I shall not be charged with slandering Americans, if I say I think the American side of any question may be safely left in American hands. I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine!
My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. Trust no future, however pleasant, Let the dead past bury its dead; Act, act in the living present, Heart within, and God overhead. We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future.
To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence.
Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. This truth is not a doubtful one. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous? Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves.
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits?
I am not that man. But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.
Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting.
America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery — the great sin and shame of America! But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind.
Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave.
There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, no matter how ignorant he be , subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write.
When you can point to any such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood?
How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters?
I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is passed.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.
There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year, by dealers in this horrid traffic. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth.
That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave-trade, as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man.
In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren nominally free should leave this country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa! It is, however, a notable fact that, while so much execration is poured out by Americans upon those engaged in the foreign slave-trade, the men engaged in the slave-trade between the states pass without condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable. Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion.
Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. You know what is a swine-drover? I will show you a man-drover. They inhabit all our Southern States. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. You will see one of these human flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers.
They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray.
Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream, that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul!
The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! Follow the drove to New Orleans. Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude.
Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States. I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness.
The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain caution is observed. In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door.
The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror. Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic.
There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. My soul sickens at the sight. Is this the land your Fathers loved, The freedom which they toiled to win? Is this the earth whereon they moved? Are these the graves they slumber in? But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Where these are, man is not sacred.
By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. The oath of any two villains is sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to send the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery!
His own testimony is nothing. He can bring no witnesses for himself. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. I doubt if there be another nation on the globe, having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he may select.
I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it. At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance, and makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in wickedness.
A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be thrown into the shade.
A John Knox would be seen at every church door, and heard from every pulpit, and Fillmore would have no more quarter than was shown by Knox, to the beautiful, but treacherous queen Mary of Scotland. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind.
But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines.
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They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity. For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done!
These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation — a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you.
The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds; and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive.
We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared — men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. In speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land.
There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend Rev. One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches in England towards a similar movement in that country. There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating, and improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and restored him to his liberty.
There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation as embodied in the two great political parties , is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen.
You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You glory in your refinement and your universal education yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation — a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty.
You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America.
You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a threepenny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country. I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie.
It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States; that the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic.
Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped. To palter with us in a double sense: And keep the word of promise to the ear, But break it to the heart. And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. Mark , ii, Alger, the improver of Murray's Grammar, and editor of the Pronouncing Bible, taking this an to be the indefinite article, and perceiving that the h is sounded in hungered , changed the particle to a in all these passages; as, "And his disciples were a hungered.
The Greek text, rendered word for word, is simply this: An , as I apprehend, is here a mere prefix , which has somehow been mistaken in form, and erroneously disjoined from the following word. If so, the correction ought to be made after the fashion of the following passage from Bishop M'Ilvaine: He that died a Wednesday. That is, on Wednesday. So sometimes before plurals; as, "He carves a Sundays.
That is, on Sundays. That is, on nights--like the following example: That is, in pieces, or to pieces. Compounds of this kind, in most instances, follow verbs, and are consequently reckoned adverbs; as, To go astray,--To turn aside,--To soar aloft,--To fall asleep. But sometimes the antecedent term is a noun or a pronoun, and then they are as clearly adjectives; as, "Imagination is like to work better upon sleeping men, than men awake. For example, "You have set the cask a leaking," and, "You have set the cask to leaking," are exactly equivalent, both in meaning and construction.
Building is not here a noun, but a participle; and in is here better than a , only because the phrase, a building , might be taken for an article and a noun, meaning an edifice. In the last six sentences, a seems more suitable than any other preposition would be: Alexander Murray says, "To be a -seeking, is the relic of the Saxon to be on or an seeking.
What are you a-seeking? It means more fully the going on with the process. I dissent also from Dr. Murray, concerning the use of the preposition or prefix a , in examples like that which he has here chosen. After a neuter verb , this particle is unnecessary to the sense, and, I think, injurious to the construction.
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Except in poetry, which is measured by syllables, it may be omitted without any substitute; as, "I am a walking. Say--"be wandering elsewhere;" and omit the a , in all such cases. Thus we say, The landlord hath a hundred a year; the ship's crew gained a thousand pounds a man. Whether a in this construction is the article or the preposition, seems to be questionable. It is to be observed that an , as well as a , is used in this manner; as, "The price is one dollar an ounce. Modern merchants, in stead of accenting the a , commonly turn the end of it back; as,.
That the article relates not to the plural noun, but to the numerical word only, is very evident; but whether, in these instances, the words few, many, dozen, hundred , and thousand , are to be called nouns or adjectives, is matter of dispute. Lowth, Murray, and many others, call them adjectives , and suppose a peculiarity of construction in the article;--like that of the singular adjectives every and one in the phrases, " Every ten days,"--" One seven times more.
Churchill and others call them nouns , and suppose the plurals which follow, to be always in the objective case governed by of , understood: Neither solution is free from difficulty. Now, if many is here a singular nominative, and the only subject of the verb, what shall we do with are?
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Taken in either of these ways, the construction is anomalous. One can hardly think the word " adjectives " to be here in the objective case, because the supposed ellipsis of the word of cannot be proved; and if many is a noun, the two words are perhaps in apposition, in the nominative. If I say, " A thousand men are on their way," the men are the thousand , and the thousand is nothing but the men ; so that I see not why the relation of the terms may not be that of apposition.
