine. Lounsbury- defends the use of execute tinder discussion. He says all through his chapters on language that it is the present meaning of the word, not its etymology, that we are to consider first of all. The Century recognizes the word, and quotes Shakespeare. Webster recognizes it and uses the phrase "to execute a traitor. 1 " The Standard and Worcester recog- nize it. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recognizes it, quoting Shakespeare. The Oxford Dictionary recognizes it. with pas- sages from Caxton, Lord Berners, and Hall, the chronicler. Lounsbury says that execute in the meaning of "put to death"' has been in continuous use ever since the fifteenth century. Oliphant 3 cites an example of it from Warkworth's Chronicle, about A.n. 1470. Latimer uses execution frequently. To the authorities named above, the writer can add the following : Shakespeare * 3 Macaulay 6 Gibbon 1 Motley 4 We may, then, reasonably conclude that the word has had a continuous history from the fifteenth century to the present day. It may be worth adding that it is so much alive today that it has lent its ending to the Greek ijkexrpo (electro) to 1 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900. p. 314. 2 The Standard of Usage in English, pp. 43, 149. 3 The Neto English, I. .°,2.". 4 The concordance will show that Shakespeare uses execute, executed, and executioner frequently. 98 STUDIES IN USAGE form electro-cute, now knocking for admission at the gates of the language. The author has not watched the word execution closely in the literature but does not 'hesitate to say that numberless authors and speakers use it. "He was led to execution"- who would hesitate to use that sentence ? If execution is rHit execute is equally so: the objection to one holds against the other. -Various modes of execution"; "various modes of executing criminals "-who will quarrel with these phrases? Gibbon {History of the Decline and Fall of the Rowan Empire) says, "The patrician was executed on the ready accu- sation of treason, and the wife of Alexander driven with ignominy from the palace, and banished into Africa. ' ' Macau- lay, m his essay on Lord Bacon, says, "The unhappy nobleman was executed." John Fiske (Old Virginia and Her Neighbors) says, Smith describes himself as kindly treated on his way to the scene of execution and after his rescue." XLV EXPERIENCE AS A VERB In 1864, Dean Alford » said, "in the best English, experience is a substantive, not a verb at all." If the Dean had read the best English with this word in mind, he would not have spoken so dogmatically; he could easily have found it in Goldsmith Gibbon, Lamb, Hallam, Poe, and other "best English" writers' Genung* says, "Better not use." The Century Dictionary recognizes it, quoting Southwell and Browning. The Stand- ard, Webster, and Worcester all recognize it. The Encyclo- pedic Dictionary recognizes it, quoting The Guardian. The New English Dictionary recognizes it, with passages from Joseph Butler, Tyndall, and others. 1 The Queen's English, edition of 1866, p. 252 'Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. ;:14. FEMALE AS A NOUN 99 If names and numbers count, the case is proved already; but the following authors may be added: Steele 1 Bulwer 1 Hume 3 Macaulay (5 Fielding 7 Hawthorne 1 Goldsmith 2 Dickens 1 Gibbon 13 Matthew Arnold 1 Franklin 1 Holmes 1 Lamb 2 Sir Henry Taylor 4 Hallam 5 Lowell 2 Grote 3 Walter Bagehot 1 Poe 35 H. A. Beers 1 Edward Fitzgerald 1 Lonnsbury 2 Carlyle 1 Bret Harte 1 Genung advises the student not to say "experienced much difficulty"; but Charles Lamb says, "The particular kindness . . . which I have experienced from yon" and "a certain absence (of mind) which some of your friends may have experienced." Carlyle says, "I was even near experiencing the now obsolete sentiment of Friendship." Gibbon and Poe are very partial to the word. The word experience as a verb, though a little old-fashioned, has considerable vogue among recent writers of good standing not quoted in the tables. XLVI FEMALE AS A NOUN Professor A. S. Hill 1 said in 1902, "Female, as a synonym for woman, is no longer used by good writers except as an expression of contempt." (He cites Miss Fanny Burney and Scott as having used the word before it fell into disrepute.) For numerous eminent contemporaries of Hill who used the 1 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, 1902, p. 87. 100 STUDIES IN USAGE word instead of woman, see the Lists below made by both Lounsbury and the author of this volume. Richard Grant White 1 is probably the most vehement oppo- nent of the word female in the sense of "woman." He says, "one of the most unpleasant and inexcusable of the common perversions of language. It is not a Briticism, although it is much more in vogue among British writers and speakers than among our own." (This is probably true, though Motley, Holmes, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Price Collier are fond of the word.) White continues: "There is no lack of what is called authoritative usage during three centuries for this mis- use of female. But this is one of those perversions which are justified by no example, however eminent. . . . when a woman calls herself a female, she merely shares her sex with all her fellow-females throughout the brute creation." Quackenbos says,- "is universally condemned as 'one of the most unpleasant and inexcusable perversions of lan- guage.' Here Quackenbos quotes White approvingly. Her- rick and Damon 3 say, "good use now condemns it as a vul- garism." Genung says, 4 "not to be used for woman." Some of the dictionaries do not recognize it in the meaning of "woman ' ' but of the whole genus of sex provided with ovaries. The New English Dictionary says, "Now commonly avoided by good writers except with contemptuous implication." This authority quotes Wycliffe, Shakespeare, Steele, and Strutt, but no recent authors. The Pall Mai! Gazt He says, "Word of opprobrium. ' ' It might seem that the poor word has no friends at court. The Century, however, defines it as meaning woman, quoting Mandeville and Shakespeare but no modern authors, though the word ran riot in the nineteenth century. The Standard Dictionary says, "A person or animal of the female sex." 1 Words and Their Uses, pp. 170. ISO. 'Practical Rhetoric, 1S96, p. L>::4. a Neto Composition and RhetoHc, p. 250. * Outlines of Rhetoric, 1000. p. 315. FEMALE AS A NOUN 101 This is certainly faint praise. In 1908, however, Lounsbury 1 defended the word very ardently. In his latest book on lan- guage, he gives the following facts as to the use of female in the literature : Used by Wycliffe. Used by Shakespeare eleven times. Used occasionally by Fletcher and by Massinger. Used at least eight times by Richard Steele. Used frequently by Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett. Used by Charles Lamb quite frequently and applied to his sister. Used by Fanny Burney of the Princess Royal. Used by Scott twelve times in one book. Used by Bulwer very often; fourteen times in Rirnzi. Used by Dickens thirty-three times in Pickwick Papers. Used by Thackeray twenty-one times in Vanity Fair. Used by Irving, Disraeli, Hawthorne, George Eliot, and Trollope. Used by Charles Reade at least twenty-one times in one book. Used by Jane Austen speaking of herself. Used by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The writer has seen the word in the following : Seven Sages 1 Sterne 1 Shakespeare 5 Goldsmith 3 Pope 1 Gibbon 2 Matthew Prior 2 Lamb 9 Addison l. 337, 303, and The Standard of Usage in English, p. 61. * Adraneed English Grammar, p. 293, note 1. GOTTEN 111 Gotten is used by the following William Caxton 1 William Dunbar ] Malory 8 King James Bible ' 20 Hugh Latimer 11 Prayer Book 2 Francis Bacon 11 Ben Jonson 1 Shakespeare 5 Sir Thomas Browne 1 Bolls House MSS 1 Sackville 1 Marlowe 4 Spenser 2 Lyly 1 Fuller 3 Jeremy Taylor 1 Clarendon 2 Defoe 8 Swift 2 John Evelyn 1 Dr. Johnson 1 Fielding 4 Lamb 2 George Campbell 6 Scott 2 Christopher North 1 Poe 2 Hawthorne 1 Kingsloy 2 Thomas Hughes 3 Thomas Moore 1 Swinburne 4 Wendell Phillips 1 Richard Grant White 3 Morris 2 W. D. Whitney 7 H. W. Mabie 1 Thomas Nelson Page 4 Dean Church 1 Browning 1 Stevenson 3 Sidney Lanier 1 Dean Trench 6 Stopford Brooke 1 John Earle 3 John Burroughs 1 G. W. Cable 1 Sir Henry Taylor 1 In addition to the dictionaries and the eminent gram- marians quoted above as supporting gotten, we have cited over fifty "reputable authors" that have been using the form for five hundred years down to the present. How could it be called obsolescent ? Another thing in favor of gotten is euphony ; it is often less abrupt and less jerky in the sentence. For instance, take a passage from the Psalms - : "his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory" (King James version) ; "With his own right hand and with his holy arm hath he gotten 1 Cruden probably omitted fifty or more cases. 2 Ps. 98.1 in Bible; 98.2 in Prayer Book. 112 STUDIES IN USAGE himself the victory" (Prayer Book version). Change gotten to Virginia dialect." 1 Outlines «j Rhetoric, 1900, p. 316.. GFOlf SMALL 115 LIII GROW SMALL Genung, in an earlier edition ' of his school textbook, con- demned the phrase grow small, but, under the advice of friends and critics, withdrew his opposition. As Genung 's original position probably represented the feeling of others, and as his first edition no doubt influenced a good many people against the locution, it is worth discussing. The verb grow began, about a.d. 1440, to take on the mean- ing of "become," supplanting the old word wax, so familiar to Bible readers and to those who have sung the line, Till moons shall wax ami wane no more. "His eye waxed not dim", "he waxed rich," etc., used to be common in the language and literature. Wax became obso- lescent and grow took its place. As early as the period 1558- 1593, we find the phrase, "Money is growing due." (Tarl- ton's Jests.) The Century Dictionary recognizes grow in the meaning of "befiome." In polite circles we constantly hear such phrases as "grow rich", "grow fat", "growing thinner and thinner", "growing younger and younger", "growing beautifully less," etc. Tn the King James Bible, we find, "they doubted where- unto this would grow." In the Greek version this grow is represented by ytyvofiau (gignomai), which means "become "= Latin fieri. Beza's Latin text has evasurum esset = would become, turn out. The German Bible has werden wollte, where of course werden means "to become." By these pas- sages we wish to show that grow in the English Bible means "to become" (1611). 1 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1S93, p. 315. 116 STUDIES IN USAGE Grow small, grow thin, grow wise, etc., then, are analogical phrases, in which grow has given up its original meaning and has become a copulative verb meaning "'become." LIV HAD RATHER In the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, had rather was in great vogue in our literature. In 1755, however, Dr. Johnson in his dictionary attacked it furiously, calling it "a barbarism of late intrusion into our language." (But he used it once in Rasselas.) About twenty-five years later, Sheridan attacked it in his dictionary. Another very warm opponent was Bishop Lowth (died 1787), one of the earliest defenders of the purity of English speech. Of course the English and Americans of that period became prejudiced against had rather; whom could they trust in matters of English if not their lexicographers, Johnson and Sheridan, and their pioneer in verbal criticism, the great bishop of Lon- don? At this very time, George Campbell was a distinguished scholar and theologian in Scotland. In his Philosophy of Rhetoric, which was published in 1776 and has exerted an immense influence, he condemned had r, though Dr. Richard Morris did not have it in the original edition. Jespersen 3 puts have got (=have) among the phrases adopted by Shakespeare from the vernacular. So that we have three of the best European English scholars recognizing this locution and one of them using it himself in a book. . The writer may add that he has not seen this have got in Shakespeare, though he may use it. Besides being recognized by Bradley, Kellner, and Jesper- sen, have got is used by the following writers and speakers of repute : Goldsmith 1 D. G. Mitchell 3 Lamb 2 Ruskin 1 Thomas Hood 2 Holmes 2 Carlyle 1 Sir Henry Taylor ] Thackeray 3 L. Kellner 1 A. II. Clough 1 Dickens ] Gladstone 1 If names count, heive got should have some standing and not be branded as a vulgarism. Moreover, it is used too widely in polite society to be so treated. George Eliot uses it frequently in conversations, showing that she considered ' The italii s are mine. ^Historical Outlines of English Accidence, L903, p. 207. s Growth and Structure of the English Language, p. 223. HAVE GOT FOE HAVE 123 it good colloquial English, though she is not in the list of authors cited as using it in propria persona. Goldsmith uses it in conversations: "Can you lie three in a bed? No. Then 3*011 will never do for a school. Have you got a good stomach ? Yes. Then you will by no means do for a school." Thack- eray uses it in the Roundabout Papers, which are written in a semi-colloquial style. Lamb uses it in the conversational passages of his Origin of Roast Pig. Donald G. Mitchell, in his Reveries of a Bachelor and his Dream Life, says: "I have got a quiet farmhouse in the country," and "you know the other boy has got no father. Prominent philologists regard have got as worthy of expla- nation. A fine scholar suggested in his university lecture room that, as most people like the idea of possession, English added got to make this idea more vivid. Dr. C. P. G. Scott, in an address before the American Philological Association, recognized "I got it" (=1 have it) as a new verb phrase emerging in recent English. Those two scholars did not denounce have got as a vulgarism. Going back to the opening of the last paragraph. If most people like the idea of possession, and if have has been used so much as an auxiliary that the idea of possession has faded considerably, did got come in to reinforce the hav< f Pos- sibly this is ihe psychology of the phrase. It is worth noting that, in expressing obligation or neces- sity, e. g., "I've got to go," got seems to meet with less objec- tion than when expressing ownership. Dean Alford, who draws distinctions between dignified and free-and-easy discourse, 1 might say, "When delivering a serious discourse, I say have; but, when talking informally, I say have got." 1 The Queen's English, 1866, p. 49. 124 STUDIES IN USAGE LVI HEIGHTH (HIGHTH) FOE HEIGHT The writer has heard the form heighth so often in some of the old states that he watched it in the literature. Most of the dictionaries call it obsolete or provincial The New English Dictionary says, "The -th forms are still affected by some." Lowell says that it is often heard in New England ; the writer has often heard it from refined people of New York and Virginia. It would be a provincialism if it were not used in so many parts of America and could not be found in pretty recent literature. Every reader of Paradise Lost will recall several cases of highth in the first two books ; for instance, No wonder, fallen such a pernicious highth. Again, in Samson Agonistes: The secret wrested from me in her highth Of nuptial love professed. Yet towards these, thus dignified, thou oft Amidst their highth of noon, It is found in Bacon, Hakluyt, Thomas Warton, and Walter Savage Landor. The last-named author, in his Imaginary Conversations, says, "Midas in the highth of prosperity would have given his daughter to Lycaon," etc. The word should be marked "rare in the literature"; but "obsolete or provincial" is too drastic. TJ eighth is the original form; height, a corruption though now more usual. 1 AM MISTAKEN, ETC. 125 LVII I AM MISTAKEN, ETC. Two prominent rhetorical scholars r in their textbooks con- demn "If / am not mistaken" and all other forms of this locution, and say, "If I mistake not" should be used. These professors of rhetoric were continuing a fight which has been going on for a long time against these phrases. In 1864, Dean Alford - had to deal with predecessors of these two scholars. He said, in reply to them, that the phrases were "rooted in the language and had become idiomatic." He added that a man who insisted upon saying "If I mistake not" showed that he ■was "under the influence of the lesser grammarians" and was not influenced by "the usages of society." The Century rec- ognizes these locutions; also mistakt n as an adjective equiva- lent to "in error," quoting Shakespeare and Daniel Webster. Worcester, Webster, and the Standard are on the same side. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recognizes it, quoting Shake- speare. Henry Sweet 3 defends the locution, treating mistaken as a preterite passive participle used in an active sense. Nes- field 4 says that you were mistaken is according to idiom, while you mistook it is against idiom. The writer has found no recent opponents of the phrases besides the two already referred to. One of these concedes that yow are mistaken is eommen in Beaumont and Fletcher. These phrases are found in the following reputable authors: Shakespeare 5 1 Milton 2 Samuel Butler 1 Congreve 1 Cowley 1 Matthew Prior 1 1 Genung in Outlines of Rhetoric, edition of 1893, but he modified his state- ment in 1900. Quackenbos in his Practical Rhetoric, 189G, s:>ys "Not so elegant as 'If I mistake not.' " 2 The Queens English, 1S0G, pp. 103, 100. 3 New English Grammar, part II, p. 12.". *Engli!
  • Shakespeare shews several other cases. 120 STUDIES IN USAGE Fielding fi .7 mho Austen 1 Franklin 2 Thomas Jefferson '2 Richardson 1 Poe 13 Holmes 2 Bnlwer '■'< Huxley 1 Maeaulay 6 Dean Trench 1 W. D. Whitney 2 Edward Fitzgerald 1 Sir Henry Taylor 1 Henry Drummond 1 John Fiske 2 Stevenson 1 Saintsbury 2 From the foregoing paragraphs we see that / am mistaken has been standard English from the time of Beaumont and Fletcher to the present. The names of Whitney and Trench should carry weight with those who care for the custodians of purity ; the other names will influence those who value the usage of well-known authors not specialists in language. As to the adjectival use of mistaken, as meaning : 'in error," the writer has the following statistics: Shakespeare 2 Pope 1 Baxter 2 Prior 1 Swift 1 Dr. Johnson 2 Lamb 1 De Quincey 1 Hallam 1 G. W. Cable 1 Sidney Lanier 1 Lowell 1 Polite usage would seem to be almost universally in favor of he was mistaken, etc., and mistaken man, etc. Again we see some of the writers on usage fighting an idiom established in polite society and in literature. Oliphant 1 says that you are mistaken was coming in about 1660 instead of you mistook. He finds it in Wycherley. Our table tallies with this statement. But see the quotations from Quaekenbos above. On the negative, then, we have two rhetorical scholars; on the affirmative, ten authorities in usage and twenty- four makers of usage, besides "the usage of society." The reader can draw his own conclusions. 1 The Neic English, II, 10" 1 PRESUME = I DALE SAY, BELIEVE, ETC. V2i The following sentences will show how these locutions are used by some of the great authors. Milton in his Areopagitica says, "they may be mistaken in the choice of a licenser as easily as this licenser may be mistaken in an author." Whit- ney in Languagi and the Study of Languagi says, "These considerations, if I am not mistaken, will be found," etc. Again: "those are greatly mistaken who imagine that the beginnings of speech," etc. Prior uses the adjective: But you ami I in Homer read Of gods, as well as men, mistaken. Prior has two poems entitled Cupid Mistaken and Venus Mistaken. Huxley says, "He may have been mistaken." Stevenson says, "I had my own reasons for thinking that the stranger was mistaken." LVIII I PRESUME = I DARE SAY, BELIEVE, ETC. Presume in the meaning of dare say is condemned mildly in Genung's school rhetoric. Genung 1 will not permit us to say, "I presume you have heard so and so"; we must put it, "I presume to say you have heard so and so." Does anybody ever use that language? The Century Dictionary recognizes the phrase, quoting Shakespeare, Sheridan, and two minor authors. Webster recognizes it, quoting Milton and Sir William Blackstone. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recognizes it, quoting Black- stone. The Standard and Worcester recognize it. The New English Dictionary recognizes it, with quotations from Wil- liam Robertson and Sir John Lubbock. The writer has seen this phrase in Shakespeare, Chesterfield, Hallam, Byron, and Bulwer. Sheridan as quoted by the Cen- 1 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. ::l'.". 128 STUDIES JX J' SAGE tury, says in The Rivals, "Yes, sir, I presume you would not wish me to quit the army ? ' ' Byron says, ' ' Did Mr. Bowles ever gaze upon the sea? I presume he has at least upon a sea- piece." Who Mould change to "I presume to say," etc.? Here Ave have five authorities and ten reputable authors on one side and one reputable professor of rhetoric on the other. / presume is widely used in polite society. LIX I TAKE IT = I UNDERSTAND, SUPPOSE George Campbell in his Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776), regards / take it as only a little better than some "vile but common phrases" he is discussing. Dean Alford x defends it, and says that the expulsion of this phrase would be a loss to the language. The Century Dic- tionary recognizes it, and quotes a passage from Sheridan. Nesfield 2 says, "This is a common phrase for 'in my opinion.' Oliphant 3 says it was coming in about 1470 ; he also quotes a passage from Fanny Burney, about 1782. Webster and Worcester recognize it. The New English Dictionary recog- nizes it, quoting Shakespeare, the Toiler, and Tennyson. While the phrase is not very common in the literature, it is found in the following writers: Wycliffe 1 Dean Alford 1 Marlowe 1 Poe 1 Shakespeare 3 Carlyle 1 Massinger 3 H. N. Hudson 3 Congreve 2 Browning 3 Swift 1 Fitzedward Hall 1 Dryden 1 Thackeray 1 Lamb 7 Earl of Derby 1 1 The Queen's Enr/Uah, lSfifi, pp. 230. 231. * English Grammar Past and Present, p. 203. s Th> \,i, English. T. 322: TT, 100. IMMENSE AND IMMENSELY 129 Matthew Arnold 1 Saintsbury 2 Henry Drummond 1 George Herbert Palmer 1 Lowell 1 Dr. Henry van Dyke 1 Holmes 1 Price Collier 2 Huxley 2 Stevenson 1 Tennyson 1 Ernest' Rhys 1 Stedman 1 The phrase has high authority and good platform usage in its favor. It occurs several times in the writings of Otto Jespersen, which proves that he has learned it as good English. Dean Swift {Conversation) says, "By these means the poets, for many years past, were all overrun with pedantry. For, as / take it, the word is not properly used, ' ' etc. Tennyson in Edwin Morris makes the curate say, I tale it, God made the woman for the man. Stedman, the poet and critic, says, "Subjective work is judged to be inferior, / take it, from its morbid examples." (Nature and Elements of Poetry.) Carlyle (Heroes) says, "For, as / take it, Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is," etc. Dr. Henry van Dyke in his Poetry of Tennyson says, "The art of landscape-poetry, 1 take it, consists in this, ' ' etc. Browning says, But she and her son agreed, I take it, That, etc. LX IMMENSE AND IMMENSELY Is it slangy to say, "I like that immensely" f Greenough and Kittredge 1 discuss the adjective immense as a slang word ; no doubt it is slangy in many cases. When, however, we find it in James Part on 's Life of Burr, "This young gentleman . . . had an immense opinion of Burr's tal- 1 Words and Their Ways i>i English Speech, p. 313. 130 STUDIES IN USAGE ents, " shall we call it slangy? Dr. Henry van Dyke in a baccalaureate sermon at Harvard in 1898 said, "Now, ... it was an immense compliment for the disciples to be spoken to in this way" (by Christ). Charles Lamb, writing to Coleridge about a book, says, "I like it immensely." Of course he was using it in an easy, epistolary style, but slang is slang. The Century Dictionary defines immensely as "exceedingly," but gives no example from the literature. Fielding, Chesterfield, Macaulay, and George Eliot use the two forms. Of course "immense building", "immense fortune," etc., are used continually; but "immense compliment", "immense opinion," etc., are much rarer in literature. However, it is very common for a word to pass from the physical to the psychical sense ; and this word is simply moving in accord- ance with this principle. Morton Luce, a distinguished critic of England, says, "We admired Sims Reeves immensely , but we hoped never to hear him sing that song again." This is exactly like Lamb's use of the adverb. Fielding, speaking of Jonathan Wild, says, "His avarice was immense," LXI IMPLICIT CONFIDENCE Genung 1 condemns the phrase implicit confidence. "Im- plicit, ' ' he says, ' ' not to be used in the sense of ' unlimited. ' . . . Implicit is properly opposed to explicit, — literally, infolded in contrast to unfolded. ' ' Here is ' ' the evil spirit of derivation, ' ' not permitting a word to cut loose from its etymology and extend its meaning. The Century Dictionary recognizes implicit in the sense of unquestioning and quotes implicit faith from Dr. John Brown. 3 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1000, p. 317. IMPLICIT CONFIDENCE 131 Worcester, the Standard, and Webster all recognize it, the last named giving the phrases implicit confidence and implicit obedience, and quoting implicit faith from John Donne. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recognizes it, and quotes implicit believing from Bishop Burnet. The Oxford Dictionary recog- nizes it, with quotations from the literature. The writer has seen implicit faith in Butler, Gibbon, Lamb, Hallam, and Poe ; implicit confidence in Jane Austen, Sir John Lubbock, and Professor Lonnsbnry; implicit reliance in Poe and Dickens; implicitly credited in Huxley; trusted implicitly in the writings of Fitzedward Hall and Cunningham Geikie; implicit obedience in Hallam; implicit belief in Lamb. In polite colloquial English and in public discourse, the phrases cited above would seem to be almost universal. Coleridge, in speaking of Shakespeare, says, "himself a nature humanized, a genial understanding devoting self- consciously a power and an implicit wisdom deeper even than our consciousness.'' This use of implicit is much rarer than the one under discussion. Implicit faith and implicit confidence are standard phrases in the language and literature and refuse to be driven out. Genung, then, seems unwarranted in his criticism of implicit confidence and other locutions involving the same meaning of the adjective ; they are found in the best books and are used by the best speakers. Samuel Butler in Hudibras says. "Whate'er the crabbed 'st author hath He understood by implicit faith. Dr. C. Geikie, a prominent religious writer, says, "They . . . trusted implicitly that He who selected their nation to be His peculiar people would protect them and their country," etc. Dickens (Pickwick Papers) says, "he placed implicit reliance on the high-minded Job." Lounsbury says, "the generaliza- tions contained in grammars in the shape of rules can fre- 132 STUDIES IN USAGE quently not be received with implicit confidi net . because thoy have been based upon insufficient data." The distinction between implicit and explicit laid down by the textbook ({noted at the beginning of this section is per- fectly valid; but implicit has another meaning in the phrases implicit confidence, etc. A good illustration of the antithesis referred to above is seen in a sentence from Adam Bede: "Behind this explicit resolution there lay an implicit one." LXII I*T OUR (THEIR, YOUR) MIDST Quaekenbos 1 puts in our midst among his "everyday mis- usages" and says, "In our midst for in the midst of us is severely criticized on the ground that one cannot possess a midst, the English possessive, in its modern use, being almost exclusively limited to the notion of property (usage approves a week's pay). Old English writers used 'in the midst.' (As to the statement about the possessive in modern English, see pp. 202 ff., below.) Genung 2 says, "It is better style to use the o/-construction rather than the possessive, as, in the midst of us, of them." A. S. Hill 3 says, "In our midst ... is avoided by so many careful writers, and condemned by so many critics, that it may never fight its way into the accepted language." Webster says, "Avoided by some good writers." One of the earliest modern champions of this locution was Fitzedward Hall, 4 already referred to in this volume as the friend of the friendless. His defense of in their midst, etc., is approvingly quoted by the Century Dictionary, winch adds, "These phrases have been objected to by some writers on » Practical Rhetoric, edition of 1806, p. 236. 2 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. 317. 3 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, 1902, p. 50. 4 Modern English, pp. 4S-51. IN OUR (THEIR, TOUR) MIDST 133 English, but with no good reason. ' ' Dr. Hall traces the phrase back to the fourteenth century. He finds an equivalent phrase of the same formation in a Wycliffite paper, written, he says, either by Wycliffe or by one of his contemporaries. This is the same phrase cited by T. L. K. Oliphant and referred to in a later paragraph of this section. This passage Hall uses to establish the antiquity of the phrase. He then argues that the phrase is perfectly analogical, and advises that any one who cannot bring himself to use it should "pass by on the other side and leave it to itself." (Dr. Hall's book is almost inac- cessible, but his defense of in our (their) midst is quoted in the Century Dictionary under the word midst.) The New English Dictionary recognizes it, with quotations from James Montgomery, James Martineau, and James Bryce, and adds: ''Scarcely found before the 19th century; the solitary example from the 16th century does not prove that it was current." The New English Dictionary failed to notice that the phrase was current in Anglo-Saxon and simply re-emerged in later periods of the language. (See infra.) The Encyclopedic Dic- tionary recognizes the locution but quotes no authors. The group of words under discussion goes back to the Anglo- Saxon ; it is used several times in the Anglo-Saxon gospels, and might be represented in modern English by in their middle (A.S. middel). This later became middest or midst. In the Middle English literature, we find in her (=their) middes and on heora middele, where middes and middele = modern midst, and on- modern in. This proves that the group under discussion is not a neologism but a very old locution. Again: the word midst has for hundreds of years been used as a noun in such phrases as "in the midst of us", "in the midst oi the doctors," etc. A very- natural step is to the phrases "in our midst," etc. The Century Dictionary quotes "In their midst a form was seen" from James Montgomery. The writer has seen the locu- tion once each in Trench, Huxley, and Geikie ; no doubt the 134 STUDIES IN USAGE vehement attacks made upon the phrase "before the days of Fitzedward Hall, the New English Dictionary, and the Cen- tury terrified the authors so much that they were afraid to use it. From what has been said in the foregoing paragraphs, we see that the locution under discussion has several things in its favor: (1) A continuous history in the language from the Anglo-Saxon on hyra midlcne, through middle English on her middes, to modern in their midst. (2) Analogy, as shown by Fitzedward Hall. (3) Brevity and convenience, a potent fac- tor in language development. (4) The fact that midst has been used as a noun for hundreds of years in the literature. (5) Polite usage in conversation and in public speaking. Richard Grant White could not well object to this locution, as it has in its favor precedent, analogy, and reason, his three parents of usage. If numbers alone count, we have not a strong case for the phrase under discussion. If quality is considered, however, the case is pretty strong, as Trench, Fitzedward Hall, the Cen- tury, and the Oxford dictionaries together will carry weight with students of language. LXIII INDIVIDUAL FOR MAN, ETC. Of individual for man, or person, Quaekenbos ' said in 1896, "sometimes loosely substituted for man, woman, person." Genung- in 1900 said, "not to be used in the mere sense of 'person.' When used it should always convey some thought of a single person or thing as opposed to many." The Century calls it "colloquial." Oliphant, 3 speaking of the adjectival 1 Practical Rhetoric, p. 241. 2 Outlines of Rhetoric, p. 318. 8 The New English, I, 470 ; II, 178. INDIVIDUAL FOE MAN, ETC. 135 use of this word in Foote (1750), says, "This individual was to be worked hard in the next century." (And it was worked hard in the nineteenth century by the best authors and in polite society.) The New English Dictionary says, "Now chiefly as a colloquial vulgarism, or as a term of disparage- ment." It quotes passages from Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, Scott, and Dr. Kane. The writer has recorded the following cases in his course of reading : Sir Thomas Browne 1 Smollett 2 Boswell 2 Dr. Johnson 4 Lamb 2 Coleridge 23 De Quincey 3 Jeffrey 2 Audubon 1 Scott 3 Irving 1 Beaconsfield 2 Cooper 26 Holmesi Matthew Arnold . Thackeray Carlyle H. T. Tuckerman. Dean Stanley . . . 1 1 7 12 . 1 , 1 John Hay 1 Leon Kellner 1 London Standard 1 Hawthorne 15 Merivale 1 Emerson 4 Sir William Hamilton... 13 Bulwer 10 Dickens 18 Poe 35 Motley 10 Daniel Webster 2 Hallam 4 Macaulay 1 Minto 8 Alexander Bain 3 Price Collier 1 Kittredge and Greenough 1 Sir Henry Taylor. '. 2 After reading this list, how can we think that the word is obsolescent? How can the Century Dictionary call it collo- quial? How can the New English Dictionary call it a col- loquial vulgarism ? We can of course say that the word is less popular with authors than it was fifty years ago. We may admit that at present it is rather old-fashioned. When, however, we see it used by writers on style like Minto and Bain, by scholars like Kittredge and Kellner, by cultivated men like Dean Stanley, 136 STUDIES IN USAGE John Hay, Price Collier, A. C. Benson, and five Yale professors of English, 1 we should be careful how we condemn it. The table given above will show that the word was very popular with Coleridge, Hawthorne, Cooper, Dickens, Bulwer, Motley, and other distinguished writers of the nineteenth cen- tury. Emerson, quite recently, said, "He named certain indi- viduals, especially one man of letters, his friend, the best mind he- knew, whom London had well served." Matthew Arnold says, "Acquirements take all their value and character from the power of the individual storing them." Minto, one of the best recent writers on style, uses the word quite frequently in his volumes. Bain, the eminent grammarian, says, "This rela- tive clause simply adds in a convenient form further informa- tion concerning an individual already definitely pointed out." Man and person are more used in present-day English. LXIV -ING- FOEMS WITH AND WITHOUT 'S Which is better, "Have you heard of Smith, or Smith's, killing his uncle"? "Have you heard of my barn, or barn's, falling down"? In 1776 George Campbell defended the possessive form against Bishop Lowth, the critic and grammarian. Lowth did * not like the form in '.s, although it was used by Blair, Boswell, Johnson, and other writers and scholars of his day. Goold Brown, about the middle of the nineteenth century, attacked the possessive form. In 1857, Professor J. W. Gibbs, 2 of Yale, said, "There is a strong tendency in popular language to employ the substantive participial in -ing even with a genitive noun or pronoun." Then he gives two sentences. "But," he 1 Canby and others in their English Composition in Theory and Practice. 2 Philological Studies, p. 101 (4). -ING FOBMS, WITH AND WITHOUT 'S 137 continues, "all these examples are disapproved by Mr. Goold Brown, the grammarian, who has examined them with great thoroughness and ability. ... It is doubtful, however, whether any authority can stem the current of this usage. ' ' Here are the grammarians finding fault with the language. At this very moment the -ing form with 's was vigorous in the writings of Dickens and George Eliot, makers of English at that time, besides Boswell, Johnson, Jane Austen, and others of earlier periods. Dr. E. A. Abbott, in How to Parse, 1 calls killing a participle and says that the objective is "sometimes incorrectly used." (As to the "sometimes," see the subjoined lists; as to the cor- rectness, the author will quote authorities and standard writers.) Dr. Abbott is more tolerant of the passive form; e.g., "Have you heard of Smith being killed.''' Baskervill and Sewt-11 2 say that both forms are equally correct ; that the form without 's is the older; that both are found in the literature. They treat killing in both cases as the gerund. Sweet calls the objective form a "half-gerund," though a participle in form, lie says that the objective case is preferred before names that do not denote animate objects; i.e., "Have you heard of the game being postponed/" rather than "Have you heard of Smith postponing the game?" Krapp 4 defends both forms, but draws some fine distinctions. He agrees in the main witli Sweet's view. Carpenter says, "the noun or pronoun must be in the possessive, not the objective. The objective is, however, sometimes found now in literary English in such expressions, and it was still more common in the English of several generations ago." (As to whether the noun must be in the possessive case, see the long list of authors that use the objective. The adverb "sometimes" 1 Pp. 234, 235. 2 English Grammar, pp. 285, 286. 3 Xcir English Grammar, part II. p. 121. 4 Modern English, pp. 301-304. 5 Principles of English Grammar, p. 144, note. 138 STUDIES IN USAGE should be changed to "frequently.") Jespersen x makes the same statement. He says, "The subject of the -ing ... is for the most part put in the genitive case — nearly always when it is a personal pronoun, and generally when it indi- cates a person"; yet Jespersen himself uses the objective frequently in his books. Nesfield - says, "A noun or pronoun, provided it denotes a person or other animal, is usually in the possessive case, when it is placed before a gerund." He treats the -ing form as a participle used gerundively and calls it a Gerundive Participle. Refiner 3 says the objective form is older, and that it has for the last decades been gaining ground in a surprising manner. He regards the -ing form as originally a participle, but now a verbal noun. Kittredge and Farley 4 say, "The possessive case of a noun or pronoun may be used to limit a verbal noun in -ing." Then they add that we must say, "I have heard of Allen's being elected," not Allen. The following tables will show the relative strength of genitive + -ing and objective + -ing in a wide course of read- ing. Pronouns are not included, as they are nearly always genitive in reputable authors. 1. OBJECTIVE (WITHOUT 'S) Rolls of Parliament, 1435-1437 . 1 Scott 4 Sir Thomas More 1 Irving 4 Defoe 9 Keats 1 Pope 1 Hazlitt 1 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ... 1 Lamb 10 Dr. H. Blair 3 Coleridge 5 Boswell 14 De Quincey 6 Dr. Johnson 2 Mrs. Gaskell 5 Franklin 1 Kingsley 2 Byron 1 Jane Austen 3 1 (i i > 4 De Quincey 1 Dryden 2 Holmes 3 1 The Queen's English, 1866, pp. 85, 86. *The New English, I, 314, 322; II, 198. 3 Higher English Grammar, p. 147. 4 The concordance shows other examples. B The concordance gives a number of other passages. LESSEE U9 Cooper 2 H. W. Mabie 3 Matthew Arnold 2 Stopford Brooke 1 Longfellow 1 Whitney 2 Froudo 1 Saintsbury 3 Bulwer 2 O. F. Emerson 1 Poe 1 Kipling 2 Hawthorne 1 Edwin Arnold 1 Hallam 3 E. C. Stedman 1 These citations prove that the word has been in good lit- erary use in England and in America for nearly four centuries. The sentence, "Of two evils, choose the lesser,'' is familiar to every reader. The Bible phrase, ''the lesser light," is equally familiar and no doubt has influenced many Avriters. The word seems to be growing in favor among men of cul- ture on both sides of the water. In the list above are found ten or twelve of the most elegant authors of the nineteenth century. What is the objection to lesser? Probably the idea that it is a double comparative and that double comparatives are not in keeping with the "genius'' of modern English. The last statement is true; but what of the first? Is lesser really a double comparative in anything but its etymology? Is less a comparative to any one but a scholar? Do we say "a less star''' or "a smaller star''? Could we say "the less light" or must we choose between "the lesser light" and "the smaller light"? Lesser is a fossilized double comparative. Why an English adjective cannot have two forms for the comparative we cannot imagine : any student of languages will recall adjectives with two or more forms in the comparative and superlative degrees. Lesser has made a special place for itself in the language. For instance, the phrases "Lesser Asia", "Lesser Armenia,*' the lesser grammarians," etc., are well established, lesser being equivalent to minor. We may say that lesser is the required form before the noun in certain phrases without the article and in other phrases with the article. 150 STUDIES IN USAGE Less is shorn of much of its work by both lesser and small. We do not say, "He is less than his brother" but "smaller than his brother." An old Bible term, "James the Less," still fossilizes the word in its original meaning as the com- parative of little. De Qnineey says, "the lesser star could not rise, before the greater should submit 1o eclipse." Matthew Arnold says, "all I want now to point out is that they have this, and that we have it in a much lesser degree." Tennyson says, "Woman is the lesser man." Longfellow says, Ah ! with what subtle meaning did the Greek Call thee the lesser mystery at the feast Whereof the greater mystery is death! Whitney says, "And no sooner does Galileo discover for us the lesser orbs which circle about Jupiter and others of our sister planets, than," etc. Foremost has been cited in another section (see p. 74) as a double superlative. LXX LOAN AS A VERB The Century Dictionary calls loan (=lend) "objection- able." Richard Grant White, 1 A. S. Hill, 2 Genung, 3 and Quackenbos 4 all join in condemning it. Worcester says, "Modern, and chiefly American." The Encyclopedic Diction- ary marks it as unusual. The Standard' Dictionary marks it "U. S." The New English Dictionary says, "Now chiefly U. S." All this looks ominous for the word, though the last- named dictionary quotes Calhoun and some minor authors. 1 Words and Their Uses, pp. 137, 13S. 5 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, p. 234. ■Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. ::io. 1 Praotical Rhetoric, 1896, p. -'::'■'. LOAN AS A TEBB 151 Webster's International recognizes it, citing Chancellor Kent and an obscure author of the seventeenth century. The most ardent and most prominent defender of the word is Lounsbury, 1 the doughty champion of many words oppressed and abused by the pedants and purists. As Lounsbury 's The Standard of Usage in English may not be accessible to all of our readers, it may be well to epitomize Ins treatment of loan as a verb: Loan is a Scandinavian word, which as a noun supplanted the corresponding Anglo-Saxon word. In an act of parliament of 1542-43 it is used as a verb. After occasional use in England, it was transplanted to America : "though not American in origin, it is American by adoption.' ' Joel Barlow used it in 1778. For some reason, says Louns- bury, it has been made the subject of hostile criticism, although it has antiquity, precedent, and analogy in its favor. Those who are willing to follow one great leader can use loan with Professor Lounsbury 's unqualified approval: the overwhelming sentiment of scholars is against it, though a noun can become a verb at any moment. The writer has seen the word only three times — once in H. W. Mabie's and once in Professor F. E. Schelling's bocks, both American writers, men of superior culture ; and once in Rudyard Kipling's serious verse. The weight of numbers is certainly against loan; but Louns- bury 's name is a tower of strength, and the other authorities are of high order, though few in number. Popular usage in America is very strong in favor of loan but the writers do not use it. Indeed the use of loan as a verb has no raison d'etre whatever at present: it has made no attempt to establish any special territory for itself and is a useless synonym of lend. The bankers might make it a tech- nical term ; among real estate dealers it has considerable vogue. iT/m Standard of Usagt in English, pp. 203-205. 152 STUDIES IN USAGE LXXI MATHEMATICS— SINGULAR OR PLURAL? The question raised in the title to this section might seem to have but one possible answer; yet it is only a short time since mathematics was used as a plural by eminent authors, scholars, and literati. A. S. Hill 1 says, "more frequently singular/' Genung- recognizes both numbers. Most of the dictionaries, if they say anything in regard to the matter, give the singular. The plural, however, occurs occasionally in the writings of Bishop Berkeley and of De Quincey ; at least twenty-two times in the essays of Sir William Hamilton (died 1856) ; occasionally in Poe, Ruskin, Christopher North, Browning, Matthew Arnold and John Stuart Mill — all comparatively re- cent. The fact that Hamilton used it so often is good proof that it was in vogue in academic circles in Great Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century. A prominent English scholar, writing in America in 1868, uses the plural. This fact, coupled with its use by Poe, would prove that the plural had some vogue in America in the generations just back of us. Poe in the Purloined Letter says, ''The mathematics are the science of form and quantity." De Quincey says, "Mathe- matics, it is well known, are extensively cultivated in the north of England." Sir William Hamilton says, "mathematics are of primary importance as a logical exercise of reason." The singular seems to be universal in America at present. 1 Beginnings of Rhetoric a>i p. 320. ME AS A QUAS1-X0MIXATIVE 153 LXXII ME AS A QUASI-NOMINATIVE To the "lesser grammarians" the heading of this section will bring a shudder. The purist will close this book in scorn and derision. None the less, the writer will give a fair and impartial account of me in its use as a nominative case of the pronoun. T. L. K. Oliphant l in his well-known volumes shows that me as a nominative runs through English literature for centuries. It occurs both in the predicative position, that is, after the verb, and also alone in reply to a question; e.g., "Who said that?" "Me." It is especially common in the drama. As me (=as I) occurs in Scott, Shakespeare, Steele, and Charles Kingsley. In order to account for the me, some gram- marians have construed as as a preposition. This is utterly unsatisfactory, for it is easier to construe me as a fossilized nominative than to parse as as a preposition. Than me (=than I) is as common as as me. It is found in Shakespeare, Swift, Prior, Pope, Southey, and A. H. Clough. Nesfield, 2 one of our best living grammarians, parses than in these locutions as a preposition with the objective. Dean Alford 3 treated it in the same way fifty years ago. The writer, however, had rather take me as a quasi-nominative. No one would dare to say that the English language has ever permitted the use of me at the head of the sentence; e.g., "Me told you." But. in an isolated position, as "Who told you that?'' answer. "Me,-" it has been running in the liter- ature and in polite society for several centuries. Again : after the verb, e.g., it was me, that's me, cited by Oliphant. 4 1 The New English, II. 107, 159. 2 English Grammar Past ami Present, p. !'4. 3 Tin Queen's English, 1866, p. 160. 4 The New English, II, pp. 107, 159. 154 STUDIES IN USAGE This brings us to the much-disputed, never-to-be-settled, it is me. Those who have no respect for authority or recognize no authority in language, might as well skip over the* rest of this section. If there is no tribunal of appeal; if every man is to have his own opinion and not be influenced by the usage of polite society and of great authors, and by the opinion of the learned, then no disputed points can ever be settled. In law, politics, religion, we accept the mandates of a higher court; then why not do so in language? Now, the purists and pedants cannot conceive how it is me can ever he right ; they will not listen to argument. The great scholars, however, can conceive of me as a quasi-nomina- tive after the verb. We find the phrase it is me stoutly defended by Earle, 1 Lounsbury, 2 Latham, 3 Alford, 4 Kellner, 5 A. J. Ellis, Jespersen, 7 Sweet, s and other scholars of inter- national fame, not to supplant it is I in dignified or solemn discourse but as permissible in colloquial English. Latham recognized it as a "secondary nominative." Alford said that everybody used it in England in his day; Henry Sweet says the same thing. Professor John Earle not only corroborated the statement of these two scholars but treated if is I as "an intruder." Leon Kellner, the Austrian scholar, in his history of English syntax, returns several times to it is me, explaining its origin. Lounsbury says that it is used by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Greene, Lodge, Fletcher, and Addison. (Who will not accept the usage of Addison, the famous author of the Spectator?) A. J. Ellis, one of the most profound students of the language, said in 1864 that it is me is good English, and it is J, a mistaken purism. ^Philology of the English Tongue, edition of 1*S7. mi. 539, ."40. - History of the English Language, pp. 165, HT.".. s History of tin English Language, p. 586. 4 Th< Queen's English, 1866, pp. ir>4ff. 5 Historical Outlines of English Syntax, pp. 42, 135. "Note F, The Queens English, edition of 1866. 7 Progress in Language, SS 184, 104. s sjiurt Historical English Grammar, p. 105. ME AS A QUASI-NOMINATIVE 155 Richard Grant White, the most austere of all our verbalists, said that it is me is not entirely vulgar. George P. Marsh, a pioneer in English studies in America, said that it was heard very frequently among educated people in England but not in America. Dean Alford, in writing to a number of scholars, had to decide between it will be I and it will be me, and used the latter. More recently, T. L. K. Oliphant spoke of ''our common it's me," though he did not approve of it. The American scholar 0. F. Emerson 1 says, "found in America, and may be justified in opposition to the schools." Jespersen, the distinguished Dane, defends it is me very strenuously. In his Progress in Languagi (1894) he says, "The eminent author of Early English Pronuncia- tion (Ellis) is no doubt right in defending it's me as the natural' form against the blames of quasi-grammarians. . . . It is me is certainly more natural than it is I." Jespersen says that "grammar schools and school grammars" have interfered with the spread of this phrase. It is me has been treated as a barbarism in so many school- books that it would be impossible to state the case for the prosecution. A few textbooks may be mentioned on account of their long popularity. Quackenbos - says, "as unphilo- logical as it is vulgar. . . . Those who condone it is me must, if consistent, tolerate it is us, these are them, the step- ping-stone to them's them." A. S. Hill 3 classes it as an error but says that it is used in England by many educated persons. Nesfield, 4 one of the leading recent grammarians of England, advises against the use of it is me. If human testimony can send a man to the gallows, it might certainly establish the fact that, in 1859, 1864, 1867, and 1910, it is me was used by the educated classes of England. Some educated Americans, also, can testify that it slips very 1 History of the English Language, p. 324. -Practical Rhetoric, edition of l. c 9G, p. 236. 3 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, p. 100 and note. 4 English Grammar, Past and Present, p. 204. 156 STUDIES IN USAGE naturally ont of thoir mouths in spite of Marsh's statement that no educated American would use it. As to the origin of it's me, scholars are not unanimous. Latham, one of the earlier English scholars, compared it with the French e'est moi. More recent scholars — Earle, Lounshury, and others — think that the French phrase may have influenced the English. Jespersen, however, believes that / tends to become me after the verb; the pronoun gets into the place usually occupied by the object and so takes the objective form. He cites the Danish det er mig as anal- ogous to the English it is me. "We have it on good authority, also, that it is me is almost universal in Norwegian literature, while it is I is just coming in. A pretty safe theory, then, would be that the English it is me is a blending of the Teutonic and French post-verbal pronoun forms. As to the time when it's me came into the language, we cannot be certain. Kellner says, "I do not find any instance of this now widely spread use before the eighteenth century ' ' ; but Oliphant 1 cites a case of it was me from "Wycherley (about 1660). The following passages 2 will show how this quasi-nomina- tive me has been used by some of the standard authors. Wycherley says, "Tt was me you followed." Shelley, in his Ode to the West Wind, addresses the wind : Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me. impetuous one! Rossetti in Stratton Water says: Tii God 's name, Janet, is it me Thy ghost has come to seek .' Steele in the Spectator (132) says: "do not think such a man as thyself terrible for thy garb, nor such a one as me i The New English, II, p. 107. -Fur further examples, see •'. Alphonso Smith's Studies in English Syntax. Smith cites eight passages from Shakespeare, one each from Goldsmith, Gray, J. M. Barrle, Browning, Whittier, Emerson, Stcvonson. and Kipling. MEMORANDUMS 157 contemptible for mine." Kingsley makes Hereward say, "We have failed, just because there were a dozen men in England as good as me, every man wanting his own way."' Ralph Waldo Emerson says. "I am my brother and my brother is me." Alice Gary in a poem writes: Once when we lingered, sorrow-proof, My gentle love and m< . Stevenson in Treasure Island says, "But Silver, from the other boat, looked sharply over and called out to know if that were me." Jespersen, in his explanation of this me, cites numerous passages from the literature. (See note 7, p. 154, above.) It may he added that it is her, it is him, and other like phrases have little standing with scholars and little authority in standard literature. LXXIII MECHANICS Mechanics is so overwhelmingly singular in its grammar that the author saw only one plural, which was in one of Chris- topher North's essavs. LXXIV MEMORANDUMS About fifty years ago, Richard Grant White made a strong plea for the s-plural of m> morandum instead of the Latin form. White used it himself in his books ; he also cited the word from Shakespeare. 1 Webster recognizes the word, quoting Sir Joshua Reynolds. The Century recognizes it as 1 T'scil by tin 1 Prince in 1 Henry IV, Til, iii. 158 STUDIES IN USAGE the loss frequent plural, and quotes Beaumont. Carpenter 1 recommends the form memorandums, though he, of course, recognizes the Latin plural in -a. He expresses the hope that the familiar words like memorandum, bandit, and formula will soon he pluralized by adding s, instead of keeping their foreign plurals — "a consummation devoutly to be wished," we add heartily. Meiklejohn treats memorandums 2 as "fully natur- alized" and gives only the s-plural. Bain, 3 another Scotch grammarian, takes the same position. This would indicate that Carpenter's wish is being fulfilled on the other side of the water. Kittredge and Farley 4 recognize it. The writer has seen the form memorandums in the Letters of the Time of James I ; several times in Defoe's History of the Plague; twice in Boswell ; once in Goldsmith. While a large number of educated people take special pams to say m< moranda, they might, in view of the facts in the case, save themselves the trouble. The merchants are using the s-form in thousands of notebooks given to their customers ; this is popularizing the form. A helping hand from the teacher's desk, the pulpit, and the editorial sanctum could soon sweep the word into universal popularity. In the same way, "cri- terions", "beaus", "radiuses", "phenomenons, " and other English plurals would soon spread through the language. Genung gave "criterions" a start in one of his college text- books. Only a small number of the foreign words in Eng- lish would long resist this movement. Our pupils need relief; foreign plurals are a weariness to the spirit. If a freshman uses "dietums" instead of "dicta." shall we criticize him severely ? He should rather be commended for following his language instinct. Defoe (Plague) says, "my memorandums of these things," etc. Boswell in his Johnson says, "among his resolutions or 1 principles of English Grammar, p. 50. - The English Language, p. IS. 3 Higher English Grammar, p. 12S. * Advanced English Grammar, p. "7. MIGHTY AS AN ADVERB 159 memorandums . . . there is"* etc. Again, in a letter to John- son he says, "I like your little memorandums," etc. His writ- ing thus to the great Cham would lead us to infer that the Doctor himself did not object to the English plural. LXXV METAPHYSICS— SINGULAR OR PLURAL? Metaphysics is not plural as often as mathematics. Sir Wil- liam Hamilton, who used the latter frequently as a plural, treated the former regularly as a singular. Coleridge, how- ever, used metaphysics as a plural at least three times in his essays, and the writer has seen it once in Macaulay. In his essay on Robert Montgomery. Macaulay says, "Mr. Robert Montgomery's metaphysics are not at present our game." This was in 1830. and is the most recent case recorded by the author of this volume. Coleridge about fifteen years earlier said. "Aye, here now! (exclaimed the critic) here come Coleridge's metaphysics." . . . "Poor unlucky Metaphysicks ! and what are they?" No doubt Macanlay had heard the plural in academic circles while he was at college. o v LXXVI MIGHTY AS AX ADVERB Phrases like "I am mighty glad to see you," as used in some parts of America, often strike strangers as peculiar; but, like many other colloquial words in the New World, mighty as an adverb was brought over by the early settlers at a time when it was reputable London English. Webster says, "Colloquial." but quotes Jeffrey and Dod- dridge. The Century says, "Colloquial," but quotes Prior and Sheridan. The Encyclopedic Dictionary says, "Collo- 160 STUDIES IN USAGE quial," but quotes Prior. Baskervill and Sewell 1 say, "The adverb mighty is very common in colloquial English. ... It is only occasionally used in literary English." They quote Goldsmith, Scott, Bulwer, and Thackeray. The NeAV English Dictionary says, "Now colloquial or familiar." It quotes Coverdale, Barrow, Defoe, Gray, Dickens, Mrs. Carlyle, and Stevenson. All of the authorities cited above agree that this locution used to be literary but is now colloquial. After watching the word carefully in the literature, the writer can name the fol- lowing authorities that use it : Coverdale 1 Burke 1 Defoe 4 Thomas Jefferson 1 Pepys 4 Lamb 4 Steele 1 Tennyson 1 Dr. Johnson 13 Holmes 4 Boswell 1 Thackeray 6 Prior 8 Browning 1 Pope 2 Stevenson 18 Miss Burney 1 Philadelphia Press (editorial) . . 1 When did this word drop out of the literary language? It is found in the literature from the Cursor Mundi to living authors and editors. It is vigorous in the polite circles of the older states and in parts of the West. The writer is especially interested in this word, as his use of it sometimes excites comment in some of the newer states of this country. Jefferson, for Virginia, and Holmes, for Massachusetts, represent polite English of the older commonwealths. In recent English, Robert Louis Stevenson should be regarded as an authority. (See the table.) It may be said that the word is not quite as good as "very' for the solemn and dignified places ; e.g., epic poetry, pulpit style, and such places. If we were translating Homer, we 1 Englis7i Grammar, p. 1ST. MIGHTY AS AN ADVERB 161 should hardly say, ■"Hector's wounds were mighty deep." Again: if we were delivering a sermon, we should prefer to say "very"; as, "The words of our text are very, (not mighty), rich with meaning." Even literary English has its gradations : words in good standing are not on a dead level. The New English Dictionary comes nearer hitting the mark than the others quoted. The others said "colloquial" and stopped there, but the New English Dictionary said "collo- quial or familiar." If this means literature of a familiar or free-and-easy type, it is right, since the passages referred to in our table are generally on that order. Tennyson's case occurs in a conversation of the confidential, free-and-easy style. The other recent authors write very frequently in the same manner. The point that the writer, in conclusion, contends for is that mighty used as an adverb is not a provincialism: (1) because it is not confined to any one part of the country ; (2) because it is used by such eminent w T riters as Tennyson, Holmes, Thackeray, Browning, and Stevenson. Edmund Burke (Conciliation) says, "All this is mighty well." Boswell represents Johnson as using the word fre- quently. Holmes (Professor at the Breakfast Table) says, "Mighty close quarters they were where the young man John bestowed himself and his furniture." Tennyson (Holy Grail, 1. 699) says. And mighty reverent at our grace was he. Browning (The Ring and the Book) says, Mighty fine — But nobody cared ask to paint the same. Stevenson (Francois Villon) says, "The idiotic Tabary be- came mighty confidential as to his past life"; "Mighty polite they showed themselves, and made him many fine speeches in return." Stevenson uses the word ten times in Kidnapped. 1G2 STUDIES IN VSAGE The word may be called literary but not suitable for solemn diction, though used by a good many living authors of con- siderable repute. LXXVIT THE MISPLACED KELATIVE CLAUSE In Sestos he admitted, a deputation from Poland into his presence, whom he astonished, etc. (Milman.) At the time when this great battle was fought, two children had already been born in England who were destined, etc. (John FisTce.) The relative clause is not always placed near its antecedent but is often separated from it by a group of words varying in number. Most of the textbooks on rhetoric are loud in con- demning these sentences. Possibly they are right ; but is not their rule a theoretical one? Certainly it is not based upon the overwhelming usage of the best authors ; for a large num- ber of these use sentences like the two quoted from Fiske and Milman. The rhetorical scholars give us a pretty theory, which perhaps has some pedagogic value as tending to give coherence to the disorganized sentences of our youths. If, however, a bright student, trained by us. to watch the usage of the great authors, brings us a group of sentences which he has found in the works of great men and which are exactly like some we have been condemning in the lecture-room, it is rather embarrassing. If Milman and Fiske, two of our most fluent and entertain- ing stylists, do not suit the reader, he can refer to the sub- joined table, in which the author has recorded a large number of the highest authorities as violating this rule: Latimer 5 Shakespeare 1 Prayer Book Psalter 25 Sir Thomas Browne 4 King James Bible 28 Marlowe 2 Bacon 3 Milton 3 THE MISPLACED RELATIVE CLAUSE 163 Jeremy Taylor 38 Thomas Fuller 1 Bunyan 5 Baxter 4 Joseph Hall 1 Bishop Burnet 17 John Evelyn 1 Pope 4 Mary Wortley Montagu 2 Temple 1 Swift 3 Addison 28 Steele 4 Fielding 4 Dr. H. Blair 19 Br. Johnson 29 Boswell 5 Goldsmith 16 Lamb 11 Coleridge 10 Christopher North 3 Southey 3 William Hazlitt 10 Horace Walpole 1 Sir William Blacl:stone 1 Oil ;1 ion 1 Thoma« Warton 1 Thomas Paine 1 Walter Scott 18 Burke 11 Irving 8 Franklin 6 Jeffrey 2 Hallam 13 Be Quincey 14 I. D 'Israeli 1 Buskin 12 Hawthorne 8 Carlyle Q Emerson 21 Poe 29 D. G. Mitchell 1 George William Curtis 5 < leorge Eliot 1 '■'< Dickens Hi Trench 7 Audubon 1 Thackeray 70 Bayard Taylor 2 Matthew Arnold 13 Fronde 2s Daniel Webster 1 Wendell Phillips 1 Sir William Hamilton. . 2 Benjamin Disraeli 1 J. H. Newman 2 Saintsbury 1(1 Thomas Campbell \ Churton Collins 1 Phillips Brooks 6 Lowell 12 Dean Stanley 9 Morris 4 Sir Henry Taylor 16 William Minto 4 Walter Bagehot 2 Justin McCarthy 3 Dr. C. Geikie 1 Cooper . .3 Holmes 16 G. W. Cable 3 Stopford Brooke 12 G. K. Chesterton 8 T. N. Page 3 Mrs. H. Ward 9 Stevenson 5 A. J. W. Hare 1 E. L. Godkin 1 J. B. Green 2 Kittredge and Greenough 1 John Lubbock 4 Lounsbury 13 Genung 10 Milman 3 164 STUDIES IX USAGE Kingsley 2 Henry Drummond 1 Herbert Spencer 1 W. T). Howells 1 Fiske 6 Price Collier 6 Preseott 1 Mabie 21 Motley 8 James Bryce ' 3 Maeaulay 24 The lists show more than 100 authors and 800 passages. Among the worst violators of the rule are the Bible, the Prayer Book, Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Burnet, Addison, Dr. Johnson, Dr. Blair, Scott, Thackeray, Poe, Maeaulay, and Froude — a hall of fame. Hardly less careless of their rela- tives are Coleridge, Hazlitt, Burke, Lamb, De Quincey, Rus- kin, Emerson, Lowell, Stanley, Mrs. "Ward, Lounsbury. Holmes, Dickens, and Matthew Arnold. Professor Genung violates his own canon; who has the heart to blame him? The tables will show that he does not try to keep his own rigid rules. When he loses himself in his subject and forgets the letter of the law in keeping its spirit, he forgets, ignores the strict rules that he lays down in his textbooks, and uses the English of the great authors. The rule under discussion is made in the interests of clear- ness. Now, the type-sentences at the head of this section may fail somewhat in absolute precision but certainly not in per- spicuity. Any intelligent, or even average, reader can easily see their meaning. Is not the rule misleading? Does it not, as generally stated, make the impression that it is based upon the overwhelming usage of the great authors? The rule needs careful restatement and qualification. It may be added, however, that the great authors more frequently put the relative immediately after its antecedent. Let us quote a few passages showing the misplaced relative in some of the standard authors. Cardinal Newman (His- torical Sketches) says, ''strangers were ever flocking to it, whose combat was to be with intellectual, not physical dif- MISEELATED PABTICIPLE (OR GEEUXDj 165 ficulties," etc. Emerson says (Love), "It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspi- ration of passion, who cannot write well undo- any other circumstances." Again (The Poet): "Vitruvius announces the old opinion of artists, that no architect can build any house well, who does not know something of anatomy." De Quincey in Lake Poets says, "A young lady became a neigh- bor, and a daily companion of Coleridge's walks, whom I will not describe more particularly than by saying that intel- lectually she was very much superior to Mrs. Coleridge." Again: "A rupture between the parties followed, which no reconciliation has ever healed." Matthew Arnold (Function of Criticism), says, "and that therefore labor may be vainly spent in attempting it, which might with more fruit be used in preparing for it, in rendering it possible"; also, "Poems are separated one from another which possess a kinship of subject," etc. (Essay on Wordsworth.) A volume could easily be filled with such sentences from standard authors. LXXVIII MISEELATED PAETICIPLE (OR GERUND) My farm consisted of about twenty acres of excellent land, having , 196. 184 STUDIES IN USAGE time to look at her, proved to be a bright little woman of middle age. ..." Matthew Arnold writes, I knew it when my life was young; I feel it still now youth is o'er. The author has recorded the following cases : Interlude of Thersytes 1 Cowper 1 Massingcr 1 Horace Walpole 1 Bacon 1 Franklin 1 Shakespeare 5 Shelley 1 Ben Jonson 4 Mrs. Gaskell 1 Joseph Hall 1 Lamb 7 Milton 2 George Eliot 14 Baxter 1 Matthew Arnold 2 Temple 1 Keble 1 Congreve 1 Tennyson 2 Now (A.S. nu) is one of the oldest conjunctions in the language. It occurs several times in Beowulf, and frequently elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon literature. It occurs in Piers Plow- man, as cited by the Century Dictionary and verified by the author. It comes out clearly in the Elizabethan literature and maintains itself to the most modern period. In brief, it has never been obsolete in English literature, as our table shows. The "that" was not found in Anglo-Saxon; "now (nu) I have, come from afar," says Beowulf — where now = since. As shown in another section, "directly", "immediately," and even "instantly" are used to some extent as conjunctions in England, and "once" is tending in the same direction. (See pp. 71ff., above.) As some readers may not have access to the dictionaries referred to in a foregoing paragraph, let us quote from a few authors of earlier modern literature. Milton in Lycidas says, But, oh! the heavy change, noic thou art gone. Lord Bacon says, "When the "World was young, it begate more Children; But now it is old, it begets fewer." Lamb OF A MORNING, ETC. 185 {The Last Essays of Elia) says, "holidays, and all other fun, are gone now we are rich.' 1 Joseph Hall says, "And now the evening is come, no tradesman doth more carefully take in his wares, clear his shopboard, and shut his window, than 1 would shut up my thoughts, and clear my mind." George Eliot (Adam Bede) says, "It was right that things should look strange and disordered and wretched, now the old man had come to his end in that sad way." The table shows that George Eliot brought this conjunc- tion down to our own day in full force. LXXXIV OF A MORNING, ETC. The time-phrases of a morning, of an evening, etc., found in the "old Virginia dialect," occur in recent literature to a noticeable extent. Professor Earle x says, ' ' Instead of evenings and mornings" used, as he says, in homely and familiar speech, "we may say of an evening, of a morning." To show that these locutions are allowable in literary English, Earle quotes from A. J. W. Hare. Of a Saturday night, he quotes from Walter Scott. Of the afternoon occurs in Hamlet. 2 Of an evening, etc., can be seen in the following authors : Pepys 1 George Eliot 3 Lamb 3 Browning 4 Irving 1 D. G. Mitchell 2 Bvtlwer 1 Holmes '-' Thomas Hughes 1 Thomas Nelson Page 1 Thackeray 11 Price Collier 1 E. C. Stedman 1 Aldrich 2 These phrases can be heard to a considerable extent among the best people of the old states, though they are somewhat antiquated. 1 Philologu of the English Tongue, 1SS7, p. 427. 2 "My custom always of the afternoon." 