But if authorities are to decide the question, doubtless we must yield it to those who suppose the whole numeral phrase to be taken adjectively ; as, "Most young Christians have, in the course of half a dozen years, time to read a great many pages. Dozen , or hundred , or thousand , when taken abstractly, is unquestionably a noun; for we often speak of dozens, hundreds , and thousands. Few and many never assume the plural form, because they have naturally a plural signification; and a few or a great many is not a collection so definite that we can well conceive of fews and manies ; but both are sometimes construed substantively, though in modern English[] it seems to be mostly by ellipsis of the noun.
Johnson says, the word many is remarkable in Saxon for its frequent use. The following are some of the examples in which he calls it a substantive, or noun: In saying, 'A few of his adherents remained with him;' we insinuate, that they constituted a number sufficiently important to be formed into an aggregate: A similar difference occurs between the phrases: The word little , in its most proper construction, is an adjective, signifying small ; as, "He was little of stature. And in sentences like the following, it is also reckoned an adjective, though the article seems to relate to it, rather than to the subsequent noun; or perhaps it may be taken as relating to them both: But by a common ellipsis, it is used as a noun, both with and without the article; as, " A little that a righteous man hath, is better than the riches of many wicked.
It is also used adverbially, both alone and with the article a ; as, "The poor sleep little. It is not vaguely therefore, but on fixed principles, that the article is omitted, or inserted, in such phrases as the following: Hence, while some have objected to the peculiar distinction bestowed upon these little words, firmly insisting on throwing them in among the common mass of adjectives; others have taught, that the definitive adjectives--I know not how many--such as, this, that, these, those, any, other, some, all, both, each, every, either, neither --"are much more properly articles than any thing else.
But, in spite of this opinion, it has somehow happened, that these definitive adjectives have very generally, and very absurdly, acquired the name of pronouns. Hence, we find Booth, who certainly excelled most other grammarians in learning and acuteness, marvelling that the articles "were ever separated from the class of pronouns.
Whereas the other definitives above mentioned are very often used to supply the place of their nouns; that is, to represent them understood. For, in general, it is only by ellipsis of the noun after it, and not as the representative of a noun going before, that any one of these words assumes the appearance of a pronoun. Hence, they are not pronouns, but adjectives. Nor are they "more properly articles than any thing else;" for, "if the essence of an article be to define and ascertain" the meaning of a noun, this very conception of the thing necessarily supposes the noun to be used with it.
Let the general term be man , the plural of which is men: A man --one unknown or indefinite; The man --one known or particular; The men --some particular ones; Any man --one indefinitely; A certain man --one definitely; This man --one near; That man --one distant; These men --several near; Those men --several distant; Such a man --one like some other; Such men --some like others; Many a man --a multitude taken singly; Many men --an indefinite multitude taken plurally; A thousand men --a definite multitude; Every man --all or each without exception; Each man --both or all taken separately; Some man --one, as opposed to none; Some men --an indefinite number or part; All men --the whole taken plurally; No men --none of the sex; No man --never one of the race.
The definitions to be given in the Second Praxis, are two for an article, and one for a noun, an adjective, a pronoun, a verb, a participle, an adverb, a conjunction, a preposition, or an interjection. The is the definite article. The definite article is the , which denotes some particular thing or things.
Task is a noun. A is the indefinite article. The indefinite article is an or a , which denotes one thing of a kind, but not any particular one. Schoolmaster is a noun. Laboriously is an adverb. Prompting is a participle. Urging is a participle. An is the indefinite article. Indolent is an adjective. Class is a noun. Is is a verb. Worse is an adjective. Than is a conjunction. Drives is a verb. Lazy is an adjective. Horses is a noun. Along is a preposition. Sandy is an adjective.
Road is a noun. In the pursuit of knowledge, the greater the excellence of the subject of inquiry, the deeper ought to be the interest, the more ardent the investigation, and the dearer to the mind the acquisition of the truth. The boys in this great school play truant, and there is no person to chastise them. A legislature may unjustly limit the surgeon's fee; but the broken arm must be healed, and a surgeon is the only man to restore it.
It was made the duty of the whole Christian community to provide for the stranger, the poor, the sick, the aged, the widow, and the orphan. Of this, round is an example. A column is a more agreeable figure than a pilaster; and, for that reason, it ought to be preferred, all other circumstances being equal.
An other reason concurs, that a column connected with a wall, which is a plain surface, makes a greater variety than a pilaster. But, according to a principle expressed on page th, " A is to be used whenever the following word begins with a consonant sound. But, according to a suggestion on page th, "Articles should be inserted as often as the sense requires them. Murray's Octavo Gram , p. Two, the singular and plural. Three persons--the first, second, and third. Three--the nominative, possessive and objective. But, according to a principle on page th, "Needless articles should be omitted; they seldom fail to pervert the sense.
A Noun Substantive common. But, according to a principle on page th, "The articles can seldom be put one for the other, without gross impropriety; and either is of course to be preferred to the other, as it better suits the sense.
Murray's , i, 53; Hiley's , Murray's Gram , i, p. Appropriately, and by way of distinction, the books of the Old and New Testament; the Bible. That he is regenerate? Many words commonly belonging to other parts of speech are occasionally used as nouns; and, since it is the manner of its use, that determines any word to be of one part of speech rather than of an other, whatever word is used directly as a noun, must of course be parsed as such. Song , vii, Interjections or phrases made nouns: Nouns are divided into two general classes; proper and common.
A proper noun is the name of some particular individual, or people, or group; as, Adam, Boston , the Hudson , the Romans , the Azores , the Alps. A common noun is the name of a sort, kind, or class, of beings or things; as, Beast, bird, fish, insect,--creatures, persons, children.
The particular classes, collective, abstract , and verbal , or participial , are usually included among common nouns. The name of a thing sui generis is also called common. A collective noun , or noun of multitude , is the name of many individuals together; as, Council, meeting, committee, flock. An abstract noun is the name of some particular quality considered apart from its substance; as, Goodness, hardness, pride, frailty. A verbal or participial noun is the name of some action, or state of being; and is formed from a verb, like a participle, but employed as a noun: A thing sui generis , i.
Nouns have modifications of four kinds; namely, Persons, Numbers, Genders , and Cases. Persons, in grammar, are modifications that distinguish the speaker, the hearer, and the person or thing merely spoken of. The first person is that which denotes the speaker or writer; as, " I Paul have written it. The second person is that which denotes the hearer, or the person addressed; as, " Robert , who did this?
The third person is that which denotes the person or thing merely spoken of; as, " James loves his book. The speaker or writer, being the mover and maker of the communication, of course stands in the nearest or first of these relations. The hearer or hearers, being personally present and directly addressed, evidently sustain the next or second of these relations; this relation is also that of the reader, when he peruses what is addressed to himself in print or writing.
Lastly, whatsoever or whosoever is merely mentioned in the discourse, bears to it that more remote relation which constitutes the third person. The distinction of persons belongs to nouns, pronouns, and finite verbs; and to these it is always applied, either by peculiarity of form or construction, or by inference from the principles of concord. Pronouns are like their antecedents, and verbs are like their subjects, in person.
Hence, it is necessary that our definitions of these things be such as will apply to each of them in full, or under all circumstances; for the definitions ought to be as general in their application as are the things or properties defined. Any person, number, gender, case, or other grammatical modification, is really but one and the same thing, in whatever part of speech it may be found. This is plainly implied in the very nature of every form of syntactical agreement; and as plainly contradicted in one half, and probably more, of the definitions usually given of these things.
But persons, in common parlance, or in ordinary life, are intelligent beings , of one or the other sex. These objects, different as they are in their nature, are continually confounded by the makers of English grammars: So Bicknell, of London: The second person has the speech directed to him , and is supposed to be present; as, Thou Harry art a wicked fellow. The third person is spoken of, or described, and supposed to be absent ; as, That Thomas is a good man.
And in the same manner the plural pronouns are used, when more than one are spoken of. And how can the first person be "the person WHO speaks ," when every word of this phrase is of the third person? Most certainly, it is not HE, nor any one of his sort. If any body can boast of being " the first person in grammar ," I pray, Who is it? Is it not I , even I? Many grammarians say so. Charles Adams, with infinite absurdity, makes the three persons in grammar to be never any thing but three nouns , which hold a confabulation thus: The noun that speaks [,] is the first person; as, I, James , was present.
The noun that is spoken to, is the second person; as, James , were you present? The noun that is spoken of is the third person; as, James was present. What can be a greater blunder, than to call the first person of a verb, of a pronoun, or even of a noun, " the noun that speaks? Nouns are of the second person when addressed or spoken to. Thou is the second person, singular. He, she , or it , is the third person, singular.
We is the first person, plural. Ye or you is the second person, plural. They is the third person, plural. Murray's Grammar , p. Adams's , 37; A. Flint's , 18; Kirkham's , 98; Cooper's , 34; T. Now there is no more propriety in affirming, that " I is the first person ," than in declaring that me, we, us, am, ourselves, we think, I write , or any other word or phrase of the first person, is the first person. Yet Murray has given us no other definitions or explanations of the persons than the foregoing erroneous assertions; and, if I mistake not, all the rest who are here named, have been content to define them only as he did.
Some others, however, have done still worse: I, who is the person speaking ; 2d thou, who is spoken to; 3d he, she , or it, who is spoken of, and their plurals, we, ye or you, they. Here the two kinds of error which I have just pointed out, are jumbled together. It is impossible to write worse English than this! Nor is the following much better: I , in the first person, speaking; Thou , in the second person, spoken to; and He, she, it , in the third person, spoken of.
This exception takes place more particularly in the writing of dialogues and dramas; in which the first and second persons are abundantly used, not as the representatives of the author and his reader, but as denoting the fictitious speakers and hearers that figure in each scene. But, in discourse, the grammatical persons may be changed without a change of the living subject. In the following sentence, the three grammatical persons are all of them used with reference to one and the same individual: Consequently, nouns are rarely used in the first person; and when they do assume this relation, a pronoun is commonly associated with them: But some grammarians deny the first person to nouns altogether; others, with much more consistency, ascribe it;[] while very many are entirely silent on the subject.
Yet it is plain that both the doctrine of concords, and the analogy of general grammar, require its admission. The reason of this may be seen in the following examples: Again, if the word God is of the second person, in the text, " Thou, God , seest me," why should any one deny that Paul is of the first person, in this one? And so of the plural: How can it be pretended, that, in the phrase, " I Paul ," I is of the first person, as denoting the speaker, and Paul , of some other person, as denoting something or somebody that is not the speaker?
Let the admirers of Murray, Kirkham, Ingersoll, R. Smith, Comly, Greenleaf, Parkhurst, or of any others who teach this absurdity, answer. In the following example, the patriarch Jacob uses both forms; applying the term servant to himself, and to his brother Esau the term lord: For when a speaker or writer does not choose to declare himself in the first person, or to address his hearer or reader in the second , he speaks of both or either in the third.