186 STUDIES IN USAGE Thackeray, who is especially partial to these phrases, uses also of later days, of a Sunday, of late nights. George Eliot uses of late years, of a Sunday, of a morning. Pepys says, of a Sunday night. They all belong together. Dr. E. A. Abbott in his How to Parse 1 says, "Only in ver- nacular English is of now used for during . . . but this was once more common." That he was mistaken in his first state- ment can be seen clearly from the statement of Professor John Earle as to recent usage in England and from the number of very modern authors in the table. The author is not arguing for the revival of these old phrases, but showing that they still survive in standard litera- ture. Of late years, of a sudden, of old — God of our fathers, known of old — and a few others are still seen in the best authors and heard from the best speakers very often ; the others are less common. In "popular talk," as Kellner would say, we hear all these old phrases frequently. Certainly they should not be called illiterate when found in the works of so many excellent authors and among many old families in polite society. E. C. Stedman (Nature and Elements of Poetry) says, "She sees the moon where it should be of an evening in its third quarter, — to wit, rising in the east." Donald G. Mitchell (Reveries) says, "if I cannot open the window readily of a morning, to breathe the fresh air, I knock out a pane or two of glass with my boot"; "I happened only a little while ago to drop into the college chapel of a Sunday." Browning (The Ring and the Book) says, Again As to stand gazing by the hour on high, Of May-eves, while she sat and let him smile. She brought a neighbor's child of my own age To play with me of rainy afternoons. ip. 219. ONLY 187 In Mr. Sludge, the Medium, he says, Because one brindled heifer, late in March, Stiffened her tail of evenings. When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morning, A drinking hole out of the fresh, tender ice That covered the pond. {The Flight of tlic Duchess.) The foregoing citations corroborate Earle's statement made about 1870 and show that the old-fashioned Americans of that day were using some of the same old phrases current in the polite circles of England. These phrases in of are the modern English equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon genitive of time. This survives in the dia- lectical "evenings" and "mornings." A parallel case is the German adverb morgens = in the morning. LXXXV ONLY The position of only has long been a burning question in English. Not to go farther back than fifty years, Dean Alford x said in 1861 that the pedants were very strict but the language very liberal. "The adverb only," says he, "in many sentences where strictly speaking it ought to follow its verb and to limit the objects of the verb, is in good English placed before the verb." 'I only saw a man,' he says, is our ordinary colloquial English ; but the pedant would compel us to say 'I saw only a man.' The question is the same in our day: rhetorical scholars and grammarians make their rule ; the. great authors, the great majority of them, are utterly oblivious of the rule and care nothing for it. A recent Rhetoric by five Yale instructors 2 says, ' ' Of single l » Queen's English, 1SG0, pp. 141-144. 3 Canby and four others. This book is referred to several times in the present volume. 188 STUDIES IX USAGE words it is perhaps only that is oftenest misplaced. It should, when possible, be placed immediately before the word with which it is connected." This same rule has been in Genung's textbooks for twenty-five years. The first statement is correct if the authors of schoolbooks are to dictate the law to the authors. A. S. Hill 1 says, "The word only is especially troublesome." This is certainly true if absolute puristic precision is de- manded ; the standard authors are troublesome to the textbook- makers. Or, as Lounsbury would say, the Supreme Court is continually interfering with the justices of the peace. Hill, in one place, is diametrically opposed to Genung and the Yale Rhetoric ; in another place, he makes the high school student correct a block of sentences that might have come from the works of almost any standard author. Carpenter 2 says, "Only usually immediately precedes or follows the word or group of words which it limits." Here is confusion worse confounded. Nesfield, 3 the English gram- marian, after saying that the position of only determines the meaning of a sentence, makes up a sentence, and by moving only around tries to show how many things the sentence means. This is mere pedantry if literature is to be our guide in such matters : we all know that our language is not always absolutely precise, general clearness or perspicuity being often the only aim of the great masters. Baskervill and Sewell 4 are less rigid than several of the other writers quoted. They show that only is used with con- siderable latitude by such authorities as Palgrave, Thackeray, Wendell Phillips, N. P. Willis, Swift, Ruskin, and Emerson. Bain 5 is pretty rigid. He not only corrects sentences that might be duplicated in numberless standard authors but pro- 1 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, p. 291. - Principles of English Grammar, p. 103. s English Grammar Past and Present, pp. 174, 175. 4 English Grammar, p. 325. B Composition Grammar, pp. 31G-319. ONLY 189 poses in some cases to rewrite the sentence and leave out only. "He that fights custom with grammar is a fool," says Montaigne. All this corroborates Lounsbury's statement that for many years the English language has been in the hands of the "schoolmasters," who are almost threatening to rob it of all its spontaneity. The best and most helpful statement as to only is found in Mother Tongue (III) by Gardiner, Kittredge, and Arnold : "Good usage does not fix absolutely the position of only with respect to the word that it modifies. There is but one safe rule: 'Shun ambiguity.' If this is observed, the pupil may feel secure. ' ' Now we have daylight : " I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word." If we accept this rule very few authors of standing "misplace" only. If, on the other hand, we adopt the strict rules laid down by several of the books quoted, most of the standard authors "misplace" only fre- quently. As a partial list of such offenders the writer has recorded the following pretty high authorities : Marlowe 1 Dr. H. Blair 4 Sir Thomas Browne 5 Chesterfield 11 Massinger 1 James Madison 1 Jeremy Taylor 9 Franklin 4 Bishop Burnet 8 Philip Freneau 1 Dryden 8 Burke 1 Alexander Pope 1 Gibbon 2 Addison 4 Washington 1 Steele 2 Jefferson 1 Clarendon 1 Coleridge 6 Swift 1 Lamb 3 Dr. Johnson 19 Hazlitt 13 Boswell 2 Seott 17 Fielding 1 Irving 6 Hume 2 Hallam 29 Thomas Warton 2 Jane Austen 4 George Campbell 1 De Quincey 2 Berkeley 1 Poe 24 Goldsmith 6 Paley 1 190 STUDIES IN rSAGE Newman 1 Matthew Arnold 3 Macaulay 5 Huxley 10 George William Curtis 9 J. A. Froude 20 Ruskin 9 Herbert Spencer 1 Holmes 4 Emerson 4 Bret Harte 2 Thackeray 17 Rulwer 2 George Eliot 11 Cooper 3 Prescott 2 Sir William Hamilton . .' 6 Dickens 9 Trench 7 Bryant 2 Darwin 1 Buckle '. . . . 1 Milman 4 Hawthorne 9 Thoreau 1 Motley 1 Greeley 1 Lowell 8 Stanley 6 Tennyson 1 Whitney U Browning 4 Phillips Brooks 2 E. L. Godkin 1 D. G. Mitchell 5 Bagehot 5 W. D. Howe'.ls 1 Mrs. H. Ward 10 Stevenson 7 Justin McCarthy 3 Lounsbury 4 Price Collier 2 John Morley 2 Saintsbury 8 Churton Collins 7 H. W. Mabie 1 Chesterton It C. Geikie 1 Professor John Earle 8 George P. Marsh 1 Freeman 1 Henry Drummond 11 Kingsdoy 1 Stopford Brooke 3 Sir Henry Taylor 8 John Fiske 1 We have named 104 authors "misplacing" only in over 400 passages; and further reading would increase the number indefinitely. Going back to Dean Alford, p. 87. He was right when he said that "I only saw a man," not "I saw only a man" was the normal sentence in polite society : the authors cited above use exactly that type of sentence more or less frequently. The worst offenders are Dr. Johnson, Hazlitt, Scott, Poe, Thack- eray, George Eliot, Hallam, Diekens, Mrs. IT. Ward, Froude, G. K. Chesterton, Henry Drummond. Some others are almost as wicked. ONLY 191 There are several forms of the o>(i^/-sentence in English literature. A few writers like Gibbon, Macaulay, and De Quincey are generally careful to put only before its principal, though, as our list shows, they sometimes put it elsewhere. Then there is the type spoken of by Dean Alford: "I only saw a man," instead of "I saw only a man." This is very common in Scott, Bishop Burnet, Froude, Chesterton, Haw- thorne, Hazlitt, Thackeray, Addison, Irving, Lowell, Churton Collins, Dean Stanley, Burke, George Eliot, Sir William Ham- ilton, Browning, Dickens, W. D. Whitney, Stevenson, Jane Austen, Dr. Johnson, Mrs. H. Ward, and others. These use the so-called misplaced only very frequently. Next, there is the sentence in which it would be impossible, without the most palpable pedantry, to put only immediately before its prin- cipal ; e.g., "I can only say that I meant no offense whatever." Here only strictly modifies the clause introduced by that; but no good writers ever put it before the clause ; and yet there is no ambiguity. A puristic critic might say, as some of the verbalists do say about constructions of like character, that only modifies say, and that the sentence means, "I can only say, not feel"; but this would be verbal hair-splitting of the most absurd kind. Another type of the on /^/-sentence is one in which only cannot be regarded as modifying any one word, phrase, or clause but rather a whole group of words to be taken as a unit; e.g., "All that could actually take place, and all that is only possible to be conceived," etc. Here only seems to modify "possible to be conceived." Hazlitt is very partial to this use of only. Again: "In other poets there is much talk that only fills up time upon the stage." In this sentence from Samuel Johnson, only modifies the group "fills up time upon the stage." In a sense this only imme- diately precedes its principal ; but its principal is, gram- matically speaking, neither w T ord, phrase, nor clause. We quote a few typical passages from the literature. Dr. Johnson in Rasselas says, "in a short time, I grew 102 STUDIES IN USAGE weary of looking on barren uniformity, where I could only see again what I had already seen"; in the Rambler: "But pleasure is only received when we believe that we give it in return"; Dictionary: "Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach," etc. Addison (Spectator) says, "The mind that lies fallow but a single day, sprouts up in follies that are only to he killed by a constant and assiduous culture"; "I must confess that I am amazed that the press should he only made use of in this way by news-writers, and the zealots of parties"; "I must observe to the reader, that above three parts of those whom I reckon among the litigious, are such as are only quar- relsome in their hearts, and have no opportunity of showing their passions at the bar." Hawthorne rarely if ever keeps the rule laid down in the textbooks. In the Marble Faun he says, " It is a peculiarity of this picture, that its profoundest expression eludes a straightforward glance, and can only be caught by side glimpses, or when the eye falls casually upon it"; "We see cherubs by Raphael, whose baby-innocence could only have been nursed in Paradise"; "all the care that Cecilia Metella's husband could bestow, to secure endless peace for her beloved relics, had only sufficed to make that handful of precious ashes the nucleus of battles, long ages after her death." Ruskin (Sesame and Lilies) says, "an unreachable schoolboy's recklessness, only differing from the true schoolboy's in its incapacity of being helped, because it acknowledges no master"; "The perfect loveliness of a woman's countenance can only consist in that majestic peace which is founded in memory of happy and useful years"; "You have heard it said . . . that flowers only flourish rightly in the d only when absolutely necessary for clearness." The Encyclo- pedic Dictionary says, "Chiefly American." The writer has seen onto once in Dickens, once in Conan Doyle, and more or less frequently in a few popular novelists of the day. It is rarely heard from elegant speakers or in polite colloquial English. However, if up -on can give upon, in + to give into, etc., what hinders on^to from making onto? Nothing except that usage has not yet favored it. The Century Dictionary quotes from Mrs. Humphry Ward (Robert Elsmere), "He subsided onto the music bench obe- diently. ' ' Dickens in David Copperfielcl says, ' ' Over the little mantel-shelf was a picture of the Sarah Jane lugger, built at Sunderland, with a real little wooden stern stuck onto it.' 1 It should be said that the writer is in some doubt as to whether 194 STUDIES IN USAGE Dickens wrote onto or on to; the editions differ. The same statement might be made as to some other passages cited : the printer might control the situation. However, there are sen- tences in which onto is not exactly equivalent to on to. LXXXVII PARTIALLY FOB PARTLY Partially (= partly) was put on his forbidden list by William Cullen Bryant. A. S. Hill x says that careful writers avoid it. White 2 condemned, though citing Swinburne as using it. Genung 3 says, "had better not be used," but gives no reason for his warning. The Century Dictionary recognizes it, quoting passages from Stirling and Herbert Spencer. Webster recognizes it, with a quotation from Sir Thomas Browne. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recognizes it, quoting Ruskin. Worcester and the Standard recognize it. The New English Dictionary recog- nizes it, quoting Gabriel Harvey, Sir Thomas Browne, Swin- burne, Lyell, and the Educational Review. Fitzedward Hall 4 defends it, both on the ground of euphony and good usage. He quotes the following authors as using it : Southey, Lamb, Paley, Newman, Landor, De Quincey, Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, Swinburne. The author has seen the word in the following : Sir Thomas Browne 1 George P. Marsh 3 Lamb 2 Milman 2 Wordsworth 1 Froude 1 Poe 21 A. J. C. Hare 1 Hallam 1 Hawthorne 3 Trench 2 Ruskin 1 1 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, p. 269. * Words and Their Uses, p. 143. 3 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. 323. 4 Modem English, pp. 191, 192, 276. PARTIALLY FOR PARTLY 195 Sir Henry Taylor 1 Lowell 3 Huxley 1 Henry Bradley 1 W. D. Whitney 4 H. \V. Mabie 1 Macaulay 1 Stevenson 1 John Fiske 1 W. W. Skeat 4 Henry Drummond 4 George Saintsbury 2 Edward Dowden 2 Professor O. F. Emerson 1 Here are nearly 40 authors in all. We have both scholar- ship and standard usage supporting partially; only a few authorities condemning it. Polite colloquial usage favors it considerably. Hill's statement, made in 1902, the tables above prove utterly unwarranted. Among all our authors Poe is probably most partial to this word: can one great author establish a word? Partially and partly have been running parallel in the lan- guage for hundreds of years, used on the same page. Partly is used more frequently. It would seem that partially is rare in the Elizabethan period; it spread considerably in the nineteenth century. It was brought to America by the educated colonists and is used in the old colonial chronicles of Virginia. The adjective partial (=in part) is well established, and seems to have no enemies. No doubt its wide use has helped the adverb: it is a short step from "a partial eclipse of the sun" to "the sun was partially eclipsed." Milman (History of the Jews) says, "they are not of one speech, they have either entirely or partially ceased to be mutually intelligible." J. A. Fronde (Dissolution of the Monasteries) says, "And yet, unreasonable though these de- mands may be, it happens, after all, that we are able partially to gratify them." "Wordsworth in the Prelude says, "When into air had partially dissolved That vision. Stevenson in his Truth of Intercourse says, "But what is thus made plain to our apprehensions in the case of a foreign 196 STUDIES IN USAGE language is partially true even with the tongue we learned in childhood." A. J. C. Hare uses partially and partly in the same sentence : "It was partially the fact that I had no money to spend in my own way, and that my bills were always over- looked and commented upon, and partly that I had known no other young men," etc. The list of authors above includes several very eminent English scholars and a number of great stylists. To the former class we may add Lounsbury, who uses the word pretty frequently. LXXXVITI PLENTY AS PEEDICATE ADJECTIVE As compared with America, servants are plenty and good. (Price Collier.) The use of plenty as an adjective was condemned by George Campbell * in 1776. He calls it a gross vulgarism, though found in writers of considerable merit. This "gross vul- garism" was at that time classic in Shakespeare and was being used by such writers as Goldsmith and Franklin ; had recently been used by Bishop Berkeley, and had been in the literature for three centuries. A. S. Hill" says, "no longer good English." Herrick and Damon, 3 Quackenbos, 4 Genung, 5 the Standard and the Encyclopedic dictionaries all say, "Col- loquial." Webster says, "Obsolete or colloquial." The New English Dictionary says, "Now chiefly colloquial," but quotes from J. R. Lowell among recent authors. As showing that the word used to be literary, the N. E. D. quotes the Cursor Mundi, Ipomadon, Lord Berners, Shakespeare, Defoe, Sydney 1 Philosophy of Rhetoric, Book II, chap. III. section III. 2 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, p. 255. 3 Neio Composition and Rhetoric, p. 260. 4 Practical Rhetoric, 1896, p. 242. 6 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. 324. PLENTY AS PEE DILATE ADJECTIVE 197 Smith, and some minor writers. Pitzedward Hall 1 in 1873 puts plenty in his Grandfathers' English, not defending it as current. Some of the dictionaries that call it "colloquial now" quote Shakespeare, Goldsmith, and Franklin. Worces- ter recognizes it as an adjective. T. L. K. Oliphant 2 records it as seen in the literature of c. a.d. 1400. The writer has seen the following cases : Shakespeare 1 Poe 3 Bishop Berkeley 1 Price Collier 1 Goldsmith 1 John Fiske 1 Byron 1 Stevenson 1 Though rare in recent literature, it has an unbroken history for over five centuries. The word plenty as a predicate adjective is made classic in the literature by two passages, one humorous and the other pathetic. The first is from Shakespeare (I Hen. IV, II, iv, 264 ff.) : "If reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion.*' The other is from Byron : And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-tvrenty Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty. This use of the word survives to some extent in the polite col- loquial English of some of the old states, and was no doubt brought from England by the contemporaries of Shakespeare, Goldsmith, and Bishop Berkeley. George Campbell, then, was utterlv unwarranted in calling it a vulgarism, and very illogical when he added, "Though found in writers of con- siderable merit."' How can the two statements be reconciled? John Fiske in Old Virginia and Her Neighbors says, "In the plantations, thus freed from the presence of Indians, European domestic animals have become plenty." If the English of Byron, Franklin, and Sydney Smith has already 1 Modem English, p. 24S. 3 The New English, I, 1SS. 198 STUDIES IN USAGE degenerated, we can certainly say that Fiske's and Price Collier's may be regarded as literary. This use of plenty is rare and seems to be passing out of the language : the author is simply giving its history. LXXXIX THE PLEONASTIC PEONOUN And Maud she walks in the merry greenwood. (T. B. Aldrich.) The pleonastic pronoun dates back to the Anglo-Saxon. In that period of English, the pronoun was used either before or after the noun. Both uses lasted through the Middle Eng- lish period and survive to some extent in modern English, mostly in poetry. The type seen in the sentence quoted from T. B. Aldrich was common in Elizabethan literature and survives in illit- erate English ; e. g., ' ' Father, he is sick, but Mother, she is better." If any poet of our day wishes to use it, he has tradition in his support, together with the usage of the fol- lowing authorities : Chaucer 1 Wordsworth 3 William Dunbar 1 Matthew Arnold 1 Latimer 14 Longfellow 1 King James Bible 11 T. B. Aldrich 2 Shakespeare 11 A. H. Clough 3 Beaumont and Fletcher 1 Bryant 1 Bunyan 1 Poe 17 Prior 1 Browning 5 Pope 1 D. G. Eossetti 1 Southey 5 Carlyle 1 Lamb 2 Sidney Lanier 1 Shelley J. Barry Cornwall 1 F. S. Key 1 All recent examples, except for two authors, are found in poetry. This is one of the numerous points at which illiterate POLITICS— SINGULAR OR PLURAL? 199 and poetic usage come together. The only cases found in nineteenth century prose are from Poe and Carlyle, who are partial to archaic forms. Of this pronoun Henry Sweet x says, ' ' A vulgarism in spoken English, but used often in literary English for pic- turesqueness and quaintness. ' ' This explains the two examples from prose literature spoken of. This mode of expression has a distinct psychological value, as the unlettered classes unconsciously feel. It occurs not infrequently in current poetry and is supported by high authority. A few more examples will show how the pleonastic pro- noun is used in literature. Longfellow in My Lost Youth says, And the verse of that sweet old song, It flutters and murmurs still. Lamb (Old Familiar Faces) says, How some they have died, and some they have left me, And some are taken from me; all are departed. Carlyle (The Hero as Poet) says, "The eye, too, it looks out as in a kind of surprise, a kind of inquiry, why the world was of such a sort." The writer is not advocating this use of the pronoun in prose, but merely recording usage. XC POLITICS— SINGULAR OR PLURAL? The politics are base. (Emerson.) Polities in its historic aspect would seem to have had a great fascina- tion for him as indeed it must have, etc. (Chesterton.) The sentences quoted above are typical. If such sentences are about equal in number, we shall have to say that usage is evenly divided. 1 Netv English Grammar, part II, p. 72. 200 STUDIES IN USAGE Let us turn first to those grammars and rhetorics that take up the question. Carpenter, 1 the grammarian, says that politics is regularly plural. If " regularly ' ' means ' ' usually, ' ' Carpenter is right. Baskervill and Sewell 2 say, "usually sin- gular." If the tahle below represents the usage of the authors, these last-named grammarians are in serious error. When two such grammars differ so widely, any table of statistics should be heartily welcomed. Let us turn to the rhetorical scholars. A. S. Hill 3 recog- nizes both singular and plural, giving one example of each from Anthony Trollope. Genung 4 says it is usually singular. See the list below for the truth or error of this statement. Baskervill and Sewell give one example of the singular from the Century Dictionary ; one of the plural from George Wil- liam Curtis, one from Macaulay, one from Goldsmith. Their statistics contradict their theory. The New English Diction- ary quotes three plurals from Hume, Junius, and Disraeli, and quotes some minor authors that use the singular con- gruence. Let us turn to the great authors, the litterateurs, and men of culture not so famous in literature : Singular Thomas Paine 1 Century Dictionary 1 Trollope 1 Encyclopedic Dictionary 1 Emerson 1 Chesterton 1 Encyclopedia Britannica 1 Price Collier 2 George Eliot 1 9 authorities; 10 cases. 1 Principles of English Grammar, p. 59. 2 English Grammar, p. 41. 3 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition , p. 59. 4 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. .*r_'4. POLITICS— SINGULAR OR PLURAL! 201 Plural Addison 2 Swift 1 Dr. JoliDson 1 Thomas Paine 1 Sheridan 1 Goldsmith 1 Charles Lamb 1 Hallam 3 Matthew Arnold 1 Macaulay 5 Dickens 1 Poe 1 Thackeray 2 Trollope 1 Bulwer 1 Huxley 2 Thomas Campbell 1 Emerson 2 George Eliot 2 George William Curtis 3 Saintsbury 2 James Bryce 3 Lowell 4 Froude 1 Fiske 1 Sir Henry Taylor 2 Price Collier 2 Justin McCarthy 2 T. N. Page 1 R. H. Stoddard 1 30 authorities ; 52 examples. According to the table, the word politics is plural by a ratio of 30 to 9 authorities, 52 to 10 passages. These facts refute the opinions of some of the grammarians and rhetorical scholars quoted in the foregoing paragraphs of this section. The following writers are found on both sides : Emerson, Thomas Paine, C4eorge Eliot, Trollope, Price Collier. Polite colloquial usage is probably in favor of the plural. The reader will pardon a personal allusion. The author of this volume had always heard politics used in the plural, and so used it himself until he saw it used as a singular by the Century Dictionary. The singular, however, never sat comfortably upon either his tongue or his penpoint. Do not the statistics gathered in this course of reading justify him in going back to the plural ? The tendency in words in -ics is to take the singular regi- men ; such has been the case with mathematics, ethics, physics, optics; but athletics and politics seem to prefer the plural. It is of course possible that they may reverse their action in '202 STUDIES IN USAGE the future, as the tendency in our day is in the direction of strict grammatical precision in such matters. An impartial study of politics from Queen Anne 's day to the present shows that it is prevailingly plural, plural in more than three-fourths of the passages in which it is found. Further reading, how- ever, might possibly change the figures to some extent. Emerson (Politics) says, "But politics rests on necessary foundations, and cannot be treated with levity." Price Col- lier (England and the English) says, "In America, politics ranks as one of the domestic virtues; in England, politics has been, and is largely even now, the obligatory occupation of the few who can afford it." In the same volume he says, "British politics, both at home and abroad, are focused upon the main- tenance in freedom and comfort of thousands of British house- holders," and "Here again the fact that politics, domestic and Imperial, are concentrated in London during a few months in the year explains to the American how this can be so." Hux- ley (Science and Culture) says, "Party politics are forbidden to enter into the minds of either, so far as the work of the College is concerned." Matthew Arnold in his essay on Heine says, "he read French polities by no means as we in England, most of us, read them." Macaulay (Retiring Speech, 1849) says, "I have quitted politics. I quitted them without one feeling of resentment, without one feeling of regret." XCI POSSESSIVE CASE OF INANIMATE OBJECTS After life's fitful fever he sleeps well. (Shakespeare.) They had come to take possession of the city's wealth. (Motley.) Shall the possessive s be used of things without life? Or shall the o/-genitive be required, certainly in prose? These are disputed points in English. POSSESSIVE CASE OF INANIMATE OBJECTS 203 Henry Sweet 1 says that the possessive s is restricted, etc. mainly to nouns denoting living beings. Herrick and Damon 2 say, ''The possessive form in s should not be used of inani- mate objects." They allow a few exceptions such as "the ship's side", "for mercy's sake", "the day's work." A. S. Hill 3 savs, "The tendency of the best modern usage is to employ the objective case with of, rather than to put into the possessive case a noun that represents a thing without life." Genung 4 in his high school book says, "In ordinary prose the accepted usage of the possessive form is limited, for the most part, (1) to persons; (2) to time expressions, as 'after an hour's delay'; and (3) some idioms, as 'for brevity's sake', 'a day's march.' Beyond this usage the possessive form is to be employed with great parsimony and caution." Under his division (1), Genung should say "living beings" instead of "persons," as there can be no objection to putting the s after a word denoting a bird, an animal, a fish, etc. Even the cautious Jespersen 5 is inaccurate at this point. He says, "its use is now in ordinary prose almost restricted to personal beings." This does not include birds and animals, which should be included ; and the table below will show that great prose writers like Scott and Hawthorne use the possessive s of inanimate objects, and that Professor Genung himself uses it frequently in his textbooks on rhetoric. "Whether the possessive form is used "with great parsi- mony and caution" in our prose literature, as Genung thinks it should be, the reader can judge from the list of authors below, which is far from exhaustive. George P. Marsh limits the possessive case to "animated and conscious creatures" —a statement which, while better than 1 New English Grammar, pp. 51, 52. - New Composition and Rhetoric, p. 146. 3 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, p. 50. * Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. 55. 5 Growth and Structure of the English Language, p. 1S1. "Lectures on the English Language, p. 338. 204 STUDIES IN USAGE that of some authors, is not accurate. Kittredge and Farley in their recent textbook 1 say, "In older English and in poetry the possessive case of nouns is freely used, but in modern prose it is rare unless the possessor is a living being. A phrase witli of is used instead." Coming from Professor Kittredge, these statements will carry great weight in many quarters. Let us test them by the table. The first two statements are indisputably true : the s- geni- tive was universal in older English and is, as far as the writer has noticed, practically universal in modern poetry. The second statement, that the possessive s is rare in prose except in the case of nouns denoting living beings, is not accurate. In the list of authors named below we see over -50 who wrote no poetry at all and who use this possessive in at least 275 passages. As to the strict rule laid down by the authors quoted above, Professor John Earle 2 says, "This doctrine cannot be rigidly insisted upon." Professor Earle is right: his statement can be verified from the literature and from the usage of reputable speakers. The following authorities use the possessive s of things without life: John Mandeville 1 Pope 32 Malory 2 Richardson 1 Gorboduc S Jonathan Edwards 2 Shakespeare 29 Thomas Paine 1 Ben Jonson 2 Thomas Gray 2 Philip Sidney 1 Irving 1 Two Noble Kinsmen 1 Hazlitt 1 King James Bible (5 Byron (5 James Shirley 1 Scott 15 John Webster 1 Southey 7 Milton 3 Coleridge 1 Robert Herrick 3 James Montgomery 3 Bishop Burnet 1 Burns 3 1 Advanced English Grammar, p. 45. "Philology of the English Tongue, 18S7, p. 535. POSSESSIVE CASE OF INANIMATE OBJECTS 205 Christopher North 7 Lamb 1 J'hilip Freneau 4 Leigh Hunt 1 W. E. Charming 1 Keble 1 Wordsworth 1 Thomas Campbell 6 Cowper 1 George Eliot 2 Emerson 3 Thackeray 6 Wendell Phillips 5 Motley 2 Thoreau 3 Longfellow 7 Poe 9 Cooper 1 Walt Whitman 3 Dickens 2 Bayard Taylor 112 Carlyle 1 Hawthorne 31 Bryant 3 Holmes 5 Churton Collins 3 Matthew Arnold 27 J. R. Lowell 15 J. A. Froude 4 J. G. Whittier 28 Browning 43 Dean Trench 2 F. W. Faber 1 F. T. Palgrave 1 Sidney Lee 3 Henry van Dyke 'J Sidney Lanier 3 P. H. Hayne 81 J. F. Genung 19 William James 3 Ruskin 2 T. B. Aldrich 1 E. L. Godkin 1 Mrs. H. Ward 3 J. F. D. Maurice 1 A. H. Clough 30 T. N. Page 1 H. N. Hudson 1 E. B. Browning 10 Bret Harte 6 Stopford Brooke 8 G. K. Chesterton 2 D. G. Mitchell 5 George William Curtis 1 John Burroughs 1 Price Collier 11 John Fiske 8 G. W. Cable 17 Katharine Lee Bates 1 Stevenson 2 H. W. Mabie 1 Here are 87 authorities and 700 passages. If one man, in a limited course of reading, has recorded this number, how many thousands of examples might be gathered from the literature ? The statements of Marsh, Sweet, Hill, Herrick and Damon, Jespersen, and Genung fall to the ground and Earle's is the only safe one. Let us draw some inferences from the table. Genung does not use the "parsimony and caution" that he 206 STUDIES IN USAGE urges upon the student : in his college texthooks the writer has seen at least nineteen cases of the s under discussion. The critics and verbalists should draw a clear distinction between the prose and the poetical use of this construction. If it is in the nature of personification, as some say, it should certainly be treated as a legitimate poetic license. It is exceed- ingly common in Bayard Taylor, Paul H. Hayne, Robert Browning, Clough, Shakespeare, and other poets. The pos- sessive s, however, is not limited to poetry : it is strong in Scott, Hawthorne, Genung, Price Collier, Cable, and other prose writers. It is very convenient. It often saves a plethora of phrases, especially of- phrases. It is rapid and concise, making for rapidity. Try the of- phrase in the two sentences at the head of this section and feel how the genius of the writers led them to the old syntax; the "phrasal genitive" would be in- tolerable. It is a survival of the old inflectional genitive; why should it be so much condemned by the grammarians and rhetorical scholars ? It is certainly vigorous in periodical literature and in the best current literature of the day. It would be impossible to exhaust this subject; the number of passages could be increased indefinitely. It is almost impos- sible to read any good book by a reputable writer without seeing this interdicted locution at frequent intervals ; the rule is not based upon the literature. It may be well to quote a few more passages from standard prose literature. Ruskin (Sesame and Lilies) says, "each of them placed him at his table's head, and all feasted in his presence"; "Men shall bow before it, . . . build palaces for it, feast with it at their tables' heads all the night long," etc. Matthew Arnold (Essays) says, "this state of things is the true basis for the creative power's exercise"; "it is a great thing to have this part of your model's general effect already given you in your metre" (On Translating Homer). Motley in the POSSESSIVE CASE OF INANIMATE OBJECTS 207 Dutch Republic says, " Officered by many other scions of Eng- land's aristocracy.'' Poe in his William Wilson says, " Vet in fact — in the fact of the world's view — how little was there to remember! The morning's awakening, the nightly summons to bed," etc.; "let us forbear praising the epic on the effort's account." (The Poetic Principle.) Hawthorne in The Cus- tom House says, "They spoke with far more interest and unction of their morning's breakfast, or yesterday's, today's, or tomorrow's dinner, than of the shipwreck of forty or fifty years ago, and all the world's wonders which they had wit- nessed with their youthful eyes . . ." "one of the most wonderful specimens of wintergreen that you would be likely to discover in a lifetime's search." Emerson (Love) says, "it may seem to many men, in revising their experience, that they have no fairer page in their life's book than the delicious memory of some passages," etc. Froude says, "that was he who, when the earth's mighty ones were banded together to crush him under their armed heels, spoke but one little word." (Lives of the Sai)its.) The writer is no special pleader for the old inflectional geni- tive ; in fact he generally uses the phrasal genitive. The object of the foregoing discussion is to show that the s-genitive is still vigorous in the literature and that the statements of many textbook writers are too sweeping. Why not say, "The phrasal genitive is used more in both prose and poetry, especially in the former"? 208 STUDIES IX USAGE XCII POSSESSIVE CASE AS ANTECEDENT TO A RELATIVE PRONOUN Nor ask Her name to whom ye yield it till her time To tell you. (Tennyson.) Had he inherited a portion of the great legislator's prophetic powers, whose statue we had been contemplating, etc. . . . (Coleridge.) Should the possessive case be used as antecedent to a rela- tive pronoun ? Sentences like those quoted above are found all through the literature. In the first sentence, her, the possessive pronoun, is the antecedent of whom; in the second, the possessive legis- lator's is the antecedent of whose. In regard to this construc- tion, A. S. Hill 1 says, "an archaism allowable in verse but to be avoided in prose. ' ' Genung - says, ' ' an antecedent is not prominent enough by being in the possessive case ; it ought to be either nominative or objective." Here we see two of our best rhetorical scholars condemning the possessive + relative clause. Let us turn to some of our best grammarians. Matzner 3 treats this construction in his grammar, quoting examples from Shakespeare, Milton, Addison, Cowper, Byron, and Scott, about twelve cases altogether. He traces it as far back as Chaucer. Kellner 4 recognizes this construction, tracing it from about a.d. 1330, through Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. He says, ''Owing to the original meaning of my = of me, a possessive pronoun is often antecedent to a relative one." Baskervill and Sewell 5 in their grammar say, "The 1 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, p. 433. 