So Judah humbly beseeches Joseph: And Abraham reverently intercedes with God: And the Psalmist prays: So, on more common occasions: Ye mountains , that ye skipped like rams; and ye little hills , like lambs? Tremble, thou earth , at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob. The plural number is that which denotes more than one; as, "The boys learn. The plural number of nouns is regularly formed by adding s or es to the singular: When the singular ends in a sound which will unite with that of s , the plural is generally formed by adding s only , and the number of syllables is not increased: But when the sound of s cannot be united with that of the primitive word, the regular plural adds s to final e , and es to other terminations, and forms a separate syllable: In some languages, as the Greek and the Arabic, there is a dual number, which denotes two , or a pair ; but in ours, this property of words, or class of modifications, extends no farther than to distinguish unity from plurality, and plurality from unity.
It belongs to nouns, pronouns, and finite verbs; and to these it is always applied, either by peculiarity of form, or by inference from the principles of concord. Pronouns are like their antecedents, and verbs are like their subjects, in number. The terminations which always make the regular plural in es , with increase of syllables, are twelve; namely, ce, ge, ch soft, che soft, sh, ss, s, se, x, xe, z , and ze: All other endings readily unite in sound either with the sharp or with the flat s , as they themselves are sharp or flat; and, to avoid an increase of syllables, we allow the final e mute to remain mute after that letter is added: In some instances, however, usage is various in writing, though uniform in speech; an unsettlement peculiar to certain words that terminate in vowels: There are also some other difficulties respecting the plurals of nouns, and especially respecting those of foreign words; of compound terms; of names and titles; and of words redundant or deficient in regard to the numbers.
What is most worthy of notice, respecting all these puzzling points of English grammar, is briefly contained in the following observations. To this rule, the plurals of words ending in quy , as alloquies, colloquies, obloquies, soliloquies , are commonly made exceptions; because many have conceived that the u , in such instances, is a mere appendage to the q , or is a consonant having the power of w , and not a vowel forming a diphthong with the y.
See Rule 12th for Spelling. So nouns in i , so far as we have any that are susceptible of a change of number, form the plural regularly by assuming es: Common nouns ending in y preceded by a consonant, are numerous; and none of them deviate from the foregoing rule of forming the plural: The termination added is es , and the y is changed into i , according to the general principle expressed in Rule 11th for Spelling.
But, to this principle, or rule, some writers have supposed that proper nouns were to be accounted exceptions. And accordingly we sometimes find such names made plural by the mere addition of an s ; as, "How come the Pythagoras' , [it should be, the Pythagorases ,] the Aristotles , the Tullys , the Livys , to appear, even to us at this distance, as stars of the first magnitude in the vast fields of ether? This doctrine, adopted from some of our older grammars, I was myself, at one period, inclined to countenance; see Institutes of English Grammar , p.
To pronounce the final a flat, as Africay for Africa , is a mark of vulgar ignorance. This class of words being anomalous in respect to pronunciation, some authors have attempted to reform them, by changing the e to y in the singular, and writing ies for the plural: A reformation of some sort seems desirable here, and this has the advantage of being first proposed; but it is not extensively adopted, and perhaps never will be; for the vowel sound in question, is not exactly that of the terminations y and ies , but one which seems to require ee --a stronger sound than that of y , though similar to it.
In words of this class, the e appears to be useful as a means of preserving the right sound of the o ; consequently, such of them as are the most frequently used, have become the most firmly fixed in this orthography. In practice, however, we find many similar nouns very frequently, if not uniformly, written with s only; as, cantos, juntos, grottos, solos, quartos, octavos, duodecimos, tyros. So that even the best scholars seem to have frequently doubted which termination they ought to regard as the regular one.
The whole class includes more than one hundred words. Some, however, are seldom used in the plural; and others, never. Wo and potato are sometimes written woe and potatoe. This may have sprung from a notion, that such as have the e in the plural, should have it also in the singular. But this principle has never been carried out; and, being repugnant to derivation, it probably never will be. The only English appellatives that are established in oe , are the following fourteen: The last is pronounced dip'-lo-e by Worcester; but Webster, Bolles, and some others, give it as a word of two syllables only.
Nay, for lack of a rule to guide his pen, even Johnson himself could not remember the orthography of the common word mangoes well enough to copy it twice without inconsistency. This may be seen by his example from King, under the words mango and potargo. Since, therefore, either termination is preferable to the uncertainty which must attend a division of this class of words between the two; and since es has some claim to the preference, as being a better index to the sound; I shall make no exceptions to the principle, that common nouns ending in o preceded by a consonant take es for the plural.
Murray says, " Nouns which end in o have sometimes es added, to form the plural; as, cargo, echo, hero, negro, manifesto, potato, volcano, wo: This amounts to nothing, unless it is to be inferred from his examples , that others like them in form are to take s or es accordingly; and this is what I teach, though it cannot be said that Murray maintains the principle.
These, however, may still be called proper nouns , in parsing; because they are only inflections, peculiarly applied, of certain names which are indisputably such. So likewise when such nouns are used to denote character: The proper names of nations, tribes , and societies , are generally plural; and, except in a direct address, they are usually construed with the definite article: And those which are only or chiefly plural, have, or ought to have, such terminations as are proper to distinguish them as plurals, so that the form for the singular may be inferred: Here the singular must certainly be a Tungoose.