2 Outlines of Rhetoric, p. 89. * English Grammar, (Grece's translation) III. p. 218. 4 Historical Outlines of English Syntax, p. 190. 6 English Grammar, p. 285. possESSin-: case as antecedent 209 possessive forms of personal pronouns and also of nouns are sometimes found as antecedents of relatives. This usage is not frequent. The antecedent is usually nominative or objec- tive, as the use of the possessive is less likely to be clear/' Abbott ' says, "An antecedent is rarely implied in a possessive adjective, . . . but this is common in Shakespeare.*' Notice that the grammarians do not condemn the construction; only one of the three books quoted criticizes it at all unfavorably. Note, again, that Kellner says "often"' found, while Abbott and Baskervill quote sentences from Scott, De Quincey, Macaulay, Ruskin, Charles Brockden Brown, and Thackeray, two of whom are not in our table. The writer has recorded the following cases : Chaucer 1 Malory 3 Latimer 1 King James Bible 7 Massinger 1 Ben Jonson 2 Marlowe 1-4 Shakespeare 16 Titus Andronicus 1 Donne 1 Milton 9 Izaak Walton ' 1 Sir Thomas Browne 5 Jeremy Taylor 1 Prayer Book 1 Joseph Hall 1 Dryden 2 Addison 2 Steele 1 Swift 1 Burnet 3 Prior 1 Pope 3 Boswell 7 Dr. Johnson 2 Sterne 1 ( Ihristopher North 2 Franklin 5 Southey 1 Coleridge 2 Thomas Campbell 1 Lamb 4 Irving 1 Scott 2 Hallam 2 De Quincey 4 George Eliot 2 Jean Ingelow 1 Mrs. Gaskell 1 Matthew Arnold 1 Macaulay 3 Thackeray 10 Lowell 3 Longfellow 1 Poe 1 Tennyson 6 Carlyle 2 Phillips Brooks 1 1 How to Parse, p. liT'J. Shakespearian Grammar, §218. 210 STUDIES IN USAGE Motley 1 Bryant 1 Holmes 2 Mrs. Browning 1 G. W. Cable 1 A. H. Clough 2 Dean Trench 2 Browning 6 W. D. "Whitney 1 Phoebe Cary 3 P. H. Hayne 3 D. G. Eossetti 1 The lists show more than 60 authors and more than 150 cases of the construction in one course of reading. The possessive + relative is a survival. It is one of the last strongholds of the Anglo-Saxon inflectional genitive, re- sisting the sweep of the phrasal genitive. Probably it is on its way to ultimate extinction but is far from extinct, as our statistics and the statement of Kellner prove pretty clearly. Henry Sweet says that this locution is not heard in spoken English ; but we might like to use it occasionally if the purists would permit it. If this construction is important enough to attract the attention of foreign English scholars, why need we native-born students of the language treat it as an interloper? If the old possessive case must die, why need we pull the pillow from under its head ? The language will let it go if it is old useless luggage. Looking back for a moment — Hill says, "To be avoided in prose. ' ' Are writers on usage to dictate what is good English, or should they base their statements upon the usage of repu- table writers ? Our lists show that a large number of our best prose writers use this construction. Genung condemns this s-genitive on the ground that the antecedent is not prominent enough when in the genitive case. Is there anything in this statement? In inflected languages, is the genitive not fre- quently antecedent to a relative pronoun? Every student of languages will immediately answer, "Yes." Genung, then, should give some other reason for his opposition. The fact is there is no real objection to this construction except that it is rather uncommon, a remnant of the old inflec- tional system which broke down in the Middle English period. POSSESSIVE CASE AS ANTECEDENT 211 If a writer or a speaker really needs it occasionally, why not let him use it? It has precedent, brevity, convenience, and authority in its favor. As to Abbott's statement that the possessive I relative pro- noun is rare, it may be said that the L">0 cases cited above could easily be multiplied fourfold by a wider course of reading. Thackeray uses this construction at least nine times in Henry Esmond; Milton, in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, at least nine times. Milton (Paradise Regained) says, His lot vho dares be singularly good. Again : I seek not mine, but His Who sent me, and thereby witness whence I am. Pope (Essay on Criticism) says, His praise is lost, who stays, till all commend. Yet shun their fault, who, scandalously nice, Will needs mistake an author into vice. Addison in the Spectator says, "a groundless report that has been raised, to a gentleman's disadvantage of whom I must declare myself an admirer, ' ' and, ' ' This river is called to this very day, from his name who perished in it, the river Har- path." Matthew Arnold (On Translating Homer) says, "It must not be Cowper's blank verse, who has studied Milton's pregnant manner with such effect," etc. Lowell (Essay on Keats) says, "The thought or feeling a thousand times re- peated becomes 7m at last who utters it best. ' ' 212 STUDIES IN USAGE XCIII POUND AS A l'LURAL Students of Anglo-Saxon will remember that pound belonged to a group of words that made no change for the nominative and accusative plural. Most of these words, however, took on the standard s-plural at an early period. Pox ml long held on to its ancient plural, as it still does in unlettered English. The writer was interested to see how long this old form sur- vived in the literature ; hence this section. Pound is used by Tyndale and is the regular plural in Latimer. Both forms occur in the Interlude of Thersytes. The plural pound occurs several times in the Bible and at least 30 times in Shakespeare. "I will take the ghost's word for a thousand pound,'' is the most familiar case in Shakes- peare. It is used by Christopher Marlowe. In Queen Anne's day, Prior says, "I'll hold ten pound my dream is out"; and Pope, "Or let it cost five hundred pound." Benjamin Frank- lin uses it in his AutobiograpJn/. These are the most recent cases that the writer has seen in the literature ; there may be others later. Browning would not hesitate to use it. In polite colloquial English and in the current literature of England, phrases like "three pound ten" (=£3. 10s.) are used very widely. "Twelve pound weight" is cited as good English by Nesfield. 1 1 Englixh dramtnar Past and Present, p. 22. PEEPOSITIOX AT END OF SENTENCE 213 XCIV THE PREPOSITION AT THE END OF A SENTENCE Many teachers and sclioolbooks tell us that a sentence must never end with a preposition. Blair gave wide vogue to this canon. In his Rhetoric, 1 long a standard book, he says: "we should always avoid concluding with any of those particles which mark the cases of nouns, of, to, from, with, by. . . . This is a phraseology which all correct writers shun, and with reason." He adds that sentences of this kind are lacking in dignity and also that it is disagreeable for the mind to be left pausing upon a word which does not convey any idea or form any picture in the fancy. This view is still held in many quar- ters. It is clearly set forth in the school Rhetoric written by John S. Hart and revised by Professor J. M. Hart, his dis- tinguished son. "End with words that deserve distinction," say Professors J. F. Genung and Barrett Wendell in their textbooks. This rule puts them in the same list as Blair and the Harts. Professor George P. Krapp 1 ' is on the other side : he thinks the rule too strict. Professor A. S. Hill, 3 also, combats this hard-and-fast rule and says that it is inconsistent with the practice of the good authors. He quotes passages from Shakespeare, Addison, Goldsmith, Jane Austen, Ruskin, Mrs. Oliphant, and Stevenson. Hill, however, goes on to say that, while good authors do not hesitate to end a sentence with a preposition when they think that clearness, force, or ease demands it, they often, perhaps usually, put the preposition elsewhere. This is no doubt true. A pretty recent statement on this subject is from Jespersen, 4 tpp. 130, 131. 2 Modern English, pp. 318, 319. 3 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, pp. 4S9, 490. 4 Growth and Structure of the English Language, p. 12S. 214 STUDIES IN USAGE the Danish scholar. He says that this is "a genuine English idiom of long standing in the language and found very fre- quently in all writers of natural prose and verse." Jespersen attributes the prejudice against it to the influence of Latin syntax upon English, and says that Dryden, no doubt under this influence, revised some of his sentences, e.g., "The age I live in" to "The age in which I live." The most recent statement on this subject is made by Kit- tredge and Farley in their grammar: 1 "A preposition may stand at the end of a sentence. . . . This order, though infor- mal, is common in the best authors." The following figures will speak for themselves : Malory 2 Thomas More 1 Latimer 1 King James Bible 4 Shakespeare 33 Fletcher and Shakespeare 1 Marlowe 2 Massinger 33 Dekker 1 Lyly 1 Beaumont and Fletcher 1 Hobbes 1 South 3 Milton 1 Burnet 3 Clarendon 1 Baxter • 1 Addison 17 Dr. Johnson 1 Goldsmith 4 Fielding 14 Dr. Blair 1 Cowper 2 George Campbell 2 Burke 2 Franklin 3 Lamb 33 Scott 2 Christopher North 1 Leigh Hunt 1 Irving 1 Jane Austen 2 Hawthorne 14 Dean Trench 2 Holmes 47 Poe 2 Sir Henry Taylor 13 George Eliot 15 Herbert Spencer 2 Huxley 2 Lowell 1 Longfellow 1 Saintsbury 3 G. W. Cable 1 T. L. K. Oliphant 1 Edwin Arnold 1 Henry Drummond 2 Buskin 5 Sir William Hamilton 1 Carlyle 22 i P. 149. PEEPOSITION AT END OF SENTENCE 215 Kingsley 1 Morris 2 Froude 2 William Minto 5 Clough 2 Professor John Earle 3 Emerson 4 J. F. Genung 2 Bulwer 2 Bagehot 4 Thackeray 4 Freeman 5 Browning 5 D. G. Mitchell 1 Fiske 7 Mrs. H. Ward 1 Daniel Webster 1 Stevenson 8 Phillips Brooks 4 Matthew Arnold 1 Here are 70 authorities, in over 300 passages, all the way from Malory to the present. It is too strict to say that a sentence must never close with a preposition. We can say that it is not the regular habit of reputable authors to end a sentence in this way ; but this rule, like all other "hide-bound" rules, is subject to numerous exceptions. We could go on indefinitely collecting examples from many reputable authors. It is true that it is better to end a sentence with a word that "deserves distinction," provided we do not sacrifice something mpre important. There are times, however, when to put the preposition before its noun or pronoun would be almost intolerable. For instance, John Fiske says, "In 1640, King Charles found it impossible to get on any longer without a parliament, and he sum- moned one which he was never afterward able to get rid of." "Of which he was never afterward able to get rid," shall we say? No; that would be out-purizing the purists and would also destroy the cadence of the sentence. The language has never positively required the preposition to stand close to its "object." In the Anglo-Saxon period the preposition frequently stood near the end of the clause, just before the verb at the end, and far away from its noun or pronoun; e.g., "The house which he for many years happily in lived" would be good Anglo-Saxon. This survived in Middle English ; e.g., Chaucer says, "And mo than I kan make of mencioun." In Piers Plowman we have "that I before of 216 STUDIES IN VSAGE seyde." The preposition at the extreme end of the sentence is probably due to Scandinavian influence, as Toller suggests in his Outlines of the History of the English Language. 1 In public discourse and in conversation, this rule is violated very frequently. The speaker gets his relative pronoun straight, "which," for instance; but not until he gets near the end of his sentence does he fully realize that his relative needs a preposition; e.g., "We venerate the house, however humble its appearance, which a great man was born in." After get- ting almost through the sentence, it would be puristic and pedantic to go back and say "in which." In this connection it may be said that it is pretty common for good writers to end an internal clause with a preposition : this also used to be condemned in many schoolrooms. We may now pass on to quote a few sentences from eminent authors. Addison in the Spectator says, "there are very few celebrated books, either in the learned or the modern tongues, which I am not acquainted with"; "It is certain the trunk- maker has saved many a good play, and brought many a graceful actor into reputation, who would not otherwise have been taken notice of." Burke in Conciliation says, "I charge therefore to this new and unfortunate system the loss not only of peace, of union, and of commerce, but even of revenue, which its friends are contending for" ; "your colonies become suspicious, restive, and untractable, whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the only advantage worth living for." Fronde (Erasmus and Luther) says, "Wanting sadly in many qualities which the liberal mind cannot dispense with," and, "little if at all better than the popes and cardi- nals whom they were fighting against." Hawthorne (Custom House) says, "Thus, by an inevitable necessity, as a magnet attracts steel filings, so did our man of business draw to himself the difficulties which everybody met with," and, "to 1 p. 150, note. PEETTY AS AN ADVERB 217 find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at." Buskin in The Crown of Wild Olives says, "doing them at nights carefully, with her bandage off, and through acutest spectacles (the only modern scientific invention she cares about).'" XCV PRETTY AS AN* ADVERB We sometimes see letters in the query columns of the papers and periodicals asking whether it is right to say "It is pretty warm, pretty cool,'' etc. The writer was interested in watch- ing this use of the word in the literature. The Century Dictionary recognizes it, quoting Bunyan, Addison, Sheridan, and Goldsmith. Webster recognizes it, with a passage from Atterbury. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recognizes it, quoting Burke. Worcester and the Standard recognize it. The New English Dictionary recognizes it, quot- ing Florio, Massinger, Alexander Hamilton, Fielding, Sheri- dan, Thomas Hughes, and Bryce. Baskervill and Sewell l say that "it has a wider adverbial use than it gets credit for," and cite the following authors as using it : Fielding, Defoe, Burke, Franklin, Holmes, Dickens, Kingsley, Thackeray, Pres- cott, De Quincey, Emerson, T. B. Aldrich. The writer has recorded the following passages: Pepys 1 Boswell 5 John Evelyn 1 Burke 1 Jonathan Edwards 1 Goldsmith 1 Defoe 3 Chesterfield 5 Addison 4 George Campbell 5 Swift 2 Franklin 3 Fielding 30 Coleridge ... 2 Dr. Johnson 3 Scott 1 1 English Grammar, p. 1S6. 218 STUDIES IN USAGE De Quineey 3 William Minto 2 Hazlitt 1 J. A. Froude 1 Lamb 14 J. E. Lowell 1 Poe 5 John Fiske 10 Hallam 8 T. L. K. Oliphant 1 Bryant 1 Henry Bradley 1 Bulwer 5 W. D. Whitney 1 Hawthorne 2 George P. Marsh 1 E. A. Freeman 3 Bret Harte 1 Thomas Hughes 3 Brander Matthews 2 Grote 1 James Bryce 2 Browning 1 Lounsbury 7 Macaulay 4 Holmes 11 Thackeray 25 Kittredge and Greenough 3 Mrs. Gaskell . . ' 12 G. W. Cable 4 Dickens 7 William James 1 George Eliot 3 J. F. Genung 2 Matthew Arnold 1 Stevenson 15 Here are about 60 of the best essayists, scholars, novelists, and historians of the last 250 years in at least 200 passages. Of course the word is of the ' ' free-and-easy ' ' type ; it would hardly be used in the most solemn places ; is rather on the colloquial order. The word is too commonplace for poetry. Only one example in our list, the one from Browning, is taken from poetry, and that of the conversational order, where a character is speaking in monodrama. Then, Browning is a "free lance" in grammar, as we shall see in our section on the "split infinitive." This use of pretty is strong in Lamb, Mrs. Gaskell, Thack- eray, and Stevenson. It is suited to their free-and-easy style of writing. As said in treating mighty (page 161), words, even in literature have different grades, are not all equally suited to the high style or to sacred discourse. For instance, a preacher would hardly say, "The disciples were pretty glad when they saw their master. " Nor would he say mighty glad; though good old Hugh Latimer might say either. Yet we should cheerfully permit it to a Stanley or to the present THE PBOGBESSIVE PASSIVE VEBB PHRASE 219 Bishop of London: language " courtesies to great kings" of thought. Dean Swift in the Toiler says, "when I seemed pretty much bent upon going, they ordered the stable door to be locked. ' ' Addison in the Spectator says, ' ' But where the age and circumstances of both parties are pretty much upon a level, I cannot but think the insisting upon pin-money is very extraordinary," and, "We sat pretty late over our punch." Matthew Arnold (On Translating Homer) says, "wherever one finds such a theory announced (and one finds it pretty often), it is generally followed by an explosion of pedantry." Macaulay (Earl of Chatham) says, "the other, who is repre- sented as a most respectable specimen of the young aristoc- racy, and something of a virtuoso, is described as spelling pretty well for a lord." Lowell in his essay On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners says, "The Dutch had thriven under it pretty well, and there was hope that we could at least contrive to worry along." The literature is full of such sentences. XCVI THE PHOGEESSIVE PASSIVE VERB PHEASE Man as vet is being made. (Tennyson.) The progressive passive verb phrase is avoided by some excellent speakers and writers. They will not say "My book is being printed" but "is print 'nig." Yet a distinguished scholar recently told the author of this volume that the pro- gressive passive phrase is too well established to need defense. Is he not mistaken ? Are not Richard Grant White 's 1 attacks upon this phrase still reprinted in Boston and read by thou- sands of earnest people? Do not many Americans avoid it? iWords and Their Uses, pp. 334-3C3. 220 STUDIES IN USAGE Grammarians have been fighting the progressive passive verb phrases for a long time. In 1857 Professor J. W. Gibbs, 1 of Yale, published an article which he had had in his desk since 1846, in which he, while admitting that the phrase was "quite common, particularly in the public newspapers," raised several "important objections" to the locution. He argued for "The house is building.'" He said that "The house is being built" is too formal and pedantic; that it is not found in the Bible; that the phrase being built is twisted from its proper meaning; and that, as far as he knew, the phrase in question did not have "the support of any respectable gram- marian." How times change! To us it seems that "The house is building" sounds formal and pedantic. As to his second objection : we do not expect to find all of our present- day locutions in the King James Bible: that is a treasure- house of old words and phrases, but too antiquated in style to serve as an absolute criterion for modern English. As to the sanction of grammarians : Gibbs forgot for the nonce that grammarians do not make language but merely record usage. He forgot also that language develops new locutions as it needs them. In 1859 George P. Marsh attacked this locution in his Lec- tures on English, calling it "clumsy and unidiomatic." He went on to say that this phrase did not originate in the com- mon sense of the people but "in the brain of some grammatical pretender." He argued stoutly for the form is making in the sentence at the head of this section. A few years later, Richard Grant White 2 attacked is being done with great vehemence. White's books had considerable influence and are still pop- ular in some quarters. Quackenbos,"' though not so warm as White, says, "It is at present more elegant and more idiomatic to say, 'The house is building' than 'The house is being 1 Philological Studies, p. 90. - \\'<,nls and Their I ses, pp. 331-303. 3 Practical Rhetoric, p. 23G. THE PROGRESSIVE PASSIVE VERB PHRASE 221 built.' " This statement stands in his latest edition, published in 1896. In 1900 Genung 1 in liis school Rhetoric said, " Gram- marians prefer is doing, is building, etc., when not ambiguous, to passives of this class." In 1902 Professor A. S. Hill, 2 after giving a block of sentences in which phrases of this group occurred, corrected them, and then made the following state- ment : "Passive forms like those given under II have recently, perhaps within a century, come into common use. They have been stigmatized as bad English ; but they are found in the works of some good authors, and they are occasionally con- ducive to clearness. When, however,, as in these examples, active forms are so familiar that they may be used without creating obscurity or savoring of affectation, they are preferable to passive forms ; for they are less clumsy and more forcible. ' ' Cardinal Newman, it is said, was opposed to this locution all his life. 3 Professor Earle, 4 though favorable to it in 1871, was non-committal in 1887 ; he was probably influenced by the opinions of White, George P. Marsh, and other stu- dents of English who were opposed to it. Let us see what defenders it has had in the days since White and Marsh attacked it. In 1864 Dean Alford 5 said, "is so completely naturalized, that it would be vain to protest against it, or even to attempt to disuse it one 's self. ' ' This shows how a distinguished Eng- lishman felt in the '60 's of the last century. The author's table and Fitzedward Hall's list below will show how many great authors were using it at that time. In 1873 Fitzedward Hall 6 defended the locution very stanchly. He criticized Marsh and White vehemently and argued that their hostility to the phrase was utterly unrea- 1 Outlines of Rhetoric, p. 318. 2 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, pp. 4r>2, 4.".:;. 3 See Earle's Philology of the English Tongue, 1SS7, p. 552 and note. 4 Philology of the English Tongue, p. 552. s The Queen's English, 1800, pp. 107. 108. 6 Modern English, pp. 321-359. 222 STUDIES IN rSAGE sonable and simply due to their fear of innovation. Hall, while not attempting to give the genesis of the phrase, argued that it was needed in the language and said that it had been used by some of the best authors for at least seventy-five years. He quotes passages from the following: Southey De Quincey Coleridge Newman Lamb Bishop Wilberforce Shelley Ruskin Landor Freeman Jeremy Bentham Baring-Gould Young Matthew Arnold Dr. Thomas Arnold Huxley Dr. Hall added that it was "daily becoming more and more common'' and that "the best written of the English reviews, magazines, and journals are perpetually marked by it." The Century Dictionary says, "Well established in popular speech, and will probably pass into correct literary speech." Professor W. D. Whitney 1 in 1875 said, "Awkward, but nat- urally formed and really unavoidable." In 1879 Lounsbury 2 gave the history of this passive pro- gressive verb phrase, treating it as an established part of the English verb system. This same scholar said s in 1914 that the phrase is perfectly established in the language. In 1885 Professor W. D. Whitney 4 said, "These progressive passive forms are still regarded by some as bad English, and carefully avoided ; but they are also freely used even by writers of the first class, especially in England (less generally in America)." In 1886 T. L. Kington Oliphant 6 said, "the idiom is now well established." In 1904 Henry Bradley, 6 editor of the New 1 The Life and Growth of Language, p. 102. 2 History of the English Language, revised edition of 1S94. pp. 169-173. 3 In a letter to the author of this volume. 4 Essentials of English Grammar, p. 12S, fop. B The Xeir English, II. 188. 6 The Making of English, p. TO. THE PROGRESSIVE PASSIVE VERB PHRASE 223 English Dictionary, said, "The . . . passive forms, as in " the house is being built", "he was being taught to ride," were hardly known till near the end of the eighteenth century, and long afterwards they were condemned by sticklers for gram- matical correctness. Yet the innovation was clearly needed/' If any honest doubter is not convinced by these quotations from several of the greatest English scholars of England and America, it is no doubt useless for this writer to argue any further. However, it may be added that this phrase is found more or less frequently in the following : Coleridge Phillips Brooks Southey Lowell De Quincey John Fiske Landor Tennyson Mrs. Gaskell Ernest Ehys Matthew Arnold Churton Collins Froude H. W. Mabie Clough Charles Morris Thackeray Stopford Brooke Dickens G. W. Cable Huxley T. N. Page Herbert Spencer Saintsbury Stevenson The two lists indicate that the phrase is used more by English than by American writers, as Whitney said in his Essentials of English Grammar. John Fiske uses both is building and is being built. Lowell, while using the passive form occasionally, clings to the other ; e.g., "the great problems . . . which were ages in solving." Holmes says, "the Battle . . . is fighting, and ivas fighting"; "as if some game of life were quietly playing." The main attacks upon this locution have come from Amer- icans, and these attacks have no doubt affected American writers. Whatever the cause, the phrase is not very common in the best American authors. 224 STUDIES IN USAGE As to the age of this locution. Richard Grant White 1 says that it was first used in literature by Robert Southey in 1795. Lounsbury says it first became common in the latter half of the eighteenth century. White's statement can now be amended. We find it in the letters of John Shillingford, about 1447.-1448. He writes, "wyn is being y put to sale" (=wine is being put to sale) ; the phrase occurs twice. Again: in the Letters of the Court of James I. (1603-1615) we read, "Italy is being held dangerous." In 1769 one of Foote's characters says, "an opera is being acted." So that the phrase was lurking somewhere in England for several hundred years, biding its time for adoption. Oliphant says that it originated in the West country. This, if true, will explain why it started out in standard literature with Coleridge and Southey, as these poets spent a good deal of their time in southwestern England. As there were no "grammatical pretenders" in the West country at that early day, the statement of Marsh in an earlier para- graph may be disregarded. The genesis of this phrase may be given briefly. It started out in Anglo-Saxon in the form on byldung (=on building), where on means in. This changed to in building. Then it became a-building, where a is a shortened form of on. Then the preposition began to drop out, giving the phrase is build- ing. Meantime is being built had, as already said, made its appearance sporadically in the literature. The form in building, etc., runs through literature for centuries. The King James Bible says, "it was in building"; Thomas Gray, "bridge is now in building" ; Lowell, "problems ages in solving." The King James Bible says, also, "the ark . . . was a-preparing"; G. W. Cable, "Gun-carriages were a-making." For the next step we find Shakespeare has, "while grace is saying"; Milton, "was building"; Addison, "was prepar- ing"; Dr. Johnson, "were printing." Coleridge says, "a 1 Words and Their Uses, edition of 1890, p. 348. TEE PROGRESSIVE PASSIVE VERB PHRASE 225 wall that is whitewashing" ; Holmes, "is fighting" ; Browning, "hops are picking." Certainly the language needed a new construction to meet such cases as the last four. We have seen two older forms in use at the same time in Bible English. In recent English we can show all three mod- ern forms in the same author : G. W. Cable, in Dr. Sevier, says, "gun-carriages were a-making", "the rams were build- ing", "big guns were being cast" — three forms in one sentence. White and Hall argued vehemently. One spent his energies trying to show that is being done violates logic, analogy, and precedent, the "parents" of language, as he calls them. The other argued just as stoutly that is being built does not violate good sense and reason and is not opposed to "the genius of the language." Both these writers were on the wrong track, groping in the dark ; language asks no odds of either prece- dent, reason, or analogy. Ordinarily she is guided by these gentle maidens, but, when she is in a dilemma and wishes to get to some point as speedily as possible, she breaks away from these guides and leaves them gasping behind her. In this respect language can be compared to an army. Ordinarily it moves along the old roads that have been used for ages. These are convenient and serve for ordinary campaigns. But if an emergency arises; if the enemy is to be surprised, or any sudden coup de guerre is resolved upon, the engineer corps advances, cuts new roads amid the crash of falling timber, and moves the army through fields and pastures never before traveled by wheel or horsehoof. Precedent, reason, and anal- ogy are the "parents" of language generally; but "necessity is the mother of invention" in language as in other matters. To show the development of this phrase in modern English, a few complete sentences will be given. Bishop Latimer, preaching before King Edward VI in 1550, said, "And before that Tenterton steeple was in build- ing, there was no manner of speaking of any flats or sands 226 STUDIES JX USAGE that stopped the haven." The King James Bible (1611) says, "And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither"; "And the word of the Lord came to Solomon, saying, Concerning this house which thou art in building," etc.; "When once the long- suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a-prcparing," etc. Addison (Spectator) says, "While supper was preparing, he enlarged upon the happiness of the neighboring shire." Dr. Johnson ( Bos well 's Johnson) writes in 1775, "Maps were printing in one of the rooms." When maps are printing and walls are whitewashing, the language will look for a better phrase elsewhere or make one. The passive phrase was coming into considerable use about the time of Johnson and of Coleridge, but the older ones have persisted to the present time in standard authors. In the nineteenth century the passive phrase became well established. Tennyson was quoted at the head of this sec- tion. Matthew Arnold says, "I am disposed rather to regard it as a pause in which the turn to a new mode of spiritual progress is being accomplished." Froude (Erasmus and Luther) says, "the mind of the world was being reformed in the best sense by the classics of Greece and Rome " ; " Sir Richard . . . was then shot through the body while his wounds were being dressed, and again in the head." (For- gotten Worthies.) (But Froude says in his essay on Homer, "in the distance a banquet preparing under the trees.") Ste- venson (Travels with a Donkey) says, "even in my great chamber the air was being renewed all night long. ' ' In conclusion it may be said that, although the passive phrase is "now well established," the active form is persisting both in literature and in the vocabulary of some highly edu- cated men and women. To set a few earnest seekers after truth straight in the matter is the object of this unusually long section of this volume. When such popular writers as Macaulay, Carlyle, and Poe say, "His book was printing," PROVEN AS A PARTICIPLE 227 "a house preparing", "preparations were making", "a meal is getting," the passive phrase is hardly too well established not to need some discussion. Probably the language will keep both "is printing" and "is being printed." XCYII PROVEN AS A PAETICIPLE The Century Dictionary says, "an improper form, lately growing in frequency." It quotes Herbert Spencer as using it. A. S. Hill 1 and Genung- condemn it in their textbooks on rhetoric. The Standard Dictionary says, "an irregular form, [used] in legal phrases." Whitney 3 calls it "an unsupported anomaly. ' ' T. L. K. Oliphant 4 cited it as a Northern form in the Scotch law phrase "not proven," seen about 1350. Worcester says, "Sometimes proven/' and quotes P. J. Bailey. The New English Dictionary recognizes it, quoting Landor, Gladstone, Tennyson, and some minor writers. Web- ster recognizes it, quoting Thackeray and Jowett. The most ardent defender of proven is Professor Lounsbury, who devotes three pages to it in his The Standard of Usage in Eng- lish. 7 ' He finds it quite frequently in Tennyson ; also in Bulwer, Lowell, Thackeray, and Herbert Spencer. Lounsbury says, "Some authors of repute employ it; some avoid it. . . . It is more than likely that it is destined to establish itself perma- nently in the language of literature." Proven is used at least seven times in Tennyson's Idylls of the King and twice in his Aylmer's Field. The writer has seen it once in Huxley; twice in Kipling's serious verse ; once in Fitz-Greene Halleck's 1 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, p. 148. 2 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1000, p. 325. 3 The Life and Growth of Language, p. 75. * The Xcw English, I, 55. 5 Pp. 62-65. 228 STUDIES IN USAGE poetry ; once in Miss Katharine Lee Bates's Religious Drama. Huxley, however, generally uses proved. Of course prove is a weak verb and has no historical claim, so to speak, upon the -en participle; but as all scholars know, the two classes have been shifting a little for many centuries. Worcester's statement is correct: "sometimes proven." Whitney's statement, "an unsupported anomaly," is too severe. Lounsbury's prophecy is hardly warranted when only ten or twelve cases have been found in seventy-five thousand pages of literature; but Tennyson uses it seventeen times, as the concordance to his poetry shows. Proved, however, is supreme' in the literature as a whole. If one great author can establish a form, Tennyson has established proven; but he also uses proved. In America, proven has considerable vogue in polite society and in the best journals. Tennyson (Gareth and Lynettc) says, Why, Gawain, when he came With Modred hither in the summer-time, Ask 'd me to tilt with him, the proven Knight. there be many who deem him not, Or will not deem him, wholly proven king. Not proven, who swept the dust of ruin 'd Rome From off the threshold of the realm, etc. Miss Bates has no doubt heard proven in Massachusetts all her life : the writer has heard it in Virginia. Probably the Scotch law phrase "not proven" has helped to extend the use of proven; and this phrase itself indicates that the form is not a neologism but has its roots in the past. (See Oliphant's statement above.) Proved is far more common in the literature, has no ene- mies, and does not put one on the defensive. Yet we may feel that we do not like to part with proven after hearing it all our QUIT = LEAVE, GO AWAY FBOM 229 lives from good speakers and careful talkers. If so, we have some high authority to support us ; but George Campbell would advise us to use the more common form. 1 XCVIII QUIT = LEAVE, GO AWAY PROM The writer long had a prejudice against the word quit; in his mind it was associated somehow with the illiterate or the half-educated. For that reason he watched the word in litera- ture and found that it has been in reputable use for several centuries. It was used frequently by Dr. Johnson in the eighteenth century ; by Jane Austen, Bulwer, and Thackeray in the nineteenth. It is an exceedingly common word in Thackeray, could probably be found hundreds of times in his novels. Macaulay, also, uses it very frequently, though the writer has recorded only 25 cases of the word in his writings. Quit is used by the following authors: Shakespeare 8 Boswell 9 Sir Thomas Browne 2 Dr. Johnson 14 Massinger 1 Thomas Warton 3 Lord Bacon 2 Sharon Turner 4 Defoe 4 Alexander Hamilton 1 Bishop Burnet 5 Fielding 26 Swift 4 Burke 1 Addison 3 Dr. H. Blair 1 Steele 1 Franklin 4 Dryden 2 Freneau 2 Pope 10 Cowper 1 Prior 4 Southey 2 Baxter 1 Byron 3 Jeremy Taylor 3 Coleridge 2 Milton 2 De Quincey 9 1 "When those (the authorities) on one side greatly preponderate, it is in vain to oppose the prevailing usage." Philosophy of Rhetoric, Bk. II, chap. II, section I. ■_>:;<> STUDIES IN USAGE William Hazlitt 4 Lamb 10 ( Ihristopher North 1 Hallam 1 Scott 6 Wordsworth 9 Jane Austen 15 A. H. Clough 3 Cooper 5 Emerson 6 Fronde 1 Mrs. Gaskell .