Here the singulars may be supposed to be a Pawnee , an Arrapaho , and a Cumanche. Here all are regular plurals, except the last; and this probably ought to be Natchezes , but Jefferson spells it Natches , the singular of which I do not know. Sometimes foreign words or foreign terminations have been improperly preferred to our own; which last are more intelligible, and therefore better: As any vowel sound may be uttered with an s , many writers suppose these letters to require for plurals strictly regular, the s only; and to take es occasionally, by way of exception.
Others, perhaps with more reason, assume, that the most usual, regular, and proper endings for the plural, in these instances, are ies, oes, and ues: This, I think, is right for common nouns. How far proper names are to be made exceptions, because they are proper names, is an other question. It is certain that some of them are not to be excepted: So the names of tribes; as, The Missouries , the Otoes , the Winnebagoes.
Likewise, the houries and the harpies ; which words, though not strictly proper names, are often written with a capital as such. Like these are rabbies, cadies, mufties, sophies , from which some writers omit the e. Johnson, Walker, and others, write gipsy and gipsies ; Webster, now writes Gipsey and Gipseys ; Worcester prefers Gypsy , and probably Gypsies: Webster once wrote the plural gypsies ; see his Essays , p.
Yet there seems to be the same reason for inserting the e in these, as in other nouns of the same ending; namely, to prevent the o from acquiring a short sound. Harris says very properly, 'We have our Marks and our Antonies: Whatever may have been the motive for it, such a use of the apostrophe is a gross impropriety. The word India , commonly makes the plural Indies , not Indias ; and, for Ajaxes , the poets write Ajaces. For example--in speaking of two young ladies whose family name is Bell--whether to call them the Miss Bells , the Misses Bell , or the Misses Bells.
To an inquiry on this point, a learned editor, who prefers the last, lately gave his answer thus: This puts the words in apposition; and there is no question, that it is formally correct. But still it is less agreeable to the ear, less frequently heard, and less approved by grammarians, than the first phrase; which, if we may be allowed to assume that the two words may be taken together as a sort of compound, is correct also.
The following quotations show the opinions of some other grammarians: The foregoing opinion from Crombie, is quoted and seconded by Maunder, who adds the following examples: Stone, the editor above quoted, nor would his reasoning apply well to several of their examples. Yet both opinions are right, if neither be carried too far. For when the words are in apposition, rather than in composition, the first name or title must be made plural, if it refers to more than one: Nor is that which varies the first only, to be altogether condemned, though Dr.
Priestley is unquestionably wrong respecting the " strict analogy " of which he speaks. The joining of a plural title to one singular noun, as, " Misses Roy ,"--" The Misses Bell ,"--" The two Misses Thomson ," produces a phrase which is in itself the least analogous of the three; but, " The Misses Jane and Eliza Bell ," is a phrase which nobody perhaps will undertake to amend. It appears, then, that each of these forms of expression may be right in some cases; and each of them may be wrong, if improperly substituted for either of the others. Sells; the two Miss Browns ; or, without the numeral, the Miss Roys.
But in addressing letters in which both or all are equally concerned, and also when the names are different, we pluralize the title , Mr. If we wish to distinguish these Misses from other Misses, we call them the Misses Howard. The elliptical meaning is, the Misses and Messrs, who are named Story. To distinguish unmarried from married ladies, the proper name , and not the title , should be varied; as, the Miss Clarks.
When we mention more than one person of different names, the title should be expressed before each; as, Miss Burns, Miss Parker, and Miss Hopkinson, were present. In the following examples from Pope's Works, the last word only is varied: Three others in fe are similar: These are specific exceptions to the general rule for plurals, and not a series of examples coming under a particular rule; for, contrary to the instructions of nearly all our grammarians, there are more than twice as many words of the same endings, which take s only: The plural of wharf is sometimes written wharves ; but perhaps as frequently, and, if so, more accurately, wharfs.
Nouns in ff take s only; as, skiffs, stuffs, gaffs. But the plural of staff has hitherto been generally written staves ; a puzzling and useless anomaly, both in form and sound: Staffs is now sometimes used; as, "I saw the husbandmen bending over their staffs. In one instance, I observe, a very excellent scholar has written selfs for selves , but the latter is the established plural of self:.
The word brethren is now applied only to fellow-members of the same church or fraternity; for sons of the same parents we always use brothers ; and this form is sometimes employed in the other sense. Dice are spotted cubes for gaming; dies are stamps for coining money, or for impressing metals. Pence , as six pence , refers to the amount of money in value; pennies denotes the corns themselves.
This last anomaly, I think, might well enough "be spared; the sound of the word being the same, and the distinction to the eye not always regarded. In this way, these irregularities extend to many words; though some of the metaphorical class, as kite's-foot, colts-foot, bear's-foot, lion's-foot , being names of plants, have no plural. The word man , which is used the most frequently in this way, makes more than seventy such compounds. But there are some words of this ending, which, not being compounds of man , are regular: Thus we write fathers-in-law, sons-in-law, knights-errant, courts-martial, cousins-german, hangers-on, comings-in, goings-out, goings-forth , varying the first; and manhaters, manstealers, manslayers, maneaters, mandrills, handfuls, spoonfuls, mouthfuls, pailfuls, outpourings, ingatherings, downsittings, overflowings , varying the last.