* 2 Lady Charlotte Guett 1 Hawthorne 10 D. G. Rossetti 1 Ruskin 1 Holmes 3 Jean Ingelow 4 Douglas Jerrold 1 Macaulay 25 William Minto 1 D. G. Mitchell 1 Matthew Arnold 4 Browning 7 Carlyle S Motley 2 Newman 1 Francis Palgrave 1 Poe 16 Bayard Taylor 2 Dean Trench 1 Thackeray 44 Sir Henry Taylor 5 Stevenson 2 John Fiske 2 Henry Adams 1 G. W. Cable 1 Churton Collms 2 Professor John Earle 1 James Bryce 1 Stephen Phillips 1 John Tyndall 1 Mrs. H. Ward 4 W. D. Whitney 1 The word is used more in England than in America : a care- ful reading of the table will show that about three-fourths of the examples are from English literature. It will be noticed, also, that the largest figures are from English authors. For instance, an English author will say, "They quit (or quitted) Rome early in the year," where an American author would be more likely to say, "They left Rome." With the foregoing list of more than 70 reputable authors representing a very wide use of quit, we can no longer have a reasonable prejudice against the word ; but A man convinced against his will Is of his own opinion still. The following quotations will show how quit is used in the literature. Pope 's hymn is familiar : Vital spark of heav'nly flame, Quit, oh, quit this mortal frame. BECKON AND GUESS IN LITERATURE 231 Burke (Conciliation) says, "But I quit the vantage-ground on which I stand, and where I might leave the burthen of the proof upon him." Addison in the Spectator says, "The genius, being moved with compassion towards me, bid me quit so uncomfortable a prospect"; "I was forced to quit my first lodgings, by reason of an officious landlady, that would be asking me every morning how I had slept." Matthew Arnold (Function of Criticism) says, "Or, to narrow our range, and quit these considerations of the general march of genius and of society," etc.; "its movement of ideas, by quitting the intellectual sphere and rushing furiously into the political sphere, ran, indeed, a prodigious and memorable course," etc. Macaulay says, "Fortunately for himself and for his country, he early quitted poetry," etc.; "Addison, made a rich man by his pension, and still retaining his fellowship, quitted his beloved Oxford, and set out on his travels"; "Addison was consequently under the necessity of quitting London for Dublin." Quit in the sense of cease, stop, is marked "chiefly collo- quial" in the Century, but is recognized by several other dic- tionaries. "To quit London" is more literary than "to quit smoking. ' ' XCIX RECKON ANT) GUESS IN LITERATURE Have reckon and guess in the sense of "think," etc., any literary standing? Or are they only provincialisms, properly blacklisted in all our schoolbooks? All of the "lesser grammarians" and the minor verbalists condemn them mercilessly, and some of the major writers of textbooks and some of the lexicographers fail to show that they could possibly be used in modern literature. 2:52 STUDIES IN USAGE RECKON Webster says, "Provincial English and colloquial U. S." This authority gives no inkling that the word has any standing in literature in the sense of "think," "suppose." The Century, while showing from the King James Bible, Dean Swift, Foote, Walter Scott, and Harper's Magazine, that the word has been literary, says that it has come to be regarded as provincial or vulgar. The Encyclopedic Dictionary says, "Provincial in England and very common in the middle and southern states of America." Even Lounsbury, 1 the leader of our most chari- table verbal critics, says, "once literary, which still remains common in the United States, especially in the South." Let us trace reckon in the literature. The earliest case the writer has seen is in John Bale's God's Promises, written in 1538. Next, two passages from the Bible quoted in the Cen- tury Dictionary; viz., Isaiah 38:13 and Romans 8:18, which we leave the reader to look up for himself. The New English Dictionary, in showing the literary use of the word, quotes Joseph Glanvill (1636-80), the Bible, Swift, Fanny Burney, Gaskell, and Jowett. An interesting passage from Swift is quoted in the Cen- tury: "I reckon it will appear to many as a very unreason- able paradox." To this the writer can add, "I do not reckon that we want a genius more than the rest of our neighbors." No doubt other passages from Swift could be produced. A little later, we find it used by Dr. Samuel Johnson in a letter : "I reckon George begins to shew a pair of heels." Just at this time, Foote was writing his plays, from one of which the Century quotes a reckon. About this same time Chesterfield uses it in a letter. Thomas Carlyle says: "In many intrica- cies Frederick has been; but never, I reckon, in any equal to this." (This is quoted by Professor Lounsbury.) Fitzed- ward Hall 2 puts it in Our Grandfathers' English, citing 1 The Standard of Usage in English, p. 32. 2 Modern English, p. 251, and note. BECKON AND GUESS IN LITERATURE 2'.V3 Foote and Cowper as using it. Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass says, "I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after all." Browning- (The Flight of the Duchess) says, He told the crone, as I since have reckoned By the way he bent and spoke into her ear. This is a pretty straight pedigree, all the way from Bale to Browning. Who does not respect this old word when he hears from eloquent lips that grand sentence, "For I reckon 1 that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us''? What hand will change that reckon to any one of its supposed equivalents ? The writer does not deny that reckon is at present not in good literary standing: he is only tracing its pedigree in lit- erature, bringing it down from Bale to Browning. It has been shown that it was in good literary standing when our colonial sires emigrated from England and that they handed it down to their descendants. We shall close with a query: If reckon is entirely "provincial," or "colloquial U. S.," what shall we do with Browning? Under which head shall we classify him? / reckon is treated separately by the New English Dic- tionary, which says, "formerly in literary English." This dictionary seems to regard I reckon as standing on a lower plane than the verb reckon in other collocations. 2. GUESS Guess— "think," or "suppose," like reckon, is better than the textbooks make it. It is common in Chaucer and Wycliffe; was used by Gower, Shakespeare, Pope, Sheridan, Southey, and Wordsworth, so that it had an unbroken literary 1 An excellent scholar has suggested that the Greek word used by Saint Paul means to "calculate." It did mean that originally, but afterwards meant "consider." In most of the languages, it will be found that the word used in translating the passage is equivalent to "think", "consider." 234 STUDIES IN VSAGi: history for over four centuries. The writer has not found any examples of guess, as late as Mrs. Gaskell, Carlyle, Jowett, and Walt Whitman, who use reckon. Guess is not found in the Bible. Nor should we be willing to substitute it for reckon in Isaiah 38:13 or Romans 8:18.. It is distinctly below reckon in literary value and seems to have lost its standing in literature since Shelley and Words- worth used it. It would, moreover, be a safe statement that in modern literature reckon has been used more frequently than guess. Wordsworth in To Joanna, written in 1S00, says: Yet we, who are transgressors in this kind, Dwelling retired in our simplicity Among the woods and fields, we love you well, Joanna! and I guess, since you have been So distant from us now for two long years, That you will gladly listen to discourse. In The Recluse, probably written a few years liter than To Joanna, Wordsworth says : Conspicuous at the centre of the Lake Their safe retreat, we knew them well, I guess That the whole valley knew them. Shelley in Adonais (v. 31) says, he, as 1 guess, Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness Acteon-like. These are the latest cases of guess the writer has seen in the literature. Both reckon and guess arc used so constantly as hack words in the United States that they now stand on an equality as provincialisms ; as soon as we cross the Potomac, we pass from the land of one to the domain of the other. Northern people who use guess sometimes criticize Southern people for using reckon. The writer has tried to show that, while overworked REDl NDANT THAT 235 as localisms and colloquialisms, they have some literary value and some standing among modern authors, with a slight bal- ance on the side of reckon. C REDUNDANT 1 THAT What we might call redundant that is often heard in con- versation and in platform English and sometimes gets into literature. For instance, Bishop Burnet in his History of Our Own Times writes, "And it was often said, that if Crom- well would have compounded the matter, and have given him a good round pension, that he might have been induced to resign his title to him." Here the second that is clearly redundant. Dr. Johnson, in a letter to Boswell dated Dec. 7, 1782, uses the same construction. Thomas Paine uses it at least four times. Eecent cases are seen in the writings of a prominent English ecclesiastic, Prebendary C. A. Row: in Isaac D 'Israeli, and in Phillips Brooks. There are two cases of this that in Anglo-Saxon literature, one in the Chronicle and the other in the prose Legend of St. Andrew. It occurs in Malory also. Dr. Johnson in a letter to Boswell says, "You do not, since now you are the head of your house, think it worth your while to try whether you or your friend can live longer without writ- ing, nor suspect that after so many years of friendship that when I do not write to you. I forget you." Isaac D 'Israeli says: "It is hardly credible, that on the first introduction of the Chinese leaf, which now affords our daily refreshment ; or the American leaf, whose sedative fumes made it so long a universal favorite; or the Arabian berry, whose aroma ex- hilarates its European votaries; that the use of those harm- less novelties should have spread consternation," etc. The 1 Not the same construction called by this name in Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar. 236 STUDIES IN USAGE distinguished Phillips Brooks uses this that more than once in his published addresses: "Shall I believe that until he comes to a change of his opinions and recognizes that there is indeed a ruling love, a great and fatherly God for all the world, that he has nothing to do with that God?" The last italicized that recapitulates the first. The psychology of the redundant that is very simple : it is the desire of the writer or of the speaker to recapitulate, to renew the connection between the clause introduced by that (but interrupted by intervening words) and the main element of the sentence. The that under discussion, then, might be called the resumptive or recapitulative that. It may be added that scholars have noticed that the syntax of English has a "short span", "short reach," or "short circuit" and needs words of recapitulation more than other languages. Under this same head we might put the Pleonastic Pronoun, treated in a previous section of this volume. The that under discussion is common in the pulpit, on the platform, and in conversation, but rare in literature. The writer is not arguing for this construction : on the contrary, he thinks that it mars the beauty of a sentence. Having often heard this that used by well educated people and seen it fre- quently in reputable papers, he was interested to find it occurring sporadically in the literature. CI THE RELATIVE THAT BEFORE A PAUSE An expression that, though intelligible, is no longer employed in ordi- nary unemotional discourse. (J. F. Genunt/.) The use of that before a pause is condemned by some high authorities. Henry Sweet 1 says: "As it (i.e., that) is always pronounced with a weak vowel, it cannot take stress, and 1 New English Grammar, % 2128. THE RELATIVE TEAT BEFORE A PAUSE 237 hence cannot be followed by a pause. Tims we could not sub- stitute it for who in "he is a man who, if . . ." Is this rule based upon a study of the literature? Genung 1 takes the same position. He quotes approvingly from some writer: ''That is not a good word to pause upon; when therefore it comes just at a pause who or which will often sound better. Example. — There are many persons that (better who), though unscrupulous, are commonly good-tem- pered, and that (better who), if not strongly incited by self- interest, are ready for the most part to think of the interest of their neighbors." That these canons are not based upon the usage of good writers Mill appear from the table appended. Meantime let us quote a few passages from Genung's college textbooks: "habits that, far from eclipsing any mental talent, make all the writer's gifts more assured and self-perfecting"; 2 "some thoughts that, reasoned out, would have comparatively little effect, might appeal strongly to the imagination"; 3 "there must necessarily remain a great deal that, in spite of the utmost skill, cannot be adequately reproduced in another lan- guage.*' 4 These are but a fraction of the passages that might be found in Genung's volumes. "We quote them to show that the rule is so strict that good writers like Genung are not bound by them. The writer has recorded the following passages in which the relative that is used before a pause: John Lyly 3 Burke 4 Bacon 5 John Adams 1 John Webster 1 Hazlitt 2 Bishop Burnet 1 Coleridge 1 Richard Steele 1 Wordsworth 2 Dr. Johnson 3 Lamb 2 1 Outlines of Rhetoric, p. 94. 2 Practical Rhetoric, p. 232. 3 Practical Rhetoric, p. 289. 4 Practical Rhetoric, p. T.20. 238 STUDIES IN USAGE ( Jhristopher North 1 Lounsbury 1 Scott 2 Stephen Phillips 1 Prescott 1 Katharine Lee Bates 2 Trench 1 William Minto 1 Cooper (i Tennyson (5 Holmes 1 Browning 3 Bulwer 1 D. G. Rossetti 1 Poe 1 G. W. Cable 2 Beaconsfield 1 Carlyle 1 De Quincey 12 Sir Henry Taylor 1 George Eliot 2 T. N. Page 2 Fronde 1 J. F. Geniin^ 16 Morris 2 Stevenson 1 Here we have 38 reputable authors from Elizabethan times to the present. An interesting fact is that Genung is the worst violator of his own canon ; but this does not injure his standing as a writer, since his practice conforms with that of many standard authors. A point worth mentioning is that the conjunction that is very often used before a pause in literature and by public speakers. Would not the objections made to the relative hold good against the conjunction ? Yet the latter is not questioned by rhetorical scholars and grammarians. Let us quote a few passages from the literature. Dr. Johnson (Life of Shakespeare) says, "He that, without diminution of any other excellence, shall preserve all the unities unbroken," etc. In this sentence, Dr. Johnson uses this interdicted that and uses it where Sweet intimates it would be intolerable. De Quincey uses it pretty frequently. He says (.4. Sketch from Childhood), "The Jews that, in the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, were cursed in a certain contingency," etc.; "murders that, many centuries after all the parties to them — perpetrators, sufferers, aveng- ers — had become dust and ashes," etc. Froude (Words about Oxford) says, "it is the connexion of the foundation RELIABLE 239 with the history of man — with* the names thai, like the flowers called 'immortals,' bloom," ete. Carlyle {Heroes and Hero Worship) says, "Is it not strange that, after all the moun- tains of calumny this man has been subject to?" etc. Burke says {Conciliation), "for the sake of the weighty instruc- tion that, I flatter myself, will necessarily result from it"; "at the very time that, by your conquests in America, your danger from foreign attempts in that part of the world was much lessened, ' ' etc. Browning says ( The Ring and the Book), The -wilding flower-tree-branch /7m/, all those years, She had got used to feel for and find fixed. The true son-servant that, when parent bids "Go work, son, in my vineyard," makes reply " I go, sir ! " The writer can see no valid objection to that before a pause. CII RELIABLE The word reliable has been fought over a long time. In the '60 's of the last century, Dean Alford, 1 in England, and Richard Grant White, 2 in America, condemned the word ; the former, rather mildly; the latter, vehemently. White and others of his school argue that the verb is rely upon, and not rely, and that, consequently the suffix -able should not be added to the verb to form an adjective. William Cullen Bryant took his stand with these verbalists and gave instruc- tions that reliable should not be used in the columns of his paper, the New York Evening Post. George P. Marsh con- demned it though using it occasionally. Genung 3 gives it a half-hearted welcome, saying, "It has made a place for itself 1 The Queen's English, 1866, p. 253. 2 Words and Their Uses, pp. 220-229. 3 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. 326. 240 STUDIES IN USAGE in usage, though careful writers generally prefer trustworthy." Could this statement be substantiated by a study of the literature ? In 1867 W. D. Whitney 1 discussed the word reliable. He does not commit himself as to its propriety, but shows that it might be given a trial. He says that it is "shut out from the best — or, at least, from the most exclusive — society in English speech." He shows, however, that the language has formed laughable, unaccountable, indispensable and others on the same basis as reliable, and that any objection valid against the last-named would hold good against the others. So that Whitney, while rather non-committal, really gave the word a helping hand just at the time when men like Alford and White were either opposing it or questioning it seriously. A few years later, Fitzedward Hall 2 defended reliable and named a large number of reputable writers that used it, among them : Coleridge George P. Marsh J. S. Mill Gladstone Dickens James Martineau Charles Reade G. O. Trevelyan A. Trollope Monier Williams Bagehot Leslie Stephen Harriet Martineau Saintsbury Newman Henry Sweet Irving Thomas Arnold Daniel Webster Edward Everett Since that time, the word has steadily risen in favor. The Century Dictionary defends it, but says that it is shunned by many fastidious writers. It quotes passages from Coleridge, Irving, Gladstone, J. H. Newman, J. S. Mill, and Leslie Stephen, a strong sextette of authorities. Webster defends it, quoting some of the same, and also Martineau. Stormonth recognizes it. Worcester recognizes it, quoting three authors 1 Language and the Study of Language, pp. 40, 41. . - Modern English, pp. 320, 34S. RELIABLE 241 and periodicals. One of the stanchest defenders of the word is Lounsbury. 1 He says that, while Coleridge introduced the word into good society, it was already in the language. He good naturedly twits those who will use laughable, available, and indispensable, and yet refuse to tolerate reliable, which, he says, belongs to the same category. Canby and four other Yale professors of English 2 use it at least four times in a textbook on rhetoric. 0. F. Emerson uses it. The Rev. W. W. Skeat, though very warm on some other points of usage, uses reliable and defends 3 it strenuously "against many frivolous and ignorant objections." (Skeat is always plain-spoken.) The New English Dictionary recognizes reliable, quoting Irving, Gladstone, Trevelyan, and some others not so well known. The last-named dictionary says, "Comparatively new word, sometimes called an Americanism.'' Walter Bagehot, Dickens, and George P. Marsh use it. Besides the support of the authors cited above and a ma- jority of the verbalists, scholars, and lexicographers, the word has the imprimatur of polite society and of many reputable speakers. Jespersen, 4 the Danish scholar, says, "it is difficult to see why reliable should be the most abused word of the English language. It is certainly formed in accordance with the fun- damental laws of the language ; it is short and unambiguous, and what more should be needed?" He goes on to show that it was in reputable use as early as 1624, and quotes Fitzed- ward Hall as proving that it had been in standard literature for over a hundred years. He also says that trustworthy is much less euphonious than reliable. The writer may add that, while he has seen few cases of reliable in this course of reading, he has also seen very few cases of trustworthy. i-Thc Standard of Usage in English, pp. 196, 107. 2 English Composition in Theory anil Practice. 3 Students' Pastime, p. xvii. tQ-roicth and Structure of the English Language, pp. 108, 109. 242 STUDIES IN USAGE Professor 0. F. Emerson says, "Thus from seven to ten divisions are made by different scholars, the most reliable authority at present placing the number at eight." Five English scholars of Yale x in a textbook on composition say, "If he is reliable, you can include his statements, and your opponents will have to respect them ; if he is not reliable, you must omit the whole thing from your brief and argument"; "Now where there is only one cause and one effect, this argu- ment is simple and reliable" ; "If you have analyzed all the points in your brief under these heads and found them reli- able, you may feel reasonably certain that the framework of your argument is sound." For the benefit of readers who prefer quotations from stylists rather than from scholars like Emerson, Skeat, and other specialists, we borrow the following sentence from the dictionaries: Newman says, "She (the Church) has now a direct command, and a reliable influence, over her own insti- tutions, which was wanting in the middle ages." (Lectures on University Subjects.) The Century in defining dependable, itself as vulnerable as the word under discussion, uses reliable. Both of them are offensive to some, though they have the sanction ' of some eminent writers. CIII REMEMBER OF In Henry VIII., Shakespeare says, "I remember of such a time." The phrase in italics is condemned as a vulgarism by A. S. Hill in his school Rhetoric. 2 Carlyle, in a letter to Emerson, speaking of Webster, says, "I have not traced as much of silent Berserker-rage, that I remember of in any other 1 Canby and othors : English Composition in Theory and Practice. s Beginnings <>J Rhetoric «>itl Composition, p. 304. BESUBBECT 243 man." Of course we cannot depend too much upon Carlyle, as he, to some extent, made his own dialect — "Carlylese." The phrase under discussion is out of date now: it is noticed here only because it was seen in three eminent authors and is heard occasionally in polite society. CIV RESURRECT The verb resurrect is denounced so vehemently in most of the textbooks and dictionaries that one would hardly expect to find it in the literature. It is condemned by A. S. Hill, 1 Genung, 2 the Standard Dictionary, Webster's International, and the Century, not to speak of vehement verbalists without number. The Oxford Dictionary, however, speaks a good word for it, explaining its origin and quoting Benham, Thomas II. Ben- ton, Hawthorne, and Mrs. Oliphant as using it. The Ency- clopedic Dictionaiy recognizes it, quoting a passage from John Burroughs. Webster's Secondary School Dictionary, a recent book, recognizes it. The present writer has seen the word in the writings or speeches of Thomas H. Benton, Professor F. L. Pattee, and Professor W. M. Baskervill, the two last-named being well- known English scholars. While not recommending the word, the writer may say that it is an analogical formation from resurrection, what is called a "back-formation," just as beg was formed from beggar. Again : it would be a useful word in the language. For instance, suppose some adverse critic of this volume wished to say, "This man is trying to resurrect some dead words and phrases," but did not wish to use resurrect. If he said 1 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, p. 235. 2 Outlines of Rhetoric, p. 327. 244 STUDIES IN USAGE revive, his remark would lose a good deal of its pungency, as resurrect has the idea of wakening the dead with a loud blast of the last trump, while revive would convey the innocent idea of pouring a little water on a fainting lady's face. In other words, it tells how the speaker feels about the subject under discussion. The word is used by Professor F. L. Pattee in his edition of Freneau's Poems: "He (the author) resurrected none of the material dropped from the 1795 collection," etc. John Burroughs says, "The centre, where the sportsman lies en- tombed, to be quickly resurrected when the game appears." With the imprimatur of the great Oxford Dictionary, of Webster's recent imprint, of Hawthorne, John Burroughs, and several of our best minor writers, the word resurrect should certainly not be stigmatized. Its congener resurrectionist seems to have no enemies, prob- ably because it fills a definite place in the language not occupied by any other word. CY RETAINED OBJECT At a shrine about Canterbury he was shown an old shoe which tradi- tion called the saint's. {J. A. Froude.) What is the syntax of shoe in the sentence above ? Several of the best grammarians call it "the retained object"; the great German grammarian Matzner 1 calls it "the object of the thing with the passive." Quackenbos, 2 speaking of this construction, says, "protested against by all who respect pure English." (See the authors below who do not respect pure English.) Sweet says, "We hesitate over and try to evade such constructions." There is 1 English Grammar (Grece's translation), IT, 212-214. "Practical Rhetoric, 189G, p. 242. RETAINED OBJECT 245 a feeling among good teachers Unit a passive verb cannot possibly take an object. In connection with our last statement, George 1'. Marsh, 1 one of the pioneers of English study in America, says, "Such combinations as 'He was given a commission in a new regi- ment' are employed by some of the best writers of the present day, as well as by those of an earlier period. . . . They make the language not less intelligible, but less artistic ; less poetical, but not less practical, and they are therefore fully in accord- ance with those undefined tendencies which constitute the present drift of the English language. ' ' Matzner discusses the syntax of the noun after a passive verb. He cites passages from Shakespeare, the Earl of Chatham, Milton, Goldsmith, Fielding, Sheridan, Douglas Jerrold, Coleridge, Maeaulay, and Bulwer. More recent gram- marians who recognize and parse it are E. A. Abbott, 2 Jesper- sen, 3 Carpenter, 4 Nesfield, 5 Baskervill and Sewell, G Kittredge and Farley. 7 They recognize not only the noun but the infini- tive ; e.g., He was taught to dance. Lounsbury 8 defends this construction valiantly. He says that it made its appearance in the language in the twelfth century and names the following authorities in which this object is found : Richard Rolle de Hampole Bacon Sir Amadas Ben Jonson Coventry Mysteries Fletcher Paston Letters Milton Blackstone Dryden Spenser Swift Shakespeare Addison 1 Lectures on the English Language, p. Z-iQ. " How to Parse, p. 91. 3 Progress in Language, p. 2:12. 1 Principles <>f English Grammar, p. 1 T • ; . 5 English Grammar Past and Present, p. 55. '■ English Grammar, p. 242. 7 Advanced English Grammar, p. 112. s 'Lite -Standard of Usage in English, pp. 175ff. 246 STUDIES IN USAGE Steele Pope Gray Fielding Richardson Smollett Humo Gibbon Burke Goldsmith Dr. Johnson Cowper Crabbe Wordsworth Byron Seott Jane Austen Coleridge Southey Irving Carlyle Macaulay Dickens Thackeray George Eliot Hawthorne Tennyson Matthew Arnold Kuskin Disraeli Browning Froude Emerson Stevenson The writer has seen the following cases : Hugh Latimer 2 Shakespeare 2 Jeremy Taylor 3 Pepys 1 Pope 1 Goldsmith 2 Dr. Johnson 10 Christopher North 1 Byron , 1 Macaulay 12 Cowper . Hallam . Milman . Audubon T. N. Talfourd 1 Thomas Campbell 1 Poe 2 Bulwer 1 Sir John Lubbock 1 Mrs. Gaskell 1 Encyclopedia Britannica 1 T. L. K. Oliphant 1 Lowell 5 John Fiske 15 S. Baring-Gould 6 J. A. Froude 1 T. N. Page 2 G. W. Cable 1 O. F. Emerson 2 J. M. Barrie 1 Lounsbury 1 Stevenson 4 Ernest Rhys 1 Sir Henry Taylor 3 John Earle 1 Freeman 3 Huxley 2 Holmes 1 Here are aboul SO authorities in all. besides others known to Professor Lounsbury. RETAINED OBJECT 247 This object is a striking feature of the English language. Marsh says it is regarded by foreigners as a monstrosity; yet he himself declares that it is fully in accordance with the "genius" of modern English. Why do the purists attack it? Simply because it baffles their grammatical perception; they think that everything must lend itself to parsing, as if English were not filled up with constructions that cannot and will not be parsed, but are labeled idioms and irregularities by the great grammarians. "I was denied access to the king"; "he was refused admission"; "we were taught music"; "we are told that the earth is round" — these are but a fraction of the familiar locutions that "the lesser gram- marians" and the purists would banish from the language. As already said, the greater grammarians call this noun either "retained object" or "object of the thing after a passive verb." The fact is there; the name is a secondary matter. Whatever we may call this noun, it certainly enriches the language. Some object to the name "retained object" on the ground that the noun was not always the object when the sentence was in the active form and hence should not be called "retained" when the sentence is passive in construction. This is true in some cases ; but in all the phrases cited in the fore- going paragraph the nouns were objects of the active verb. "He refused me admission," when put in the passive form, becomes, "I was refused admission by him." What shall we call admission in the second sentence? Some purists say that the second. sentence is not good English; and therefore not to be noticed by the grammarian. But that objection has been silenced if the opinions of eminent scholars and the usage of distinguished authors are to be considered. Matzner's nomen- clature is certainly good, but rather cumbrous for the school- room: "object of the thing with the passive." Why not abridge that into "Passive Object"? This would look well in our textbooks along with Direct Object, Indirect Object, Cog- 248 STV DIES IN USAGE nate Object, etc., and would pacify those who do not like " retained object." "We need not notice the fact that foreigners call this object a monstrosity. It is a part of our language. It was evolved by our language centuries ago and is deeply imbedded in colloquial, platform, and written English. It is no more peculiar or idiomatic than many locutions found by us when we study foreign languages. Nor is it more idiomatic than some other English constructions or usages to which no objection is ever made. Probably the most common form of this passive object is the noun clause after am told, ivas told, etc. ; e.g., ' ' I am told that you have changed your politics." Sentences like this are found on every page of our literature. A few examples may be given. Pope says, A face untaught to feign; a judging eye, That darts severe upon a rising lie. Dr. Johnson in Basselas uses this object at least nine times. He says, "By degrees the royal wanderers were taught to understand that they had for a time laid aside their dignity" ; ''we . . . were offered such refreshments as our masters were partaking." Jeremy Taylor in a sermon says, "then also He entered into a cloud, and was told a sad story what He was to suffer at Jerusalem." Macaulay says, "We are told that, while still a mere child, he stole away from his play- fellows to a vault in St. James's Fields." (Clause object.) "The natives had been taught that France was confessedly the first power in Europe." (Clause object again.) Who would hesitate to say, "I am told that Mexico wishes to be annexed, but she should be denied admission"? EIGHT AS AN ADVERB 249 CVI RIGHT AS AN ADVERB Of his person and stature was the king A man right manly strong. (Rossetti.) The use of right modifying an adjective is called. a pro- vincialism by Quackenbos, A. S. Hill, and Genung in their textbooks. Does this include the literary use of the phrase, as in the type-sentence from Rossetti ? Or does it mean only the colloquial, ' ' I am right glad to hear that ' ' ? Right has been modifying adjectives for five hundred years. It is common in Chaucer, the Miracle Plays, and Malory. It is strong in Shakespeare, Carlyle, Kingsley, and William Morris, besides occurring here and there in many other authorities. It is recognized by the Century Dictionary, which quotes from the Merlin and from Milton. Webster, after quoting passages from Chaucer, Tyndale, and Shake- speare, says, "now chiefly prefixed to titles." The Encyclo- pedic Dictionary, after quoting from the Bible, says, "little used except in titles." The Standard says, "archaic or col- loquial except in some titles; as, Right Reverend." Worcester says, = ' ' very. ' ' The New English Dictionary says, ' ' archaic, ' ' and quotes Gray, Coleridge, Disraeli, Thoreau, and Edward Fitzgerald. The writer has recorded the following passages : Malory 33 Prior 1 John Bale 3 Coleridge 1 Latimer 3 Wordsworth 1 Heywood 1 Scott 3 John Foxe 1 Christopher North 1 Shakespeare 15 Hawthorne 1 Prayer Book 3 Landor 1 Two Noble Kinsmen 2 Thackeray 1 King James Bible 1 Carlyle 15 250 STUDIES IX USAGE Kingsley 10 Andrew Lang 5 Tennyson 8 Swinburne 6 Edward Fitzgerald 1 Browning 1 J. E. Lowell 1 Bossetti 1 Morris 15 Stevenson 2 Macaulay 1 Henry van Dyke 1 Sidney Lanier 1 Brice Collier 1 Edwin Arnold 1 Fhillips Brooks 1 Quaekenbos, though calling it a provincialism of the South and the East, says that it is as old as the English language, and that it is found in Chaucer and Mandeville. We have traced it from Malory to the present ; when did it become provincial? That it is colloquial in some sections cannot be doubted. It is also archaic and for this reason is, as the table shows, used by poets and by such prose writers as are ad- dicted to the use of archaic words. Then we come to standard phrases, such as "Right Reverend", "Right Honorable", and "Right Worshipful," recognized by the dictionaries. There still remain some prose authors of the modern period and of the present day not addicted to archaisms. It may be well to quote a few passages from well known authors of the various classes just mentioned. Tenn3'son (Lancelot and Elaine) says, wit ye well, my child, Bight fain were I to learn this Knight were whole, Being our greatest. Lowell (The Vision of Sir Launfal) says, We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell. Browning (The Ring and the Book) says, There's a sors, there's a right Virgilian dip. Carlyle says (Heroes and Hero Worship), "A right valiant, true old race of men"; and "I suppose the right good fighter was oftenest also the right good forest-feller, — the right good SAVE AXD SAVING + NOMINATIVE CASE 251 improver, discerner, doer, and worker in every kind." Chris- topher North (Dryden on Chaucer) says, "All this intricate omination conies forcibly ont in the sequence of events; and is in itself, as you feel, at all events, right classical." Robert Louis Stevenson (Kidnapped) says, "I was right glad when Alan returned"; and "It was altogether a right pleasant sight to me." The colloquial right glad and the literary right glad are not incompatible, but help to show that a word can have two values at one and the same time. CVII SAVE AND SAVING + NOMINATIVE CASE All the conspirators save only he. (Shakespeare.) None dare enter save Sir Eobert and he. (Kingsley.) The nominative case occurs quite frequently after save and saving. The authorities differ as to whether save in such cases is a preposition, a conjunction, or an old absolute par- ticiple. Baskervill and Sewell 1 say that save is sometimes used- as a preposition with the nominative, and quote from Byron: "None, save thou and thine, I've sworn," etc. Miitz- ner 2 in commenting upon this same sentence from Byron, says that this passage shows how save, like but, "gives up the immediate relation to the following case." He treats save as a preposition. Nesfield 3 parses save in the same manner, quoting from the King James Bible, Byron, and Shakespeare. Kellner 4 says, "the particles but and save are sometimes used governing an oblique case, and sometimes with the nom- inative." In the latter construction he prefers to treat them 1 English Grammar, p. 2S3. 