So, in many instances, when there is a less intimate connexion of the parts, and the words are written with a hyphen, if not separately, we choose to vary the latter or last: The following mode of writing is irregular in two respects; first, because the words are separated, and secondly, because both are varied: Liberator , ix, According to analogy, it ought to be: Wright alleges, that, "The phrase, 'I want two spoonfuls or handfuls ,' though common, is improperly constructed;" and that, "we should say, 'Two spoons or hands full.
From this opinion, I dissent: Of the propriety of this, the reader may judge, when I shall have quoted a few examples: Such terms as these, if thought objectionable, may easily be avoided, by substituting for the former part of the compound the separate adjective male or female ; as, male child, male children.
Or, for those of the third example, one might say, " singing men and singing women ," as in Nehemiah , vii, 67; for, in the ancient languages, the words are the same. Alger compounds " singing-men and singing-women. But, in all such cases, I think the hyphen should be inserted in the compound, though it is the practice of many to omit it. Of this odd sort of words, I quote the following examples from Churchill; taking the liberty to insert the hyphen, which he omits: For, as there ought to be no word, or inflection of a word, for which we cannot conceive an appropriate meaning or use, it follows that whatever is of such a species that it cannot be taken in any plural sense, must naturally be named by a word which is singular only: But there are some things, which have in fact neither a comprehensible unity, nor any distinguishable plurality, and which may therefore be spoken of in either number; for the distinction of unity and plurality is, in such instances, merely verbal; and, whichever number we take, the word will be apt to want the other: It is necessary that every noun should be understood to be of one number or the other; for, in connecting it with a verb, or in supplying its place by a pronoun, we must assume it to be either singular or plural.
And it is desirable that singulars and plurals should always abide by their appropriate forms, so that they may be thereby distinguished with readiness. But custom, which regulates this, as every thing else of the like nature, does not always adjust it well; or, at least, not always upon principles uniform in themselves and obvious to every intellect.
Thus, a council , a committee , a jury , a meeting , a society , a flock , or a herd , is singular; and the regular plurals are councils, committees, juries, meetings, societies, flocks, herds. But these, and many similar words, may be taken plurally without the s , because a collective noun is the name of many individuals together. Hence we may say, "The council were unanimous. Where a purer concord can be effected, it may be well to avoid such a construction, though examples like it are not uncommon: Thus, cattle , for beasts of pasture, and pulse , for peas and beans, though in appearance singulars only, are generally, if not always, plural; and summons, gallows, chintz, series, superficies, molasses, suds, hunks, jakes, trapes , and corps , with the appearance of plurals, are generally, if not always, singular.
Webster says that cattle is of both numbers; but wherein the oneness of cattle can consist, I know not. The Bible says, "God made-- cattle after their kind. Here kind is indeed singular, as if cattle were a natural genus of which one must be a cattle ; as sheep are a natural genus of which one is a sheep: Gillies says, in his History of Greece, " cattle was regarded as the most convenient measure of value.
Sheep is not singular, unless limited to that number by some definitive word; and cattle I conceive to be incapable of any such limitation. Summonses is given in Cobb's Dictionary as the plural of summons ; but some authors have used the latter with a plural verb: Johnson says this noun is from the verb to summon ; and, if this is its origin, the singular ought to be a summon , and then summons would be a regular plural. But this "singular noun with a plural termination," as Webster describes it, more probably originated from the Latin verb submoneas , used in the writ, and came to us through the jargon of law, in which we sometimes hear men talk of " summonsing witnesses.
Chints is called by Cobb a "substantive plural " and defined as "cotton cloths , made in India;" but other lexicographers define it as singular, and Worcester perhaps more properly writes it chintz. Johnson cites Pope as speaking of " a charming chints ," and I have somewhere seen the plural formed by adding es. Walker, in his Elements of Elocution, makes frequent use of the word " serieses ," and of the phrase " series of serieses. This, however, is no rule for writing English. Blair has used the word species in a plural sense; though I think he ought rather to have preferred the regular English word kinds: Specie , meaning hard money, though derived or corrupted from species , is not the singular of that word; nor has it any occasion for a plural form, because we never speak of a specie.
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The plural of gallows , according to Dr. Webster, is gallowses ; nor is that form without other authority, though some say, gallows is of both numbers and not to be varied: Some nouns, because they signify such things as nature or art has made plural or double; some, because they have been formed from other parts of speech by means of the plural ending which belongs to nouns; and some, because they are compounds in which a plural word is principal, and put last, are commonly used in the plural number only, and have, in strict propriety, no singular.
Though these three classes of plurals may not be perfectly separable, I shall endeavour to exhibit them in the order of this explanation. Plurals in meaning and form: Plurals by formation, derived chiefly from adjectives: To these may be added the Latin words, aborigines, antipodes, antes, antoeci, amphiscii, anthropophagi, antiscii, ascii, literati, fauces, regalia , and credenda , with the Italian vermicelli , and the French belles-lettres and entremets.
Of this class are the following: The fact is, that these words have, or ought to have, the singular, as often as there is any occasion to use it; and the same may, in general terms, be said of other nouns, respecting the formation of the plural. But the nature of a mass, or of an indefinite multitude taken collectively, is not found in individuals as such; nor is the name, whether singular, as gold , or plural, as ashes , so understood.
Hence, though every noun must be of one number or the other, there are many which have little or no need of both. Thus we commonly speak of wheat, barley, or oats , collectively; and very seldom find occasion for any other forms of these words. But chafferers at the corn-market, in spite of Cobbett,[] will talk about wheats and barleys , meaning different kinds[] or qualities; and a gardener, if he pleases, will tell of an oat , as does Milton, in his Lycidas, meaning a single seed or plant.
But, because wheat or barley generally means that sort of grain in mass, if he will mention a single kernel, he must call it a grain of wheat or a barleycorn. And these he may readily make plural, to specify any particular number; as, five grains of wheat , or three barleycorns. The word amends is represented by Murray and others, as being singular as well as plural; but Webster's late dictionaries exhibit amend as singular, and amends as plural, with definitions that needlessly differ, though not much.
I judge " an amends " to be bad English; and prefer the regular singular, an amend. The word is of French origin, and is sometimes written in English with a needless final e ; as, "But only to make a kind of honourable amende to God. The word remains Dr. Webster puts down as plural only, and yet uses it himself in the singular: There are also other authorities for this usage, and also for some other nouns that are commonly thought to have no singular; as, "But Duelling is unlawful and murderous, a remain of the ancient Gothic barbarity.
It is some poor fragment, some slender ort of his remainder. Thus, deer, folk, fry, gentry, grouse, hose, neat, sheep, swine, vermin , and rest , i. Again, alms, aloes, bellows, means, news, odds, shambles , and species , are proper plurals, but most of them are oftener construed as singulars. Folk and fry are collective nouns. Folk means people ; a folk, a people: Folks , which ought to be the plural of folk , and equivalent to peoples , is now used with reference to a plurality of individuals, and the collective word seems liable to be entirely superseded by it.
A fry is a swarm of young fishes, or of any other little creatures living in water: Several such swarms might properly be called fries ; but this form can never be applied to the individuals, without interfering with the other. Formerly, the plural was hosen: Of sheep , Shakspeare has used the regular plural: Thus means is the regular plural of mean ; and, when the word is put for mediocrity, middle point, place, or degree, it takes both forms, each in its proper sense; but when it signifies things instrumental, or that which is used to effect an object, most writers use means for the singular as well as for the plural: Johnson says the use of means for mean is not very grammatical; and, among his examples for the true use of the word, he has the following: Lowth also questioned the propriety of construing means as singular, and referred to these same authors as authorities for preferring the regular form.
Buchanan insists that means is right in the plural only; and that, "The singular should be used as perfectly analogous; by this mean , by that mean. Lord Kames, likewise, appears by his practice to have been of the same opinion: Caleb Alexander, too, declares " this means ," " that means. But common usage has gone against the suggestions of these critics, and later grammarians have rather confirmed the irregularity, than attempted to reform it. Principle is for the regular word mean , and good practice favours the irregularity, but is still divided.
Cobbett, to the disgrace of grammar, says, " Mean , as a noun, is never used in the singular. It, like some other words, has broken loose from all principle and rule. By universal consent, it is become always a plural , whether used with singular or plural pronouns and articles, or not. This is as ungrammatical, as it is untrue.
Both mean and means are sufficiently authorized in the singular: Chalmers, Sermons , p. Adams's Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory , i, Thus manner makes the plural manners , which last is now generally used in the peculiar sense of behaviour, or deportment, but not always: But manner has often been put for sorts , without the s ; as, "The tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits. Milton used kind in the same way, but not very properly; as, " All kind of living creatures.
This irregularity it would be well to avoid. Manners may still, perhaps, be proper for modes or ways; and all manner , if allowed, must be taken in the sense of a collective noun; but for sorts, kinds, classes, or species, I would use neither the plural nor the singular of this word. The word heathen , too, makes the regular plural heathens , and yet is often used in a plural sense without the s ; as, "Why do the heathen rage? The word youth , likewise, has the same peculiarities.
Hence some grammarians affirm, that salmon, mackerel, herring, perch, tench , and several others, are alike in both numbers, and ought never to be used in the plural form. I am not so fond of honouring these anomalies. Usage is here as unsettled, as it is arbitrary; and, if the expression of plurality is to be limited to either form exclusively, the regular plural ought certainly to be preferred. But, for fish taken in bulk , the singular form seems more appropriate; as, "These vessels take from thirty-eight to forty-five quintals of cod and pollock , and six thousand barrels of mackerel , yearly.
In quoting, at second-hand, I generally think it proper to make double references; and especially in citing authorities after Johnson, because he so often gives the same passages variously. But he himself is reckoned good authority in things literary. I regret the many proofs of his fallibility. The quantity of ; as, a mease of herrings. Gay has improperly mackarels. It is noted that roaches recover strength and grow a fortnight after spawning. There are also other nouns in which a like difference may be observed.
Some names of building materials, as brick, stone, plank, joist , though not destitute of regular plurals, as bricks, stones, planks, joists , and not unadapted to ideas distinctly singular, as a brick, a stone, a plank, a joist , are nevertheless sometimes used in a plural sense without the s , and sometimes in a sense which seems hardly to embrace the idea of either number; as, "Let us make brick , and burn them thoroughly. The same variety of usage occurs in respect to a few other words, and sometimes perhaps without good reason; as, "Vast numbers of sea fowl frequent the rocky cliffs.
Our writers have laid many languages under contribution, and thus furnished an abundance of irregular words, necessary to be explained, but never to be acknowledged as English till they conform to our own rules. Dogma makes dogmas or dogmata ; exanthema, exanthemas or exanthemata ; miasm or miasma, miasms or miasmata ; stigma, stigmas or stigmata. Of nouns in um , some have no need of the plural; as, bdellium, decorum, elysium, equilibrium, guaiacum, laudanum, odium, opium, petroleum, serum, viaticum. Some form it regularly; as, asylums, compendiums, craniums, emporiums, encomiums, forums, frustums, lustrums, mausoleums, museums, pendulums, nostrums, rostrums, residuums, vacuums.