2 English Grammar (Grece's translation), II, 4G8. '•'■English Grammar East and Present; pp. 20S, 4G7. * Historical Outlines of English Syntax, pp. 130, 268. 252 STUDIES IN USAGE rather as conjunctions than as prepositions. The Century Dictionary gives one example each from the Bible and Shake- speare but treats both save and saving as conjunctions. The New English Dictionary calls save a quasi-preposition + the nominative It adds: "Apparently the normal construc- tion." It quotes Chaucer, Lydgate, Tindale, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, and others as using save I, save he, etc. This dictionary says that saving with the nominative is obsolete, quoting Tindale and Spenser. The latest cases of saving + nominative seen by the author are in the Bible and Edmund Spenser, but save + nominative is still alive in the language. Save he is found in Chaucer. Save + nominative is found from Chaucer to the present. The following cases have been seen in the present course of reading : Save I in Shakespeare and Byron. Save thou in the Chester Plays. Save he in Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Kingsley. Saving he in King James Bible and in Spenser. These phrases, while found to some extent in the literature, are archaic and are not heard in the spoken English of the educated classes. Byron in the Isles of Greece says, Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, Where nothing, tart the waves and 7, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep. C. B. Pallen (Meaning of the Idylls of the King) says, "None may pass into the spiritual house, wherein the Holy Grail abides, save he who is panoplied in the armor of faith." Save + nominative is rarer than but + nominative. (See pp. 44 ff., above.) SCOUR = SEARCH, RANGE OYER 253 CVIII SCOUR = SEARCH, RANGE OVER Camilla scours the plain. (Pop: . > From rear to van they scour about the plains. (Keats.) Scour in the meaning of "search" is* found in the .literature and heard in the old states. The writer 's interest in the locu- tion was greatly increased by his being laughingly twitted in a university lecture-room for saying, "I scoured the whole library. ' ' This use of scour is recognized by the Century Dictionary, quoting Pope and Franklin. Webster recognizes it, quoting the same passage from Pope. The Encyclopedic Dictionary recognizes it, with a passage from Scott. The Standard, Worcester, and Oxford dictionaries recognize it, with quota- tions from the literature. T. L. K. Oliphant 1 cites a case in the literature of about 1575, from a book written by John Hooker, a noted antiquary, and the uncle of Richard Hooker. The writer has collected the following passages : Beaumont and Fletcher 1 Emerson 1 Milton 2 Thomas Campbell 1 Dryden 1 Thackeray 1 Pope 1 T. B. Aldrieh 1 Dr. Johnson 1 George William Curtis 1 Franklin 1 D. G. Mitchell 1 Lamb 1 Bryant 1 Southey 1 Longfellow 1 Keats 1 Edwin Arnold 2 This use of scour was brought from England in the days of Milton, Dryden, Pope, Johnson, etc., and handed down in the old states. That accounts for its being used by Franklin, Bry- ant, Aldrieh, and other Americans in their books and by edu- cated people in conversation. 1 The New English, I, 592. 254 STUDIES IN USAGE This word has been confused with scour in the phrase "scour the floor. " It is probably the same word as that used by Mac- beth when he cries, "skirr the country round," and probably goes back to discourriouris, used by John Barbour, the Scottish poet, in the sense of "scouts", "rangers," and found in Piers Plowman and other old monuments as late as Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Scour is a useful word, and also supported by high authority in literature. It sometimes means ' ' search ", ' ' ransack, ' ' as in the phrase "scour the library." But what other word would take its place in Pope's "Camilla scours the plain"? No one would substitute "range over." "Fly rapidly over" might convey the idea but would be too cumbersome. Dr. Johnson, in a letter to Boswell, says, "If you will come to me, you must come very quickly ; and even then I know not but we may scour the country together," etc. Milton (Paradise Lost, II, 633) says, sometimes He scours the right-hand coast, sometimes the left. Again (Paradise Lost, VI, 529) : others from the dawning hills Looked round, and scouts each coast light-armed scour, Each quarter, to descry the distant foe. Charles Lamb in his last essay says, "Half a hundred horse- men, with thrice the number of dogs, scour the country in pur- suit of puss across three counties. ' ' William Cullen Bryant in his translation of the Iliad (VI, 481) says, Then valiant Menelaus took alive Adrastus, whose two coursers, as they scoured The plain in terror, struck against a branch Of tamarisk, etc. Is it at all strange that this locution survives in some of the old commonwealths? The writer has heard it all his life in one or more of them. SICK AND SICKNESS 255 CIX SETTLE AN ACCOyNT In Words and Their Uses, Richard Grant White (pp. 191, 192) criticizes W. D. Howells for using the phrase '"settle for the wine." He then goes on to say in a tone of ridicule that this use of settle should be left to the "sable messengers that call the passengers 'to step up to the cap'n's office and settle.' " Hart and Genung in their popular textbooks have continued to set many earnest students and readers against this locution. According to these three, we cannot "settle an account", "settle a bill," etc. These phrases are recognized by Webster's International, the Century, Worcester, the Encyclopedic, and the New Eng- lish dictionaries, the last named quoting Foote, Thackeray, and others. Mrs. Gaskell in Cranford 1 says, "I went over from Drumble once a quarter at least, to settle the accounts, and see after the necessary business letters. ' ' Here we have three verbalists and professors of rhetoric against the phrase ; five dictionaries and four reputable authors for it. Polite colloquial usage favors it considerably. CX SICK AND SICKNESS These words have had a peculiar history. After they had been used by all classes for centuries, they were ostracized from good society in England and in parts of the United States, so that now they need valiant defenders. 1 Chapter XV. 256 STUDIES IN USAGE T. L. K. Oliphant, 1 the noted scholar, stigmatized sick in 1886, saying, "is now confined to the sea and to Americans." Few scholars, however, attack the word; most of them use it in their books. Richard Grant White, 2 in 1867, defended the word stoutly. He says : "Sick and III are two other words that have been per- verted in general British usage. . . . They (British speakers and writers) sneer at us for not joining in the robbery and the imposition." White cites Arnold's The Sick King in Bokhara and a passage from that poem ; also the locutions sick bed and sick leave. He might have added sick bay (U. S. Navy), lovesick, homesick, etc., and might have quoted practically every author of any note from Anglo-Saxon days to the moment he was writing. W. J. Rolfe, the noted Shakespearean scholar, in his edition of Julius Caesar, 3 in commenting upon the word sick in Portia's question, "Is Brutus sick?" quotes from Richard Grant White: "For sick, the correct English adjective to express all degrees of suffering from disease, and which is universally used in the Bible and by Shakespeare, the Englishman of Great Britain has poorly substituted the adverb ill." Rolfe, in approving the opinion of White, dif- fers with many educated people in his native New Eng- land. (Tt may he added here that the literature of New England is full of examples of this use of sick; see below.) The Standard Dictionary, after defining sick as "affected with disease, ill, ailing," says, "the prevailing use in the United States and formerly in England." Webster in 1913 says, "affected with disease," etc.. and adds, "Tn Great Britain usage now tends to confine sick to the sense of 'nauseated.' " The Century Dictionary is on the same side, and quotes pas- sages from the Merlin, Latimer, Shakespeare, the King James 1 The New English, II, 26. 2 Words anil Their Uses, pp. 19G, 197. 3 See notes to his Julius Caesar, old edition, p. 149. SICK AND SICKNESS 257 Bible, Pope, and Tennyson. The Century goes on to say, 'There has been some tendency in England to confine sick to the distinctive sense of "nauseated,'' but in America the word has continued to have its original breadth of mean- ing, as found in the Bible and in Shakespeare." The Ency- clopedic Dictionary is on the same side and quotes a passage from Pope. Worcester says, "Afflicted with disease; ill in health; sickly; affected with nausea," this last being one of the meanings, not the only meaning. The New English Dic- tionary says, "Now chiefly literary and U. S." This does not tally with Oliphant's statement, "Confined to the sea and to Americans." The New English Dictionary, however, rec- ognizes the literary standing of the word which the present section aims to prove, incidentally showing that the expul- sion of sick from polite society in England and in parts of America is utterly unwarranted : literary standing gives social standing to a word. The word sick in its wide meaning is as old as the language. It is very common in Anglo-Saxon ; comes down through Chaucer and Malory to modern English. As seen already, it is familiar to every reader of Shakespeare and of Bible English. From the days of James I to the present it lias been one of the most frequent words in both colloquial and literary English. The recent objection to it is absolutely unaccountable and absolutely unreasonable — linguistic squeamishness. The writer became physically exhausted from recording the passages in which sick was used ; the following figures are but a fraction of the number that might have been noted. For instance, Cruden in his concordance to the Bible gives about seventy-five cases of sick; it is almost certain that there are several hundred. In Shakespeare the figures in the table below might be immensely increased. In Jeremy Taylor's chapters on sickness and death, the words sick and sickness occur about fifty times in a few pages. In the Prayer Book the writer 258 STUDIES IN USAGE counted forty-two in a few short readings and could have run the number up many-fold. 1 The following figures are only partial: Malory 20 Latimer 8 Bible 75 John Bale 1 Shakespeare 63 Thomas Nash 5 Thomas Fuller 1 Ben Jonson 1 Sidney 1 Thomas Sackville 3 William Drummond 1 Bacon 7 Massinger 3 John Donne 4 Sir Thos. Browne 5 Rolls House MSS 3 Two Noble Kinsmen 3 John Webster 9 Marlowe 3 Prayer Book 1 42 Bunyan 1 Clarendon 1 Milton 1 Jeremy Taylor - 70 Robert Herrick 2 Defoe 1 Dryden 3 John Evelyn 1 Richard Baxter 4 Addison 5 Steele ,. 4 Bishop Burnet 5 Swift 3 Prior 7 Pope 1 Dr. Johnson 43 Boswell 6* Gibbon 2 Burke 2 Goldsmith 2 Thomas Wart on 1 Cowper 6 Blake 1 Paley 1 Lamb 21 Wordsworth 7 Byron 1 Scott 5 Freneau 4 Keats 8 Jane Austen 1 Mrs. Anna Jameson 1 Poe 1 Hallam 1 Hawthorne 9 Pollok 3 Keble 5 Kingsley 5 Matthew Arnold 9 Carlyle 5 Dean Trench 7 Froude 14 Dickens 2 F. W. Faber 1 Mrs. Gaskell 2 Walt Whitman 1 Lowell 1 Dean Stanley 4 Morris 22 Motley 5 •The writer records cases seen in reading; he docs not look for a word. 2 These figures could be increased ad infinitum by further reading in these treasures of good English. SICK AND SICKNESS 259 Bryant 2 Frederic Harrison 2 Macaulay 10 Katharine Lee Bates 1 Cooper 1 F. T. Palgrave 2 Holmes 11 Thomas Hood - . 1 Lanier 2 George Eliot 7 Bret Harte 7 W. E. Henley 1 Dean Alford 1 Mrs. H. Ward 8 D. G. Eossetti 3 Brander Matthews 3 E. H. Stoddard 1 Phillips Brooks 3 D. G. Mitchell 8 Swinburne 4 A. H. Clough 4 Freeman 13 Mrs. Browning 1 Stopford Brooke 1 Bobert Browning 11 G. K. Chesterton 2 Tennyson 41 Henry van Dyke 2 J. K. Hosmer 1 Edwin Arnold 6 T. N. Page 3 Stevenson 17 Here we have 102 authorities and about 700 passages. The burden of proof is upon the opposition. By all the lexicographers and all through the literature, "nauseated," ''inclined to vomit," is only one meaning of the word. Those who call this a nautical term or an Americanism must show when the word was declared unconstitutional by the supreme tribunal, the great authors. The word "ill" is very rare in literature. It seems strange that a word used so very frequently in polite colloquial Eng- lish in England and in parts of America should be so rare in the literature ; but it goes to prove that affectations and "fads" are so unnatural that serious writers will not tolerate them. A man who has seen sick and sickness in all the great authors, heard it in the public reading of the Bible from his childhood, read it in his Prayer Book, and heard it in a hun- dred other solemn places, is not likely to drop it when he enters authorship. Though avoided by many educated people of New England, there is little doubt that nine-tenths of the best authors of that section use the word in its broad meaning. Are we ever consistent in our prejudices against words and phrases? If sick is the wrong word for polite colloquial and 260 STUDIES IX USAGE platform English, is it not wrong in more solemn places? And yet who in either England or New England would change sick to ill in the standard Bible? "Lazarus is ill" ; "I was ill and in prison and ye visited me." Who would advocate such changes? So in the Prayer Book: "Visitation of the ilV; prayer for an ill person : prayer for an ill child — who would suggest these changes ? Or take the marriage ceremony : " in illness and in health, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer." But Ave shall not carry our rcductio ad absurdum any farther. Suffice to say that the word sick in its wide sense permeates the whole literature from Ca^dmon to Kipling. This is one of the few matters in which this writer can agree with "White. On one point White, however, is in error: he says, "Almost all British speakers and writers limit the mean- ing of sick to the expression of qualmishness, sickness at the stomach," etc. . . . As to the writers he is certainly mistaken, as has been shown in the foregoing paragraphs and in the table of statistics. As already indicated, the enemies of sick do not agree. Oliphant says, "Confined to the sea and to Americans"; the New English Dictionary, "Now chiefly literary and U. S." Both agree that sick is an Americanism, but as to the rest they differ widely. One says that it is used only at sea ; the other, that it is used in literature. As the editors of some of the great dictionaries say that in England sick is confined to nausea, we will quote some pas- sages from recent literature to refute their statements. Matthew Arnold in his Pagan and Christian Religious Sen- timent has the passage: "of light-hearted people, like Gorgo and Praxinoe, whose moral nature is much of the same calibre as that of Phillina in Goethe's With elm Meistcr, people who seem never made to be serious, never made to be sick or sorry. And, if they happen to be sick or sorry, what will they do then? . . : Phillina, within the enchanted bounds of Goethe's novel, Gorgo and Praxinoe, within the enchanted bounds of SICK AND SICKNESS 2G1 Theocritus 's poem, never will be sick and sorry, never can be sick and sorry. The ideal, cheerful, sensuous pagan life is not sick or sorry." Try either "ill" or "nauseated" in that passage. Matthew Arnold by himself ought to be sufficient. Francis T. Palgrave is recent; let us quote him next: in his Litany we read, In the blindness of youth, In sickness and health, In the time of trial, In the time of 'wealth, Macaulay says, "It was a crime in a child to read by the bed- side of a sick parent one of those beautiful collects which had soothed the griefs of forty generations of Christians. ' ' Lowell says, ' ' If he were sick and you visited him, if he had met with a. misfortune ... it was all one," etc. Motley says, "This scene of honest pathos terminated, the necessary measures for distributing the food and for relieving the sick were taken by the magistracy." Ruskin says, "They (doctors), on the whole, desire to cure the sick," etc. Froude says, "Light in ballast and short of water, with half his men disabled by sickness, Howard was unable to pursue. ... Of her crew of 190, ninetv were sick on shore." Were these seamen all nauseated ? It would be impossible to quote a hundredth part of the passages teeming with sick and sickyiess. 262 STUDIES IN USAGE CXI THE SINGULAE ADJECTIVE AS A SUBSTANTIVE So am I as the rich, whose blessed key Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure. (Shakespeare: Sonnet 52.) Three gifts the dying left me. {Mrs. Browning: Sonnet to memory of II. S. Boyd.) The use of the singular adjective as a substantive is familiar to students of Anglo-Saxon and of German but has become rare in modern English. It continued through Middle Eng- lish, especially in poetry, but almost disappeared in the Tudor period. The Bible translators, however, used it pretty freely and it is found quite frequently in the Prayer Book Psalter. Of recent writers William Cullen Bryant is the only one, as far as the writer knows, to use it often. The writer has recorded the following cases : King James Bible 36 Bryant 21 Prayer Book* 17 Shelley 1 Shakespeare 2 Carlyle 3 Jeremy Taylor 2 Phoebe Cary 3 Dryden 2 Alice Cary 2 Southey 1 London Times 1 Poe ^ 5 George Eliot 1 Mrs. Browning 1 Emerson 4 Robert Browning 1 Bayard Taylor 4 Tennyson 4 Longfellow 1 Hallam 1 Stephen Phillips 1 Stephen Phillips in Orestes says, Lo! the dead Cries out before me in the underworld. The advanced student will enjoy Kellner's treatment of this old Germanic construction, now almost extinct in English. 3 1 Very numerous in the Psalter. 2 All in his prose. 3 See his Historical Outlines of English Syntax, §§ 23S-241. THE SINGULAB ADJECTIVE AS A SUBSTANTIVE 263 The writer was interested to see this old construction in a recent issue of the London Times. It is not likely that we shall see it revived to any great extent, but it is well' to bring it to the attention of students and readers who have seen it in books but did not understand it. The dropping of this adjective is one of the numerous changes in English due to the loss of inflections. The German can still use it because its article and its adjective are inflected ; in English, the dead is usually understood as a plural, but in earlier English the inflections showed the number. It should be said that, like other archaisms, this construc- tion will be used chiefly by the poets: and this the table indicates. Bryant uses it very often : 'Twas there he smote Ee'tion, yet forebore To make his arms a spoil; he dared not that, But burned the dead with his bright armor on. Give place to me, and let the mules pass on, And ye may weep your fill, when once the dead Is laid within the palace. (Iliad.) Dryden 's passage is familiar to all : None but the brave deserves tlic fair. Carlyle in Sartor Resartus says, "0, the vast, gloomy solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death! Why ivas the Living banished thither companionless, conscious?" "Why seek ye the living among the dead ? " is a great sentence which may have influ- enced Carlyle. And how could that sentence be written in our present English without marring its cadence and beauty? The most recent case of singular adjective as substantive that the writer has seen in standard prose is in Adam Bcde: "performing the initial duties to her dead with the awe and exactitude that belong to religious rites." Is not this a loss to the language ? We see it sporadically in writers of the present day. 2G4 STUDIES IN USAGE CXII SIT OR SET Do clothes sit or set? Among the masses, including those engaged in fitting clothes for either sex, set is practically uni- versal. Even with the better educated classes set is very com- mon. A. S. Hill 1 says, ' ' Though set is common, at least col- loquially, . . . sit is preferable: a garment sits well or ill." The dictionaries are all on the side of sits. The Encyclopedic Dictionary quotes a passage from Shakespeare; the Century quotes Shakespeare and George Eliot ; the New English Dic- tionary quotes authors of various periods. The present writer has recorded the following passages among others : Chaucer says, But Lord! the perrie (= jewelry) and the richesse I saugh sitting on this goddesse. In Gawaine and the Green Knight, a knight's clothes "sit on him semly (= seemly)." Scott says, "To make the jacket sit yet more close to the body," etc. Poe says, "coats and pantaloons of black or brown, made to sit comfortably, with white cravats," etc. In Bret Harte we find "a hat sat." In Dickens "Mr. Trabb's (the tailor's) local work would have sat more gracefully." George Eliot says, "a woman whose skirt sat well." Set is found occasionally in literature ; the only cases seen in this course of reading are in Dickens's Talc of Two Cities and a letter of John Adams to Jefferson. Though the words under discussion are rare in literature for obvious reasons, a few more passages are available. Bret Harte in his John Burns says. He wore a brofid-brimmed, bell-crowned hat, White as the locks on which it sat. iBcfjinnings of Rhetoric and Composition, pp. 148, 149. SIT OB SET 265 Addison says, "our manners sit more loose upon us."' Shake- speare says, "where sits the wind?" Professor Whitney speaks of a host of "new words on which their old apparatus of inflection sat strangely." Overwhelming literary usage is in favor of sit; colloquial usage is in favor of set, except in some very careful circles. All tailors and clothiers probably say set: "Your coat sets well ' ' ; but the standard authors and great books say sit. Do hens sit or set ? This is a burning question in the school- room. The student hears setting hen all around him in most parts of the English world, and finds it hard to believe that it has little or no standing in literature. A distinguished authority for setting hen is the eminent philologist George P. Marsh, one of the pioneers of English studies in America. In his Lectures on the English Language he uses this locution, much to the surprise of Professor Louns- bury, who cannot understand how such an error could have slipped into such a man's vocabulary. The dictionaries and the grammars are nearly all in favor of the sitting fowl. Several of them quote from the Bible (Jcr. 17, 11), "As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them," etc. Thomas More says, "hens do not s't and hatch them." Tennyson (Balin and Balan) says, The white swan-mother, sitting, when she hears A strange knee rustle thro' her secret reeds. George W. Cable says, "The . . . wren sung to his sitting wife." The word is not common in the literature. One of our school textbooks argues for the setting hen on the ground of popular usage. Would not this argument apply to clothes also ? If "popular talk" is to be our guide, we shall have confusion worse confounded. 266 STUDIES IN USAGE A fact worth mentioning in this connection is that in the Anglo-Saxon period sit (sittan) meant sit, stay, remain, continue, reside: "they sat on their knees" would he good Anglo-Saxon; also "the soldiers sat around the city"; i.e., besieged it. CXIII THE SPLIT INFINITIVE Shall an adverb ever be put between to and the other part of the infinitive ? Is it permissible to say ' ' to rapidly run, ' ' "to diligently study"? This is a "burning question" and one on which verbalists differ. Let us quote some on each side. Dean Alford, 1 in 1864, said, "surely this is a practice entirely unknown to English speakers and vriters." At this very moment Dean Alford could have found the split infini- tive in the writings of Dickens, Matthew Arnold, Mrs. Gaskell, Browning, George Eliot, of his own day ; Burns, Byron, Cole- ridge, Goldsmith, and others of earlier periods. The Rev. W. W. Skeat, 2 an eminent scholar of our day, calls it "the bar- barous practice." Five English professors of Yale, 3 in a recent chapter on usage, warn against it but say that it is used by a great many careful writers. Genung in his school Rhetoric 4 calls it "a vulgarism" ; condemns it in his Practical Rhetoric,* but is more tolerant in his most recent work 4 on rhetoric. A. S. Hill 5 (1902) says that usage is divided, but that the weight of really good authority is in favor of not splitting the infinitive. This is true ; the split infinitive is very rare as compared with the other. Quackenbos says, "not only 1 The Queen's English, 1866, p. 188. a See his edition of the Hous of lame, p. 112. 3 English Composition in Theory and Practice, by Canby aud Others, p. 133. * Outlines, p. 72; Practical Rhetoric, p. 116; Working Principles of Rhet- oric, p. 230. a Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, pp. 292-295. TEE SPLIT INFINITIVE 267 esthetically ugly but also an offense against philology." These statements sound plausible but cannot be proved. In 1893, this locution found a sturdy advocate in Dr. Fitz- edward Hall, 1 -who defended it stoutly, though candidly admit- ting that he did not use it. (Does a scholar have to use all the locutions that he defends?) Baskervill and Sewell 2 say, "be- coming more and more common among good writers." They quote "to rightly connect" and "to first imperfectly conceive such an idea" from Herbert Spencer; and "to clearly under- stand" from Ruskin. They also quote several cases of the pas- sive form, but these seem to have escaped criticism. Carpen- ter 3 says (1898), "Within the last twenty or thirty years the usage known as the 'split infinitive' . . . has come to be widely used in colloquial and literary English. . . . This usage has been violently attacked by rhetoricians as a vul- garism ; it is, however, used without hesitation by many writers of repute. In some cases it has the distinct advantage of bringing an adverb into an emphatic position; e.g., 'I wish to thoroughly understand this matter.' In others it is intoler- ably awkward." Herrick and Damon, 4 in their Rhetoric, say, 'It is not really an error in grammar and is to be objected to only when it produces clumsiness." Professor George P. Krapp 5 argues that there is no logical objection to putting the adverb between the parts of the infinitive, and says further that no one ever objects to dividing the infinitive in -ing; e.g., "His plan for heavily taxing the people." Krapp adds, "the 'split infinitive' is not only a natural, but often an admirable, form of expression." Professor 0. F. Emerson says, ' ' A good example of a syntactical combination even now establishing itself is the adverb between to and the infinitive." 'See American Journal of Philology, III, 17 ff.. and Nation, vol. 56, p. 274. 'English Grammar, pp. 323, 324. 3 Principles of English Grammar, pp. 192, 193. i \cw Composition and Rhetoric, p. 149. 5 Modem English, pp. 298-300. "History of the English Language, p 276. 268 STUDIES IN USAGE Jespersen 1 says that tins construction, which he refuses to call the split infinitive, contributes decidedly to clearness, and quotes from standard authors two sentences that, in his opin- ion, would be much improved by putting the adverb between the to and the infinitive. He then quotes from Carlyle a sen- tence involving a split infinitive, a sentence which he recom- mends as very good but which, in the writer's opinion, is one of the ugliest sentences in our literature. The writer will add that he has seen only one split infinitive in Carlyle besides the one quoted by Jespersen. The most ardent defender of the split infinitive is Professor Lounsbury, 2 who, it would seem, never uses one. He defends it very ardently in a long chapter. He tells us how Andrew Lang, the late lamented litterateur, praised the English gov- ernment for standing up vigorously against a split infinitive in drawing a treaty with us Americans, who will butcher the English language. Then he proves conclusively that to + the infinitive was originally a corruption, while the insertion of the adverb cannot so easily be proved to be a corruption. He then takes up the charge that it is an innovation. He quotes Dr. Fitzedward Hall as proving, about twenty years ago, that this locution dates from the fourteenth century. Among the authors cited by Dr. Hall, Professor Lounsbury names : Wycliffe Southey Pecock Coleridge Fortescuc Lamb Tyndale Wordsworth Lord Berners De Quincey Thomas Browne Charles Reade Pepys Macaulay Bentley Ruskin Defoe Herbert Spencer Dr. Johnson Leslie Stephen Burke 1 Growth ami Structure of the English Language, pp. 208, 209. 2 The Standard of Usage in English, pp. 240-208. TEE SPLIT INFINITIVE 269 Some of these use it very rarely, says Lomisbury. To the list quoted from Hall, Lounsbury adds the following : John Donna Newman Fanny Burney Carlyle Goldsmith George Eliot Franklin Matthew Arnold - Burns Browning Byron Holmes Keats Lowell Here are 35 reputable authors from Wycliffe to Lowell ; how can the locution be called either a vulgarism or an innovation ? The writer has seen the following cases: Wycliffe 2 J. R. Green 1 Pecock 4 Bret Harte 1 Sir Thomas Browne 1 Jowett 1 Burns 1 John Fiske 1 Byron 2 T. B. Aldrich 3 Coleridge 1 Stopford Brooke 2 Freneau 1 G. K. Chesterton 1 Irving 1 G. W. Cable 1 Mrs. Gaskell 1 W. E. Henley 1 George Eliot 1 II. W. Mabie 4 Dickens 1 Katharine Lee Bates 1 Matthew Arnold 3 Ella W. Wilcox 1 Browning 23 Mrs. H. Ward 1 Macaulay 1 J. K. Hosmer 1 Ruskin 1 Henry Drummond 2 Herbert Spencer 5 Saintsbury 1 Carlyle 1 W. D. Whitney 1 Here we have about 20 authors not in the lists above, giving a total of about 55 using the split infinitive occasionally. The split infinitive spread considerably in the nineteenth century, but not among the standard authors ; they use it very sparingly. The statement of Baskervill and Sewell, "It is becoming more and more common among good writers, ' ' must be taken cautiously. One has to search the great literature to find the split infinitive; it crops up frequently in scientific 270 STUDIES IN USAGE journals, daily papers, reports of mercantile societies, and such places. It is used pretty frequently by well educated men not especially careful of their English. Numerically, Browning is the greatest offender. Lounsbury cites passages of Browning's from 1835 on. The writer has recorded twenty-three cases, mostly from The Ring and the Book. Browning not only uses more split infinitives than any other ten great authors combined but leads them all in the number of words put between to and the infinitive : To quietly next clay at crow of cock Cut my own throat too. (The Bing and tlie Boole.) Shall we, then, adopt and push this locution? Not neces- sarily. The other form is vastly stronger in the literature and in polite speech. It has no enemies, raises no objections, excites no criticism. But we are interested to know from the facts collected that the use of a split infinitive does not neces- sarily put us among illiterates, ignoramuses, and violators of English undefiled, as some have long been saying. It has been said above that the split infinitive is rare. In a wide course of reading covering a period of five hundred years, the author has seen only seventy-two cases, while he has seen the regular infinitive thousands of times. Though very rare in standard literature, it is spreading in the daily and weekly papers, and in the colloquial English of the intelligent classes. While a good many reputable authors use the split infini- tive, they use it rarely. In hundreds of pages of Matthew Arnold, only three cases were found : in Cable's Dr. Sevier, one case; in thousands of pages of George Eliot,- one case. In a short article in the Popular Science Monthly, on the other hand, six or eight cases were seen. If we deduct Browning's figures, we have about forty-nine split infinitives in over 75,000 pages of English and American literature. This does not indicate much spreading among emi- THE SPLIT INFINITIVE 271 nent writers, though this class may adopt it in this century. "We must all admit, then, that the split infinitive is neither an innovation nor a vulgarism, but a rarity in pure literature ; that it is very clear and very convenient, and has a right to a trial in the language. A good scholar tells us the split infinitive is very common in Swedish literature. Matthew Arnold says, The will to neither strive nor cry, 'The power to feel with other, give! "He is not satisfied, unless he can tell us, all in one sentence, and without permitting himself to actually mention the name, that," etc. 1 Herbert Spencer 2 says, "To so present ideas that they may be apprehended with the least possible mental effort," etc.; also, "the events should be stated in such sequence that the mind may not have to go backwards and forwards in order to rightly connect them"; and "to an active mind it may be easier to bear along all the qualifications of an idea and at once rightly form it when named, than to first imperfectly conceive such idea and then carry back to it, one by one, the details and limitations afterwards mentioned. ' ' Browning, the high priest of the split infinitive, says (The Ring and the Book), To somehoiv make a shift and scramble through The world's mud. Send five souls more to just precede his own. survives, we'll hope, To somewliat purify her putrid soul By full confession. Without help, make shift to even speak, you see. George Eliot 3 says, ' ' It was in the nature of a stroke to partly take away the use of a man's limbs and throw him on the parish. ' ' 1 Essay On Translating Homer. 2 Philosophy of Style. 3 Silas M artier. 272 STUDIES IN USAGE CXIV « SPLITTING PARTICLES A man doesn't think much of, nor care much for, a woman outside of his household, unless, etc (Oliver Wendell Holmes.) The use of the prepositions as seen in the sentence above is called "the splitting of particles." It is condemned by most writers on style but is found all through the literature. Dr. Hugh Blair in his Rhetoric 1 says, "What is called splitting cf particles, or separating a preposition from the noun which it governs, is always to be avoided. As if I should say, 'Though virtue borrows no assistance from, yet it may often be accompanied by, the advantages of fortune.' In such instances, we feel a sort of pain, from the revulsion, or violent separation of two things, which, by their nature, should be closely united. "We are put to a stand in thought; being obliged to rest for a little on the preposition by itself, which, at the same time, carries no significaney, till it is joined to its proper substantive noun." That Blair in this same book violates his own canon at least four times the table will prove. Dean Alford condemned this construction rather mildly. In his Queen's English 2 he says, "in sentences where several forms of speech converge, so to speak, on one term, that term is better expressed or indicated after each of them, than reserved to be expressed or indicated once only at the end of all." Genung 3 is very lenient toward this construction. He says, "is to be used only with great caution, and with no long delay after the particle." He himself uses it in his college textbooks pretty frequently. In his most recent textbook, he treats it as a "suspect" under the head of "ellipses." The 'P. 124. 2 Tp. 140, 141. 3 Practical Rhetoric, p. 159 (2); Working Principles of Rhetoric, p. 302 (3). SPLITTING PARTICLES 273 textbook by the elder Hart, a distinguished rhetorical scholar of his day, and revised by his distinguished son, J. II. Hart, takes the same view as Dr. Blair. The writer has recorded the following cases : Latimer 1 Sir Thomas Browne 2 Jeremy Taylor 4 Defoe 2 Burnet 1 Dr. Blair 4 Thomas Paine 1 Burke 2 Christopher North 1 Sir William Hamilton 13 Gibbon 4 Shelley 1 Coleridge 32 Hazlitt 5 Lamb 4 Jefferson 3 Scott 3 Hallam 2 Dickens 1 Holmes 3 Poe .. 2 Prescott 1 Motley 2 Cooper 3 Euskin 5 Hare 1 Stanley 3 Macaulay 3 Thackeray 2 Milman 4 Kingsley 1 Bulwer 2 Douglas Jerrold 1 Lounsbury 3 Chesterton 5 Mrs. H. Ward 2 G. W. Cable.. 3 Genung 15 Stopford Brooke 12 Price Collier 10 Saintsbury 4 Pater 2 Browning 1 Dean Trench 11 George P. Marsh 1 Fitzedward Hall 1 Professor John Earle 5 Emerson 1 Monckton Milnes 1 John Lubbock 1 W. D. Whitney 12 William Minto 3 Matthew Arnold 3 Fronde 6 H. W. Mabie 15 Huxley 5 Churton Collins 2 Sidney Lee 1 Walter Bagehot 2 T. N. Page 2 Sir Leslie Stephen 1 Katharine Lee Bates 1 Here are 62 reputable writers in nearly 250 passages, cov- ering a period of 350 years. On the list stand Blair, Fitzed- ward Hall, Dean Trench, George P. Marsh, Minto, Whitney, Lounsbury, Earle, and other eminent students of style and of 274 STUDIES IN USAGE language; Coleridge, Froude, Ruskin, Macaulay, and other famous prose stylists. Illustrative passages may be added. Emerson in The Over- Soul says, "It calls the light its own, and feels that the grass grows and the stone falls by a law inferior to, and dependent on, its nature." Froude in his Lives of the Saints says, "certain progressive organizing laws in which the fretful lives of each of us are gathered into and subordinated in some larger unity." Motley ( Dutch Eepnblic) says, "The Walloons were the first to rebel against and the first to recon- cile themselves with papal Rome." Prescott in his Miscellanies says, "a principal incentive to, as they were the recompense of, exertion. " Ruskin in Sesame and Lilies uses a little differ- ent form of this ' ' error " : " You may measure your dominion by multitudes, better than by miles ; and count degrees of love-latitude, not from, but to, a wonderfully warm and infi- nite equator"; and, "altars built, not to, but by a:i Unknown God." Macaulay uses various forms of ellipsis and splitting of particles: "The line of demarcation teas not, and perhaps could not be, drawn with precision"; also, "At some other important stations on or 'near the coast"; and, "Those "Whigs who stood by the new dynasty so manfully with purse and sword did so on principles independent of, and indeed almost incompatible with, the sentiment of devoted loyalty." The writers on usage and propriety are much stricter than the great authors in this matter as in others. It may be added that various forms of ellipsis are common in the literature ; this particular form is more attacked than the others. It certainly detracts from the beauty of a sen- tence, though it conduces to rapidity. We may say, also, that it is not used much by the great stylists. These elliptical sentences attacked by Blair, Alford, and others have been spreading in English for many centuries; they are all due to the desire for brevity. They could not spread, however, as long as English was a highly inflected SUCH AS AN ADVEBB 275 language. For instance, if the prepositions in the foregoing sentences required different cases, the ellipsis would be impos- sible. The split constructions, in other words, followed upon the decay of inflections in the Middle English period. CXV SUCH AS AN ADVERB Quackenbos 1 and Genung 2 says that such should not be used for so; as "such a beautiful vine." That is, we must say "so beautiful a vine. ' ' Is this used much either in literature or in polite society? "I never saw weather so severe" is very little used; "I never saw such severe weather" is very com- mon in conversation and is found in literature. Webster is against the view taken by the textbooks referred to. This dictionary uses the phrase "such a terrible storm" and quotes "such excellent order" from Daniel Defoe. The Century Dictionary says that such in this locution assumes a quasi-adverbial appearance but is really an adjective. The Century quotes a passage from Shakespeare. Baskervill and Sewell 3 treat this such as an adverb equivalent to so, and quote "such universal popularity," from Irving; "such a glittering appearance," from Hawthorne; and "such com- manding power," from Leeky. They go on to say that this use of such is found in the following authors, among others : Grote, Emerson, Thackeray, Motley, White. The Encyclo- pedic Dictionary recognizes this use and cites the phrase "such terrible weather." While this use of such has considerable vogue in polite col- loquial English, it seems to be avoided in writing. The only authors the writer can quote are Samuel Johnson, George 1 Practical Rhetoric, p. 243. 2 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1000, p. 329. 3 English Grammar, p. 1S6. 276 STUDIES IN USAGE Saintsbury, and John Burroughs. Yet, as seen above, it has warm support in high quarters. The Anglo-Saxon such (swylce) was often used as an adver- bial conjunction, also with numerals in the sense of "about." Abbott 1 treats such in "such a man" and similar phrases as semi-adverbial ; why should wo hesitate to treat such as adver- bial or quasi-adverbial in the phrases under discussion? Dr. Johnson in a letter says, "condolences and consolations are such common and such useless things, that the omission of them is no great crime." CXVI SUCH A ONE AND SUCH AN ONE Which is right, such a one or such an one? Let the litera- ture help us to settle the question. The writer has recorded the following : /. SUCH A ONE Interlude of Thersytes 3 Hume 1 Shakespeare 3 Shelley 1 King James Bible 4 Keats 1 Shakespeare and Fletcher 1 Lamb 4 Prayer Book 2 Bryant 1 Massinger 4 Cooper 1 Lyly 1 Holmes 1 Jeremy Taylor 2 Huxley 1 Congreve 2 Carlyle 2 Baxter 1 Fitzedward Hall 1 Addison 2 Tennyson 5 Pope 1 Browning 1 Steele 2 Kichard Grant White 1 Bolingbroke 1 Kingsley 3 Burke 2 Jones Very 1 Goldsmith 1 Lowell 1 1 Time to farsc, p. 142. SUCH A ONE AND SUCH AN ONE 277 Herbert Spencer 1 Lounsbury 1 Whitney 1 E. C. Stedman 1 Cable ' 2 H. W. Mabie 1 38 authorities; 65 cases. .'. SUCH AN ONE Mandeville * 1 Tennyson 1 Bacon 1 Morris 3 King James Bible 10 Browning 10 Shakespeare 1 Lang 1 Addison 2 Swinburne 2 Eobert South 1 Mabie 1 Pope 1 Freeman 1 Hume 1 D. G. Mitchell 3 Bishop Warburton 1 Dr. James Orr 1 Locke 1 Huxley 1 Jefferson 1 C. Geikie 1 Macaulay 1 Stevenson 2 24 authorities ; 49 cases. On both sides we find : Shakespeare Hume King James Bible Browning Addison Tennyson Pope Mabie As seen from the tables, Browning uses the an ten times; a, once. In this, as in various matters, Browning's usage dif- fers from that of his colleagues in literature. Dean Alford says, 2 "It seems to me that we may now, in writing, use either. In common talk I should always naturally say such a one, not such, an one;which would sound formal and stilted." It may be added that the phrase started out as such one, from Middle English swilk an. This becomes such one in Chaucer, Wycliffe, and Malory. The earliest case of such a one seen by the writer is si< :lce a won in the ballad of Johnnie 1 Borrowed from T. L. K. Oliphant. -'///* Queen's English, 1866, p. 49. 278 STUDIES IN USAGE Armstrong, probably written down between the time of Malory and that of Shakespeare. Oliphant * records, such an one in Mandeville, which puts that ahead of such a one, as would be expected, an being the original form of the article. Such one lasted through the .days of Coverdale, the Geneva Bible, and the sermons of Latimer, after the other locution had started out. - The tendency in polite speech is decidedly in favor of such a one. This has in its favor the same economy of utterance that led to the evolution of a from an before consonants: why should we say such an one any more than "an one-sided affair'', "an one-armed man," etc.? The word one begins with a iv in pronunciation and the n would naturally drop off the article. Such an one is rather puristic; it is opposed to the principle of economy and to the tendency of the language. In the nineteenth century, such a one outstripped such an one in literature, both in quantity and in quality, though the "an" form has considerable vitality. Addison in the Spectator says, "and every now and then inquires how such an one's w 7 ife, or mother, or son, or father do, whom he does not see at church " ; " one of Sir Roger 's servants would ride up to his master full speed, and whisper to him that the master of the house was against such a one in the last election." Burke, as far as noted, uses a: "The colleagues . . . were obliged to ask, 'Sir, your name?' — 'Sir, you have the advantage of me.' — 'Mr. Such-a-Onc' — 'I beg a thousand pardons.' Again, in the same speech {Conciliation) : 'When such a one is disarmed, he is wholly at the mercy of his superior." Tennyson seems to prefer a though he also uses the other : To such a one He promised more than ever king has given. She wept her true eyes blind for such a one. 1 The New English, I, 163. THE SUPERLATIVE USED OF TWO 279 Swinburne, as far as noted, uses an : And lo, between the nightfall and the light, He is not, and none knoweth of such an one. Shall such an one lend love or borrow? Shall these be sorry for thy sorrow? If we consider that the Bible is archaic in many respects and Browning fantastic in his grammar, we must conclude that such a one has overwhelming modern usage in its favor. CXVII THE SUPEBLATIVE USED OF TWO Shall the superlative be used of two? On this point the rhetorical scholars are very strict. A. S. Hill, 1 Genung, 2 and Herrick and Damon 3 are all against it. The grammarians are less rigid. Bain 4 says, "the rule is not strictly adhered to." He quotes one passage from Thackeray, and says, "Writers and speakers continually use the superlative in comparing two things." Whitney"' says, "both in ordinary talk and in lit- erature, it is very common to speak of one of two things as being the longest, although to say the longer is more accurate and more approved." Carpenter 6 says, "seems to be almost invariably due to carelessness, but it is so common, both in colloquial and literary English, and so natural, that it must usually be regarded as an innocent error." Baskervill and Sewell 7 say, "The superlative degree of the adjective (or adverb) ... is also frequently used in comparing only two things." They cite passages from Dr. Blair, Addison, Gold- 1 Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, pp. 262, 263. 2 Outlines of Rhetoric, p. 57. *New Composition and Rhetoric, p. 151. 4 Higher English Grammar, p. 150. 5 Essentials of English dammar, p. 87. "Principles of English Grammar, p. 178. ''English Grammar, pp. 306, 307. 2SII STUDIES IN USAGE smith, Irving, Scott, Hawthorne, Thackeray, Ruskin, Emerson, and Mrs. Oliphant. Some of the sentences involve adverbs. W. J. Rolfe, in his edition of the Merchant of V< mice? defends this use of the superlative as seen in Shakespeare, and says "it is good old English though condemned by most modern grammars." (Since Rolfe wrote this, the best grammars have defended the construction.) ' Lounsbury 2 is a stanch defender of this superlative, lie says, "Met with constantly in the best writers." Add to the foregoing defenders of this locution the following authorities that use it : Shakespeare 1 Chesterfield 1 I Henry VI 2 Thackeray 1 Dr. Johnson 2 William Minto 1 After a careful study of the superlative used of two, it appears that the three textbooks quoted are in a decided minority as compared with the authors and the greater grammarians. Polite conversation teems with this locution; in fact, only the most careful confine themselves to the other. Indeed, it would seem that the comparative degree of adjectives is on the road to extinction except before than. Alexander Bain' 1 says that the comparative as in "the larger of the two" is a useless encumbrance in the language. Boswell quotes Johnson as saying, "We must consider whether Homer was not the greatest poet, though Virgil may have produced the finest poem."" They were comparing the two. Chesterfield says, "it is hard to say which of the two is the most mischievous weapon." 1 Notes to that play, p. lo7, note 7. old edition. '-' History of the English Language, p. 252. 8 Higher English Grammar, p. 150. SUPERLATIVES IRREGULARLY FORMED 281 CXVIII SUPERLATIVES IRREGULARLY FORMED Many grammars give us the idea that forms like diligentest, honestest, etc., are rather ungrammatieal. Baskervill and Sewell, 1 however, show us by examples from literature "how literary English overrides any rule that could be given." Lounsbury, also, tells us that the more and most forms have predominated, not because the others are improper but be- cause the forms in more and most are more euphonious. Take this very one just used': there are very eminent authors who would not hesitate to say "euphoniouser" sometimes; and such a form would be perfectly grammatical, though not altogether pleasant to the ear. Carpenter- says, "The ear alone decides." The writer Matched the literature closely to see how many great authors use these forms. First let us cite the authors quoted by Baskervill and Sewell in their grammar: From Thackeray they cite handsomest, immensest, wonder fulest ; from Ruskin, patientest, distantest, sorrow fulest ; from Carlyle, beautifulest, mournfulest, honest- est, ad mi rati est, indisputdblest, peaceablest. The writer has recorded the following : Latimer, grievouser. Shaki spt are, woefullest. Milton, accuratest, diligentest, exquisitest, powerfullest. Keats, fancif idlest and beautif idlest. Browning, portentousest and irreligiousest. Carlyle, nakedest, savagest, honestest, solidest, wretchedest, activest, pitifuller, usefuller, incorruptiblest, etc. Charles Lamb, learneder, servilest, correctest, comfortablest. 1 English Grammar, p. 109. ^Principles of English Grammar, p. 1.03, 282 STUDIES IN USAGE G. W. Cable, lovingest. Tennyson, secretest, absoluter. It may be added that the comparison by more and most is due to French influence and came into English in the Middle English period. Writers like Browning, Carlyle, Milton, Lat- imer, Shakespeare, and Ruskin often revert, more or less unconsciously, to the older forms of expression ; it is the small writers who are afraid to leave the beaten track of language. Milton in Arcopagitica says, "while the book is yet under the press, which not seldom happens to the best and diligentest writers"; "or the author lose his accuratest thoughts and send the book forth worse than he had made it"; "to gnaw out the choicest periods of exquisitest books." Tennyson in The Poet says, With echoing feet he threaded The secretest walks of fame. Keats says in Endymion, Or to tread breathless round the frothy main, And gather up all fancifulJcst shells. Say, beaut if idlest, shall I never think? Browning (The Ring and the Book) says, Thus it happed not, since thus he did the deed, And proved himself thereby portentousest Of cutthroats. This is the man proves irreligiousest Of all mankind, religion's parasite. Any one who cares to risk these uneuphonious though gram- matical forms has high authority for doing so. SUSPECT = SUPPOSE, IMAGINE 283 CXIX SUSPECT SUPPOSE, IMAGINE A good many people say suspect for "suppose", "imag- ine", "think." Some may do this in order to avoid expect, which is of course a vulgarism. But is suspect very much better than expect ? Are those who use it not running from Scylla to Charybdis ? The one vital difference between the two words is that expect in the meaning under discussion has no standing in literature, while suspect is used by a respectable number of the best authors and by a large number of edu- cated men and scholars not strictly literary. The writer has seen suspect in this sense in the following : Dr. Johnson 1 Emerson 2 George Campbell 5 Holmes 3 Thomas Jefferson 3 Fitzedward Hall 4 Lamb 2 Bulwer 1 Milman 1 Sir Henry Taylor 1 Hallam 1 T. L. K. Oliphant 7 Browning 2 Freeman 1 Hawthorne 1 W. J. Bolf e 1 Lowell 20 H. N. Hudson 4 Kingsley 1 E. C. Stedman 4 Herbert Spencer 1 James Bryce 1 Maeanlay 13 W. W. Skeat \ 2 The statistics given above and the pretty wide use of suspect in polite conversation indicate a need for this word or some other conveying the same shade of meaning. Suspect, how- ever, as Webster says, usually has an unfavorable meaning; and it may be added that it will never be popular as long as it has this unpleasant connotation. George Campbell says, "First, the word motile, from which it is contracted, can scarcely be called English, and, I suspect, never had the sanction of the public voice"; and, "Some of these, I suspect, have as yet escaped the animadversion of 284 STUDIES IX USAGE all our critics." Maeaulay in his essay ou Bacon says, "Such questions, we suspect, would have puzzled Simplicius and Isidore." Browning (The Ring and the Book) says, Peter and John and Judas spent a day In toil and travel through the country-side On some sufficient business — I suspect, Suppression of some Molinism i' the bud. "W. J. Rolfe in his comments on the Merchant of Venice says, "I suspect that it would never have occurred to the com- mentators, ' ' etc. Kingsley makes one of the leading characters in Hereward say, "He will soon be off to the Orkneys, I suspect, or to Sweyn in Denmark, after Vikings." Of course "suppose", "think", "imagine", "dare say" are less open to attack than suspect; hut we seem to need another word to convey our meaning. This explains also the provincial expect, guess, and reckon. "William James, the psychologist, uses suspect in his books ; and he no doubt represents a large constituency of educated men and women not producing what is generally called literature. exx SYMPATHY WITH, FOE, IN The writer has often hesitated whether to say sympathy with or sympathy for a person. No doubt others have had the same experience. 1. AS TO PERSONS Webster says that sympathy is usually followed by for; the Encyclopedic Dictionary says with. De Quincey 1 calls sympathy for a barbarism, an opinion which Genung 1 en- 1 Fur both statements of opinion, see Genung' s Rhetorical Analysis, pp. 11, 12. SYMPATHY WITH, FOB, IN 285 dorses. Genung is again possessed by the evil spirit of derivation. The present writer has seen sympathy for a person in Bnrke, Chalmers, and the Standard Dictionary; sympathy with a person in De Quincey, Macaulay, Phillips Brooks, and the Century Dictionary. For instance, De Quincey (On the Knocking at the Gate in "Macbeth") says, "What then must he (the poet) do? He must throw the interest on the murderer. Our sympathy must be with him," etc. Burke (Fox's East India Bill) says, "In order to awaken something of sympathy for the unfortunate natives." The Century Dic- tionary uses the phrase "to have sympathy with a person in his hopes, aspirations, or aims." 2. AS TO THINGS OR EMOTIONS The writer lias seen sympathy with in Cowper, Hallam, Hawthorne, and Professor John Earle; sympathy in, in Poe : sympathy for, in Hawthorne. For instance, Hawthorne (Blithedale Romance) says, "Priscilla's silent sympathies with his purposes." Poe in The Poetic Principle speaks of "our sympathy in the poet's enthusiasm." Hawthorne (Marble Fa un), speaks of "the marble faces (which) . . . had no sympathy for his disappointment." None of the phrases under discussion are very common in standard literature. The author of this volume will not ven- ture to make an authoritative statement as to any one of them : the reader can easily see that, as far as the present course of study shows, there is some high authority for all the phrases under investigation. 286 STUDIES IN USAGE CXXI TALENTED The adjective talented was condemned by Johnson, Cole- ridge, Landor, Trench, and Alford. Coleridge 1 in his Table Talk calls it "that vile and barbarous vocable," adding, ''Most of these pieces of slang come from America." Upon which remark of the poet, his nephew 2 and literary executor com- ments: "They do." Dean Alford 3 said, "about as bad as possible." Genung 4 says, "in good usage, though the most careful writers avoid it." Talented is ridiculed by White in his Words and Their Uses. T. L. K. Oliphant finds the word in 1627 in the writ- ings of Archbishop Abbott. 5 It is recognized by the Century, the Standard, Worcester, Webster's International, and the Encyclopedic dictionaries, the last two defending it in a note. The New English Dictionary recognizes it, quoting Lytton, Southey, Herschel, William Taylor, Pusey, and Whittier. Fitzedward Hall G defended it stoutly. Herrick and Damon 7 in their chapter on usage say, "In perfectly reputable use today." Jespersen 8 puts it among adjectives in -ed along with blue-eyed, goodnatured, renowned, and conceited, ;;11 formed from nouns, by adding -ed. The writer has seen the word twice in Dickens, once in Poe, and once in a book by Professor T. M. Parrott. No doubt many writers avoid the word on account of the opposition of men like those named in the opening paragraph of this section. It is used in polite society. 1 See Table Talk under July 8, is::2. 8 See note to foregoing reference. 3 T7. * Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, pp. 1S7-1S9. ^Outlines <>f Rhetoric, 1900, p. <',::. TENSE OF THE INFINITIVE 289 give the same rule that Campbell gave in 1776. Baskervill and Sewell 1 treat this locution under the head of "Lack of logical sequence in verbs," and quote faulty sentences from Defoe, Macaulay, De Quincey, Dean Church, and Irving. They say, however, that these phrases used to be in accord with the older idea of sentence unity, but that a change has been setting in recently. Lounsbury 2 is far more careful in his statement. He says, "When the verb of the predicate is in the past tense, there has been constantly exhibited a disposition on the part of the language to resort to this (past) form of the infinitive. This practice goes back to the fourteenth century (quoting Chau- cer). . . . Since that time it has been exceedingly common, and has in its favor the sanction of usage by the greatest Eng- lish authors. Of late the language seems disposed to abandon its employment ; at least it is condemned by many gramma- rians." With so conservative a statement as this before their eyes for over thirty years, are the rhetoric professors of Amer- ica and the writers of sehoolbooks not too violent in their condemnation of this construction? The writer has noted the following violations of this rule : Malory 4 Scott 4 King James Bible 1 Byron 1 Shakespeare 2 Coleridge 1 Marlowe 3 Lamb 5 Bacon 1 Dr. John Brown 1 Milton 2 Cooper 2 Congreve 1 Macaulay , 2 Burnet 1 Poe 2 Addison 2 Jowett 2 Dr. Johnson 2 J. R. Seeley 1 Boswell 2 Holmes 1 Franklin 2 Dean Stanley 1 Thomas Warton 1 George William Curtis 1 Fielding 2 Thackeray 1 1 Englislt Grammar, p. 319. "History of the English Language, pp. 44.", 446. 290 STUDIES IN USAGE Bulwer 2 H. W. Mabie 2 Kingsley 2 G. W. Cable 1 I. D 'Israeli 1 G. K. Chesterton 3 Dickens 1 Brander Matthews 1 Fronde 5 The tables show about 40 authors, and many more might be cited. By running carefully over the list above, the reader can judge whether the language is abandoning this construction or some writers on usage have made an unwarranted attack upon it. Personally, the writer does not prefer the misrelated infinitive, or whatever else we may call it, but is simply record- ing its status in the literature. It certainly has a wide vogue in polite circles and among reputable speakers; e.g., "I intended to have ivrittcn before this time" would certainly pass muster in many a gathering of educated men not addicted to verbal criticism. Addison in the Spectator says, "At the same time, he owned he should have been very glad to have seen the little boy"; "Milton's sentiments and ideas were so wonderfully sublime, that it would have been impossible for him to have represented them in their full strength and beauty, without having re- course to these foreign assistances." Dr. Johnson (Rasselas) says, "I am not a princess, but an unhappy stranger who intended soon to have left this country, in which I am now to be imprisoned forever." Lamb (Letters) says, "So far from being ashamed of that intimacy which was betwixt us, it is my boast that I was able for so many years to have preserved it entire"; and "Perhaps he wished to have seen the tomb of Nelson." James Anthony Froude uses this infinitive fre- quently ; we will quote two passages : ' ' The late Sir Eger- ton Brydges — a writer whose talents, though admitted, were never received as they merited to have been by the world"; "It would have been enough to have coloured him in and out alike in the steady hues of selfishness." THAN AS A QUASI-PPEP0S1TI0X 291 CXXIII THAN AS A QUASI-PREPOSITION Can than be a preposition? One of the best recent gram- marians of England 1 so parses it in some places, and another 2 seems inclined to call it "a quasi-preposition" in one special locution, than whom. Everybody is familiar with the phrase than whom; and all who have read the literature closely have seen than me for than I, than him for than he, etc., in some of the most famous authors. Nesfield treats this use of than very fully. In one place he has the locutions than whom and "other than wine," in both of which he parses than as a preposition. In another place he has, "No mightier than thyself or me," from Shakespeare; "than them both" from the Bible; "more than me", "a much greater loser than me," from Swift; and others from Pope, Prior, Southey, and Caxton, in all of which he treats than as a preposition. In 1864, Dean Alford 3 defended these same locutions, and said that than governed the objective case. He cited than whom from Milton, and said that "than who" would be intolerable. Some years later, Abbott, the famous Shake- spearean grammarian, wrote a grammar for schools, in which he too said that than who would be intolerably harsh, and that hence than whom was evolved for the sake of euphony. In this particular phrase, he almost calls than a quas /-preposition. George Campbell 4 in 1776 had discussed these cases of than + the objective instead of the nominative. He treated than as a conjunction, but said that Joseph Priestley had treated it as a preposition. So we see that Nesfield is not pro- posing anything novel but simply joining forces with some of ; Nosfield : English Grammar Past and Present, pp. 94, 95. 2 E. A. Abbott : How to Parse, p. 210. s The Queen's English, edition of 1S66, pp. 152-154. * Philosophy of Rhetoric, Book II, chap. Ill, section II. 292 STUDIES IN USAGE the old grammarians. While we might regard the latter as rather out of date, we cannot say the same of the author of English Grammar Past and Present. Quaekenbos and Genung treat than whom as an anomalous expression and advise the student to avoid it. Baskervill and Sewell, 1 while advising us to use the nominative pro- noun in the cases under discussion {e.g., "lie is taller than I") say that the other locution is used by many good writers. They quote sentences from Shakespeare, Pope, Southey, and Thackeray; e.g., "She was neither better bred nor wiser than you or me/' from Thackeray. Baskervill and Sewell recognize than whom as far better English than any of the other objectives with than. It is universally used, they say, but add that no special reason can be given. (Abbott gives "euphony," as we said in an earlier paragraph.) Louns- bury, 2 also, puts than whom on a higher plane than the others. He says that it has been both common and classical since the latter half of the sixteenth century. (The earliest cases the writer has seen were in Philip Sidney, Hooker, and Jeremy Taylor.) Lounsbury does not recognize than me, etc., as good English, but treats them as ' ' irregular and careless. ' ' He does not parse than as a preposition, but regards "whom" as a relic coming down from the period of confusion in pronouns. The Century Dictionary regards these phrases as "blunder- ingly" used, but says that than whom is more usual than than who. (Is the latter ever used?) The New English Dic- tionary says, "As if than were a preposition. . . . Than whom is universally accepted instead of than who. "With the personal pronouns it is now considered incorrect." This dictionary quotes examples of than me, than him, etc., from the Genevan Bible, Goldsmith, Scott, and Beddoes. Carpenter, 3 the gram- marian, says, ' ' In such cases there has always been a tendency 1 English Grammar, p. 280. 2 History of the English Language, p. 293. 8 Principles of English a raw mar, p. 151, note. THAN AS A QUASI-PREP0S1TI0N 293 to treat 'than' as a preposition followed by the objective case and to say 'he is taller than me.' Grammarians and rhetori- cians insist that this construction is incorrect, and it is now largely confined to colloquial or vulgar English, except in the almost obsolete expression 'than whom,' which has been ac- cepted, in spite of logic, as correct." Professor A. S. Hill cites Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Byron, Landor, and Thack- eray as using than whom. Baskervill and Sewell quote Scott, Thackeray, and James Parton. Carpenter's statements need careful sifting. First: he should say that most grammarians and rhetoricians regard all these locutions except than whom as incorrect. Secondly, he is hardly warranted in calling than whom almost obsolete; it is seen and heard frequently in platform English and is some- times found in literature. Jespersen 1 says, "This use of the accusative after than . . . is now so universal as to be considered the normal construction ; that is, to the general feeling than is a preposition as w-ell as a conjunction." The writer's course of reading does not cor- roborate this statement: these accusatives (objectives) were seen only occasionally in the standard authors. We have already named the authors cited by Baskervill and by Nesfield as using than me, etc. ; we may add those seen in a wide course of reading: Than them (—than they) is used by Adelaide Procter; than me, occasionally in Shakespeare, Swift, Prior, Pope, Dr. Johnson, Southey, Thackeray, Bulwer, and Clough ; than him in Shakespeare, Johnson, and Kingsley ; than her in Boswell and Prior. It has been said in earlier para- graphs that these phrases are found in the King James Bible, Caxton, the Genevan Bible, Goldsmith, Scott, Beddoes. Cer- tainly there must be some better way to explain these phrases than to call them "blunders", "careless," etc. Are we con- sistent if we quote, say, ten or fifteen reputable authors to establish a locution and in the same breath quote possibly the 1 Progress in Language, p. 199. 294 STUDIES IX USAGE same group in a case like than me and call those men "care- less", "blundering," etc.? If they can establish one locution, why not another ? It is almost inconceivable to the writer that than can be a preposition. On page 153 of this volume, the opinion was expressed that it would be better to regard me in some places as an irregular nominative than to treat than as a preposition. Why, then, can we not conceive of than as a preposition ? In the first place, it is historically an adverbial conjunction and is treated as such by Anglo-Saxon scholars. Secondly, if any of the sentences involving than me, than him, etc., were writ- ten out in full, the I, he, etc., would immediately be demanded, which proves that the pronouns are not real objectives. Thirdly, if than were a preposition, the objective pronoun would be the rule rather than the exception. In the next place, than is simply another form of then; the sentence "He is taller than I" means "He is taller, then 'I am tall"; who would ever imagine that then was or could be a preposition? Again : than I is treated by all the grammarians as an ellip- tical clause adverbially modifying some word or group in the other clause. If "me" happens to be used by some standard author, shall we say that than me is a prepositional adverb phrase? This is an absurdity. It is better to treat me, him, etc., as old nominatives fossilized in a few phrases, used irregularly, and gradually dropping out of the literary lan- guage. In an earlier paragraph of this section, it has been said that Carpenter's statement that than whom is almost obsolete was too sweeping. The same thing may be said of Hill 's state- ment that no careful author would write than him. Passages involving this locution have already been cited from Swift, Pope, Southey, and others not very remote, besides the Bible and Shakespeare, more ancient authorities. The writer is not defending than me, etc., where than I, etc., would be expected. He is simply showing that they have been THAN AS A QUASI-PBEPOSITION 295 in the language continuously for hundreds of years, used by the best authors, and is combating sweeping statements made by writers on propriety, statements based upon utterly inade- quate reading of the literature. This volume aims to prove that the English language has always been liberal in its ten- dencies and free in its syntax and that, if not strait-jacketed by purists and pedants, it would give us wide liberty and free choice of expression in many cases. In the use of pronouns, especially, English has always been liberal and would con- tinue to be so if left to its- own devices. A few complete passages showing the use of than + objective in the literature may be added. Jeremy Taylor 1 says, "and all this for man, than whom nothing could be more miserable, thyself only excepted, who becamest so by undertaking our guilt and punishment." (Date 1650-51.) Richard Hooker 2 says, "Many men there are, than whom nothing is more commendable when they are singled." (Date, ante 1600.) Sidney 3 says, "So grave Coun- sellors, as besides many, but before all, that Hospitall of Fraunce: than whom, (I thinke) that Realme never brought forth a more accomplished judgement, more firmely builded upon vertue." (About 1581.) These passages alone prove that Milton did not originate this phrase, though the fact that he used it in Paradise Lost helped no little in giving it wide currency. That than me, than him, etc., are used by authors not known as careless, can be proved by a few quotations : Boswell 4 says, "A woman does not complain that her brother, who is younger than her, gets their common father's estate." Pope says, Some wit you have, and more may learn, From Court, than Gay or me. 1 Holy Living. 2 Ecclesiastical Polity. 3 Defense of Poesie. * Life of Johnson. 296 STUDIES IN USAGE Swift says, And though by Heaven's severe decree She suffers hourly more than me. Clough makes Cain say, O Abel, brother mine, Where'er thou art, more happy far than mt ! Nesfield quotes a sentence from Southey; Baskervill and Sewell quote from Southey and Byron. Passages from Thack- eray are easily available. All these facts show that these locutions have an unbroken history in the literature for several centuries, and can hardly be ascribed to carelessness. The fact that they are exceptional, however, must make us. careful not to say that they are standard English. "It will be safer for the student to follow the general rule," says an excellent textbook on grammar. ' ' Follow the generality of usage of the generality of authors" would be safe advice to students of usage. In conclusion, it may be added that than I is more literary and far more common in standard authors; than me is only occasional, and should be avoided by the student. CXXIV THAT AS AN ADVERB What libertine would hesitate to promise that muchl (Beecher.) That has considerable vogue as an adverb in popular speech, and occasionally gets into literature. The sentence quoted above is used by Baskervill and Sewell : to show that well- known speakers and writers use it occasionally. Dean Alford 2 calls it provincial and "quite indefensible." Abbott calls it provincial. Carpenter calls it "colloquial or vulgar." Baskervill and Sewell say, "very common as an 1 English Grammar, p. ISO. -The Queen's English, 1S66, p. 82. THAT AS A COORDINATING RELATIVE 297 adverb in spoken English and now and then found in literary English." Some good grammars do not notice the adverbial that, even to condemn it.' The Standard and the Century say, "colloquial"; but the latter quotes Bishop Hacket and Brown- ing. Webster says, "Archaic or in illiterate use." The Ency- clopedic Dictionary says, "Vulgar.