Others take either the English or the Latin plural; as, desideratums or desiderata, mediums or media, menstruums or menstrua, memorandums or memoranda, spectrums or spectra, speculums or specula, stratums or strata, succedaneums or succedanea, trapeziums or trapezia, vinculums or vincula. A few seem to have the Latin plural only: Of nouns in us , a few have no plural; as, asparagus, calamus, mucus. Some have only the Latin plural, which usually changes us to i ; as, alumnus, alumni; androgynus, androgyni; calculus, calculi; dracunculus, dracunculi; echinus, echini; magus, magi.
But such as have properly become English words, may form the plural regularly in es ; as, chorus, choruses: Five of these make the Latin plural like the singular; but the mere English scholar has no occasion to be told which they are. Radius makes the plural radii or radiuses. Genius has genii , for imaginary spirits, and geniuses , for men of wit. Genus , a sort, becomes genera in Latin, and genuses in English. Denarius makes, in the plural, denarii or denariuses. Of nouns in is , some are regular; as, trellis, trellises: Some seem to have no need of the plural; as, ambergris, aqua-fortis, arthritis, brewis, crasis, elephantiasis, genesis, orris, siriasis, tennis.
So iris and proboscis , which we make regular; and perhaps some of the foregoing may be made so too. Fisher writes Praxises for praxes , though not very properly. See his Gram , p. Eques , a Roman knight, makes equites in the plural. Of nouns in x , there are few, if any, which ought not to form the plural regularly, when used as English words; though the Latins changed x to ces , and ex to ices , making the i sometimes long and sometimes short: Some Greek words in x change that letter to ges ; as, larynx, larynges , for larinxes; phalanx, phalanges , for phalanxes.
Billet-doux , from the French, is billets-doux in the plural. Of nouns in on , derived from Greek, the greater part always form the plural regularly; as, etymons, gnomons, ichneumons, myrmidons, phlegmons, trigons, tetragons, pentagons, hexagons, heptagons, octagons, enneagons, decagons, hendecagons, dodecagons, polygons. For a few words of this class, however, there are double plurals in use; as, automata or atomatons, criteria or criterions, parhelia or parhelions ; and the plural of phenomenon appears to be always phenomena.
The plural of legumen is legumens or legumina ; of stamen, stamens or stamina: The regular forms are in general preferable. The Hebrew plurals cherubim and seraphim , being sometimes mistaken for singulars, other plurals have been formed from them; as, "And over it the cherubims of glory. The former suits better the familiar, the latter the solemn style.
I shall add to this remark," says he, "that, as the words cherubim and seraphim are plural, the terms cherubims and seraphims , as expressing the plural, are quite improper. The masculine gender is that which denotes persons or animals of the male kind; as, man, father, king. The feminine gender is that which denotes persons or animals of the female kind; as, woman, mother, queen. The neuter gender is that which denotes things that are neither male nor female; as, pen, ink, paper.
Hence, names of males are masculine; names of females, feminine; and names of things inanimate, literally, neuter. Masculine nouns make regular feminines, when their termination is changed to ess: In English, they belong only to nouns and pronouns; and to these they are usually applied, not arbitrarily, as in some other languages, but agreeably to the order of nature. From this we derive a very striking advantage over those who use the gender differently, or without such rule; which is, that our pronouns are easy of application, and have a fine effect when objects are personified.
Pronouns are of the same gender as the nouns for which they stand. The gender of these is usually determined by the context; and they are to be called masculine or feminine accordingly. To such words, some grammarians have applied the unnecessary and improper term common gender. Murray justly observes, "There is no such gender belonging to the language.
The business of parsing can be effectually performed, without having recourse to a common gender. The term is more useful, and less liable to objection, as applied to the learned languages; but with us, whose genders distinguish objects in regard to sex , it is plainly a solecism. These views of the matter are obviously inconsistent. Not genders, or a gender, do the writers undertake to define, but "gender" as a whole; and absurdly enough, too; because this whole of gender they immediately distribute into certain other genders , into genders of gender, or kinds of gender, and these not compatible with their definition.
There are four genders;--the masculine , the feminine , the common , and the neuter. This then is manifestly no gender under the foregoing definition, and the term neuter is made somewhat less appropriate by the adoption of a third denomination before it. Nor is there less absurdity in the phraseology with which Murray proposes to avoid the recognition of the common gender: According to this, we must have five genders , exclusive of that which is called common ; namely, the masculine , the feminine , the neuter , the androgynal , and the doubtful.
Some of them, confounding gender with sex, deny that there are more than two genders, because there are only two sexes. Others, under a like mistake, resort occasionally, as in the foregoing instance, to an androgynal , and also to a doubtful gender: I assume, that there are in English the three genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter, and no more; and that every noun and every pronoun must needs be of some gender; consequently, of some one of these three. A gender is, literally, a sort, a kind, a sex.
But genders, in grammar , are attributes of words, rather than of persons, or animals, or things; whereas sexes are attributes, not of words, but of living creatures. He who understands this, will perceive that the absence of sex in some things, is as good a basis for a grammatical distinction, as the presence or the difference of it in others; nor can it be denied, that the neuter, according to my definition, is a gender, is a distinction "in regard to sex," though it does not embrace either of the sexes.
There are therefore three genders, and only three.