*' A. S. Hill says, "not properly an adverb. ' ' The present writer has seen no eases of the adverbial that in a wide course of reading. It would seem from the foregoing statements that the over- whelming consensus of scholars is opposed to this use of that ; why then discuss it ? The answer the author would make is that, when a locution has considerable vogue in colloquial English of classes far above the vulgar and is also found occasionally in good authors, it is worth our notice as students of usage. Of one thing, moreover, we may be sure : Beecher and Browning did not originate this locution it is found in embryo in the Anglo-Saxon period, being historically an ad- verbial genitive. There are several eases of it in Beowulf. In the Valley of Virginia, that has wide vogue in "popular talk"; e.g., "I am that sick I can hardly stand up." In Eastern Virginia, the type of sentence quoted from Beecher is familiar colloquially: e.g., "I am not that foolish." cxxv THAT AS A COOEDINATIXG RELATIVE Some discarded Whig, that is sullen and says nothing because he is out of place. (Addison in the Spectator.) The that in the sentence quoted above is the coordinating relative : it introduces an additional fact about its antecedent. The majority of our best grammarians condemn it, saying that who should be used and that that is wrong. Alexander Bain 1 1 Composition Grammar, pp. 67, 68. 298 STUDIES IN USAGE says, that . . . has never been much used in the coordinating sense for who or which. Thackeray occasionally affects this usage. ' ' Bain takes a sentence of the same kind from Shake- speare and one from Goldsmith and corrects both of them, showing us how he has improved them. As to Thackeray's "occasional" use of this that, see the table below, in which there are thirty-five cases from Henry Esmond and seven from various essays of Thackeray's. Hundreds could be found in his volumes. "Where is the affectation ? Carpenter 1 says, "That is almost always a restrictive rela- tive, that is, it introduces a group of words which limit the meaning of its antecedent, much as an adjective would." Abbott" says, "Who introduces a new fact about the ante- cedent ; that completes the antecedent. This is the general rule, subject to a few exceptions arising from the desire for euphony. ' ' Baskervill and Sewell 3 say, ' ' That is in most cases restrictive, the coordinating use not being often found among careful writers. ' ' Let the tables ref uje this statement. Nesfield 4 says, "Who and which are the only Relatives that are used in the sense of Continuation. . . . that is invariably used in a Restrictive sense. ... we do not say, 'my father, that,' " etc. How incorrect this statement is can be seen by glancing over the list of more than 100 authors that use the coordi- nating that in at least 1100 passages. Indeed, we can see this that in reputable and famous authors every day. Kit- tredge and Farley 5 in their recent textbook say, "That is not now employed as a descriptive relative, though it was com- mon in this use not very long ago." This is the most incorrect statement ever made by Professor' Kittredge. Whitney 6 takes another view: "Some authorities hold that who and 1 Principles of English Grammar, p. 90. -How to Parse, p. 307, note 1, 3 English Grammar, p. 290. 1 English Grammar Past and Present, pp. t::, 44. B Advanced English Grammar, p. 71, note 1. 6 Essentials of English Grammar, p. 77. THAT AS A COOFDINATIXG RELATIVE 299 which are to be used as coordinating or simply descriptive relatives, but that as limiting or restrictive. . . . But the best English usage by no means requires such a distinction." Having quoted some of the best grammarians of our day, let us turn to the rhetorical scholars. Genung 1 says, "The relative that is used only to introduce subordinate clauses necessary to define or restrict or complete our thought of the antecedent." A. S. Hill- is nearer right: "Some gram- marians would reserve that for clauses which restrict the meaning of the antecedent . . . but the warmest advocates of the rule admit that there are important exceptions to it, and that it finds little support in the practice of reputable authors. ' ' Here we have seven authorities against this use of that and only two for it. Let us turn to the literature and see which group has based its statements upon these supreme authorities. Chester Plays 1 Interlude of Thersytes 1 Earl of Surrey 2 John Heywood 1 John Bale 3 Gorboduc 6 John SJielton 3 Shakespeare 84 Titus Andronicus 8 Fletcher and Shakespeare 11 King James Bible 55 Massinger 56 Marlowe 93 John Webster 9 Bacon 35 Prayer Book 8 Walter Baleigh 2 John Lyly 7 Beaumont and Fletcher 2 Spenser 59 George Chapman 5 Sir Thomas Browne 13 Eichard Baxter 1 Jeremy Taylor 7 Herrick 4 Milton 59 Andrew Marvell 5 Cowley 1 Samuel Butler 3 Dryden 20 Pepys 1 Pope 5 Bishop Burnet 14 Prior 1 Swift 4 Addison 28 Dr. Johnson 2 Goldsmith 2 Gray 8 John Locke 1 1 Outlines of Rhetoric, p. 9". 2 licyinninys of Rhetoric and Composition, p. 12G. 300 STUDIES IN USAGE Franklin 3 Cowper 2 Gibbon 2 Coleridge 3 Lamb 39 Scott 5 Leigh Hunt 1 Keats 13 Philip Freneau 15 John Howard Payne 1 Irving 2 Kirke Paulding 1 Wordsworth 42 William Collins 1 Southey 1 Thomas Campbell 3 Edward Young 1 F. W. Faber 1 Jeffrey 1 Mrs. Gaskell 1 Bryant 36 John Keble 11 Mrs. E. B. Browning 11 Bulwer 3 George Eliot 4 Thackeray 42 Hawthorne 7 De Quincey 9 Christopher North 6 Poe 11 D. G. Eossetti 6 Longfellow 33 Lowell 7 Morris 22 Prescott 6 Cooper 13 Holmes 6 Dickens 3 Here are 115 authorities covering a period of about 400 years, and about 1100 passages. The locution was strong all through the last century. Jean Ingelow 1 A. H. Clough 10 Henry Taylor 1 Hallam 3 Edward Everett 2 Kingsley 2 W. W. Skeat 1 Swinburne 16 Dr. C. Geikie 1 Stedman 2 William Watson 2 Phillips Brooks 2 Stevenson 12 Dr. Henry van Dyke 13 Phoebe Cary 3 Stephen Phillips 6 Adelaide Procter 3 William Minto 2 Sidney Lanier 3 Carlyle 1 P. H. Hayne 12 Tennyson 38 Matthew Arnold 1 Browning 34 G. W. Cable 16 Fiske 1 Bret Harte 5 T. B. Aldrich 1 Brander Matthews 1 H. W. Mabie 3 T. N. Page 1 Andrew Lang 6 D. G. Mitchell 17 G. K. Chesterton 1 Stopford Brooke 1 George William Curtis 3 Ernest Ehys 2 THAT AS A COORDINATING RELATIVE 301 The recent authors that use the coordinating that most fre- quently are Thackeray, Bryant, Morris, Browning, Tennyson, Cooper, P. II. Hayne, Cable, D. G. Mitchell, Swinburne, and Henry van Dyke. It was very strong in Spenser, Shakespeare, the Bible, Marlowe, Bacon, Milton, Addison, Lamb, Wordsworth. When has it ever been rare in litera- ture? It is not accidental that the poets show such large figures in the table. Which is a heavy and rather ugly word, hard to pronounce rapidly and smoothly ; that slides off the tongue much more easily. Let us illustrate by a line in the first poem seen in the newest magazine : And, folk whose earth-stained looks I hate, Why may I not divine Your Souls, that must be passionate, Shining and swift as mine? Here is a case from the throbbing heart of the living lan- guage. The poet uses that. Apply the rules of the textbooks and the melody is impaired ; the poet 's instinct rose above the canons of technical grammar. The rule is stricter than the language and should be modi- fied. Some day the language may make who and which co- ordinating and that restricting; but it has not yet done so, as tvho and which are very frequently restrictive and that often coordinative, as seen above. Milton says, in Paradise Lost, Here pilgrims roam, that stray 'd so far to seek In Golgotha him dead who lives in Heaven. Satan from hence, now on the lower stair, That scal'd by steps of gold to Heaven-gate, Looks down, etc. 302 STUDIES IN USAGE Pope says, And now the chapel 's silver bell you hear, That summons you to all the pride of pray 'r. Huge theatres, tliat now unpeopled woods, Now drained a distant country of her floods. Addison (Spectator) says, "This . . . will never be decided until we have something like an academy, that by the best authorities and rules drawn from the analogy of languages shall settle all controversy between grammar and idiom." Swift says, "is a manifest breach of the fundamental law, that makes this majority of opinions the voice of God." And: Or mere chimeras in the mind, That fly, and leave no marks behind? Dryden says, Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain. Thomas Gray (Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College) says, And Shame that skulks behind. Or Jealousy, with rankling tooth, That inly gnaws the secret heart. George Eliot (Adam Bede) says, "a little smouldering vague anxiety, that might easily die out again, was the utmost effect Dinah's preaching had wrought in them at present." Swin- burne, who uses the coordinating that frequently, says, The last was Fear, that is akin to Death. Sweet love, that yet art living man. God, that makes time and ruins it. Keats says, Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side Of thine enmossed realms? Or maiden 's sigh, that grief itself embalms. Tennyson says, Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. THEE AS A QVASI-N0M1NATIYE 303 De Quincey says, ' 'the idea of secret perfidy, that was con- stantly moving under-ground, gave an interest to the progress of the war," etc.; also "Apparently this young generation, that ought to have been so good, took no warning," etc. If hundreds or thousands of sentences from reputable authors can refute the statements of grammarians and writers on usage we can say that Bain, Abbott, and many others are in serious error in this matter : ivho and which have not driven "the Jack Sprat that" out of this territory. The writer has noticed that Jespersen, the famous English scholar of Denmark, uses the coordinating that frequently, so that we may quote him on the affirmative, CXXVI THEE AS A QUASI-NOMINATIVE I would not be thee. (Shakespeare.) On pages 153 ff., me was treated as a quasi-nominative; thee may be treated in the same manner. T. L. K. Oliphant 1 in his New English quotes from Shakespeare the sentence which stands at the head of this section, and says, "There is a curious substitution of the Accusative for the Nominative in Pro- nouns." In the same volume, 2 however, under the year 1762, speaking of Foote's Orators, he says, "The strange Nominative thee appears; thee must learn; this was adopted by the Quakers." This Quaker thee has been explained by an Amer- ican scholar as "an old dative-nominative." Matzner 3 discusses the confusion in pronoun forms from Piers Plowman, through Shakespeare and Dryden, down to Goldsmith. Both Matzner and Oliphant quote "Lord y-wor- shipped be the," where the = il\ou. As thee (=as thou) occurs 1 The New English, II, 40. 2 P. 180. 3 English Grammar (Grece's translation), I, 294, 295. 304 STUDIES IN USAGE in Prior, Steele, James Thomson, and William Cullen Bryant. Prior says, "whieh once was thee"; Thomson, "The nations not so blessed as thee." Dean Alford 1 and others have explained thee in as thee as objective after the preposition "as." The writer, however, cannot conceive of "as" as a preposition in such a locution but prefers to regard thee as an old nominative. (See page 153, above, for this writer's view of than me.) The English pronouns took a long time to settle down. ' ' Between you and 7 ' ' is so common in Shakespeare that it has been called a Shakespearean idiom, and is explained scien- tifically by scholars at home and abroad. Wycherley, about 1660, says "thee and 7"; "us could not deny"; "it was me." In the Miracle Plays "us" occurs sometimes for we. The quotations from Prior and Steele are typical of the language used in the Augustan era ; Foote and Thomson are pretty recent. In extempore discourse, educated men not infre- quently use than me for than I and other locutions of like character; in print they would correct them. Pronouns are very slippery things, and we cannot look at them too closely in the literature. Steele in the Spectator says, "When two such as thee and I meet, with affections as we ought to have towards each other, thou shouldst rejoice," etc. Prior says, May some kind friend the piteous object see, And equal rites perform to that which once was thee. The most recent case of as thee seen in this course of reading is in The Greek Boy by Bryant: Her youth renewed in such as thee, ^Thc Queen's English, 1866, p. 100. THOUSAND FOR A OR THE THOUSAND 305 • cxxvir THINK FOR The author has heard the phrase think for so often among intelligent people that he watched it in the literature. Just as expected, it turned out that it was used by some authors, not only reputable, but very eminent. For instance, William Morris in Sir Peter Harpdon 's End says, well, well, perhaps They're stronger than I think for. Dickens in Pickwick Papers says, "she brightened up too, and looked rather knowing, as if matrimony in reality were not quite so far off as some people thought for." Thackeray and Holmes use this phrase occasionally. CXXVIII THOUSAND FOR A OR THE THOUSAND Thousand is used without the article pretty often by the poets. It can be found in the following : Spenser 2 Pope 4 Fletcher and Shakespeare 3 Prior 2 Marlowe 2 Keats 1 Shakespeare 1 Collins 2 Milton 1 Browning 1 Only one case was seen in prose — in Carlyle — who often uses poetical phraseology. Pope says, When thousand worlds are round. Keats says, And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, And twilight saints. 306 STUDIES IN USAGE A more familiar passage is the following from Milton's Hymn on the Nativity: The air, such pleasure loath to lose, With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close. Metrical considerations no doubt led all the poets in the list to omit the article. CXXIX THRIVED OF THROVE? What is the past tense of thrive/ The writer has often hesi- tated which to say. Let us see what the grammarians, the lexicographers, and the authors do in the matter. The Standard Dictionary throve, rarely thrived Worcester throve Century throve, sometimes thrived Webster throve or thrived Carpenter throve, thrived Baskervill and Sewell throve (thrived) Alexander Bain throve (thrived) Whitney throve (thrived) Meiklejohn throve (thrived) Nesfield throve (thrived) Kittredge and Farley throve, thrived From this table we see that both forms are recognized but that throve is the preferred form in the grammars. Turning to the authors, we have the following record: 1. THROVE Mrs. Gaskell 1 Mrs. H. Ward Hallam 1 Swinburne Browning 1 John Fiske Kingsley 1 Tennyson Hawthorne 1 H. W. Mabie < }eorge Eliot 2 Stedman THRIVED OR THROVE 307 .'. THRIVED (I'KETERITE) Massinger 1 W. M". Baskervill 1 Dryden 1 John Fiske 1 George Eliot 1 Lounsbury in his The Standard of Usage in English 1 says that the two forms are used indifferently and that no one can predict which will ultimately prevail. It would seem, how- ever, that this statement may have to he revised. If 11 authorities are unanimously in favor of throve while several of them give little or no recognition to thrived, and if 11 out of 14 authors cited from the nineteenth century use throve, why can we not say that throvt is decidedly in the ascendant .' The word in its past participle and past tense is not very common in literature. Probably the authors were uncertain as to the forms and used other verbs such as succeeded, pros- pered, etc. The forms throve, thriven, and thrived are, it would seem, rather rare in conversation : the writer confesses to some hesitancy in using them. A few quotations will show how the forms are used by the great authors. Tennyson in The Palace of Art says, And so she throve and prosper M: so three years She prosper M. Browning in Childe Roland says, I think I never saw Such starved, ignoble nature; nothing throve. Swinburne in Faust inc says, But this time Satan throve, no doubt. The verb thrive started out in Middle English as a strong verb and is now, it would seem, reverting to that class. 1 P. 145. 308 STUDIES IN USAGE cxxx THROUGHLY Throughly is used in the Bible and in the Prayer Book, and is familiar to every close reader of Shakespeare. In cheap editions of the Bible, it is often changed to thoroughly. "Wash me throughly from my sins," though regularly printed in the Prayer Book and in carefully edited Bibles, is often changed by public readers into "Wash me thoroughly." Students in college classes have to be taught the word throughly in their Shakespeare classes. The old adverb throughly is used by Tillotson, N. Ward, and Dryden, one of the dictionaries tells us. The writer has seen it in Prior and in Tennyson. Of course it is obsolete now except in poetry. Prior in his ballad of Down-Hall says, For, before this great journey was throughly concerted, Full often they met, and as often they parted. CXXXI TOMORROW IS SUNDAY Quackenbos * condemns the use of is with the word to- morrow; he says, "As well say, 'Yesterday is Sunday.' " Lounsbury 2 defends stoutly, and explains is as a survival of the present tense used with future meaning, so common in early English and still used to a considerable degree in the best English. Hill permits both but draws a fine distinction. Tomorrow is and tomorrow will he are both used in polite society ; the writer did not see either phrase in the literature, hence cannot quote passages. Tomorrow is is far more usual in polite colloquial English. * Practical Rhetoric, edition of 1S96, p. 245. 3 The Standard of Usage in English, p. HIT. TRY AND OR TRY TO 309 CXXXII TRY AND OR TRY TO Both Quackenbos * and Genung 2 condemn try and; e.g., "Try and do better." Baskervill and Sewell, 3 "Occasionally . . . found . . . instead of the better authorized try to." They, however, quote Thackeray, Alexander Bain, and Ruskin as using try and. A. S. Hill 4 approves of try and. Try and is used by the following: Baxter 1 Mrs. Gaskell 1 Lamb 4 Kingsley 1 Matthew Arnold 4 George Eliot 5 Thackeray 9 T. L. K. Oliphant 1 Froude 1 Sir John Lubbock 1 Try and is used several times in Otto Jespersen's books. How can the locution be called a colloquialism, with such support in literature? Try to is often less easy of utterance than try and; e.g., "We ought to try to take our part." Here the "t "-sounds are hard to pronounce and not pleasant to the ear. Try to is more strictly grammatical, but euphony has its rights. Matthew Arnold (Essays in Criticism) says, "How serious a matter it is to try and resist, I had ample opportunity of experiencing," etc., and "every critic should try and possess one great literature, at least, besides his own." Froude says. "To try and teach people how to live without giving them examples in which our rules are illustrated, is," etc. George Eliot says (Silas Marner) "to try and soften his father's anger," etc. ; "to try and choose your lot," etc. 1 Practical Rhetoric, 1S96, pp. 245, 246. 2 Outlines of Rhetoric, 1900, p. 331. 3 English Grammar, p. 330. * Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, p. 16. 310 STUDIES IN USAGE CXXXIIL VOICE AS A VERB Rather assume thy Right in Silence and de facto then voice it with Claimes and Challenges. {Lord Bacon.) Voice as a verb in the meaning of assert, utter is sometimes condemned by writers on usage. Genung 1 says, "is much used nowadays, but the usage is objectionable." Lounsbury 2 defends it, and says that Shakespeare 3 uses it. Worcester recognizes it. The Century Dictionary recognizes it, quoting a passage from the North American Review. Webster recog- nizes it, quoting two passages from Bacon, one of them being the same one quoted at the head of this section. The Encyclopedic and the Standard dictionaries recognize it. The following authors use the word : Bacon 1 Price Collier 1 Stopford Brooke 1 Brander Matthews 2 G. K. Chesterton 1 T. N. Page 1 If the Century Dictionary can quote the North American Review, the authors named in the table above should carry weight, as any of them might write articles that. would grace that magazine. The word seems to have lain dormant for a long time and reemerged in the nineteenth century. G. K. Chesterton in his Life of Browning says, "what figures Browning has selected as voicing the essential and distinct versions of the ease." Price Collier in his England and the English says, "to voice the fact that they are a Christian nation." L. A. Sherman in his Analytics of Litera- ture says, "She is made to serve the audience as a sort of proxy, voicing and obeying its will." ' Outlines of Rhetoric, p. 331 "Tin Standard of I sagt in English, p. 202. "See Coriolanus II, Hi, 1. 222. WAS FOE SUBJUNCTIVE WEEE 311 The locution is heard not infrequently among reputable speakers and has some vogue in polite conversation ; but it is true that it is a "pet word" with a certain class of speakers not recognized as authorities. As said already, it is perfectly natural for a noun to become a verb. CXXXIV WAS FOE SUBJUNCTIVE WERE They speak as if the scholar's judgment was one thing, and the gen- eral public's judgment another. (Matthew Arnold.) The sentence quoted above is typical. It is taken from a famous essay by one of the best stylists of the nineteenth cen- tury. Let us see what the greater grammarians say about this ivas used where were is generally expected. Of course "the lesser grammarians" will not tolerate it: we must use were in certain places. Matzner 1 says that the subjunctive has never had the monopoly in clauses like the one in Arnold's sentence. He quotes was from Sheridan, Bolingbroke, and Bulwer where were would be more strictly elegant. Henry Bradley, 2 speak- ing of the decline of the subjunctive, says, "Perhaps in an- other generation the subjunctive forms will have ceased to exist except in the single instance of were , which serves a useful function, although we manage to dispense with a cor- responding form in other verbs." Professor George P. Krapp 3 -takes the same view as Bradley. After borrowing from C. Alphonso Smith cases of was for were taken from Thackeray, Matthew Arnold, and Dean Church, he says that it is doubtful whether the subjunctive can keep this its "last stronghold" much longer against the encroachments of the indicative. 1 English Grammar In some quarters there is still a strong prejudice against the neuter whose. The old grammarians and some of the later tell us that whose should not be applied to things without life, but that of which is the proper relative construction. The sentence at the head of this section is typical of the contrary use. It is taken from a book by one of the most eminent stu- dents of English. One of the first modern scholars to question this locution was George P. Marsh, 1 whose name is familiar to all that love good English. In 1859 he said, "At present, the use of whose, the possessive of who, is pretty generally confined to persons, or things personified, and we should scruple to say, 'I passed a house whose windows were open.' This is a modern, and indeed by no means yet fully established distinction." The table below will show how many great authors had been using this whose and were using it when Marsh published his lec- tures; they do not "scruple." Nesfield says, "The whose of Modern English is generally limited to persons, though we sometimes find it applied to things as an equivalent to of which. . . . Our language has gained nothing but inconvenience by restricting the use of whose to persons, and it may be hoped that the older practice of using whose for all genders will be some day resumed." Whether the first statement is true or not the table will show. That avoiding whose and using of which is very inconvenient is certainly true ; and we may add, cumbersome and pedantic. That Nesfield 's hope has been realized for hundreds of years will be seen from a glance at the table below. 1 Yet he uses it ai least three times in his Lectures. WHOSE RE FE RUING TO NEUTER ANTECEDENTS :J21 Carpenter says, "By a sort of personification, . . . whose sometimes refers to things." How often the writer has seen it in one course of reading the table will show. ' ' Sometimes " is a decided understatement. Furthermore, if Carpenter's ex- planation is right, personification is certainly running mad in our literature. Henry Sweet x says, ' ' The possessive whose is still applied to lifeless things, though with a certain hesitation, and only to avoid the longer of which. In the spoken language we avoid such constructions as 'a tree whose shade' as much as possible." Whether the reputable authors feel Sweet's hesita- tion, the table will decide. In England they may use of wh ich in colloquial speech, but the writer does not believe this is the case in America. In his books Sweet uses whose sometimes, though he may have done so "with hesitation." Goold Brown says, "I dislike the construction and yet sometimes adopt it for want of another as good." A. S. Hill in his Rhetoric - says that good authors generally use of which, although, he adds, it would be going too far to say, "as some grammarians do," that whose should never stand for an inanimate thing not personified. He then gives some sentences in which whose is to be changed to of which. The writer has found warm opposition to whose in quarters where Professor Hill's influence as a teacher is still potent. Genung in his schoolbook says that this whose should be sparingly used and only when smoothness demands it ; yet there are in Genung 's college textbooks at least forty-five cases of whose used of inanimate objects. The foregoing paragraphs set forth pretty fully the oppo- sition to whose among the best authorities of our day. Let us now quote some of its defenders. Matzner 3 puts this whose on an equality with the personal 1 Netc English Grammar, Tart II, p. 78. a Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition, pp. 127, 128. 'English Grammar (Greee's translation), II, pp. 518, 519. 322 STUDIES IN USAGE use, but says that it is modern. The examples cited below, how- ever, go back as far as Malory, John Bale, Gorboduc, the Earl of Surrey, becoming very numerous in Shakespeare and Mar- lowe. Bain 1 says it can be used except in cases where am- biguity would arise. Baskervill and Sewell - say, "Gram- marians sometimes object to the statement that whose is the possessive of which, saying that the phrase of which should always be used instead ; yet a search in literature shows that the possessive form whose is quite common in prose as well as in poetry." They cite the following authors as using it: Burke • Ruskin Scott Matthew Arnold Macaulay McMaster Kingsley Beecher Thackeray Meiklejohn, 3 the Scotch grammarian, says, "Whose may be used for of which." Lounsbury 4 is very strong in his defense of whose. He says that it is etymologically correct and is sup- ported b} r the usage of ' ' every author in our literature who is entitled to be called an authority." "Whether this statement is too sweeping or not can be determined from the table below. Professor John Earle 5 says, "Whose has long been used of persons only, but there is now a disposition, notably among our historians, to restore its pristine right of referring to things also." The last clause is excellent; but our table will show that whose has never been confined to persons. Kittredge and Farley 6 recognize both ivhose and of which. They add that of which is preferred in prose, a statement which the writer believes to be erroneous. The Century Dictionary says that whose is still correctly used of a neuter antecedent. 1 Composition Gramviar, p. 71. 8 English Grammar, p. 78 3 The English Language, p. 74. 4 The Standard of Usage in English, p. 109. 5 Philology of the English Tongue, \>. 457. * Advanced English Grammar, p. Gi). WHOSE BEFEBB1NG TO NEUTER ANTECEDENTS 323 'Webster recognizes it, quoting a sentence from Dryden. The Encyclopedic Dictionary says, "'Which' sometimes has ivhose as its genitive," and quotes a passage from Milton but from no recent author. Professor O. F. Emerson ] says, "The genitive whose became restricted to personal use, although whose as a neuter genitive is found in literature, especially poetry. ' ' This last statement is certainly true, and is the same statement made by Genung in his college textbooks. Emerson 's words "found in literature" will seem like a decided under- statement when compared with the number of authors cited in this section. T. L. K. Oliphant 2 says that this whose is found in the Romaunt of the Rose, which he dates about a.d. 1520 and Skeat "after 1500"; also that it is used by Tyndale about 1525. As it is found in Malory, Bale, and other early authors, it can hardly be called very modern in origin. The following table will show at least 140 authors that use the neuter ivhose. Many more could be found, but there is a limit to human endurance; writer and reader alike would become exhausted. The genitive ivhose is universal in poetry and exceedingly common in prose. Thomas Malory 1 Sir Thomas Browne 10 John Bale 1 Samuel Daniel 1 Gorbodue 2 John Donne 1 Earl of Surrey 2 Milton 22 Beaumont and Fletcher 4 Andrew Marvell 1 King James Bible 14 Bunyan 1 Spenser 10 Jeremy Taylor 10 Shakespeare 57 Defoe 1 George Chapman 3 Dryden 17 Marlowe 26 Addison 2 Massinger 4 Pope 9 Fletcher and Shakespeare 1 Prior 4 John Webster 1 Fielding 4 Ben Jonson 1 Dr. Johnson 3 1 Historxj of the English Language, p. 3.38. 2 77m New English, I, pp. 401, 429. 324 STUDIES IN USAGE Gibbon 15 Bishop Berkeley 1 Cowper 1 James Thomson 2 Geo. Campbell 5 Thomas Gray 3 William Collins 4 Dr. H. Blair 4 Jane Austen 2 Franklin 1 Philip Freneau 10 Audubon 1 Burke 2 Lamb 5 Thomas Campbell 1 Byron 5 Irving 3 Coleridge 3 Wordsworth 31 Shelley 20 Keats 6 Scott 1G Southey G Hallam 1 A. H. Clough 4 Wendell Phillips 3 Sir William Hamilton 6 Longfellow 2G Lowell 22 Earl of Derby 2 Beaconsfield 1 Tennyson 9 James Montgomery 1 J. A. Froude 4 Emerson 18 Sir Francis Palgrave 2 Halleck 1 Phillips Brooks 5 E. A. Freeman 2 E. P. Whipple 1 Thackeray 2 Newman 2 Bayard Taylor 33 Whittier 2 Kingsley 2 Sir John Lubbock 1 Bulwer 7 Milman 2 Dean Stanley 4 William Morris 6 Holmes 4 Sidney Lanier 6 Dean Trench 8 P. H. Hayne 30 Isaac D 'Israeli 2 James Bryce 8 William Minto 2 Kittredge and Greenough 5 Saintsbury 2 Dr. E. A. Abbott 1 Lounsbury 13 S. Weir Mitchell 1 J. F. Genung 45 McMaster 2 T. B. Aldrich 1 H. W. Mabie 28 Henry Drummond 1 Phoebe Cary 4 Huxley 8 Christina Rossetti 1 Sidney Dobell 1 Jean Ingelow 1 Mrs. Gaskell 1 Pollok 3 Bryant 15 Hawthorne 2 Matthew Arnold 11 George Eliot 1 Dickens 15 Macaulay 8 De Quincey 3 Carlyle 7 Motley 7 Prescott 7 WHOSE REFERRING TO NEUTER ANTECEDENTS 325 Cooper 17 Poe i 65 Buskin 4 Fitzedward Hall . . ., 1 D. G. Eossetti 11 F. W. Faber 1 Bagehot 1 Mrs. Browning 1 Richard Grant White 2 Browning 8 Horace Greeley 1 Mrs. H. B. Stowe 1 Thoreau ' 1 Kipling 2 Henry van Dyke 4 Edward Dowden 2 Stephen Phillips 2 Katharine Lee Bates 9 George P. Marsh 3 George "William Curtis 14 G. W. Cable 16 Mrs. H. Ward 3 Henry Sweet 3 Price Collier 1 W. D. Whitney 24 Bret Harte 16 Stopford Brooke 6 D. G. Mitchell 4 John Burroughs 1 Dr. C. Geikie 1 T. N. Page 6 John Morley 1 Leslie Stephen 1 Professor John Earle 8 Stedman 3 Swinburne 3 Stevenson 6 W. W. Skeat 1 Here are more than 140 authors, in about 1050 passages, all the way down for more than 400 years. Are there any authors left to name? The results of this study of the neuter ivhose amazed the present writer : he is fully prepared to endorse the statement made by Lounsbury that this whose is used by every author entitled to be called an authority. 2 Let us draw a few inferences from the table. (1) The whose under discussion is used by the rhetorical scholars of various epochs, such as Campbell, Hugh Blair, and J. F. Genung. (2) It is used freely by such distinguished writers as Milton, Johnson, Matthew Arnold, Lowell, Emerson, and Longfellow. (3) Though its greatest use is in poetry, where it seems to be universal, it is used frequently in prose by Sir Thomas Browne, Poe, Dickens, Cooper, George "William Cur- tis, Lounsbury, Genung, Mabie, Cable, "W. D. Whitney, and Hawthorne. 1 Mostly in his prose. -The Standard of Usage in English, p. 109. 32G STUDIES IN USAGE A casual reading of the table will show that the neuter whose made enormous gains in the nineteenth century: the attacks of the older grammarians and the "faint praise" of some of the best recent grammarians seemed to add strength to its pinions. The writer has not seen a single case of of which in poetry ; indeed he cannot imagine a poet's using such a stilted locution. This very stiffness will probably doom of which to extinction except in puristic circles. Some prose writers cited as using whose use of which frequently. Among these are Macaulay, H. W. Mabie, Scott, and Hawthorne. Macaulay generally uses of which, much to the injury of his style. In conclusion : why did this whose incur such opposition ? It is certainly more convenient, more concise, more eupho- nious, and less cumbersome than of which. It is historically neuter as well as masculine. Again : why did some of its enemies or its lukewarm friends say that good authors avoid it ? "We may answer with a wise saw from Goold Brown, the most voluminous of the old grammarians. After criticizing one of his predecessors for his unqualified condemnation of the whose in question, he said, "Grammarians would perhaps differ less if they would read more." That is gospel wisdom. The authors that avoid whose are in a small minority. They are probably the same men that boycott the progressive pas- sive verb phrase and other locutions well established except in some small localities. One more reference to the list. Among those using this whose we find such guardians of good English as Pope, Dr. Johnson, Baskervill, Minto, Sweet, Kittredge, Lounsbury, and Whitney, all of whom are recognized as pure though not puristic in their English. Though it might seem unnecessary to quote a few passages where thousands are available, the writer will show how some of our greatest authors use the ivhose of inanimate objects. WHOSE REFERRING TO NEUTER ANTECEDENTS 327 The ghost in Hamlet says: I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul. Iii the Bible (Dent. 8:9) we read, "a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thon mayest dig brass." Try of which in this passage. Milton says, Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, etc. Addison in the Spectator says, "Huygenius carries this thought so far, that he does not think it impossible there may be stars whose light is not yet traveled down to us," etc. Pope (Eloisc to Abelard) says, Relentless walls! iclwse darksome sound contains Eepentant sighs, and voluntary pains. Dryden says, "that play . . . whose plot or action is," etc. De Quincey says, "a writer who had looked behind the cur- tain of fate, and had seen the forge at whose fires the shafts of Heaven were even now being forged." Matthew Arnold in his essay on Gray says, "Gray, a born poet, fell upon an age of prose. He fell upon an age whose task was such as to call forth in general men's powers of understanding, wit," etc. Newman says, "gaze around the bay of Baia?, whose rocks have been made to serve as the foundations and the walls of palaces." Macaulay says, "a religion whose creed they do not understand, and whose precepts they habitually disobey." Macaulay, however, as already said, generally uses of ivhich, much to the injury of his cadences and his euphony. 328 STUDIES IN USAGE CXXXIX WORDS OF RELATIONSHIP Words of relationship have always been vague in English; some are very uncertain at present. In Anglo-Saxon, for instance, nefa meant nephew, grandson, and stepson; nev. Ul SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 352 369 3 158 00882 6835